Initial Idea:
For my animation project I was given a few rules to abide by:
- At least 45 secs or longer.
- Must incorporate both a 2D and 3D element.
Immediately, I thought about how for my 3D element I wanted to animate on a live action video of myself. I was always curious to as how I appear when I’m walking alone in the streets of New York City. I realize that most people including myself are always looking down at their phones or trying to avoid eye contact with people that pass us by. So with this concept in mind I realized I wanted to animate quirky creatures around me as I’m walking down the street. I wanted their actions to be focused on trying to get my attention, but throughout the whole film I’m either oblivious to them or intentionally ignoring them.
Originally this was what my style frame looked like, but I had technical difficulties that forced me to shoot a more stable film.
This was a clip of the revised shot for my final animation.
The above link is a pdf version of my original storyboard. Later on, I renamed the piece to “Look Up.”
Character Inspiration
These 100 drawings was for a previous project in my Core 2D Studio class first semester. When I was brainstorming character ideas for my animation I thought about using some of my characters in the animation and as inspiration for new ones as well. Even though these original drawings were black and white I wanted my animated characters to be solid colors so it’d be easier to see and it was also practice for me to work with digital coloring.
Trial & Error
CLICK ME! (TWO DRAWINGS ABOVE)
Music: Podington Bear – Wind Up Toy
I found this track on freemusicarchive.com and I chose it because I really loved how the upbeat playful sound contrasted with the dreary mood of the film.
Original Inspiration
Animatic
https://vimeo.com/161737262
This was a very rough first version of my animatic.
https://vimeo.com/167029301
Reflection
I learned animating digitally or by hand is an extremely difficult skill that requires a lot of patience and practice. I had many difficulties throughout the entire process of this project. The first was when I was filming the 3D portion of the project. I had a friend of mine film me outside my dorm and it was difficult to get a smooth and steady footage. I had to reshoot my film many times, and even in the end the film was somewhat steady. I even tried shooting on a tripod, but I didn’t like the look of a stationary shot. Also using onion skinning on photoshop was difficult, because it would show the under layer of my film so I would get confused to as which part of my body I should be animating on. In the end I used onion skin very sparingly and mostly eyed where I should place my characters next.
My favorite successful moment was the octopus grabbing my leg scene. I worked hard to render that character to how I envisioned it. The only thing was that the octopus scene was a bit too fast. Also I wanted to use this project as an opportunity to practice digital drawing and coloring. It’s very hard for me to use photoshop coloring, because the digital look of my characters bothered me so I tried to embrace it and use the outrageous bright colors to my advantage. Also I enjoyed editing the music and having sound effects sync up to my movements.
Overall, it was an okay animation. Still my favorite moments were the octopus scene, the music, and the ending shot where there is a focus shift from me to my animations. I’m about 60% happy with the final product, but I’ll try to practice more with digital animations on my own time. Also I would like to incorporate After Effects and other programs more into my work. Personally, After Effects was very overwhelming, but for a future project I might just start playing around with track mats first.