University of Portsmouth - Animation Yr. 3 - Major Project Animation
Thursday, 11 January 2018
CT6MAJAN - Production
University of Portsmouth - Animation Yr. 3 - Major Project Animation
The first animations that I produced were the ink drops, which we have planned to use for some transitions. They were made in After Effects, by overlapping static images, changing their scale and applying a Fractal Noise driven Distortion Map at the end.
The shots themselves went through some modifications as well.
Shot progression:
Edit versions:
V1:
V2:
To finish the movie, I had to add sound effects. I wanted them to complement the recording and not to overwhelm the girl's voice, so I chose to use low bass effects and fire whooshes. (make sure to use headphones when you watch the final version!)
During the production stage, Mihaela focused on making all of the relevant assets, while I focused on the animation process.
The first animations that I produced were the ink drops, which we have planned to use for some transitions. They were made in After Effects, by overlapping static images, changing their scale and applying a Fractal Noise driven Distortion Map at the end.
To make sure that we are sticking to the set style, I had to modify some of the assets by adding the gritty textures:
The shots themselves went through some modifications as well.
Shot progression:
Edit versions:
V1:
V2:
CT6MAJAN - Preproduction
University of Portsmouth - Animation Yr. 3 - Major Project Animation
Meanwhile, we have decided to focus on the idea of the fire and therefore the animation had two main symbols: the candle and the firefly.
Final version:
The storyboarding process proved to be quite tricky. While the message in the audio clip was indeed dramatic, we had a hard time coming up with appropriate images to accompany it. We have tried as much as possible to avoid showing exactly what was being narrated, but that put us under more pressure instead, since we had to come up with other symbolic images.
We had decided to both come up with ideas, compare them, and then choose the best options.
My experience from the previous year, in working with ink, has influenced the first few iterations of the storyboard. Because I was confident with my After Effects skills, I wanted to make a movie with mostly silhouettes, double exposure and ink bleeding transitions between the images.
Mihaela's concept pieces:
My animation tests, based on her concept:
Both I and Mihaela participated in the brain storming process, but we decided to split our work load and focus on different things: while I was still working on the sound design, she decided to draw the actual storyboards.
Both I and Mihaela participated in the brain storming process, but we decided to split our work load and focus on different things: while I was still working on the sound design, she decided to draw the actual storyboards.
1st version:
Meanwhile, we have decided to focus on the idea of the fire and therefore the animation had two main symbols: the candle and the firefly.
Final version:
Since, again, that seemed to be too literal, we tried to take another approach. The answer came after being shown the movie "Boy" (https://youtu.be/SIOUfrlnMx0). While still keeping the silhouetted aspect of it, we have tried to give our animation a more gritty look, which suited the audio.
CT6MAJAN - The story idea and the interview
University of Portsmouth - Animation Yr. 3 - Major Project Animation
During the first semester, Mihaela and I decided to team up and work on the short animated documentary film. Even from the beginning we decided to go for a simple, minimalist style, since none of us is specialized on 2D animation.
The first idea that we had was to record a homeless man, while we were in Japan, but because of the language barrier and technical difficulties we ended up not being able to do it. Instead, we decided to take the interview of a girl who has grown up without her parents, because they went to work abroad. This is a fairly big issue in Romania and we thought that we could address it well.
Before recording the interview, Mihaela and I have created a list of questions that we could use.
After the interview, we ended up having 3 hours of recordings that we had to shorten. The girl, most of the time, had a positive outlook on her life, but we decided to only keep the most dramatic moments of her speech in order to maximize our impact on the viewer.
We ended up going through a number of versions:
