Animation Blog

Here you will find all my current University work and development

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This is the final animated opening based on the animatic and storyboard for the series Rogues & Riches. I did not have much time left and feeling rather ill so the animation is limited but I do like what I was able to accomplish. I used some Royalty Free music by an artist named Alexander Nakarada, I will link to his website where he has tons of Celtic and Medieval soundtracks.

https://www.serpentsoundstudios.com/royalty-free-music/celtic-fantasy

The one I used was called “Now We Ride”

I feel had I given myself more time I could have really characterised the three character’s personalities and put more time into illustrating them as I can see various issues throughout the opening which could be resolved with having more time. But as it is I feel it shows what the series is like and as an opening works well.

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Telltale made a game The Walking Dead Season 2 and created a video game trailer for it. The Walking Dead, similar to The Wolf Among Us is a story driven game where your actions alter the outcome of the story. It follows the story of Clementine in this zombie apocalyptic world, I really like this trailer because it is very simple yet I feel effective at showing off the next game. I think this could help me ensure that my trailer is very simple in order to finish my project on time, similar to that of Mine which was a short film trailer I blogged about before.

I feel what drives this trailer the most is the use of music in contrast to a decaying world, and the transition of Clementine becoming older with the world still just as messed up as before really makes this trailer work wonders.

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This video is a short explaination as to how movie trailers are made, breaking them down into 3 acts. I feel this gives me an idea for how to structure my trailer into small acts and gives me more insight into the complexity that is trailers as I feel there is a lot more to consider than I originally expected. This video is really good for anyone looking to also understand trailers or to make their own and it is a short video as well so it won’t long to go through!

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This short animated trailer is a similar length to my own that I plan on making and is a much calmer and melow film. I really like how simple a lot of the scenes are and how it works well with the chosen music. I think this short trailer could really help me with choosing my scenes from my short film to put together as a trailer.

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This is an animated cutscene being used as marketing material for the game Hollow Knight Silksong, I think the way it conveys what is happening without any dialogue is what appeals to my needs the most as my short film does not have any dialogue either. It’s ability to tell a story in a very short amount of time is effective and it’s animation is done well too. I strive to use this cutscene as inspiration for my submission because of how well it works.

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For my submission I will be creating a trailer to try and grab my audience’s attention better and to focus on using more video editing. I found this animated trailer The Sea Beast and thought it’s shots looked interesting. The only problem I have in comparison to my own film is my film does not use dialogue, where as this trailer uses dialogue a lot to convey what is happening to it’s audience. So I will be looking into a few other movie or film trailers so I can get an idea of how to compile my own.

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For my short film Apparition I was given feedback to make the end scene in the tunnel clearer, by making things easier to understand as to Elen’s character arc to change from her at the start being suicidal and debating taking her own life, to instead stay alive and stand up against the apparition as this malevolent force. I also will flip the camera when Elen escapes the tunnel as one of my classmates mentioned this could make things easier to read her leaving the tunnel as the way it is currently the camera doesn’t quite match the direction she is moving. I also need to find time to record people making actions like in my short film so I can use it as reference. And finally I will still be looking to change the scene where the apparition first appears to make it creepier by not having it appear immediately. Overall I’m happy with the feedback my tutors and classmates gave me and I’ll be looking to apply these changes as soon as I can so I can focus purely on creating refined backgrounds and starting the rough animation.

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Noose is an animated short film that I found on YouTube which I really enjoyed, it covers a very dark topic of suicide, similar to my short film Apparition. I really enjoyed the framing and compositions within this short film, I am posting this mostly because I found it to be helpful with some of my animatic changes as some of my ideas sometimes feel very jumpy, where this short film has much longer pacing so I can see how the artist gets to utilise each shot. This is a very unique short film that I feel everyone should take time to watch!

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Train Station References

These are references I have used to help me design a background for my short film to replace the first scene within my animatic. I used these to help me with the details of a station, I heavily used the first reference because I really like the composition the artist used! I also used the reference of the door so I could add more unique details for my first few scenes.

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Animatic Changes

I used the feedback I got from earlier to make changes to my animatic, by including audio finally, and also by reducing the length from 3:30 to 2:40 minutes long. Which is as close to 2:30 minutes long I felt I could get without ruining the pacing of my film. Overall I am satisfied after making these changes and feel it has improved my work by removing the forest scene, as I already sort of felt it didn’t add much other than to tie the start and end together, but also my tutors advised I do this as well which I am greatful for.

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Script Changes

For my script I made changes to accomodate my short film being cut from 3:30 to 2:40 minutes long. These changes includes cutting out the forest scene, and making changes to some of the audio decisions made in the script as I changed my mind when putting the audio/sounds together. Overall I am happy with my script having these changes and feel it better suits the end animatic. I also reduced it to just 3 pages long which is much smaller than it was before.

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This is the animatic to my short film Apparition, this time with sound, I feel there are some areas I want to re-explore and change up in semester 2 as I feel some scenes aren’t working entirely, but I do think it captures the feeling I am after for the most part and I am really happy with how the animatic has turned out so far! I also want to try using zoom in and zoom out functions to see if that may change my mind about some scenes or if I just need to re compose them or try different sound fx. I enjoyed playing around with the sound fx because it has really helped bring the animatic to life and give me an idea of which scenes I feel need more work.

If anyone is interested where I got my music here’s the link

https://www.fesliyanstudios.com/

And for sound fx I just used this website which always has lots of sound fx

https://freesound.org/

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This is the Wolf Among Us opening, The Wolf Among Us is a video game by Telltale games set in a modern fantasy setting with fairy tale characters as you play as the big bad wolf Bigby who is an investigator in the city. I really like the feel the opening has, the shots are very interesting and the music is effective and memorable. I also like the coloured linework that some of the shots have including the animated patterns in the sky which is such an interesting aesthetic that I do want to try and look into at some point to experiment in semester 2.

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Crow is a festival animation I also saw a while ago which I really liked. It’s about a Crow which is injured and starving looking for food but is chased away and left in a storm. It’s an interesting animation with very dark visuals that look interesting.

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Memento Mori is a festival film that I saw a long time ago during the manchester animation festival which I forgot to post about. It’s about a photographer who takes pictures of a dead woman and begins to feel scared of her as it gets late feeling as if the ghost of the woman was haunting him, as the body began to move slightly when he didn’t move them, and has an uncanny feeling as a literal dead person stares back at him while he takes images of them. The main character doesn’t believe in the afterlife which is why at first he is so calm with taking the photos, but during the film he becomes more and more uneasy from her staring at him. I really enjoyed this film because it puts the idea of the supernatural elements in place but questions whether it’s just coincidence or not, and challenges the beliefs of the main character as he does not believe in the paranormal at all, but ends up having a supernatural experience he isn’t sure how to explain. It’s very interesting and is one of the most unique festival films I’ve seen in a while!

Website to Memento Mori

https://www.mementomorishortfilm.com/

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Gobboventures is an animation created by a YouTuber named JoCat who made a very simple animation focused on a Goblin character who trains against a rock. It’s a very simple premise and I like how JoCat chose to only use one background shot and opt to not have the camera constantly keep switching, and instead focusing on the movement and characterisation. I also really like the use of sound to help express the character and show emotions for them.

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Arcane is an animated series on Netflix set in the world within League of Legends and has some incredible shots and compositions. It looks very visually appealing and there’s a lot of shots in Arcane that look stunning by themself as a compositional shot or art reference. I really like the facial expressions and artistic feel the show has as it looks painted which looks very beautiful. I want to be able to create scenes/backgrounds and compositions that are inspired by Arcane as I feel the show draws it’s audience in very well.