Storyboards/ Explanation/ Evaluation.

Creating and finalising my Storyboards;

 My storyboards depict the travels of a small Raccoon named Archie, who goes on an adventure to find the delicious pie, who's enticing scent makes Archie go against his better judgement, and goes exploring in search of the source of the smell. 




He begins by going to find his close friend Lola, a fawn, who is confined to the "daytime" forest, and tries to encourage her to join him on his travels. And against their better judgement, they travel into the nocturnal forest alone together. 
During their journey, a set of thorns catch onto the skin of Lola, who, as a "daytime animal" will react badly to that.



As they continue their journey, the camera focuses more on Archie, where he begins to hear strange noises. After a while he turns around to address Lola, when he's met with a gruesome sight;
Lola has become putrid and disfigured, a reaction cause by the catch of thorns.
It is then ambiguous as to what happens to Archie and Lola, as the camera pans up towards the top of the trees, where "The End" title appears. This leaves an open ending and plenty of options for the audience.

Evaluation.
 Over all I am rather pleased with how my storyboards have turned out. I completed these storyboards straight away digitally, and that is something I haven't tried before, as usually I have sketches them out by hand first. I did come into some problems whilst creating these storyboards, mainly because of the size of the panels, and my inability to let myself draw something small and less detailed than it needs to be. I did overcome these issues however, especially with the trees in the forest. I was able to make them look rather detailed but maintain a decent size to them as well. I am particularly pleased with the colour scheme I chose for this animation too, as it is out of my usually comfort zone with keeping things simple and rather plain looking, as well as my lack of outline on the scenery, which is something I have never attempted...ever!
So over all I'm happy with the out-come of this part of my project, although I think if I have time, I will create a slightly higher quality version of them, just to make them more professional looking.

Project 2: Week 1 Relfections.

Week 1 Reflections.

Days:	Monday 14th	Tuesday  15th	Wednesday 16th	Thursday 17th	Friday  18th	Saturday 19th	Sunday 20th
Work to Complete	Begin research on animal based animations.	Look at independent animations from smaller companies. Also look at all genres, not just animals.	Pick between 5 - 10 animations that relate to what I'm going for.	Look into more comedic roles in characters such as Carrot and Stick - Joel Trussel	CAD Session & more research for blog alone.	Documentation.	Reflection.

This week, I assigned myself to the researching of different animations, and letting them influence my character's initial sketches of it's walk cycle. 

Monday 14th October: I researched into mainly animal based animations, and found myself rather limited, as a lot of animations on animals were rather long and not focusing mainly on the character's movement. Although, "The First Time I Ran Away." did prove helpful with regards to four legged animals. 

Tuesday 15th October: I started to look into smaller animation companies, to try and see how lower budget companies would animate a characters walk cycle and what route they would take. I also spread out my research to all genres, not just animal based ones. 

Wednesday 16th October: I picked about 6 animations to research at that time, as I felt I found a good selection of smaller business animations, mostly from music videos. Fluorescent Hill proved to be a winner with its 3D and 2D dimensional sketchy music videos.

Thursday 17th October: I also looked into Joel Trussel's work, where I found "Carrot and Stick." This animation caught my attention immediately because the way it had been filmed and edited was completely different from the rest. 

Friday 18th October: Had CAD session where I was able to put together the research to be ready for hand in, as well as noting specific websites for more independent animation companies. 

Project 1: Character Design/ Final Pieces/ Evaluation

Before I decided on anything to do with my character, I tried my hand at a brainstorm to try and figure out what kind of animation story sounded best for me. I ended up choosing a mixture of two storylines, which were The Quest and Voyage and Return. It seemed that although they were the most likely to be popular out of all the options because of its simplicity. But I also felt that it would be the one that worked best for me. As soon as I decided on “Quest and Return,” I began think of random scenarios that would fit the chosen storyline. I had a number of ideas which all differed, but they all had one thing in common, the small overcoming the mighty, whether they be living things or metaphors, the “unlikely hero” was a story I wanted to stick with.

I eventually decided I wanted my character to be living, but not human, as I found that i tend to over-do human characters and I should go slightly out of my depth. I began to research animations that had an unlikley hero as the protagonist, which turned out to be literally every animation, so I had a lot of choice.

I ended up sticking to Disney for a while, as they had a selection of heroes and sidekicks who were deemed “unlikely,” and some of those were Dumbo, and his mouse friend, Meeko from Pochohontas, Flounder from the little Mermaid, The mice from Cinderella and the majority of characters from Whinnie the Pooh.  I also spent time looking at non-Disney related animations as well, such as “Please Say Something,” by David O’Reilly, the character Bartok from “Anastasia,” produced by Fox Animation Studios.

