#dc#dc comics#batman#bruce wayne#dc fanart#dick grayson#batfamily#batfam#tim drake
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PROJECT// BIOGRAPHY- MAKING MY ANIMATION: FINAL OUTCOME
PROJECT// BIOGRAPHY- MAKING MY FINAL ANIMATION: SELF EVALUATION & REFLECTION.
Throughout this project I have been heavily inspired by 1950-60′s cartoon television animation (specifically by Hanna-Barbera), as well as animation on a wider level, eg. Disney and early DreamWorks animation. The critical incidents that made this project what it turned out to be were the following: My visit to the National Jazz Archive, where I was able to explore the aesthetics of the music and hear from people passionate about it. My research into the Hanna-Barbera cartoons and watching 50-60′s Warner Bros. skits, as well and my prior knowledge of the style of the video game ‘Bioshock’. Finally, my absolute fascination with the skill of bringing drawings to life, mostly prompted by watching pencil tests on twitter.
Overall I am proud of what I have achieved. The experience has been an excellent insight into all of the stages of making animated film, and the skills that are needed to make a successful piece. I think as a first animation, the outcome is relatively successful. There are things I would change (mentioned later) in the editing and the expression of the story, but most of these were not made during my process simply because of the timeframe I had to make it was so small, and being realistic about what I could actually animate, with my skills still being in their infancy. I think that overall the film presents an extremely simplified version of Chet’s life with a good level of clarity. Most people I have shown it to so far (I’m writing this before the peer- crit) have been able to understand what is happening on a first viewing. Observations from my sketchbook and planning are clearly evident in my final piece, as well as my inspirations and research. The final piece communicates the themes of a career downfall well. I have used colour, sound and expression to tell the audience that things have taken a turn for the worst, and believe that I built up the peak of his career enough that the audience feels the ‘ fall’ emotionally and tonally.
I have learnt an enormous amount on this project. I have extended my animation skills as well as my knowledge of the timeline tools on Photoshop. I have also learned new things across the entire process of making an animated film, which I have never done before. My methods of production were appropriate for what was available to me at the time. Although in the future I would like to invest in a specially made software for tradigital animation- for example ToonBoom. Photoshop worked well, but many things could have been changed to streamline my process.
Being a perfectionist, I can see an awful lot of things that could be changed and/or improved. The following issues were all because of the time restraints: lots of my animation could have done with more in-betweens and a more sensitive approach to timing. There are some glitches in colour. Some keyframes are badly drawn because they were rushed, and this is evident in the final piece. There is some confusion during the scene where I’ve implied that Chet has been punched- I would have liked to animated the punch to clear this up, but it would have taken too long because it would be very difficult for me as a beginner. Realistically, I could have done nothing to change these things because I simply had to have a tight turnaround. However in the future I hope to have the skills to be able to animate faster and with more accuracy to clear some of these points up.
In total, I am proud of my animation as a first attempt. The process was just was difficult as I thought it would be- taking a lot of time and dedication, however instead of putting me off, it has only inspired me to practice harder. I think I have finally found what I want to do and am very excited to throw myself headlong into the challenge.
PROJECT// BIOGRAPHY- MAKING MY FINAL ANIMATION: DEVELOPMENT
Since this was my first time ever making an animation longer than a few seconds, let alone using Photoshop and the timeline feature in this way, I began by watching some tutorials on YouTube. This helped me get a handle on the techniques I would need to use to create my project with the software I have available to me.
I then made the first two scenes- the father giving the trumpet to young Chet and Chet spinning into the zoom with the full stage. I started off with lines- making keys on the same level and then placing tweens on a separate layer which I later merged with the original key level. I animated each character separately as their own lot of key and in-between layers- animating all of the characters separate elements eg. hair, body, face etc. as one. Below is a complete line animatic.
Next, I grouped all the layers/frames for each character into single master groups. Underneath these groups I began to create mirror frames, colouring inside the lines for each frame, using the wider beige area I'd cropped around the canvas to place blobs of each colour to pick them up faster when I went onto the next frame. I went through and did each element- skin, clothes, eyes, hair, shadows, on separate layer groups. This, I learnt very quickly, created an absolutely massive file which my computer was having difficulty running quickly, making progress very slow. It also meant that mistakes were frequent- by separating all of the colour elements it became very easy to accidently have some in the wrong place, or misaligned with others and the line group, even when I was working methodically through them. This meant that there were lots of glitches and problems with the finished version of this.
Because it was taking so long to make the coloured scenes and I was running on an extremely limited timeframe, I decided to abandon making the coloured versions of scenes and plough through all of the line versions- in order to get something out in time for the deadline. As I went along I found myself able to speed up as I became more confident and familiar with the process. Some scenes I animated the character alone, for example below is a version of Chet, made for the forth scene, which was animated separately from the scene and added in to save my computer from working too hard, and to allow me to focus on detail without being distracted by the rest of the scene.
I managed to work my way through all of the line scenes faster than I thought I could, which meant that I could attempt to make it completely in colour! On the second attempt at colour, I went with putting all of the colour elements on the same layer group, which meant I could avoid my computer protesting and all of the glitches and mistakes the previous approach created. I went through and coloured all of the line files I had completed.
Some of the most difficult scenes to colour were the panning background shots, which required me to manually replicate camera movement with the background layer and the character moving at the same time. One of the hardest was Chet’s downward ‘fall’. For this scene I created an absolutely massive back drop layer, about twenty times as long as the canvas height. I then passed it though the canvas or ‘camera’, animating on ones, by uniformly pressing the up arrow key ten times in each iteration. I came across this number through trial and error whilst trying to find an effective fall speed for Chet. It’s one of my favourite shots in the final animation!
