Dissertation Nearly Over - On With Work

The past 2 weeks have been devoted to finishing my dissertation. The deadline is the 15th March, so I thought it best to finish it as soon as possible. I sent off the final draft to my tutor yesterday (Friday) so hope to receive a little feedback before I fully submit as well as print and bound the whole thing! It has been a struggle to say the least...

But now - I can finally get back onto my final film! Hooray! :)

So hopefully more work will be uploaded on here soon.



---jkl

Backgrounds, 2nd/MA help, animating etc...

The week before I was due to start animating (according to my own production schedule) I began to draw my backgrounds. These are a selection of the backgrounds I was able to draw in a week.

I then started to animate. I wanted to start relatively slowly, to get into drawing the characters and to get used to the style and speed I could draw, etc. So I began with a few of the easy shots in the film, the still shots. These require "boiling", so these shots need three frames in order for it to boil successfully without stuttering or looking static.

As well as this, we were given the opportunity to present our films to a class of second year and MA animation students to ask for help on our films.

I split the "help" into three roles. Either background digital colouring, frame clean-up and colouring, and animating background characters with key frames provided by me.

I was lucky enough to receive six willing students to offer their help which I was very pleased with. They stated which aspects they were most interested in, and we exchanged details. I will be preparing work for them to do as soon as possible, as I plan to focus solely on my dissertation after Monday 6th February for a week and a half. In this time, I will assign tasks for a few of the students to do. This will be the background colouring and the animation tasks mainly, as the frame clean-up and colouring is going to need a little more refinement until I am happy to assign them to the help.

All in all, a busy few weeks, but very successful and hopeful! Might be able to finish this film after all!

I'm really excited to be working with these students and to get going on everything properly!

After the week and a half assigned to dissertation writing, I will then solely focus on my film, as long as the dissertation is up to a decent standard and I can get it bound and then forget about it!

I'm confident in sticking to this and being able to get this done!

---jkl

Final Animatic - Version 2!

After the critique/initial feedback I received on the 16th January, I asked to speak to tutor, James, to go over my animatic, and there were a lot of areas that needed development in the story. We went through the points, and I understood all the points. I was not happy with the final animatic I handed in on the 16th and knew there were still a lot of story points I needed to change and develop, so the feedback was really useful.

Gemma Roberts helped me go through the new story, laying it out and thinking of composition and shots. Here are the scanned images which Gemma drew, which shows the new storyboard animatic layout. The images Gemma drew are the first two sections of box thumbnails, the thumbnails underneath are ones where I was working on frame layout and composition.

I also met with tutor, Matthew Gravelle, who went through my animatic too, and who also gave me some good points to think about and go through for the new story.

I worked all day Tuesday, so I was able to show Matthew the new animatic on Wednesday. Thankfully, this animatic then worked much more coherently and now there were only a few shots to change or take out. After this, I worked for the rest of the week to finish the new animatic, adding new sounds and finishing the animatic completely.

I am much happier with this story, it is much clearer and I feel much more strongly about the project as a whole.

So here is the Final Animatic - Version 2:

Babbit - Final Animatic - Version 2

I now will send this new animatic to my composer, who I will ask to complete a rough track for it.

As well as this, I will hopefully be able to get a presentation together to show to some prospective first and second year animators who I can ask to help on my film.



-jkl

Part 2 Submission - Feasibility Test, etc...

For the final part of our Pre-Production module hand-in we are required to submit 30 seconds of animations tests, from linetests to full post-production realisation.

I went to the studio every day last week to animated for this deadline, and was able to do three shots. I scanned them all and composed them into a video. Some are more "complete" than others, merely because of time constraints for this hand-in. (Monday 16th)

It was good to start actually animating after all this time on pre-production, and by diving straight into scenes from my final animatic, I was able to fully realise the time I needed on some shots more than others.

The main aspect that caused me difficulty was the hair on Mollie. I was animating her with the hair design I had previously used as the final design. But a few days into animating, I was growing increasingly frustrated with it, and I felt it was hindering each drawing, making it look too static and dead. I therefore changed the hair, made the line flow simply down, resting upon her head, but still in the same "bob" formation. It looked much more natural, and above all, felt much better to draw and animate with! The contriving feelings lifted instantaneously, and I went back and changed the longest scene I was working on to show this new hair design all the way through. This can be seen in the video (link below). As well as showing this hair scene with the new hair design, I have also showed the original hair design to show the comparison. Unfortunately, I did not get time to go back and change the other tests that still had the original hair design, but if these tests are received good enough for the final film, I will then go back and change the hair.

