DVD label Designs

I couldn't decide which of these 2 I preferred, so I settled with the top design for the DVD and the bottom design for the Data Disc

Important New Direction

Ok guys, this week has been pretty tough on us all and i know it has made everyone quite stressed, but im very impressed with the work that has been produced, however.......

After filming our animation in the rostrum room, we still needed to decide on how to add Imogen's family photo onto all the frames. We had already attempted to place it behind the frames on top of a lightbox, but this didn't work, so the only option we thought of was to scan the family photo, open in photoshop alond with all the frames and get to work!!! This would be a very monotonous tast, though Imogen and I offered to help Laura with the workload.

It was suggested by John whether we need Imogen's opening scene for the animation because realistically, it would be near impossible to superimpose the photo onto hundreds of frames and keep it consistent. This suggestion lead to some positive and negative feedback due to the fact no one wanted to cut a group member's work from the final animation unless absolutely necessary.

After consulting Imogen, I found out that she understood if we couldnt include her scene in the animation and said herself that it was causing too much hassel with such short time and came up with a better idea to have the animation, then fade out to a scene where the family photo was laying on the table where the puzzle once was, with children's toys etc around it to set the scene in the same way as Andy suggested for our stop-motion.

Laura also put forward a suggestion to keep half of Imogen's part and cut it from where the boy is holding the 2 pieces of the ripped photo (so that he never puts it in the puzzle frame), photoshop the photo onto these frames and then reverse the actions.

It's now Friday and we only really have 2 days to finish editing and putting the final touches in and we still don't have the family photo drawing...in fact, we havent even seen what it looks like since it was asked for in February. I have discussed with the group and after losing heart at points this week, we have decided that it's best to not wait around, in case the photo doesnt even get to us, for us then to have to rush around re-editing, then exporting and authoring the DVD.

So, to clarify, after the long explanation, I have decided after weighing up the pros and cons, that the first scene will have to be cut out and we will start the animation with the child starting to make the jigsaw. If we do get the photo, I will add it at the end- as explained above, but i think we could all do without the unnecessary stress.

Imogen's scene will be put onto the data disc and hasbeen blogged for proof of the work and to show that this particular part met the deadline. Hopefully no hard feelings but I really do think that this is for the best :D

Nearly there guys :D

John's Animation- End sequence

Scene 5


John-scene 5 from Jade Midson on Vimeo.

Individual Animation Quicktimes

Hey guys, the next couple of posts are our individual scenes we animated- i have edited them together and still working on improvements. I have made a couple of versions depending on what ending we are going to use and whether Imogen's photo is going to be available to us soon, so ill upload them as soona s they are completed. The title sequence and DVD menu are also half finished and should be finished by the end of today and ill blog those too...

so... here are the vids..... they will all be sized so everything matches perfectly

Part 1   (Family photo will be added)


Imogen- scene 1 from Jade Midson on Vimeo.

Part 2


Laura- scene2 from Jade Midson on Vimeo.

Part 3 - Im going to cut mine a bit as the middle doesnt quite work and when the child pauses, the background doesnt move, so im editing that at the moment :) and working on the speed seeing as mine is on doubles.



jade- scene 3 from Jade Midson on Vimeo.

Part 4- I have adapted the brightness of Tom's so that it stays consistent throughout the animation and resized the files so all the images fill the entire frame


Tom- scene 4 from Jade Midson on Vimeo.

Blue Cloud Studios Logo Design

Hey guys, i realised we didnt really have a logo to put on our animation or our blog, so I sat down tonight and got designing. I had previously drawn a couple of really rough designs in my sketchbook over the Easter and I came to the conclusion that they needed to be a bit more graphical so that it was professional looking. I need to scan in my drawn designs, which ill have to do after showing you the final design.

Ignore the dark grey background as this is just to emphasise the logo. I thought we'd keep it quite simple and graphical to go with Tom's blog background design, but still kept the cute fluffy cloud and made this blue obviously!! i like the way that this is the only blue imagery as it makes it stand out more. The little circle-looking images are C's rotated and there are 5- representing the 5 members in our group :D

Title Sequence

I spoke to John today and we had a discussion about the title sequence- I know he has produced a couple of ideas, then I thought of something that will work really well and after some discussion and a look at my designs, we were both happy with the idea, which will be posted soon. Ill also be using the font from the title sequence for the DVD menu, which is also in the process of being completed and will be posted before the weekend :D



Backing track for the animation

What does everyone this about using this as a backing track for the animation?

