Progress report: 19/03/2012

Following on from Jazzy's post yesterday evening, I'm typing up another quick recap of everything we've covered over the past week or so. It's a big'un, so please hang tight!

Progress report 19/03/2012

• Attended sound workshops last week. Inducted into the sound studio and introduced to the roland recorders. After workshops we decided it would definitely be best to record as much of the sounds ourselves as possible. Anything we're unable to record ourselves, we can resort to stock effects.
• We pretty much have a finalised rough cut of our soundtrack at this stage! Sam, it's worth bearing in mind that as animation progresses we might find we need additional sound effects to accompany additional movement — for example, when the crow freaks out and runs away — as she jumps into the air her wings will flap so we might need something for that. Don't worry... it won't be much, I promise...!
• We met on Friday to discuss concerns over the scarecrow colour designs. Jae, over the weekend, put together a number of alternate colour schemes and we were able to reach a compromise yesterday. Hopefully everybody is happy now and we can begin puppet production! :]
• Jazzy finalising hang glider design and we discussed colour/shape options. She's going to do a couple of versions of the selected favourites and see how they work alongside the scarecrow and background in terms of colour.
• Alex working on crow puppets — should have first versions of all puppets complete by the end of the week, ready for testing and refinement.
• Scenes divided up for production. 

We've got just two weeks left before Easter, guys, and we need to start animating next week to give us time to identify any problems. This means that we need to have enough puppets for us to at least begin animating our designated scenes — any remaining puppets can be worked on whilst Jazzy, Sam and I get started animating :)

Homework

• Jae — begin producing scarecrow puppets. We need to have enough by Monday next week for us to at least begin animating our designated scenes — any remaining puppets can be worked on whilst Jazzy, Sam and I get started animating :) (Sorry, I know I repeat myself!)
• Alex — produce individual animation timetable detailing the length of each shot and who's working on it. Carry on with crow puppets — do some more tests, etc.
• Jazzy — carry on with the hang glider. Meet up with Alex to work together on the puppet for the crow's run cycle.
• Sam — start recording sound this week, ideally — it's best to start as early as possible so we've got more time to sort out problems and so you're not having to juggle it on top of animating! 

I think that's all for now. It's crunch time, everybody... let's make the most of these next 2 weeks...!

Progress report: 20/02/2012

Hi guys,

Fantastic work today guys - massive thanks to you all for making today such a success. Thanks to you all we're now a few days ahead of schedule - but unfortunately that doesn't mean we can take it easy ;]

Just to recap today and remind you all of the homework:

Progress report 20/02/2012

• Camera blocking and storyboarding completed. Tutorial with Ron suggested reference for the hang glider scene - the "crop duster" scene from North by Northwest. Jazzy posted it on the blog earlier today, so be sure to have a look at that!
• Massive progress with the character designs, which are now pretty much finalised. Brilliant work from both Sam and Jae - thanks to you both we have some very fun and unique characters that open up a lot of potential for some really fun movements. All we need to do is decide on a colour scheme for the scarecrow and we can start looking at making some model sheets and even building puppets by next week.
• Jazzy and Alex to work on animatics - ideally aim to have this completed by Monday 27th.
• Alex to slap together a quick animatic from storyboard images to check the timing/flow, and to help Jae make decisions regarding sound effects.
• Meeting on Wednesday 22nd to review character designs and begin model sheet production. Further discussion regarding progress from this point. Puppet building to be discussed.

Homework


Jae & Sam –  For Wednesday 22nd: Come up with some colour schemes for the scarecrow and practice drawing the characters in different poses. Use the storyboard as reference and re-create some of those key poses.
Alex – For Wednesday 22nd: Rough storyboard animatic to check timing/flow. Amend production schedule and timetable. Consider puppet design responsibilities/allocation. Assist with animatic/character design production where necessary.

Jazzy – Start moving animatic using refined storyboard images (aim for completion by Monday 27th)

Please let me help with something!! I don't feel I have much to do! :P

I'll be posting up the new production schedule after Wednesday once we've discussed how we're going to divide up the puppet design responsibilities. I'll also put a lot of great reference images and videos for everybody to use for drawing and animating the characters.

'Til Wednesday, good luck and happy trails

Alex

Progress report - 14/02/2012

Great work from everybody today guys, thanks again for all your contributions - hope your brains aren't too fried! Thanks to Jazzy for posting up the script so far - it's here for your reference so try and look over it during the next few days and make notes of anything you'd like to add, change or mention. Remember that we're aiming to get the first draft completed by Friday, which means we need to get an idea for a solid ending!

I'll be posting the rough thumbnails we used to develop the script a little later so you can see them as reference. I'll also post up the videos we looked at earlier!