Hair Design Before:

Hair Design After:

Link to the Feasibility Animation Tests:

Feasibility Animation Tests (Vimeo)



---jkl

Final Animatic [Clean]

 Over the Christmas holidays, I was able to draw the shots from my animatic again in Photoshop, as 'Part 2' of our hand-in requires a "clean and more detailed" animatic. I decided to draw and colour the frames in a purple colour scheme in line with the final colour plan as described in earlier posts.

 There were a few aspects I needed to change from presenting the rough animatic to my tutors on the 12th December.

These were:
- In the teacher scene, the angle where the teacher's shadow appears on Babbit needs to be changed back to the first angle used in the first animatic.

- The background/overall colour visualisations need something more. The idea for having purple coloured characters on purple backgrounds might not work and you need to test this. Perhaps add more colours in the backgrounds?

-The montage scene (time-lapse) in the middle needs to be shown more clearly in the next animatic.


 Also, over the holidays I was able to visit my composer. I showed him the rough animatic (as I had not completed the clean animatic by then) and we discussed the sort of music I would like and what mood I wanted to get across. He said that he couldn't really come up with a track until the animation was all done and the film was timed out. So this has given me a deadline to work to in that I must finish and compile the animation by mid-late April to be able to give enough time for my composer to compose and record the final track. It won't matter at this point if it's not all coloured, he just wants the timing to be finalised so he can work with the emotional beats more effectively. So my time management is of the utmost importance to be able to achieve this.

Here is the final Clean Animatic:

Babbit Animatic [Clean]

I didn't change much else in the final animatic, though there may be a few things that need altering throughout the process, but I will wait until the next feedback session before I decide on anything, as I now need to focus on the rest of the work needed for the 'Part 2' hand-in (due the 16th January), which in itself requires:

- 30 seconds of Animation/Feasibility tests.
- 1000 word Working Life-Industry Report
- 500 word Self-Reflexive Report
- Professional Practise work - Business Card designs, full and up-to-date CV, website links to portfolio, etc
- Final Clean Animatic

Here are the pages of drawings done for the clean animatic:

I tried to embellish some actions where I could. I wanted to show more actions in places, but it just wasn't possible in the time period we have been given to complete this. Therefore, some scenes are not as clear as they should or could be. Also, the last few frames were done on a separate document and were not saved in PNG form, these will be uploaded as soon as possible.

---jkl

More Preparatory Work...

Another Background Visualisation

For my production bible, I decided to draw another background visualisation such as the one in a previous post showing Mollie in a classroom. In this one, I would purely focus on the background and instead of drawing everything in Photoshop, I would draw it in pencil first and then apply colour in Photoshop after scanning.

I set about drawing the background. I decided to work on watercolour paper as a precaution if I wasn't able to achieve the desired effect using Photoshop.

I scanned the piece in and made sure the image was lighter by adjusting the "Levels" control on Photoshop. Unfortunately, the left-hand side of the illustration did not scan well, and left a shadow impression. I tried to fix it using the clone brush tool as well as the eraser, though it did not help greatly. I know that for my final backgrounds I will have to adopt a better way of scanning, or to use a larger university scanner to make sure the image comes out at a higher quality.

However, I pursued with the test, and spent about 30 minutes colouring the frame in shades of purple. It did not quite achieve the level of "shadowing" I was hoping, (for this scene in the film will be mostly in shadow with only the light from the door on the floor really prevalent in the shot) but for now, I liked the dry brush setting and the impression of shadows particularly on the bags. I much prefer the pencil quality to that of the entirely Photoshopped visualisation shown in previous posts.

I will therefore be using this method to create all my backgrounds for my final film.


Extra Characters

My film requires a number of background characters, being set in a primary school. Classmates will be shown in the background in a few of the first scenes to show Mollie's isolation. The idea to draw the characters as my own friends came to me a few weeks ago, as posted before. So here are a few more pictures of more background characters who are influenced off more friends in real life!

 (The last one is me!)



As well as this, I quickly designed some ideas for the teacher and final child designs for the girl with the skipping rope who makes friends with Mollie, as well as the small girl who is seen in the end scene, alone and upset. For the latter, I will be going with the top right design, as the small bunches give her a younger and more innocent look which I hope will let the audience empathise with her.

Final Designs

Here are the final designs for Mollie and Babbit.

...and some quick new drawings of Babbit's new style...(mainly to get used to drawing his limbs in a simpler style):

...and some new sketches of Mollie too...

Birds Eye View of Mollie's Classroom

 I thought it was necessary to draw Mollie's classroom in this view to make sure staging for some scenes set in and outside of the classroom are accurate and won't suffer any continuity errors.



---jkl

Second Animatic w/ Feedback - and Third Animatic!

