Wednesday 9 July 2014

Animation - Not Complete



This is where we are currently at with our animation. We still need about 20 seconds of animation, 10 seconds to add onto the end and 10 seconds to put in so the exam part at the front can be cut down as i feel it drags too much. It also needs a teachers voice over at the beginning and exam and ambient noise to go behind it. I would like to play around with the clips, so making some really slow then speed up when the goal is scored. Another good idea would be to play the goal and then play it backwards.


Tuesday 8 July 2014

Completing Animation

We are at a stage where we are close to finishing our animation. All we have left to do is put about 30 seconds of animation onto our project on Premiere Pro, which have been completed just not been put on there. We also need to add in our 'dreamy' effect and add some background music. I am planning on coming in on Wednesday (9th July) to complete this, or get it close to finishing.
All my work for other projects have been completed and at 100%.

The Animation Product Documentation also needs to be completed and uploaded. Because our animation is a rotoscope, we do not need to complete the asset sheet because we did not create any 'assets' for our project; as our animation is made out of clips that we've filmed.
The Call Sheet for Filming is completed and is in my folder, ready to scan in and put on our blogs, but we can do that when we're back in College after Summer. The only documentation that needs completing now is the Shot Log sheets.

Thursday 12 June 2014

Process and Equipment Set Up

Equipment Set-Up:

This is how I animated the project. I use a small Wacom tablet and a Macbook Pro, and I rotoscoped the film clips on Photoshop, one frame at a time. This is a suitable set-up for creating the animation because it's easy to sit at a desk and rotoshopp with the Wacom tablet and you can see what I'm animating in front of me and the mouse is in easy access to change frames and zoom in and out.




Process:


  • Go onto Photoshop
  • File - Import - Video Frames to Layers
  • Choose a video clip to animate and cut down the clip to make sure you don't animate hundreds of frames (around 16 FPS)
  • Make a new frame above every film clip frame on the right hand side, and this is what you will draw on to trace the film clip below, making an animated version of the film clip once this has been done for all the frames.
  • Using the Wacom tablet, draw over each film clip with your brush tool, making sure you don't draw straight onto the film clip because you'll need to hide that later.
  • Once you've drawn each frame, click on the eye of each film clip frame, leaving only your rotoscoped frames
  • Add in a background for each clip by changing the background colour.
  • Change each frame to 0.08 seconds and play your animation to see if its fast/slow enough and adjust accordingly. 




Thursday 15 May 2014

Animation Product Idea

Inspiration 

The inspiration for our project is the World Cup 2014 in Rio, and we're going to tell a story with a girl with an aspiration to be a football player, and she has to watch other guys play it outside whilst she's inside and sitting an exam that she doesn't want to do.

How are you going to do this?

We're going to do this by recording film clips for out two minute sequence, for example of Katie dribbling the ball and scoring a goal, and upload them as layers on Photoshop so we can rotoscope them and create loads of short, animation gifs that we can put together of Premiere Pro. Also, we're going to add a cloud effect for when Katie falls asleep and begins dreaming of playing football, which we'll create on After Effects. When we cut together the final animation we will add filters, sound, and a voice over on Premiere Pro too. Overall the animation is expected to be about two minutes long.

Rotscope Test (Concept Art)





























This was an experiment for rotoscoping, I wanted to make it most detailed as an experiment however my final video won't be as detailed as this.

Monday 12 May 2014

Rotoscope Inspiration


This is a rotoscoped animation of a football match, all players are very sketchy however Gareth Bale is detailed to show he is the one to focus one. This is the sort of thing we will use for the imagination part.


This is where our idea of going into an imagination come from, the film 'all stars' when Jaden is doing an exam and he falls into a day dream of this.

Wednesday 7 May 2014

Animation Planning

1) Form (what are you making): Rotoscope of football footage filmed by myself.

2) Animation type: I will create the rotoscope on photoshop. The footage will be on premier pro and after effects will be used to do the day dreaming bit.

3) Selection of genre of style: Abstract animation short - sports based.

