Process and Production: 13th - 16th March 2017

As I was running out of time to finish my animation, this was an incredibly intense week. I had all the shots of the woman yet to do. I first went through with the audio for each remaining shot and set up the documents with timing labels and sketches of the keyposes. I did this so that if I were to run out of time I would still have something to show of the motion. These shots are the most important to keep the story going so I focused on them. I created the linework for these shots but I only worked on making the motion smooth enough to understand, if I then had time I could go back and smooth these out. 

The hardest shot left to do was the shot of the woman coming out of the toilets. This required a lot more time and is something that I wasn't very well prepared for. I originally envisioned this shot as being a full body shot, but due to the time restraints, I instead made it a mid shot to save on leg animation. This was even trickier because of the fact that she was moving angles while walking. I decided to create the multiple angles of her body inside a symbol and then I could animate that from the outside just bobbing up and down. This way, when I was drawing her, I didn't have to worry about how she was walking, just about how the proportions worked through the angles. It is a shame that I didn't have time to animate this shot as I wanted to since I feel that the motion of this walk is quite dull and static because it is using more tweens. In hindsight, I shouldn't have left this shot so late since it was one of the most complex, and it has suffered because of this. 

I was happy with my use of 3D in this shot for the door opening. This was done in Adobe Animate with the 3D rotation tool which is something that I knew was there but had never actually used it. I was originally attempting to open the door using After Effects but was struggling to get the perspective of the door correct with the door frame. This was much easier and more manageable using the 3D tool in Animate.

So while I didn't have the time to smooth out each of these shots with inbetweens, I am glad that I managed to get them all done to a level that still conveys the ideas and motion. The issue is that these contrast with the smooth shots of the man in quite an unappealing way. 

Process and Production: 6th - 12th March 2017

On Monday I completed shot 9 with the jaw slamming on the table. I am really happy with how this one turned out. The shake and bounce of items on the table really help to sell the impact. I did do one to many inbetweens than I thought worked for the drop of the jaw so I actually ended up deleting a frame. This made the jaw slam to the table in just a single frame space. This really makes it much more impact than before. 

We then had the final crit on the Tuesday. As I had not finished my animation, I filled the gaps with the animatic in order to tell the story. Feedback was very positive and people seemed to really enjoy the story. It was said that my animation was very smooth and moved naturally due to my use of reference footage and inbetweens. Other positive feedback came regarding the lip syncing, which people seemed to like. A few things that I was told could be improved was about shot 9. It was suggested that I make the shape of the jaw on the table a bit softer, so that the skin and fat spreads out when pressed against the table. This will make him feel more solid and sell the impact more. I agree with this and think I will do it because it will be quite a simple change to make. 

Another suggestion was on the final shot. Instead of having the man simply fall flat on his back, he should have his legs flung over his head, so he becomes really broken and injured. Since I haven't actually started this shot yet, I can still easily implement this. All this was good useful feedback that I will try to implement into my animation. 

I then went back to animating by doing the sketched keyposes for shot 11, which were quite easy as he will only be glancing a few directions very slightly. I did the linework for these poses before moving on and going back to shot 4. I still needed to finish the keyposes for the second half of this shot where he was fumbling about trying to catch the ring. I was simply struggling with this shot so much and it was taking so much longer than any other shot I had worked on with little progress, that I decided to change my idea slightly. Instead of him reacting and trying to catch the ring, I decided to extend the slow motion part into this shot and have his face frozen in shock as he follows the ring in the air shouting 'NOOO!!'. I thought that this could actually add some more comedy to the scene with this cliched 'NOO!' moment. After recording this extra line I had to edit the second half by drawing an awful lot of precise inbetweens in order to sell the slow motion effect. 

It is unfortunate that I have had to sacrifice the original idea due to this issue but I believe that this version actually works better. I'm very happy with the actual animation within it and it also lets the slow motion section hang for longer, which feels more natural. 

Now that I've finished all of the shots of the man, I am going back through to do all the linework of the womans shots. With only half a week left, I am just focusing on getting the idea of motion across as well as possible and only doing inbetweens if necessary and I have time. Thankfully, most of her shots aren't too complex. The worst is going to be her full body shot of her coming out of the toilets.