The Second Animatic
After Matthew's feedback on my first animatic, I went back and changed a lot of my story to try and fit in the relationship build-up of Mollie and Babbit, which Matthew had said, "was not present" in the film. I understood completely where he was coming from, as in this first animatic, the amount of screen time with Mollie and Babbit together is very small, which, for a film about a friendship, seemed a massive flaw.

Babbit - Second Animatic [Rough] Vimeo Link

So I decided to change certain aspects. To begin with, I cut out the first shot of Mollie and Babbit together, as Matthew said he liked the meeting scene with Mollie and Babbit in the coatroom, and thought that would work well as the first introduction to Babbit for the audience as well. So I began instead with the shots of Mollie looking sad and isolated in school amongst her classmates.
 The biggest change I made, however, was to have another character who appeared in the first animatic, have a bigger part. The little girl with the skipping rope who wants to play with Mollie in the first animatic is seen earlier on in this second animatic when Mollie is playing with Babbit.
 The reason behind having the girl introduced earlier is to show the audience that when Mollie is seen wanting to go play with someone else who is not Babbit, then Babbit grows smaller. It happens earlier, just before we are introduced to the girl too, when Mollie and Babbit are in a scene in the playground. Mollie is drawing on the ground (with chalk) with Babbit - and the other children are doing the same but across the playground from where they are. When Mollie looks up and sees the other children, we see her looking like she wants to go and play with them. With a few angle changes, we then see Babbit suddenly a bit smaller, as Babbit is beginning to realise that Mollie is starting to grow up and become more independent and doesn't need him. Babbit growing smaller every time when Mollie is seen wanting to grow up was an idea that Matthew really wanted to see in my film, and this was how I went about producing that.

 After the first "encounter" with the girl, it is more obvious that Babbit is smaller, and this is when the teacher comes in and takes Babbit away, as this was a scene I wanted to keep in. Thereafter, the film is pretty similar to the first, with a few extra scenes adjusted; i.e.: the time lapse scene in the middle, and the ending in a silhouette form.

Here are some rough thumbnails I worked on whilst developing these new scenarios. 

Feedback from James
 James did not like the second animatic as he felt that I had now made the film "too literal" in the sense that everything was explained too much and there was nothing left for the audience to uncover for themselves. He said that it lacked the subtlety of the first animatic, and that it would be best to go back and refine the first again, with a few ideas from this animatic, but mainly to keep the subtleties and explain the friendship between Mollie and Babbit in a few still illustration scenes with hardly any movement, instead of these drawn out and literal scenes shown in this second animatic.

I totally understood James' comments, as I didn't have a 'gut feeling' about this animatic, even as I was making it. I made it, trying to live up to Matthew's feedback, but obviously, I didn't want to completely lose the subtleties of the first, though unfortunately, I had. James' critique helped me re-look at my first animatic and spot points that could be improved on and altered. This critique session helped me really envision my film much more clearly, and I believe the changes I made to the animatic in the third version are definitely better executed and still retain the friendship of the characters and the heart of the story.


The Third Animatic
  So the main problem Matthew had to start with was the lack of screen time of Mollie and Babbit together. In the discussion with James, we both came up with the idea that the relationship moments with Babbit could appear between the first shots of Mollie on her own in the classroom. I would show Mollie alone at a table, sad and upset, and then the next shot, Mollie could be sat in the library cuddled up to Babbit reading a book. And as I had three scenarios of Mollie alone, I could easily intersperse three more scenarios of Mollie and Babbit together to show their relationship clearly in a montage.
  So I quickly went back with this feedback and drew up some new frames to put into the first animatic again. Thankfully, this did not take too long.
 I also chose a different piece of music to the one I used in the second version. The new animatic did not fit well with this previous piece, so I went back to a piece I had chosen a few weeks back which I had noted down as a possibility. Erik Satie's "Gymnopedie #1". I love the first phrase of the piece, the simple repeating chords really worked well with the first scenes, and thankfully, pretty much the entire piece of music fitted well, with some minor alterations at the end. I love how soft and emotional the track is, and I feel that it really helps the audience watching connect more with Mollie as a character to empathise with. I will be showing this piece to my composer to discuss ideas inspired by this music choice.

Here are some pages of drawings, thumbnails for shot development and new final shots for the third animatic:

Third Storyboard
Here is the storyboard for the third animatic:

 

I definitely feel this animatic has more weight and works better story-wise than the first and second. I will be showing this to my peer group on the 12th December after the Hand-In and hope to get some feedback on it. After this feedback, my next task will be to re-draw the entire animatic, adding more effects (with the aid of After Effects) to make a clearer and more detailed FINAL animatic for the second part of our Hand-In on the 16th January.

Here is the third animatic that I will be submitting as my final Rough animatic for my Hand-In deadline on 12th December:

Babbit - Third Animatic [Rough] Vimeo Link


Next Post: More Pre-Production Work.


---jkl