Charicter and Narrative Week 10

Throughout this week we have been making the improvements suggested by Dotty in Last weeks feedback. 

This week we had our final critique
The response from the group was overall positive. Although some of the scenes could do with some adjustment as there is still an element of humor in how the dragon moves.Cara has made a tutorial so hopefully I will be able to adjust and fix this.

Eleni also has her scenes at the end to work on. Im frustrated with her because I told her weeks ago to add the back legs to the dragon and she said she would. She didn't and when we showed to the animation to the class Matt pointed this out.

She has also fixed the flight pattern of the dragon, using Carlas tutorial.

Charicter and Narrative Week 9

I have reworked some of the backgrounds to make them more consistent. The flight pattern of the dragon has been adjusted as it felt too mechanical. It is supposed to be based on a sea snake and how they move. i have been continuing to animate my scenes. I have also been offering feedback to Eleni and Carla.

                                                                                                                                                                 feedback from the weekly crit

• dotty says my metier looks like a hairball
• there needed to be more trees on the scene where the dragon falls to the ground, dies and time passes. 
• the houses should come up in more of a staggered way to suggest that the whole city wasn't built at once. It was also mentioned that the movement looked as though it was too mechanical
• In the scene where the dragon gets hot by a metier it was demonstrated that if the dragon where to be hit the egg would fall forward not backwards. I also said to her that i thought it was odd the way the dragoons body almost prepares for the impact. 
• there was also issues with some mountain shots as they didn't make sense in the context of the narrative.
• the end scene where the dragon flys to the mountain and dies needed to be changed because when she is flying over the city it is as though she has flown in a circle. This is not something we where going for. It has to be implied that she has traveled far and is exhausted. The scene as it stands, doesn't convey that. Doitty suggested looking at the black forest in Germany for inspiration. for the final scene.

I talked with Andreas about the possibility of adding in sound effects to accompany the animation. He has cautioned me about doing so as it may take away from the music. i have since experimented with adding some in at a low volume. using a dope sheet to plan out where they would go.  It seems fine, but i will get a second opinion.

I am frustrated with the other members of my group as they never seem to be in. Granted they do work at home. However, it would be better for communication purposes if they where in university more.Especially as i don't have access to any of the Adobe suite at home. So i reply exclusively on the university computers.

Charicter and Narrative Week 8

This week we have been continuing to animate. In addition i have been collaborating with music student from Leeds College of Music. This process involved communicating via email to the leeds college of music student union. I asked of they had anyone that would be interested in collaborating with an 2nd year animation student.  I had around 16 responses. So i had to set a cut off point. i gave them a week to respond. From there i sent them everything we had done so far and asked them if they'd still like to work with us. From there i narrowed it down to three people. I asked the group which they liked best. We then narrowed it down to Amdreas. We chose Andreas because, his music is amazing and he has experience scoring animation. i sent Andereas this video about why Ghibli films sound so good. It actually goes really deep into music theory and music composition.

We have revived the first draft of the music back Andreas. It sounds really good. here is the clip he sent me

                                                   Andreas's Music 

As for animation this week i made progress with my scenes. In addition to this i also had a crack at animating the dragon puppet that Carla built. I really struggled as it is a complex puppet to use and i am not completely comfortable with after effects yet. Here is ome of my failed attempts.

 

Matt showed me how to use the puppet pin tool after he saw me struggling with the puppet that Carla made, however I consider this i failure. I tried to use the puppet pin tool to create a more fluid motion but it just ended up looking really warped and unnatural.

Charicter and Narrative Week 7

This week we had the first of our weekly presentations. We showed a rough version of the anamatic along with everything that we have done for pre production thus far.

I was ill on this particular day, Therefore i wasn't able to personal present to the rest of the class. However, my team reported the feedback to me and afterwards Dotty came and spoke to us personally about the things we needed to change.

• The feedback front he rest of the class and Dotty was the following;
• The animatic breaks the 180 rule a lot. 
• In the beginning the clouds pull apart too quickly
• timing in general needs to be adjusted
• the scene where she is in the cave is too comical and needs to be reconsidered. 
• the character design was good, although it needs colouring asap and the face needs to be more detailed.  
• The after credits scene might not fit with the context of the rest of the animation

In addition to this, I have had to create more assets due to my poor organization skills. I should have made a list of everything we needed for each scene before we went into production. However, I am staying back every night this week and next so hopefully I will be able to catch up in a timely manner. 