Process and Production: 27th February - 5th March 2017

I continued with more and more animating. Shot 7 is another that took longer than I anticipated. The movements in it weren't too complex but I just kept adding inbetweens because I wasn't happy with the timing of each move. 

The lip syncing at the end of this shot was much more challenging than the previous shot. I was tweaking the timings of each letter to try and get it to look right. I found myself saying 'cha.. champagne' over and over to myself to try and deduce what shapes the mouth made. In the end I am actually really happy with how this shot has ended up. I think the movements are well flowing and expressive. I think that I could use more overlapping action with the hair. I think the first shot I did involved a lot but then I have been forgetting to add much in since. I do like the way it works in this shot but I am going to have to keep in mind to exaggerate it more in later shots. 

This week I also did my pixilation animation. See pixilation blog post.

I then started work on the last two main shots of the man. Shot 9 and 11. Since I feel that I am running short on time, I am going to prioritise getting the linework of each shot completed so that I will at least have a basic version of every shot if I do happen to run out of time. I rendered the audio reference for the remaining shots and set them up in Animate documents to start. Shot 9 is quite a simple one. Once his jaw drops to the table there is no more movement throughout that shot. Also, I don't really want to create many inbetweens for this shot since I want his movement to be quite shocking and sudden. I want it to really forcefully slam onto the table. I can then add some reinforcing action by means of cutlery bouncing and the camera shaking.

Shot 11 will be relatively simple as well with him only having very quick frantic head turns until he flies off the back of the chair. I still filmed a reference video to be able to capture the panic on his face but I don't intend many inbetweens and I'm imagining  doing the fall using smears to communicate the speed. 

Process and Production: 20th - 26th February 2017

I continued animating again after finishing shot 2, I moved to shot 4. This is where the man looks shocked and accidentally drops the ring while trying to catch it. 

The first half of this shot was going well. I believe that I used anticipation in a good way with him squashing down before bouncing up in shock. I'm happy with the expression and exaggeration of his face. The part that I struggled with however, was the second half of this shot. I continuously struggled to achieve a look of the arms moving up in an attempt to catch the ring that looked believable. I couldn't get anything to look right. The keys that I did just look unnatural.

I tried using reference footage but I was still finding it really hard to draw. I've decided I will come back to this particular shot since it is just frustrating me and I've spent too long trying to do this one already.

So I moved onto shot 5. This was one that I was quite excited to do and actually turned out better than I was expecting. I knew that I wanted to use some dynamic camera movements in this animation and this is the main one that shows this. I envisioned this being a very interesting slow motion shot. I created the ring spinning inside a symbol so that I could then rotate that outside to create an even more dynamic and natural spin. I used a simple circle stroke to create the ring as I could then squash it to create the angles I needed while keeping the line weight consistent. I only had to create half of this turn and then I copied and reversed these frames and tweaked the diamond to be on the other side as if it was going round the back. 

Then came some frame by frame lip syncing. To make this easier, I mapped out the timings of each phonetic sound on my labels layer corresponding to the audio. It was then as simple as drawing the mouth shapes and inbetweening them as I did for every other part. This turned out much better than I expected and when it plays out, I feel that it works well in sync with the audio.

The next shot I will be starting is shot 7 where my character tries to act casual as his girlfriend arrives at the table, this shot will involve more lip syncing and I think that the method I used here of mapping out the sounds with a label layer works very well and I will do this again in the upcoming shots. 

Process and Production: 13th - 19th February 2017

This week I got onto actually animating. I finished off the 1st shot quite quickly as it wasn't very complex and didn't require much animating with it being an establishing shot. So I then made a start on the second shot. This, again, wasn't a very complex one as the first half is just a still shot with a focus shift. The second half however was done with more frame by frame movement. I want to make sure that this whole animation is consistently made with smooth, flowing animation. 

In this shot, all he is doing is very slightly turning his head and looking up, but I wanted to make it a little more exaggerated than that. I wanted it too have the same feeling of fluidity as the Looney Tunes animation has, so I made the face drag behind slowly before catching up with the rest of the motion. This is only subtle because it is only a small movement and I didn't want to overdo it and lessen the more exaggerated shots later in the animation. The hair and the eyes do give this effect. The hair follows through with the motion of the head just as I intended (as to why I designed him this way). The eyes also have a subtle smear in them to sell the effect of them darting back up. 

