#13th principle

[jng-animation]

8.13th Principle - 20/5/2021

Here is my fully complete 13th Principle Animation for my final submission for year 2 BA Animation.

[jng-animation]

8.13th Principle - 11/05/2021

Starting my character animation, I went for the smaller parts first: The drawing shot, the bin shot and the end title shot.

The bin shot was done first, as I knew I would be able to animate the ball through easily and believably in After Effects. Which I feel i got the weight and feel of the paper down really well, also adding a trail line and bounce effects to emphasize the impact.

Second, I moved onto the drawing shot, which was very fun to create. It was also a mix of frame by frame in Photoshop for the arm, as well as some After Effects animation on the pencil drawing itself using the "trim paths" effect, I easily made it follow the movements of the pencil. Reflectively, I have noticed some issues with the trim paths effect not lining up correctly as in specific frames the path wont move. I have now fixed this issue, which was caused by an adjustment layer with a "posterise time" effect causing some frames to be still.

In the drawing shot, I also used a lighting technique, by adding an inside shadow to the colour layers of the arm and made it white instead to lighten the side of the arm automatically.

[jng-animation]

8.13th Principle - 02/05/2021

Having made the move into After Effects with my first shot, I quickly follwed through with the rest of my shots and created a full background animation. Each shot is animated in 3D layers. My second shot, the top down desk shot, was very fun to add to, as it has a big mug of hot chocolate, which I added steam lines to in Photoshop. But in After Effects I was able to add a "ripple effect" with full wave height to create theses animated moving curves of swirling steam. I also kept the dust through each shot, apart from the dark corner with the bin, as there is no light to reflect off the dust there.

I'm extremely pleased with how this came out, and the mix media of Photoshop and After Effects really works well together, to create a 2D 3D scene.

I shall be moving into the actual character animation from this point on, which I shall be doing shot by shot, rather than all the way through rough, line, colour and final.

[jng-animation]

8.13th Principle - 25/04/2021

Using my first camera shot as a start, I pieced together a 3D space in Adobe After effects using my Photoshop layers and animated a camera moving through. This camera movement gave off a real sense of parallax and depth to the scene. I also wanted to keep a stylised nature to the camera movement, so instead of animating it on 25FPS the camera moves with a "posterise time" effect, which makes it 12.5FPS. I much prefer its almost handcrafted look in movement. As a finishing touch to finalise the space, I added dust particles in the air to emphasize the movement through a 3D space. I shall be using these techniques all the way through.

[jng-animation]

8.13th Principle - 22/04/2021

Instead of animating my character work, instead I decided to take a different approach to animating my piece. As seen above I created style frames using our groups intended style based upon my animatic.

This is the first production of colour palette in my piece as well. I wanted to show off a variety of purples and blues as mentioned before, to emphasize the gloomy and depressive nature of the mid-teens character and their struggles.

As I produced these in Photoshop and made each "2D Asset" grouped in layers, I can move each object around. Combining this with After Effect's 3D layers feature, I can move all of my objects and environment around in a 3D space. This 3D space will extenuate the zoom in at the beginning of my animation, as well as create a nice sense of depth throughout the piece.

[jng-animation]

8.13th Principle - 18/04/2021

Reflecting on my previous animatic attempt, I knew I needed to make some changes to timing and changes to some of the shots and general structure of the piece. I was given feedback on the timing being too long, and I knew this by the brief also. So, above is my attempted shortening of my animatic down from 24 seconds to 14 seconds. The brief outlines a ten, but as advised by tutors, a few seconds above is generally acceptable to contain the same story and message as before.

I generally enjoy how snappy this version of the skeleton to my animation is, however, I do prefer the stills and pauses I kept to hold emotion in my longer version.

I shall move forward using this shortened version as my base and build up a lined, coloured and shaded version in following posts.

[srattueba2b]

sound design

For burnout, I wanted to create a sense of unease and tension throughout, so I used the sound of a humming fluorescent light from BBC sound effects in the background. I find the constant, high-pitched buzzing to be quite anxiety-inducing, so it reflects the mental state of Allie pretty accurately. It's also reminiscent of whirring computer fans- something else that I find heightens stress when working late at night. I also used a static effect from the same site for the 'head cloud'. I then recorded myself doing the same actions as Allie- a sigh in defeat, dropping pen tablet, shifting in a chair, getting up to walk out of the room, and tapping my fingers on a desk to use as footsteps for the bear character. By recording these myself, they sounded much more accurate & perfectly timed to the actions on screen. However, getting the reverb to sound right was difficult, I wanted the room to sound big & empty, but with reverb it seemed more like a giant cave. This is especially noticeable with the footsteps, I couldn't find the right balance so the echo is a little over exaggerated.

Overall, I think this sounds quite effective considering our group didn't have a sound designer. However, the quality of my recorded foley isn't the best and I had to denoise most of my recordings. So, in the future if I need to record again I should book a session at the recording booth in Uni.

For spark, Helen suggested I add some music to the opening credits, so I went with some atmospheric piano. I didn't want it to be too upbeat as that would upstage the music I chose for the cartoon bear's theme song, but I also didn't want it to be too slow and solemn. The song I ended up using is quite neutral and works well to emphasise the more upbeat, kid-friendly sound of the TV.

Again, I recorded myself for Allie's noises- when she falls & when she gasps at the TV. For this, I pitched up the recordings to sound younger. This worked ok, but it doesn't feel realistic and since I altered the original recording so much it sounds weirdly distorted. Maybe finding a clip online may have worked better for this- used some realistic baby gurgles.

I also recorded myself for the bear as it 'woop's and jumps out. I pitched this up too, but to a much higher level. As opposed to Allie, I think this worked well as the bear character is already quite abstract & cartoony- it doesn't need to sound realistic. And paired with the twinkle sound effect the two sound fitting and equally exaggerated.

[srattueba2b]

Evaluation of final film

Overall, I'm disappointed that we weren't able to bring our original vision for the film to fruition. If I had known 4 weeks ago that half of our team members wouldn't be able to participate then I would have opted to animate the last scene instead of burnout. Not only because it shares similarities to James' piece but also because the film now doesn't have a (completed) meaningful or coherent ending.

However, I am still incredibly proud of what we've been able to put together despite the circumstances. I think we were able to make our main character feel consistent & like the same person at different ages, despite my lack of consistency with the film's style. I also think that we were able to depict 'fascination' and it's main attributes- each section has a clear link to animation and thoughtful integration of our recurring motif character.

Although, reflecting on this now, I feel that maybe I should have made the bear white after it jumps out of Allie's heart, as it only has this glowing blue look in the first section, then switches to solid white with no real explanation.

I'm also slightly disappointed that we weren't able to fully realise the 'finding fulfilment elsewhere' idea- where Allie was supposed to get re-inspired by taking a break. Without this, I feel we've fallen a little into the trope of 'achieve your dreams and be happy forever'.

But, despite the drawbacks I really enjoyed working with James & Amber and I am looking forward to working as a group again. Next time, I'll have a better idea of where I fit in terms of job roles and I'll be sure to keep more focus on the group's ideas rather than my own. Also, if a similar situation arises with absent group members, I'll be quicker to move on and make decisions, rather than wasting time waiting for others.