Introduction to Animation: Final Artwork
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Introduction to Animation: Assignment PDF
Production Principles: Out of Your Head, animating the carousel
We animated several seconds even though we know we won’t need that much. This means for the two shots that include the carousel moving – when he looks through the camera and when he arrives in the colourful world, we can choice of which seconds of footage to use.
Production Principles: Out of Your Head, setting up for animating
Production Principles: Out of Your Head, the carousel and first test
Some initial designs by others in the team:
This week is all about preparing assets for the stop motion section and doing our first test. On Monday, we collectively designed the carousel, which is the first thing the character sees when he sees into the colourful world. We all brought in lots of materials such as coloured card, tissue paper, buttons, pipe cleaners, string etc, so that we could see lots of colour and texture options while designing assets. Deciding the colour scheme for the carousel was the hardest part, but it helped to look at lots of references on Pinterest. It needs to be colourful and inviting, and also familiar as a traditional carousel.
This is our first test animation of the carousel, with a simple background and another funfair ride in the midground just as a draft. The main issue is that the carousel is too big to for the shot we want. Other than that, the animation is pretty successful. We added little paper bands to the backs of the horses so that they could slide up and down the golden poles (coffee stirrers from the cafe). Animating it quite fiddly but looks quite effective I think. Going forward, as well as the smaller carousel, it’ll also be important to make sure that isn’t moving is secure.
Production Principles: Out of Your Head, animating on a multiplane
Production Principles: Out of Your Head, first animatic
We decided the next step was to create an animatic, which just needed to be the most important few keyframes for each shot, held for the length of that shot. To do this we needed to make the shot list even shorter, but we managed to condense it even further into fourteen key moments and make a storyboard together:
We shared the keyframes among us to turn into full-sized drawings, and then I put them together into an animatic:
An interesting development that came from making this animatic was actually a stylistic decision. We all really liked Evelyn’s drawing for her keyframes, which we done digitally but looked like they’d been made pastel or charcoal:
It reminded me of William Kentridge’s animation, which I shared with the group:
If we adopt this sort of style for the 2D section at the start, the animation as a whole will maintain a handmade feel throughout. That would help to unify the two different animation mediums, while still keeping the important contrast between the black and white 2D section and the colourful stop motion section.
Production Principles: Out Of Your Head, 15-17th November
While finalising the story, we were recommended to make a shot list, and I managed to condense our story down to this:
- A black and white 2D world. A man walks into an abandoned funfair. There is a faint sound of music playing.
- There is a camera on the ground. The music gets slightly louder as he approaches it
- He picks up the camera and holds it to his ear.
- He holds the camera up to his eye
- From his point of view through the camera, the funfair is colourful and alive. The music is louder still.
- He brings the camera away from his eye and looks up. Then he lifts it to his eye again and presses the shutter button
- A cloud of colour bursts from the camera and engulfs him
- A colourful stop motion world. Close up of the man’s eyes opening (made of paper). The music is at full volume
- A carousel is turning.
- The man walks towards it. It slows to a stop as he stops next to it
- Close up of a couple of the horses on the carousel. Their eyes turn towards him.
- The horse nearest him is glowing a little. He reaches his hand towards it
- He places his hand on the horses head
- Another cloud of colour bursts
- Close up of the horses head. The eyes, the man’s eyes are moving frantically
- Zoom out, so we see several of the horses, including his. All their eyes are moving
- Wide shot of funfair surrounded by darkness. Music gets even louder.
- Cut to credits
I also had a go at starting to figure out timings:
We started discussing how the character should look today. We mostly imagined him being fairly minimalistic, putting the emphasis in the story on the funfair and what happens to him. Anika drew up a potential design, along with a few alternative details, and then a silhouette version, so we had various visual options to explore:
Finally this week, after discussing many options for the ending of our animation and getting tutors to explain exactly what was missing from our story, got the green light for the story. One element we really wanted to include was to somehow loop back to the image of the camera that gets the camera into the colourful funfair, but having worked out the timings a little, it just wouldn’t fit without making the rest of it too fast.
Production Principles: Out Of Your Head, 13th November
We’re now at the stage of developing the story and visualising various elements.
This is a quick sketch of my initial thoughts for the stop motion section, involving paper cut outs on a multiplane. By having the character and the background elements on separate layers, it’ll be easier to animate the parts that move (e.g. the character, the funfair rides) without moving the parts that don’t (e.g. the sky, the ground).
