EP: Press Pack

For our final study task, we have to put together a press pack of our film, which includes, a poster, four stills, a synopsis and a bio of the people involved within the project. 

Synopsis

Poster

Overall, I am pleased with the press pack that I have, however I will update the stills and the poster once I have more completed shots of the film. 

EP: Altering the Animatic

After the final crit the other week, I began to think about how I could possibly cut down my animation to include only the bits I need whilst keeping a clear story. As I was watching my animatic through, I found that there were a few shots that I could get rid of as they looked good, but weren't necessary for the story to make sense.

However, some of the shots were establishing shots, but were slightly ambitious and would require a lot of time to animate, so for these shots I made a note to change the angle of the camera rather than cutting it completely.

Although the changes I have made are very small, I feel that they will help when it comes to animating the remainder of my film. I also feel that I will have more opportunity to re-visit the animatic with guidance once the deadline is up to cut the story even further before end of year show. 

EP: Updated Animatic - 11/05

This morning, Daniel emailed me to say that he had completed a very rough film score for my animation. Whilst he was cutting very fine, as I only had a few hours before handin, I was relieved to have something from him, as it meant that I could place it into my final submission to give the tutors an idea of where the score was heading and how it would sound. 

Overall, I am pleased with the choices he has made for the score, however, I feel that some elements may need to be altered for timings and such, as I had to do a little editing. However, all in all it gives a clear idea of the music and I feel that it matches the tone and atmosphere of the story. 

Although I'm not where I wanted to be at this stage in the project, I am happy with my progress and I am feeling confident that I will be able to get this finished for end of year show. 

EP: Trailer

As part of the press pack, we had to make a trailer of our films. As I don't have enough coloured frames I have decided to keep my trailer just line work for the moment, as it will allow for a level of consistency, which will keep the visual clear and help an audience it understand what is happening. 

Based on the research I did of other trailers I had seen at MAF and online, I decided to keep my trailer short, yet include clips that best described my story without giving the actual story away. Whilst this meant that my trailer is only a few small clips put together and is actually quite short, I feel that the overall outcome works really well and I very happy with what I have. 

I found this task to be both easy yet frustrating. As I hadn't received anymore music from Daniel at this point, I was left to work with the rough he had provided me with in March. However, I feel that I have managed to cut and edit the short soundtrack to fit the needs of my trailer and I think that it works very nicely with the visuals and gives a good sense of the tone and atmosphere of the film. 

EP: Promotion Research

As one of the tasks for this module is to have a promotion pack to go with my film I decided that it would be wise to do a little bit of research into how other people, both professionals and students have promoted their films. Having been to MAF last year, I decided that my research would focus around that, as I still had the programme and the animations were a huge point of inspiration for me.

I found that there was quite a difference in terms of feature film promotion and short film promotion. I found that with the Phantom Boy and The Red Turtle, there was a lot more content that they had to offer and that this content was consistent throughout all of their social media and promotional sites. However, for the short films I found it very difficult to find any poster material or screen shots at all.

Website for The Red Turtle

Poster

Red Turtle Poster

I also found that the synopsis for the films have been kept very short and precise as to not give away too much of the story but to draw you in, however, the synopsis for the Phantom Boy is considerably larger.

In terms of trailers, I found that the feature film trailers were a lot longer in size due to there being more content to choose from, however, the trailers for the short films varied in length based on the overall length of the film itself. The synopsis for the shorts films was also considerably smaller, usually only a few lines long. Despite this however, the trailers still manage to draw you in and give you a little peak at what the film is about despite being short. This has made me think about how I present my film n a trailer and to think carefully about what shots I show and how.

EP: Adding Colour

Now that I have almost a minute of animation complete, I decided that I needed a break from animating, as I was struggling to stay focused and moved onto to colouring, as I wanted to have a scene at least fully rendered for submission. It was also useful, as it gave me an idea of how the colours worked and an insight into how the overall film would look when complete.

I decided to colour the scene when she is in the cave, simply because there was less to colour and I was running out of time due to poor time management.

Coloured frame

I started with this clip, as I wanted to know how long it would take for me to colour a few seconds, and like a suspected it didn't take all that long. However, when I moved onto the second half of this scene, the process became a lot slower as I had a lot of different elements to colour, which resulted in me only getting half of the second clip completed.

