beggining of the end..

After the experiments i decided that a plain blue background would be best for the sky of my animation, ive begun to try and get the timings and right amount of frames right per second just so i know if it all works really.

 Not the best set up but i have limited space in my house, so the floor it is. I tried to create a sort of camera holder with tape attatched to a chair but it didnt really work, so my hand was moving all the time. the black tape sort of helped me out but i think ill need something else to really help me keep my camera still and in the same sort of place for my final animation.

Below is what i came out with, i haven't tried to add the music to it yet but i'm feeling a lot more confident, seeing how it is all coming together.

I suppose its not a bad first attempt but i think i need to sort some of the colours out. Especially the bulb, i don't think it stands out enough against the background.

colour? background? arghhh

I have been trying to think what i can use for my background/ the scenery really of my animation. i found a blue bed sheet and tried to layer it up, a bit scrunched like a sky, (the scrunched up bits could add a bit of depth to the background.
Heres a short animation i tried with the background and just a painted sheet of paper as the grass.

I dont really think this worked well because the bumps in the background create wierd shadows for the character, also there is more movement not making the animation look as smooth because it isnt a flat surface.

LEGS.

As you can see form my post below i havent included legs on the new version of lenny, this is because i thought it would be difficult trying to keep track of the legs moving while im trying to adjust other elements aswell.

I tried to observe people around me and imitate their movements on this model so i could see what i would need to do on my animation.

Below is a short experiment i tried with a model moving legs.

This was only made on imovie and it is only about 10 frames, but you get the idea. 

I just couldn't get my head around what the movements needed to look realistic.

back to the lightbulb

The photos below show my lightbulb lenny, this time with a face drawn in drywipe pen on an opaque lightbulb. i drew lines for the side of the mouth and eyes in permanent marker as more of a control to keep the shapes as similar as possible.

For the next experiment with stop motion i'm going to but out the pictures of this bulb and use them, rather than the actual lightbulb, this is so i can compare the 2 short animations to see what one would look better, i think if i was creating it flat it would also be quite difficult to keep the bulb in the same position, with the same lighting for shots soon after each other. Mainly because of its shape it would create some wierd shadows. Suppose i can still try though.

More Lenny..

I decided to create a series of animated lightbulbs (Lennys) just so i could get an idea of how my story will be created. First i drew out a basic lightbulb shape, scanned it into the computer then reprinted it a few times so i could have the exact same shape for all of the different expressions i needed.

The one i scanned in is on the right, the one on the left i edited in photoshop to make a bolder outline so it would stand out more.

The photo above is the 6 faces i created for my character. I worked out through the music that i needed;

Happy (original)

Sad

Confused

Angry

then a few side faces (one for each direction) for when my character is running from side to side.

I then put this character into a small animation of what part of my final animation will be.

This is only 41 frames and put together quickly using imovie, for a general idea of how i will create my final animation and where etc.

After effects session!

Completely forgot to load this stuff on earlier! This is just some of the work from a tutorial on after effects, really just learning the basics but it gave me ideas of how i could make my characters move.

We started off by cropping an image on photoshop, one large and one small version of it, then imported them both into after effects and had a play around.

This is more for me to remember how to animate images using after effects but i think it gives a good idea of how my images might move if i scanned them in and tried to manipulate them on here.

This was a very usefull session!

Introducing... Lenny!

I decided to experiment with different 'Lennys' to see if it would be possible to create him out of an actual lightbulb..

He obviously needs a lot of work but i think with the right background and scene this could be quite effective. 

I would like to see if there was any way of actually lighting the bulb in the scenes where i want him to be happier, ill have to investigate further before i decide for definite what style of animation i'm going to use.

 

STORYBOARD!

I am still undecided what method i'm going to use to create my animation. I can't decide between stop motion (using a real lightbulb), Cut out animation, or just narrative cell. I'll experiment with all techniques and then decide which one works best. 
Whatever technique i use the storyboard gives me a good idea of what part i need to be at, at what time. I have worked out most of the timings as well so i think i know how many drawings i need to do between each scene.

Storyboard develoment!

These are a few quick sketches of what i think my storyboard is going to look like, with a few more notes so i know exactly what to do.

Also thinking about the colours for the main parts of my storyboard. 

I think the blue background and lighter rain drops work better because they stand out more, as the lightbulb will be light too so that will also work better with a slightly darker background.

Character Development!

I wanted to create a character that would be easily repeatable however would be able to convey the emotions and characteristics that i want to show in my animation.

Briefcase- used for storing things, could open to show that he has forgotten his brolly. Would be easy to show this, also the movements would be easy because it would just have to roll. 

I really like this design because i think a lightbulb is a good representation of an idea. It could easily be animated by the use of colour and a feature, e.g eyes or a changing mouth.

Below i have tried to put my character into the narrative.

Some elements don't really work so i've had to change a few things, mainly the fact that a lightbulb doesn't have arms.

TADA!

Development- still listening

This is a timeline of 2 parts of the music, It made me decide for definite that i want to use the first 30 seconds of the music.
Below i began to brainstorm around the three words that i have chosen to describe my music.

These have given me inspiration to try and sort out a plan for my narrative. Something that combines my three words.

Unprepared- Because my character forgets its umbrella

Idea- To buy an umbrella from the stand

Change- Character begins annoyed/ sad that it is getting rained on and ends up happy with its new brolly.

Back to Babel..

The three words ill be thinking about/ including in my animation are..

UNPREPARED

IDEA

CHANGE

I have chosen these words because i think they reflect different times in the music (the first 30 seconds which i will be using).  The part of the music i am using is quite diverse so i have chosen the word change/ development to show that there is a definite change. I want something to happen or develop in my animation to represent this. Possibly starting off not so good and getting better, finally ending happy as i think the music feels a lot more joyful toward the end.

Matrix style flipbook animation

****** The Best Stop Motion Video EVER ***** (apparently)

This has got to be one of my favourite animations that i have found so far, i really like the idea of creating an image out of an everyday object (i.e. a sticky note) and transforming it into another. I think this would be a very interesting way of animating and i hope to use something like it in my final animation.. well if not my final then some experiments definitely!

Post-it Note Stop Motion Style Animation

After attempting to make a flip book out of post it notes i was curious to see if there were any more developed ones on youtube, I typed in post it note animation and instead of flip books i found a few more interesting styles of animation!
I really like the idea of creating images from post it notes (or any sort of coloured item) and creating a new picture with it, i like the pixelated affect because i think it adds effect to the basic animation element. It reminds me of early mario/ pacman games.

experiments

This is a flip book that i made (extremely rough) as an experiment for another method of animation. I would need a lot more frames than i have made here, also a better way of flipping them as this one really didn't work well.

Narrative Cell Workshop

This work was for a narrative cell workshop, where we were told to experiment with drawing new characters, with quite simple features, or where we would choose to just change one feature.

 

I think i got a bit carried away with a few of mine, these are some examples. The one below is the character i chose to animate. The square will be easy to draw out again and again because it is such a simple shape.

Above i have shown what elements i could animate, all very simple to try out for our first narrative cell animation.

We were then asked to team up with someone to bring another character in, then create a storyboard of start, after 24 frames, then after another 12 frames (the end). It would only be slight movements for our characters as at 12 frames per second it would only be 3 seconds long.

This was our story board (altogether 36 frames). We wanted to make it look like one character had hit the other. After 36 drawings we scanned it into the computer then put it into after effects;

This is only part of our drawings, i think the picture size was too large for it to fit on. we saved this as it is for now but will have to resize the images and try again.