I was rather taken with how mischevious and anti-hero like Meeko was in Pochahontas, as he was mostly just ineterested in his tummy. He reminded me of Scrat from Ice Age, who only manages to follow the story because of his hungry for a large acorn. And from this I took away that my character should be something like a scavenger, someone who doesn’t really care about the dangers that they are in because of how hungry they are.

So from there I went on to look at characters that are specifically scavengers, such as the characters in Over the Hedge, Meeko from Pochahontas, Whinnie the Pooh and Gus from Cinderella. Who all

had rather similar qualities and a kind of care-free nature that makes them lovable, bearing in mind how much trouble they cause. I then went on to draw innitial sketches or what I thought the character should look like.

I went on to draw up my character digitally using Paint Tool SAI, using a freehand pen styled tool, to do a dark green shaded outline and I then used a textured brush to create the look of fur all over his body. I added shading using a stylised brush with jet black colour on a layer opacity of 21% which I felt gave the character a lot more depth. I went on to add a few facial expressions, which were copies of the original faces, which were then drawn over and edited to make a variation of differing emotions. These emotions ranged from happy, sad, angry, scared, shocked and embarrassed. I feel as though these expressions are rather successful because of how obvious they are, and considering my character has no mouth, all of the emotion remains in the eyes and eyebrows. I then started designing a background for my character board, I knew I wanted something very simple, and rustic looking, but it would still stand out against both the white background and my character.

I began by drawing a simple large circle that was the same height as the canvas. It was a moss shade of green which I think worked well to create a woodland theme in my character board. I then used a

 

textured brush which looked like broken chalk to draw in a selection of trees, both thick and thin, which made a spooky looking forest effect for the background, and the more pressure I applied to the pen tablet, the whiter and clearer the lines would be. I then added swatches of colour that had been used throughout the image as pantone refferences.

On the whole I thought this character would work rather well, his emotions can be defined easily enough, he’s simply done, and he’s very cute. But over all I still wasn’t very happy with how he turned out, and thought he looked more like a squirrel than anything else. So this is where I chose to do a 180 and start my character again, I knew, at least, that I knew what I wanted my character to look like and had the backing research and ideas to go along with.

I re-drew my character, this time with a change in the eyes and style, he would be more detailed still in a simple way. He had stronger and more defining lines, as well as being slightly chubbier, making him seem, straight away, as though food has a large role in his life and the main focus of his adventures.

I was a lot happier with these versions of my character than the previous ones, and once I added stripes to his tail and made his eyes black, it was much more obvious that he is a raccoon. He looks much happier and not so much typical Disney character, but more stereotypical for what I was planning to do with my animation storyline. This way I could also make my other characters all fit the same style in their own way. Instead of using the traditional front side and back, I’ve added an inbetweener so that the character displays more of himself to give the viewers more to look at. I also didn’t do an original sketch of the backside of him, instead I copied and edited the front drawing of him, making all his dimensions equal and in proportion, and found this was very effective in making everything stay the right shape and size, and much more simple than having to measure out.

Final Pieces: 

I then went onto lining and colouring my character board, now that I was happy with how my character looked. I re-used the background from my previous character board, as I thought that part was still very successful, and it contrasted well with the characters colours, making him more defined. This image shows roughly how I went about colouring him in,  where I applied the base colour and then added in overlaying colours with fur textures and blending tools, making him look a little more dynamic. After I had finished the drawings side of my character board, I went onto using the information I had created about my character, to fill in the blank spaces and give him more of a back story. I used his name, age, gender, strengths, weaknesses, beliefs, profession, diet and habits. With this information and the colour scheme added to the board, the final piece looks full of information, both visual and textual, which gives my character life and another dimension. I also selected a font called “Wolf’s Rain” which, I think, looks quite scratchy and jagged, which fits in well with the woodland and scavenger theme.

I then went on to creating the emotions of my character, and to do this I pretty much copied and pasted a

number of the raccoons faces from the front view, onto a new canvas and used a various amount of brushes to go over, cover, or open up his eyes, which is where most of his emotion comes from seeing as he has no mouth. I did find, however, that on some emotions such as drunk, silly and flirty, that it would be best for me to draw in a mouth so that the emotions could be defined better and not mixed up, which they easily could be. I found that this was very effective, when using just the eyebrows to show emotion.

