For me, this module has been a lot about discovering the process behind animation and specifically documentary animation, with an emphasis on finding my role within a team of people. My intention was to make the most of this opportunity as we had a lot of people behind the project, and had the potential to do something exceptional with the time we had. Working in a group like this made it so I was able to discover how I work in a group environment on an important project whilst also refining my time management skills and my capacity to communicate effectively. It also presented the opportunity to take on the role of director or some form of lead. Allocating this role wasn't something we discussed as a group and attempted to do, but I found that sometimes decisions had to be made quickly to make a quicker progression throughout the project. Furthermore, having someone to suggest the next step helps a lot in terms of making it less like a discussion and just moving forward.
Dividing the work in this way meant that we all had to adapt and learn as we went along. Fortunately, due to the project length it was quite forgiving in terms of rectifying mistakes. The biggest problems I faced throughout the module was making sure everything worked in a cohesive and organised way. For example, making sure that work was prepared so that the next person in the pipeline could complete their section of the work and essentially making sure everyhing ran smoothly. In addition, as communication was so vital to the project it was important everyone had a voice and maintained a good level of morale as the project progressed. There were times where we prioritised the project much less than we could have and thus made it more difficult for ourselves when we resumed work. I believe if I had prior experience with working in this way that I could have been better taking on the directorial role within the group, but undertaking this brief has definitely given me valuable experience in this area. Despite this I'm pleased to say that I enjoyed working with Gavin and Callum, and ultimately we all contributed a lot to the successful completion of our animation. We were able to manage the workload relatively well and distribute the different tasks in a steady way to develop a good working process. I think something that helped us solve the brief was that everyone involved was encouraged to utilise their strengths. Given the format of pre-production, production and post-prodction, we were able to allocate individuals to one or two of those areas so that we could all work in a way we were most profficient. This in turn allowed everyone to learn from one another, whilst also making sure we produced high quality work. There were many occasions over the course of the brief that I felt like I needed to step up and work harder than I was doing, to ensure I didn't bring the quality of our groups work down.
I think if my group and I had more time to refine and experiment further with the visuals and the animation as a whole I think there is a few things that I would have liked to change. When we started the project we had several ideas for approaches that could have been quite nice to see tried out, however due to time constraints we were unable to do this. If it had worked however, it could have meant having other mediums and techniques incorporated into our animation. As well as this, I believe it would have been beneficial to the animation to include more movement using the method of cutting out still frames of an object and sequencing them together to create a moving silhouette, as when this was applied it was quite successful. Dur to conflicting priorities with other modules it meant that we had to think carefully both as individuals and as a group when prioritising work. This meant we had to take every opportunity to meet and discuss the work produced and progress made. If we hadn't taken the opportunities we had earlier in the project it would have been much more difficult to meet the deadline. Despite not using any particularly new techniques for this project I was able to revisit various pieces of software and explore some new functions within them. For example, the use of vector images in Adobe Illustrator and preparing assets for laser cutting. I also used Premiere Pro, After Effects and Photoshop at different stages in the project. Other software I used includes ApS Ethos or laser cutting. In this sense I was refining my knowledge of processes I've used previously and I believe overall I've learnt a lot that I didn't know previously before I began this project.
I think now the process is complete I'm relatively happy with the outcome, and I think our documentary is an example of a piece that is much greater than the individual parts that make it up. As together the music, visuals and narration work quite well. I didn't use anything I hadn't used before to make the animation, and I think for me, all of the learning was done outside of the making process. I've improved a lot in areas such as scriptwriting, team work and collaboration, organisation and thinking about the audience the work is intended for. It has been a good experience in this sense, and working with people who have different strengths to you is also a good way to learn about other areas of the process. In addition, this has furthered my knowledge of the way collaboration works and in a sense has been another introduction to the way collaboration works in industry. Overall, I'm pleased with the work I've put in and produced during this module, however if I had committed more to the module earlier on I may have been able to do produce a much stronger iteration of what I did. I'm hoping that I can build upon what I've learnt throughout the entirety of the module across all areas and apply it to other types of work I do in the future.
Monday 9 May 2016
Sunday 8 May 2016
OUAN505 - DVD Cover Design
Near the end of the project and once the animation itself was finished it was a good time to start making the DVD cover to present our submission and final animation in. I volunteered to make the cover which meant the first thing I had to do was find the dimensions of a DVD cover, including the spine. I found a really good template online where the image itself was the correct dimensions of a DVD cover, so I saved it and imported it into Photoshop to make sure I got the correct dimensions and knew where the spine was so I could work with both the front and back of the cover. By putting the template onto the top most layer in Photoshop and changing the opacity to around 40% it meant that I could see where I was placing images and text in relation to the front cover, back cover and spine at all times.