Coloured frame

However, despite it only being a small amount coloured, I feel that the colours work quite well and I am pleased with how the character looks overall. 

In order to get the colouring complete by end of year show, I will try to get more people involved, as the colouring takes quite a while and I will be working to a tight deadline. 

EP: Stitching things together

Now that we have a week left before submission, James and are I decided to sit down together and put together the animation and the backgrounds to see how the two would work together and to figure out lighting and what needs to be done for post production.

As James did the backgrounds, he has taken the lead and has been compositing everything together. Although we have only a handful of complete scenes and fewer backgrounds it gives us a clear idea of what the remainder of the animation will look like and we are happy with the result.

In terms of lighting, we've yet to figure that out, as we have decided to leave the lighting until post production, but for now I am happy with what we have achieved and I feel as though we have made some good progress.

Background Test

EP: Collaborating with Katy

Although I have designed the main character myself, I found that I have been struggling with animating her because I have't been able to create my own turnarounds. Whilst I have the basic front, back and side views, I'm really struggling to get the inbetweens down. I'm not a character designer, so I have always struggled with areas like this despite the fact that I can draw. But I needed to find a solution regardless, as it was hindering my progress with the animation. 

So I reached out to Katy, as I know that she focuses on character design and enjoys the process. I also figured that it would give me the time to work on something else whilst she created some turnarounds for me. 

Katy's turnaround

As I was only struggling with the facial features and proportions, I asked Katy to focus on the head alone in order to keep her workload down as well. 

I also decided to use this collaboration as an opportunity to get the other characters designed as well, as I knew that I would struggle there as well. Katy was more than happy to help and used it as a chance to boost her portfolio. 

Katy's Plague Doctor turnarounds

I'm really pleased with what Katy has produced for me and I found them to be extremely useful for animating.

EP: Titles

Earlier in the project I began to think about the titles for my film, as the branding of the film would play a large part in advertising and gaining interest. However, I have always struggled when it comes to title cards, as I never know which text to go fro, or whether I want to create my own hand-drawn text that I can animate.

So for a short while I was stumped. I did however finally settle on creating hand-drawn text, as this would allow me to have an animated title within my film, which I believed would fit in better than a static one, as the entire animation is hand drawn and has the same line quality.

With that in mind, I began to write the title of the film, which I had decided wold be Emily's Plague after a long discussion with Sylvia and other peers. I decided to set it up so that the title would sit above the character test I had done to make sure that the overall style of it would relate to the overall film.

Title tests

However, I wasn't feeling all that optimistic and just felt as though I was not quite hitting the mark, so I decided that I would continue to work on the animation and come back to the titles at a later date. 

Returning to the titles after focusing on the animating really helped me to choose a font that I was happy with. I wanted to keep the lines simple and clear to match the quality of the line work within my film and to also make it easy to use it across my entire branding. In the end I chose a simple title that I feel fits in with the aesthetic of the film. 

Final title design

I am happy with the titles at this point, however, if I feel the need to re-visit these at any stage, I think I will reach out to a graphic designer to help, as they will be more experienced and could design something unique for the film.

EP: Backgrounds with James

For the last few days, James and I have been working together to render the backgrounds for my animation. We decided that it would be wise to focus on the backgrounds that would be used in the bits I had animated to begin with, as it would make those clips a lot stronger.

As James was modelling them, I was creating simple colour sheets for him to shade them with. Although we tested them all, in the end we decided to go for the brown palette for the cave and the blue palette for the trees, as we felt that these worked best. Having said this however, I feel that the trees should have another colour for the start of the animation, to reflect the mood and tone of the story at that point, but I will have to re-visit this at a later date once I have completed what is necessary for submission.

From here James placed a toon-shader onto the assets and we discussed where the camera should be and how I wanted the lighting to look in the scene. I had also made a start on the sky paintings and created the sky plane for the scene in which the plague doctors are introduced, so we have an idea of what these will look like when placed into the final background.

Overall, we are happy with the backgrounds and they are ready to be slotted into the compositions of the animated shots.

(insert background shots)

EP: Reavluating Work

After the crit last week I have decided that it would be wise to re-evaluate my work and set out a clear plan for the next week to ensure that I stay on track and only work on the areas that are essential for hand in.