I feel incredibly happy with how this shot turned out. I have used more frames than I usually would for such a basic movement but I feel that it really pays off. With the motion created from this movement, I feel that my later shots will hopefully make a much bigger impact just like the Looney Tunes style I am using as influence. 

My plan going forwards is to just animate all of the shots of the man and then go back through and do the shots of the woman. This is because they are all at the same angle and with just the same character so it will be an easier workflow, keep me focused on each character at a time and keep the style more consistent. 

I also recieved a bit more feedback on my first shot. It was suggested that I add some ambient animation to the silhouettes in the restaurant to make the room feel more alive. I could also add a waiter walking past. This is something that I do think will really help this shot a lot, but it depends on time. I think that since I am being very ambitious with the animation of the main two characters, I need to make sure I get them finished first before adding any extra bits and pieces. If I do have time I will make sure to go back and add stuff like this.

Process and Production: 6th - 12th February 2017

Unfortunately due to train delays, I missed the crit session itself, however I did show people my animatic later on and got some good feedback.

I received quite a few positive comments about how the establishing shot and the ambient sounds set the scene quite well and the expressions being funny. 

The main thing I was told could be improved was making the moment when he hints to the champagne a bit clearer. This can be easily fixed by just swapping the audio for a take where 'champagne' is a bit clearer while still carrying the nervous voice. This also comes to my audio mixing which I haven't done properly yet. So from this feedback I can work on making the moment a bit clearer to understand.

After this I got to work in creating the background for the opening and final shots. I knew that I wanted to do a bit more of a detailed background this time, but I also liked the idea of making it somewhat sketchy and textured.

I looked at backgrounds from many classic animations, focusing mainly on the painted style ones. I really love the contrast of background to characters, especially when black outlines are not used on the backgrounds. This creates a great difference between what we should be focusing on. 

I built the background in a way that would let me easily create a subtle 3D perspective effect. I'm incredibly happy with how this effect turned out. I exported 5 separate .png images to work with in creating this effect. The 1st was the backing wall and decorations followed by the 3 layers of tables and then a light bloom effect coming from the lights on the roof. Each of these was animated enlarging slightly more than the last to create the effect that the camera was moving through them. I then also added a subtle blur to sell the depth of field. 

In Adobe Animate, each of these layers were made into their own symbols so that I could go into them and animate anything inside. So for example, I went into these symbols to add the main character and silhouettes while keeping the movement and depth of field consistent. These images are also linked with photoshop so that I can always go back and edit the colours or textures. I will also have to make a variant of this scene towards the end where I can animate the chair falling backwards onto the floor.

This week we also got briefed the pixilation task. I have only done pixilation a few times before so I'm quite excited to do this. I want to really use the medium to my advantage by creating something that couldn't be done normally. I had an idea for animating someone punching someone and them sliding all the way down the hallway and slamming into a wall. I will keep thinking up ideas before I eventually create it as I think I need to make a bigger start on the main task before I can do anything else.

Process and Production: 29th January - 5th February 2017

I got to work designing the two main characters. I started with drawing out a variety of head shapes. This was rather enjoyable and something that I developed upon through the visual language module. However I still didn't want to spend too much time on this because this animation is very ambitious and I want to leave myself as much time as possible to work on that side of the project.

The thing that I really struggled with in this was designing a hair style for the man that I liked. I wanted something that wasn't too tidy and well kept in order to show that he was a bit clumsy and careless. I started to like the shaved sides but I wasn't fond of much of the stuff I created for the top of his head. I wanted something that could be a bit floppy to help me show motion but also I didn't want it to be too detailed since I am going to be animating lots of really expressive frame by frame motion.

I eventually settled on the one with three simple strands hanging down and the rest being neat and more simple to draw. This gives me something to move around to accentuate the motion. I decided on the design for the woman very quickly. I was pretty happy with just the first few drawings and so I decided to roll with that since she wasn't featured as heavily as the man.

Once I'd finished these it made it much easier to do the storyboard. I made sure to try and add detail of the characters to act as a good reference. I used many frames in this storyboard, more than I usually do. I made a new drawing for the main key poses I could think of. This is much more detailed and helpful as a reference when I come to animating and it also makes the animatic much simpler because I have already drawn the main keyframes. 

