____Onto Cartoon Network! My favourite project so far. The task was to create a motion campaign piece to encourage children to not only use their imagination, but to do something with it. I created a quick and simple character that I thought a child may have been able to come up with, and then visualised him in various ideas.
First, the final product:
I really enjoyed creating this animation, and it made me realise how much I love 2D hand-drawn animation. I never thought I could do it so easily but I just went with it and this is what I came up with. I shot the stop-framed hand (my own) on my own as everyone was busy and I had my own visualisation of how it should be anyway. The only issue I have with it is the camera jiggling about when I pressed the button. Easily re-done with a camera that can use an electronic release!
____At this point I also had no experience of Adobe After Effects and I was on a time limit, so with no time to learn, and just Photoshop and Windows Movie Maker at my mercy, to work I went! I took each stop-framed photograph of my hand and the pencil, and Photoshopped the character onto each frame, making it up to just over 400 frames.
The sound effects are mostly me. Especially the voices. Yes o.O
Back to the beginning! Animatics. I really enjoyed storyboarding these out and playing them together to see the results:
After the animatics, came the testing. I wasn't sure how this idea was going to even work, but, using common sense.. and Photoshop, I produced the following. The first test is a quick idea of how the animated character might interact with the stop-framed pencil, which I think went rather smoothly!
The second test below is just an idea of how "Animatic 3" could work if taken further. The 2D characters would of been Photoshopped over the playdoh blobs which keep the pencils and other tools in place as if being held up by the characters.
I'm glad I went with the idea I did. This one would of been very interesting to create, but much more difficult. Plus I really like the interaction between animator and cartoon character which my final idea had, as well as the exclusiveness of the one character, where as this one was used many of the same character idea. I'm pleased with the outcome of the concept as well as the method. I think it worked really well for the brief's target audience and gets the message across in a creative and memorable way too.
Tuesday 15 June 2010
Lifeline
____The second set project was a quick one: to use any method to encourage those in distress to call the Lifeline helpline. Of course, I chose an animation..
I struggled with ideas for this for a while, trying to overcome whatever is the animator's equivalent for writer's block! Then all of a sudden I was listening to that wonderful Papa Roach song.. and a lyric hit me as I walked out the door to my tutorial.
"a paper man cut into shreds by his own pair of scissors"
I felt this gave off not only an almost suicidal/self-harming metaphor, but also a really creative visual image of an actual paper man. This lead me to the idea of making a paper chain of men as well as various other paper ideas.
____Given time I feel I could have pushed this idea a lot further. Whether that'd be extending the story of what happens to the paper man once he walks out of shot or whether I use another paper idea altogether, such as one I had of using a flip-book.
Also annoyed that my stop-frame animation jiggles about but unfortunately I could not do much about it as my digital camera didn't have an electronic release and I couldn't get hold of one anywhere.
Lifeline FINAL
An animatic of the idea:
Original Development Test:
Further Developed Test:
I almost like this development more than my final because of the "warmth" of the colours in the animation, which for some reason I struggled to re-achieve, and I also preferred the music here, but unfortunately it was deemed too well-known!
I struggled with ideas for this for a while, trying to overcome whatever is the animator's equivalent for writer's block! Then all of a sudden I was listening to that wonderful Papa Roach song.. and a lyric hit me as I walked out the door to my tutorial.
"a paper man cut into shreds by his own pair of scissors"
I felt this gave off not only an almost suicidal/self-harming metaphor, but also a really creative visual image of an actual paper man. This lead me to the idea of making a paper chain of men as well as various other paper ideas.
____Given time I feel I could have pushed this idea a lot further. Whether that'd be extending the story of what happens to the paper man once he walks out of shot or whether I use another paper idea altogether, such as one I had of using a flip-book.
Also annoyed that my stop-frame animation jiggles about but unfortunately I could not do much about it as my digital camera didn't have an electronic release and I couldn't get hold of one anywhere.
Lifeline FINAL
An animatic of the idea:
Original Development Test:
Further Developed Test:
I almost like this development more than my final because of the "warmth" of the colours in the animation, which for some reason I struggled to re-achieve, and I also preferred the music here, but unfortunately it was deemed too well-known!
Monday 14 June 2010
E4's Monday Night Movies
____The end is nigh and I should have started this blog a long time ago! Better late than never, now I finally have time to do these extra things ^^
I'm going to use this space to pop up my final videos from the past year's work, as well as older pieces of work. I may even add my opinions of awesome things I find dotting about, and maybe even my random thoughts on occasion.. lucky you.
Starting at the beginning, the first project set was to create motion graphic adverts for E4's Monday Night Movies strand. We were told the movies to be shown on these were the classic 'cheese' e.g Ghostbusters, Crocodile Dundee, etc, and while so terrible they were but we still can't resist watching them. The 'irresistible' idea was where my concept originated and from this I came up with the irresistible red "do not press" button. I created a variety of short sequences, all with this red button, which advertised each genre of film, e.g comedy, sci-fi, horror.
.. and this is what I came up with!
E4 Monday Night Movie's FINAL (Comedy)
E4 Monday Night Movie's FINAL (Sci-Fi)
Development works for this project are shown below. It originated as a cartoon button drawn on a whiteboard, but this did not look irresistible enough.
The below development is almost the final of the comedy advert, but before I had applied the cracked glass effect in Adobe After Effects.
At the early ideas stage, I originally came up with the idea that the films are so irresistible that you are literally dragged towards them, whether you like it or not. This idea became visual in this animatic:
Looking back, I really wish I'd followed through on this idea and would still like to pursue it in my spare time.
In future I need to be more confident with my initial ideas, getting them visual as soon as possible in as many forms as possible, and also to follow through on ideas even though I fear they may be tricky to film.
I'm going to use this space to pop up my final videos from the past year's work, as well as older pieces of work. I may even add my opinions of awesome things I find dotting about, and maybe even my random thoughts on occasion.. lucky you.
Starting at the beginning, the first project set was to create motion graphic adverts for E4's Monday Night Movies strand. We were told the movies to be shown on these were the classic 'cheese' e.g Ghostbusters, Crocodile Dundee, etc, and while so terrible they were but we still can't resist watching them. The 'irresistible' idea was where my concept originated and from this I came up with the irresistible red "do not press" button. I created a variety of short sequences, all with this red button, which advertised each genre of film, e.g comedy, sci-fi, horror.
.. and this is what I came up with!
E4 Monday Night Movie's FINAL (Comedy)
E4 Monday Night Movie's FINAL (Sci-Fi)
Development works for this project are shown below. It originated as a cartoon button drawn on a whiteboard, but this did not look irresistible enough.
The below development is almost the final of the comedy advert, but before I had applied the cracked glass effect in Adobe After Effects.
At the early ideas stage, I originally came up with the idea that the films are so irresistible that you are literally dragged towards them, whether you like it or not. This idea became visual in this animatic:
Looking back, I really wish I'd followed through on this idea and would still like to pursue it in my spare time.
In future I need to be more confident with my initial ideas, getting them visual as soon as possible in as many forms as possible, and also to follow through on ideas even though I fear they may be tricky to film.
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