500 Pre-Production Summary

Pre-Production stage has now been completed. I would say that in all it had gone smoothly from start to finish and I’m altogether satisfied with pre-production. I enjoyed working all the character designs for my animation in particular working out the layouts and where things are on the street. I’m quite happy with the way the watercolours turned out although during the holidays I’m going to test a few more and perhaps work out what kind of detail I want to put in for the shops. I also have to work on the street background. I also had a lot of fun doing concept drawings for Cara’s characters, Machan and the Guard.

One of the inspirations for my animation is Studio Ghibli’s ‘My neighbour the Yamadas’. I just really liked the simple style and general outlook of the animation. All the lines of characters and sets are simple lined and faint watercolours are applied to them yet it is very effective in telling the story. So I’ve tried to do a bit of that for the set of my animation which is the street and shops. Another inspiration for my animation in terms of character is Studio Ghibli’s ‘Ponyo’. Looking at the ‘Art of Ponyo’ I really liked the look of the two children as my characters are around the same age as Ponyo. The movements of the characters in Ponyo are really amazing and one of the main things I would like to improve in my animation is better movements of the characters. I’m going to do more drawings for a shot so they consist of more frames.

All the written work such as film naming convention and data storage estimate was a lot to get through but it will be very useful for my production as I have organized all the naming conventions for all the shots and movements of the characters. Although long and at times difficult to figure out, I have found this exercise very useful and I’m glad I have organized it for production.

The most daunting thing would probably have to be the video block as we all had to act out our own characters and personally I don’t particularly like acting and being in front of the camera as an assessment. I filmed my video block on the demountables at building 22 and I think it served as a purpose as a set for the shops. I also got Ryan, Chris and Cara to help me with the other characters which was a lot of fun seeing them portraying my characters.

I have found Darren's comp classes extremely fun and helpful. All the different techniques such as z depth, blur, null and camera angles has definitely changed the way I want to present and animate my animation. I learnt from my previous animation that Sugarboy was rather flat because it was only accomplished in Flash. However, with Darren's help I feel like I can bring more to my animation especially with depth and camera angles which I wouldn't have been able to achieve in Flash.

Jack's 3D classes has also been a great help even though my animation is 2D. It has taught me a great deal about poses and weight and how my character (Timmy was modelled) is perceived in 3D. I could utilise Timmy's model to help me draw certain shots such as when he turns his head from left to right.

Week 12

Pre-Production is all done. With my data file estimate I sort of made up of my own table of estimation as the table that Huni gave us was for 3D and had all the render etc stuff in it which I don't need for my 2D animation. Some of the estimation such as flash sizes are derived from my last year project Sugarboy. I've photocopied all my drawings in the drawings except for one original drawing which I've submitted because the scanner would not scan that particular drawing for some reason. It's the drawing which includes Timmy's head rotation.

Jack's 3D class: Finishing the exercise for Timmy animation. Putting a lot of weight between poses and also elongated the timing of the animation as it's meant to be sad and slow. So I've moved the poses up and down the time line and held poses where they should be posed longer.

Week 11

I've completed most of my concept drawings and Cara's helped me as well with two of the concept drawings. All the character model and expression sheets have been done. And the mood board has also been completed.

This week I focused mainly on all the written work such as file directory structure, file workflow, back up plan and budget which are now completed.

I have yet to do a colour theme of my characters and I still have a file size estimate to complete. So far the bible is coming along great and I'd like to add a few more colour drawings of my set.

Jack's 3D class: I have keyed all the main poses of Timmy and started to put in inbetweens. Basically I'm having Timmy looking left to right and then someone points out his curly nose from out of shot and he becomes self conscience and defensive. He then touches his nose, sighs and shakes his head. It seems like I still have to get around the whole weight issue for Timmy so I'm going to have to work on that.

Week 10

This week I did my video block. I filmed mine during Huni's class and it was different this time in terms of acting it out because everyone had to act out their own character (me being Timmy) which was a bit unnerving for me as I don't really like being in front of the camera and I'm definitely not good at acting. I had Chris and Ryan help me being the crowd for the opening shot and Cara as Lily, the girl with the curly nose. When I was editing it on Final Cut Pro, I found that it was a lot longer than a minute so I had to shorten a few shots to make it work.

For Jack's 3D class, Timmy's model is basically done with much of Jack's help. The rig is moving really well with his head, body, arms and legs moving smoothly. Jack has helped me put a pair of eyebrows on Timmy and parented his eyes to his spine so that they would move with the rest of the body.

Week 9

This week I've completed my animatic in After Effects. I managed to get some sound effects and music from Soundtrack Pro and exported them and brought them into AE to match the animatic. I'm pretty happy with the opening shot because I put a bit of effort learning the works of AE such as different layers and z depth and putting it to use (help from Huni and Darren).

I also jumped onto a Wacom and mucked around with another layout which is an extended layout of the shops.

Jack's 3D class: Still in the process of rigging Timmy, this week joints are inserted and influences are parented to them. Skinning has also being completed and along the way various areas such as arms, legs and bum area are tested to see if it moves nicely. If not I had to unskin them and put more influences in those areas.