Yesterday I finished my film and handed it in for submission. I am pleased with my film and feel it is a solid piece of work. For the rest of this week I am going to tweak a couple things in the film, as well as include credits at the end, and re-render for degree show submission, hopefully at the end of this week.
At the beginning of this year I set out to meet three goals; produce an animated film done for which After Effects was the centre of the production process, to increase my knowledge and skills in the softwares I am most interested and enjoy using, and to be able to produce a style of art I can call my own, and expand on it to develop and better my style throughout the year and for this to show in the film. I believe I gave met my goals and am really happy with where I am in my skill set, as well as the film itself and my personality in a studio environment.
The past 3 years has been great, and I have learnt a lot, both in animation production and story telling. I came to University wanting to understand the world of animation, and to produce my own stories on screen in which my characters tell them. I feel I have accomplished this, and will continue to develop my skills to improve my storytelling.
There are quite a few areas I feel I need to improve my skills, not just animation wise, but also time management and organisation. I want to improve on my efficiency as well as I am quite a slow worker and feel I need to improve on my overall time management and be more confident in my abilities.
My next step is to put together my portfolio which will consist of an animation demo reel and design portfolio. The animation reel will be 2D based, and will feature my best animations from time at at University as well as my own projects. I will also apply for jobs over the summer and beyond whilst building and improving my portfolio and skill set too. I will also develop my website further and begin using social networks to get my portfolio out there and make connections whilst staying in contact with the connections I have made throughout University.
Thank you to all the tutors, close friends and family who have helped and supported my ambitions throughout the past 3 years!
Wednesday, 21 May 2014
Tuesday, 20 May 2014
PDP - Skill set, Studios of Interest and Employment
Over the course of this project, I have been able to work with programs I have used since the start of this course in an effort to try and really understand them and increase my experience and knowledge of what they can do.
The programs I have used are Photoshop, Flash, Illustrator, After Effects and Premiere Pro.
I have also been able to better my skills (to varying degrees) in storytelling, character design, layouts and animation. These were the areas I wanted to really improve on this year as I don't feel my efforts in the previous two years were particularly good, and I feel improvement has been made although I will still continue to improve on them.
My main skill set is in 2D animation and motion graphics as I enjoy creating graphic art and animating it in After Effects as well as creating characters and using cameras in 3D space to create short films. I have a passion for design and creating graphics and I have been looking into other softwares that are used for motion graphics and have decided to have a go at using Cinema4D as well as Smith Micro's popular software Anime Studio over the next few weeks. The latter software offers the user to create and animate characters with backgrounds and props within one software which is efficient and user friendly. In have also looked at Ubiart's Framework, the animation software that was used for Rayman Origins, as the style and look of the art really fascinates me as I enjoy producing slightly zany artwork myself and enjoy the puppeteering method of animation in 2D softwares.
Over the past several weeks I have been thinking about what area of the animation industry I want to be a part of. I have researched studios and found internships I am interested in and have began planning how I am to prepare myself and my portfolio for applications.
I also asked for letters of recommendation from several tutors which I will also send off with applications to studios.
Throughout my time at University, I have also taken part in the Lincoln Award. It awards extra effort through extra-curricular activities and workshops that have benefited me as an individual for post-university as well as job applications. This has helped me a lot, not only for job applications and interviews, but for my confidence.
As well as applying for jobs in the industry, I have also started planning more animated shorts for my own projects. I recently purchased Creating Animated Cartoons with Character by Cartoon Network's Camp Lazlo creator Joe Murray, a book telling the story of how he came about to produce his own TV shows and gives readers tips and guidance on doing the same.
I also approached the Universities' business funding team about receiving funding for setting up a small freelance business and eventually a small animation studio, however after much thought I am going to reapply next year if I do not get a job before then. This is because I don't feel 100% ready to commit to something this big, and want to get my skillet and style improved before I begin pitching for a small business.
The programs I have used are Photoshop, Flash, Illustrator, After Effects and Premiere Pro.
