The Field of Reeds Behind the Scenes @fieldofreedsproduction - Tumblr Blog

First pass of the final scene.

#animations

Another short scene finished.

#animations

Test animation final render

#animations

Test Animation with rendered background

#animations

Test Animation with base silhouettes.

#animations

Test Animation with cleaned up sketch and lip sync

#animations

Test Animation wip

#animations

Full Animatic Test

#animatics

Animatic WIP for scene 1

#animatics

Lip sync test for Nubi.

#test animations

Color palette tests. Nubi sees ghost energy in a temple.

#color studies

I previously mentioned Big Top Burger in my Production presentation from Voicethread, citing it as inspiration for the structure of my short. And the third episode, Kid, does a very good job of exemplifying what I’m looking for in terms of pacing, shot composition, and content.

Something I noticed about the shots of the short is how Worthikids makes good use of camera angles to emphasize the emotions of the characters. Instead of sticking to one shot for an entire sentence he will occasionally cut closer or further away while the characters are speaking. This allows the audience a subtle but dynamic way of experiencing the characters’ personalities closer. I also took note of how the shots are set up--each shot shows the basic elements we need to get the idea of the scene across. This is a very efficient way of animating, it doesn’t come across as lazy to focus on just one character at a time, and he also doesn’t show too much and risk overcomplicating the visuals.

Big Top Burger does a lot with the characters themselves. While the animation is very nice to watch, there isn’t too much dynamic movement, but this is made up in the delivery of the characters. The episodes are short, but still provide the right amount of content to get a good feel of the characters. The dialogue is very realistic, but it’s also impressive to note how Worthikids does not add any unnecessary dialogue. Everything we see is all we need to connect with the characters. And their individual dialogue is diverse enough that they never feel out of character when speaking.

Pacing is another big thing the Big Top Burger series does well. Each short is only 2-3.5 minutes, but we get so much in those minutes without it feeling rushed. In the case of Kid, each scene has a very specific purpose. We get an intro, conflict establishment, world expansion, character interaction, and finally the release of the buildup, without an exact resolution.

These are all elements I’d like to include in my short. I want it to be more character driven than motion driven. And by the end I don’t need everything to be resolved, but I’d want the characters established enough with only the essential dialogue in a way people would still want to see more of them.

#487 editing example