Just to recap our progress today and remind you all of our homework:

Progress report 14/02/2012

• Talked about blocking and camera scripts. Managed to complete 2/3rds of the rough draft of the script - all it needs is an ending, then we can look at refining it slightly and starting to break it down into shots, ready for storyboarding. Andy made a post on myUCA earlier today advising that we should aim to have the animatics ready by the end of next week (24th February.) This is something we'll need to discuss ASAP - it's certainly possible, but it will means that we'll probably need to make compromises and come up with something solid for the script a little earlier than we'd anticipated. It's worth remembering that the animatic can change if it's not working, so it's probably best not to be too precious over the scripts and storyboards at this point.
• Discussed character design and established direction for each character. Some great designs from everybody and lots of great ideas came from it. To recap:
  
  Keep the scarecrow's eyes visible. Think about using his hat in his facial expressions - the angle of the brim can be used like eyebrows!
  
  Experiment with the idea of expressing the history of his conflict with the crow - stray feathers or twigs or leaves stuck in his clothes/hair?
  
  Jack Skellington would be a great reference for the body structure, with a big round head and stick-thin body. What other characters are tall and skinny? How do they move? Experiment with the idea of his arms - what are they made of? How can we emphasize his clumsiness? Perhaps his arms are twigs - one is shorter than the other, or he has leaves sticking out of his elbows.
  
  
  
  
  
  The crow design came together really nicely today. Sam made lots of great notes to work from - try keeping the rosy cheeks and slightly rounded beak. Have a look at Jewel from Rio for some ideas. The two characters are very similar, but we can tell which one's a girl. How have the designers made her different from Rio? What makes her look like a girl?
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Alex to work on the production schedule. Ideally, we need to see this by the end of next week. A rough version will be created in time for our meeting on Thursday where we can discuss it further.

I think that's everything from today. Our next meeting will be on Thursday in G01 after the lecture. Let's all ask Liz if we can be placed in the same seminar group - preferably the earlier one - so that we have more time/brain cells to discuss everything. On Thursday we'll be talking briefly about the script so far, the possibility of animatics, the production schedule and also production roles - as well as anything else you guys would like to mention.

Keep a beady eye on this blog as I'll endeavour to post up a rough version of the production schedule tomorrow evening for you all to look at before we meet on Thursday. This will give you time to look it over and make note of anything you want to mention.

In the meantime, keep cracking! I'd also like to remind you all of the importance of the blog in this unit - and in general! I'd like to see you all uploading stuff at least once or twice a week if you can - it's a really valuable part of evaluating your ideas as well as getting feedback from everybody else even when we're not in a meeting or in class. Sorry to sound like a tutor! :) Let's see you guys uploading your character designs and notes so far! Then we can assemble them onto a separate page for easy access.

See you all Thursday!

Alex

Recap of first meeting (part 1)

As promised, here's a brief overview of the first meeting (for reference). Please amend this or let me know if I've missed anything out! :]

Animation meeting 08/02/2012

We discussed overall production timescale. Obviously without knowing the length of the animation, the media/techniques and the amount of animation we can reasonably produce per week it's impossible to set anything specific yet, but generally we should look to begin animating or producing tests by week 5 or 6 (Monday 19th March). If we aim to have the animation (plus all post-production) completed by the 1st May this gives us about 7 weeks of animation time, allowing us extra time to assemble the portfolios/DVD cases and fix anything that goes catastrophically wrong!

Here's a link to the unit timetable on myUCA that outlines basic project structure: Unit timetable

There's also this time management timetable that I think could be very useful in deciding our production schedule and working days. Obviously we can adapt it to fit in with lessons and personal arrangements, but have a look at it in the meantime and let me know if you have any ideas! Here's the link!

Again, this is just an initial ballpark figure. It could change drastically in the coming weeks once we've got a better grasp on the scope of the project. Alex needs to liaise with the group in the coming weeks to determine exact tasks to be set and develop a finalised production timetable with feasible deadlines. We talked about the possibility of having a visual timetable/checklist with icon-coded columns to show progress of each task so everyone can keep track of how the project is progressing and we can more easily identify areas of difficulty.

Jazzy will be writing a recap of the production roles and media discussion we had, so look forward to that in within the next couple of days :] May I also suggest posting up some of your pitch/production artwork and an overview of the story to the blog, for easy access/reference?

In the meantime, homework for this week is to do some independent research, character designs and story development. Remember the personality of the scarecrow and have that influence your designs - think not only of facial expression but body language and structure! There's a fantastic book in the library called Pencils to Pixels and it's a one-stop-shop guide to literally everything you could ever want to know about animating - it has an entire chapter on character design that might be helpful to have a look at! If you can think of any titles for the film, jot them down as well :]

We'll be meeting on Tuesday again (time to be arranged) to look at everybody's ideas and designs. We'll be combining elements from each to help us produce the first draft of the script. Jae and Sam both had some fantastic ideas and suggestions right from the get go, so we're really looking forward to seeing what you come up with! Thanks again guys for such a great first meeting, I'm really excited to be working with you and I can only hope I'm able to help do justice to this project.

If you have any questions, suggestions or just want to yell at me for being too bossy, please let me know!