DV2900 Talking points - Animatic

Today I created my animatic for my animation. I used photoshop to change the image size to make it fit the stage size in Flash. The original size was : 995 x 750 which isn't the right size of the stage, I changed it to 1280 x 720, using Photoshop and a batch process. Throughout my studies I have noticed that the resolution of 1280 by 720 is now standard for most TV etc so I wanted to keep to it.

Once all the images were batch processed, I opened flash and place them accordingly to the storyboard. the biggest thing I had to work out next was the sound. I got most of my sound effects from YouTube, All sound effects I used are in a playlist on youtube. (http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6ZDsQ2mlyOAcqva1rrTuE1mrwgt0dXfW&feature=mh_lolz). There is a sound effect that I couldn't find on YouTube, but I did find a site that I could of used from the beginning but only found it when I was searching for the last sound effect. I obtained my last sound effect from freesound.org. (http://www.freesound.org/people/datasoundsample/sounds/41632/). This site was a lot more efficient and easier to use.

Once I got all the sound effects and voice recordings I than needed to decide on how I'm going to edit it and what software I'm going to use, my choices are Adobe Audition or Audacity.

I decided to use Adobe Audition for a few reason the main one because I have never used it before and I have used Audacity and I wanted to have more than one software to choice from in the future.

[add screenshot]

Adobe Audition isn't too different from Audacity. It is so easy to use and it is really easy to trim audio; Highlight what's not needed and press delete. The only difference with Adobe Audacity is that the software looks and feels more comfortable, because it is an Adobe software and the interface are mostly all the same.


Now everything is ready, the images and the sound all that is next to do is put it together, I decided to put in together in Flash because I am using Flash to animate, this way I can get use to the stage size and where everything needs to be.

As you can see from the image above I have made sure all the layers are separated. This made it so much easier because I could align all the different parts with the sound effects needed.  

DV2900 Talking points - Background design

I decided to draw my background in flash using the draft below.

I want to create good shading on the background so I tried to use the gradient tool but I didnt know where it was, but after some searching I found out that if you go to the colour window and select gradient on the drop down menu you can then create the gradient.

I found out to use it I had to save it as a swatch by clicking here.

then I was able to apply it, but it didn't look right but to all I did was use the gradient tool to change the movement and position of the gradient.

I also put a shadow on the background by putting a line in the corners of the brown background and i than curved it and coloured it in a slightly darker brown, than you select the line and delete it, this gives it a nice blend. I personally liked that idea better than the gradient tool, one I believe it gives a better finish and two its quicker, the gradient tool is too long winded and takes up too much time. 

After that I created the chairs using the brush tool but I had to make sure that the smoothing was turnt off because the consistency was the same in the lines. 

I kept going over it, with different shades, as well as changing some colours to make it more effiecent to what is actually happening, and ended up creating this as my first background.

After creating that first background I knew I had to now create the chicken shop background, using the same techniques as mentioned above I came up with this.

The chicken menu on the side was an imported image, which one saved time but gave the resturant a realistic feel. I also decided to use a lot of the line tool for this one, it was better because I could create straight lines easier than by the brush tool.

Here's the finished background

DV2900 Talking points - Re recording and Storyboarding

Today I re recorded my voices but this time I actually had a script with me, not just to help me but for my voice actors as well. 

The recording this time went really well, everyone knew what they were doing and there wasn't many mistakes. I did something different this time I decided to record in mono instead of stereo, this way I could edit it and make it stereo myself instead of it being stereo but the with the sound still not right. 

While I was doing the recording, I realised that I had to re design one of the characters, because I had to take out the stereotypes so that meant that the Vietnamese character would have to change completely, the other two isn't much of a problem with the idea change it can work. 

With Jill she is afraid of germs so if she is afraid of germs she would be in a hazmat suit so protect her, this also helps with the recording because with the suit the voice would become just murmers so I didn't need another voice actor; the other characters still can understand her, and what shes saying will be subtitled. so I created this model sheet to finalise the her re design.

