My Completed Final!

This is my completed final animation, I'm pleased with the outcome...

Finishing A Final

To complete my final animation I put all my images, including the ones I had photographed previously at home and the ones I had made on photoshop, onto AfterEffects and made them into a sequence at a frame rate of 12 frames per second.

I cut the music to finish at 54 seconds so I therefore started it 32 seconds in. Because it was slightly between bars at the 32 second point I decided to fade the music in so that it was a gradual build up and it wasn't too obvious that it wasn't starting from the start, I think this worked well.

So my final piece has the music: Bach (JS): Goldberg Variations, BWV 988 - 01. Variation 1

And my story board now looks like this:

A boy climbing a tree

Climbs to the top

When he gets to the top he puts his head in the leaves

Then a bird flys out

Screen follows the birds journey as it flys off

As the bird flys off screen a new flock of birds fly on

Screen follows the flocks journey

Until they all fly back into the tree!

Continuing A Final

When I put my final images onto AfterEffects the sequence only lasted about 4 seconds, and even when I slowed the frame rate down it wasn't long enough and became to jerky and looked even worse. So I decided to take a few slides back into Photoshop and cut my characters out of them to create new slides to further my story.

I made 146 more slides using these cuts out continuing my story, so instead of a boy climbing up a tree and a bird flying out, the boy climbs up the tree and the bird still flys out but then a flock of birds come the other way and fly back into the tree. Even though I did the second section digitally, because I cut the images out of previous slides I think it blends in quite well...

Starting A Final

To photograph my slides I made my characters out of paper and moved them around on a piece of paper and took a photograph, I made my boy in a few positions so that I would be able to show that he is climbing up the tree (rather than flying up next to it)...

I made my birds in a couple of sizes so that it wasn't bigger than the boy when it came out of the tree and then I could use the bigger bird for more of a focus for the rest of the animation...

I made my tree in two separate sections too so that it would fit square to a horizontal piece of a4 paper, here is the top section...

I made all these characters and pieces out of paper and coloured them in felt tip pens.

I started photographing my pieces on a table, but I found it so hard to keep the camera in the same position and take a photograph with a steady hand. I decided to blu-tac my characters to a piece of paper on the wall in a place where my camera could take the photograph without any other objects in the way. To keep my camera steady I blu-tacced it to a table so I could just press the shutter without moving the camera (however blu-tac isn't the strongest so some shots are slightly blurrier than I anticipated).

Here are a few of my shots...

After I put these images onto photoshop they looked blurry, dark and messy so I put them onto photoshop again and changed the levels to brighten them up, I also used to clone tool to merge in the sections where i had accidentally photographed the wall in the background etc ...

This really brightened them up and made them clearer. I then put them onto after effects as a sequence...

Developing A Final

I decided to go with my fourth idea for a final. I liked how it was a little story and how I could use characters and make it a bit more fun. I also think this goes with the audio well, although it doesn't fit in with all three of my words, i think the simple colours make it look a bit posh and classic, there isn't really anything that makes it look like a Jane Austin/Mr Darcy story, but it does have the mischief that is in a Silent Film so I think it fits in there.

Although it's not black and white and an obvious kind of mischief I still think it looks like a Silent Film, as there is no speech and a tiny bit of mischief, it's also a bit random so I think it works for the theme.

Before I started making my final animation i made a mood-board of images relating to my final to give me inspiration for how to make my characters look...

i decided to make the character climbing up the tree a boy, maybe in a hoodie to show he's slightly mischievous, i think i'm going to create the bird to look like the way i've drawn it in my storyboards and i'm going to keep the tree and clouds slightly cartoony.

I started creating my animation using cell animation, i started drawing each individual slide, gradually moving my characters on each separate piece, to create movement ...

However, this was very time consuming and was taking forever yet getting nowhere ...

So i decided to photograph my slides...

Fourth Idea For a Final

My fourth idea for a final also continues with the bird theme...

For this idea it starts with a boy climbing up a tree, showing him getting higher, then as he gets to the top and puts his head in the tree a bird flys out the top, the focus then goes onto the bids journey showing it flying through the sky, with the image eventually fading as the 30 seconds is up...

I think this idea goes with my three words:

Posh - It uses simple colours

'Silent Film' - It tells a short story of the boy scaring the bird out of the tree without any speech, but there is an element of mischief coming from the boy

Again I don't think it really works with 'Jane Austin/Mr Darcy' ...

Third Idea For a Final

My third idea I experimented with for a final continued with the theme of birds...

For this ideas I had a few birds flying out of a box, then the focus is on one bird and her journey as she flys past trees until she gets to one certain tree, it then shows her going into the tree and there is a nest there with her family in...

I think this idea goes with two of my three words:

Posh - It uses simple colours

'Silent Film' - It tells a short story of the bird getting back to its family

I don't think it goes with 'Jane Austin/Mr Darcy' again though ...