OUAN503 - Collaborative, Creating Scenes

As a group we were using online tools and social media to communicate throughout the duration of the project. This was helpful because it meant if there was a reason we couldn't meet up or we needed to discuss something then it could be done online. This is something we were doing more so in the earlier stages because ideas were up in the air and there were aspects of the project that hadn't been finalised. I noticed this happening a bit less once every one knew what their jobs were and were just able to get on with them.

We had a meeting to discuss the storyboards we had produced and how to divide the work up going forward. In total there was between 27 and 30 scenes to be drawn across the three different animations. Aside from the number of scenes and backgrounds that had to be created, there were assets and various moving objects that had to be drawn separately and incorporated into the scene. Throughout this early stage of the project I had been trying to think hard about the way we were going to make the objects and different parts of the scene move. Initially I thought about using the After Effects plug in; 'DuIK' but after realising that it might be hard to co-ordinate the making of certain objects and characters without any knowledge of the plug in, it made more sense and would be a lot easier to do simplified but more reliable movement using After Effects by key framing the rotation and positions of objects. The illustration students had also been given work shops and inductions into the After Effects software so not only were they able to understand the premise of the software and how it was going to work, but also how to animate in it themselves. This was an advantage if further into the project I need help with some of the animating.

It was vital to the work flow and process that we were going to use to make sure that all of the scenes and assets were prepared and drawn correctly so that we could make move everything we wanted to. To do this, we went through every scene on an individual basis as a group and decided who was going to be in charge of each scene, and drawing it. We also decided which aspects of the scene would move and then the person drawing it was aware of what to create as an element of the static background, and what to draw separately so that it could be treated as a separate layer and thus moved however we wanted it to. This was quite a long process but was imperative to the process and the kind of pipeline we were implementing in order to work efficiently especially given the short time we had before the deadline at this point, around three weeks. The process we were implementing was a grueling one, but essentially we would take it one scene at a time:

Draw a rough of the scene - > Complete the line work - > Add colour to the scene - > Animate the Scene - > Repeat this process

We did it this way to keep things organised, especially with so many separate elements and scenes going on it made sure that nothing slipped through. Like I previously mentioned we divided the scenes up between us but focused on one of the stories at a time. So we weren't drawing scenes for all three of the animations at once, we were focusing on one at a time and completing it before moving on to the next animation; starting on the American animation, then the Asian animation, and finally the French animation. This was so the work flow was consistent across everyone, and everyone could be working all the time rather than people having to do all of their role before moving on to the next. It essentially sped up the whole process and meant everyone knew where everyone else was up to. This allowed us to encourage each other and communicate easily if we needed any feedback or assistance. Here are some examples of the work flow being implemented, with assets separated from backgrounds and some of the coloured drawings versus some of the initial drawings.