Responsive: Evaluation

This module has definitely been enjoyable for me, on a personal level i have met some new people and achieved my own personal goals of producing work to be presented to people, which i initially was uncomfortable doing. I now feel a lot more comfortable collaborating with other people and allowing them to develop their own ideas and then work on them myself, or allow them to further develop my own ideas, which i was initially quite concerned about. This is largely due to the people i worked with, who were all extremely supportive, organised and talented, though this may be more detrimental for any form of collaboration in the future as i have not picked up the skills necessary for working with a partner i don't necessarily get along with. Working with other creatives from other courses has also had an additional benefit for me, it has made me a lot more confident in both my own abilities as an animator, and also my abilities to professionally show my work to both potential collaborators and clients, after emailing Leeds college of music, despite only having the need for one musician, it put me in contact with a lot of musicians who were interested in an animator working with them, and though initially I blew it by not selling myself enough, that will not be an issue i will face again.

  One aspect that I did struggle with myself was communication with regards to feedback and creative suggestions. There were multiple instances where I felt i was more unhelpful and just waffled until a different work partner stepped in to either explain what i meant or to help me snap out of some kind of loop. This is something that i will need to work on in the future, particularly if i want some kind of directorial roll in the future.

Overall i am incredibly satisfied with the work i have produced over this module, compared to previous work i have produced there is a definitely noticeable improvement, particularly with my frame by frame animation. This is largely due to my constantly improving drawing skills, but also my knowledge of techniques to speed up the animation process, for example in my Dark animation I animated the hands as they there was a lot of movement there, whereas the body simply had a few frames to repeat in order to give the illusion of movement. My passion is in dynamic frame by frame animation, particularly of that from japan, so despite not quite being at the point where i can create a dynamic samurai fight scene, my abilities of drawing perspective and more 3D environments and characters feels more improved.

I was also very happy to have picked up some new skill sets in this module, i now know premiere a little better, but the biggest skill i picked up would be 2D animating and rigging in After effects. Initially an animation with a program and technique i had never used before was incredibly daunting, but after educating myself and then practice i picked the skills necessary up very quickly and i now consider myself to be quite proficient with rigging in after effects. This has made me more confident with after effects, but it has also made me less put off by trying new software or techniques for important projects, a problem i have found myself facing in the past.

The brief i made the least progress on was the Onform one. Unfortunately i never put the effort in to really create something spectacular and noteworthy. Though i produced some nice gifs, they were far from anything extraordinary. If i could revisit this brief i would force myself to go into more detail with the drawings and gifs i produce, as i feel like details are often things i skip over when producing work. Also, my time management, though improving, could still use a bit of work, though facing personal hardships is something everyone has to deal with and take time off for every now and again, procrastination is not excusable, and regrettably, leaving the loopdeloop brief until the week before deadline is not a good working strategy, despite creating something quite high quality, with more time management i could have created something much better.

I've learnt a lot of things from this module, and i definitely feel i have improved as a professional animator, in both my confidence and my animating ability, and collaboration is definitely something i will continue to do and feel comfortable doing, long into my professional career.

Responsive: Project Report

Responsive: Loopdeloop: 5 Glitching

Having already used a glitching effect on a previous animation i was quite confident i could create a visual glitch that would be simple to make and not too time consuming. After first animating the rigged character falling down the stairs, i then moved it to a separate comp in order to copy it easily. I then duplicated the comp and colourized it to appear bright green and bright red. I then shifted them from the original position slightly and used the wiggle command to add some randomisation. I then changed the opacity to 0, and made them reappear every time the triangle hits something. At this point i also made the whole comp bump slightly to make the hit seem even stronger.

And this is the final animation. Overall i am quite happy with it, the more i go back to it the more i wish i had done more, but this would most likely have only been added cheap effects to add some kind of VCR style to it, but i am happy with the result none the less.

Responsive: Loopdeloop: 4 Making noise

For the noise that plays whenever the triangle hits the stairs i used an online generator that I've had my eye on for a while that can be found here. in truth i have no clue what any of the sliders mean specifically, but i kept playing until i heard a crunching noise i was happy with, and decided to use it. Thankfully this tool is open source so I can use this without getting in trouble, and potentially use it in future too. Next up is glitching out our little triangle.

