Collaboration

As i had some spare time I decided to help Becky Gilby out and do her animatic. This was an after thought as i have already submitted my work but I still did it so I thought i should blog it. I used the characters that Rosy had already drawn and just adjusted to make it look like it was moving. I also created the background for the alley way and the trash bag.

Your BLT sandwich

Here is my animation in its pretty much finished form. I think this will be how i submit it but i would like to try and get it completely finished.

Evaluation

This project has certainly been a challenge. I decided to work on my own as I wanted to try a hybrid of animation and a lot of people were doing stop motion and i didn't want to. This gave me a lot of work to do all by myself. The good thing about this was I didn't have to arrange with everyone when and how to do things. The bad thing was that I didn't have anyone to bounce ideas off of and delegate tasks to if someone was better at it. I could work when i like on what I like and not feel bad. I do think having a partner or group would've improved my animation in hindsight. 

This project was also difficult in that I was learning new techniques and it was all a bit confusing for a while. I learnt how to make 2D images move through 3D space using maya. I had not thought of this technique before, I thought maya was just for 3D things. It was tough to get my head around what needed doing as i didn't do things in chronological order. I think i should have done that to make it easier but i couldn't because there were things i didn't know how to do.

I think the part i enjoyed the most on this project was actually creating the assets. I really enjoy animating the pig too. 

The way i tackled the audience was by making things very clear both visually and verbally so it is easy to understand for both children and adults. This way it can be used as a teaching method or just something to explain for personal use at any age. I believe the tone of voice is clear yet not patronising. 

I think if i were to do this module again I actually would've chosen something a bit more fun to work on like Cara, Rebecca and Annas one as i think it would have kept my attention more and made me want to work on it whereas i got quite bored with this one. I am happy with how it turned out in the end but i feel it is not my best work and I think its the idea that is holding it back. 

I also would've worked in a team so i could concentrate on a specific skill and we could have made everything to a better standard.

Almost there

Today i fixed my most of my maya issues (last nights renders turned out to be useless as there were lots of black boxes everywhere) So i sorted that out and tonight i have added extra sound effects from freesfx.com and then i decided to see what a music track would sound like on it and i decided it made it more interesting. I chose one from  http://www.purple-planet.com . It's nice background music that isn't too over powering. It's also not sad and a bit jolly which lightens the mood much the way the tone of voice is in the animation. 

There is still a couple of bits in maya that need editing (the flash of a box and the tomato plant needs lifting) but i will do that if i have time tomorrow. If not-this will do fine for submission, at least it is finished. 

Title sequence research

The incredibles is i brilliant title sequence, I like how it starts of with the normal family then the dad rips open his shirt to reveal the logo and then its all action from there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJtUdm3TLZ8&list=PLbEb562CLykF1DEw2z6aDdnMQ7SgowNxS&index=9

Unfortunately our title sequences aren't going to be long like this as that would be like the same length as the actual animation.

Like this which is much shorter and cuter.It is still too long though

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpGLSR5AnIo

I think i might just have to have the title move across the page or something reeaaally simple.

A little more like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIjThYnXaP4

This one is really cool! Its an impressive use of motion and also the text is twisted and has a cool shine on it but i think what makes it is actually the music they use! its very powerful and dramatic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LzVfsNpDxc

This is really cool too but i think thats something to learn as a whole project not just for my title sequence as i dont have time!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jTwX8jz-44

Maya

I have made a lot of progress in maya today. I now have all my assets moving around the kitchen. It's not perfect yet but heres a tester. For some reason the tractor decides to go black half way round so ill have to check that out and also it only decided to render these frames, but that might have been me not checking the render settings properly. but it is enough to show you where i am at.

product design

Today i redesigned my dvd cover and poster. I was not happy with my original designs as they just looked cheep and tacky and boring. Rosy gave me a great idea to make the type look like a sandwich in 2 slices of bread. I thought this looked better with a blue background. I think it looks much more professional now especially the poster. 

PROBLEM SOVLED!!!

