In this project we were given the choice between 8 audio clips and we had to come up with an idea and animate towards it. I chose the april (2) one which was only on the downloads.
I didn't start out with that one, it was only when i heard them all again i thought i would choose that one, it did seem that alot was going on in the audio and that it might be challenging but what is life without challenges!
Starting out,finding ideas
To start with is coming up with an idea, this was actually trickier than usual since i couldn't quite think, maybe thinkers block, i acted out the audio and i knew that someone or something was going to fall over.
It wasn't until I was making myself some tea and looked out the window that I finally got the epiphany and thought ah yes a bird falling out of a tree.
Character design
Now that I had an idea i thought now its time to come up with some character designs, for the story i had imagined someone trying to examine the bird and thats when the audio would kick in. I looked at some birds for inspiration I used some pictures to help, i knew i wanted to make it look cartoony giving it that more of a comedy feel as your not bound by much
then. I looked at other character designs the disney ones in particular because they are simple but believable they have simple lines, you know when you look at the character what it is without too much detail being present.
then. I looked at other character designs the disney ones in particular because they are simple but believable they have simple lines, you know when you look at the character what it is without too much detail being present.
The more detail you put into the drawing the harder it is to be able to move them around.
Also the more detail in the background and characters the harder it will be to control in motion.
Characters like mickey mouse, bugs bunny,donald duck etc can be moved easier because of their simple design.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5R2wE8Sduhs
I used this website also to help with character designs.
http://www.zengrenade.com/html-site/cartoon-character-design.html
http://mail.live.com/default.aspx?wa=wsignin1.0
I looked at this guys sketchbook to help with what i should do and there is alot of stuff in there and this guy earns a living from it so he is good and knows what he is doing,I emailed him through the contact page as well to ask him what was the best way to go about it, i didn't think i would get an e-mail back from him but about a day later he did and he just said keep drawing basically, crit your work,fix your mistakes and you will be getting there.
I used a book also for this project that helped me alot drawing the parrot which is called cartoonimals, i based my parrot on the drawing inside the book and it helped alot with the design, the book said to make a turnaround sketch so you can see it from all angles, also make some poses.
This is also a website i used to help make the parrot.
http://www.dragoart.com/tuts/2649/1/1/how-to-draw-a-cartoon-parrot.htm
I was at first going to have two parrots one normal and one wearing some sort of doctors stuff but i was going through Preston Blairs cartoon animation book and found some very good drawings of owls, this made me think because the animation isn't really on for long if i made the characters different it would distinguish them better, as i think parrots are more cocky and owls are more wise type it would really go together i think this is where the appeal would come from this animation.
Im not going to be doing lip syncing until after the tests have been done and im happy with the movement since this is the first animation that i have done proper moving characters all hand drawn so its going to be quite a challenge hope it goes well.
I made loads of sketches in sketchbook for parrot and owl.
I used videos to help me with the movement of the parrot and owl as i didnt really know how they move.
I watched clips from aladdin with lago in because this was a cartoon parrot and the movement seemed really believable which is what i wanted.
Did try searching for more on there but nothing what i wanted just loads of parrots dancing and being funny.
I used a winnie the pooh video with owl in it which again movement was very believable.
I did watch sesame street video called night owl and day bird but it really wasn't what i was looking for like most of the ones i had watched.
A video that i found very useful is one called Toot, Whistle, Plunk And Boom made by disney in 1953, the movement of the owl was very good and realistic.
I made loads of sketches in sketchbook for parrot and owl.
I used videos to help me with the movement of the parrot and owl as i didnt really know how they move.
I watched clips from aladdin with lago in because this was a cartoon parrot and the movement seemed really believable which is what i wanted.
Did try searching for more on there but nothing what i wanted just loads of parrots dancing and being funny.
I used a winnie the pooh video with owl in it which again movement was very believable.
I did watch sesame street video called night owl and day bird but it really wasn't what i was looking for like most of the ones i had watched.
A video that i found very useful is one called Toot, Whistle, Plunk And Boom made by disney in 1953, the movement of the owl was very good and realistic.
After this i used the dope-sheet to record the audio when the words where so that it would be easier to lip sync.
Im not going to concentrate on lip sync now though as i am more interested in the movement.
In the Spotlight
Next i thought that it was about time i got in the limelight and made videos of myself acting out the audio
Next i did some sketches of the parrot but i really wasn't getting the feel about everything would look, i thought that if i could see it i could do it, so then i got some cardboard cut out some wings and beak and the acted it out so that i could pause it and get a general idea to how it was going to look.