If the stop motion part is made with paper cut outs, I really like the idea of leaning into that miniature, material world by using a variety of different materials and textures, such as buttons, ribbons etc. It would make an even starker contrast to the black and white world of the 2D section, and create a cuteness that goes against the sinister nature of the funfair itself.
We also have an animatic, made my Jocasta, for the beginning of our story:
This is the new version of the story, after discussing together and with tutors:
- There is an old abandoned funfair, during day time. The rides are rusty and damaged, the stall are empty, there’s an old teddy on the ground. Everything is in black and white
- A man walks in
- He sees an old fashioned camera on the ground and picks it up
- He holds up the camera to his eye
- From his point of view, we see the funfair at night, in colour. There is still no people but the ferris wheel is lit up and turning, and there is music.
- He lowers the camera. In his world, the ferris wheel is still and silent
- He holds the camera to his eye again
- From his point of view, we see the carousel lit up and spinning (with no one riding it), and hear the music again.
- He lowers the camera. The carousel is still and silent
- He holds the camera to his eye again and presses the button to take a picture
- Colourful paint bursts out of the viewfinder (where his eye is).
- He moves the camera away from his face in shock. The colourful paints covers his whole body
- Now in the colourful stop motion world, there is a close up of his eyes opening, while the paint falls down off his face. There is the music playing quietly in the background
- From his point of view, we see the funfair alive in colour, and hear the music playing louder
- With the camera in his hand, the man walks past the ferris moving wheel to a stall that has several huge candy flosses
- He picks one up
- He eats the candy floss as he walks towards the carousel
- The carousel slows down and stops
- He is now riding the carousel while it spins again
- Next he is is riding the ferris wheel
- From his point of view, we see a hook-a-duck game
- He lifts the camera to his eye
- From his point of view through the camera, we see the hook-a-duck stall empty, with no water or ducks or prizes, in the black and white world
- He puts the camera on the ground so that he can pick up a stick to play the game
- On the ground, the camera disappears
- we can discuss how it disappears
- There is a wide shot of the funfair surrounded by darkness. It is bright against the darkness and there is nothing else around it. The music gets gradually louder
- this is to create a spooky feeling, to suggest that he is stuck there forever and there is nowhere else to go
- Cut to credits
The main issue we have at the moment is how to end our animation. We want to make it clear that there is something sinister about the colourful version of the fun fair, and having a piece of it drift back into the black and white world isn’t quite dramatic enough. We think he should get trapped there in some way, so I added this idea of the camera disappearing, taking away his opportunity of returning home. But is that spooky enough, and is is clear enough? How can we show that this is somehow an intention of the funfair?
Production Principles: Out of Your Head, 8th-10th November
On Wednesday, we managed to create a basic story idea, and decide which parts will be 2D animation and which will be stop motion. Clara and Evelyn offered to make storyboards, but there were so many different ideas being discussed that it was difficult to make sense of which ideas to include and which we had thrown out. So to clarify things, I wrote a straight forward list of the main plot points, with a few gaps filled in, using clear language and pictures so that we were all on the same page:
Version 1
The man walks into an empty fun fair - there are no people, the rides are not moving, the lights are off. Everything is black and white
There is an old camera on the ground
The man picks up the camera and puts strap round his neck
He looks through the viewfinder
Through the camera, he sees the funfair is colourful and alive
He looks back at his surroundings, which is empty again.
He looks into the camera again, and sees a different part of fair in colour
He presses the button.
There is a flash of light.
When the light is gone, the man is in the alive, colourful fair
The man walks through the colourful fair
He buys a giant candy floss and eats it as he walks
He watches some fireworks
Colours from the camera start spreading across his body
He looks through the viewfinder and sees the black and white world
He presses the button
There is a flash of light
He is back in the black and white world. All the colour is gone
He takes the camera off and puts in back on the ground
He walks away
A piece of colourful confetti blows in the wind in the same direction as the man
We also started a Pinterest board to help collect visual ideas related to our story:
These are the resulting storyboards:
Both Evelyn and Clara added details of their own as well, which added to the pool of ideas we had. There’s a part of me that finds that stressful, and wants to have everything decided and solidified as soon as possible, so I’m having to be more relaxed about letting the project evolve and change as it goes. Afterall, when I’m making something by myself, that tends to be how it happens. I think it’s just when I’m collaborating with a group, I feel more anxious about time and getting everything done because I feel less in control.