Involvement in this shot: Keyframing, Inbetweening, Cleaning Up, Base Colours for character, Rendering, Drawing and Colouring Layout.
Positive points: Colours work nicely, animation is convincing and quite smooth and doesn't shake too much.
Negative points: Layout was not drawn on a separate layer so was treated as an animation frame when it was not supposed to be, therefore making the layout shake quite a lot.
Involvement in this shot: Keyframing, Inbetweening, Cleaning Up, Base Colours for character.
Positive points: Good sense of weight in the movement of the character, convincing running and jumping actions.
Negative points: Body shape changes somewhat noticeably through the shot, especially towards the end, showing a lack of understanding of the character references given to me.
Involvement in this shot: Keyframing, Inbetweening, Cleaning Up, Base Colours for character, Rendering, Drawing and Colouring Layout.
Positive points: Animation is smooth, colours work together well enough, moving background was tricky to animate but has come out well.
Negative points: Character seems to run slowly at first, and then noticeably speeds up towards the end, character seems to be fast-walking rather than running due to slow start speed and lack of vertical body movement.
Involvement in this shot: Keyframing, Inbetweening, Cleaning Up, Base Colours for character, Rendering, Colouring Layout.
Positive points: Facial expressions show character's thoughts convincingly, vertical body movement shows that he is running.
Negative points: Layout has no lines to show the character's running speed, vertical body movement could be increased to amplify the sense of running.
Involvement in this shot: Keyframing, Inbetweening, Cleaning Up, Base Colours for character, Rendering, Drawing and Colouring Layout.
Positive Points: A nice and simple shot that helps link the shots before and after it together, almost no shake in the animation and any shake is not visible due to the scene constantly moving.
Negative points: Outside white colour does not match outside scenery of following shot.
Involvement in this shot: Keyframing, Inbetweening, Cleaning Up, Base Colours for character, Drawing some of the Layout.
Positive points: Simplicity of the animation works effectively, shows the viewer the scale of the character against his upcoming leap.
Negative points: Animation is a little bit too long, so drags a tiny bit.
Involvement in this shot: Keyframing, Inbetweening, Cleaning Up, Base Colours for character, Rendering, Colouring Layout.
Positive points: Weight of the character is evident when he pushes himself up, angle was hard to draw but works well.
Negative points: Direction of head/face seems out-of-place later in the shot, head moves away from body too much, a lot of editing was needed on some frames which took valuable time.
Involvement in this shot: Keyframing, Inbetweening, Cleaning Up, Base Colours for character, Rendering, Colouring Layout.
Positive points: Good sense of weight in the character as he rolls, anticipation used before he leans forward is effective in showing his reaction time.
Negative points: A lot of editing was needed on some frames which took valuable time, quite a lot of shake in some areas of the animation, layout should have some more details to it.
Involvement in this shot: Keyframing, Inbetweening, Cleaning Up, Base Colours for character, Rendering, Colouring Layout.
Positive points: Facial expressions are very effective in showing the character's emotion even without the audience knowing what he's shocked at yet, subtle body movement assists with showing the emotions.
Negative points: Shot could be a bit longer so that the event of realisation doesn't go past so quickly, letting the audience take in his emotions better.
Shot: 10 Perspective Running
Involvement in this shot: Keyframing, Inbetweening, Base Colours for character, Speed Lines.
Positive points: Characters look like they are running forwards despite moving backwards in the shot, speed lines and first-person view create a good sense of speed.
Negative points: Characters could have some vertical movement to create a better sense of running in the first-person character.
Involvement in this shot: Base Colours for the characters.
Positive points: Colours differentiate the characters well, animation is a nice parody of the Evolution of Humans piece.
Negative points: Some of the animation could be smoother, I had to add some lines to the drawings whilst colouring because some areas had not been fully finished.
During the production of Boost, I worked both closely with the director and away from his advice in my own time. I wanted to make sure that I knew what I was doing with the shots that I had been given to animate and that the director was satisfied with them once they were finished at each stage, however I did not want to rely on the director shadowing my every move so I had to take the initiative to come into the studio and work in my own time, even if he was not there.
The main challenges that I faced on the production were working to a faster pace than I was used to and working in the same style as the director's vision. To overcome the new faster pace of working was more of a mind challenge, having to tell myself that finishing the film was the most important aspect, not making the film look absolutely perfect (although it did have to look good). This helped me to loosen up how I drew the frames, although this newfound drawing speed did affect my other challenge to keep to the references given to me by the director. I often found that I drew the character a little bit differently to the model sheet, meaning that when it came to putting the shots I had created into the edited film it was a bit too noticeable as to which shots I had contributed to compared to the shots of other team members.
This has taught me the importance of practicing drawing the character before animating them, especially if the character is not of your own creation.This is a point I will take into account next year when second years have to work on my film, making sure that they have practiced drawing my characters before getting to animate them.
In terms of collaboration on shots, most of the time this consisted of me drawing out the animation and another team member producing the background. To make this work most effectively, I had to produce a basic layout involving the objects that the character has to interact with in the scene, for instance in the Rock Jump shot I drew the rocks that the character hops across, but the person who coloured the layout also added the cliffs in the background - these were not necessary for me to draw because the character does not interact with them. I think this collaboration worked effectively because it allowed me to animate accurately whilst giving the layout artist a little less to do and without him having to worry about his drawing not matching up to my animation.
Overall, I think the final film has turned out pretty good. The preproduction planning was sufficient and the idea was very well thought-out, which led to a solid animation process and an ease of understanding of what needed to be done. However, on multiple occasions early on in the production of animated shots I noticed that team members got distracted easily, probably due to the mindset that they had plenty of time to do everything, but in the end this meant that the clean-up and colouring processes had to be rushed somewhat, leading to a slight drop in quality that could have been avoided. To avoid this next year, I will try and make sure that my team members realise the importance of working hard and at good pace from the offset, cracking down on those who get distracted in the studio.
I also found that because our entire team regularly came into the studio to work instead of doing the work at home, it was much easier to follow what each other had done and to discuss the next course of action, which is probably a big factor in why the film has come together as well as it has despite the rush towards the end. This will be another factor that I must keep on top of next year, making sure that my co-workers are coming in to the studio regularly and preferably to do all of the animation, so that I can advise them in the right direction.
The animation technique used in the film was a rather simple one, of us just drawing the character, finelining the frames, and filling the blocks of colour on ToonBoom. Given the time restraints, this was the fastest method, however it was not overly creative and even seems a bit boring to look at. Hopefully for my film I will be able to play around with the art style and try and come up with a more interesting aesthetic, whilst making sure that it is a technique that can still be animated at good pace and one that isn't too difficult for the second years to adapt to.
The narrative for the film this year was a very solid one and easily understandable as well, and because the film is based on a real-world company there are a lot of relevant pointers in the film to their product and values. Because my current plan for my film is not based on a real-world company, my narrative will be harder to drive effectively and relevantly, so I will have to make sure that the narrative I do come up with is relatable to the audience and easily understandable to those who cannot relate so easily.
Altogether, the film has been almost fully completed due to good planning and a strong storyline, with clever references to the target audience, however the ease of being distracted and the misunderstanding of the amount of time it takes to complete each stage of the animating process have been the biggest factors as to why the film is not 100% fully completed. It is complete enough however to be released to a viewing audience, and hopefully it can be tweaked and improved to maximum standard for the degree show. Also, I am pleased with the film because I feel like my contribution is significant to it's completion and my parts do compliment the look, feel, and storyline, even if some of my drawing was not quite to the reference sheet as previously mentioned.
Remaining images will be added shortly.
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