Production schedule (Update 22/02/2012)

Hi guys, just an updated production schedule for you all to ogle! It is, as always, subject to change depending on how we're getting on in any particular week, but it should serve to give you a bit of a breakdown as to how we should be looking to proceed.

I'm really sorry for the awful design — it made sense whilst I was making it but when I finally got it finished, I realised how difficult it is to read. I'll try and go back and re-do it so it's a bit easier to understand! 

Basically, the lighter coloured squares/strips are supposed to show the weeks we should be working on a task, and the dark squares are to represent the date we should have that task completed by. I've not given us fixed days to work on things — I think it's best if we leave that on a week-by-week basis and simply arrange according to personal schedules — however I am going to stress the importance of meeting to work as a group on this project at least 3 days a week. Bearing in mind the other projects we also have to do, you're going to need to manage your time accordingly to ensure that you can all make it to these group sessions as they really are absolutely essential. We all have access to Photoshop at home and the library is open weekends (for After Effects) so weekends are definitely open as a potential group work day. This will leave you Thursday morning, Friday morning/afternoon and potentially Wednesday to complete any outstanding work for Digital Skills and theory sessions.

Here's the text version (with current homework):

MOVEMENT STORY & STRUCTURE

GROUP 7 – Jazzy, Sam, Jae, Alex

Production Schedule

Updated 22/02/2012

Date

Week 1 (6^th Feb - 10^th Feb)

Create group blog. Discuss production roles. Begin initial sketches. Individual idea development.

Week 2 (13^th Feb - 17^th Feb)

·       Character design discussion & development.

·       Finalise script by Friday (17^th)

Homework:

Jae & Sam – For Tuesday 21st: Finalise character designs. Hold independent meeting to discuss ideas and develop scarecrow design.

Alex & Jazzy – Camera blocking (Jazzy) & storyboarding (Alex) for Tuesday.

All – Annotate script so far, consider ending possibilities.

Week 3 (20^th Feb - 24^th Feb)

·       Storyboard completed by Wednesday.

·       Create first animatic from storyboard images and stock sound effects.

·       Use storyboard animatic to identify key poses and backgrounds.

·       Start moving animatic.

·       Wednesday 22^nd: review completed character designs and begin character model sheets/colour charts. Identify key poses from rough animatic and start making a list of puppets to be created.

·       Use storyboard animatic to make early sound decisions — gather stock effects over the weekend and apply them to rough animatic.

Decide on final character designs and use storyboard animatic to identify key poses/backdrops and potential sound effects. Research for background design.

Homework:

Jae & Sam – For Wednesday 22^nd: Come up with some colour schemes for the scarecrow and practice drawing characters in different positions. Use the storyboard as reference and re-create some of those key poses.

Alex – For Wednesday 22^nd: Rough storyboard animatic to check flow of scenes. Amend production schedule and finish the timetable.

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

Sam & Alex — For Friday 24th: more colour schemes, using the model sheets drawn today. Familiarise yourself further with drawing the characters, try sketching some of the poses and scenes shown in the storyboard/animatic.
Jae — for Monday 24th: start gathering sound effects from the internet and put them onto the animatic that Alex will email to you. It's really important that we have the first draft of the sound ready by next week, so please let us know if you have any problems. Try and have some colours for the scarecrow ready for Friday as well!
Alex — Start looking at how best to divide up the scenes for production. Complete crow model sheet with potential colour schemes for Friday.

Week 4 (27^th Feb - 2^nd Mar)

        

Tues 28th Feb             Acting for Animation Workshops (B124)

·       Monday 27^th: Review animatic, discuss movement, timing and sound. Use week to amend as necessary.

·       First draft of sound by Monday [rough animatic]. Refine choices and gather more resources over the course of the week.

·       Begin filming/sourcing animation references for both characters.

·       Start background creation.

·       Rough puppet creation, animation tests to identify limitations/problems.

Jae and Sam to work together to ensure consistency on scarecrow puppets. Build some basic puppets and test to identify potential problems early on. Important to work closely together to make sure puppets fit with background perspective etc.

Start sourcing references and building puppets over the week.

Week 5 (5^th Mar - 9^th Mar)           

Mon 5th Mar                Acting for Animation Workshop. (B124)

·       Animatic approved & finalised by Monday at the latest.

·       Discuss scene allocation — calculate number of puppets/backdrops needed.

·       Puppet preparation — rough sketches & refinement/colouring.

·       Continue to test in After Effects.

Week 6 (12^th Mar - 16^th Mar)       

Mon 12th Mar               Sound Technical Workshops (G23)

·       Have list of sounds and sources ready for workshops.

·       All puppet sketches ideally completed — finish refining/cleaning/colouring stage.

·       Be ready to start animating by the end of the week.

Work in pairs to help aid puppet creation/After Effects/problem solving.

Week 7 (19^th Mar - 23^rd Mar) 

·       Emergency overflow period for any extra puppet fixing/completion needed

·       Group After Effects practice/tutorials

·       Begin animation (if not already started)!

Week 8 (26^th Mar - 30^th Mar) 

·       Animation production

·       Weekly feedback/group critique of animation so far

EASTER BREAK – 31st March – 15th April 

·       Animation production

·       Weekly feedback/critique — to be carried out through blog

Make sure you’re uploading your work periodically to the blog! This is the only way we can continue to give feedback!

