Animation Production - Week 2 - Final Film Progress

This week I was not in the lesson as I had been to a meeting for the Other project I am on.

I have been key framing and will continue to until next week, which is when I hope to have all or most of it done by. I will not post any progress for this until I have key framed all or most of it together.

I have been doing the key frame scene by scene and so far it has helped a lot to have it all laid out and organised.

So far I feel confident that the Schedule I have made will be kept and I will be able to finish my project.

Animation Production - Week 1 - Introduction

This module is a carry on from last semester as we will be carrying on developing our own work.

As I am making a final film I know will start the process of creating the film and expanding from the animatic. I hope in the next couple of weeks to have a better understanding of what the animation will look like and will have started to key frame. 

This module is split 85 % for the production work and 15% for a evaluative report.

I am pretty happy with where I got to last semester and now it is just for me to get on with finishing the film. 

Over the two weeks (marking period)

For the first week I started to make a production schedule to help organise myself and see how to split everything up.

I split up the animatic into scenes and smaller chunks, as I find it easier to deal with smaller parts. I then colour coded the different things I would need to do. 

green: key framing

orange: in-betweening

purple: clean up

blue: colouring

I then had a couple of weeks for finishing touches and making sure everything is finished.

It looks pretty scary with everything I need to do, but I have tried to make everything manageable as possible.

I was then called onto another project and so had to catch up and did not manage to get as much done as I would of liked. Now that I am caught up though I will be key framing for the first two weeks. 

Animation Research and Practice - Final Submission

SLIDE 1 - 

Synopsis:

A short documentary animation, which uses abstract ideas to show the audience the perspective of how a woman (my mum), describes her feelings and experiences with having depression. The animation will be a visual response to the audio track of my mum. It starts off with a woman walking towards the edge and jumping off into the water. As she floats towards the surface she is pulled down by a tentacle, which shows her, her bad memories. She tries to escape and the audience is left wondering whether she has.

Treatment:

A 90 second documentary animation which looks at one woman's experience of having depression. Using narration the audience will understand how my mum's depression feels to her.

A short documentary animation, which uses abstract ideas to show the audience the perspective of how a woman (my mum), describes her feelings and experiences with having depression. The animation will be a visual response to the audio track of my mum. It starts off with a woman walking towards the edge and jumping off into the water. As she floats towards the surface she is pulled down by a tentacle, which shows her, her bad memories. She tries to escape and the audience is left wondering whether she has.

The story will be told through 2D animation, using abstract ideas to convey how she feels. It will have a dark feel to it and be a sketchy style on top of brown paper. Not every detail will be seen, only what is necessary.

The animation will be created using TVpaint, After Effects may be be used for any effects and Audition will be used for the sound. It will be primarily directed toward adults and older teenagers as it is quiet a hard theme and will be quite dark.


SLIDE 2 -  Initial Idea

A person (male or female) is going through the same routine everyday. They a starting to become very sad and withdrawing from the world around them, including their family, which is shown through the cracks that appear on their body.

Their loved ones begin to notice but at this point it is too late and the person shatters. Their loved ones are their to help pick them up along with professional help and although it cannot be fixed straight away, they are beginning to cope.

Depression storyboard Idea from Summer Davies-Newton on Vimeo.

Over the Summer we had a brief to come up with two or three different ideas and an animation based on depression was one that I had originally thought about doing and was inspired by my parents. After we pitched the ideas, Sam suggested just getting my parents in to record and making a film about them and their experience. So I tried it.

SLIDE 3 -  Recording the Sound Over 

The first time I recorded the sound it did not go too well as it there was noise in the back and a static sound, but I had got a lot of good clips.

So I had to rerecord the sound -
first voice over recorded from Summer Davies-Newton on Vimeo.
second voice over recorded from Summer Davies-Newton on Vimeo.

From the two above I edited them together.
The clip of voice over I am using from Summer Davies-Newton on Vimeo.

After getting feedback I then edited it further and below is the final voice over. I has pauses in between certain clips, so the what is being said can sink in.
Edited final sound from Summer Davies-Newton on Vimeo.

SLIDE 4 - Initial Sketches and Storyboard

After getting the sound I started creating a storyboard.