The music comes to a natural end 1:12 in I think so could be easy to cut/edit?

Line test.

heys guys, just a line test. If there's anything that needs doing before tomorrow please tell me :) I know there's a weird wobbly bit with the mum's hand before she waves. There's a frame when the boy's hand is missing and it could do with smoothing the movements out at the end. If there's anything else (other than filling them ofc) then please say. What d'you guys think?

& Jade, what would you like me to do with the dog?

Imogen's Line Test

Untitled from Jade Midson on Vimeo.

Line Test

Puzzle Pieces Line Test from Jade Midson on Vimeo.

DEADLINE!

Ok guys, here's the deal :)...
We spoke to Andy today in our tutorials and he suggested line testing what we have to far today, which we uploaded earlier and he also suggested booking out the rostrum room to animated because that way, we are in a controlled environment. This means that all the lighting will stay constant and the camera we'll be using will take higher quality pictures. GO1 is good for testing, but the lighting is inconsistent, with people coming in and out of the room, lights being turned off and on etc...

Andy caught up with me today and handed me a timetable spreadsheet with which time slot he has allocated us. We have the rostrum room on FRIDAY 15th APRIL -  we need to be there for 9a.m sharp to start animating. Andy explained that if the room is left unattended by at least 9.30, the room will be taken from us and given to someone else in need of it.

What does this mean?

ALL drawings need to be completed before then so that we can have the whole day to photograph the images and create the final animation. If there are any issues, please contact me or Laura ASAP as failing to meet this deadline will result in putting us way behind and having to work throughout the Easter Holidays with no way of meeting up with each other.
We would like the final week to be dedicated to finalising the animation and last-minute editing, creating the DVD menu and cases etc and authoring the DVD...

I understand people have other work commitments, but if we put in the hard work, this deadline can be easily achieved.
Sorry to sound harsh, but I know everyone's eager to do well and finish the animation and feel happy with the end result...

Keep up the good work :)

Laura's Line Test

We line tested Laura's part of the child placing in the first puzzle piece before we spent hours colouring in all the frames, so that we could see if the animation would work. We were thinking of possibly adding in a pause to portray the child thinking where the puzzle piece would fit in and also maybe removing a couple of the frames to make it run smoother.


line test 2 from Jade Midson on Vimeo.

Kite section

For Tuesday's meeting in GO1, I brought in all the frames I had drawn out after John had drawn the motion of the kite, for us to all colour together as it's a tedious task.
Before finalising this section of the animation, we line tested it to see if the timings were correct and how well the kite moved and we were very happy with the outcome and hopefully the rest of the animation will be ompleted to this standard. It was great seeing part of it come to life and made us more motivated to get started on the rest.

Here's the test for the kite :) it works really well, tho we will take out that random cloud that appears for one frame then is forgotten! lol. We like the way that the scribbled lines almost make the whole image seem animated and as if the child is drawing the pictures.


Kite Test from Jade Midson on Vimeo.

New take on the Animation

This was briefly mentioned in Laura's last post, but as of yesterday, we have decided to produce the animation using purely 2D. We had a long discussion of the pros and cons and referred to our production schedule to see how well we were getting along, but we were stumped. It was also in the back of our minds the difficulty of green-screening the puzzle and having to photoshop all the different puzzle pieces to then be added into after effects, we felt that this was overly complicated especially after mine and Laura's conversation with Andy last week to see if he could work it out, to which his response was, 'ah, my brain feels like its melting!!!' This issue followed us around for a few days and was really getting to us as a team, especially considering the time we have left and the lateness getting started due to many reasons.
It was brought forward to me that my team would feel a lot happier with creating the entire animation in 2D and after collating everyone's ideas, i also think that this is best. It is a shame, but we can still create a great animation in 2D, proven by Laura's animatic example. A Happy Team  = Great Animating :)

Ok, so for this week:
Imogen: First part of the stpp motion- child placing the family photograph in the centre of the puzzle frame.
Laura:  Child placing puzzle pieces 1 and 2 (mum's head and dad's feet)
Jade:  Child placing puzzle pieces 3 and 4 (kite and dad's head)
Tom:  Child placing puzzle pieces 5 and 6 (mum's body/feet and 'missing piece') and boy slamming hand onto the puzzle
John: Keeping up with the good work of the rest of the 2D animation (the 2nd half- animated kite, dog, family etc)

Remember : Meeting Thursday 31st March- 10am GO1- bring all work so far so we can hopefully line test :)

Stop Motion Test

Here is the test of the stop-motion. Its a tad inconsistent in terms of lighting in the bottom left corner and with static puzzle pieces moving so will need re-doing me thinks...