Week 9 (16^th Apr - 20^th Apr) 

·       Animation production

·       Group feedback, critiques and refinement

Week 10 (23^rd Apr - 27^th Apr) 

·       Finalise main animation — final tweaks, further group feedback.

·       Begin preparing/refining/editing sound samples for post-production. Final decisions to be made regarding sound.

Week 11 (30^th Apr - 4^th May) 

·       Final refinements to post-production.

·       Meet to discuss portfolio preparation, hand-in requirements, DVD responsibilities and treatment.

·       Portfolio preparation

·       Last minute changes

·       DVD design

·       Discuss evaluation

·       Treatment/presentation production

Week 12 (7^th May - 11^th May) 

·       Portfolio preparation.

·       Last-minute contingency period

·       DVD authoring and design

·       Evaluation

·       Label printing

·       Portfolio assembly

Mon 14th May          ASSESSMENT. HAND IN B124 10.30am

Any problems, let me know!

Alex

Camera script — Alex's amendment

I was going through Jazzy's version of the script, seeing if there were any scenes that could potentially be condensed. For the section where the crow approaches the scarecrow just after the crash, what if the scarecrow was on his back instead of his front? The crow could approach and sit on his chest, which would probably make the following point-of-view shot where the crow lunges forward make a bit more sense? We could get some really nice eye contact in there too, which as Jazzy said is really important for that scene — a setup like this would mean we can make it more direct and do it in fewer cuts.

What do you guys think? :)

Production schedule — rough

Hi guys — as promised, here's a rough copy of the production schedule. Nothing's concrete in it so far but it should serve to give you an idea of how we should be looking to break down the weeks. Lots of blank spaces as well — once we're a little further into the project I should be able to get an idea as to how things are progressing and make amendments to it as necessary.

You'll notice that I've scribbled in an animatic deadline for next week — don't panic yet — we'll talk about this on Thursday. In the meantime please look over this and make note of anything you want to mention! Hopefully with your input on Thursday I'll be able to make tweaks and adjustments until we've got something we're all happy with.

There are a lot of things I've overlooked with this  — the animatic "deadline," for instance, doesn't take into account the need for layouts for each scene/background. I also think that the timescale for storyboarding might be a bit optimistic, but again, these are all things we can discuss at the meeting. :] We can hopefully look at breaking things down into stages and look at exactly what we're going to need to accomplish in order to complete each stage. I'd like to get a list of all the things we need to make and/or do so that I can get a more accurate idea of how much time we need to allocate to each task.

I'll be working on a chart version of this over the next couple of days that will let us see much more quickly when particular tasks are due. I'll also knock together a separate production timetable for when we come to animating that breaks down the film scene-by-scene so we can accurately track the progress of each shot.

MOVEMENT STORY & STRUCTURE

GROUP 7 – Jazzy, Sam, Jae, Alex

Production Schedule

Date

Week 1 (6^th Feb - 10^th Feb)

Create group blog. Discuss production roles. Begin initial sketches. Individual idea development.

Week 2 (13^th Feb - 17^th Feb)

•  Character design discussion & development. 
•   Finalise script by Friday (17^th)

Homework:

Jae & Sam – For Tuesday 21st: Finalise character designs. Hold independent meeting to discuss ideas and develop scarecrow design.

Alex & Jazzy – Camera blocking & storyboarding for Tuesday.

All – Annotate script so far, consider ending possibilities.

Week 3 (20^th Feb - 24^th Feb)

•   Storyboard completed by Wednesday. 
•    Create first animatic from storyboard images and stock sound effects.
•    Use storyboard animatic to identify key poses and backgrounds.
•    Start moving animatic.

Decide on final character designs and use storyboard animatic to identify key poses/backdrops. Research for background design.

Week 4 (27^th Feb - 2^nd Mar)

        

Tues 28th Feb             Acting for Animation Workshops (B124)

ñ  Animatic production.

ñ  Start building puppets based on animatic.

ñ  Source animation references?

Build list of necessary puppets/backgrounds/sounds. Start sourcing references and building puppets over the week.

Week 5 (5^th Mar - 9^th Mar)           

Mon 5th Mar                Acting for Animation Workshop. (B124)

• Complete animatic
• Produce tests and finish backgrounds
• Divide and allocate scenes for production

Week 6 (12^th Mar - 16^th Mar)       

Mon 12th Mar               Sound Technical Workshops (G23)

• Have list of sounds ready for workshops. Record sounds by end of this week? 
• Start animating!

Work in pairs to help aid puppet creation/After Effects/problem solving.

Week 7 (19^th Mar - 23^rd Mar) 

Week 8 (26^th Mar - 30^th Mar) 

EASTER BREAK – 31st March – 15th April 

Keep working everyone!

Week 9 (16^th Apr - 20^th Apr) 

Week 10 (23^rd Apr - 27^th Apr) 

Final tweaks, post-production and sound editing.

Week 11 (30^th Apr - 4^th May) 

Complete post-production stage. Meet to discuss portfolio preparation and hand-in requirements.

Week 12 (7^th May - 11^th May) 

Portfolio preparation.

Mon 14th May          ASSESSMENT. HAND IN B124 10.30am

See you all tomorrow!

Alex