Presentations/Overall Reflection

The presentations commenced today. I really enjoyed seeing other peoples. I thought everyone did an excellent job. It was interesting to see how most groups animation styles were quite different, however our was also unique, being of mixed media, and I cannot compare it to anyone else's.

After having a break from looking and thinking about the animation constantly, I did find faults in the animation. If I was to change anything, I would have less annotations and less music changes (however I did think most of music portrayed the scenes well.) I would also have small changes to the animation, for example perfecting the walk cycle or speeding/slowing down certain parts. However, with the time restrains I am very pleased with the outcome.

This course would have to be one of the most enjoyable I have experienced so far. I was surprised to have my idea picked to be animated, and now seeing the final production cannot believe how far I've come. Flash was very fun to work with and I have learnt and remembered a lot. I will use a many aspects from this course to help me in my future studies. Poster design will definitely come in handy, and you never know when other aspects may. Still definitely considering doing digital media next semester, it interests me greatly and brings out the creativity. I have enjoyed this course and am looking forward to using my acquired skills.

Finished!!

We handed up the final product today. After a considerable amount of effort and time laid in to this project, I am overall pleased with it. We found some parts especially hard that we weren't expecting. For example, covering up the boxes in the video proved hard, even though a tripod was used.

For me the letter throwing scene was the most enjoyable to animate, as it was fun having a play around with the way letters fly and the way they flip as they fly. Some scenes I am more happy with then others, however I can say that for the time frame we had I tried my hardest, as I'm sure did Nella.

Scenes

Promotional Package for Final

Week 12

Almost there....

The promotional posters we kept as Nella's from the previous assignment, as we thought it fit the theme well. For the DVD cover, we kept Nella's layout, however used the characters that I made for my previous poster. I also added the barcode, small text and logos to the DVD cover.

Nella has been working on linking the Flash Folio. After talking to Josh, we changed the text and made some of the elements smaller. We kept sending it between each other to each make adjustments and we eventually got it how we wanted. We kept the design language similar to the promotional package and DVD cover.

We have almost finished the animation. I have done the scenes so far (as Nella has been working on the folio) however they need a bit of fixing up, especially the close ups and walk cycle and she will be doing that today. Also Nella is currently working on the last few scenes.

The songs we picked for the final product will depict the characters mood of the scene. eg for the fighting scene we will have dramatic music. The music should complement the romantic comedy theme.

Main Menu

Week 11

In this weeks tutorials we continued learning about the Flash Folio. We have basically completed our folio and so far no dilemmas. *fingers crossed*

We still haven't managed to get the videos off the camera. Gerald had offered to give it to us, as he had to buy a chord for that camera. We will be getting it off him shortly, as this week has been stressful with other assignments and we keep missing eachother in the CAD suite. Meanwhile we have been working on some of animation in Flash. Basically perfected the walk for both of the characters and other small scenes. Hopefully we can get the video soon so we can make sure we're doing everything right. Next week we have to find out how to cover the signs up so we can cover with or own. We will film the last scene tomorrow on my camera- hopefully it will be a similar size.

Seeing as this is the last major assignment for my subjects, I will definitely be concentrating on this assignment from now on. Time seems to fly by when you need it so we will be devoting a lot f it every day on working on the animation.

Week 10

In the tutorials we were taught about Web Page design for our Flash Folio. I already knew some of this but it was good to get touch ups and write it down, because I've forgotten a fair bit of it. Me and Nella want to start working on it now, so we can have everything done soon and just concentrate on the animation more.

We have filmed the most part of our animation in the David Jones foodcourt toilets. However, we still have the last scene to shoot, as security kicked us out. I will have to call management and get their permission to film the last scene. I also had trouble getting it on the computer, as there was no cord. For the time being we put it on a VCR and Nella has a converter which will make it into a CD and we can put it on the computer from there. Josh is also trying to find a different was to put it on the computer so hopefully that works.

We have also almost finished making the characters on Flash, just need touchups. So we will get started on the animation immediately.

Promo Package

These were two of my promo posters and my DVD cover.

