The NIGHTMARE

                by Tina N.

The NIGHTMARE Poster/Title

Finally folks, it is HERE! It is done! Well okay, not yet completely 100% done but I finally managed to finish cleaning up and coloring the whole storyboard and arrange/time the animatic of The NIGHTMARE, my current cartoon project. It took me many many sleepless nights and indoor days gluing my butt on the chair, sticking my eyes on the computer screen, and tying my fingers on the tablet pen to finally complete this 189-panel storyboard. On this special entry, I will be posting pretty much everything on this big project. I really hope you will enjoy it as much as I have enjoyed working on it.

This is, in fact, a project for a storyboard class. The NIGHTMARE came to me as I was thinking of creating a story that is reality, closer to a daily life, but at the same time it has some fantasy-like elements in it. Obviously, the idea of dreams would first pop up, yet it would be a bit too obvious. I wanted something different. I, then, thought of nightmares, which are also dreams but bad dreams. How about a nightmare that come from both dreamland and reality? And the story of a little boy who had to struggle in his everyday life awake and asleep was born. I simply call it The NIGHTMARE. 

Here is the second shorter draft of the story/script (after the first long and boring one):
A monster is chasing Albert. He is running at his best to escape. Suddenly he trips over a little rock. When he is trying to get up, he sees more monsters are coming at him. Albert freaks out and screams…
Albert startles and immediately sits straight up in his bed. It was only a dream, a nightmare. The alarm clock starts ringing. It is time for school.
Albert arrives at school. He is walking down the hall passing other students. It is just another bad day at school. “Look who’s here?” Albert stops and looks up. Great, it is Tim and his gang, the notorious bullies at school. Tim grabs Albert’s school bag and starts going through the stuff in it. “Hey give it back!” Albert says. “Yeah? Here you go.” Tim holds Albert’s bag up high and swings it around. Albert tries his best to reach for it. The school bell rings. Tim throws the bag at Albert and smirks “We’ll see you later.” The gang is walking away, laughing, and joking “Loooooser!”
Albert sits next to window in his class. The desk next to him is empty. He does not have anyone in the class as his friends. He likes looking out of the window most of the class time. “Albert, could you tell me the formula that we just learned earlier?”
Albert stands up “Uh… it’s… I…” The teacher smiles “Albert, I am standing here not outside the window so please focus okay?” The class starts laughing until the teacher tells them to silent.
It is lunchtime. Albert is getting his lunch tray. Tim and his gang are sitting at one of the tables along the aisle. Albert looks around but there are no empty spots close by, he has to pass Tim’s gang to find a spot. As Albert is walking closer to Tim’ table, although he tries to be very cautious, Tim trips him. The food from Albert’s tray flies all over the floor and himself. Everyone in the cafeteria bursts out laughing, especially Tim and his gang, the loudest “Hey don’t waste the food! You can help to clean the floor too you know.” Albert wants to cry but he holds it. “What is this mess?” – the janitor is staring at Albert. “You again? How many times do I have to clean up your mess kid? That’s it, to the principal’s office, you’ve caused enough trouble.”

“The principal is famous for being extremely and unreasonably strict. She is sitting neatly at her desk, quietly looking at Albert. She shakes her head “Albert, Albert, Albert, this is the last straw, I will need to see your parents next week. For now, you have to stay at school and clean up your mess before you can go home.” Unfortunately, Albert does not only clean up his own mess, the janitor is an evil man, he makes Albert do almost all of his work and threatens him to tell the principal if he does not do it. Albert does not go home until it is dinnertime. When he is home, Albert has to listen to his parents’ complaints and lectures before he can go to bed.
Albert is running and surrounded by the same monsters. He is stuck. He is about to scream when suddenly a bright light is coming down on him from straight above. The monsters slowly back off trying to stay away from the light. Albert tries to look at the light and sees a little angel. She holds out her hand to him “Quick! Give me your hand!” Albert does what she has said. They both fly off up into the light as the monsters are growling loudly below.

Albert opens his eyes. “I was not scared this time, how strange.” – he whispers.
“Good morning class, we have a new student today. Please be nice and make her feel welcomed.” Standing next to the teacher is a little girl with pigtails in a light purple dress. Albert is a bit shocked. She looks just like the angel from last night. To his surprise, the girl is walking toward him and sits down at the desk next to him. “Hi, can I sit here?” Albert looks blank for a moment, then nervously answers “S… sure!” The girl smiles “I’m Angela. Nice to meet you!” Albert blushes “N… nice to meet you too."
It is lunchtime. Albert is walking down the hall heading to the cafeteria. “What do you want?” Angela’s voice raises somewhere around the corner. Albert quietly walks toward the corner. Angela is surrounded by Tim and his gang. “Come on, hang out with us, you’re quite cute.” Tim is flirting with Angela with a weird and disturbing sweet tone. “I don’t have time so excuse me.” Angela turns and is about to walk away but gets stopped by one of Tim’s gang members. “That’s it!” Albert comes out from the corner and shouts “Get away from her!” Tim turns around and chuckles “Look, it’s the crying baby trying to act hero!” His gang laughs. “What are you gonna do? Whine? Tell on us?” Tim says with a sarcastic voice. Albert says with an angry voice “If you want to mess with someone, here I am. Leave her alone!” Tim raises an eyebrow “Oooh interesting, nobody has dared to yell at me like that.” He glances at the big guy in his group. That big guy understands the signal, he throws a fist at Albert. Everything around Albert becomes blurry then blackout.

Albert slowly opens his eyes. Angela is sitting by his bed and bandaging him. She smiles “You were very brave. Thank you.” Albert is lying on the bed in the health room. He is covered in bruises and bandages. He looks at Angela and smiles back “You’re welcome.”

The best part of this project perhaps was to come up with different designs of the characters from the story. I had to do different plenty of sketches, asked opinions from other fellow and professional artists, to finally gather an awesome crew of catchy, simple, and fun looking characters, that really go successfully with their personalities and characteristics in the story. Here are a few early sketches of the main character Albert:

And the final design along with the turn-around:

ALBERT

ALBERT ROTATION

And the sketches and final designs of the rest of the characters:

ANGELA

ANGELA ROTATION

TIM

TIM ROTATION

BARRIE

TEACHER

JANITOR

PRINCIPAL

MONSTER 1

MONSTER 2

MONSTER 3

All of the characters put together:

The NIGHTMARE Characters

The title page of the storyboard:

Storyboard Title

And last but not least, the animatic!!! 

*Note: Please remember that this is not a completed animatic yet. The timing is still messy and it lacks some sound effects. I will continue working on it and post the final animatic soon!

Credits:

-Story and scripts by Tina N.

-Art by Tina N.

-Voices by Tina N.

Okay, pretty much everything was created by me.