I have also been able to better my skills (to varying degrees) in storytelling, character design, layouts and animation. These were the areas I wanted to really improve on this year as I don't feel my efforts in the previous two years were particularly good, and I feel improvement has been made although I will still continue to improve on them.
Areas of Interest of Work
My main skill set is in 2D animation and motion graphics as I enjoy creating graphic art and animating it in After Effects as well as creating characters and using cameras in 3D space to create short films. I have a passion for design and creating graphics and I have been looking into other softwares that are used for motion graphics and have decided to have a go at using Cinema4D as well as Smith Micro's popular software Anime Studio over the next few weeks. The latter software offers the user to create and animate characters with backgrounds and props within one software which is efficient and user friendly. In have also looked at Ubiart's Framework, the animation software that was used for Rayman Origins, as the style and look of the art really fascinates me as I enjoy producing slightly zany artwork myself and enjoy the puppeteering method of animation in 2D softwares.
Over the past several weeks I have been thinking about what area of the animation industry I want to be a part of. I have researched studios and found internships I am interested in and have began planning how I am to prepare myself and my portfolio for applications.
Potential Studios and Applications
Astleybakerdavies
This is the studio I am most excited about applying for. I love the style of Peppa Pig, Ben, Holly's Little Kingdom and The Big Knights as it has so much character and the animation is simple yet so readable and fun to watch. The studio doesn't offer jobs very often, however I will send them my show reel over the next month to so with a variety of design styles and animations as they may have a junior opening or runner position available.
Astleybakerdavies
This is the studio I am most excited about applying for. I love the style of Peppa Pig, Ben, Holly's Little Kingdom and The Big Knights as it has so much character and the animation is simple yet so readable and fun to watch. The studio doesn't offer jobs very often, however I will send them my show reel over the next month to so with a variety of design styles and animations as they may have a junior opening or runner position available.
Slurpy Studios
Slurpy Studios is an independent animation studio in London that produces great animation and really interesting design styles. The website says they do not have any openings at the moment but are accepting portfolios to keep on file for future openings.
Mummu
Mummu produce a wider variety of animation for clients than the above studios. They do CG as well as 2D, however their 2D work really interests me as the style is something I look up to as a well imagined form of communication in animation. An email address on the website allows people to post them their work as they look for new talent all the time. I will be sending my portfolio to Mummu in the near future when I have a good amount of work to show.
Animade
Animade produce some really fantastic puppet style animation, and a lot of their design style is quite inspirational. Animade don't have any job openings at the moment, but do run 3 month internships throughout the year which they advertise on social media, so I shall keep an eye out for these.
Seed Animation
Similar to Mummu, Seed Animation studio produce a wide variety of animation for TV and advertising in CG and 2D. Their 2D work is really great and professional, and their motion graphics are gorgeous to watch. Similar to Animade, Seed offer an email address for people to send their work and get added to their freelance database. They also offer internships throughout the year so I shall be applying to this studio in the near future.
Tiger Aspect
Tiger Aspect produce a variety of TV series, their animated series Charlie and Lola and Mr Bean The Animated Series are examples of 2D animated series I really look up to and find their styles interesting and stories fun to follow. They don't have any job openings at the moment, but do accept CVs for future work opportunities relevant to your area of interest in TV.
Sixteen South
Another children's TV series studio, Sixteen South produce a variety of animation series such as Pajanimals and Big & Small, although these aren't 2D, they are producing new series, Lily's Driftwood Bay, and Claude, both uniquely styled animated TV series. The studio doesn't have any job openings on their website, but they do have a contact address, so I shall be inquiring into their studio and perhaps show them my work soon.
Slurpy Studios is an independent animation studio in London that produces great animation and really interesting design styles. The website says they do not have any openings at the moment but are accepting portfolios to keep on file for future openings.
Mummu
Mummu produce a wider variety of animation for clients than the above studios. They do CG as well as 2D, however their 2D work really interests me as the style is something I look up to as a well imagined form of communication in animation. An email address on the website allows people to post them their work as they look for new talent all the time. I will be sending my portfolio to Mummu in the near future when I have a good amount of work to show.
