Finished Animation and Reflection

After working tirelessly for just over a week on my final animation I am certain in having fulfilled the brief and assessment criteria to a reasonable level. I am particularly pleased with the tone, colouring and the drawings themselves which I feel reflect my ability fairly well. Judging by audience feedback I received from my peers so far, the joke seems to come across clearly also, which as relief, as this was my primary concern during the production.

While I am satisfied with the final animation on the whole, I do feel that there are some areas upon which I could improve in the future, most notably in the number of in-betweens and overall fluidity of the animation. The animation is displayed at 24fps and the characters are animated on twos, making them 12fps, however I lingered on some of the frames for a longer amount of time leading to some areas of the animation at the end to be played at sub 12fps, which for me is disappointing, though not a huge detriment to the finished product.

 There could be more movement or motion to the final product in the first few seconds of the short, which could be achieved through animating some of the background characters or applying line boil to the main child character in order to amend the perceived stillness. I also feel that some of the linework could be tidier, as it is clear upon closer inspection what frames were scanned in as keyframes and which were in-betweens generated digitally. I hope to, in the future, produce an animation in which each frame is consistent and tidy in it's linework. 

Developing my Animation: Production

For producing my animation I set out to use a mix of traditional and digital media in order to properly manage workflow while also retaining the style of drawing I am most comfortable in using. As I only have a fortnight to produce the animation I want to be able to manage workflow to ensure I produce a high quality final product without sacrificing any of the quality in the interest of time.

I drew out keyframes for my characters in my sketchbook from which I would generate the in-betweens afterwards in Photoshop using a Wacom Cintiq, as this would be easier and less time consuming. I scanned these sketches into the computer and adjusted the levels and contrast in order to bring out and properly define the linework. Shots were initially composited individually in Photoshop using Video Layers, before being exported as QuickTime movies and edited in Adobe Premier Pro where it was given sound to punctuate action.

I created most of the assets in my sketchbook, scanning them into the computer and then colouring them in Photoshop. I chose a simple colour scheme with cool tones in order to create a contrast between the two stages of the animation, as blue and orange are complimentary colours. This sudden change to a contrasting tone is the basis for the humour in my animation. The sudden tonal shift is supposed to be jarring, and accompanied by the sudden change in soundtrack, it is supposed to be funny as well as surprising. 

I used this project as an opportunity to explore a range of different animation techniques such as traditional hand drawn animation for which I used animation paper. I felt this style would compliment and mesh well with the digital style of hand drawn animation.  Ultimately I didn't end up using the character on the right in my final animation but I do feel the character on the left was animated fairly well and did not clash with the other predominantly digital assets in the scene.

Developing my Animation: Initial Ideas, Influences and Storyboarding

The topic I have chosen to explore for my animation as a part of the final studio brief is 'surprise' and for this I referred to Every Frame A Painting's video on Chuck Jones of Looney Tunes fame.  In it, the author breaks down Jones' visual comedy structure as setting up the audience to make an assumption with a familiar setup and then proving it wrong in a comedic and unexpected way. 

My plan is to adopt this formula for my own short 5-10 second animation. The formula of 'Assumption vs Reality' is a flexible one which I feel can be the source of a multitude of jokes and humorous sight gags. As for the pacing of the animation I am looking towards more contemporary forms of comedy, particularly on the internet. 5 Second Films I feel paces their skits well over a short period of time and often follow this formula whether intentional or not. 

Another comedic internet persona, this time from an animation background, whom I am basing the structure of my animation off is OneyNG, whose often crude and shocking humour translates well in bite-sized chunks, with the end title card often acting as an abrupt punchline in itself, which is a trope I hope to adopt for my animation. The simple aesthetic I feel also compliments the brevity of the joke, so I will keep in mind this simple approach to art style when developing my final animation as to not overcomplicate the process.

For my storyboards I want to be able to effectively communicate the joke without relying too much on the sound. While hopefully there will be sound in the final piece it is important to me the character's body language reflects what is being said and is as expressive as possible. As this is a short 10-second animation, I plan for the staging to be simple, with emphasis placed on placement in a scene over camera movement and fancy cinematography. As for colour, to compliment the brevity and simplicity I am going for with this animation I will use dark blue/purple tones for the scene to provide a stark contrast to the fire and flames.