Today in creative play it was time to come together and discuss what we would be doing for our animation for the exhibition to be submitted for December 13th. Kieren was running a little late so Beth, myself and Jolanta began discussing what approach we would take and fill Kieren in upon his arrival. In this session we could work either in the maker space, computers and base room to do our work as the point of today would be used to either start an animation or even talk to the tutors to get feedback or advice on what we were hoping to approach. At 3:00pm we would return to the maker space and state our proposed ideas for a final submission and what we would use to execute it in terms of equipment, model materials and resources.
Our group began to discuss the matter of how we may approach our animation, and Beth suggested we should possibly approach the idea of doing the short film idea in which I agreed with as we all figured it was the easiest way to tell our stories if we focused on doing the story in one go and use our skills in animation and approach what medias would be best for us to use in terms of the time frame.
Beth therefore suggested that we should approach the theme of social media within the inanimate objects and we could do different characters to focus on in our own way. We therefore divided the characters among ourselves since Kieran was working on the tram tickets we figured he could do the tram element of the short. Beth volunteered to do the shopping district of the project and I felt that was a good suggestion as she knew more about fashion than me, and Jolanta would be doing the buildings and skyscrapers in the city including doing old buildings regarding Beth's suggestion of looking in the past and see how construction is progressing on skyscrapers. As for myself, I decided to work on the bin element of the project as I had a few ideas for the story element of the piece after doing the first draft of the script.
In our original plans we had discussed the matter of including a few jokes in our project but we realised the timing would depend on the joke. Upon Kieran's arrival we informed him of what we were planning to do and whilst it seemed ambitious we decided to attempt at least five animations creating about 20 micro animations in total. There was no point to a time limit as it wouldn't matter how long the animation was, and there was an issue of the work piling on but in some elements we would be working together in elements like the animation process. I suggested that in order to get things on track with our work we needed to have meetings to discuss the animations progress and what the feedback would be from what we've accomplished even if it meant sacrificing our days off or just work sometimes during the week, they all thought this was a creative suggestion and we all agreed to have meetings when we needed to.
Jolanta had done a simple sketch of the instagram account that one of us would set up but in the event that we couldn't use it I suggested backing up our work on a pen drive so that they could be used in the computers for the exhibition. However the idea of the instagram would be to create an interactive animation experience for the audience to look at on their phones and see what it is we produced.
To begin we realised we needed a simple script for our sections of the project, but we needed something to work with in terms of a story, and thats when Beth suggested an good idea. She suggested using the inspiration of Ardmans Creature Comforts by using an interview like format but I advised not to rip off from this too much as it had to be our own work but the idea did seem promising and we even considered the possibilities of asking people who work in the industry of our chosen characters such as tram, rubbish, shopping and construction questions about their jobs and then adapt them to the stories that we would be telling in each section of the micro animations. I myself was slightly skeptical about this element as the questions maybe too personal for the workers and may not wish to answer them.
However we decided to consider the possibility and whilst taking notes on this matter I had thought of something that could help us. This idea came about when we were discussing the idea of using green screening in our work and I decided to create a laser cut model of the bin and use stop motion to move the characters and using a reference photo of a street walk use green screening as the background of the animation. Jolanta, Beth and Kieran thought this was a good suggestion whilst Kieren would focus on doing simple animations with his drawings just as he was doing with the ticket person that he was creating. We decided to start with our story boards as they would be our visual script whilst Kieran worked on his tram piece and luckily I'd brought some printed storyboards from Blackboard to help with this matter and so we began our work.
I was struggling to how I would approach the beginning of the storyboard but I decided to start with a simple title sequence, using our chosen title City Life and my chosen area. Suddenly I had an idea which I pitched to the rest of the group, the idea being to have an animated title illustration of the city using what we'd learned in After Effects last week which I would then in turn pass onto the rest of the group for them to use in their animations. They thought this was a good idea and so over the next few days I would work on this animation title. I got back to the buisiness of my storyboard but didn't know how to start the dialogue I tried a simple good morning greeting which seemed to go down well with the group and as I sketched my story board I unintentionally included a joke about the bins job " well what you see is what you get with me I keep the streets clean, not like the police do mind you" and this joke seemed to be funny to the group as was Jolantas construction site joke " How do construction workers party , they raise the roof" which in my opinion was a funny joke to use.