Animade
Animade produce some really fantastic puppet style animation, and a lot of their design style is quite inspirational. Animade don't have any job openings at the moment, but do run 3 month internships throughout the year which they advertise on social media, so I shall keep an eye out for these.
Seed Animation
Similar to Mummu, Seed Animation studio produce a wide variety of animation for TV and advertising in CG and 2D. Their 2D work is really great and professional, and their motion graphics are gorgeous to watch. Similar to Animade, Seed offer an email address for people to send their work and get added to their freelance database. They also offer internships throughout the year so I shall be applying to this studio in the near future.
Tiger Aspect
Tiger Aspect produce a variety of TV series, their animated series Charlie and Lola and Mr Bean The Animated Series are examples of 2D animated series I really look up to and find their styles interesting and stories fun to follow. They don't have any job openings at the moment, but do accept CVs for future work opportunities relevant to your area of interest in TV.
Sixteen South
Another children's TV series studio, Sixteen South produce a variety of animation series such as Pajanimals and Big & Small, although these aren't 2D, they are producing new series, Lily's Driftwood Bay, and Claude, both uniquely styled animated TV series. The studio doesn't have any job openings on their website, but they do have a contact address, so I shall be inquiring into their studio and perhaps show them my work soon.
I also asked for letters of recommendation from several tutors which I will also send off with applications to studios.
Throughout my time at University, I have also taken part in the Lincoln Award. It awards extra effort through extra-curricular activities and workshops that have benefited me as an individual for post-university as well as job applications. This has helped me a lot, not only for job applications and interviews, but for my confidence.
As well as applying for jobs in the industry, I have also started planning more animated shorts for my own projects. I recently purchased Creating Animated Cartoons with Character by Cartoon Network's Camp Lazlo creator Joe Murray, a book telling the story of how he came about to produce his own TV shows and gives readers tips and guidance on doing the same.
I also approached the Universities' business funding team about receiving funding for setting up a small freelance business and eventually a small animation studio, however after much thought I am going to reapply next year if I do not get a job before then. This is because I don't feel 100% ready to commit to something this big, and want to get my skillet and style improved before I begin pitching for a small business.
Sunday, 18 May 2014
Film Improvements
Following Wednesday's talk with Neil on my lasted film edit, I've been improving the shots he mentioned. I haven't included shots 1 or 10 or 18 or 21 as these are similar to shot 19 with the same background. Here are the before and afters:
Shot 2/3/4 cuts
Before
After
Shot 19 (18 and 21 too)
- apartment building background
Before
After
Shot 20
Before
After
By adding the window frame in the foreground and animating the camera tracking in slightly towards the apartment building, and from the information we received from the previous shot of Betty arriving at the window frame and looking up slightly, we know this shot is her POV of the window frame
Shot 45
Before
After with mid cut
The mid cut showing the bill up close adds to the tenseness of the situation before and after the wallet is revealed to be empty
Shot 46
Before
After
Shot 47
Before
After
To do the wallet opening and the moth escaping from one of the slits in the wallet, I animated the wallet opening in Photoshop and composited Betty's arm and hand assets from Illustrator in After Effects with the wallet opening. For the moth, I animated this in a separate pre-comp and composited it on top of the wallet opening pre-comp and masked it out a little.
Shot 48
Before
After
For the dust explosion I animated a rough version in Flash to get the timing right and then cleaned it up in Photoshop. For the extra assets like the stars and little letters, I animated these in After Effects separately.
Below are the frames for the dust explosion
I were also going to try a shatter effect for when the moth flies back down to the table, so it turns to dust and settles on the table in a neat pile. I looked into this effect in After Effects and decided it wouldn't work well since there are limitations to the effect and is mainly used for live action editing and effects. Here are the tutorials I watched to understand how the Shatter effect works.
Part 1
Part 2
Although not particularly helpful for my film, I learned a lot from this and have taken notes from it and may test around with it for me reel which will have 2D animation and motion graphics in it.
