ongoing projects...

Hayle...
I think the group Hayle project is going well so far. We've managed to get everything pretty well sorted for the presentation and are meeting to put it all together today. I completed the storyboard for the project a few days ago after having spoken to the rest of the group about the ideas and making a few changes. As the group and work develops more changes keep being made which is a positive thing as I think we work from each other quite well as a group shown by how our ideas are changing and building. I think it will be interesting to see the reaction from other people when we present our idea and also to see how the other groups are doing with theirs and to see their approach to the project. After the presentation and some feedback I think it will be important to start production as soon as possible so that we can fit in everything and get the piece completed leaving enough time for post production and editing. If we stick to the timetable we made as a group in the first weeks of receiving the project and are organised within the group I think all should go well.

Storyboard...
Having spoken to Kathy and a small group about ideas for this project earlier in the week I'm much more confident about what I'm doing. I'm really enjoying this project, but the part I wasn't so sure about was coming up with the story in the first place. My story is pretty simple, however from the group talk and the talk by the scriptwriter, I think I have a good basic structure of a storyline and visually it could work really well as I want to use some unusual angles and viewpoints. Having discussed my idea with a group I found that there were a few ways I could develop it, for example thinking a little more about the ending and how I could make it as clear as possible to the reader what is happening in the story. I have also added in a few frames and decided on a style that I want to do it in, mainly inspired by a graphic novel with quite strong shaded images. So far I have drawn out all of my frames for the final storyboard and can now start working on them properly.

2D character project...
Having made my 2D squirrel character last week we discussed dope sheets and doing lip-synch with the characters. I missed the sound workshop as I didn't read my emails in time :S, however I did have a go as lip-synching my character very roughly with the 'Polish' sound we were using for the dope sheet. Unfortunately I didn't have the right kind of paper or program so it was very make-shift and jumps around a lot...but you can kind of see the attempt at speaking :S..I can't wait to do a real version however with my own voice and really get into animating my own character. I also had a go at using the 3D heads to do some lip-sych using the same bit of speech, but I couldn't move the head itself so unfortunately it doesn't have as much movement or expression as it needs, but it helped to focus on the mouth movement. I definately need a lot more practise at this though, but I'm eager to learn more about it as I find it really brings a character to life.