Week 11/12 Animation

Following on from the first animation I had produced and presented to an informal presentation as mentioned in the previous post, I produced my animation in the style that I wanted to have it as in its final form and then presented it. I got a couple of tips here and there about certain features like the eye movement being too slow or more eyebrow expression which I managed to add and am now pleased with, I believe that the characters show enough emotion towards each other and effectively carry the illusion of these characters understanding emotion in works parallel with the voice recordings. Animating your own voice, as painful as it is can have benefits too such as mouth shapes; if you get stuck, look in a mirror! Overall, I am happy with how the animation has turned out, the emotions are clear and the characters present those emotions very well. The lines bubble a bit too much perhaps? OR maybe the animation would all be like this, being highly stylistic and maybe even exaggerated? Regardless, I feel there is nothing more I can add to this shot without taking away it's effectiveness.

Week 11/12 Animatic 2

After completing first Animatic, I received feedback on my work which included tidying up the drawings and replacing the final shot with a slightly different angle. I also decided to turn this animatic into an advanced animatic to show movement directions as well as camera directions to easily demonstrate the final outcome of the film. I redrew each shot in a cleaner, more detailed environment, including background colour and depth of field. This makes the animatic much more true to the final outcome, demonstrating the colour palette taken into account from the mood board and also from the character sheets as well as demonstrating the interesting movements in the scenes, such as the scene when the socks are being "attacked", I wanted to make the socks seem literally horrified because they'd only ever been worn before, not taken away in a box but the strangest part for them was being taken away without their pairs because of them not being "good enough". At closer inspection, it is more obvious that I have added ware and tear to Anger and Envy which is why the woman only chose those 2 in particular. I may add more to the box but I wouldn't want to over complicate the shot and take the focus away from the main characters here. The final shot of the homeless person wearing the socks I actually had to change because during one of our informal presentations for practice, we saw that the final shot in the first animatic zoomed in onto not the socks, but between the homeless man's legs. Obviously this had everyone in stitches but it now meant that I had to redo that shot using the same story idea but changing the position. I eventually came up with the idea of using the laid down shot being as though it would give me a change to show the living conditions too and showing that they wear them to bed because it is so cold without funding for heating or hot food or blankets, etc. So the message becomes clear that they need your unused socks. I believe this new animatic delivers that message perfectly.

Week 8 Foley Sounds

Once i had the music composed and recorded to the video, I focused on adding in the dialogue and sound effects. The dialogue I recorded with my computer and a Senheiser rifle microphone to my computer and organised the sounds within REAPER. Once the dialogue was all complete, I focused on going around sheffield with the Senheiser and the Zoom audio recorder to record as many sounds that I could potentially use. I wrote up a list of required sounds so that I knew the basic requirements and any other sounds would be useful for future reference. I imported all of the my sounds into reaper and labelled them to their respective sounds before importing them into my project sessionto crop and edit so that they fit in with the timing of the video and music.
The next stage was sorting the volume levels of each track so that the dialogue stood out above the music when speech was occuring and I also lowered the sound effects volume when the music plays towards the end as the screaming fades away into music to show the obvious change in mood so the chords will control the mood as the music holds a note of D right before a C major which ends on a bright chord to conclude the piece having resolved the problem by pairing the socks together afterall.
I then rendered checked over the animation and sound to make sure they sync perfectly before rending out the audio to put into Premiere to render out the animation.

Week 7 Sound Design Music

Using the storyboard, I began work on the music through garage band. I plugged in my piano and began composing a short piece to play along to the animation. Keeping it simple, I went with 4 chords (C, F, G and Dm) for the left hand, then for the right hand I used the same notes that it would take to make the chord (so a C chord would be C, E and G) to make the melody playing the notes in a decorative way playing off beat to contrast the heavy chords. I then felt the need to add more "power" to the chords so I added a bass playing the notes of the chords (C, F, G and Dm) to boost them. I also did the same with strings so the silence echoed in a sweet hum of the strings. The tempo of the piece is interpretive of the actions within the shots; so a fast changing shot would pick up tempo and a slower changing shot would make the tempo slow down. The progression of the tempo overall works as shown below.