For the last couple of days I have been stuck with maya. although i exported my files as png's and clicked rgb and alpha so i had a transparency setting, it still wasnt working properly! It made me have ghost objects! but today with annabeths help, the problem is solved! for started i shouldnt have been creating mp4s then exporting them as png's afterward, i should have exported png's from photoshop, and clicked straight matted. This part was very important as that is what took away the background properly and also made the image the right transparency!!! definitely a successful day! 

Here is a test of my pig in 3d space. its not quite right yet but at least he isn't a ghost anymore. I will edit everything tomorrow  and hopefully put it all together. 

A correlation i see between these posters is that they are all a bit dark, they feature a main character, 3 of which by a close up headshot. they all have the title on.some have more details like release date, some have actors names or "from the makers of" as this might sell the film. 
Now i don't have a main character, or famous actor or anything like that so I actually don't know what to do to make my poster look awesome>?

poster

This is my initial poster design but I think i need to find out what else goes on a movie poster:

Decisionssss

So I have put the correct synopsis on the back now and added the pg etc. But i still can't decide what colour to use! so difficult!I like the brightness of the green but i like how the pink one makes it look more professional. But green makes me feel like its more about food! I think ill have to get another opinion before I decide.

Distribution

So for the distribution part of this submission we need:
-A2 poster
-Logline (breif summery of film 2 lines)
-Summary (synopsis of film and background up to 250 words)
-3x images from animation
-5x images from process( storyboards, concept art, behind the scenes photos)
-Crew and director bio
-DVD box art


So my logline i think will be:

In this documentary animation, find out about how much you actually waste when you throw food out.
or maybe
food wastage-what are you throwing out?


And my synopsis:

Food wastage is at an all time high in the UK. We have more than we need and take things for granted. We throw perfectly edible food away without a second thought. This short animated film visually documents the process of creating a single BLT sandwich and what you are truly wasting when you throw it away, from the money to the manual labour of an endless process. This animation will make people think more about wasting food and the impact it has on their environment.


crew and director are all just me so...

Elyse Jackson:
As her second year of studying animation comes to a close, she feels she has come a long way from where she started. Elyse knew nothing about animation, but now can confidently make her own short animations as proved in this documentary that was created solely by her. There are still many things Elyse would like to improve on, and many more things she would like to learn. She has not yet chosen a specific area she likes to work in as she cannot pick a favourite yet. 


My 3 images from the animation:

+one maya one

5 images from process:

need 1 more...

DVD box

Im still not set on a design so I'm having a play!! with colours and different images. I also researched what needs to be on the box and realised i needed the age rating, I have decided on pg and in the second image, its says "suitable for general viewing but some scenes may be unsuitable for younger children. A pg film should not disturb a child age 8 or older" and i think the scene where it says the oil gets slaughtered to make bacon would be disturbing to a 4 year old which is the starting age for a U.  

Here are a few of my colour choices for having the pig on the front. Red stands out well but I have never been a fan of red and pink together. Also it says to be blood and danger and thats not really what my animation is about.
I like the turquoise one but i think that is just because I like the colour. The green says healthy and food etc so i still like that. I feel it looks more like a children's book than a dvd cover though with plain backgrounds. I also need to put the rating description on the back.

I also tried using a gradient preset and I think this looks quite good as it looks more like a DVD than a book. I also made the pig have a worried expression on his face. It makes him look less cute though so I may have to edit it.

DVD cover

So here is my DVD cover original design. I think it looks pretty cool! I'm not sure if maybe it looks a bit amateur though? Not very clean and nice either. But i do like the idea of it! ah such decisions!!!

I also did a second design that a lot simpler Maybe the text on the back should be white though? I think this one looks a bit cleaner and more professional. I think I am going to re do this on illustrator though so it prints nicer and also print it an uni where the quality it lots better because I printed these as testers to put in a case to see how they look and my quality is not very good.

I just thought of a cool idea! I could use the bread images and put them on the front and back so that when the box is closed it looks like a sandwich! and then if i was doing a cd sticker i would do it like it was the filling so it would look like lettuce bacon and tomatoes!!!! A cool idea if i do say so myself! not sure how it is going to look yet though as it might just look messy and I wanted a clean look. We'll see, no harm in trying.

