Week 20/21 - Burning out and Finishing Up

Between the 10/12 hour work days, family problems, technical issues, bad mental health and coronavirus I feel so mentally and physically done. I accepted a while ago that I wasn't going to get the film finished before the deadline. So I decided to focus on doing a vertical slice. But with less than 6 days until submission, I don't think I'll be able to even finish that. Plus, to be honest my heart's not in it anymore. As Dotty has said, I'm not an animator I'm a visual development artists taken this project for me to really realise that. I still have the art book left to finish and I still have to composite and edit together everyone's roughs. I also have to edit the music and catch up/finish my blogs. So I have decided to focus on making those as good as they can be. 

So I know a teeny tiny bit about music theory. (Mostly from YouTube tutorials and film music breakdowns) Not enough to say do that, this way but enough to give directions to Mitch to guide him on what I want. So I asked Mitch for a piano melody. We did experiment with a more orchestral sound but I decided a piano would be a better fit as I imagine that's what would be available in Ellie's school. I initially wanted notes that didn't fully resolve themselves so it would have a more floaty feel. Mitch sent me over a couple of piano sketches. We where quite behind schedule at this point so decided on a combination of our favourite ones. (As opposed to coming up with another iteration) However after playing around with different edits I for that I was only able to really use the last minute or so of the original. It still fits well with the animation. Although I still had to adjust the volume and pitch in certain areas as they where a bit low.

Editing the roughs
I initially thought this would be simple but as I got going things started to go wrong. Fist I realised a whole chunk of animation was missing. The small leaps that Tisa did the effects for. I wrongly assumed that it would look fine with just the effects since they sort of hug her body, she keeps her form really well. But then I matched them up with the sauce video and fist of all they sort of do, but it's so floaty and rough that you can't really tell what's happening and secondly she didn't do any effects for the 2nd small leap so there was just nothing there. I had to go in and draw some more roughs so that it would make sense. Tisa did it in 24 fps. I'm not sure weather I'll keep it like that but that's how I did it. I exported it in both 24 and 12fps.  

Here's the additional animation i have had to do 

Here is the fist cut of the animation with the music. I wont have time to finish it properly before the deadline. But I will continue to work on it afterwards. I am very stubborn and I WILL get this finished. 

Week 19 - Art book

Art book
I was unable to download indesign due to technical difficulties. So I had to make my art book in another program. Which really sucks because I know it's look so much better in InDesign and it's an industry standard program. But at this point I don't have the time or energy trolling through the internet to look for fixes or work around. So anyway, I have made some designs specifically for the art book but also for the visual developer in me that wants to finally be free. I created a theatre for Ellie to perform in. It is partially basses on the comic I made. I was going for an art deco style. It's the first time I've ever done a background where I've had to consider different angles. I really wanted to push myself. Although I definitely won't have time to colour it before the deadline, I probably will afterwards.

 I also made some custom typography. It's based in rage italic but I joined all the letters up and made it a bit more swirly. I also made a watercolour style background

I also re did some of the comic pages here's what they looked like before 

And after

Week 18 - Vertical slice, Compositing everyone's roughs

This week I have started my vertical slice. Carla did the roughs so I'm just doing the clean up, line work and colouring. However, her roughs are really rough so there is still a lot of guess work. I'm aiming to get everything cleaned up my the end of this week. Then the line work and colouring will start next week.

I've had some technical difficulties with my computer. Photoshop kept crashing saying there wasn't enough ram. I found a work around by dedicating 100% of my 8GB to run Photoshop. Then disabled all unnecessary functions from running when Photoshop was. I cleared the scratch disk and completely formatted my desktop just to be safe. But this took the entire afternoon because of trail and error which was a pain. Photoshop is still running slow. Having over 300 layers probably isn't helping. But at least it's not crashing. I could of just brought more ram but i'm trying not to spend money at the moment. I know this wasn't an entirely relevant paragraph to add in but it gives context and sustenance to the blog.

I struggled to keep things consistent. Like her hair bob and face shape.

I struggled with the curtains. I had to re do them a couple of times because I was making stupid, silly mistakes. Like not considering the way that they'd fall properly. It looked really warped the first time, the second looked to mechanical. Even now it's glitches. I'm still not happy with the result. But I've ran out of time to fix it.

I asked the tutors for feedback. Ben has said that the left hand looks too small. Something which I noticed as well but it is just how she is pushing the curtain away. He also said that there should be more follow through on the hair side burns. I agree but I don't know if I'll have time to fix this.

Overall this week has been a bit of a pain to get through

What went well?
The animation is smooth (duh its rotoscoped)
I was able to identify and correct my own mistakes. 

What could be going better?
I really need to get faster at just everything in general. Like i know most if my slowness is down to my processing disorder but i should really push myself harder to be faster. 

Updated - Extended Practice Proposal

Aside from a deep desire from within to tell stories, I want to become a better and more competent storyteller. I want to create my own short film because I want a portfolio of work that demonstrates that I can communicate a visual story idea efficiently and effectively as I want to do a master’s degree in visual communication. I would also like to peruse visual development and background painting as this is something, I also have a strong interest in.

For my extended practice film, I want to create an experimental/art-film-style, animated music video which will explore the relationship between dancers and their mental and physical health. It will be rotoscoped in 12fps .It will be inspired by the art styles of Will Kim, Shishi Yamazaki, Michaël Dudok de Wit and Isao Takahata I have done some tests and I also have a rough idea of what I want the dance to look like. In order to get realistic movement and accurate character performance I want to rotoscope the dancer. I would also like see how far I can push rotoscoping as a medium, using it to aid the animation. But not relying on it for the animation. As rotoscoping takes longer than traditional animation the duration of the music video will be no longer than 1 minute. I will aim to have 14 seconds of animation done a week based on the assumption that I will be able to animate 2 seconds a day. The music video will have a loose narrative which will be a continuation of the narrative that I started in cop. The narrative/ synopsis; It is Elie's first year at dance school. As she progresses through school she deals with feeling of paranoia and anxiety. She also develops an unhealth body image. The end of year performance is coming up and her teacher is assigning roles. She wants to make an impact but is cast as a background dancer. Her friends gather around her to offer support. Moved by this her teacher offers her a solo part. Which she accepts. Her performance is a summary of her first year. The music video will be the performance. I will be collaborating with students from Leeds College of Music and students from the Northern School of Contemporary Dance. Ava is the storyboard artist on my project. I will be doing the bulk of the animation. In addition to this I will also have 2 more animators working on the project. Tisa will be also doing all the transitional/special effects animation. So, things like adding wings or bursting into feathers. I will also be helping on Kats project, working with her on the script and the backgrounds in order for her to produce the set for her stop motion film. .