Week 6 Animatic

Using my storyboard, I constructed an Animatic to visualise the structure of the piece, asking myself such questions as so:
Are the movements clear? Do the characters seem relatable? Does the composition work? Is the animation easily readable?
To all these questions I believe my answer is yes, apart from the ending 2 shots where the characters appear in a box. I will add other items to the box so that it is clear they are being donated as they will be among other items donated in a shoebox. As for the last shot, I will design an environment that fits with the rest of the piece but stands out as being a homeless shelter as opposed to a warm bedroom. The colours for the homeless shelter should be cold so as to explain the meaning of donating socks.

Week 5 Storyboard

Using my previous design for storyboard tiles, I cut the first scene out and focused on the 2 other scenes so that the animation focused more on the character interaction rather than the full story. I used the colours relative to the character designs so they are representative of the final outcome which helps me visualise whether the characters show in their emotions. The storyboard effectively shows the direction of movement through red arrows and dialogue is shown in the text beneath each panel. I feel the ending scene maybe unclear though so I may need to develop this section more so.

Week 5 Character Colours and Patterns

After the last design on the character shapes, I decided now to focus on colours for the characters which began by picking colours I thought looked appropriate to the characters overall personality, such as red for anger, etc. I then developed this even more to combine the two sets of socks' colours to create one unique colour that is essentially unisex. The red works perfectly between male and female and even made the "Anger" character look even more like a "Jock" from high school. The next step was to decide whether the blue fitted the male and female forms which in some ways it does but could do with being a slightly lighter shade of the same colour so the character stands out more.

Week 4 Character Turnarounds

Following on from my designs, I decided to put together the character turnaround for both the female style characters and the male style characters (the only difference is the face). I purposely left the detail and use of colour out of this so that it is easier to focus on the shape of the character rather than the patterns/colours used. The character turnaround allows me to visualise the character from any angle and acts as a reference to when I draw the storyboard in detail in it's final form.

Week 4 Storyboard tiles

Using my designs and research, I began following the story and started to form the idea for my animation through a storyboard. I began the scene with the main character "Innocence" facing towards two other main characters "Anger" and "Beauty"; They are arguing and the noise is deafening. Innocence can't sleep. He looks up at "Envy", staring out at "Anger" in awe of his dominant and muscular physique. The next scene begins with "Innocence" and "Beauty" finally meeting and talking before being called over by "Anger". "Beauty" reluctantly begins walking back towards "Anger" before "Innocence" shouts. Suddenly the door bursts open and "innocence" is snatched up, "Beauty" screams before also being taken. The scene changes to the homeless shelter and then socks are given away to be worn as a pair, happily together. I believe this stands as a strong story for my animation and I feel like the message is clear. It is a long story so I will have to cut it down to the main section, more likely to be scene 2 than 1 or 3.

Week 3 Character Designs 2

Next, I decided to focus on more specific parts to the character design, doing some sketches on movement and dialogue to get more of an idea as to the overall dynamic of the piece.
The movement took some consideration to come up with a design that worked with the sock shape. I managed to settle on the caterpillar/worm design which is explained in the diagram above; the tail moves in towards the body before pushing from the tail to move the body forward, then repeat.
The same design will work for all the characters as they all have the same/similar shape.
The dialogue section is a play on the idea of inanimate life within the bedroom, so saying they are from "1st drawer" as opposed to "1st floor" in an apartment.

Week 3 Character designs

Then after creating the collage images, I decided to develop the idea behind the character into more of a design aspect that would be simple to draw and obvious that it is still meant to be a sock. I decided on giving the characters more of a sense of exaggerated features such as, "Anger" is always angry at Innocence and Beauty for trying to be together (he's old fashioned), If Beauty is caught doing something she shouldnt be doing, Anger will hit her. "Envy" looks more at Anger that she does Innocence because he's strong. Beauty is sick of Anger but she's scared of him and Innocence wants to get Beauty away from Anger so that they can be together. I also came up with the idea of having "Busy" sock who would add some comedic value to the piece showing no interest in anyone, just passing on by on his way to work.

Week 3 Collage designs

After coming up with my idea for thew story, I began to look into characters and their shapes and materials, which I did through a collage of materials that I deemed to be appropriate for the character and I cut them out into shapes of socks with the two main characters being in the middle surrounded by these other socks and their pairs waiting for them in either corner, showing how they are trapped and cannot ever be together, or so it seems.