When it came to the actual design we decided to use the image of the Earth because that was quite a general image to use for a cover and represented the documentaries content quite well because of its repeated use throughout. During the making process I thought that the image of the Earth alone may be quite vague so I took the final image of the documentary and made it into a silhouette of trees to demonstrate that the documentary was about deforestation. Creating this ring of trees around the whole cover including the spine is something I quite liked and after overlaying certain colours and adjusting the layer properties I came to a colour scheme I quite liked, a dark green. Following this came the smaller details of a DVD cover such as legal information, certifications and titles. In an effort to make the cover as professional and authentic as possible I first of all included a studio logo and the DVD logo. I went with 'Sony Entertainment' because I quite like the logo and it's a well known distributor of films. I also decided to include the title, 'Axed', on the front and back covers as well as the spine so that it can be seen from the front or if the DVD is stacked on book shelf for example. The blurb was written by Callum and I think it communicates well what the documentary is about and what an audience can expect to see and find out through watching the documentary. The type faced used here is the same as within the documentary for consistency across all of the material associated with it, and it works quite well for this because it is a relatively formal type. The last detail I added was a small bit of text at the bottom of the front cover that reads, 'Sony Entertainment Pictures Presents a Documentary by Callum Park, Gavin Rae, Joe Baker' because often the director or creators names are visible on the front of a DVD cover. Finally I added various certifications from the BBFC and the Irish film board which is common to see on DVDs that are distributed in the UK. Overall I think the cover communicates quite well the content and the themes of the documentary as well as looking seemingly authentic.
When it came to the actual design we decided to use the image of the Earth because that was quite a general image to use for a cover and represented the documentaries content quite well because of its repeated use throughout. During the making process I thought that the image of the Earth alone may be quite vague so I took the final image of the documentary and made it into a silhouette of trees to demonstrate that the documentary was about deforestation. Creating this ring of trees around the whole cover including the spine is something I quite liked and after overlaying certain colours and adjusting the layer properties I came to a colour scheme I quite liked, a dark green. Following this came the smaller details of a DVD cover such as legal information, certifications and titles. In an effort to make the cover as professional and authentic as possible I first of all included a studio logo and the DVD logo. I went with 'Sony Entertainment' because I quite like the logo and it's a well known distributor of films. I also decided to include the title, 'Axed', on the front and back covers as well as the spine so that it can be seen from the front or if the DVD is stacked on book shelf for example. The blurb was written by Callum and I think it communicates well what the documentary is about and what an audience can expect to see and find out through watching the documentary. The type faced used here is the same as within the documentary for consistency across all of the material associated with it, and it works quite well for this because it is a relatively formal type. The last detail I added was a small bit of text at the bottom of the front cover that reads, 'Sony Entertainment Pictures Presents a Documentary by Callum Park, Gavin Rae, Joe Baker' because often the director or creators names are visible on the front of a DVD cover. Finally I added various certifications from the BBFC and the Irish film board which is common to see on DVDs that are distributed in the UK. Overall I think the cover communicates quite well the content and the themes of the documentary as well as looking seemingly authentic.
OUAN505 - Post Production
After the sequencing and colour grading was done the last task in the post-production stage was to add and titles, credits and other pieces of text that we had planned to include. During the planning stage we decided we wanted to reinforce any statistics or facts we mentioned with a visual accompaniment, so when the narration says that '31% of the worlds land surface is covered in forest' there would be a representation on screen of the '31%' emphasising the statement. We planned to do this again made from paper at the beginning but in one of our conversations with Martin he suggested using this more frequently where we could so that it isn't so random and more of another element within the documentary. We decided it would be good to do this in the post-production stage as it would be simpler and it meant we would have more control over the type of font we used and how we integrate it into the documentary. I decided to use a font called, 'Adam' as it is relatively simplistic but also has quite a distinct style to it that I thought would contrast to the detail in some of the scenes, as well as this it is formal in appearance and communicated the correct tone that we needed.
There is around ten instances of text appearing on screen throughout the documentary and I think I used it in the correct places to reinforce the visuals and the narration without having text on the screen all the time. My thinking was that when text appears on screen the audience is driven to read it and their attention is pulled away from the on screen visuals. So it was essentially used less frequently for a higher impact in the areas that it mattered most. In terms of transitions I've consistently used a fade for the text to appear and leave the screen. This is so that it is more subtle and fits in with the other smooth transitions throughout the documentary. Depending on the scene and the colours that were used the text was either black or white. Fortunately, there were no instances where the text wasn't visible and the black or white worked well in the cases it was used.