I had also took stills so that it could help me figure out where parts of the body were going to be during certain actions.
Now that i did some sketches and that and got a better idea to what it was going to look like i got some facial referencing images so that i could use them to perhaps display the emotion on the characters more also helping to exaggerate more.
Dopesheet and more planning
I now created a dope-sheet so that i could more understand what was happening and when it was going to happen so that i knew how many seconds i had to do certain actions. I used a program called audacity to help me with the voices because i could see it in waveform.
Now that i had the story, dope-sheet and that i knew that i didn't want to just have the same camera angle throughout the scene and researched different camera angles.
A website that i thought helped alot in deciding camera angles was borgus.com which had film techniques of alfred hitchcock which really made me think what message i wanted to bring across to the audience, even though 11 seconds really isn't long but the camera angles are still vital. My camera angles shot for the animation go as follows:
1. Establishing shot -i knew i wanted a establishing shot that people could get a quick look at what was there before any action started, this shot was a long shot of owl and parrot in tree.
2. Long shot- this is a medium shot of the parrot and owl from a side view when the owl is trying to examine him, i used a medium shot because i wanted to include both subjects and so that is was close enough to see detail.
3. POV shot- through the point of view of the owl
4. Long shot-back to medium shot of both parrot and owl
5. POV shot- through the eyes of the parrot
6. POV shot-through the eyes of the owl, you see the parrot falling to the ground
7. Long shot-of parrot on the ground, i wanted it so you could see the whole body and the tree so it clearly looks like he has fallen, the shot looks like he is looking at the audience as well is what i thought was nice.
This was planning for my storyboard as well so that i could do small thumbnail sized pictures of them.
Testing
All the testing that i did was pose to pose so that i knew everything was going to be in the right place and that nothing was going to be bigger or smaller, the only test that i did straight ahead was the shot where the pov of the parrot falling i thought it would look better done straight ahead but it turned out the i did the last test pose to pose and it looked better because i had planned it out better.
Now that i had the storyboards, i wanted to see what it would look like against the audio so i created an animatic so that i could see if everything was falling into place, i knew that if i was using the dope-sheet correctly that it should be perfect and also to just give a general feel for the animation itself with the camera angles i had chosen.
I liked the animatic, it gave me an idea about what the final animation would look like, one thing that was worrying me was that i might have put too many camera angles in for a small space of time, but i didn't think it was so bad that i had to cut down, i would just go with it and hope for the best plus for some reason some of the shots play too long on the blog one so some things dont really match up,im sure you will get the idea of whats going on though.
I started creating tests after the animatic apart from shot 1 which was just one picture for the establishing shot.
Shot 2
I thought this test was good and i liked the way that the parrot seemed to chuck his arms down at the end of the scene,it was what i was looking for.
Shot 3
I liked the test from this and worked better than i had thought only thing wrong with it was that the spacing was a bit off, it all seemed too smooth for me and i wanted it to hold on a bit on the raise on the occasionally to give it a bit more attitude instead of just rushing through which what felt like was happening.
Shot 4
I liked the pointing action of the parrot,im hoping though when i get onto the lip sync that i can do more with the face though.
Shot 5
This test gave me an idea with what i want it to do but just didn't look right,i wanted it so it looked like the parrot was falling from the parrots P.O.V but it didn't work,i think i will need to change the spacing so that the owl leaves the stage before and need to change the branch so that it doesn't just turn, so that it looks like its leaving the page to.
Shot 6
I did something wrong on the test it jumped a little bit half way which was unintentional but actually worked quite well i think because the jump happens just as the parrot seems to be hitting the ground giving more of an impact,which adds to the exaggeration to the fall
Shot 7
This shot i liked to,i think it runs well,the arm waves at the start for the right amount of time before the head shakes when the parrot says no thank you i dont need your help,and i like the subtle way he is picking himself up.
Finalizing
I have got to the finalizing stages now, i outlined all the work and rubbed out most of the blue lines but the coloring isn't going as well since there must be gaps in the drawing because photoshop keeps going over them so im going to be leaving the coloring for now as i dont really have much time. I am just going to either try and figure it out or might just do it the old fashioned way then i might even get a better look to the whole thing. I will base the colors of the characters on the reference images that i have.
Thanks for reading hope that wasn't too much of a mouthful and please leave comments about the animation so that it can help me improve, everyones input is greatly helped.
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