Charicter and Narrative Week 6

Me and Eleni have continued to work on the backgrounds together. We have been going at a steady pace. I have been creating some watercolour houses to use for the backgrounds and i have been editing them in Photoshop.
We have finished the storyboards. Carla is going to make an anamtic from these. 
Carla has also been working on the puppet based off my turnaround and Elenis model sheet.

What went well?

• We have all been very productive this week
• We continue to work well as a team
• The backgrounds are turning out well

What could be improved?

• I think i could have divided up the tasks a little more evenly. It does seem as thorough Carla is doing slightly more work in comparison to me and Eleni. 

Charicter and Narrative Week 5

This week I worked on watercolor textures for some of the backgrounds. I edited them in Photoshop adding stars. I then used the mountains that Eleni made and edited them so that they would fit the scene. In addition to this i also worked on colouring the dragoon turnaround. I asked Eleni for help with the face as i couldn't quite get enough detail in.




I also made a dragon scale texture by cutting up lots of small pieces of paper and arranging them into a pattern that resembles fish or snake scales I scanned this in and then duplicated it in Photoshop to make a sheet of scales for Carla when she makes the puppet.

 As far as directing is going. I have been making sure people are doing work and that work is split evenly Eleni is working on backgrounds and storyboards and Carla is working on the storyboards the animatic and the puppet

What went well?

• The watercolor effect came out as expected. Overall I am happy with the result
• I am happy with how the dragon scales came out.
• I have been very productive 
• I finished off my contributions to the storyboards. I was also left to format them and put in the directions. We may have to edit them at a later date as the style still isn't quite consistent

What could be improved?

• Whilst my time management for this project has been consistent and is a marked improvement over last year My time management for other projects, mainly PP and COP has not been so great. 
• We are still slightly behind on pre production due to Dottys suggested changes to the script and therefor the necessary re storyboarding. 

Charicter and Narrative Week 4

This week we continued to work on the character design, on the changes suggested by Dotty. We also started to work on the storyboards, based on the updated version of the script.

I started work on the 3rd draft of the turn around i will colour it over the weekend so hopefully it will be completely done by Monday. I also want to add a few more poses, which i can either do throughout the week or if i get time, over the weekend too.

Eleni is going to do the model sheet as i think everyone should get a chance at developing the character and it'll be good to uniform our styles.

Work on the 2nd draft of storyboards began. Eleni is going to the the start, i am going to do the middle and Carla is doing the end scenes.We came to this decision after roughing out the storyboards on post it notes and choosing which scenes we needed and which we didn't.  

Carla is researching how the the dragon should move. She has been looking at Asian dragons and how they move. I have suggested that she add extra segments to the body to create a more realistic movement.

Charicter and Narrative Week 3

This week we focused on the character design, the turnarounds and storyboards. However,

Towards the end of the week, we started to think about voice acting. We had decided as a group that we wanted Dotty to do the voice of our dragon. When i approached her, she asked to see the script. She went through it with a fine tooth-comb and told us to take big chunks of it out, otherwise, it would be a 10 minute film

So, I set towards condensing the script down from a 7 page document to a 3. Carla and Eleni have been giving me there input and ideas. It is likely that as we go further into the storyboard and animation we well need to cut scenes. As such this will almost certainty not be the final draft of the script. 

We have divided the tasks up to get back on track. Eleni and i are doing the character design, storyboards and d backgrounds.I am looking into how to create a paper cutout puppet.  While Carla is going to look at ways to create a paper style puppet. 

Charicter and narratie week 2

This week I wrote the script. It was based on my initial notes and input from Carla and Eleni. I initially thought about formatting it like a proper script, however, ultimately I decided not to, as it would confuse people;the animation is too short and there was not enough material to work with. Therefore, I decided to just write a description/breakdown of what would be happening in each scene and give an overview. When the time comes to put together a production booklet, I will format it then.

What went well:

• I wrote the script. 
• We worked well in a team
• I listened to everyone's ideas and had input from everyone and I gave feedback on this input.
• in our first initial meeting we discussed the character and narrative. Carla and Eleni both offered there ideas which i tool into account. The changes we ended up making where
• the moon god should just be a talking moon. 
• there should be an after credits scene of an egg cracking so that it represents the circle of life.

I should take into consideration

• who my target audience is 
• what culture is the dragon from?
• where is it going to be set?

Character and Narrative - Week 1

This week we were put into teams by luck of the draw. I ended up being paired with Carla and Eleni both of whom i get along well with.  Once in our groups we had to create a story with some story dice. This is also based on luck, although we did get to pick a theme each. I chose mythical, because i wanted challenge myself.

i created some initial doodles of what i thought would look good for the story. I plan to write the script, produce and join in with the concept art and animation.