Time to start animating!

Today I started drawing the in-between frames for the scene I have chosen to do.

I would say its took me around 5-6 hours so far, and I have done around 13 drawings.

I feel this scene takes much longer to complete as the character really needs to look like he is struggling, and the weight balance between the rod bending and the characters pose needs to look convincing.

Breaking Down key frames

On Thursday 23rd Febuary we finally started to get to work on actually animating. Each of us chose a scene that we wanted to do and started breaking down key frames so the in-betweens could be added in afterwards.

I chose the scene where the main character gets a bite, and he starts to struggle to reel the fish in.

The key frames took me around 4 hours to complete, partly because it was the first time drawing the characters and I had to get the scale right.

Character gets a bite on his fishing rod

Anticipation of leaning forward ready to pull back

Halfway stage of pulling the fishing rod back

Exaggeration of the fishing rod bending and the character pose pulling back

Fishing rod pulls forward and character tries to fight against it

The Animatic

Here is the revised animatic for our chosen story. 

Hopefully the idea we are trying to communicate can be read clearly.

I spent a few hours on this animatic collaborating with the team the order scenes should be played out, in order to get the continuity right and making sure the narrative can be read clearly.

Getting the sounds...

Today we spent 4 hours in a professional sound recording room to get various sounds for the animatic, which would eventually also be used for the animation. We had to bring in a range of props such as fishing reel, bottled water, empty drinks can, etc.

I would say my role would be more directing than actually recording my self, although I did bring in my own prop. 

I also took photographs while inside the sound recording room.

Later on we started adding the sounds to the animatic.

Character Designs

We all decided to do some quick character designs for the extra's that will be in the animation. We had the idea  to create a fun looking character that is simple to draw and has a square head looking, Lego shaped head. 

Here is my version of the designs.

A second Storyboard

Over the weekend I didn't manage to create some character designs, however I have made another storyboard to illustrate the new idea for the Guinness Brief.

This took me around 3 hours to complete.

The Idea is that the character is on a quiet fishing trip, he accidentally knocks his can into the water. Then all of a sudden he gets a bite on his line. He tries to pull on his rod to catch the fish, but then starts to struggle. Over time his mates join in the fighting struggle to reel the fish in. Finally the tension breaks loose and they fall over. A few moments later they start to celebrate they have caught an extremely giant fish! 

Change of Plan!

After a group decision we decided to change the idea all together as it didn't fit the brief what Guinness were asking for.

I spoke to Simon today and he showed me a storyboard of the new idea about a fisherman.

Over the weekend I'm going to create some fisherman character designs, and possibly create my own storyboard for the new idea.

Planning Stage

We finally came up with a draft idea for the Guinness brief, but we all had our own interpretation on how the story would be presented, so we each drew a basic story board.

This is my draft storyboard which took me approximately 2 hours.

The next day we all showed each other our version of storyboards and we all had basically the same perspective of the idea.

The Guinness Brief

Here is a screenshot of part of the presentation we did to present to our other peers what briefs we were interested to work on. 

This is the Guinness Brief compacted down to provide only the relevant information.

Introduction

As part of my second year in Animation, I have chosen to do a Collaboration Module.

I'm current working with Simon Legeckis, Craig Booth and Chris Benn. The brief we have chosen to complete is the Guinness Brief. Together we have decided to create an animation for this brief about an uplifting story that makes people smile out of an ordinary moment with friends.