So it seemed our original plans were being included in this work and we even showed what we were doing to Tasha and Annabeth and as I acted out some of my scenes they hoped I would do a voice in this and that was what I was intending to do as I am good at impersonating characters like Daffy Duck. Annabeth even suggested the possibility of creating an animatic using this storyboard in After Effects and this was something I would've never thought to do and so I would consider that possibility. Jolanta and Beth soon left to work on other matters whilst Kieran and I continued work on our own storyboards, they had left theres behind and so I decided to hold onto them until the next time I saw them tomorrow. Whilst working I could sense that Kieran was doubting some of the teams efforts but I learned not to lack faith in our teammates no matter what holds them back and so I tried to convince him otherwise. I decided to include the rubbishes point of view in this little story and as I wrote it soon turned into a heated argument between the two character's just blocking out my conversation with them and this then lead to the bin rocking from side to side until falling on the rubbish which then ended in a please stand by screen at the end of it.
This I thought added a sense of classic tv comedy to the animation, and though Annabeth said that the storyboards would be rough representations of the scenes I couldn't help but add shading and detail in the scenes being the artist that I am. I had soon finished my storyboard and I could see that Kieran was working well on his tram character who seemed to have a despicable personality which did seem to fit the situation regarding the tram as it reflected what the passengers were feeling on the tram. Upon 3:00pm a majority of the group had returned whilst Kieran left to work on his intro to the making of piece in the Adobe Suite. This meant I would have to represent the group in telling the tutors and other teams, about what our plan was. I then listened to the other groups in both animation and digital media and they all had promising ideas such as 3D set elements and even very promising approaches in 2D animation in Declans, Holly, Indya and Munty's group who would be focusing on the homeless element of the city. Whilst some of the digital media students focused on the past the present and the future which was one of the ideas we could approach in the project. I delivered the proposal and even mentioned my connections at the arts and heritage centre that I volunteer at on weekends and even Fab Lab Altrincham to do some laser cutting and Tasha did ask whether I knew about how to do laser cutting which thankfully I did. The point of the briefs was to see what resources we would need such as the facilities at the New Adelphi, or the software in the Media City campus like After Effects and the stop motion studios and equipment along with the green screen room.
Looking back at the lesson I would say we're starting to come together as a team and even start to work on our sides of the project even considering each others strengths and weaknesses in animation that we'd learned in the course so far. There were still some issues we needed to work out but I thought that if we wanted this to work we needed to act as a united force and at some point we would need to consider having one of these meetings with each other as a group at some point. I felt that our project was starting to come together and over the next week I would work on elements such as the animated title and laser cut a bin for my work.
Our group began to discuss the matter of how we may approach our animation, and Beth suggested we should possibly approach the idea of doing the short film idea in which I agreed with as we all figured it was the easiest way to tell our stories if we focused on doing the story in one go and use our skills in animation and approach what medias would be best for us to use in terms of the time frame.
Beth therefore suggested that we should approach the theme of social media within the inanimate objects and we could do different characters to focus on in our own way. We therefore divided the characters among ourselves since Kieran was working on the tram tickets we figured he could do the tram element of the short. Beth volunteered to do the shopping district of the project and I felt that was a good suggestion as she knew more about fashion than me, and Jolanta would be doing the buildings and skyscrapers in the city including doing old buildings regarding Beth's suggestion of looking in the past and see how construction is progressing on skyscrapers. As for myself, I decided to work on the bin element of the project as I had a few ideas for the story element of the piece after doing the first draft of the script.
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| instagram page design and layout by Jolanta |
In our original plans we had discussed the matter of including a few jokes in our project but we realised the timing would depend on the joke. Upon Kieran's arrival we informed him of what we were planning to do and whilst it seemed ambitious we decided to attempt at least five animations creating about 20 micro animations in total. There was no point to a time limit as it wouldn't matter how long the animation was, and there was an issue of the work piling on but in some elements we would be working together in elements like the animation process. I suggested that in order to get things on track with our work we needed to have meetings to discuss the animations progress and what the feedback would be from what we've accomplished even if it meant sacrificing our days off or just work sometimes during the week, they all thought this was a creative suggestion and we all agreed to have meetings when we needed to.
Jolanta had done a simple sketch of the instagram account that one of us would set up but in the event that we couldn't use it I suggested backing up our work on a pen drive so that they could be used in the computers for the exhibition. However the idea of the instagram would be to create an interactive animation experience for the audience to look at on their phones and see what it is we produced.
