Week 4 - 5 - Artist Models & Research

During the days leading up to our first assignment, I researched into different cartoon openings and the different techniques the creators used in the making of them in an attempt to find ways in which they may help me with my project.

These three videos include animation techniques which I want to implement in my project.

Integrating a Photoshop background into Toon Boom Harmony.

I retrieved this video from the Toon Boom website. I found it in among many other valuable tutorials. This one is of particular help to me because my camera will be quite dynamic and my animation will find an effect like this one to be very aesthetically beneficial in the long run.  

Animating to Music

I found this article to be particularly helpful to me because of the sheer amount of detail which was put into the writing of it. The author makes sure to cover as much information as possible and his tips are therefore able to cater for animators working on lots of different kinds of animation.

First Assignment

Here's the PowerPoint presentation I made for the first assignment of the year, it clearly outlines what my goals and intentions are with this project as well as my main plan of action for it.

Week 6 - 7 - Painting a Background

I painted the furthest part of my 1st parallax background with Photoshop. It was a slow process because I hadn't used the program since last year but I am fairly satisfied with the outcome.

Here's the finished product. It will be layered with different images for the final product of course.

Week 4 - 5 Animatic

I made a very rough recording of the rhythm guitar in my song. It is however on time and with the beat (200 beats per minute) for the most part and is also the length of the song; it is therefore usable for the making of an animatic.
The purpose of this animatic is first to narrow down the amount of work that needs to be done for this project (counting the shots etc..) and second to time specific movements with the music.

The way I made this animatic was by cutting every individual panel (82) out of the scanned storyboards using Adobe Photoshop, saving them as jpeg image files, and then editing them together in Adobe After Effects along with the rhythm guitar track.
Once I was happy with the animatic I then extracted every single shot (20) and their matching guitar part to use as guidelines for when I animate them.

Week 3 - 4 Concept Art and Story Boards

Concept Art:

Drawing concept designs (and Story Boards) is an important step in the making of an animation. These drawings help me lock in my idea and stop me from drifting into creative chaos. 

Story Boards:

Panel Number:
I've written down a number in the top right corner of each panel to keep track of what comes next in case something happens and pages get lost.

Bar Number:
In the top left corner of some panels I've taken note of the Bar Number of the song I wrote. This is to keep track of what I want to happen in my animation relative to the song's beat. Most music has a regular beat (or pulse) which can be felt. Each bar usually has the same number of beats in it. Music that feels like 1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4 will be divided into bars with four beats worth of music in each bar. The bar line (or barline) is a vertical line written in the music which separates the bars.

Movement, Shot Transitions and Descriptive Text:
Movement is a very important theme in my animation and is represented in my Story Boards using arrows.
Shot Transitions can be seen written down in between some of my panels, they describe how one shot bleeds into the next.
Descriptive Text must be written down sometimes to really help make sense of what is going on in the storyboards seeing as I am limited to only pencil on paper for these.

Week 1 - 2 Coming up with a Project Question

I have gone through several different project questions since the start of the year. The reason for this being that I had already started the year with a very concrete idea of what I intend to achieve with the objective given by this class. I wish to tie in the final product of this project with the video game I will be programming next semester, or more specifically put, I want to make an opening animation for it. It took me a few attempts but I think that with critical research and growth in mind I managed to narrow my scope down to the most specific project question I could ask myself. The following is the progression of my project question.

1st attempt - How do I get people hyped using a 1 minute long animation?
           This question, although positive and audacious, is far too broad and open for all sorts of            interpretation. I tried narrowing it down with a follow up question: Why? To which I answered: I want people to want to find out more about the characters/ story that the animation presents. Little did I know I was very close to my finalized project question.

2nd attempt - How do I squeeze a franchise-worthy story into a 1 minute animation? 

           This question is simply too audacious and broad. Nowhere in the question do I specify what I plan on making the audience feel or think about. It also doesn't give me any clue as to where to focus my research into how I can go about doing this either. With this question however, I was able to simplify the first question's follow up (why) question and formulate it into a question of its own.

3rd attempt - How do I introduce as much of a story's themes & content as possible in a fun/hype-inducing way using a 1 minute long animation?

            This question came so close to being my final attempt, it just needed to be polished further and written down in a more formal way for simplicity's sake.

4th attempt - How do I introduce as much of a story's contents and themes as I can in a fun and enticing way using a 1 minute long opening animation?

            It is still a bit of a mouthful but I like it very much. It encompasses everything I am willing to attempt with my project. When dissected keyword by keyword it becomes easy for me to keep track of what I already have to work with and what I need to start working on.