Evaluat!on

For my A2 media studies coursework I wanted to undergo a task that would be both challenging and enjoyable. I decided to produce an animated short film as I have an interest in all kinds of animation, art and design, and I thought it would be really interesting and challenging to have a good go at producing one myself.

As I knew I definitely wanted to do an animation I thought it would be a good idea to aim all my research in that direction, and not look at 'live action' short films. I began to research different animation studios, and students short films, some animation studios I was already fond of and familiar with their works so finding some good examples was no problem. I watched many short animations and pilots for possible animations too, getting an idea of the general conventions followed, and also looking at how different creators and directors challenge these conventions. It also became apparent to me that student films usually all followed one of two conventions, which was to either be a comedy based film, or to rely on an enigmatic plot made to confuse or question the audience. Another thing I noticed that was already apparent to me, is that not all short animations tell a story as such, some are made for the pure purpose to show off artistic talent and creativity, and it made me think that the real scope of this short film is, I can do whatever I want. I also found this to be true with 'live action' shorts.




Once I felt I had gathered all the information I needed I began planning and thinking about what I might want to do, and more importantly, what I was able to do. I had to remember that I had never done animation before and I needed to think about what I reckon I am capable of doing. I began drafting up an idea of a man being pursued by someone, but I couldn't think of what. Then I started thinking, why is he being chased? In the end I had, man get chased by someone, don't know who, person kills man. I spent a while thinking who could be chasing this guy, and why was he or her doing so. Then this light bulb went off in my head and I figured I'll do the typical enigma storyline. Man being pursued by something. Who? Why is the man being chased? This thing kills the guy. Why? And I figured it would be cool to leave the questions unanswered so the audience is left curious and hopefully wanting more.

I began by producing a storyboard showing character movements and camera angles and movements. Making sure the shots changed regularly as to not dwell on scenes too long as I figured this may make the animation seem boring especially when I was unsure as to how good my animating skills would be. It was during the storyboard stage were I decided to add another bit of confusion. After the boy is killed, a scene is shown of him waking up, getting up or appearing, just to make the audience wonder if he died or if it was a dream or something. I just want to spark as many questions as possible. Once my storyboard was complete I had to produce a storyboard animatic to really portray the shots and angles I had in mind, and to give me an idea as to the length of the final animation.

Now all research and planning was complete it was time to start the real thing. As I knew a lot of my own time needed to go into this project to get it finished in time, and I knew I needed to use better software than our school provides I decided to work mostly from home to produce the animation.

The first thing I did was produce the backgrounds for my animation. I used a program called 'Simply 3D' to do this. I chose to make the backgrounds on a 3D program because it would allow me to easily adjust camera angles around a scene without having to redraw them. It also adds another skill to the list used to make the final thing. As the colours of the textures on simply 3D were not as I wanted, I decided to get the angle I wanted for a particular shot and take a screen shot. Then I would get the image and adjust the colours on Paint Shop Pro 8, colouring in sections and adjusting lighting till I achieved the desired aesthetics.




For the animation I started by producing the basic running animation. I began by drawing rough sketches of one frame, putting a fresh piece of paper over the top, and using a light box to draw the next frame, by having the previous frame behind the new one I was able to keep proportions correct and see how the movement would progress. The process for these rough frames took around one to two hours and I soon realised how tedious the whole process was. Once the rough frames were drawn I would draw over each one, adding things like hair and clothes, and just making it more of a picture than a scribble. Each rough frame needed the details added, and I also needed to make sure things like the hair and eyes were the same from frame to frame, so I had to use the light box to trace and check certain criteria. The whole process was very laborious and I soon became very tired of it all, I would spend whole evenings just producing rough frames, then tracing them over and over again to create just 2 seconds worth of animation. Once the detailed frames were complete I could then trace each frame on a fresh piece of paper using a solid black ink pen. I dubbed these 'inked' images the clean frames. Once complete I would scan in the clean frames and save them in numerical order in their own specifically named folder. I had to make sure I was really organised when doing the animation so that I didn't lose frames or test animations etc. Once all the clean frames were scanned and numbered I would run them through a program called animation shop, this played the frames in sequence at whatever desired frame rate I wanted so that I could see how smooth the animation was. Once satisfied I would open all the frames in Paint Shop Pro 8 and have to individually colour in each one. This is where my special pen comes in. Traditionally in animation these days, the drawings would be completed and scanned, and then CG (computer generated) copies would be made by computer artists. This gives a more solid line for the final animation. But because I am really bad at using vectors on Photoshop, I decided to not do that, and instead I used my trusty pen, that once scanned the line is really solid and it allows use to use the magic wand and the selection goes right up to the line nice and smoothly, so when coloured it looks just as good. I had to make sure the background to each frame was a solid green as I would need to later 'chroma-key' out the background so that I could overlay the character animations on top of the computer generated backgrounds I had produced. This is the same technique used in the production of real movies known as 'green/blue screen'. Once the frames were coloured I'd check the animation with the new coloured frames by running them through Animation shop. If satisfied I'd put the frames in Sony Vegas and render the animation at high quality.