DVD cover research

 I quite like how in this DVD cover the front and back are linked together with nice bright colour and lines. I have noticed that there is a main image on the front and then 2 more images on the back to show what else is in the dvd. It all flows very nicely and I would quite like to do that with mine.





I  was thinking about using an image of the kitchen to spread across the whole thing but actually after seeing this I'm not so sure. This is a beautiful image so it works better but they have ruined it with the use of type I think. The two typefaces do not go together in my opinion and they just detract from the beautiful imagery. Type is definitely something I will have to take time to consider.

I quite like this cover. It's very simple and looks nice and clean. The spine where the title goes to see it on shelves is very clear unlike the previous one. There is also an extra image on the back of this one to show part of the film action. I very much like this but I don't think black and white would suit my film.






In hunger games, the main characters are on the front. The title on this isn't actually that clear but i think people just recognise it for the characters. I think it is important to have a clear title though. Again on the back there is some stills from the movie.







I also started looking at animated film covers. Wall E uses the more photographic scenes and has the main character on the front. It doesn't have the same image going through the whole thing but they do blend well together. On the back again we have extra images that show more about the story.

 In Darias box set cover it is very simple which suits the style of animation. it is very much like a comic book like on the back with the comic strip style images. It is very clear and again concentrates on the main character on the front.

 In toy story 2 the characters are again at the forefront of it all with very clear titles on the spine and the front with a shot from the movie on the back. The way the image on the front is it shows the mood of the film like its very fun and a bit silly.






Overall from this research I have learnt that the general dvd boxes have the main character/s on the front (which could be a problem as I don't really have any) , a clear title both on the spine and the front, and stills from the movie on the back. I want my box to look clean and simple with nice type and looks appealing so people want to look at it.

progress

The crit gave me a lot of fuel to get cracking on more animation today as it gave me a few ideas and I've got lots of things fixed and extra bits in. Pretty much all thats left now is the stuff in maya which I started yesterday and will continue tomorrow, then the title and credits and then making sure it all runs smoothy together. I also need to gather the sound effects and possibly locate a music track but I'm still not decided on that.
here is my animation at this point.

Final crit

I found this final crit very useful as there was still a lot of things I wasn't sure about and as I am working on my own, I needed to bounce ideas of people.
Together we came up with these changes:
-Audio is fine
-when were talking about £2 for belt do close up on counter and show money piling up
-when talking about carbon footprint maybe close up on bin.
-add sound effects
-possibly music but only if it fits right
-get some close ups
-start title sequence after first scene.
-Make bread just open first then say about bread at the end

Getting there

All my voice over sound is now ready. I have decided to do it myself as i know how I want it to be said and i can just get on with it. I will ask in the crit if people think it is okay. If not ill get someone else to do it.  I am also hoping to add small sound effects to make it seem a bit more real like tractor and pig noises and footsteps. I am also not sure whether to have a quite track playing in the background for a bit of interest but this may make things a bit confusing? again I will ask at my crit. 
I was a bit worried that this animation would run long once I had created my script. I have put together what I have animated, with the rest of the animatic and audio for my crit and to see how long it would be. Turns out its only 1.35 so far! but obviously ill have proper title and credits. So thats good!
Theres one bit in the script "your blt may only have cost you £2 from the shop..." that I think might be a bit long winded and I think I might take it out. I can't decide if it adds to it or is just boring, because I also can't think of anything to animate for it so I may end up with just a kitchen and none wants that. 

Drawing voices

In this article, Jacqueline Goss show us her findings from creating an animation called Stranger comes to town : 2007, in which she interviewed 6 people about their experiences coming across the border into The United States to either emigrate or visit. 
From this we learn that there is a very thorough process of checking identification such as finger print recognition that is now digitally done and they couldn't see anything like a screen to know what was going on.
These peoples recorded interviews were used to create a documentary style animation a little bit like creature comforts in the fact that its real life peoples stories but instead of seeing the people they came from, we see a made up character that appears to tell the story like it's their own. In stranger comes to town She uses characters from World of Warcraft, partly because on the game, the appearance decides where you come from in the game. This is the same with nationality. It shows that all of these people are different and probably not what you would expect to see from their voices. 
An interesting note was that all of the people that were interviewed chose a character that was the same gender as themselves. This made it easier for the animator as it would be more believable but I don't think that is what she was expecting. 