4) Storyline: The story will begin with myself sat in an exam that is not really any interest to me, as i begin the exam i notice boys playing football outside and begin to feel a bit jealous, i then look down at my bag where i have my football/trainers, i soon drift off into a daydream which will be rotoscoped of me playing football against all of the boys and i beat them all. I then drift back into reality where the exam is finished.

Tuesday 6 May 2014

Planning for Animation

1) Inspiration - Our inspiration for our idea has come from the film 'All Stars' this is because there is a part where Jaden is in an exam and he begins to drift off, he then goes into this Paper Samurai world where he dances and defeats the samurai's.

2) How are you going to do this - We are going to do this by recording myself doing an exam, then myself looking outside with people playing football, then i look down at my bag, then using after effects to show me drifting off, in the 'dream' i will be playing football with a group of people and beating them all, this will all be rotoscoped in photoshop.

3) Who with - Maia Creed

4) What is it going to look like - Rotoscoped footage of me defeating a load of boys at football.

5) Structure - It will begin with myself sat in a classroom about to begin and exam, as i sit through a bit of it, i notice boys playing football outside, i then look down at my bag with a football/trainers in it. I then drift into a dream of me playing football with the boys and I'm beat them all, in this dream it will be rotoscope and my person will be detailed and the others will be a bit scribbly. I then wake up and its the end of the test.

6) Form - Rotoscope of football footage

7) Animation type - A mix between a detailed and sketchy rotoscope on Photoshop and occasionally After Effects.

8) Genre Style - Abstract animation short - sports/football based

9) Storyline - The story will begin with Katie sat in an exam which is not really of any interest to her. As she begins the exam she notices boys playing football outside and begins to feel a bit jealous so she looks down at her bag where a football and her trainers are. She then drifts off into a dream which she imagines herself playing football against the boys and beating them all. She drifts back when the exam is finished.

Chick Animation



I firstly downloaded a the picture of the chick, once I had done this I uploaded it onto to Photoshop. When it was on photoshop I unlocked the layer, and used the magic wand tool to cut out the background around the chick so it was transparent. On the original picture of the chick there was an unnecessary back leg which wasn't needed so I used the eraser tool to get rid of it. I then needed to separate all the different parts of the chick that I wanted to move. I did this by using the lasso tool and starting with the wing, went around the wing, i then right clicked the wing and clicked 'Layer via Cut' this made a new layer with the wing in and the original layer didn't have it. As I had deleted the wing it meant there was an empty place were the wing was so I used the 'Clone Stamp' tool to fill it in with the same colour fur. I repeated these steps for the eye and leg. When it came to the beak, I did these steps with just the bottom half of the beak. I also did this for the head to allow it to move, i had to smooth out the fur with the clone stamp after so that it looked neater. Once I done this I imported all the layers into After effects. On after effects i used the parent tool to join the eyes and beak to the head, and the wing, head and leg to the body. I then used the anchor point tool for the body parts. To get the chick to move about I had to click each layer and press R so i could get the rotation, i rotated various parts to move and then used the 'position' key frames to get it to give a flying effect.

Thursday 1 May 2014

Flash Test




















To create this animation, I firstly downloaded 7 clips of the man, each in a different body position, preparing to jump and jumping etc. I then imported these onto Flash. I dragged the first image onto my blank document and positioned it where i wanted. I used the 'Onion Skin' tool, this is so that when i put the next image on the same document, i could still see a faint outline of the first image. Before i put the second image on, i clicked on the second frame, pressing ctrl while i clicked then used 'Insert blank keyframe' and put the second image on. I repeated this 7 times until i had all the images on the page and in the right order. When I had created this, the image was really fast so i reduced the frame per second as well as i ctrl and clicked on each frame and clicked 'insert frame'. After this was done, I created a circular ball on the document, I moved this to my library and created a new layer. I put the ball back onto the second layer and moved it off the page, I then clicked 'create motion tween' and moved the ball to the opposite side of the page. This created an animation of the man jumping over the ball.