The final and finished version of my character’s emotons sheet is, in my opinion, quite successful. The background works well against the colours of the character, which make the motions and the colours stand out great. I chose to label the emotions of my character, as the top three emotions are rather similar, and it would work better to label them all, and point out which ones weren’t as clear. My favourite emotions on this piece are “Silly” and “Annoyed,” because they show the most emotion, and aren’t ordinary, more common emotions like the rest. Once I had completed this, I went onto creating the more dynamic poses of my character. In these images I tried to make him have a bit more of an animal structure, than a human one, and I felt that this was a success because of how much more character it gave him. And it also made him look a bit more like a cirtter, and a scavenger than an unrealstic raccoon. I also chose to leave some of the designs blank, and showing how they were structured, which worked well and showed what thouhts and processes went into which part of him, making him come alive more. I also chose to colour in one of his designs, the biggest one, to show his colours, and how light and shadow would effect his fur and texture. This, I found, was a very good idea, as it gave my character the depth he needed to be taken more seriously and for the board to look more professional.

Evaluation: 

Overall, I am very pleased with how my character boards turned out. I put a vast amount of time into the original idea and wanted to keep it so much, without completely changing the storyline. I feel this version of my character looks a lot more defined, and has so much more character after being recreated to fit a more realistic style. The background, layout and text in all of my character boards fit well into one theme and differ enough to be distinguished, but not enough that they arent recognised as a set. If I were to change anything about this piece, had I had enough time, I would’ve used actual hand drawn sketches in my “Dynamic Poses” piece instead of using images I’d drawn out digitally.

My E4 Esting.

                     



My final project of the year was to create an E4 “Esting” for the E4 competition, in which I was to make a short (10 second) animation. At first I was at a complete loss for what to do, as I was given the choice of using almost any medium to create this short film. I eventually chose to concentrate more on live action, mainly because it was one of the styles of animation I hadn't had an in-depth go at yet. I chose to do my film in the style of a Charlie Chaplin silent film, where I dressed myself up as a mime and painted the E4 logo sped up, but also making it look like I had done it in real time. I spent only half an hour shooting footage, as I had space an scene set up prior to the shooting, and about two days full on animating and editing it. I struggled with one thing in particular, which was using Adobe After Effects to edit some of my film. I had the film split into about 3 pieces, which made it a lot easier to animate individual pieces. I learned quite a few new skills in this project, one of which as working with a green screen. At the start of my animation, I have actually used a green screen behind me when I pop up and smile, I think this turned out extremely well as even the little hairs and small pieces of fluff on my clothing turned out well and weren't cut off or blurred out. I also learned process of editing a film to make it look like a silent film, where there would be jumpy parts in the film as well as editing the sound of an old camera into the film under the music, just to give it that vintage effect. This was one of my favourite projects to do this year, as it was mostly hands on and I got to paint my face, making actual fun out of the project. It was the project that I was completely excited about from start to finish and I am overjoyed with how my final, 10 second animation turned out!

Week 3: Post-Production.

Once I had completed filming all of my animation, I then began to start editing it all 

together. I started this process by adding both of my video files to Adobe After-Effects,

 and once I added them to the program, they both appeared on the time line, 

ready to edit.

Once I started to edit my film, there were a few problems I had encounters with, one of

 them being my body sticking out of the designated “White zone,” created on the set of 

my film. To combat this issue, I created a mask layer, and went through the animation, 

frame by frame, and moved the mask layer’s points according to where I went over the

 white zone, adding a key frame to every change.

Once I had completed the white zone problem, I played through the film to ensure that all

 of the mask were in the correct places. I found that the “feather,” effect on the mask, 

worked well because of the smoother edges, making the mask edges much less obvious.

 I also lowered the masks opacity slightly so that the edges of the mask would meet the 

edge of the film smoothly and would not show any mistakes.

After I had edited that part of film, I moved onto the introductory part of my film, which

 involved me being filmed in front of a green screen. I opened this video in After-Effects

 and began to edit out the “green,” by changing its colour from the "green screen" panel, to orange, and then managed to change the orange to white, blending it in with the background.

Once I had the film in the correct order and put together, I then went onto editing my film.

 To do this I opened up the film in Final Cut Pro and began to cut it up into individual 

segments. This then made it easier for me to see which parts I could edit first, and the 

first piece I began to edit was the longest part which happened to be me painting the

 large E4 logo.

Once I had used the tools in Final Cut Pro to speed up the selected piece of film, by

 about 200%, I then moved the three pieces apart from each other and began to edit the

 final piece of the film which was focusing on the E4 logo beginning to drip. I had to edit a

 few pieces of film out of it, because there was about three seconds worth of unwanted film

 where I was unsure how to stop the constant photo taking. This made the film run much

 more smoothly, and gave me the opportunity to edit in frames that I will in order to make

 this animation look more like a silent film.

