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.