| Project Description | :: |
We need animated flash movies of length approximately 30 minutes per story. There will be a voiceover narrating a story while you are expected to develop the graphics and animations for the narrated story. You will be provided only the story voiceover script from which you will have to develop full screen animated graphic/illustrations scenes. The stories are all of islamic religious and cultural background. We are not looking at heavy animation stuff and will be satisfied with intelligent zooms, pans, cuts, transitions, fx and some small but effective animations. All graphics/illustrations will be in color. Please include samples of flash movies done in the past.
To make the decision simpler and more effective can you please develop a small 5-10 minute mock up (no remuneration for this) based on attached material? The attached text file is roughly the first 5-10 minutes of the voiceover script for one of the ten stories. The sample mockup should be developed for the entire voiceover given in the text file. I guess we can move pretty fast once we evaluate the submitted mockups. Below is some additional info for the development:
1. You cannot show the face of any prophet in any story. In the story given here you cannot show the face of prophet Ibrahim. You can handle this by either showing a glowing face without recognisable features or any other creative technique.
2. The settings should be of biblical/islamic nature. If you dont understand what such an environment looks like then I recommend that you see the epic movie 'The Message' starring Anthony Quinn for a good idea, besides other sources of such information.
3. As we have already stated, we are not looking at very heavy character animations and intelligent use of cuts, transitions, pans, zooms, and some high quality natural looking animations. It is important that the animations are not jerky, jagged or pixelated and are classy. Unnatural and ugly looking motions like characters sliding from one locaion to another to show character locomotion is a no-no.
Although this is not really necessary, you may put in a rough voiceover based on the script attached here in order to time your scenes. The voiceover can be really rough since it will not be used by us to evaluate your suitability for the animation project. We will be evaluating only the visual elements like detailing in illustrations, graphics quality, animation, locomotion, sets and screenplay, use of closeups, lights, shadows, cuts and transitions and above all creative talent.
Please use the public message board to inform us when you are ready for submitting your samples and we will readily open the pmb for you to submit your sample on your pmb. You may also drop us a message on the public message board to indicate that you are working on the sample so that we could expect your work to come in and schedule our selection process accordingly. However please note that we might not be able to wait for everyone to submit samples and may select a winning bid based on submissions at any given time. We will evaluate the samples as and when we receive them without waiting for all bidders to submit their samples.
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The Story of the Ka'ba
Many thousands of years ago, long before the birth of the Prophet Muhammad, the worship of idols was common across the ancient world. From the poorest villages to the richest cities, people everywhere prayed to false gods.
There were gods for everything: there were gods for rain and gods for thunder, gods for wheat and gods for corn. If the wind blew in one direction, they said it was a god; and if it blew back again, they said it was a different god. The people of the ancient world created thousands of gods and gave them names, and jobs, and even families. They believed that some of the gods worked hard, while other were rude and lazy. Some had to be bribed with gifts of food or wine, while others had to be woken up with loud shouts to make them climb, yawning, from their beds on top of mountains.
Artists created these 'gods' from wood, clay and metal, and decorated them with jewels and precious stones. Priests would hold elaborate ceremonies with blaring music and wild dancing. They would raise the statues high above their heads and announce loudly to the people: "This is your god, KNEE-EEEL before him!"-as if just saying the words was enough to make it so.
But in every land and every town, the people took part in these ceremonies and believed what the priests told them. They knelt, and gave offerings, and prayed to the statues.
Very few people followed the true path of worshipping the only creator of the universe, Allah.
Allah, though, in His wisdom, sent prophets to guide the people to the right path.
Ibrahim was one such prophet, and he lived near the ancient city of Babylon. At this time, Babylon was a wealthy, prosperous city, but it too was filled with temples built for the worship of statues. Everyone in the city came to them to pray and offer their sacrifices.
But Ibrahim was a good man; he was kind and wise. He knew there was just One God, and he only prayed to Allah. When he came into the city and he saw the people crowding into the temples and kneeling in front of the statues, his heart became heavy. It made him sad to see the people ignoring Allah and worshipping idols. So he called the people together and explained to them that what they were doing was wrong. He pointed out to them that the idols they were worshipping were only made of clay; they couldn't hear the people's prayers and they certainly couldn't help them. He taught the people of Babylon that there is only One God, and that he is all-powerful and all-knowing, and that they should leave their idols and pray only to Allah.
At first, the people laughed. "We like our idols!" they said. "They have eyes of rubies and they're decorated with gold and pearls. Only a god could be so rich! And besides, the priests tell us that all will be well if we worship them the way they say."
But Ibrahim was patient. He continued to speak to them. He showed them that the idols they prayed to were not gods but just statues, dumb and powerless. He taught them that just as people had created them, people could break them-and the idols could do nothing to stop them, any more than a child's doll could stop them.
Now, at this time, Babylon had a king: a vain, arrogant man called Namrud. Namrud knew that his people worshipped idols, but he didn't care. In fact, he wanted the people to worship idols. If the people believed the wind was a god, he thought, why shouldn't they believe that their king was a god? He ordered his priests to tell the people that they should pray to him, and bring him offerings as well. Not only would he receive lots of gifts, he thought, but if the people believed that he himself was a god, everyone would obey him, and no one would ever dare to take his throne.
So when his advisors told Namrud that Ibrahim was teaching the people about Allah, he became very worried. If the people knew that he was not a god, he realized, they would no longer do whatever he said.
Namrud tried his best to stop Ibrahim from teaching the truth and even tried to kill him by having him thrown into a big fire. Prophet Ibrahim miraculously survived these attempts by the mercy of Allah. These attempts only exposed Namrud further and he decided to expel prophet Ibrahim out of Babylon.
So Ibrahim gathered his belongings and left Babylon. He traveled south and came to the land of Palestine where he made his home, and tended his sheep and his goats.
And the people of Babylon, like the people everywhere, returned to their idols.
Of course, not everyone worshipped idols. Here and there, people would turn away from the false gods and pray to Allah, just as they had in Babylon when Ibrahim had spoken to them. But for these people, life was very difficult. There were no mosques then, so there was nowhere for them to gather together and pray. Often, they would be made to pray with the idol-worshippers, kneeling in the temples, but knowing in their hearts the real nature of the Truth. It was very difficult for them to do this, but what choice did they have?
Allah spoke to Ibrahim and told him to go to the Hijaz region in what is now Saudi Arabia.
Once again, Ibrahim gathered his belongings, and he made his way across the desert with his wife Hajra and his baby son, Ismael. The road was very hard and very long, and Ibrahim was already an old man. The hot sun beat down on them and they walked for days on end, carrying their belongings, and drinking as little water as they could so that it would last the entire journey.
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