Monday 28 April 2014

Current Trends

1)


2)  I feel like my animation will fit into the marketplace because it is very simple, which the way its styled being quite based 2D animation, making it easy for children to understand, nothing too complex. It's also teaching a life lesson in the sense that you don't steal or upset others without getting into trouble because Audrey is often hurting or getting Steve into trouble. The type of characters are very misleading, this could be hard for children to get the gist of but it'll fit well for children especially as it's quite different because of how the characters are represented. Its animation style is very similar to Peppa Pig as of how basic the animation will be, although it'll still be a bit better. The narrative is going to be relatively simple so that it can be understood easily by the target audience, avoiding any confusion.

3) The channel I think mine would be most appropriate for is Cartoon Network because it has a wide variety of cartoons of similar genre type. It'll fit to the age audience that watches that channel. I feel that 4.00pm will be a good time for it to broadcast because it is after school when children are usually at home to watch TV.

Friday 25 April 2014

Target Audience

Name: Oliver
Age: 9
Average day: Oliver is currently at primary school in year 5. At school he does english work, so writing and spelling, maths, science and PE. When he is with his friends he plays football or any type of sports. He often does sports clubs after school which finish at 4.30. When he gets home he eats dinner and then plays Xbox or watches TV. He goes to sleep at about 8.30.
Hobbies and interests: Oliver is very interested into football. He plays football matches every sunday for his local team.
Spending power: He gets monthly pocket money of £20 which he spends on what he desires.
Typical media consumption per day: Before school Oliver spends about 45 minutes watching cartoons on Cartoon Network. When he gets home he spends either an hour or two on the Xbox or watching Cartoon Network, CBBC or Disney. He mostly enjoys Ben 10.
Why the animation will appeal to them: The reason my animation will appeal to Oliver is because one of the main characters is a gym obsessed man, which Oliver is very into his sports and so he will like the character. Also Oliver quite likes the villain characters, this means he will like Audrey because that is exactly what she is. Also it is quite an easy one to understand so it's something he can talk to his friend at school or at football.






Scheduling



Scheduling Research















Adventure Time




South Park
http://www.getharvest.com/blog/2011/11/teams-at-work-creating-a-south-park-episode-in-6-days/

Peppa Pig
http://www.kidzcoolit.com/reviews/the-brains-behind-peppa-pig-phil-davis-neville-astley-and-mark-baker-answer-some-kidz-random-questions.php

The Simpsons
http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_6260000/newsid_6262500/6262584.stm

Budget



Thursday 24 April 2014

Legal and Ethical in your Animation


Representation and Ethics in Cartoons

Racial stereotypes: Rio 2 (2014), Aladdin (1992), The Little Mermaid (1989) and Dumbo (1941).


Why does the writer of the article believe Rio 2 is problematic in terms of its representations?
He believes that the lead characters are all voiced by white people. Then the villain characters and side kicks are voiced by non-white people.

What are PEPs and why are they an issue for racial representation?
PEPS are Problem contexts, Entertainment contexts and Performance contexts. Within PEPS, black people and other genotypes have to be associated with frustrating circumstances.

Why does Da Costa believe we end up with stereotypes in animation?
Stereotypes are used because of the costing of making an animation, it is easier and cheaper just to stereotype the characters.

What does Turbo say about social mobility?
Turbo says that social mobility is only available to white characters, its coming across that its the job of non-whites to facilitate it.



Voice Talent

Audrey + Steve


Audrey comes across as a very innocent, friendly young woman, however she is a very sneaky, sly and manipulative.

Steve can easily be mistaken as a intimidating big guy but he is not what you think. He is a very 'friendly giant' who is very kind and caring.

The vocal performance required for Audrey is English, sweet and innocent but as well sounding a bit sinister.

The vocal performance for Steve needs to be English/Americandeep, intimidating but slightly friendly.



Dream Casting



Channing Tatum
would be a good voice over for Steve even though he's american, he has a deep voice which is friendly but can be quite intimidating, which fits the vocal performance I'm after. He did a voice over for The Simpsons. 