To begin we realised we needed a simple script for our sections of the project, but we needed something to work with in terms of a story, and thats when Beth suggested an good idea. She suggested using the inspiration of Ardmans Creature Comforts by using an interview like format but I advised not to rip off from this too much as it had to be our own work but the idea did seem promising and we even considered the possibilities of asking people who work in the industry of our chosen characters such as tram, rubbish, shopping and construction questions about their jobs and then adapt them to the stories that we would be telling in each section of the micro animations. I myself was slightly skeptical about this element as the questions maybe too personal for the workers and may not wish to answer them.
However we decided to consider the possibility and whilst taking notes on this matter I had thought of something that could help us. This idea came about when we were discussing the idea of using green screening in our work and I decided to create a laser cut model of the bin and use stop motion to move the characters and using a reference photo of a street walk use green screening as the background of the animation. Jolanta, Beth and Kieran thought this was a good suggestion whilst Kieren would focus on doing simple animations with his drawings just as he was doing with the ticket person that he was creating. We decided to start with our story boards as they would be our visual script whilst Kieran worked on his tram piece and luckily I'd brought some printed storyboards from Blackboard to help with this matter and so we began our work.
I was struggling to how I would approach the beginning of the storyboard but I decided to start with a simple title sequence, using our chosen title City Life and my chosen area. Suddenly I had an idea which I pitched to the rest of the group, the idea being to have an animated title illustration of the city using what we'd learned in After Effects last week which I would then in turn pass onto the rest of the group for them to use in their animations. They thought this was a good idea and so over the next few days I would work on this animation title. I got back to the buisiness of my storyboard but didn't know how to start the dialogue I tried a simple good morning greeting which seemed to go down well with the group and as I sketched my story board I unintentionally included a joke about the bins job " well what you see is what you get with me I keep the streets clean, not like the police do mind you" and this joke seemed to be funny to the group as was Jolantas construction site joke " How do construction workers party , they raise the roof" which in my opinion was a funny joke to use.
 |
| Story Boards for animation idea. |
So it seemed our original plans were being included in this work and we even showed what we were doing to Tasha and Annabeth and as I acted out some of my scenes they hoped I would do a voice in this and that was what I was intending to do as I am good at impersonating characters like Daffy Duck. Annabeth even suggested the possibility of creating an animatic using this storyboard in After Effects and this was something I would've never thought to do and so I would consider that possibility. Jolanta and Beth soon left to work on other matters whilst Kieran and I continued work on our own storyboards, they had left theres behind and so I decided to hold onto them until the next time I saw them tomorrow. Whilst working I could sense that Kieran was doubting some of the teams efforts but I learned not to lack faith in our teammates no matter what holds them back and so I tried to convince him otherwise. I decided to include the rubbishes point of view in this little story and as I wrote it soon turned into a heated argument between the two character's just blocking out my conversation with them and this then lead to the bin rocking from side to side until falling on the rubbish which then ended in a please stand by screen at the end of it.
This I thought added a sense of classic tv comedy to the animation, and though Annabeth said that the storyboards would be rough representations of the scenes I couldn't help but add shading and detail in the scenes being the artist that I am. I had soon finished my storyboard and I could see that Kieran was working well on his tram character who seemed to have a despicable personality which did seem to fit the situation regarding the tram as it reflected what the passengers were feeling on the tram. Upon 3:00pm a majority of the group had returned whilst Kieran left to work on his intro to the making of piece in the Adobe Suite. This meant I would have to represent the group in telling the tutors and other teams, about what our plan was. I then listened to the other groups in both animation and digital media and they all had promising ideas such as 3D set elements and even very promising approaches in 2D animation in Declans, Holly, Indya and Munty's group who would be focusing on the homeless element of the city. Whilst some of the digital media students focused on the past the present and the future which was one of the ideas we could approach in the project. I delivered the proposal and even mentioned my connections at the arts and heritage centre that I volunteer at on weekends and even Fab Lab Altrincham to do some laser cutting and Tasha did ask whether I knew about how to do laser cutting which thankfully I did. The point of the briefs was to see what resources we would need such as the facilities at the New Adelphi, or the software in the Media City campus like After Effects and the stop motion studios and equipment along with the green screen room.
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| Studio space for exhibition |
Looking back at the lesson I would say we're starting to come together as a team and even start to work on our sides of the project even considering each others strengths and weaknesses in animation that we'd learned in the course so far. There were still some issues we needed to work out but I thought that if we wanted this to work we needed to act as a united force and at some point we would need to consider having one of these meetings with each other as a group at some point. I felt that our project was starting to come together and over the next week I would work on elements such as the animated title and laser cut a bin for my work.
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