I am generally pleased with the outcome. The production stills could have been improved. I am most happy with the DVD cover. At first I wanted to use a plaque for the title with the writing looking engraved. However, I decided to opt for a floral text. Instead of using a floral font I added a few brushes. Looking at it now, I realise the font and brushes could blend better. I like the use of nagative space and the shadow.

Week 9

Promotional Package

I have made some posters to show the teachers today. They have suggested that I change some things around, which I completely agree with after printing it off. I had black swirls on the poster which detracted the attention from the focal points and looked like ‘too much.’ I am now worried because I’m not sure how to change the poster to make it looks good. Josh suggested incorporating the swirls into the title, which is a good alternative to the previous ‘metal plate’ title. I will keep working on this and altering the poster to represent a romantic comedy about two toilet signs to hang up tomorrow.

Week 8

More Progress...

This week I was ill so didn;t come to the tutorials. I asked some friends in the class what happened, and was informed that basically the tutors just walked around and helped people with their work in progress. This would have been helpful to help with both the animation and promotional package.

However, I have been working on it. I decided to make the background pink and white with a circle gradient. It would have been good to leave it white, and maybe have the writing rd and characters black, but I thought I would do something a little more original. I have also incorporated a rose and some flowers, making it in the typical romantic style. We have developed the characters for the promotional package and for the animation. The characters in the animation will be similar, but less simple so easier to animate. We made the man wearing a suit, and the woman wearing a skirt. This definitely looks better than before, however I am just worried that people may not understand that they are toilet signs. But if we work on it a bit more, it should be OK.

Week 7

Progress

This week we have been working on our animation further. Me and Nella are figuring out exactly how to film the scenes so we can do it soon. We are deciding which ones need to be close ups, when to pan, etc. We have also decided to concentrate a lot on how the characters should look so they can appear to have a personality. I have made some eyes on Photoshop, however they are basically circles, so we will work on them a bit more to give the characters some depth. The characters themsilves we decided to make look more representative of what they're meant to be. The woman we want to have a more curvy body and maybe wearing a pencil skirt and the man wearing a suit, to show more male and female characteristics and to represent a work situation.

In class we were shown successful and unsucessful posters in preperation for our promotional package. This was helpful as it gave us an insight of what we can do. I have decided that as our animation is a romantic comedy, to make the poster quite simple. I like the monochromatic style of posters so am considering doing that.

Week 6

Work in Progress Submissions

Yesterday we submitted the Work in Progress assignments and did our speeches. Generally I am pleased with the outcome considering the time period we had. The layout and web page are looking good, and the the animatic is as good as can get. There was not much more we could do with the animatic considering the short timespan. As Josh advised, I put it in Premiere and cut out the scenes that didn;t look very good and put 'incomplete scene' and the time it went for.

We got the feedback today and it was mentioned that the characters need to be more developed and we need to concentrate on the scenes and angles. We will get to working on this today, as it already needs to be developed for the next assignment- Promotional Package. This assignment is to be done individually. I am very keen to get a start on it or at least have a concept by next week so I can get the tutors opinions and advice.

Non Teaching Period

In the non-teaching period Nella and I have been working on the assignment 'Work in Progress.' The animatic is the main component of it, so I have been concentrating mainly on that. It took me a few days to animate the logo, as I don't know Flash very well and am doing everything the hard way. At the moment Nella is concentrating more on making a background for the Flash web-page and the DVD cover.

We filmed the David Jones food court toilet doors when the food court was almost closing, so that random people didn't think we were creeps. The animatic was very difficult to do, as we cleverly forgot to use a tripod for the camera and didn't realise the implications it brought. Animating the characters wasn't as hard once I got the hang of it. However, seeing as the video was jittery it was hard to keep the characters in the same spot as they kept popping out of the box. I then made a box behind them, but this was also difficult to make look good. Seeing as when the camera zoomed in the characters had to get bigger and when the camera moved so did the characters and the box, the animation was hard to make look professional. I will keep working on the characters and environment looking integrated. Also having some trouble tweening but kind of found a way around it.