When it came to the titles and credits I decided to simply use white text on a black background. This worked well at both the beginning and the end of the animation because at the beginning the first scene is relatively dark, so the fade from a black title screen to the first scene isn't too jarring and appears to be quite a natural feed from one scene to another. At the end it also worked quite well because it's a fade to black that ends on a black credit screen so again there isn't much of a contrast. I thought it would be best to keep the credits relatively short and in terms of allocating specific credits at the end, since we all took on so many roles within the documentary I simply stated that it was 'created by' followed by our three names, and then gave credit to the music, as this was the only thing we sourced from elsewhere other than ourselves. We spoke a little about that we could call the animation, and threw various names about. I came up with 'Timber' and 'Axed' because I thought they were to the point and the single word had quite a high impact. Eventually we went with 'Axed' and so I placed this at the beginning of the documentary to introduce the animation.
There is around ten instances of text appearing on screen throughout the documentary and I think I used it in the correct places to reinforce the visuals and the narration without having text on the screen all the time. My thinking was that when text appears on screen the audience is driven to read it and their attention is pulled away from the on screen visuals. So it was essentially used less frequently for a higher impact in the areas that it mattered most. In terms of transitions I've consistently used a fade for the text to appear and leave the screen. This is so that it is more subtle and fits in with the other smooth transitions throughout the documentary. Depending on the scene and the colours that were used the text was either black or white. Fortunately, there were no instances where the text wasn't visible and the black or white worked well in the cases it was used.
When it came to the titles and credits I decided to simply use white text on a black background. This worked well at both the beginning and the end of the animation because at the beginning the first scene is relatively dark, so the fade from a black title screen to the first scene isn't too jarring and appears to be quite a natural feed from one scene to another. At the end it also worked quite well because it's a fade to black that ends on a black credit screen so again there isn't much of a contrast. I thought it would be best to keep the credits relatively short and in terms of allocating specific credits at the end, since we all took on so many roles within the documentary I simply stated that it was 'created by' followed by our three names, and then gave credit to the music, as this was the only thing we sourced from elsewhere other than ourselves. We spoke a little about that we could call the animation, and threw various names about. I came up with 'Timber' and 'Axed' because I thought they were to the point and the single word had quite a high impact. Eventually we went with 'Axed' and so I placed this at the beginning of the documentary to introduce the animation.
OUAN505 - Colour Grading
Something that I should have looked at earlier and alerted the group of, was the slight contrast in colour schemes from scene to scene. To counter this I decided to do some colour grading on the whole animation so that there is more of a cohesive colour scheme throughout the documentary. The use of colour grading in this instance had a variety of functions. Firstly, it made the documentary appear and feel more cinematic. Before hand the colours were somewhat normal in that the shadows and dark areas were simply black and the lighter areas contained a lot of white. Using the 'three-way colour corrector' tool on Premiere Pro I adjusted the colours so that the darker areas would be a deep blue and the lighter areas would be tinted slightly yellow. I thought this had a much better look to it and meant that scenes throughout the animation had a similar use of colour that could be seen quite easily, rather than a contrast from scene to scene. The darker blue tones are most evident in the shots of the Earth where a lot of the scene is comprised with previously black or dark colours. Finally the use of colour grading here meant that in my opinion the animation has a much clearer and overall superior aesthetic. Before, it didn't have a clear colour scheme that was recurring throughout and although some scenes look a lot different from other due to what they are depicting, for example the colours in a rainforest scene to the colours in a scene set in space, they do now have some overlap in that there will be flecks of dark blue and a yellow tint across them.
Overall I think the consideration of colour on the animation has a whole has helped to increase its appeal from a visual stand point and somewhat gotten rid of any clashing of colours from scene to scene. As well as this it adds a lot of cinematic colouring to the scenes and in my opinion makes it feel more dramatic because the colours and dulled down and neutralised - reinforcing the seriousness of the issue being depicted.
Overall I think the consideration of colour on the animation has a whole has helped to increase its appeal from a visual stand point and somewhat gotten rid of any clashing of colours from scene to scene. As well as this it adds a lot of cinematic colouring to the scenes and in my opinion makes it feel more dramatic because the colours and dulled down and neutralised - reinforcing the seriousness of the issue being depicted.
