Pre-Production
Group meeting #1:
As of 22/01/19, our group has had a discussion about our initial thoughts on our idea. This discussion lasted two hours.
Our first decision was to allocate roles to each member of the group, which are:
Shay - Backgrounds and Assistant Animator
Luka - Post Production and General Assistant
Edward - Sound and Video Recording
Azlan - Animator
Tyrell - Animator
Note: These roles change slightly, see Group Meeting #2
We also pitched and agreed on a feasible idea for our assignment. The chosen theme would be Strength Vs Weakness, and we would demonstrate this through Independence Vs Teamwork.
Our idea would involve some form of obstacle course, where four characters must complete it and the person at the end is the winner. One of the four decides that it is more advantageous to beat the obstacle course alone, due to his arrogant and overconfident personality. This character believes the other characters may hold him back and/or slow him down, so decides to rush ahead. A visual indicator would represent this via the clothing the characters wear, where he is the only one who has a different coloured shirt. This character would be more muscular, maintaining superior physical strength and fitness in comparison to the other three.
The remaining three characters would remain and work together to make it through the obstacle course. These characters are clearly less physically strong in comparison to the independent character. Each character might have a specific characteristic that benefits a certain area of the obstacle course, i.e.: One of the characters could be quite small, allowing them to fit through a narrow gap perhaps. The characters would all wear the same coloured shirt to represent that they are on the same team as one-another.
As both teams progress through the obstacle course, the viewer will see the independent character making much greater distance than the group of characters manage. Cutaways could be used to contrast between the two groups. Perhaps the implementation of soundtracks could be used to directly represent each group, i.e.: The independent individual could have more fast-paced dramatic music, whereas the group could have more soft and slower-paced music instead.
However, at the end of the obstacle course, there is one the independent individual cannot tackle alone, and despite multiple attempts, he does not manage to pass the obstacle. Once the slower group finally catch up, they use teamwork to beat the obstacle with fair ease, promoting the message of our short: "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." - a popular African proverb that fits perfectly with our short in my opinion.
After the group make it, they look to the remaining character and decide to help him make it across the obstacle. After this, there may be a look of confusion on his face, and the group meet him with perhaps a smile or handshake to welcome him despite him leaving and trying to best them, and because of this the independent character picks up the same coloured t-shirt as the group and joins them (a visual indicator of change for this character). Overall this story is about the independent character learning to work as a team.
During this discussion we also had some brief ideas of obstacles that could make up the course. We aimed for a few obstacles to keep the animation brief and not too drawn out. These were not final, but ideas nonetheless:
Obstacles:
1: A large jump - This could be over an empty gap, water or spikes perhaps. The independent character can jump this in a simple run up, but the group have to make it using a boost from each other maybe, and then having to catch their team members as they cross so they don't fall as they cannot make the jump on their own.
2: Lifting a heavy door/passageway - We thought the door could be opened in a similar way to medieval doors, where a chain is pulled and the door slowly drops open as opposed to opening from the side as traditional doors do. This would highlight the need for strength, which the independent character has. In contrast, the group have to all pull to open the same door, and there would be a sign of struggle on their faces and body language to show this struggle.
3: Crossing a lake or river - This would be an obstacle which needed to be rowed across to pass. However, the independent character decides the boat will hold him back, and swims instead. The team on the other hand use the boat to row across the obstacle to the other side.
4: Large wall - There is a large wall that cannot be climbed as such, it is completely flat and too tall for the independent character to climb. As a result, he is not able to overcome the obstacle, despite multiple (some close) efforts. When the team make it to this obstacle, they use their team members to boost each other up perhaps, and this allows them to make a greater distance when jumping. Then once one of the team members make it up, he gives a hand to his teammates to help them up.
Animatic:
During the early stages of our planning, we were tasked with creating an animatic for our proposed animation. An animatic is essentially an animated storyboard with a soundtrack. We therefore spent reasonable time working on the animatic, presenting it to our peers when finished. The details and frame rate were very low in order to simply present the idea in a visual medium, as any more detail would be unnecessary. Unfortunately due to time limitations, we had to sacrifice any soundtrack or SFX in our animatic. By 18/02/19 this was our final animatic produced:
Group meeting #2:
On 04/03/19 our group came together for a second meeting to discuss the current idea, ways of refining it, smaller details and logistics for the project. The discussion lasted approximately three hours.
