Animated Short Research & Animatic

To start off the Animated Short research I decided to look at Animated Shorts that I would love to draw inspiration from. Mainly I looked at Pixar as they are one of my favourite studios. The shorts films I looked at were Lou, Presto, Partly Cloudy and Piper. I focused in on these shorts are they are within the comedy genre, the reason behind this is we are basing are short as a comedy piece.

Below is Youtube Links I found of those shorts-

Obviously we’re not Pixar and will not produce a short to this standard but what we are aiming for is that comedic relief through are character, hopefully we will be able to do this.

After this I decided to look further into how to make an Animated short and all of the steps that go into the process. Such as themes, characters, style, story, their journey, mood, atmosphere and most importantly the script. Below is that research I found the reference will be at the end of this post-

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This research really  helped me when it came to making our stories. Our group decided to take the rest of the night and come up with as many stories as we could for the following group session.

Below is the first story I came up with my inspiration came from the movie UP when Mr. Fredrickson is working at the balloon stall at the Zoo. From here I began thinking back to a time that I was on the motorway and spotted a balloon flying overhead and I thought to myself where will he end up? and so I used this thought to base my story on. Below is the mini-script that I wrote and a small storyboard of what I was thinking.-

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Then I decided to give this character another situation but using the same premise.

After showing my group my ideas they really liked the balloon idea and wanted to explore this idea further. My balloon idea turned out to be our animated short for this assignment of course as we went my original story changed from what I already wrote but the story was developing so fast and the story was growing into something we were all enjoying for the first time on the course I was excited for our group project.

Patrick also found this short which he said is similar to ours heres the link-Short Story

After we decided on the story we decided on looking for a particular style which we decided on would be Low Poly so our animated short would look cutesy due to the setting and the environment that it would be set on. The two artists I chose to look at were Mat Szulik and Vitaliy Prusakov when I found these artist I immediately loved there style it was exactly what I had in mind when I was thinking about our animated short. Below is pictures of there work which will be referenced below –

After looking at these artists I began making a Location brainstorm page. As are location is based within a park thats holding a funfair day I began writing down all of the items that could be included within our scene below is that brainstorm page. Some of these items I then used as references for our animated short these are referenced another post.

Next I began looking at possible layout what I learned from the last group is that you need a decisive plan on where you are placing items within the scene is very important to get the effect that you are going for below is that design/ colour palette I was thinking of as well as quick sketches that I did-

Then our group came back together and decided to go over possible storyboards and finalising our story below is group notes that I took-

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References that we would like to draw from would be –

Then came story boarding the first storyboards that I designed in grey tones I did these first without any research into cinematography just to get my first ideas down then after this I looked into cinematography to enhance what I already had-

After this I did more research and decided to finalise our script and write down a shot list that I could work from below is that list-

Also here is some videos that I had used to help me organise my scenes by organising the shots there were incredible helpful and I do believe that they helped me when creating my scenes-

Then I began doing proper storyboards with the help of my research above and this is the outcome-

Colour Versions –

These pages as well could be useful when we go to animate our short they belong to a book called Timing in animation by Harold Whitaker. They focus on exploring  size and expression which will be very useful later when we animate our main character during the animate and the final short.

With reference to the pages above I wanted to explore are characters and there expressions as character design is not my strong suit.

Next step was to create an animatic for this task we split it up between the group. My task was to design the backgrounds which I felt could off been better but due to the time constraints of my group I had to complete 17 backgrounds within the night to be placed within the scenes the following day so the stress was on but with the time I was given I’m happy that I completed the task but would love to take part in the animation section in the future.

Below are those backgrounds-

Below is our first animatic attempt-

Feedback –

  • Overall the animatic went well I believe the class loved the story as we had all of them laughing and smiling by the end even Mike. We weren’t completely sure how this concept would be received.
  • Some changes that they did want to see was mainly the beginning of the animatic they felt which was too long. Which we totally agreed with and are already changing.
  • A suggestion from Mike was to add the drone in before it takes the Balloon out later. This was a brilliant suggestion that I already thought of but we forgot to add him in during the process what I was thinking was make the audience aware of it but not acknowledge him.

Feedback from Mike –

  • When had one to ones with Mike overall the main change that Mike wanted to see was the location Mike suggested that we have it in the park but looking over the wall in at the Balloon instead of within the park as that would suggest people of which we don’t want. When we explored this new idea we soon realised that it wouldn’t work as we’d be crossing the camera and confusing the audience so we scrapped that idea and began thinking of ways to improve what we already had.
  • Mike also wanted us to add a reflection to the eyes of the kite.
  • When the Balloon gets squished back in make sure he’s covered.
  • Also when he’s in the dark make sure he remains there.
  • Maybe we could add the kite at the end with the balloon face on him in shock.

Overall the changes were minor which I’m really happy about because we really love what we are working on, so I’m extremely happy that the class loved the animatic.

Below is our updated animatic-

Reflection-

Looking back over our project I’m really happy that the group chose my idea to start from and I’m especially happy that it has grown into an idea that we all love. From the start we have been excited to bring this idea to life and when it came to the animatic I was really excited when we seen the final version. The work leading up to the animatic was successful as well as all of the group members were on the same page in terms of were we wanted the story to go. Overall I’m really happy with our idea and I hope it translate well into Maya.

References-

  1. Image. http://www.imdb.com. Available from: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6267732/mediaviewer/rm1826172160 [Accessed 9 March 2018]
  2. Image. http://www.imdb.com. Available from: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5613056/mediaviewer/rm1357054976 [Accessed 9 March 2018]
  3. Image. http://www.imdb.com. Available from: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1245104/mediaviewer/rm1838075136 [Accessed 9 March 2018]
  4. Image. http://www.imdb.com. Available from: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1425244/mediaviewer/rm1447940608 [Accessed 9 March 2018]
  5. Images. http://www.artpeoplegallery.com. Available from: https://www.artpeoplegallery.com/mat-szulik/ [Accessed 9 March 2018]
  6. Mat Szulik art work. Available from: https://www.behance.net/fredziq [Accessed 9 March 2018]
  7. Images. http://www.Artstation.com. Available from: https://www.artstation.com/prusakov [Accessed 9 March 2018]
  8. John Halas and Harold Whitaker.1981. Timing for animation.London.Focal Press.

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