Post Production Pipeline and Editing
Post Production
My film is not heavily reliant on post production and all of the asset creation, besides the Flash and Photoshop animations Bo and I have worked on individually, were designed and created in Illustrator with the idea of not having to adjust the colours in post. Although my film has a very vibrant colour palette, I feel it is aesthetically pleasing and works well with the style of the animation and story.
Editing
The animatic worked well in getting the timing right for my film, and I haven't had to get rid of any shots, only add some towards the end of production. I am pleased that my animatic has served its purpose, and that the film didn't require much editing, as some shots only required cutting a little by a few frames or adding a few to make things clearer to read.
Thursday, 15 May 2014
Film Animation and Shot Tweaks
This past couple of weeks I have been doing more animation, here are some of the WIPs I have been working on:
As I have been animating and placing up to date animation into Premiere to edit the music to, I have noticed little things that could be improved, and I have made many improvements with the animation and tweaks to designs / layouts to improve the film in general.
Tweaks done:
I decided to get rid of the yawn animation in shot 2 and replace it with the party invitation concept I had thought of at the very beginning of the project last year. I decided against the yawn animation for two reasons, primarily, when speaking to my sound designer about the sound effects and what sounds needed to be recorded for the characters, we thought a yawn would actually damage the film (as it is a contagious thing, I couldn't risk audiences yawning at the start of my film, this may seem like a small thing, but it's the last thing any filmmaker wants, to have a bored audience about 20 seconds in!)
For shot 48 when Betty hits William over the head with the frying pan, I originally planned for her to use her right hand from the animatic (left on screen to the audience) but after setting up the IK rig for her custom arm layer that holds the frying pan, the limitations of the set up didn't allow this at all. So I decided to swap hands - simple!
For the first shot where we pan down and track into the diner with apartment buildings on either side of the diner, originally I placed buildings with windows on (yellow lights) but no people inside. This made the set up look odd, so I went back into the Illustrator files and created quick silhouettes for groups of people and repeated the shape for each window. It seemed strange for two huge apartment buildings to have all the lights on with no people in them!
For shot 11, I originally animated the dollar bills floating past William using just the rotation and position properties of each copy of the three dollar bill assets, but I decided to make the animation smoother by applying four puppet pins to each one and animated them along the path to add a paper like look to them floating down.
For the cut between scene 1 and 2 (shots 14 and 15), we see Betty with her coat on in 13 and then off and not to be seen in shot in 15, which is weird when she is still in the same spot in the diner. To fix this oddity, I added the same coat asset from shot 5 before she puts it on to the chair in front of her. A little addition, it makes the connection between the two shots unquestionable.
For shot 18, I originally had the camera pointing at the kitchen door just before Betty comes through the door. This was ok as the colour change from pink for the diner walls to blue for the kitchen walls was clear enough, as the kitchen porter window shows some of the pink wall in the background with the clock, but the shot after this, shot 19, when the camera cuts to a different view of the kitchen, the audience may feel a little confused as they're seeing a completely new part of the kitchen with the character moving, so it looks a little busy as the shot is quite short, just over a second long. To improve this, I made the shot a couple seconds longer and made the camera pan left to right from the kitchen window with the party taking place in the apartment building in the background to right with the kitchen door in view just before Betty comes into the kitchen.
For the cake and ice-cream neon signs seen throughout the film, I decided to add a glow effect to them in After Effects (not Illustrator as effects don't import into Ae well) to make them a little more interesting and add variety against the other assets which are mainly blocks of colour / gradients with some outlines.
Possible Tweaks:
Add shadows to the floors as separately animated assets with the characters' movements (especially Betty) for when their feet are in shot. This would add clarity to them as well as distinguish them from the backgrounds better. The shadows be created in Illustrator and have a feather effect on them (similar to how the tables and chairs groups in some shots have shadows) so there wouldn't be too obvious.
For shot 48 when the moth falls to the table, I had an idea to make the characters stare at it a little while, then it suddenly bursts into flames with some smoke coming off of it leading up to the ceiling. There would be a pause before adding insult to injury, when the water sprinklers would activate and ruin the diner's paint job, Betty's hair etc. I decided to leave this for two reasons; it isn't a necessary gag and it would take quite awhile to get the assets and animation looking good for such a long shot with so much going on. I had an idea to set up a script in Flash by creating a few rain drops to look like a sprinkler does and then import the repeated animation into After Effects as an image sequence. This is something I am wanting to try for my demo reel, so I may in fact return to this shot and extend it a little.
