hmmm...getting there...

Updating the animation

Having handed in the rough draft we have now had some useful feedback so that we can make the final edits and adjustments to the animation. Most of these adjustments are in the scene layouts and compositions of the shots. I have had pretty good feedback from Andy already and have started to make changes...

In pretty much every scene I have adjusted the positioning of the characters. In many of them the characters were very much on the edges of the scenes which didn't really make any sense. So, a lot of the have been moved over or complteely repositioned.

Two of the biggest changes are in the picnic scene and the transition from the hippies to the couple standing on the edge of the hill. I think the changes that have been made will be clear in the updated version, however, the picnic scene has just been reconstructed in a different order moving characters and adding/taking out characters so that it all makes a bit more sense, and I do think it works better this way around.
I have added in a completely new scene inbetween the hippies and couple to try and get across the idea that the woman is the same person just later in life. So there is a cross fade focusing front on to this character so suggest as time lapse and that it is the same character which I think will work better. Hopfully the next couple of times this happens after this, it will be clearer that it is the same woman.
To also help with this the woman is now dressed in yellow throughout the shots that she is in, hopefully to brin the idea that they are all the same person together a little more...

At the moment I am working on pans...just making them come in and out smoothly in toon boom, and I will also try and work out how to do as many effects as possible that we need or will help the animation. I have another meeting with both Andy and Derek to go through scene by scene again so will hopefully make the last changes over thursday and friday. The city scenes should hopefully be completed by monday as well. The timing of the animation should therefore be set by the end of monday for final composite of the music to be created.

By here's the changes for now.....

Professional Practice...

Over the past few weeks I have been working on my website...and on the third attempt...I think I've finally finished it. I was planning on using moonfruit to build the website, and started my second attempt on there using a template...however once again I got to the stage where I was out of storage space...
I looked back to wix to see what you get on the free website builder...and it turns out you get the same on wix for free as you do on moonfruit for the first upgrade...so wix it is.
I am much happier with the new design, it looks much more professional, and I am hoping use the basic design as the front of my business cards so that they match up. I also altered my CV to roughly match my website and the same with my showreel which is also on the site.
Although I feel my website and CV is finished for now...I will definitely need to make some changes to my showreel once I have finished the major project and add in some other bits and once that is done I think I will be happy to leave it as it is. Obviously as I complete work and do more, the more changes and updates I will make..so I suppose it's never really going to be finished.
But here it is for now...

www.wix.com/stephhaymes/animation


showreel:

Website, showreel and CV...

Over the past few weeks I have been working on some designs for a website and trying to work out the best way of creating one as well as putting together a showreel and adjusting my CV.

Having gathered and organising all the work I want to put on it, my cv, showreel etc. I came up with a basic website design and drew up some of the ideas below...







Having looked at lots of example websites it seems you have to go one of a few ways. Either very smart and swish and professional, or fit it to what you do and make it arty and more personal and a little different. When thinking about the design I was going for the arty personal feel.

I chose to use Moonfruit simply because I know very little about website design and it seems very simple and nice to use, and it is really easy to put everything you want on there in the way you want it.
So I had a go at putting it all together using the designs I drew up. Here are some example pages below...

It's all working quite well and all the pages link to the right places and I think my CV is stylised in the right way to fit with the branding of the website.

However... I have a few problems with it....

Firstly...I'm really not sure about the designs I have used. Although I think they do kind of show the style I work in and the type of animation I do, I don't think it looks very professional...it looks more like a website design to promote a children's TV show or aimed at children. Even though, if I manage to get a job in the industry, this could well be an area I would work in, I don't think I want my own personal website to have this kind of style. It almost looks too childish.

Secondly...because I did upload all my own images for the design of the website to try and make it look more personalised, I now have very limited space to actually put my artwork and animation up and will have to pay for extra storage to do this. Although this is an option and something I was likely to do in the future anyway, I think I would rather just get all my work up now in a nice neat way using a template, and then pay for my own domain and set up a website from scratch later on when I have a little more time to put into it.

So...basically...I am going to start over again, use a basic (but probably more professional and smarter) template for my website, upload all of the important work first...then try and make it more personalised if I have storage space left...


