Evaluation.

Overall I am quite pleased with my final animation, I have tried to stick to the brief and go for something simple and not over complicated but its very easy to get carried away which is why my animation is 6 seconds over the 30 second limit.

I have enjoyed the process of this project and learning the skills needed to complete it, although it has been a tough challenge not being at all familiar with Animation.

I feel that I have learned a lot from this project skills and programme wise but also that it dosen't matter how in experienced you are at something because with the relevant research and planning, experimentation, determination and creativity you can get a good end result.

Enjoy. :)

Final animation. :)

This is my final animation, I have made some slight changes to the storyboard and got rid of the flower at the end to make it fit to the music and flow better, My animation is also 36 seconds long as the animation needed a little longer to fit to the change in the music. 

Background.

when my animation was finished it looked to plain with the white background
and needed some colour so sticking with the childlike drawings I created a
meadow scene in photoshop making the clouds, the sun and the grass separate
layers to create a composition that when brought into After effects I could
make the clouds move without moving all the background.

The process of changing initial drawings into animation.

 These images show the processes used to create the characters for animation.

I repeated the same process for the second teddy,
but changed the colours so that there was a difference
between the two and flipped the image.

After drawing the characters I scanned the images,
and placed them as individual layers on photoshop
to create a composition to use in After effects.

Body of the butterfly.

Butterfly's wings
(Repeated to get a symmetrical second wing)

Antenner also x2

This is the final butterfly that was made using
the above parts it was also flipped and saved
as a second composition for use in the animation.

After effects (puppeting)

A quick demonstration of After effects workshop 3 

Final Storyboard

Teddy is strolling along through a meadow with a sad expression on her face,

Teddy see's a butterfly that starts circling her head and Teddy looks happier and puzzled by this experience.

Teddy Follows the butterfly,

And begins to chase it and try and catch it,

The butterfly leads the Teddy through the meadow to Mr Teddy and they fall in love,

Mr Teddy then picks up a flower and gives it to teddy and then they stroll off together :) 

storyboard Ideas (Teddys)

Teddy is unhappy and looks lost,

Hand comes in from the left and pokes teddy, Teddy then looks surprised and shocked,

The hand draws a bow for teddy and puts it on the Teddy, resulting a smiley face, 

The hand draws a heart and a question mark asking Teddy if she believes in love at first sight, 

Teddy shakes her head,

The hand then draws a male teddy and The female teddy falls in love,

Do you believe in 'Love at first sight?' (Text appears at the top of the page)

Hand then draws Mr teddy a top hat and puts it on his head.

From the start 

---> Changes at 12 seconds 

---> changes again at 23 seconds 

---> again at 33 seconds 

---> 44 seconds

---> 1.05 

---> 1.43

---> 1.54

---> 2.05

---> 2.15 slight change 

---> 2.31

---> 2.37

---> 2.58

---> 3.20

---> 3.31

---> End 

I listened to the track and made notes of where the music changes,

for my animation I'm going to use the first 33/44 seconds.

Storyboard research

I collected a few good examples of storyboards to get ideas ad ways of presenting of mine.

Further Rayograms

I went into the darkroom again to experiment with movement using the images from the character design workshop, and messed about with the Light exposure to create movement.

Animated Children's TV programmes

Following on from looking at children's drawings I researched children's animation

TV programmes and films, and looked at, 

Colour, Characters, Movement, Backgrounds and Sound.  

Peppa pig, 

Bright colours

Simply designed characters

Minimal & repetitive movement

The background dosen't change at all

And the sound is very repetitive and minimalistic.

Pingu, 

Colours used are mainly black and white, with a few colours that are bright when used

Simple characters

Simple movements

The background has slight changes to show that the characters are in a different environment

The sound is very minimal and very child aimed. 

From this research I have learned that to make my presentation childlike, I will use 

Bright colours, simple and repetitive movements, Simple characters and slight movement in the background but not enough to take the focus of the characters.

Primary research

After listening to the music and making notes of how it made me feel and what it made me think about, I looked into Children's drawings because I get a very happy, Bright, playful and child like feel from the music. I found out some of my drawings from when I was a child to get a feel for how children draw and what children tend to draw. 

From this researched I discovered that Teddy bears occur quite often when a
child draws and bright colours are essential.

Character design & Cell animation

Quick development of Character Designs

Working in a group of 2 we Me & Sarah Oram combined our characters and developed and
story in which the teddy and the girl have a picnic. We spilt the work and went away and
created a cell animation, and then put it all together on After effects when we had finished. 

Stop motion session :)

In todays session We were in the stop motion suite. Using children's toys to create movement with the characters. In groups of 5 we made a stop motion animation on a photography set up with a backing light, using a programme called I can animate. 

We took each movement of the characters as a single shot and set it so that the previous shot was faintly visible whilst moving the character into the next position so that we could create a smooth animation. We then saved it but because of the programme it took the colour from the video and saved it as Black and White. but on the colour video the way the light hit the pig in the end shot was very powerful and effective, and helped to show the Pigs victory. 

When doing my final animation I will certainly consider lighting and the way it connects to the characters and scenes of the animation.

My brother saw this video and said he liked it because It didn't make sense and that it reminded him of the cravendale advert on the telly.

Rayograms session.

I Started of by using a ruler to test the effects that you could get from using
Rayograms, Using a small tester strip of paper I changed the light exposure
at each centimetre on the ruler, And then using this tester strip I could then
see what the light exposure needed to be on a final image of the ruler, and then
using the same exposure time I photographed the feathers aswell.

Out of the Inkwel

This is a silent amination series produced using a rotascope by Max Fleischer.

I like the way he draws the character and makes it look like its coming to life through motion and I like the way he draws back into his animated character and adds to it to create scenes and movement.

First attempt at stop animation.

I put a white board up and set up a tri-pod with a camera and drew a little animation on the whiteboard, Each extra thing I drew I took a shot on the camera and then when the image was complete I uploaded them to imovie and put together a short 42 second animation changing the running time and then added and edited the timing if the music.

Researching ways of animating

Uses a wheel.

Draws and animates his drawings.

Feeling the music.

After the first session, I came away with a few starting points that I jotted down in a
spider diagram and a few words that were collected as a group.

I then listened to the music again alone in a quiet environment with no distractions
and made another spider diagram of all the things, feelings, emotions, colours ect
that the music made feel.

Connection that takes you somewhere.

After the group session I researched some things that related imagery and music in clever ways. 

I watched Pink Floyd- The wall because it interesting how the wall builds up around the title (The wall)
& Derek Jarmins videos are a blue screen and he then tells a story that is
very therapeutic and interesting because although there is no Image there the story
begins to make you picture your own image of how you imagine something to look.

Derek Jarmin- Blue

Secondary Research.

After the lecture on 'The nature of Art motion' I started to look at ways that Art and music relate.

I began to look into 50's and 60s' Pop art and to look at the way Modern album covers
use pop art style to create a certain feel for their music type.

I researched Julian Opie, Who's work is very similar to Pop art. He designed
the Album cover for Blur that featured the band members In a very cartoon
Andy Warhol style.

I continued this research by linking it to moving imagery and the illusion of movement
from still images. I looked at Expressionism and Futurism because the colours used and
the bright overlapping shapes give a feel of movement. 

Franz Marc is a good example of an artist who creates movement in his still paintings
through shapes and colours.