For shot 53 where we see the party at the diner in full swing, I thought about making the assets on the diner (satellite dish, vents and verandas) bounce and wobble along to the music, a nod towards Silly Symphonies in the sense that the environment interacts with the story as well as the characters. I decided not to do this, again, it is unnecessary but is something I may try out later for my demo reel.
For shot 14 when Betty stands up after being thrown to the floor, I thought about making her touch up her hair from how it is in shot 13 (messed up) to how it is usually (clean and rounded). This would be done with two keyframes on both layers from 100% opacity to 0% for the messed up hair layer and vice versa for the same frames for the clean hair. Or a simple blur animation in Photoshop would work too. Again, I decide against this as it isn't needed to tell the story.
I thought about increasing the amount of dirty plates, cutlery etc. to the shots with William during the montage to build up to the shot with all the dirty plates etc. seen in shot 45 but I thought the sudden increase appearance of all the dirty assets would emphasise the stress and business of the montage for Betty. This would also increase the effect of the events and gags of the shots after this one leading to the party where we see the pay off with William in the waitress uniform.
For shot 27 when Betty is interrupted by William's loud burp and we see the burp animation float towards Betty, I thought about extending the shot so we could see Betty wiggle her nose in disgust at the burp and then look down to see the empty plate and drink.
For the first shot, I also thought about adding snow flakes to further emphasise the time of the year and make it even clearer it takes place at New Years Eve. Because this shot has the most 3D space heavy layout, I would have to animate 2 for 3 different pre-comps with snow falling at different rates so I could composite them into the layout and animate an adjustment layer for each pre-comp so when the camera is panning and tracking, snowflakes really close and really far to and from the camera are blurred whist snow in the mid ground is sharp and clear.
Abandoned Tweaks:
When editing the music to the animation I kept updating on a daily basis, I struggled to transition from the first to the second track as they have very different tempos. I decided to leave it as a fade into one another until closer to the deadline, but I could;t figure this out so I will attempt it again for the Blu Ray submission for the degree show next week. I did have an idea to place a fade out from shot 17 and cut into 18, but after thinking about it more carefully, fades are use to show passing of a decent amount of time, not a few seconds, which is what actually happens in the film.
As I have been animating and placing up to date animation into Premiere to edit the music to, I have noticed little things that could be improved, and I have made many improvements with the animation and tweaks to designs / layouts to improve the film in general.
Tweaks done:
I decided to get rid of the yawn animation in shot 2 and replace it with the party invitation concept I had thought of at the very beginning of the project last year. I decided against the yawn animation for two reasons, primarily, when speaking to my sound designer about the sound effects and what sounds needed to be recorded for the characters, we thought a yawn would actually damage the film (as it is a contagious thing, I couldn't risk audiences yawning at the start of my film, this may seem like a small thing, but it's the last thing any filmmaker wants, to have a bored audience about 20 seconds in!)
For shot 48 when Betty hits William over the head with the frying pan, I originally planned for her to use her right hand from the animatic (left on screen to the audience) but after setting up the IK rig for her custom arm layer that holds the frying pan, the limitations of the set up didn't allow this at all. So I decided to swap hands - simple!
For the first shot where we pan down and track into the diner with apartment buildings on either side of the diner, originally I placed buildings with windows on (yellow lights) but no people inside. This made the set up look odd, so I went back into the Illustrator files and created quick silhouettes for groups of people and repeated the shape for each window. It seemed strange for two huge apartment buildings to have all the lights on with no people in them!
For shot 11, I originally animated the dollar bills floating past William using just the rotation and position properties of each copy of the three dollar bill assets, but I decided to make the animation smoother by applying four puppet pins to each one and animated them along the path to add a paper like look to them floating down.
