Breaking Bad News (2D Cut Out Animation)

Introduction

For this assignment we were placed into groups where we had to create a limerick based around random items and then proceed to animate it. We were giving the theme News Bulletin, the word Nanny and 6 animals.

Preproduction

Planning.

After working together as a group we came up with two limericks and let the class decide which one was better. Since the one we chose had no description for the characters and the one we didn’t choose did (we also described them as we wrote it), we decided that we would use the characters from the first one in the chosen limericks animation. We also discussed each part of the process in detail having input from each other on everything.

Schedule

Since we all live in different places we decided that we should take the work home with us and organised bits and pieces for everyone. I had to draw out the character design for the fish and the bear originally. This amount decreased and increased greatly as the assignment continued. Later on, we split up the environments, story board, music, shooting and editing.

• Shane was assigned the Hare and the Ape – the mug shot environment, control of shooting, helping with the audio, arranging shots, cutting out and some editing including premier pro.

• Tom was assigned the Hog and the Dog – the newsroom environment, Titles, helping with the audio, arranging shots, cutting out and some editing including premier pro.

• Rob was assigned the Nanny and the Anchor-man – the zoo environment, how the lips would move, editing the newsroom altogether, arranging shots, cutting out and the drawing of the storyboard

• I was assigned the Fish and the Bear – Editing the Storyboard, Audio, Bringing the ‘lazy arm’, credits, arranging shots, cutting out, last minute editing and premier pro editing.

Mood Board & Colour Pallet

We originally decided to use a flat block paint approach but decided that it would be too tedious and might make the paper we were using soggy and crinkled so it would be a waste of time. We then decided to use colouring pencils as it would be easier. I proceeded to draw mine up in colouring pencil, at this point I only had to do the bear as rob had designed the perfect look for the fish.

When I finished the bear I found out that everyone else in the group had done their work digitally and since I didn’t know how to do that I just outlined the bear in marker so that he looked like he was inked instead.

Resource Material

What I used for my resource material was references from the internet, paper, pencils, markers, a light box, and colouring pencils. I looked up some different types of bears and fish and drew up some concept pieces. Then after that I drew the bear out (pencil), cleaned him up (light box), drew him again x3 (blinking) and x2 (body shot) in colouring pencil and finally outlined in marker before he was cut out.

Story

Storyboard

We all decided what was going to be in each thumbnail for the storyboard and had rough sketches drawn out in a copy book. We wanted to design our characters before we started the official storyboard so that we could just use digital images to make it. Instead rob designed the storyboard and since I am not used to digitally designing things instead of doing a background I composed the storyboard and made various options.

Animatic

Block Test

I am only familiar with block testing with maya for 3d design so I can only assume this is when we lined everything up under the camera to make sure that it worked. This was a fairly simple process for us as we kept the measurements the same for each of our parts the whole way through making sure that they fitted to A3.

Design

Character Design!

We all decided what each character would look like together and to keep the comedy factor we decided that Ralph (previously Franny) the fish would end up being the bad guy, like the leader of the pack. Frank the bear would be the ‘dumbass’ and possibly have a cold. The ape would also be a bad ass but more in a thug manner. The anchor-man would resemble Kent Brockman from the Simpsons. The nanny would look as much like a nanny as we could make her and would have a pram. The hare would be the Jessica Rabbit of our animation. The hog would be a hobo, Hence the tin of beans for a hat and finally the dog would be drunk because he was drinking from his own tankard. We each took two characters each, even though some of us did more causing the others to have less to do (This issue was approached and solved), and keep the characters looking cartoonish.

Environment Design

Due to our limerick our environments for basically decided for us, I helped at this point with the discussion of how they would look and what would be written across the newsroom. (There are nine million bicycles in Beijing, right now!!) After this I went on to work on editing the three different versions of the storyboard.

Modelling

Project set up

After we had designed our characters, environments and storyboards the only thing left to do was print and cut everything out. After that it was all down to shooting, digitalising and putting everything together on premier pro.

Preferences

My preference would be definitely towards this sort of animation style as I’ve seen people attempt stop start animation with a white board a marker and a deadline and I’ve seen the stress first hand that that creates not that this wasn’t stressful because it definitely was but it was also fun creative and a completely new way to look at things

The animation process

Pose to pose

This part of the animation process was one I was actually dreading the most, mainly because I have extremely shaky hands and was very afraid that I’d ruin the set up by flinching or fidgeting. I did help out and kind of became more confident about moving things around and found my baring’s fairly fast. Since we had spent such a long time on the design and discussed every step down to a tee we all knew exactly what we were doing when it came to shooting and moving things from pose to pose.

Timing

When we had our images digitised and were shown the basics of premier pro it didn’t take us long to get everything into order. We sorted out our shots into scenes including the titles and credits. We messed around with the timing for a while and then added in the audio. Some of which was provided to us by our music co-ordinator Brendan Mc Namee and some which was recorded by myself, Shane and Tom in one of the soundproof piano rooms on Shane’s phone as our application for a HD recorder was rejected.

Clean up

Tidying everything up and making sure that the audio was in order was not really a problem once we had gotten the hang of premier pro. Shane, Tom and I worked together on editing the photos, a video Rob had sent in (he wasn’t in that day) and the audio. We cut everything down to size made sure all the time lines where correct and then we finally rendered the piece.

Reflective Analysis

To be honest when we started this assignment I was scared, confused and slightly intimidated by the talented people around me and again to be honest by the end it wasn’t that different. This was quite an experience and I have to say that I have a new found appreciation for people who actually go through with this style day out and day in to produce something fit for a television screen.

When we first began this animation I will admit I tried to take the leadership role (it’s in my nature) and so did Rob as he is a professional in this area and in the end we bumped heads. It was sort of awkward to work with each other, but we confronted each other fairly soon into the assignment and realised this is a group project, none of us are the leaders, were just working together. Even though while this was happening I held some resentment towards him I soon started to realise that I was actually learning a lot from him and when I put my guard down I found out that he’s a pretty nice guy who wasn’t mean about sharing his knowledge with us. Which also led to less complications for the assignment as I’m sure it was causing grief with our other group members.

I think if I had to do this assignment again, things would move a lot faster and a lot smoother. There would a lot less questions as I think we all found our feet during the past four weeks.

I learned a lot from my group and a lot from everyone else in class, as when my head was about to explode and I just wanted to go home, I’d take a walk around the classroom and look at what everyone else was doing and talk to them.

All I can do is hope that, now I feel that I’ve gotten to grips with how this year is going to go, I don’t end up dreaming about our next assignment the way I did this one.

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