After having the voices recorded and edited as well as Jill's re design, I am now going to create the storyboard again, unfortunately me and my tutors saw a lot problems with the last one, so I decided to re create it to make it a lot more interesting with different camera shots. 

The storyboard came out very well I spent a lot of time looking at the script imagining the action and movement from each character. The most important part was the camera shots there is a lot that are not named and that because I'm not sure on what they would be called, but nevertheless and I have tried to use different shots. Something that I am using in the storyboard which is different but more professional is the arrows that represent movement, the solid black arrows are for movement in the scene and the clear white arrows are camera movements, this really did help me to understand where the camera is and how I would animate it, in one of the first scenes you see the camera is zooming in, so I know that the best way to do that is use vcam, and I think I will be using that more than once for my animation. I personally feel that this storyboard is definitely better than the last one, its more interesting, professional and helpful. 

DV2900 Talking points - Script

Script for my animation.

The door opens and the camera is first person point of view shot of the support worker, he sits down with three people sitting around in a circle. ( camera pans the room )

Support worker : Hello and Welcome to the support group, shall we begin. ( mid shot of the character sitting on a chair )

Isaac : H...hi my names Isaac and I can't stop folding paper. ( Close up of the character

Liam is drinking his coffee and quickly has to stop to say his part.

Liam : Hi my names Liam and I'm addicted to coffee.

Jill : *murmers* ( Hi my names Jill I hate germs! )

Support worker : Hello all. Nice to meet you!

Isaac is twitching and rocking back and forth, with paper made animals everywhere.

Isaac : I need more paper.

Liam replies while hanging Isaac some coffee.

Liam : Relax man and drink some coffee!

Isaac whacks the cup of coffee out of Liam's hands, the coffee splashes over on to Jill.

Jill looks at her hands and looks back up.

Jill : *murmers* errrrrr coffee!........... The suit protects me! The suit protects me!

The support worker continues watching them and making notes.

Isaac : I'm so sorry! i... i didn't mean to!

Liam takes a sip of his coffee.

Liam : Hey guys Chill! lets get some chicken!

Silence

Jill: *murmers* Okay I'm up for that!

Isaac calms down, breathes in and holds for a bit and exhales.

Isaac : That w...would help!

Support worker : Well ... thats all the time we have today...

Support worker : Lets get some chicken.

fades to black

They all are at the chicken shop sitting round a table (EWS). Liam and Isaac are devouring their chicken and chips bits of chicken flying everywhere (WS). Jill holds a chicken leg and trys to eat it with a hazmat suit on (MS), the chicken just bounces off her mask (Close up). pause. The support worker just smiles and continues to taking notes (Close up).

Credits

DV2900 Talking points - Mood board

I continued to look into the styling of my animation today, and in doing that I created a moodboard.

This moodboard has different cartoons programs, but all the styling is similar to what I would want. From my research I always knew I wanted to have the basic colour styling, base colour and then shading as well. All these cartoons are not a complex design, but the colouring is pretty similar, If you look at the model sheets I have done will match the colouring from this moodboard.

At the very beginning of this project I knew that this is how I was going to have my drawing style, that is because of how the style works so well with all these shows, and the biggest thing is that all the shows are comedy and I want my animation to be funny.

I realize that this should have been done earlier on in this project because of how much it helps me with coloring and styling.

DV2900 Talking points - Lip syncing test 2

Today I tried to do lip syncing using some of the audio from before that didn't come out too well, but as this is only a test i don't think its too important.

This is the image I used to create all the different mouth positions.

This is what I have done, using this i was able to create a little test animation.(https://docs.google.com/file/d/0ByaoQfNUre_4bEdOSUtMeEZuM3M/edit?usp=drive_web)

This is only a little test of the lip syncing process, the only problem that i had was that the mouth moved but overall i think i done well, it sounded right and i honestly found it a lot easier than i thought, and having keyframe caddy as well made it so much easier.