I feel this is a good way of visually displaying the first initial concept without having to delve into too much detail to get ahead of myself. The technique demonstrates the personality through the use of materials and their shape/style gives the audience a sense of understanding in a visual concept.

Week 2 Written Treatments

Beauty emotion attachment

Forbidden opportunity success

Kindness compassion happiness

Generosity assistance guidance

Curiosity adventure thrill

A pair of socks, an odd match, hopelessly in love. Forever separate, until given to someone else to be paired together.

Two characters, matched separately, find their way home to each other.

I feel that the Short Treatments carefully convey the overall message whilst allowing the audience to have some interpretation over it so that it can be more relatable to them. In my opinion, the strongest one is "Kindness, compassion, happiness" as this promotes a positive and a strong contribution towards a younger audience. The message would carry out subconsciously about doing a small act of kindness which can greatly affect someone else in a positive and "happy" way.
The weakest Short Treatment I feel is "Beauty, emotion, attachment" as this just focuses entirely on love without having much of an impact on society, it has no meaning or greater influence. It just relies on a happy "feel-good" story.
As for the Abstract Treatments, I feel the strongest one is "Two characters, matched separately, find their way home to each other" because it works hand in hand with the strongest Short Treatment as they act as two parallel lines; one carrying a message to the viewer and one carrying the story as a whole. It is generic, widely applicable and easy to elaborate upon in any scenario. For example, "Two socks, put with other socks, want to be together but they can't because they don't match, are eventually given away to a homeless person where they can finally be together even though they don't match." This idea would work perfectly as a subliminal message with a strong love story. The subliminal message being to give something makes a big difference to some people. A message would be put at the end of the film saying "Socks are the most needed but least donated article of clothing in homeless shelters" as this creates a big impact on society to get them to make a change.

Week 2 Contrasting Mood Board

Using the Primary mood board, I began with the colour palate and the use of faded and I went with the opposite mood/feeling by using bright and vivid colours to show off the contrast against the primary mood board. The bright and vivid colours promote happiness and freedom as well as joy which makes an interesting underlining to the overall theme. The next section is dirty feet; these are in contrast to the comfortable wool socks which makes the element of happiness even more interesting. Perhaps the character is happy with what the have? They live in poverty and they are happier walking in bare feet than wearing socks? Then there's the owl and the mermaid which I wanted to use to show isolation and loneliness so that the idea could be imagined in more ways than human emotion. After that there's a messy room and a dark rainy day looking outside which contrast against the neat and tidy warm feeling room which isn't as welcoming, it seems more repulsive. Then for the last bit we have the dark streets, which demonstrate the composition of a potential scene in the streets through rain in the cold.

Week 2 Primary Mood Board

Following on from Last week's post, I took the idea of the socks and collected some images to use in a mood board to visually demonstrate the theme/style of the narrative. I liked the idea of a Christmas theme to carry the heartfelt message in the subliminal sense to give away any spare or unused socks to the homeless because they get all sorts of other bits and pieces but one thing they lack the most is socks.
The idea is that two different socks want to be paired together but they keep being put with the same types but eventually one day the owner donates the socks to a homeless shelter and they are finally paired together as these are the only socks that the homeless person has/was given.
The overall mood will be a cold, less vibrant appeal to give the audience a sense of lacking; something that's not as good as it could be. This helps them empathise with the socks to make them want to be together.

Week 1 Word associations

After being given the topic of Love to explore and develop into an animation, I began with a word association diagram that expands from Love into various different avenues that I can combine to make a starting point for the animation. I could pick a few different words from this and see if they match to make an idea for a good short story; One example would be "Pigeon", "Dove" and "Soap". A pigeon tries desperately to get a Dove to like him by washing with soap everyday. Another example could be "Socks", "Match", "Pair". Two socks in love with each other but are different in appearance, forced to forever be apart. The other socks that they are put with are irritating and unhygienic which makes them want to be paired together even more. Eventually they are given away together and someone else pairs them together finally as the only pair of socks they own.
This would be a longer narrative but its twists and turns would make it more compelling and emotionally captivating to the audience.
This would be something to consider when it comes to developing an idea further.