The first discussion was about the logistics for the project, such as deadlines. One of the decisions made was to use Frame-by-Frame animation to enable more control over the animation, leading to a more effective and higher standard result. However, at the time of the meeting, we had just under two months to complete and submit the finished assignment, whilst also dealing with other responsibilities across other assignments for other modules. We therefore decided that we would require more people to animate, and re-designated roles for the members of our group. These are now as follows:
Shay - Backgrounds and Assistant Animator
Luka - Post Production and Animator
Edward - Sound Recording and Animator
Azlan - Animator
Tyrell - Animator
Due to many different animators working on the same project, we decided it was crucial to agree on an art style in order to maintain continuity across the animation. Otherwise there would be an obvious change across different sections of the animation. The majority of our group decided to use a similar art style inspired by the artist Keith Haring, in which the art is very simplistic. We decided to add to the minimalistic art style by taking these style of characters and adding white eyes to allow for better facial expression to be communicated with the audience. We also decided that it would be easier to simply colour the characters separately to visually denote their meaning. The three members of the four which represented teamwork would each be coloured a similar shade of blue, whereas the individual member would be coloured red. Towards the end of the animation when the red character realises the strength of teamwork, he would then turn to an also similar shade of blue to visually show the audience his character arc has progressed and he has understood the value of teamwork.
One of the members of our group proposed a change of order for our animation. Originally the order would be: Hole, Gate, Lake, Wall. However it was suggested that could be better to swap the order to this: Hole, Lake, Wall, Gate. The reason being that once the red character is helped across the wall by the notion of teamwork, the three blue characters then require his help to open the gate as it is too heavy for them, which further pushes the idea of strength in teamwork. Furthermore, we agreed that each member of the group should work on a particular scene to make the work more organised and structured. These scenes were to be animated when possible, but at latest to be finished by a deadline of the 27th of April, allowing a couple days to implement the post-production and other final tweaks if necessary. It is important to set a deadline a little before it is actually required so that - if extra time is needed - there is extra time available. This was the last official group discussion we had, and proceeded onto the production stage of our assignment.
##could discuss scrapped ideas in a group meeting 3##
Production:
My first produced piece of work was the poster for the assignment. The first draft is shown above. I originally began in an A3 sized RGB document by mistake, as I have not dealt with industry standard print before. I had to change the colour formatting from RGB to CMYK in the Photoshop document. This meant that some of the colours (the left image) look pale and less vibrant than I would like them to be. Therefore I had to go and manually adjust some of the colours to become more appealing, such as the more vibrant red used for the main character in the poster. I also had to rectify the mistake of the dimensions of the document from A3 size to A2. Luckily in the creation of this poster, I had been using vectors and text layers, which are very useful in Photoshop as you can scale these up without losing quality. Lastly, I added a small area of text to indicate there will be an exhibition in Stockwell Street during April 2019, serving as the promotional text of my poster. This would go into more detail in my Leaflet design.
Leaflet:
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Animation:
The sequence I was to animate was the Wall scene, in which the Red character initially tries to overcome the obstacle first - being in the lead - but ultimately fails. Eventually the three Blue characters make their way to the wall and are able to make it across, but only because they use teamwork to get across. One of the Blue characters then helps the Red character make it over the wall, and this sequence ends.
I tried to match my animation to the Animatic as best as possible. I started with a front perspective of the Red character running towards the camera. Note that the background is temporary until the appropriate background designs have been finished. I was unfamiliar with running cycles from a front perspective, so I sourced a good reference to look at. After creating the running cycle, I then proceeded to ease the animation out by gradually slowing down the movement as well as eventually lowering the character's arms for instance. When the character finally reaches a halt, I decided to add a secondary action in which he is panting for breath, to indicate he has been running as fast and as hard as he can. This follows from the previous scene, in which he is too confident to use the boat to cross the lake and instead swims it, which is much more effort to do so. Next I added another secondary action which was the arm moving across his forehead to further signify he has become out of breath. Finally I animated his eyes to blink and widen to show shock and surprise, which follows to the reveal of the wall being very tall. The reaction helps to show the audience that he is not so confident with this next obstacle.