To do this I opened up a document in Photoshop with the requirements of “web and devices,”

and began to draw out the frame that I will apply to my whole film. I changed the frame size 

at the top and bottom so that the frame was even, and coloured the entire frame black to 

match the ones that would be seen in most generic silent films.

I then opened up Adobe Illustrator and began to draw out the designs for the frame which I 

put into my film. I looked through a number of silent films and found that the frames of the

 films usually consisted of swirled and floral patterns, the kinds usually found on old fashioned

 mirrors. The design I went for was a swirl and tear drop look, and I tried numerous ways to 

draw out this image, including making my own style of paintbrush, and using the pen tool. 

I ended up using the paint tool, and edited the lines to make them much smoother and more

flowing, which in the end, worked out very well in my opinion. I then changed the size of the

 “tear drops” in order to make them the correct size for the Photoshop document.

I then chose the swirl pattern to go on both the top and bottom of the frame, which I got as 

central as I could, and added them as smart objects before putting them in their places for 

definite.

I put the images on a new layer and filled in the colour of the shapes to make them stand 

out fully against the black background. I did experiment with colour, where I used a mix of

 greys and even some pastel colours, before realising that pastel colours would not make

 much of a difference since the film is in black and white.

Once I have the swirls placed correctly onto the border, I started to place the tear drop 

shapes onto the new layer on my Photoshop file. I wasn’t quite sure where about I would 

put them to begin with, as I originally wanted them on the left and right sides, stretched 

apart like the swirls were, but I eventually decided on placing them at the corners of the 

border, and I feel this makes the frame look more ornate and like an antique rather than 

something more modern. Once I had completed the look of my frame for the animation, I 

saved it as a file to use for web and video purposes, and uploaded it into Final Cut Pro and 

stretched it across the time line, so that it would last throughout the entire film.

I then went on to make a take frame, where dialogue is displayed to show what the characters

 are saying in silent films. I began by making a canvas the size of what would be the space in 

the middle of the ornate frame I made, and then chose and old, but legible style text to use

 as the written dialogue. I feel as though this worked out very well as I asked numerous

 people as well as tutors and they thought it looked rather authentic, I also added two 

tear drop shapes around the words to exaggerate and pronounce the words more.

After I had all of the elements of my film put together in the time line, I went on to edit 

the visual part of my film by using a variety of the settings available on the Final Cut Pro

 program. I chose to edit the blur settings so that the picture was blurred slightly, making

 it look slightly older and less HD than it is.

Here it shows the final adjustments that I made, visually, I added some visual effects, such

 as the Gaussian Blur which is what made the film so blurred and old fashioned. I also added

 the “Bad Film,” filter, which helped me make most of my changes to my film. I increased 

the saturate amount, scratches, hairs, and dust ever so slightly, which gave the great old 

fashioned Victorian film effect, which turned my film into the exact thing I had envisioned. 

I also ended up increasing the jitter Amount as well, which gave the film its jumpy and edgy 

feel.

Once I had taken the appropriate measures to ensure my film looked as authentic as I could, I went on to “colour correct” the E4 logo in my film so that the colour would remain in the logo whilst everything else was in black and white. To do this I went to the “3 Way Colour Correct” option on the menu in Final Cut Pro, and made sure that the saturation and Lumo were not selected, and opened up the range of colours that I still wanted to be visible throughout the video, I chose anywhere between lilac and violet, as the E4 logo is somewhere between those two colours and this made the E4 logo retain it’s colour throughout the film.

I then went on to add some sounds onto my film, I obtained these sounds through the means

 of the sound program named “Logic Pro,” found on the computers in the Music and Theatre

 building, so there would not be any legal issues.

The sounds I added included that of an old school film projector, which links in with the editing

 I did of my film. This sound is very authentic, and even has the click sound at the start of it to 

signify the projector being turned on, this works very well with my film because there is a 

slight jitter at the beginning of the film. I was also searching for some form of Photoplay music,

 usually found in silent films which comes with a full orchestra, however I could not find a 

sample of music without copyright issues, so I went in search of simple piano music. And to

 my luck I found quite a few samples of piano music from all ends of the spectrum, from 

western style bar music, to chilling and spooky samples. I ended up choosing a simple and 

echoing piece. I feel as though this music sample is most effective because it isn’t so busy 

that it takes away attention from what’s going on in the film, and does the opposite by 

exaggerating the movements and happenings in the film.

    This was one of my favourite projects to do this year, as it was mostly hands on and I got 

to paint my face, making actual fun out of the project. It was the project that I was completely excited about from start to finish and I am overjoyed with how my final, 10 second animation

 turned out!