For the cut between scene 1 and 2 (shots 14 and 15), we see Betty with her coat on in 13 and then off and not to be seen in shot in 15, which is weird when she is still in the same spot in the diner. To fix this oddity, I added the same coat asset from shot 5 before she puts it on to the chair in front of her. A little addition, it makes the connection between the two shots unquestionable.
For shot 18, I originally had the camera pointing at the kitchen door just before Betty comes through the door. This was ok as the colour change from pink for the diner walls to blue for the kitchen walls was clear enough, as the kitchen porter window shows some of the pink wall in the background with the clock, but the shot after this, shot 19, when the camera cuts to a different view of the kitchen, the audience may feel a little confused as they're seeing a completely new part of the kitchen with the character moving, so it looks a little busy as the shot is quite short, just over a second long. To improve this, I made the shot a couple seconds longer and made the camera pan left to right from the kitchen window with the party taking place in the apartment building in the background to right with the kitchen door in view just before Betty comes into the kitchen.
For the cake and ice-cream neon signs seen throughout the film, I decided to add a glow effect to them in After Effects (not Illustrator as effects don't import into Ae well) to make them a little more interesting and add variety against the other assets which are mainly blocks of colour / gradients with some outlines.
Possible Tweaks:
Add shadows to the floors as separately animated assets with the characters' movements (especially Betty) for when their feet are in shot. This would add clarity to them as well as distinguish them from the backgrounds better. The shadows be created in Illustrator and have a feather effect on them (similar to how the tables and chairs groups in some shots have shadows) so there wouldn't be too obvious.
For shot 48 when the moth falls to the table, I had an idea to make the characters stare at it a little while, then it suddenly bursts into flames with some smoke coming off of it leading up to the ceiling. There would be a pause before adding insult to injury, when the water sprinklers would activate and ruin the diner's paint job, Betty's hair etc. I decided to leave this for two reasons; it isn't a necessary gag and it would take quite awhile to get the assets and animation looking good for such a long shot with so much going on. I had an idea to set up a script in Flash by creating a few rain drops to look like a sprinkler does and then import the repeated animation into After Effects as an image sequence. This is something I am wanting to try for my demo reel, so I may in fact return to this shot and extend it a little.
For shot 53 where we see the party at the diner in full swing, I thought about making the assets on the diner (satellite dish, vents and verandas) bounce and wobble along to the music, a nod towards Silly Symphonies in the sense that the environment interacts with the story as well as the characters. I decided not to do this, again, it is unnecessary but is something I may try out later for my demo reel.
For shot 14 when Betty stands up after being thrown to the floor, I thought about making her touch up her hair from how it is in shot 13 (messed up) to how it is usually (clean and rounded). This would be done with two keyframes on both layers from 100% opacity to 0% for the messed up hair layer and vice versa for the same frames for the clean hair. Or a simple blur animation in Photoshop would work too. Again, I decide against this as it isn't needed to tell the story.
I thought about increasing the amount of dirty plates, cutlery etc. to the shots with William during the montage to build up to the shot with all the dirty plates etc. seen in shot 45 but I thought the sudden increase appearance of all the dirty assets would emphasise the stress and business of the montage for Betty. This would also increase the effect of the events and gags of the shots after this one leading to the party where we see the pay off with William in the waitress uniform.
For shot 27 when Betty is interrupted by William's loud burp and we see the burp animation float towards Betty, I thought about extending the shot so we could see Betty wiggle her nose in disgust at the burp and then look down to see the empty plate and drink.
For the first shot, I also thought about adding snow flakes to further emphasise the time of the year and make it even clearer it takes place at New Years Eve. Because this shot has the most 3D space heavy layout, I would have to animate 2 for 3 different pre-comps with snow falling at different rates so I could composite them into the layout and animate an adjustment layer for each pre-comp so when the camera is panning and tracking, snowflakes really close and really far to and from the camera are blurred whist snow in the mid ground is sharp and clear.