Responsive: Loopdeloop: 3 Rigging again

This is my final character. nice and simple. Having already had practice with rigging character with Duik with the collaborative brief from responsive i confidently rigged this character. I had planned on giving this character a face, but i feel like this wouldn't add anything to the animation.

Responsive: Do it in 10: 10 additional extras

The last touch i brought to the animation was a few fish, i made sure i painted them with a few green elements that i can animate the hue in after effect. I made all of these frame by frame and then animated the major movement such as swimming across the screen in after effects. These additional extras will help push the underwater but also in space setting, and also serve as a little bit of a distraction from all of the obvious flaws that you can see if you watch it for too long.

Overall i am really happy with this animation, it really helped bring back my motivation for animating.

Responsive: Do it in 10: 9 final shot

For the final shot i started with a much larger imaged than 1080 by 1920 so i have the opportunity to zoom out a touch. I kept the character animation simple again, this is by far the least dynamic shot in terms of the character animation, though i did still take pride in the fact i kept his arms keep their proportions. I'm not so happy about the black hole fire, its quite jumpy. I used a youtube tutorial sent to me by Guy and Bash in first year in order to get an understanding of how to animate fire well. I feel this is because i didn't want to put the time into something i deemed to not be as important, and in the final animation it doesn't seem so bad.

Responsive: Do it in 10: 8 Standing up

Next i began work on the guitarist standing up behind the anglerfish in the very first shot. This was quite easy at this point because i had practice drawing this character, so making sure he kept the same proportions as he stood up wasn't as hard as i thought it would be. I also made him tilt the guitar in time with the first major note in order to help push the idea of the song actually being played by the character in the animation. Though the fingers don't move at all in this shot, the slight wiggle i added by making it switch between two frames gives the impression of his fingers moving.

Responsive: Do it in 10: 7 Vertical tracking shot

 The next thing i worked on was the vertical tracking shot, for this i wanted the guitarist to look up at the camera, and the camera tracks down to his hands playing the guitar. I created this as one large animation in photoshop so that i can just slowly pan down in after effects. This also meant i didn't have to animate the hands when the head looks up. I once again added a few more frames to switch between for the body just so it doesnt look too stationary.

This time i used the video that Bryan sent me as reference rather than to rotoscope from,and the hands certainly look a lot stiffer than they did when rotoscoping, however the shot doesnt last too long, and i dont want to rotoscope the whole thing as it would be useful to get more practice frame by frame animating i feel.

Responsive: Collaborative Practice 9: Quick Fixes and Final Audio

Before everything could go together i had a few final jobs, i had to make the Ferris wheel spin, luckily this wasn't a big job, however Hattie had the original file, so i had to chase her up in order to get a cope where the carriages were on separate layers to the Ferris wheel scaffolding, then it was simple a case of parenting the carriages to the scaffolding, then make them rotate in the opposite direction after changing the anchor point so that they remain facing downwards. I thought it was going to be a much more difficult job than it actually was. 

I also had to make our seaweed forest sway. I had known about this job for a while but i kept putting it off as i wasn't sure exactly i was going to do it and i didn't want to animate every individual plant, but in order to do it quickly i simple used the bezier warp effect and animated it. I then duplicated this layer multiple times, but played around with the spacing, colour, and timing so that it wasn't as obvious it was just layered on top of itself multiple times. 

As i was in charge of putting together the final edit i had a lot of creative freedom when it came to the ambient sounds. I started by making sure that the lines of narration were nicely spaced with the video. Next up was ambient under water noise, this included a splash at the beginning and multiple sea life sounds such as whale calls and dolphin calls. I also added some ambient gym noise to the gym section, and some ambient theme park noise to the theme park section. I finally added some old projector flicker sound effects to the ident at the beginning because its all the fish used in the animation flicking very quickly.

Overall i am really happy with how this turned out, collaborating was a lot of fun and i cant wait to do it again!

Responsive: Collaborative Practice 8: The Script and recording

Having already developed some script so that Oscar could do a quick version of the voice over, making the final script was very easy. As we weren't too sure how good some lines sounded, we made sure to add some other variations so that i could easily remove any that sounded silly or if others sounded better. This was out script.

