Spritz and Bucky

Spritz

Bucky

Grandmother Cluck

Spritz Keys

 The Bully thief Jimmy and the Intelligent thief Silo

The mini Boss, Patrick O'Pandahan

Possible Character and a thumbnail of the Intelligent Thief

Props

Possible Character, Lord Cluck owner of the second Golden Egg

 "Spritz and Bucky" Designs

this is a Toon Boom learning exercise. The goal is to struggle through learning how to rig and animate rigged puppets. Its also been a way to practice other elements of film making. I really wanted a fresh approach to something from a blank start. So I've been trying to develop a quick story in my mind, design characters with personality, develop camera language and lighting to tell the story, layouts to give it a sense of place. Its been a great way to make "making things" fun again after starting to feel pretty burnt out on the whole thing.

Whether or not it turns into anything finished I don't much care. I plan to take it far enough to complete some segments to be used in a portfolio to show I have a working knowledge of Toon Boom.

 I have completed boards for a "first episode" and have actually thought up a story for a "second episode" and then paraphrasing for more after that. I plan to work through an animatic for the first and complete layouts just to practice those things. Its my never ending curse to overplan things and make them to big. But I enjoy it

The Story Concept:

The first episode is a stand alone thing. Spritz and Bucky are thieves and they have to steal an egg from a henhouse. Spritz is a good but not great thief. He wants to be charming and suave but is mostly just an embarrassment. I had Flyn Rider in mind but more embarrassing and less Han Solo like. He wants to be confident and special but really is just anxious and mediocre. But he still is an efficient thief. His sidekick Bucky is a mentally disabled beaver. He is an idiot but not self made. I want it to be humorous so the joke of the first episode is that the audience should just question why he is there. There will be gags throughout of his general confusion and befuddlement and then by the end he just totally fucks up the heist. Grandmother Cluck is the hen whose egg they are trying to steal.

So if I finished the first episode it could just kind of stand as its own thing. a goofy heist that goes wrong.

The BIGGERER IDEA:

I've kind of taken it further than I should be just to dust off the old creative structuring wheels. But in my mind this is a kind of "Of Mice and Men" situation. Where there is something that ties Spritz to Bucky beyond being co workers. Bucky is a hot mess and terrible thief. So there is not reason Spritz wouldn't bail on him from a financial perspective.

I want Spritz to have a terribly confusing connection to Bucky. Not that he just feels sorry for him. I want it to be a crushing guilt ridden existential nightmare! So my idea is that in the past Spritz worked alone. He was a rising thief with good skills. And somewhere along the line he gets a job that involves stealing from Bucky's family. The job goes bad and Bucky's parents end up dead and Buck mentally disabled. It would be Spritz's fault which is what causes the bond to care for Bucky. It wouldn't be malicious in that he killed them, it would be an accident maybe not even completely his fault, another thief could be involved. But there would be guilt, Spritz could have prevented it from happening.

And the confusing part about the bond would be. Spritz feels terrible and guilty but due to Bucky's disability, Bucky wouldn't have any awareness at all of the events or Spritz' confliction. So practically Spritz could leave drop Bucky off with someone and there wouldn't be any grand ramifications. Its just Spritz's guilt that keeps the connection going and his desire to do right by the situation because he is a good guy but throughout the episodes you would feel the pressure of the world pressing on him to cut this tie. Without Bucky Spritz would be free financially, romantically and his career could move forward. With Bucky there would be this feeling of doom. Doomed by a world that doesn't run on kindness and loyalty and justice and forgiveness but on MONEY CHA CHING. No one would care that Spritz is being loyal and seeking redemption, no one at all, not even Bucky. Only Spritz would care.

So the second episode would start to introduce this connection. Spritz is drunk in an alley with Bucky after the heist knowing there is going to be consequences for failing from his bosses, he runs out of booze. They end up going to a local bar/nightclub to drink more. At the bar Spritz would engage with people from his past to get the story talking about why he is with Bucky. There would be an old girlfriend a bully co thief and a sly intelligent thief thats not really a friend at all. I think another improtant thing is that no one knows about the fact that Spritz is responsible for the deaths of Bucky's parents or Bucky's disability. Spritz is quiet about this. he doesn't go around shouting it.

The girlfriend baled on Spritz after the botched job and the appearance of Bucky. She got hitched up with a successful banker to focus on a more secure future. They still have a physical attraction to each other, They talk and she advises him to leave the beaver behind to save himself.

The bully thief is just a dick. He's successful for being a dick. and he becomes a foil for Spritz. That to be successful you should just be a dick and embrace a value system of dickery.

The sly intelligent thief is the only person who is totally aware of the situation. He knows why Spritz is with Bucky 100%. He doesn't advise Spritz to do anything because he doesn't really advise anyone. He probably doesn't believe in advice. He just seems more fascinated in Spritz than the dicks. Do compare him to someone, a shinigami from Death note I guess. Someone who doesn't really have values in any direction but is fascinated by the idea of values.

After the conversation Spritz gets pulled away by some pigs and brought into a room with his "mini-boss" who scolds him and lays out whats gonna happen to him. The egg was for an omelette , it was a special rare egg that produces a certain flavored omelette. The big boss is brining in another guy to make a big huge deal. Combining two big firms into one. And the special omelette was for him, its a essential to the deal, cause it influences the mind of the person who eats it. Basically someones gotta go down for losing the egg. The mini boss lays out that the big boss is pissed but he knows Spritz has been there for him in the past, theres a rare loyalty there. So Spritz is given the choice to pin it all on the beaver or they both take the fall together.

Spritz refuses to ditch Bucky but convinces the mini-boss to give him the time that he has till when the deal is going to take place to find a replacement egg. Which is 48 hours.