Proposal

Project Proposal
1. Building Blockopolis
2. Charles (CJ) Signorino
3. Logline:
“Building Blockopolis is a short documentary video about the development of an edutainment series that focuses on the aspects of physics.”
4. Synopsis:
The video will be a documentary one and at least six minutes long. It is slightly similar to various documentary films, especially “The Pixar Story”, but more brief.

I, CJ Signorino, will appear live-action and address the person sitting on one side of the camera, and various sketches of my hand-drawn characters, including “Jacken DeBox,” will appear in B-roll to back-up my statements of the characters.

The style of the video will mostly consist of montages of my sketches, pictures of me at Disneyland, and my attempts at creating animation on a few strips for the zoetrope. There will also be an upbeat music track with no vocals to give my whimsical view of the cartoon world. Furthermore, the video will be aimed at all ages, as well as people who have yet to understand the basics of physics.

I believe this work is important at this time because in today’s society, there are fewer good role models, and I think it’s high time we give people someone to follow. Throughout the history of edutainment, we’ve had grammar, mathematics, history, but no physics. Physics is all around us and can easily be incorporated to form various ideas, and if we teach students sooner, they’ll be ready for their future in the world of physics.
5. Project Treatment
The documentary video will tell a story of how CJ Signorino created various characters inspired by everything he experienced in his life and decided to put them in a series that teaches audiences of all ages the essentials of physics. The camera work will be focused on CJ in front of a receding background and on many sketches and drawings of characters in sketchbooks and comic strips attempts. For the music, there will be vocal-less tracks taken from Sound Track Pro’s library with an original mix.
The video starts with a black background. The following text appears: CJ Signorino presents. Once the text appears, a retro percussion track starts playing. More text appears: a one-man documentary film. Treble and bass tracks join the percussion track. With letters randomly appearing one by one, the title appears: Building Blockopolis.
Open to a medium shot of CJ Signorino sitting in the foreground. CJ introduces himself and states his major and minor. He proceeds to talk about what he has been planning for the past few years. CJ talks about his fascination of educational videos that both teach and entertain the viewers. He refers to School House Rock, Bill Nye the Science Guy, and the many math videos he remembers watching in elementary school. He also talks about his passion for newspaper comics, building objects out of K'NEX, and Nintendo’s video games and characters.
CJ discusses the origin of his character, Jacken DeBox, starting with the folded paper boxes he made in seventh grade, which he ended up using as a Mother’s Day surprise for his mother. As CJ speaks, drawings of Jacken DeBox appear.
Filled with fun, joy, and good humor, Jacken DeBox is a family-friendly jack-in-the-box and, as he calls himself, "Blockopolis's official host." As the host who often addresses the audience, he does whatever it takes to get viewers to learn physics-based lessons and ensure there's enough music and hilarity to make them all memorable. He can pull out just about anything from his box, even if it's bigger and heavier than him.
CJ soon proceeds to talk about additional characters and their roles in the series. The sketches of the characters are shown during CJ’s voiceover. He refers to his interest in Homestar Runner body of work created by the Brothers Chaps, which inspired him to develop his characters with distinguishable personalities and work on his sense of humor in the first place.
CJ talks about several scenarios in which he used Jacken DeBox and the world of Blockopolis to complete his homework. For example, one scenario involved an assignment for philosophy that required the student to talk about friendship, and CJ used his fictional characters, Jacken DeBox and Tipper Tawp, in order to get the job done. He also shows off his comic pages created between late 2008 and mid 2009 in an effort to build some original stories. Clips of personal mini-games made with WarioWare: D.I.Y. will play to show characters in color.
CJ fantasizes how influential Jacken DeBox and friends would be if he showed them to the world. He jumps back to the subject of educational videos and points out that there are no shorts that teach the basics of physics (CJ’s minor). He says there have been books that teach people the aspects of physics, including The Cartoon Guide to Physics by Larry Gonick. CJ discusses his fascination for the Walt Disney Company and the educational properties it already owns, including Adventures in Music. He figures that if he can get in touch with the company, he might be able to launch his physics-based series. CJ imagines the merchandising that would benefit the series, including figurines, posters, and clothing. At that moment, the viewer gets a glimpse of sketches of characters in merchandising.
CJ admits his plan is not yet fully developed, but he will be getting assistance from people experienced in the field of entertainment, including his cousin James Garcia. The video closes with the text “In loving memory of Brenda Signorino (1965-2012)” and the credits.
5. Production Timeline

2/23/2012: Submit proposal, work on sketches
2/28/2012: Work on script
3/1/2012: Rent video camera for shooting, accumulate items for show
3/3/2012: Shoot video of CJ Signorino
3/6/2012: Insert video of CJ into Final Cut Pro
3/8/2012: Insert clips of sketches, drawings, etc. into Final Cut Pro
Between 3/9/2012 and 3/20/2012: Wrap everything up

6. Budget
I don’t know much about film budgets, but I know what I’m going to need:

Personnel: Director/Producer, Editor, Subtitles, Director of Photography, Music Composition, VO Narration, and Production Manager

Supplies: Two tripods, two Canon VIXA HF M300 Cameras, two headphones, two microphones with booms, one or two Apple iMacs, one or two Adobe CS4 Suite, one or two Final Cut Studio 3, and Hard Drives

Space: Student Editing Lab, Production Studio, and a small room for shooting

Outreach Activities: DVD duplication