The image below shows all of the stages of my process. In the first few images you can see the tween and key frame groups separately before I combined them. The third image represents my animating of individual elements on their own Photoshop files. I did so for all of the member of the band scene as well as Chet in some scenes. The next two images demonstrate what my layers looked like with the addition of colour. The final image shows just how huge the Photoshop file with the full band scene turned into- each band member with a huge amount of frames!
Final screenshots from the animation showing the general palette of the final piece as well as all of the key scenes. I followed what was said in my research presentation feedback and made his face very prominent throughout.
PROJECT// BIOGRAPHY- MAKING MY FINAL ANIMATION: PLANNING STAGE
ALL STORYBOARDS AND NOTES CAN BE FOUND IN MY SKETCHBOOK AND PORTFOLIO
It was always my intention to tell the story of Chet’s life in a chronological, truthful way. However, I knew that by doing so I risked my telling becoming stale and overly factual, so throughout the planning stage I made sure to continually refer to my 50-60s cartoon inspirations to keep my direction fresh and entertaining. I started off planning my final piece by listing key points in Chet’s life. This included:
His father giving him a trombone
His time in the Gerry Mulligan quartet
His beating and loss of teeth
His addiction to heroin
His death by falling from a hotel window
During my first storyboard (see portfolio) I included the story elements of Chet first being given a trombone, which was too big for him and caused him to swap it for a trumpet. In later storyboards, I left this out due to its complexity and general irrelevancy. This also happened to other elements such as Chet’s old face melting down to his skull (which I omitted due to tonal change). Across multiple storyboards, I whittled the story down to it’s simplest bare bones:
Chet being given his instrument by his father
Fame in the Gerry Mulligan Quartet
Beating and loss of teeth
Addiction to Heroin
Loss of ability to play trumpet
Death
I wanted to maintain momentum by creating as few hard cuts as possible, meaning that seamless transitions between scenes had to be developed. This can be seen on my storyboards- mostly including head turns and zooms to transfer between set pieces-however the big transitional moment is his fall from the stage, in which the background falls away behind him.
Running up to the animation I created a number of tests:
Chet Playing the trumpet- made up of the image sequence below:
Chet ageing-
Chet doing a turn- my first ever attempt during skills week workshop-
All of these tests were extremely valuable during the creating of my animation and were all included in the final piece in some shape or form.
PROJECT// BIOGRAPHY- CHRARACTER MODEL SHEETS
The following are model sheets I made for my animation, including young and old Chet Baker turn-arounds as well as expressions.
PROJECT// BIOGRAPHY- PEER TUTORIAL & RESEARCH PRESENTATION FEEDBACK REVIEW
Peer-to-Peer Tutorial Feedback
Before beginning the final piece, and before presenting current work in the group research presentation, we were given the opportunity to review each others work on a peer-to-peer basis. We were all paired with people we were unfamiliar with in order to give us a fresh perspective on our own work as well as to see someone else's approach to the project for the first time. The following positives were said about my work during my tutorial:
I have a lot of visual material and reference,
I have started to make animated tests which look professional and promising
I have depicted my character with a lot of emotion and this comes through in the animation tests I have made.
I was very pleased to hear this because these were all this things I was aiming towards. The following points were suggested as improvements:
I should make some more work in colour- taking inspiration for 50′s movies and TV aesthetics.
I should focus on how I will shorten and simplify the story/movements of my animation in order to pull off a final piece for the deadline.
I thought these were fair and helpful suggestions. Please see my development folder for the feedback sheet.
Research Presentation Feedback
The following positive comments were made during my research presentation:
I have plenty of research that goes into a good amount of detail
Used various styles, but Chet’s identity is still well represented throughout
Good ideas about animation transitions
Animation is a good choice of output
The following suggestions of directions/improvements:
Could focus more strongly on the ‘downfall’ element of his life
Could experiment with lines- make them ‘jazzy’?
Think about level of detail used- need to find balancing point between simple enough to animate and nice to look at. Skull/ageing animation is a good example of a good medium
Face should be a prominent feature
Could have a series of ideas depicted by animation. Tone? Literal/linear?
Conceptual piece?
Could use lyrics from music or speech from interviews as voiceover
All these points were extremely helpful in directing me into creating a more cohesive idea in my mind about what I want to do.
PROJECT// BIOGRAPHY- WORKSHOP- AFTER EFFECTS ANIMATION
This workshop was a bit strange because I was the only person that turned up, meaning that it turned into a one-to-one with the tutor. This turned out to be extremely helpful and motivating! It being just me and there tutor meant that although we didn’t do the workshop activities, I was able to ask questions and get suggestions specific to my project. I was suggested many many helpful things such as:
The School of Motion Website which has loads of helpful tips: https://www.schoolofmotion.com/
The Adobe Character Animator cc software which allows you to animate using your own face and movements : https://www.adobe.com/uk/products/character-animator.html
Rubberhose 2 Software which has vector character rigging: https://www.battleaxe.co/rubberhose
Speed Graphs and Animation tips in After Effects https://www.schoolofmotion.com/tutorials/intro-to-the-graph-editor-in-after-effects/
Expressions in After Effects- using code to take animation shortcuts https://www.schoolofmotion.com/tutorials/amazing-expressions-in-after-effects
The Parallax effect which allows you to put 2D images in 3D space- https://lesterbanks.com/2018/02/cleaner-interesting-parallax-effect-ae/
Animation Work Moving Onward from the Workshop
Moving onward from the animation workshop, I have begun to create animations in my own time, practicing techniques. I am pleased with this one, but if I do bring it forward to my final outcome I think I will change it so his mouth doesn’t drift as much, and so that the dripping part at the end is further exaggerated.