OUAN505 - Sequencing Work
After all the scenes were completed I went through the script and made sure that everything we needed in terms of narration and visuals was ready to be sequenced together into a final order. This was a much more relaxed task than the work leading up to it so it was good to be able to start really putting all the work we had done together. For me there were several elements that needed to be included in the final sequencing which was the scenes we had created and then the narration to match up with the visuals, and finally the music we had chosen to use. Some of the scenes were already linked together with others such as the outro scene and some of the first scenes in the documentary because they are sequenced together by a page turn transition that was done earlier in the production process. So this stage was all about making sure everything fitted together in a cohesive way and with a nice pacing. In total there were around seven clips to arrange and about seven pieces of narration to sequence together. I found that despite we did have some exact timings set up for the documentary in practice and due to the way some elements of the visuals ended up, I had to make some small adjustments to make the flow of the animation much better. There was also the limitation of time, and fitting everything under the two minute limit that we were allocated. I think the animation ended up being around 2 minutes and 8 seconds without the credits included so I had to go back and take out small pauses where I could to fit it just within the 2 minute time frame. I actually think this improved the pacing a little as the pace was marginally quicker and I removed a section in the middle of the animation that was unnecessary in hind sight.
Once the narration and the visuals were completed and I didn't think anything could be improved I exported the file and then imported it back into Premiere Pro to add in the music we had chosen. Out of the eight tracks we liked from the playlist we were given, 'Into The Wild' was in my opinion the most appropriate and also fitted rather well with the tone of Callum's narration. It was also a reasonable length at around 1:40, meaning that it fitted quite well within the length of our animation and it wouldn't have to be cut short. I did have to stretch the track out by around 15-20% so that it was a better match to the length but fortunately it wasn't detrimental to the quality of the music and still had the same effect as the track playing at normal speed.
One minor set back that occurred during this process is when attempting to export the file for the first time with the clips of narration in the sequence Premiere Pro was only exporting around half the audio, and on the exported file the audio would cut off randomly. I realised that this was due to either a RAM or a storage problem on the college computers, so I closed down all of the open programs I was using and cleared as many of my home folders as I could before it eventually exported correctly and I could continue with the post-production process. Apart from this the sequencing process went as well as it could and I'm pleased with the variety and number of scenes that we were able to create as a group. My concern in the project before this stage was that we wouldn't have enough of a variety of scenes to compliment the amount of information that is conveyed in the narration and that there would be a number of points within the animation where a scene was paced too slowly to 'fill gaps'. This wasn't the case however, and now that the animation has been put together there is a great range of visuals and scenes for the audience to view in conjunction with the music and narration. In addition, and this always seems to be the case - the addition of music to the animation brought the quality up a huge amount from what it was without the music. The narration by itself without sound effects and a soundtrack sounded bland and uninteresting, but once the use of sound effects and the beginning and the music was added the documentary had a whole new feel to it. I would consider this stage of the project a success and my team supplied everything I needed to complete the production/early post-production stages of the project.
Once the narration and the visuals were completed and I didn't think anything could be improved I exported the file and then imported it back into Premiere Pro to add in the music we had chosen. Out of the eight tracks we liked from the playlist we were given, 'Into The Wild' was in my opinion the most appropriate and also fitted rather well with the tone of Callum's narration. It was also a reasonable length at around 1:40, meaning that it fitted quite well within the length of our animation and it wouldn't have to be cut short. I did have to stretch the track out by around 15-20% so that it was a better match to the length but fortunately it wasn't detrimental to the quality of the music and still had the same effect as the track playing at normal speed.
One minor set back that occurred during this process is when attempting to export the file for the first time with the clips of narration in the sequence Premiere Pro was only exporting around half the audio, and on the exported file the audio would cut off randomly. I realised that this was due to either a RAM or a storage problem on the college computers, so I closed down all of the open programs I was using and cleared as many of my home folders as I could before it eventually exported correctly and I could continue with the post-production process. Apart from this the sequencing process went as well as it could and I'm pleased with the variety and number of scenes that we were able to create as a group. My concern in the project before this stage was that we wouldn't have enough of a variety of scenes to compliment the amount of information that is conveyed in the narration and that there would be a number of points within the animation where a scene was paced too slowly to 'fill gaps'. This wasn't the case however, and now that the animation has been put together there is a great range of visuals and scenes for the audience to view in conjunction with the music and narration. In addition, and this always seems to be the case - the addition of music to the animation brought the quality up a huge amount from what it was without the music. The narration by itself without sound effects and a soundtrack sounded bland and uninteresting, but once the use of sound effects and the beginning and the music was added the documentary had a whole new feel to it. I would consider this stage of the project a success and my team supplied everything I needed to complete the production/early post-production stages of the project.
