Group-Me, Aaron, Caitlin, Sinead and Dominic
This week we were given the task of creating a 45 second animatic that was either hand drawn or digitally created, so we decided to create it through pencil and pen. What we went through in class was several videos that would help us through the week in creating a wonderful animatic that we would have to show to the class the following Monday.
Research-
Below is a small clip from the Masterclasses trailers that can be found on YouTube. Trailers that we were fortunate enough to get to see the full clip on the Masterclass classes through are tutor Conann. These clips were very insightful in looking at creating exciting stories for are Animatics.
What we looked at first was a masterclass from Aaron Sorkin, which was very insightful into how to start of your story first we were looking at intention and obstacle meaning creating a drama within your story that your character or characters will either over come or will at least attempt to try. To me I really tried to stick with this idea when creating options for my groups animatic to create friction, tension and urgency to the viewers to understand that what are characters are going through is very serious and could mean life or death that they might not overcome.What also caught my attention was what he said halfway through the quote “they don’t have to win, they just have to try” and that’s exactly what’s what is happening within are animatic which you will see below.
We then moved on to David Mamet who stated in one of his Masterclass clips to ” Give it a problem that it likes” which I absolutely love the sound of and hopefully succeeded in applying this technique within our animatic. With David Mamet what I learned through watching clips from his masterclass was that we are all story tellers and before this it never clicked that yes we actually are. In creating this animatic we have to consider story, character, camera and software in creating this 45 second animatic that has to include all these features in order to create it successfully.
Then we looked at Ryan Woodward for animatic influences,which are featured on his official site unfortunately due to copy right I am unable to add the video here but if you click the link I’ll re-direct you to the site featuring the animatic that I’m talking about.- Reference- Link
However I was able to find an example of his work on YouTube. What I love with this short piece is the fluid movements of the dancers almost makes you feel as if your watching the real thing.
This is an example of what I was thinking about when getting the fluid movements correct as Ryan’s video below seems to show. When watching Glen sketch out the Ballet dancer this is what I envisioned when watching through Ryan’s animatic of him doing the same exercise to capture the dancer within his and hers element of dance.
Glen himself is a well known american animator who previously worked for Walt Disney on films such as the Little mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Pocahontas, Tarzan and Tangled. Foe more information on Glenn click Reference Link-Link
Ryan’s work as I have looked at before is amazing to watch you can hardly tear your eyes away in case you miss something. When watching his animatic reel it was actually very nerve wrecking as I was thinking I’ve never made animatic and now I have to create this but lucky enough Conann said he wasn’t expecting that so thank god. This set us up for the next task in creating our animatic.
I also looked at various videos on YouTube to help me create the animatic and to learn exactly how they are made. This video is very simple and I feel like there is more then what I need to do but I feel as if you have to start small in order to go big.
Our groups inspiration was the Gorillaz video, we decided early on that this was the look that we were going for and hopefully when the animatic is created this can be seen.
What we then decided to do was to do next was to re-group and decide what we wanted to do this tomorrow (Tuesday), so I suggested we come up with at least a few good ideas to speak to the group about tomorrow so we can get started immediately unfortunately this did happen as creative differences clashes. We decided to come in early and work till Yuan’s class was over and have a good solid idea down by then so we can start that night. This did not happen as every time we’d get some where we’d go right back to start and have nothing this was very frustrating as sitting across from another group who working well together I just couldn’t understand why we were incapable of working together to get the work completed.
It wasn’t until we were a few members down that we actually got something to work with me, Caitlin, Sinead stayed together for a bit longer and had developed the story enough to have a beginning we did this in about 40 minutes and then we were rejoined with the boys and pitched are ideas to them which surprisingly they actually agreed to, after that we decide it was too late to do anymore as we had to attended Yuan’s class but decided that we would stay after to get more done.
After Yuan’s class we went through each storyboard and talked about what we specifically what to do with each shot in reference to angle and visual representation and unfortunately due to where I live I was unable to stay for the full meeting but I still knew what had to be done so I started thinking over the scenes that I was assigned too. Unfortunately after I left the idea changed again so the work that I had to produce for the animatic was changed luckily I was only playing around with ideas and didn’t have any initial work done.With the new shot list that was created by Caitlin we were then able to make sure that everyone knew who had to do what and what had to be done.
So we went to work and quickly agreed that the work had to be created by Friday in order to give it time to edit everything together and add sound. We allotted two days for this process where we spent as much time as we could with each other to get the look that we wanted.
When Friday came we were sort of ready some of the teammates had work to finish but me and Aaron were first and finished so we decided to start while waiting on the others, unfortunately Aaron was unable to attend due to work related stuff but me and Caitlin went to work with the scanner and various editing apps that she had and did the first 20 seconds of the animation including sound, however once my scenes were done I had to leave due to having to get home on time but this was at 3.00 o’clock so we had previously spent 6 hours doing the animatic and since we were waiting on the other’s me and Caitlin decided to head on and start other things, I believe Caitlin went back to the University to work on the animatic further with one of my other teammates at around seven in order to add their scenes to the animatic.
Below are the images of my work that was inserted into the animatic. I actually really enjoyed this process and as it was my first animatic I was pleased with the outcome. The images that I did were done in 16 x 9 to suit the size were hoping of creating the animatic in we each had a total of 5 scenes that had to be completed in pencil and pen.
My Scenes focused on the book, mainly escaping from the water planet and falling through the Caverns of Confusion with on lookers watching this happen in amazement as this has never occurred before.
Scene 1: Book is ejected from the water planet.
Scene 2: Book is falling through the Caverns of Confusion.
Scene 3: On lookers are watching in amazement.
Scene 4: The book hits the ground revealing to the creatures about Dementia.
Scene 5: The creatures step up to the book as if they are leaning in to get a better view.
My Sketches-
Over the weekend then we kept in contact with Caitlin’s edit of the animatic and decided that it looked really well, will at least I’m happy with it being my first animatic I didn’t want to let the group down so I tried my best to create my scenes to the best of my ability.
This to me was my first animatic and I really enjoyed making it with my team as it was a new experience for me. We then went back over it for presentations and this was the second version that was created.
Reflections Week 10
- This was one of the hardest weeks in terms of group work as are group was able to keep in constant contact in and out of class but there always seemed to be confusion happening within the team and this something we will have to re-evaluate next week.
- Unfortunately are main problem was actually starting anything there would be constant changes wanting to be made. Changes are fine if they steer the group in the right direction but wanting to go from pencil drawings to digital drawings with two days to presentation is not possible at last to me considering we still had to edit.As well Sinead and I had little to No digital work experience previous to this project. I just think once you’ve made the decision to go though with your plan that is the decision. If minor changes are able to be made that’s OK but to make drastic changes late in the week shouldn’t be considered.
- As a group I think this was the main problem believing in are creation. To me even if the ideas fall through carry them through till the end don’t just drop and restart because things aren’t going your way. Which we were able to prevent happening.
- Another thing are group experienced was punctuality was poor this week on some members which set back the amount of time the group was able to spend working on the task. To me it was frustrating as I live 2 hours away so when group members would arrive 2-3 hours late it was annoying because it takes time out of being able to work through the project and because I live so far away I would have to leave earlier in order to get home at a reasonable hour which left me feeling horrible as I was constantly leaving the group hanging on one less member.
- Overall the team worked well with each other in terms of completing the work and having the work ready for presentation on Monday in the end.
Shannon Murray - University of Ulster Animation 