Open Movie Project: Milo Project

Peanut Butter Jelly Jam ( Milo Project ) is a project to create a 2 minute animated short using a transparent production processes and open source software.  

The short is about a boy named Milo who is left home alone with his musical robot babysitter named MP3. His mother steps out to run an errand. While out mother gives Milo permission to make a snack and reminds him not to make a mess, but mom returns home to the fall out of  Milo’s snack making independence.

Completion of this animation will serve as portfolio piece for finding more animation work for me and the artist who work on the project. This project will also include a teaching and learning component. Allowing interested artist professional and amateur to learn the process of creating sequential media.

In keeping with the Open Source nature of this projects I wanted to make all aspects of the production available to the public. As I move through the process of creating this project I am hoping to document the various skills, software and technique needed to make a project of your own.

The first step in making any story is to establish a history for the characters. To do this I am creating a 23 page comic book. The book will allow me to design the character locations and assets that may be used in the film. I have created a document on the eight essential steps to creating comics pages and will be expanding on this as I go through the various steps. The comic and its associated Kickstarter will also serve to generate revenue to help funds for the final project.

I would like to also invite everyone to participate the creative process. I will be making my working script available to the world. I want people to experience the journey from the beginning of the production all the way through completion. 

What I hope to show is that when I begin I am squarely focused on what happens and less on grammar, structure or style. This allows me to get the whole picture out quickly so that I can begin refining. I break down the idea into components and address them one at a time as I refine the story. Please take a look and feed back is welcome!