SLIDE 5 - Colour Script and Initial Concepts

For one of the lesson we were asked to create colour scripts using different media. At the time I wanted the background to a be of an ocean and be blue green colour with the animation on top.

watercolour

 pens

 pastels

I also created some initial concepts using different mediums

SLIDE 6 - New storyboard

moving storyboard with edited sound from Summer Davies-Newton on Vimeo.

SLIDE 7 - Life Drawing

I decided to sit in on the first year life drawing lesson when they had the model so I could work on my drawing

24th October - I am not very confident when it come to drawing and I think it shows in the first couple of drawing but my the end of the lesson I was a lot happier and could see a little progression

7th November -  For this lesson I again just worked on trying to get the proportions correct and I feel I am improving slowly

As well as going to Ross's life drawing classes I went to a few that the fine art had open to everyone. There was three different sessions with 3 different models. Although the models were sat for longer periods of time, it was still really useful to go and I learnt a lot and feel I have improved a lot since going.

First session - 

Session 2 -

Session 3 -

I still have way more to improve on and will continue to draw to improve.

SLIDE 8 - Changing Style

On one of the weeks I was drawing on some brown paper, some concepts and found that I liked the way it looked and the style I accidentally came across.

I liked the simple design and that I wouldn't have to show all the detail of everything, it would be what the audience needed to see, nothing extra.

SLIDE 9 - Animatic After Style Change

Animatic with just storyboard frames from Summer Davies-Newton on Vimeo.

SLIDE 10 - Initial Character Design

In the beginning the character had long hair to float in the water but as I went forward with my project I realised I wanted my character to be plain and to not have any features apart from her eyes. I wanted the audience to be able to connect with the character and believe she could be anybody.

I liked the look of the one with no hair and just round eyes, no detail. 

SLIDE 11 - Final Character Design

I like the fact that she is just an outline.

 I wanted the black and the white to show the light and the dark and the 'normal' and when the depression really takes over.

 I thought a lot about the eyes and not wanting her to look like Spiderman. I think the eyes need the pupils, but I think I need to play around with them more.

SLIDE 12 - Research

I researched a lot about style as I have discussed in other blog posts.

I wanted to create something that was sketchy and could be dark at times, but not too smudgy.

SLIDE 13 - More Research

I also researched a lot about water and what people looked like in water and the splashed and bubbles there are.
I also looked at art and how they drew water.

SLIDE 14 - Reference Footage


reference videos from Summer Davies-Newton on Vimeo.
reference videos for private from Summer Davies-Newton on Vimeo.

SLIDE 15 - Sea Life Centre

I went to the sea like centre and took pictures and videos to help me with the water and the tentacle I have in the animation. I found it very helpful and will go through and start to draw and find key ones for my animation.

There are more videos and pictures to come but my parents have the rest of them at the moment.


compilation of sea life centre - what i took from Summer Davies-Newton on Vimeo.

SLIDE 16 - Talking with my Mum

Throughout this semester I have spoken to my mum about the animation, making sure she liked it, the character was okay, that she felt that the visual went with what she is saying and how she feels.

It has been extremely helpful to have her helping me and since she is a very visual person it has been easy to bounce ideas to each other.

SLIDE 17 - Sound 

I found the sound on http://www.bensound.com/ I had couple I liked but when they were added to the animatic they didn't fit. I had narrowed it down to two that I really liked and when I showed them in class we decided on the first one because the other one was too uplifting. I completely agree with what was said and feel the one that is on the animatic now is better suited for my animation.


SLIDE 20 - Final Animatic

I am very pleased with the animatic so far and I know it will continue to change as the year goes one.


30 - Animatic so far from Summer Davies-Newton on Vimeo.

SLIDE 21 - What I Still Need to Continue to do

There is a lot more I can do to the animatic and now that I have been to the sea life centre there are animation tests that I want to try out. 

I really need to draw some concept art, Although I know what I want it to look like, I don't know if it comes across really well and I feel that if I have a few pieces then I will be more happy with how it is going and what I am doing as I can see it. 

I still need to continue to research as much as possible so that I am completely happy I know how I want the water to be and the tentacle. Also with the blinking and I need to research and test what they will look like. Which I will be doing in the next couple of weeks.

There is more detailed information about all of my process on the previous blog posts.

Overall I am very happy with how the project is going, I feel I have developed it a lot all the way through and now I can see it slowly starting to come together. I hope it will be a great film.