Hello there!

Here at the MSC, we’re in the business of fish (emphasise fish)

they account for a sixth of the world’s protein, which makes them pretty damn important!

So we make sure that our fish are strong and healthy.

good job fish.

[pause for transition]

We also work towards ensuring the survival of future generations of fish

That's why we built a theme park! Fun for all the family…

But why the theme park?

Well, A happy fish is a tasty fish

Who doesn't love theme parks

[pause for transition]

And, to make sure the ocean gets the respect it deserves

we make sure our fisheries are as eco friendly as possible!

The MSC is pretty great (will change)

• That’s why MSC fish are miles better than ordinary fish

• Choose MSC, because we’re pretty damn awesome

• Trust where your fish is from by choosing fish with the blue MSC label.

• Choose MSC, trust where your fish comes from.

after the script was finally finished we began recording narrators. We did this by first booking the sound booth, but we then went around our respective courses to find people we felt would work well as the narrator. In the end I found 3 people from animation to record, while Hattie found 3 from her course as well. Oscar did the recordings as he is best with audio equipment. We also recorded ourselves just so that we have more options for voice overs. In the end we went for one of the Graphic designers Hattie brought in named Chris, as we felt he had the best narrator voice. Other either pronounced words wrong, didnt come across as enthusiastic, or didnt have a clear speaking voice, and i felt that chris' recording was the way to go.

Responsive: Collaborative Practice 7: The Fish

Using the skills i picked up rigging the divers i put together some fish. I kept it simple, i simply rigged them so that their fins would wiggle, and i then placed them in groups making sure that no more than 3 wiggled at the same time, also after the first school of fish i noticed they needed to weave in between each other, so i began to do so.

I also tried to animate some jellyfish, but unfortunately i couldn't use the version tom gave me to animate and make it look good, so in the end i left it out as i felt it would mean too much work to achieve in the time left.

Responsive: Collaborative Practice 6: Puppeting in AE

Because i haven't had any experience rigging i was relying a lot on oscar to help, and with help from him personally and a video he sent me. 

After following the video i began work on the female diver, and after following the video and oscars advice i had created some good assets for oscar to put in the final comp.

Below are all of the swimming divers, all animated so that they loop.

Responsive: Collaborative Practice 5: Storyboarding

Next up it was time for me to make the storyboards. I was very aware of the fact that a lot of people are going to be using this as a reference, so i tried to make sure i was as clear as possible, if i were making this storyboard for myself i would have been much looser with my drawing and notes. I made sure i made notes and I used the colour green for camera movement, and red for character/object movement, i also made sure that the notes and directions were on a separate layer so that when Oscar got around to making the animatic we would be able to see the characters and fish move for themselves rather than seeing the directions.

The animatic can be seen here.

Responsive: Collaborative Practice 4: Moodboards

After Hattie and Tom had some trouble with the design and style of the animation assets me and Oscar thought it would be helpful to throw a few moodboards together for them, to give them an idea of what we wanted for the animation. Oscar created one for the background which can be found on his blog here, and i worked on one for the people, and for the fish.

These were the images i got together to show Tom, we felt that any of these fish worked very well, and as Oscar had previously mentioned to Hattie, we wanted to do a bit more with texture, so i tried to include some more textural fish too.

As for the people i tried to find people that were a lot less textured and a little more geometric.

Responsive: Collaborative Practice 3: The Narrative

After two more meetings we have decided on a narrative for our animation. 

We started by organizing another meeting, i felt like we were beginning to fall behind on our gantt chart so deciding on the narrative was essential so we could all get to work. We all met in college in order to discuss what our narrative would be, the vibe was that we were all a little unmotivated to get started, but i feel that our lack of motivation meant that we tried to form an idea as soon as we could, which worked in our favor.

We all liked the idea of the humour being similar to that of the portal 2 ads, and the common theme of them is a charismatic narrator selling the company but the visuals portray the workers as more stupid (though meaning well). We thought we could create something along similar lines but without being a direct carbon copy, we decided that we would use actual things that the MSC does but put a more bizarre or literal spin on it, by treating fish as if they were people, though the fish are still fish. (writing this out formally for my blog makes it sound a lot less funny than it actually is, just trust me, it works)

We started by deciding what real world scenarios would be funny to portray fish in. Special thanks to Hattie for keeping such good notes.