I scanned in my sticky notes to use for the animatic. I timed them up to the text files I'd made before and as expected they had to be tweaked to feel more natural. I then took this to the sound studio and brought in two people to record the voices. I described the kind of sounds and reactions that I was thinking about but also just let them play around with it. I let the video loop and asked my voice actors to just keep doing many takes in time with the video. This worked very well since I had many options to use when editing. I cut together a few different bits from different takes for the final thing. 

I'm really happy with this finished animatic. I think that it does communicate what is happening and the voices and sound effects really help that along. I will have to go back through and properly mix these to make sure the important bits can all be heard over the ambient sounds. 

Process and Production: 23rd - 29th January 2017

This week I made a proper start on the actual pre-production of my animation. I was refining the idea as I made my timed plan in Premiere. I used title files as the descriptions of each shot and timed them up to the space that would feel natural. I made sure that the duration reached at least 25 seconds but I did have to go back through and trim it down a bit since it was too long. When I actually come to creating the animatic, I expect these timings to change a bit again since I will have a clearer idea of the visuals.

After doing this I was much happier with the idea I had, but I do need to do some more research for the visual elements that I want to work with before I start. I also need to design the characters enough to do the storyboard and I can then refine them again before I start the actual animation. Since I want to create this animation to have very over exaggerated expressions and movements, I am putting more time into the pre-production by means of the expression sheets. These will be really important to me when animating.

The target audience that I am aiming for is young people - teenagers, though I believe that people of any age could still enjoy it because of how subjective humour can be. It is the same with Looney Tunes. Though it is intended for kids, people of all ages can still watch it and enjoy it. The visual slapstick comedy allows for a wide target audience. Obviously the age range affects how severe the slapstick can be. For younger audiences, it can't be very gory or anything like that. Cartoons exist in a unique place where they can experience extreme circumstances that would kill anyone else, but because they are cartoons, they can just survive anything the writers want them to. The classic example is that of an anvil being dropped on the toons. Depending on the target age, this could be very silly or incredibly gory.

I'm hoping to work on creating the characters this next week once visual language is finished. 

Process and Production: 16th - 22nd January 2017

After continued thought on developing my idea, I decided that I really liked the idea of really over exaggerated facial expressions in order to tell the comedy of the moment. I think that if the man was to put the ring in her glass and then hints to it by nodding at it, then she could look happy and surprised but she means about the champagne that she hadn't noticed. She would then proceed to drink it and swallow the ring whole. The man could then look at her in shock at how she didn't notice the ring (perhaps his jaw could slam into the table to exaggerate the shock).

I am liking this idea much more and so I looked into more uses of exaggerated visual comedy in order to influence my ideas. I will still be trying to think of more ways to develop my idea and add more humour into it. 

I'm thinking about making this similar to a silent comedy and use the over the top expressions to tell the story and humour. The first thing that came to mind when thinking of the tone and style I want to create was the work of Chuck Jones on Looney Toons. His use of character to create visual comedy is, in my opinion, some of the best. Though I know that I like this kind of stuff, I need to analyse it more in order to understand it enough to be able to apply it to my ideas. 

I think after a bit more researching, I could make a text animatic to just get a guage on timings. This is something that always helps me to plan out the pacing of my initial idea before anything else so I will compile this as I think of more details.

Process and Production: 9th - 15th January 2017

After we got the briefing for this module, I was immediately excited. I’m excited to just work on producing animations. I want to animate. What was tricky was thinking of an idea. As the brief wants a comical piece, this makes it more difficult. I was struggling to think of many ideas linking to the available titles we were given. I couldn’t think of anything funny. I came up with a few different ideas from a mind map corresponding to the choices of titles. Only about three of them were ones that I liked. The first of which was of a blind date where the two people open their eyes to be people that would stereotypically be enemies, like a cop and a robber.

I quickly started to dislike this idea. I think this was due to the fact it would be difficult to communicate the ideas of the contrasting personalities without it being a bit too nonsensically stereotypical in order to make it obvious. I started to prefer the idea of a proposal gone wrong using the ‘restaurant’ title. I started thinking he could put the ring in the champagne glass and the woman just drinks it and starts choking. This is a bit more darker humour but I think that I could make the contrast of the joy and love and happiness of the start and the panic at the end quite funny. I will keep thinking about this idea and try to develop it more as I go.