Helena Bonham Carter has quite a friendly voice but from her experience she can pull of a villain voice which would work for my character Audrey because she needs to be misleading. She done the voiceover of Lady Tottington from Wallace and Gromit, Emily the Corpse Bride from Corpse bride
and many more. 





Cheaper Alternative




Jane Horrocks would be suitable for the voice over of Audrey, because of her innocent, child like voice she can do. It would work well because it gives the misleading feel for the characters.
She did the voice over of the Princess in Little Princess. 










Craig T. Nelson would be good for the voice over of Steve because he has a voice of a strong, relatively intimidating, if necessary,  voice. This helps represent Steve's character because he of him being a friendly man but looks intimidating. Craig did the voice over of Mr Incredible.



Sunday 20 April 2014

2) Storyboards

Opening Credit Sequence Storyboards

















These four storyboards are my opening sequence. The first two shots are going to be of Audrey and Steve, with a colour surrounding them to represent there type of character, Audrey's is red to represent evil and Steve's is blue to represent calm and friendly. It then goes into Audrey walking down the street and she beings creeping on the man in front because his bag is open, she creeps up behind him and steals his wallet out his bag, he soon realises and turns around,  as he turns around, coincidently a woman walks past, so Audrey panics and picks her up and puts her in front of her, so in theory she is framing this woman to make it look like she did it. The shot then zooms down the street to find Steve, Steve is representing his friendly type of character, so to start with he waves to a passer-by, he then notices a woman on the floor because she has dropped the contents of her bag, he assists her to picking it all up. The opening sequence is to give the audience an idea of what the characters are like.


Key Scene


















This key scene is to show a standard type of thing that happens in an episode. This would be the first episode because it shows them meeting. They meet by Audrey joining the gym, and Steve becomes her instructor, he leads her up to the gym and they start off using the treadmill. Audrey firstly goes on the treadmill but then Steve goes on to show her some techniques on it, what he doesn't know is that she creeps up behind it and starts turning up the speed, it then goes so fast he is unable to control his speed. As she creeps off, he ends up in a heap on the floor. In an average episode Audrey would get caught and in trouble but these storyboards are just showing the type of thing that she'll do.


1) Story

My animation is going to be a series which is going to based around my two characters, Audrey and Steve. Audrey is very manipulative and sly whereas Steve is a gym obsessed cyclopes and very friendly. Both characters are made to confuse the audience as they are misleading, Steve comes across as very intimidating and scary and Audrey can easily be mistaken as innocent and friendly, however they are both the opposites. They both become unlikely friends when meeting at the gym as Steve becomes Audrey's instructor. Audrey uses her ways to manipulate Steve into thinking she's a great person and she hasn't got a bad bone in her body, however everyone around Steve can see what is really going on with her, but Steve just can't see it himself. Each episode of the series will spiral out where Audrey will do something horrible to Steve, it'll become very predictable to the audience but due to its young target audience it makes it easier for them to understand and know what is going on (It is kind of like Scooby-Doo, because you always know that there is going to be a mystery that'll need solving and they always succeed). In each episode, Audrey will get up to something such as injuring Steve, or getting him into trouble.
The series will have episodes lasting 9 minutes and there will be 9 in a season. This is so it doesn't get at all repetitive or boring, because the fact its predictable could easily get boring to the audience. The length of it is just under 10 minutes because otherwise there is the fact it could easily drag out and again get boring, 9 minutes is just enough time to allow a beginning, plot and the ending.
The first episode will consist of getting to know the characters, and them meeting each other. Audrey's manipulativeness will only briefly appear so it can be eased in.
The rest of the 8 episodes will have something different happen each time but it'll all relate to the same thing. The type of things she will get up to are-