Week 5

This week we were showed how to use bones in Flash and Adobe Premier. Bones was fairly basic and should hopefully help us out with our animation. I already had a bit of experience with Premiere, but I think it was the older version.

The animation is progressing. We have made the characters in Flash out of different shapes, then we changed them to symbols and put all the shapes on different layers.

The video recording should commence shortly.

Week 4

Project Plan

This week we were working on the Project Plan. After speaking to the tutors and getting feedback from the previous assignment, Nella and I decided to alter a fair bit i.e. the content and layout. This assignment was also quite interesting and gives a great perspective on the 'real world', as this is what animation companies need to consider.

The timeline of events was a very useful portion of the assignment. This will help us get organised and see clearly when everything should be done by. I found that it was hard to find suitable festivals for the marketing strategies section. All of them were either international or film festivals not really relating to our animation. We made our company logo eNVy Productions- because it is the initials of both of our first names, and can double as a word. For the logo we made it look like handwriting on a wet window. When we animate it, we may show ‘eNVy’ being written and then 'productions' can be made with typewriter text and noise, with the letters appearing one by one.

Nella and I still need to finalise our story. The middle needs the most changes to it. After speaking with the tutors today, we were told how our final could be achieved. Next week Lisa will be showing us how to make mixed media. The first thing we should do (and soon) is film a toilet door. We will go looking for an appealing one, which is not to complicated to animate.

I am excited to start this animation, however I know first there is more planning to do.

Week 3

Concept Pitches

This week we presented our concept pitches. I really enjoyed working on this assignment. Going away for our core subject partially got in the way of doing this assignment, however our group finished by the third day in. Seeing as there's not much to do in Whyalla this allowed me a whole day and a bit to work on this assignment.

On Tuesday I showed my pitch to the tutors and I was told to alter it slightly. Tuesday night I fixed up the storyboard and worked on the presentation. Considering we only strictly had a minute to present our pitches I had to keep cutting parts out of my speech. Eventually I managed to condense it to a minute (20 seconds for 3 slides). I described the important parts of the story, while also trying to make it seem appealing. The slides showed the characters and their personalities.

After everyone presented I found out that my pitch got picked to be animated- must've done something right! Nella decided to be in my group so we will get to working on it son.

I think my animation will be very interesting to work on. Seeing as it will be mixed media I still have a lot to learn.

Personal Animation

I have done a lot of research by looking at other animations on YouTube. I liked animator vs animation, and want my animation to be along those lines. However, after seeing how hard it is to animate a sick figure, i may have to reconsider. I found many good precedents for my design.

I have a few ideas. I like the idea of mixed media, with a cartoon character going into the real world, so most of my ideas revolve around that. After discussing a few of my ideas with Josh, I decided to go with the toilet story. About the signs on the toilet doors (make/female) and make it into a love story.

Still lots of work to do but at least I have the underlying story.

Week 2

The Walking Cycle

In the tutorial we learnt about the walking cycle. We drew a stick figure which proved much more difficult than expected. I didn't get a Wakon tablet so had to draw with the mouse. It was interesting learning about the different stages and positions of the walking cycle. I never thought about it, but it makes sense that the body and head don't stay on the same level.

In the other tutorial we worked with the Kaiser cutout. This was a lot simpler that the stick figure. It was fun to play around and perfect his walk. I was happy with the outcome of the kaiser task, which looked a lot better than my stick figure.

Week 1

Intro to Animating

In the first week we were shown lots of animations, which looked really good and professional. I was comforted by the fact that these are professionals doing it, however in the lecture we were informed that there is no reason our animations can't be as good as some of them. This got me a bit worried, but excited at the same time to see the end result. I can tell that this subject will require lots of devoted time and effort, especially in the computer...luckily for me I like spending time on the computer, perfecting everything.

When we started using Flash, I was slightly worried that I wouldn't remember anything because I haven't used it in so long. Regardless, I managed to remember a lot about it and learn a lot of new features and shortcuts. We created a bouncing ball, which I found fairly easy. I really thought it was interesting how we made it look realistic by changing the settings and making the ball squashed.

Generally I have been finding this subject very interesting and am looking forward to learning more.