Unit 5: Written Assignment

Investigating Critically the Animator Lotte Reiniger and her work.

Unit 5: Crit Presentation

The Art of 'the Giddy Pot Plant'

The Giddy Pot Plant Animation (without titles)

Well it's finally complete (titles in next post) but I think it was really worth it because I'm really happy with it!

Animation Lessons- Corrections

Here are my corrections for Meg's Lessons. Two of them are just little tweaks but the chair one I did again completely as it just didn't work well.

Made the ball stay on the ground for 1/2 more frames to stop it lifting up too quickly for the bounce.


Reduced the squash of the ball when it lands on the ground.

Unit 5: Submission Disc Artwork

Here is the artwork for my DVD and case. I wanted it to link in with my 'Art of' so I took the two main art pieces featured in the layout and combined them. I created this scalloped heart in photoshop to use as the introduction to my work as it is so characteristic to see the heart at the end of a romantic scene of a cartoon and my animation follows suit. I also thought the frilly scallops add a silly element to the design and link in to the giddiness of my animation.


CD Case Artwork

The 'Art of' The Giddy Pot Plant

For some reason the front and last pages are a bit fuzzy in places but I think this is due to Scribd as it isn't like that in my Art of when it is a normal PDF not on Scribd. The Art of 'the Giddy Pot Plant'

The Giddy Pot Plant Final Script

The Giddy Pot Plant Final Script

Final Premise, Logline, Step Outline

The Giddy Pot Plant Premise, Logline.. Final

Unit 5: Creative Partnership Archive

Creative Partnership Archive

Lotte Reiniger inspired animation ending cut-out prep

At the end of my animation the classic heart closes in on the romantic scene. I could have easily done this on photoshop or similar but what would be the point of that when this is a hand drawn animation!

I then instead could have drawn the heart shape gradually coming in on each frame but then I thought about including another hand/2D animation technique that we have learned about and which we automatically are reminded of Reiniger's work... That is the shadow puppetlike silhouette cut outs.

I took an existing frame from the first kiss scene to prep these cut outs for my finale. This has not only helped me figure out how many cut outs I need but exactly where I need to draw my two characters because in this frame they turned out to not be where I want them at the end.

Webster's Walk Cycle

I have finally got to finishing off Webster's walk cycle. His strut is a key part of his story in trying to impress Delilah and so I really wanted this behaviour to come over through his walk. I think to himself he looks cool but to me he looks pretty ridiculous!

Walk Cycle overlayed

Moved walk cycle to show steps clearer.

First 10 Seconds of Animation

This first 10 seconds has taken me a while but I'm really happy that I've battled through it and didn't give up on trying to get the animated camera work I wanted, and now I have a better understanding of animating the camera and have learnt on my way some ways I can check that the animation works without doing it perfectly and scanning it in first time. Now I should be quicker!

I don't however have any idea why there is a border around the sides of my animation when I am using the same frame I have been using throughout this unit :(



Animation Breakdown & Animatic

After completing my final storyboard I put together a table figuring out how long each part of my storyboard should be on screen for and then how many frames this will consist me drawing. Some storyboard numbers are halfs because they do not feature in the drawn storyboard because they were not as important but are needed to make the animation flow.

Animation Breakdown

I then created an animatic with this storyboard and added in some sounds/music that I think I will be using to help show my direction for the animation. It's a bit shorter than 1 minute but that's because it doesn't have the half numbers of the storyboard.

Unit 5: Final Storyboard

The next couple of posts are quite late seen as I did them a while ago but seen as I've been hunched over my lightbox battling through my animating I forgot to put them up until I checked my list!

Here is my presentation storyboard which I have also used to produce an animatic. I hope it's clear and shows how the camera and characters move!

Giddy Line 10 Second Animation & Titles

Here is my finished line animation for the final animation last Friday. This has been really helpful in preparation for my final animation in that figuring out how many frames movement in betweens cover to get the right feel such as being dizzy. I started with the line having very few frames for this emotion and it didn't look dizzy, after adding a few in it looks a lot better. I tried to have my line become part of my titles at the end with it taking the place of the 'I'.

Webster developed character sheets

Right I think my characters are finally sorted enough that I can process quite happily into my animation, just got to redo my storyboard beforehand! There are a couple of tweaks I think I will do such as narrowing the trunk a little but that can all be applied during animating. Just like for my daffodil I have created a character sheet looking at how my yucca plant can stretch, squash, bend.. you name it and then a couple of sheets looking at relevant actions, finally changing them to silhouettes to check that these actions are effectively conveyed.

Webster developed

Mood/action sheets




Silhouette tests

Webster Experimentation in Stop-Motion

I took a couple of my plasticine poses and made some shot animations of them in Premiere Pro to help me test them out.

This one I was testing out Webster's trying to impress strut movement of his leaves. I have learnt that to slow it down in my real animation I will need a lot of frames for it as this one is too fast and that his head should sort of turn from left to right to have a front/back sway of the leaves but also a left/right sway. I think this would express his want to look nice for Delilah. Displaying his leaves as such but also be more consistent of a walk cycle (our heads move to either side with each step) and a bit more nerdy.


Doing this experiment has really helped me visualise how I can have Webster spin during his celebratory/giddy dance.

Webster the Yucca Plant Experimentation

More plasticine experimentation, but this time with the plant that will become giddy. I thought this would be a useful technique to help me figure out how this plant will move to create each emotion so between each photograph I would have the model reenact the emotion. Some of these definitely need more exaggeration but like my daffodil I will apply this in the drawings I can now create from these models.

Regular Webster, I did like this but I thought this could go further and so I ended up with the result below.

When I manipulated the model into this it struck me that it sort of looks like a jester! After some googling these pictures particularly interested me and I think I could use them to help me with Webster's characterisation.


I like how the hat of this jester flops down, maybe I could apply this to Webster's leaves when I thicken them up in my drawings.


I liked this one too because of the walk, I want Webster to strut over to Delilah but I want him to look a bit silly doing it and the push out of the torso and the jester's bells jingling could be applied to Webster's movement. His trunk puffed out and his leaves swinging in the air like the bells.

Webster struck with an idea. The stretching of the trunk and the leaves rising a bit is meant to simulate this but I think all in all this movement would be easier to show from actually making it into frames in my animation

Webster gussying up/ combing leaves.

Checking himself out. This one results from the combing. It doesn't quite work out for him but the curls simulate his effort. A bit like Tom in Tom and Jerry with his straightening of his whiskers which actually looks pretty silly! The actually checking it out I feel requires real movement
though.

Webster trying to woo Delilah. He still has the curls in his leaves showing his trying to impress her and his 'chest' is puffed out in an attempt to look tougher/stronger.

Stunned/shocked after kiss.

Leap/jump of celebration

Flipping

Skipping. Again this needs actual movement but the leaves in the whoosh of air is there.

Satisfied/content during the second kiss.

Animation Theatre: Pixar

Animator Profile: Pixar

Animation Theatre: Bill Plympton

Animator Profile: Bill Plympton