I repeated this whole process for all the animations I produced. Other than using my pen, all the techniques I used were quite traditional, and are used in the production of real media products. Once the animations were complete it was just a case of editing everything together and adding loads of effects to make it look even more professional.

Another process I had to go through was Foley. I never knew how amazing and talented Foley artists actually were. It's an amazing skill and I give massive respect to all Foley artists out there. I recorded so much audio of foot steps running, someone breathing, screaming, all sorts. And to be honest it was all really crap. It wasn't working and I had to think about what I was going to do about it. I listened again and thought the foot steps could be used, and in the end they were all I really used. I felt the lack of real sound added to the enigma that the whole story was about. I recorded some blank sound and used that as background noise, and recorded me harmonising to use in the rewind sequence after the boy had been killed. This was edited relentlessly till it sounded right. I also used a flame noise from a free to download game too.

Producing the animation was one of the most tedious things I have ever done, but at the same time it was very rewarding too. Looking back at it, I'm glad I chose to do an animation and I do like what I have made, but at the same time, now I've done it and learnt so much about animating, short cuts you can take, what looks good, what I'm good at doing and so much more, I really feel like I could produce something a lot better. Maybe go for a simpler storyline, and focus more on the aesthetics.

I also had to produce two ancillary products. I chose to produce a poster advertising my main product, and a magazine review page containing a review of my main product. I didn't choose to do a radio advert for the main reason that my animation didn't include a lot of audio, or at least any recognisable themes as such, and I knew it would seem bland or unappealing. Also designing posters and graphics is more down my street so I felt they were much more suited for me. These tasks were completed by produce a basic drawing, and colouring it in on Paint Shop Pro 8 and making them look fancy. And they are actually my favourite parts of my project as a whole.

My whole media package as a whole doesn't represent any real media products out there, as I feel it is a real media product. The feedback I've received from people viewing my animation and seeing my ancillary tasks is amazing. Everyone likes them and I've received both positive and constructive comments, and all have been well received and taken on board.

Advertising Poster

This is The advertising poster for my animated short film. Much like the short film you don't really know what's going on. i didn't want to include the antagonist in the poster design as I didn't want to make it seem as it was real, or did live. The whole idea behind the design, is he's falling or being dragged further and further away from the truth. He his reaching out and trying to grab the question mark, which i've used a representative for the truth, or answers. The colour scheme i wanted to try and match that of the short film, i just went one up from the whole look of the short film. The background colours (purple and green), are both opposites on the colour charts and therefore work well together which is why i chose them, i just selected a shade of that colour that matched the palette that i'm working with for this project.