Applied animation

Today I feel like I have got a lot done and I feel like everything is starting to come together which is making me feel much better about the whole thing. This morning I put together all of my images to make my pixillation animation and I made png sequences of my pig and farmer animations so that they are ready to go into maya. This afternoon have animated my sandwich on top of the pixillation and have put that together with what I did before and I now have about 40 seconds done so far. 
Im feeling like I am more on top of my work not but still not as much as I would like. I am hoping to have the animation pretty much finished by the end of this week with a lot of luck.

Voice over script

http://england.lovefoodhatewaste.com/node/2472

We throw away 7 million tonnes of food and drink from our homes every year in the UK, and more than half of this is food and drink we could have eaten. Wasting this food costs the average household £470 a year, rising to £700 for a family with children, the equivalent of around £60 a month.

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT

If we all stop wasting food that could have been eaten, the benefit to the planet would be the equivalent of taking 1 in 4 cars off the road.

Animation action

Sound effect

Words

Man picks up sandwich- takes a bite 
crunch noise
man throws sandwich in the bin
woosh noise
"The UK throws away around 7 million tonnes of food and drink from our homes every year. A lot of which could have been eaten. Wasting this food could cost the average house around £470 per year. But it is not just money we have wasted."
Sandwich jumps out of bin. flute kinda noise
"To make one BLT sandwich we need bread, which is made from wheat that farmers have had to plant, nurture while it grows, Harvest, turn it into flour and then sell it on so that it can be made into bread. 
The bacon would've started off as a young pig that would be raised by famers, who would have to feed it and make sure its healthy, then slaughter it and sell it for meat.
The tomato's came from a tomato plant that would have been carefully grown and kept healthy then harvested
The lettuce would also have been planted, nurtured and harvested. bubble pop 
All of these things require farmers. Famers require a wage.
farmer walks on eyup 
Farmers often need tractors to help them do their jobs. Tractor drives on.tractor noise. Tractors need fuel to keep them going Fuel comes on and almost everything needs water to survive Water starts flowing out of the tap.water flowing..the list of things that are needed to create one BLT sandwich is almost endless. things move around the table, wheat etc jumps into tractor and tractor drives off. pig oinking, footsteps, tractor, water, 
Things start jumping into the bin.
Your BLT may only have cost you £2 from the shop but when you add up the cost of what has gone into making it, not to mention the manual labour and the lives lost for you just to throw away their efforts, it accounts for much more. 
We are creating an unnecessarily larger carbon footprint Smoke comes out of bin by wasting food that could've been eaten. By stopping this wastage, we could benefit the planet as much as taking 1 in 4 cars of the road would.
Do your part to stop food wastage.

Farmer

I spoke to Mat on Friday to have a refresher of how to make my assets move around the kitchen using maya. This time he showed me how to animate it along a path and how I can make it go around a corner. He also showed me a way that I can use a locator tool and parent my tractor to it meaning I could just add in whichever asset I want in place of the tractor and they'll all move the same way without having to re do it every time. I am a bit nervous about getting round to doing this for real but I think it will definitely be worth it as it will cut my animating time down by a lot which I need as there is only 2 weeks left until the deadline. I also really hope I have enough time to add shadows and reflections but I feel like I won't unless they are really quick to do.

Today I did a walk cycle for the farmer so he can walk around the table tops too.  I am quite pleased about how he walks but after I finished animating I realised i hadn't set the frame rate to 24fps now I am worried that this won't work with my animation but I'm hoping it will be okay. If not I think I will just copy all the frames over into the correct timeline frame rate. I will cross this bridge if it becomes a problem but at least I am aware that this problem could arise and I can look out for it.
Here is my little animation:

Pixar

Chris - character designer at pixar

lots of research involved in getting final look of characters- to try and make things believable- when you find the authernticity it makes the audience relate.
research drawing help you find out things that are consistent that you need to put in the final
have to do turnarounds and work with character builders to tell them how they can build it and to keep it how its supposed to be. 
try and bring your personal life into your animations and make it authentic
always has to be a reason why your doing something
clarity and strong silhouettes and strong gestures are very important