The 50's Film Look

This afternoon I had a catch up conversation with Neil about my film and my progress. I showed him the animation test I did a few weeks back and he really liked the black and white look to William. I decided to see how my other character Betty will look in black and white and went back to my characters in Photoshop and placed a black and white adjustment layer on top of the existing colour turn around.

After experimenting with the colour levels of the adjustment layer I applied and found that reducing the red to make William's hair darker made him look more appealing and slightly more imposing in my mind. I experimented with Betty's colours too but I think the original one I did above works best for her character, both design and personality. 

Over the past couple of weeks especially I have found colour to be difficult to get right, both for characters and layout. I've struggled to get across the emotion the most but I think my colour script gets across the emotion ok.

I'm not too sure on the black and white version as it changes the mood of the story on its head - it's almost a horror at a glance! 

I wanted to see how the general look of my film might look so I did the same as above to my New York City concept.

This was a suggestion from Neil for my film aesthetic. Although it emphasises the 1950's style I am going for, it takes away the setting of my film being set on one of the most celebrated nights all over the world. Because my film is being put together in After Effects, I can apply a black and white adjustment layer to my film during post-production whereas if I illustrated all my assets in black and white, I can't do the opposite where I apply colour.

Car and Diner Design - Sketches

I want the diner to be the focus point of my exterior shots. The apartment buildings of either side of the diner as well as the two smaller buildings in the foreground and the three rows of building silhouettes in the background are composed of angular straight edges. This is why I have gone for a diner that's rounded and small in comparison to the surrounding buildings so it'll stand out more.

Disney Pixar's "UP" were a great inspiration for this concept. The use of contrasting colours; warm colours for Carl's house and cold blues and greys for the surrounding development sites have been very helpful in decided the colours for my diner and surrounding apartment buildings. I think that using pinks, yellows and reds for the diner, mainly the interior, will get across the idea of the diner being a warm, fun and friendly place.

Pre-Production Research and Influences - Books

During the course of the Pre-Production module, I've found that renting art and design books from the Universities' Library have really helped for inspiration for my film as well as references to design and colours. 

One book I found particularly helpful was Amid Amidi's "Cartoon Modern: Style and Design in Fifties Animation" because of it's variety of design styles as well as information about animation during the 50's. I found the section on United Productions of America's (UPA) later work to be particularly inspiring. For example Jules Engel's "Mister Magoo" backgrounds have a lot of forced perspective in them which inspired me to go for a simplistic, straight edged style to my New York City design. Also the Lew Keller's concept art for John Hubley's "The Four Poster" also inspired me to think about using block shapes for the background buildings in my exterior shots.

Another book that I rented from the library also helped me to think more about character design. Mark Cotta Vaz's "The Art of The Incredibles" was particularly inspiring when it came to thinking about using as little lines as possible to create a simplistic and effective character designs. 

Improved Production Plan

Here is my finalised Production Plan. I changed it to match my change of mind of doing a 2D/CG to full 2D film. For some reason, Google Drive won't let me include all of the Excel document.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0YBS3WUMMY9UGJiMnVkanhPT2c/edit?usp=sharing

3D Layers, Cameras and Lights in After Effects

Before I get stuck in illustrating the assets for my film, I wanted to see how 3D space works in After Effects so I know the constraints of using Illustrator and After Effects 3D space.

Illustrator file

Importing and set up in After Effects

Making the objects into 3D layers and adding a camera and spot light

I've enjoyed the process of illustrating and setting up the object in 3D space and am looking forward to starting my final exterior in After Effects.

Project Production PipeLine

Record Animation References - WIP

Exterior Assets - DONE

Matte Painting Backdops - WIP

Interior Assets - WIP

After Effects Scene Set Up - WIP

Lighting - N/A

Characters - WIP

Props - WIP

Asset Checks and Improvements - WIP

Rough Animation (Blocking) -

Animation -

Animation Checks -

VFX -

SPFX -

Compositing -

Sound -

Final changes and edits -

Rendering -

Important project update

On Thursday I took a step back from my project and realised the scope of it all. I started to get overwhelmed by it all and after much thought over the past few days I have decided to do a full 2D film instead of a 2D/CG film. The reason behind this is that I feel comfortable with the work load and although I've been testing different CG assets e.g. cell shading, chrome shaders and lighting, I'm not particularly enjoying the work. I don't want to start production where I'm unhappy with the work and the amount I need to do because it'll affect the quality of the work down the road. Another thing is that my intention for this project was to show my design style and animation skills using After Effects to create a short film. I'm happy with my progress in CG and have learn some new things and may return to the 2D/CG style further down the road in my career or free time. For now however, I want to stick to Illustrator and After Effects because I am really enjoying developing my skills in those softwares and seeing my characters come to life.

I am going to go back to the piece of inspiration that really got me excited to try Illustrator and After effects together to create a short film.

"Create a Cartoon in After Effects" - Tutorial Album on Vimeo

This week is the end of my first week of production schedule and I have finished all the pre-production for my film and recored some animation references. My final task of the week is to see how my characters look in my film.

I used my diner interior concept and placed my characters on top. I have decided through experimentation that it works best when the layout has just colour fill and the characters have lines. They stand out more and overall look like they belong in the scene.