For the backgrounds, James has got to work on placing all of the modeled elements he created earlier in the project into substantial worlds for me to work with and use for my backgrounds. In order to get these complete, I will need to create colour sheets for him to use and also crate sky planes, as Maya doesn't allow for us to use the AI sky with the toon-shader, therefore, we will bypass this problem by using sky planes I have drawn myself.

In terms of sound design, I have been in contact with Daniel and asked where he was in terms of progress from March, which was the last time I had received any work from him. However, he has neglected to work on this project for unknown reasons and has stated that he won't be able to get a final score completed until after my deadline. Although this is disappointing, as I would have liked to have a final score for hand in, as it will have a significant impact on my story because of how the music ties in with the main characters moods and emotions, it is out of my control and it will do me no good to fixate on this and worry. So I have asked that he work on it as soon as possible and get what he can to me by the 11th. Voice overs however, I can control and I have been adding in the relevant sound effects and voice overs as I have completed each scene, so my film won't be completely silent, however the majority of it will be sadly.

Animating is the most important element at this point, as I need to get as much done as I can before submission. However, because it will benefit my work more to have a section that is completely rendered, I feel that I may not be able to reach the 60 second mark if I want to have a 7-10 second clip of fully rendered animation. Having said this, I will try my best to get as close to 60 seconds as I possibly can and I will do this with the scenes suggested to me in the final crit.

I also need to put time aside to put together a press pack and focus on getting scenes complete in order to put together a short trailer and create a poster.

EP: Final Crit

Last week marked the day of the final crit for extended practice. At this point in the project I wasn't anywhere near where I wanted to be animation wise, nor had I received any backgrounds from James at this point either, which I feel made me feel as though I hadn't have been as productive as I actually had.

Focusing on the elements I could control, I put together the animated sections I had done and added in a few placeholder foley sounds, to give everyone an idea of what sounds I wanted to use within my animatic. However, I didn't have a soundtrack, as Daniel hasn't produced anything for me at this point in time. Nonetheless, I put together what I had and explained to the class that I had a lot to do, but wanted to know which areas I should focus on for submission.

As my peers have seen my animatic a thousand times over there wasn't any feedback in terms of what I had, as it was apparent I had a lot to work on. However, they did help me pick out areas I should focus on rather than continuing to work in a linear fashion. As I have more than one character within my story, I was advised to animate the Plague Doctors and the Raven if I could manage it, as this will give me more diversity within my submission and showcase my skills as an animator in the most effective way possible. Not only this, but it will give an insight into the personality of the characters throughout the entire story. As a plus, this will also give me a variety of shots to choose from for my trailer. 

Overall, I'm feeling slightly overwhelmed with my work flow and the progress I've managed to make or lack of, however, Annabeth reminded me that as someone with an interest in purely animating, I have done my job and that I should take the time to reflect on how and why I have been struggling so much and what I could do increase productivity in the next few weeks to ensure I get my film finished for end of year show. 

EP: April Progress

During the Easter break I used the time as an opportunity to progress with the animating and get as much done as I could. With me being behind, I wanted to try and complete another 10 seconds, as I felt that this was achievable because animating was proving to be going a lot slower than anticipated.

At this point in the project, I felt that it would be wise to focus on the shots that I felt would showcase my skills as an animator and give me shots that I could use in my showreel, so I decided to focus on a shot that used perspective and would challenge my abilities as an animator.

However, although I knew this shot would be difficult, I found it to be a lot harder to create than expected. I really struggled with the perspective of this shot more than anything and I also struggled to get the proportions of the characters face right. This put me behind my personal schedule and I only managed to achieve 7 seconds rather than 10. However, this did make me realise that it may be a good idea to get some turn arounds of my character done so that I could use the sheets for reference in future. So I asked Katy and she kindly created a quick turn around my characters head, which made it slightly easier.

Katy's character turnaround

Although I've struggled with this scene I am still quite pleased with the outcome and I think that I have gained some strong line work to use in my showreel. Animating this scene has also given me an insight into how quickly I am working. Although I know I am capable of animating, I am working a lot slower than I usually would, so it may be beneficial for me to re-think my strategy and create a plan for submission to give me the best chance of getting as much completed as possible.