Take 2...

Over the past few days I have just been colour editing and compositing backgrounds with animation...funfun..all in time for the rough draft hand in!...I will put an updated version of it all soon..however I just wanted to put up this scene as our Celt Weylin now has a shadow...



...oh yeh...

...and this is how it all begins...

new term...not that the last one ever really ended...

We now have a few days before the rough cut hand in, only a few bits of animation left to do..but a lot of tweaking with the stuff that has been done already, making the backgrounds fit, making the pans link up, getting the names on the tree etc...lots of little things that will most probably take a long time...
So as I am only making small scene changes I have very little to put up on here. Below is an example of things I am adding in such as names just to show what I'll be doing over the next few days. Today I have also celaned up colouring on two other scenes and added in things to the stag scene such as grass that he is pulling at and him getting his antlers stuck in the tree etc.
I am hoping to get all of these small changes as well as the last bits of animation and backgrounds completed for the rough draft so that after that there is literally effects/shadows/titles/sound to do....Oh and the press pack, DVD cases/covers/posters/dvd menus/ professional practise/presentations/write ups/websites/cvs/showreels/business cards/innovations project....so not much then?!?

animation update...

Here's an update of the animation...most of the completed background designs are now in apart from the dog walking scene as the software at uni couldn't handle it, the railwaymen scene as it's still being coloured, pans and other odd bits. It's looking a lot more finished now which is great, but there's still loads to do. As we have pretty much got through my first list of layouts/rough animation/clean up/colouring, I have made a new chart more for the compositing side of things including which backgrounds have been finalised, which compositions have been tested to make sure the backgrounds definitely work with the animation, notes, which backgrounds have been put into scenes in layers and what effects are needed. After getting through the first few stages I'm hoping we can then go through scene by scene and note down every possible effect/shadows/post production that needs to be done on each shot and just start to work our way through them! so...thats the plan. For the rough cut hand in, I would really love the final bits of animation that the second years are working on to be done and all the scenes to be in colour including the pans etc...

Another updated version of the animatic,so far only up to the picnic scene has got the final backgrounds in layers as the next scene with the dogwalker is massive and so crashes a lot..think it's going to take some time to get that one done..so we are getting there...but there's still lots more to come..

Below is some of the work I have been doing over the past couple of days.
I have animted and coloured the scene with the Celt in it which goes on from the first two scenes that Alberto is working on, which we will hopefully have soon to add to the start of this one.



I have also done smaller background animation which will only be seen in passing as the camera pans, so this just needs colouring now...



Over the past few days, Harriet has been putting lots of finished backgrounds into drop box so I have also been putting the backgrounds in their layers in toon boom and making sure all of the animation fits and works with them. This unfortunately takes a lot longer then I thought it would however it's really bringing the scenes together now. I havn't been posting these as I have just been putting them straight into the animatic which I will post again updated very soon, but this is an example scene of the backgrounds composited with the animation. It all needs shadows and quite a few scenes need effects, but it's getting there...

animatic update... It's getting more colourful! Everything that is final animation is actually now coloured...I just missed bits out when trying to do a really quick update and export when leaving the studio today..I'll make it better when I have more time! the music is also out of synch here...but when edited properly it's sounding really good and timed wonderfully! I have more sound effects and foley now, but they recorded extremely quietly and premiere wasn't very useful in playing with the levels so I'll put them in when I've changed them using the correct sound editing software, which will hopefully work a little better...So, small bits of background animation, pans, and city time-lapses still to do, and probably a lot of editing and playing around with things...but it's getting there!

animation update...




...and other work from today...

and this one...

I got three of the shorter scenes coloured today, all of which I am quite pleased with now. I think they are looking better now they are coloured and I can't wait to put them with their backrgounds...when the software lets me....
I was a little worried about the number of scenes left to colour, however as they are all broken down into short ones like these, if I can keep to doing 3 a day, with Chloe colouring as well and Leki coming back soon now, I don't think we will have a problem!

Animatic Update...

Just got some more scenes coloured today and put the animatic together a little more...