Summer Project 2015

Summer Project 2015

Introduction

Before starting the course in September, we were assigned to create a poster deign based on an animation idea we had. The animation could be anything including: a feature film, TV series, Music video etc. We would then have to present our idea and poster in front of the rest of the group. 

I had a range of ideas however, I wanted to start with something manageable as I would have to talk about this idea in front of everyone else. Therefore I went with the idea of an animated short, much like a Disney/ Pixar short. 

Concept

I already had the idea in mind from a while ago but I just noted it down and didn't expand upon it until now. The basic idea was for two characters, despite their differences, develop a relationship by the end of the video. For my animation it would be an elderly man and a young boy, this idea originally stemmed from the idea that youths and elders do not get along. From this I wanted to create a simple narrative with a message and a heart warming outcome. 

In addition, there came a secondary message of the development of animation and how this animation could portray the advancements of the industry. As in the old man represents the traditional golden years of animation and the young boy represents the modern and new age of computer animation. 

Adding to this, this developed the style of the animation because from this idea I wanted the old man to be traditionally drawn in black and white (grey-scale) and the young boy to be 3D model and be computer animated. This would only be a metaphor/ background theme as I wanted the story to be simple and focused on the characters. 

Another point to make about the animation would be that there would be no dialogue because I'd want to focus on the characters movements and expressions sot here would be no need for dialogue. 

Story Overview

The video would start with an old man at a bench minding his own business and enjoying the peace. However this is disturbed by a young boy and his music which walks on on his phone and sits next to the old man not taking any notice of him. The old man finds this rude and tells the young boy to go away. This starts the negative 'snowball' and this argument escalates and causes them to compete against each other to find who is better, the young vs the old. As the competition goes on, they begin to notice similarities and differences that they can relate to. The two characters begin to get along and learn how to get on with each other. 

Sketches

Old Man

I took inspiration from Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas for the old man as these two were part of the 'Nine Old Men', the original Disney animation team that developed the techniques and principles of animation still being used and followed today. I chose these two men out of the nine because they both had physical traits that represent a stereotypical elderly person i.e large ears and nose, glasses, balding etc. As well as this, I already had a rough idea of what I wanted the old man to look like. 

Young Boy

The young boy was challenging to design because i wanted to base a current and well known 3D animator after him. however most of these animators are older and it is difficult to show these distinct and mature features on a much younger character. Therefore I continued with a simplistic and youthful design and designed his look from his personality because the young boy is not shy or much of a push over, however he is not a bully or aggressive character. This is why i gave designed with spiky hair but with a friendly simplistic face. (these images are 2D but would intend the final outcome to be 3D).

Poster Ideas

A few sketches for initial ideas of what the poster may have looked like. 

Production

I first created the initial poster design on paper as this allowed me to easily change ideas and produce more work effectively. once I was happy with the design I scanned the pencil image into Illustrator and Photoshop where I added line and colour to create the finished product. I used Illustrator to create the outline of the Old Man and Photoshop to create the lines and colour for the Young Boy and the Old Man. This is because I wanted to create the characters aesthetically different. 

*the boy is no 3D ion the poster as I initially intended, this is because i had no knowledge on how to create a 3D model and it would have taken too long to create after I learnt how to. I did initially watch tutorials and other videos however my time was limited to complete this project therefore I used Photoshop to create the young boy character. 

Conclusion

There are a re number of changes I would make to the poster if I were to repeat this project. firstly, I would make the Young Boy 3D to accurately show what the character would look like. I would also improve the lines and colour of the old man because I am not completely happy how he looks. Id probably add something in the background to make the poster stand out more but nothing that would distract from the characters. 

48 Hour Film Challenge

48 Hour Film Challenge

Introduction

This was our first mini project/challenge which was assigned to us at the start of the course. The challenge was to create a video which lasted up to a minute within 48 hours. We could not edit digitally and anything we recorded would be in the video. Therefore all the animating had to be done with objects or paper rather than 3D or 2D digitally drawn/ modeled on a computer. 

We started the challenge by getting into groups of 3-4 people and we had to chose (at random) two words which would become the topic of the video. The words we chose did not have to be the definitive narrative, just as long the video had some relevance to the two words. [i.e. If the word chosen was train, the video couldn't be about just cars, unless you connected cars to trains in the video.] 

Development

The words within my group were 'Invisible' and 'Hole'. 

We mind mapped our ideas on what our video could be about:

Despite having different ideas, as a group we decided to go with the X-ray idea. We believed it would be the most interesting to do and would be the most visually interesting as well. This links with the words 'Invisible' and 'Hole' because an x-ray acts like a hole which you can see within the human body without creating a physical hole in the patient. With this idea we added a illustrative aesthetic to the x-ray making everything within the body look 'cartoon-ey'. 

We then roughly story boarded what would happen in the video and assigned each other to different sections of the body which would be x-rayed within the video.  

Story Overview

The patient would walk onscreen and get into position, standing facing the camera. The paper would enter the screen and cover the patient's face. This would then reveal what would be inside the patients head, a skull and a little person climbing around it. Then the x-ray would move down with the little man entering the patient's mouth. From there the x-ray would reveal the throat of the patient with the little man spiraling down it. From there the little man would fall hitting a rib of the patient and falling down towards the gut. The stomach would be pool of spiraling fluid where the man goes down. The x-ray would then move off screen revealing the side of the stomach and arm bones. When the x-ray leaves the screen the patient would then walk off screen. 

Production

I was assigned the chest cavity where in the video the paper moves down from the neck to the gut. Within this section I wanted to add a lot of movement with the lungs and heart to make the section stand out as well as the little person moving through the chest. 

Here are some of the frames I did for that section:

Within the video you can see where the patient tries to match the breathing to the drawing of the lungs, however it is rather difficult to see because of the lower frame rate and not enough screen time. 

I also tried to make the heart beat at a realistic rate but this is also difficult to see because of the same reasons. 

Overall I believed I worked at an effective rate, however the outcome wasn't as effective as I hoped.

Next time I would time the actions of the movements more carefully and have less background movement to emphasise the narrative so the audience isn't overwhelmed or distracted. 

There was a technical problem with the video where a pink rectangle appears about half-way through the video which wasn't supposed to be there. We did not film this and when we played back our video it did not show. This pink rectangle only appeared when we sent the video via email and uploaded it, so no one was sure what it was. 

We also realised that the title was incorrectly spelled 'Invisible' and instead spelled 'Invisbe'. This was a simple mistake made at the last moments of production. 

Despite this, I am happy with the outcome of the video because I believe thew group worked really hard in such a short space of time. 

However there are a few improvements I would make. These include: 

• Making the animation smoother by adding more frames between. 
• Adding bolder lines to the skull section to make the skull stand out throughout that section. 
• Better timing the breathing with the lungs in the chest section to exaggerate and emphasise it to the audience.
• Better timing on the heart to make it believably beating. 
• Toning down the background movements so that they are less distracting and overwhelming for the audience. 
• Bolder lines in the stomach section to make the stomach stand out.
• Ensuring everything is correct with the video before publishing it.