The next part of the scene was to reveal the wall. I decided to vary this from the Animatic and instead created a POV shot where the Red character gradually looks up the wall to get a good grasp of it's height. I simply did this using the Classic Tween option provided in Adobe Animate, using an Ease in/out to have a smoother animation. I followed this with a new shot from the side of the obstacle, where the Red character attempts to jump the wall. I did this with heavy anticipation, first by animating the eyes into a more confident expression, and then having him walk off screen for a run up to the wall. However he fails to overcome the obstacle, taking a few steps back due to the follow through principle. This follows onto the next part of the scene, where I plan to use a Close up shot to reveal a confused facial expression, deviating from the Animatic again as I believe this helps to show the audience his overconfidence in his abilities, and that they are not paying off for this obstacle.
I put some efforts into refining the section where the Red character looks confused. I first changed the eyes as before I had peer feedback suggesting they looked a bit more sad rather than confused. I also added a secondary action which is when the character scratches his forehead to signify confusion. This leads back to the side shot where he anticipates a large jump, and comes closer to overcoming the obstacle, but again fails to overcome it. I had planned to animate the Red character giving one final attempt in which he tries to run up the wall, thus having three attempts at the obstacle - 'The rule of 3'. However, this seemed too challenging for me especially given the time constraints, and I felt that it was not necessary enough to spent such time on it. I therefore followed up his second attempt at the obstacle with an angry reaction where he hits the wall in frustration. This is followed by his eyes closing and reopening with a sad expression, where he lets go of the wall and steps back with more sad, depressed and defeated body language. I was then going to animate him sitting beside the wall to show he has given up, but again I felt that it would be unnecessary, and instead decided to simply cut the scene here and cut back to the character sitting beside the wall instead, saving animation time whilst enabling better effect in the animation itself. This cuts to the blue characters running towards the obstacle.
I first had to refine the Blue characters' running cycle, which required their characteristics to be added, namely one to be skinny and one to be chubby, to provide visual differentiation between the three. After the Blue characters' running cycle finished, the scene cuts back to the side shot of the wall, in which the Red character is now sitting beside the wall, sulking. However, his eyes perk up as he notices the Blue characters coming into scene, which is a visual hint for the audience to look towards the left side of the screen. Two of the Blue characters proceed to run towards the wall, with the third close behind. I deliberately decided the more chubby Blue character should be at the back to make more logical sense that he would be falling slightly behind rather than the other two Blue characters. The two wait at the wall for the third, and help boost him up the wall, to which he succeeds. I then decided that - instead of following the Animatic and animating all three characters separately - I could instead show the chubby Blue character on top of the wall helping up the skinny Blue character from a POV shot. This would make my job animating much easier and it would vary up the shots, making for a more interesting animation. I further decided to ease the workload by cutting the shot once the chubby Blue character grabs the skinny Blue character, cutting to a Close up shot of the Red character's facial expression as he sees them cross the obstacle with ease. This saves me time animating the third Blue character overcoming the obstacle whilst also highlighting the emotional impact on the Red character as opposed to showing a repetitive action multiple times for not much reason. This saved lots of time when animating, and I believe the reasons for doing so were more than justified.
After this particular GIF preview of my animation, a huge problem occurred - my Adobe Animate file became corrupted. At the time, I had been trying to export another preview of my animation. However, Animate refused to render the GIF and subsequent attempts caused my computer to crash. Upon reboot, both the current file I had been working on as well as the 'RECOVERY' file that Adobe Animate automatically creates had both become corrupted. This would not have been a problem if I had made regular backups of the document, however I had made a poor workflow choice to constantly save the current document, rather than incrementally saving newer versions of the document. This works well if the file crashes and does not corrupt, but for this instance it was a poor choice in workflow. I had only made two backup files as you can see above, which meant that the file would likely - and was - quite outdated, losing plenty of work. This could have been an especially costly mistake, however I was incredibly fortunate to find a solution to recover a large portion of the corrupted file, allowing me to copy over the missing frames of animation from one document to another. This was an example of poor workflow that could have resulted in a large setback, a lesson I will take into account for future.
Evaluation:
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