James Ensor Year Three Film Production and PDP Blog : More Animation and Shot Development

Over the past few weeks I have been producing the majority of my film since all the character rigs and background projects have been completed and most are set up in individual After Effects projects with some animation and rough timing.

Below are some developments I have made over the past few days.

Shot 18 - Betty enters the kitchen

The layout was a challenge to get right for this shot as we see Betty enter the kitchen from the diner so we see see some of the diner too. I had to be careful how I illustrated the doorway and door so it could be animated with Betty as she comes through the doorway. As the above screenshot illustrates, I set up the KitchenPan layout which is a large panoramic file in Illustrator so I can use a camera to pan across the layout for multiple shots instead of separate backgrounds.

Montage Sequence

MontageBG (Diner) test with Betty file animated

Here I set up one of the layouts for the montage sequence in 3D space and applied depth of field to a stationary camera. This is so only the assets in the foreground (the tables and chairs) as well as Betty when she pans across the frame is in focus and therefore concentrating the audiences' attention on those assets only.

Shot 17 WIP

Here I have started the animation for when Betty nods as she understands William's order and is about to shoot off to the kitchen. Instead of animating each asset on the face including the ear rings, I pre-comped all of these assets and animated the pre-comp within the character master composition. I also animated the rotation property of the hat separately in time with the face animation. This video above is not finished as I have to animate the hair in time with the face and hat as well as the ear rings. I cannot animate the head pre-comp as I did not illustrate any blend shapes in which the head appear like it is looking up or down, this is shown through the ears as the head is in effect just a circle, and these look the same from any angle.

Shot 18

The cut between 17 and 18 shows Betty leaving the diner floor space and into the kitchen area. To animate this, I created a plane that had the diner assets (booth, clock, wall menu etc.) and placed it behind the kitchen layout pre-comp in 3D space. The biggest problem I had was trying to match up the grey and white tiles seen on the diner floor and the blue and white tiles seen on the kitchen floor. To get Betty going from one are to the other, I set the anchor point of the kitchen door to the right so when it was keyframed in time with the character, it would open and close revealing the diner space behind.

Shot 25

I have improved the animation of the wrist so it looks a little less static and moved the assets in this pre-comp to the right because the framing of this shot, in which we see William in the background scoffing his first meal to the left of the frame.

Shot 4 BG

WIP 1