 In the end we decided on 3 particular ideas, a gym, where we would show a diver lifting weights and a fish passively swimming around not particularly paying attention. A theme park, in which we would show a diver excitedly riding a rollercoaster with some passive fish, and finally a diver replacing an anglerfish light with an energy saving bulb, the last idea being my personal favorite, despite taking the longest to decide on.

 After deciding on the three settings, next was to begin idea generation for the narration and shot order, though by this point we were all itching to get off and do other work. Below is what we decided on at the time, but this was refined at a second meeting.

 The second meeting we refined out idea for the animation into rough thumbnails, most of this was done by me and oscar, with me focusing on what shot framing would look the nicest, and with Oscar thinking a lot more logistically, focusing on what would look best with animating in after effects. We thought it would work well if the whole animation was one long shot with everything being animated in after effects, this meant that me and oscar would have an easier time animating in such a short space of time, and would give a nice clean feeling to the whole animation. We also decided on some more of the transitional animations, such as how we could smoothly go from the theme park to deep sea, we will do this by making the animation seem like it is taking a picture as the rollercoaster goes in front of the camera. This would entail a flash of light and then as we fade back in to the animation we will be moving deeper into the ocean. We also liked the idea that in this transition we could have a diver wearing some extremely old diving gear and looking incredibly lost.

We also decided at this point exactly who would do what from this point onwards, as oscar was busy with an external brief he would take a backseat roll for the moment as i refined the script a little more and created some more refined storyboards. Hattie was going to create the backgrounds for the long tracking shot, and Tom was going to create the divers and fish for us to animate. Oscar helped them out with the logistics and specifications of the files for us to animate as i have never animated using this method before. Next up should be rigging in after effects and animating!

Responsive: Loopdeloop: 2 Character and background design

So i decided i would start with designing the background, I used the images i collected to decide on a colour scheme for the stairs. I also decided to add a grid to both the background and the stairs but at different sizes in order to help add a little bit of texture, i also made sure the grids were different sizes in order to help contrast the stairs against the background and show a bit of parallax.

For the character i wanted to keep him simple, with responsive submission around the corner i want to spend as little time producing this animation without losing quality, therefore i decided minimalism would be the way to go for this character. I started with a bright green and decided that it just didn't go very will with the blue or magenta, similarly with the light blue. I made sure i had the colours i used for my background close by while designing the characters to make sure that the character stood out but didn't clash. I eventually decided on white as it goes with everything, however i still plan on incorporating other colours as the character falls down the stairs and glitches out. As for the shape i eventually decided on a triangle. I felt the square would fit too much in to the background, and the circle would end up looking less dynamic as it falls down the stairs as there are no definite points. i also decided to not add a face but add lines as arms and legs that i can turn into a puppet in after effects from the skills i picked up from collaborative brief from responsive.

Responsive: Loopdeloop: 1 Idea development and Research

For this Loopdeloop theme of Tumble, i wanted to keep it simple once again. Since i've already done my substantial brief i felt i would keep this brief as simple as i could, while still creating something visually appealing, and that of course loops.

I decided I would keep the narrative simple and focus on the style, and have it just be some kind of character falling down stairs.

As for style, i have always been very in to the idea of retrofuturism, but recently I've been focusing on the 80s aesthetic, which also ties in nicely with my fascination of digital glitches.

Here are some of the images i collected as inspiration.

Responsive: Onform 7

For this onform i wanted to focus on drawing something for fun, i was super proud of the background i did for my last onform so i thought i would do a similar thing again, and i was once again very proud of the outcome. I chose a to turn the shape into a poncho on a cowboy because that was what i initially saw from the shape, i was quite surprised to find that no one else had tried to develop the same idea, i felt it was quite an obvious choice. I wasnt as precious about my shading at the time and now i reflect on it i wish i had put more effort in, i like the way i shaded the legs, and despite being quite rough i feel the shading on the boots works well also, however the shadow and the shading on the hat i wish i had taken more time on.