I made various question marks and dotted them around the page as a floating selection, so that I could then drag them in one direction slightly so that the white background colour comes through and you kind of distinguish that it's a question mark. I also produced the writing saying 'question mark' as a floating selection, this allowed me to colour the writing in, but only where i wanted too, so i purposely left parts of the writing out so you can't quite make out the whole word unless you look at the other parts dotted around and make sense out of it. During this process i also made sure it looked like some of the text went behind the man as well as in front so that it gives a sense that he is surrounded by question. I added the logo of my fictitious production company in the bottom left of the poster, and down the bottom in small print, some information about who it's by etc. STUDIO 90 is my personal (real life) studio i'm currently trying to get up and running and spreading it's name. so i thought i'd throw that in for some exposure ;)

Magazine Review Page

This is my magazine review page. I called it culture shock magazine, it's an informal magazine for those interested in all things Japanese, whether it be the clothing, culture, media or products.

To make this i drew out a basic page lay out for what i wanted it to look like, scanned it in and worked form that. The first thing i did was the top, i worked on the red section, making sure it wasn't just a solid red, so i mixed some colours up and used different brushes at various opacities to create the look. Then i Added the Title. I used the Impact font, plain simple yet effective, then produced a layer behind it of some transparent white scribbles just to fill it up about and stop it looking too plain. I decided to add the title of the magazine in the little drop down in the artsoak font, and kearned the letters so the were slightly more spaced apart.

I added the pictures of the 3 reviews i was going to do, and decided i'll have the top and bottom blocked to the left and the central review blocked to the right, just so the page seems more busy and different. I used pictures of the DVD covers of 2 of my favourite animations for their reviews, and used the poster design for the review of my short film.

I wrote a short informal review about the film in question.including information about who made it and what company distributed it. I also added the website to the production companies website.

Final Cut

Post Rough Cut Adjustments

the first thing i worked on after producing my rough cut was the animation of the boy turning into the ally. the main animation i figured was fine, but their wasn't enough frames in the turn. so i drew up another four frames to put in, and took out one that was originally their and ran the new animation through animation shop. it looked good so i coloured up the new frames and reproduced the whole animation. this whole proces took about two hours. after i looked at the scene again, i felt the actual backdrop of the ally itself was bland and plain. so i quickly drew up some bins, scanne din the image, coloured it and threw that in the scene too. it worked and brought a bit more to the scene, so i rendered it and it was done. the next thing i did was colour the frames for the mid shot of the monster running. after doing this i realised the colouring for some of the shots of the monster were a bit plain and 2d. so i added some shade to some of the clips just so they didnt look so flat.

i then moved on to doing the animation for the boy getting up and running off after seeing the monster. this consisted of 18 frames, and took me about 3 hours to complete. after doing the usual colouring process and checking, i produced the animation and the scene was done. then i thought, on my storyboard, i had the camera zooming out to see two girls who saw the boy running from this monster. i decided after some deliberation to leave this out of the final animation as that scene proves that the monster is a figment of the boys imagination, and i wanted to leave whether the monster is real or not for the audience to decide. so in its place, i added the monster standing in the shot of the boy running off, and then had him dissappear, reappear, then the camera zoom into his face and his eyes slowly open. i'm glad i decided to add this as it adds a bit more mystery to the monster, and also makes him seem more of a powerful force.

I also decided to swap some scenes around. in the rough cut, once the boy is 'killed' by the monster it fades to black then the time lapse of clouds comes in, then it proceeds to the close ups of the dead body of the boy. after watching the rough cut a couple of times, i decided on swapping the order a bit. once the boy is killed, i had the close ups of him dead come in straight after, then had the time lapse of clouds. i did this because i had the idea of putting a select few scenes in reverse within the clouds. i did this as i wanted to open another possibility as to why the boy appears to be alive at the end. now time could have rewound, or it could have even of been a dream (hence the clouds).

other changes i made was completely removing the idea of opening with a passing car. whenenver i redrew and redid the car going past it looked strange. so i then decided on a more in depth intro, where the car is shown from an off centre front veiw, and the driver throws litter out the car, the camera follows the litter as it falls through the air and then lands on the pavment, then the camera pans out into the long shot of the street it lands on which happens to be when the boy comes running in. the reason i didn't go along with this idea, is because, i didnt want the intro to take away from the whole point, it seemed to me that it would be too involved for the short film, especially when it had nothing to do with forwarding the narrative anyway. I also re-edited all the running scenes of the boy as they seemed slow and unrealistic.