Abandoned Tweaks:
When editing the music to the animation I kept updating on a daily basis, I struggled to transition from the first to the second track as they have very different tempos. I decided to leave it as a fade into one another until closer to the deadline, but I could;t figure this out so I will attempt it again for the Blu Ray submission for the degree show next week. I did have an idea to place a fade out from shot 17 and cut into 18, but after thinking about it more carefully, fades are use to show passing of a decent amount of time, not a few seconds, which is what actually happens in the film.
Rendering Settings
I have used several programs in the production of my film so a workflow needed to be set up so no mistakes were made during the integration of files from one file to another. All document settings were 1280 by 720 as standard with 25fps.
From Illustrator
I exported the asset files from Illustrator with HD/HDTV 720 Size, 1280 x 720 points and 72 ppi.
From Flash
I created rough animation in Flash and exported them as an PNG image sequences into Photoshop to clean up as Photoshop gives more options for clean up than Flash, as it is bitmap and not vector based.
From Photoshop
To start with, I rendered animations from Photoshop as TIFFs without compression, however this gave it a black background that couldn't be cut in After Effects. To fix this, I decided to export the clean and coloured animation from Photoshop as a PNG image sequence, to retain quality unlike a Quicktime, but also with straight unmatted alpha channel so the sequence rendered without a black background and could be composted straight into After Effects
From After Effects
I exported animation from After Effects as a TIFF image sequence without compression to retain quality too
From Premiere Pro
With the music and sound effects, I rendered my completed film for submission as a Quicktime H.264 Video Codec, 1280 x 720 25fps with Progressive Field Order and Square Pixels and 48000 Hz AAC sound.
Side Note:
Problems and Solutions:
For the montage sequence where we see Betty cooking William's food, I thought I could have her use several props and not just two. I set up both the left and right arm with 2 props; left had a wooden spoon and a pan whilst the right had a knife and meat mallet. I created two pre-comps, one for each arm and its corresponding props.
From Illustrator
I exported the asset files from Illustrator with HD/HDTV 720 Size, 1280 x 720 points and 72 ppi.
From Flash
I created rough animation in Flash and exported them as an PNG image sequences into Photoshop to clean up as Photoshop gives more options for clean up than Flash, as it is bitmap and not vector based.
To start with, I rendered animations from Photoshop as TIFFs without compression, however this gave it a black background that couldn't be cut in After Effects. To fix this, I decided to export the clean and coloured animation from Photoshop as a PNG image sequence, to retain quality unlike a Quicktime, but also with straight unmatted alpha channel so the sequence rendered without a black background and could be composted straight into After Effects
From After Effects
I exported animation from After Effects as a TIFF image sequence without compression to retain quality too
From Premiere Pro
With the music and sound effects, I rendered my completed film for submission as a Quicktime H.264 Video Codec, 1280 x 720 25fps with Progressive Field Order and Square Pixels and 48000 Hz AAC sound.
Side Note:
Problems and Solutions:
For the montage sequence where we see Betty cooking William's food, I thought I could have her use several props and not just two. I set up both the left and right arm with 2 props; left had a wooden spoon and a pan whilst the right had a knife and meat mallet. I created two pre-comps, one for each arm and its corresponding props.
I came across a problem when trying to animate the arms (using IK with the Duik plug in); when rasterised, the props intersect each other and the prop layer on top creates an outline on the prop layer below.
To fix this, I had to create two copies of each arm with one prop in each. This way I could use the Duik plug in to rig these arms with IK and still use both, by key framing the opacity property of each one when needed in the shot.
Wednesday, 14 May 2014
Film Progress Update
Today I showed Neil my latest film edit and he pointed out several things that could be improved to make the story better since some of the animation isn't clear.