  • Hurting Steve in the gym, doing this by dropping weights on him or increasing his speed on the treadmill so he can't cope and fly's off.
  • Get him in trouble for shop lifting, which was all set up by Audrey, who then stands in the background laughing at him.
  • Breaking things and making it look like Steve did it all, who then gets the blame.
  • Speeding in a car, then switching seats with Steve so it looks like it was him.
  • Going out to eat with Steve then leaving off to the toilet when the bill comes leaving him to pay.
  • Irritate people in the street, for example, tripping them up from behind then making it look like it was Steve. Leaving him often being hit or attacked.
  • When at her restaurant, she will purposely burn Steve or embarrass him.
Each episode will be located somewhere different, however the gym and Audrey's restaurant will be the only repeating location. They'll start of nicely, where they meet up or what not, but while they are out, she will always have a sly plot up her sleeve which'll happen. Every time she's done something nasty, she'll apologies and Steve will accept her apology and that's how they'll basically end.

Wednesday 2 April 2014

Regulatory Bodies - BBFC

















BBFC is the British Board of Film Classification (originally called British Board of Film Censors), which his a non-governmental body that classifies cinema films before their release. It was set up in 1912 by the film industry as they would much rather manager their own classification rather than the national/government do it. They have a specific requirement for when they classify videos, DVDs and to a minor extent some video games under the Videos Recordings Act 2010. Its legal basis was the Cinematography act 1909 which meant cinemas had to have licenses from local authorities. Its name changed in 1984, from British boards of Film Censors to British Board of Film Classification because at that time it was given the responsibility for classifying videos to hire or purchase to view in the home as well as ones shown in the cinema. As well as the classification plays a bigger part in the boards work than censorship. In 1986 BBFC was given its first computer game to certify, which was Dracula and was given the certificated of 15. Jack the Ripper was the first game to be certified an 18, this was in 1987.


The BBFC is a non-profitable organisation, the fee's they have only accommodate to cover its costs. It doesn't receive subsidies from the government nor the film industry, this is to ensure they keep their independence. The BBFC's income comes only the amount they charge for its services, they calculated this by measuring the running time of films submitted for classification. They will consult the Department of Culture, Media and Sport before they make any sort of changes to the fees.


U  - Universal, meaning it is suitable for all ages.

PG - Parental Guidance, suitable for all ages however some scenes may be unsuitable for young children. It could contain mild sex/drugs reference or violence so parents should check before they allow their children to watch.

12A- 12A, This is only used in cinema. It means it is considered to be unsuitable for very young children. Children under the age of 12 are allowed to see the film is accompanied by an adult who must be over the age of 18. These films often include soft drugs, discrimination, strong language, moderate violence, nudity, sexual references.

12- 12, This means the film is suitable for children aged 12 years and over and not to be seen by another below the age. It includes the same guidelines as 12A certificate. It is illegal for anyone to rent or sell a 12-rated film etc. to anyone underage.

15- 15, Not suitable to anyone below the age of 15 years. It is illegal for anyone to sell/rent a film or supply a cinema ticket for a film etc. to anyone under the age. These films tend to contain hard drugs, foul language, strong violence, sex reference, nudity but not graphic. Sexual activity can be portrayed but not with strong detail as well as sexual violence may be shown but is discreet and justified by context.

1818, Films with this rating are suitable for only 18 year olds and over. It is illegal for anyone to sell/rent a film etc. or cinema ticket to anyone under the age. These films have no limitation to foul language used, hard drugs are allowed, explicit sex reference with detail, scene ors strong real sex may be permitted. Strong, gory violence and sexual violence is permitted unless it excessively graphic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_British_film_certificates - This shows the changes in the classifications over time.


Coraline

In the guidelines for BBFC it states that the PG classifications could contains some scary moments and Coraline has a 'general air' of eeriness and spookiness. They allow some elements of 'horror' but it must meet the criteria, the frightening sequences can't be intense, which in Coraline they aren't. The film includes elements which reduce the intensity of the supposedly frightening scenes as they contain a bit of comedy and silly songs and dancing. The examiner didn't feel like U was suitable as they had elements which scares come from people/places that children should feel safe too i.e. homes and parents. Coraline is in the fantasy film category which fits the child audience as of the fairy tales.







Character Profiles




























A4 Character Designs in Colour



Character Expressions