Stop Motion Test 1 from Jade Midson on Vimeo.

However, the latest decision is to do the animation in 2D, which I think is going to be more realistic in terms of time left and also as the tests on digitally merging the stop motion and 2D were both extremely time consuming and also unsuccessful as the drawn puzzle pieces were not fitting onto the stop motion ones etc.

Thursday's meeting

Ok, so after our meeting on Wednesday and speaking to Andy, we decided that it would be best to get cracking on the 2D animation and merge it with the stop-motion at the end because by the time next Thursday's come around, it won't leave us with much time.
John, Laura and I spent all day Thursday deciding on the right approach to the 2D and also created a stop-motion test using the light boxes in GO1 to see if we were headed in the right direction and to get prepared for Thursday. I think this test worked really well and Laura will be uploading it to the blog in the next couple of days. We are also waiting to get feedback on it from Andy, though i think after a lot of thought, it may need to be a bit slower.

We set up a little system in  GO1 which involved John planning out the frames, focusing on the parts that are going to be animated, then passing them on to Laura, who drew the outlines first of the rest of the image, before colouring some in, whilst I was trying to cut up plastic for the puzzle and mounting it for the stop motion test, cutting my hand along the way!!

We spent the next couple of hours testing the stop motion and continuing with our little system, with John still sketching out the key parts of the frame and Laura and I spending a gruelling process colouring the background and the parts that 'stayed the same,' which then has been continuing through the rest of this weekend!

So far so good guys and I'm really proud of my team!! Keep up the good work! I dont think we realised how monotonous colouring the layouts would be and how many packets of colouring pencils we'd go through, but we have to keep going and I'm confident that we'll suceed in this project!! :D

update

I've done about 5 seconds of the hand-drawn animation today. Planning to have the 30 seconds done certainly by this time next week. I'll start posting line-tests when I'm back @ uni.

Recap of yesterday's meeting

WE HAVE BOOKED G143 THE SMALL STOP MOTION STUDIO NEXT THURSDAY - (March 31st) AT 10AM!!
Please make sure you are all available to join! Andy will be meeting us there to help set up lighting etc. By this time we need to have all the props ready which include: A table top, pencils/crayons (anything extra that can be laying about on the table where the child is making the jigsaw, blue tack, puzzle pieces and someones hands! As head of Stop Motion Tom, I will leave you to sort this out! :)
Imogen, could you please upload the family photograph onto the blog before then :)

We also decided that as we have 3 weeks before Easter and preferably we should get the work finished before - then to get a break. The 2D animation should start ASAP which John is over-seeing as the head of 2D animation as the stop motion and 2D can be created singularly or each other. The week before Easter (2 weeks time) is when the digital merging shall begin, this way if we do find obstacles we have the 2 weeks Easter as a back up.

Any questions, let me or Jade know :)

Here's a couple of possible intros for our studio. Lemme know what you think, and be honest :) just playing about with the sound at the moment. We could also have a glowing/animated logo instead. Just need you guys to decide on a logo if you want me to do that. I'll upload my designs as soon as illustrator starts working again :)

Animatic

Ok, this is my fourth attempt trying to upload this!! ARGH!
Anywaaaays...
Here is the animatic, I'm not sure about the music both in terms of copyright and also if it actually fits with the animation? I will email Andy to see what he says about using others music work and let you know what he says :)
Also, Andy replied to my email regarding what was needed in terms of sound and he said that just a song in the background is insufficient so need to add in some Foley work. I was thinking maybe wind blowing, birds tweeting, dog barking? And also a slam when the boy punches the jigsaw?
Can you guys think of anything else we could add in?

In terms of the animatic, I had trouble making it reach the minute work hence the longer time on the last "My Perfect Family" frame. However, if we are following John's suggestion in regards to using the animated logo, I think it will work :D

Let me know what you think!

http://vimeo.com/21120750

(Sorry havent figured out this new vid thing yet!)

Vimeo

Hey guys :)
After our discussion with Andy earlier, I've just created a Vimeo account. I used our group email adress and password which I'll remind you of in our Facebook Group for anyone who's forgotten :) It's veeeryyy easy to use, so to upload our own videos onto blogger, we'll use this account rather than youtube :D