Here are the improvements he offered:
Shot 1 - hold the title for longer so the audience has time to read it
Shot 2 / 3 - add some more shots between Betty and the clock to emphasise her wanting to leave as soon as the clock strikes finishing time
Shot 10 - remove the initial blinks as they're quite erratic and not really needed
Shot 18, 19 and 21 - for the apartment building with the party in the background, make this a little clearer so the audience knows what Betty is about to look at (18) and what she has just looked at (19 and 21) after shot 20 with the apartment building on its own
Shot 20 - push back the apartment building a little so it's clearer what she is looking at
Shot 45 - make the animation and the amount of movement the characters do better so its clearer to read e.g. instead of having her rip off the paper from the notepad and place it down on the table, just make her throw it on the table or instead of having William throwing her the wallet, just drop it into her hands
Shot 46 - change it from a shot of her with the wallet open, make her open the wallet
Shot 47 - change the electric zap to make it clearer, instead of seeing just a zap, see the moth actually get zapped
Shot 48 - make this a little clearer so the characters' emotions are easier to read when they change
Side Notes:
Push back the backgrounds a little (saturate colours a little and add some more blurs / depth of field)
Tidy layouts a little to make the characters stand out more especially Betty against the pink walls
Use lots of foley to emphasise the animation!
Since the clock is a signifier for Betty wanting to leave, and the thing that she is worried about i.e. running out of time before the party, I took note which shots had the clock asset within it and planned out the times during the film:
It wasn't imperative to get these times exactly right, but I felt is was important for the audience to follow the time throughout the film since it is the core of the film; running out of time and the race to beat the clock.
Shot 2.4 - 10:25 - 10:26
Shot 2.6 - 10:26 - 10:27
Shot 2.8 - 10:27 - 10:28 (slight pause with next shot)
Shot 3 - 10:29 to 10:30
Shot 5 - 10:30
Shot 6 - 10:30
Shot 7 - 10:30
Shot 18 - 10:40
Shot 21 - 10:42
Shot 22 - 10:44 - 10:45
Shot 33 - 11:15
Shot 35 - 11:15
I had planned to have a translucent clock that would float in front of the camera across the screen during the montage sequence but after speaking to Neil about this, he commented on how it wasn't needed since the montage. I did a quick test to illustrate what I mean:
Here are the improvements he offered:
Shot 1 - hold the title for longer so the audience has time to read it
Shot 2 / 3 - add some more shots between Betty and the clock to emphasise her wanting to leave as soon as the clock strikes finishing time
Shot 10 - remove the initial blinks as they're quite erratic and not really needed
Shot 18, 19 and 21 - for the apartment building with the party in the background, make this a little clearer so the audience knows what Betty is about to look at (18) and what she has just looked at (19 and 21) after shot 20 with the apartment building on its own
Shot 20 - push back the apartment building a little so it's clearer what she is looking at
Shot 45 - make the animation and the amount of movement the characters do better so its clearer to read e.g. instead of having her rip off the paper from the notepad and place it down on the table, just make her throw it on the table or instead of having William throwing her the wallet, just drop it into her hands
Shot 46 - change it from a shot of her with the wallet open, make her open the wallet
Shot 47 - change the electric zap to make it clearer, instead of seeing just a zap, see the moth actually get zapped
Shot 48 - make this a little clearer so the characters' emotions are easier to read when they change
Side Notes:
Push back the backgrounds a little (saturate colours a little and add some more blurs / depth of field)
Tidy layouts a little to make the characters stand out more especially Betty against the pink walls
Use lots of foley to emphasise the animation!
UPDATE
Since the clock is a signifier for Betty wanting to leave, and the thing that she is worried about i.e. running out of time before the party, I took note which shots had the clock asset within it and planned out the times during the film:
It wasn't imperative to get these times exactly right, but I felt is was important for the audience to follow the time throughout the film since it is the core of the film; running out of time and the race to beat the clock.
Shot 2.4 - 10:25 - 10:26
Shot 2.6 - 10:26 - 10:27
Shot 2.8 - 10:27 - 10:28 (slight pause with next shot)
Shot 3 - 10:29 to 10:30
Shot 5 - 10:30
Shot 6 - 10:30
Shot 7 - 10:30
Shot 18 - 10:40
Shot 21 - 10:42
Shot 22 - 10:44 - 10:45
Shot 33 - 11:15
Shot 35 - 11:15
I had planned to have a translucent clock that would float in front of the camera across the screen during the montage sequence but after speaking to Neil about this, he commented on how it wasn't needed since the montage. I did a quick test to illustrate what I mean:
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