OUAN505 - Merging Scenes
The final scene of the animation is four separate panels each containing a different forest coming together over the top of the previous scene. Visually this was to represent the idea that there are a number of areas in the world being affected by deforestation, not just North America or the Amazon. To illustrate this more clearly we attempted to use different types of trees for each of the scenes as well as different colours depending on the colours of the trees from different regions. However, this scene and the scene before it were done separately so I had to merge them in order to complete the effect before rendering it out as a sequence. I took the outro scene which was the scene containing the four panels and the previous scene to this (scene 4) and ordered them so that the panels would come in on top of the previous scene. This was fairly simple but it did take a little bit of trial and error to make sure that the timings were correct and the audio as well as the narration matched up correctly with the moving visuals on screen. With this project I've found because of the approach we were taking and the combination of narration which is specific to the visuals as well as the quite thoroughly planned out visuals lasting a certain amount of time without much room for change made it so problem solving and over coming hurdles was quite important. This part of the project was another small example of that as the visuals had to be adjusted to fit the timing of the narration, which was the one unchangeable aspect of the documentary.
Friday 6 May 2016
OUAN505 - Finalising the Forest Scene
The forest scene was one of the first scenes we came up with as a group. The idea of having a moving shot of the paper cut outs really appealed to us, and this was the sequence of scenes it featured in. Gavin produced the bulk of the scene and I only had to change a couple of things before it was finalised for the final animation. Firstly, the Earth scenes that were used looked too over exposed and needed to be dulled down. I simply replaced these with the original shot of the Earth we had so that there was consistency through the animation and it also looked a higher resolution because the image hadn't been resized. After rendering the scene from After Effects and listening back to make sure everything was as it should be, I realised that the two shots of the Earth within this specific sequence were virtually identical. To add variation to the scenes and to make it so they had a better purpose whilst tying it in to the narrative I decided to make some adjustments. The first time it is shown it's illustrating the point that trees help make up the Earth's atmosphere. To emphasis this I created a blue ring to go round the outside of the Earth on Photoshop and for the duration of the scene altered the opacity between about 10-50% so that it was obvious to the audience what was being visualised. The second time the shot is on screen it is so visualise the idea of climate change. To link both scenes together I added a red ring around the outside and proceeded to create the same effect by altering the opacity - again visualising the point that was being addressed in the narration.
I think there are certain areas of the animation that do need additional things like this to make sure that the audience fully grasps the concepts being talked about, otherwise there would be no real reason to have visuals - so they have to be complimentary to the narration and not detrimental. Aside from the practical aspect it does add something to the scene in terms of movement and we were going for the subtle but necessary style when it came to moving images and the amount of movement we included. I also think we have been relatively efficient in terms of the imagery that have been used, and reusing this particular scene several times throughout the duration of the animation isn't an issue as long as it is consistent. In a way it become recognisable for the audience and the way it has been used on each scene where the narration mentions the Earth as a whole instead of just a specific aspect of the world means that its even more evident what is being discussed.
I think there are certain areas of the animation that do need additional things like this to make sure that the audience fully grasps the concepts being talked about, otherwise there would be no real reason to have visuals - so they have to be complimentary to the narration and not detrimental. Aside from the practical aspect it does add something to the scene in terms of movement and we were going for the subtle but necessary style when it came to moving images and the amount of movement we included. I also think we have been relatively efficient in terms of the imagery that have been used, and reusing this particular scene several times throughout the duration of the animation isn't an issue as long as it is consistent. In a way it become recognisable for the audience and the way it has been used on each scene where the narration mentions the Earth as a whole instead of just a specific aspect of the world means that its even more evident what is being discussed.
Thursday 5 May 2016
OUAN505 - Sourcing Music
Music has been the topic of continual discussion throughout the course of the brief and the original idea was to have a friend of Gavin's create some music to accompany our animated documentary and ultimately have a piece of bespoke music that works well with the visuals we created. However, as the project neared the deadline, Callum and I thought it would be good to prepare for the scenario that the music wasn't able to be completed in time and source some royalty free music just in case we had to resort to that. We were quite fond of the music used in the 'in a nutshell sereies' by one of our main references for the project: Kurzgesagt. The music in the series is always apparent to the audience but is complimentary to the visuals and isn't intrusive on any of the other sounds used or the voiceover narration. We emailed the author of the music to enquire if it was open to relicensing or if we could use it for our project. However, due to the agreement between the author of the music and Kurzgesagt the music is not available to be owned by anyone else. We were told however, that they have a range of other music that is available to be used and they said they are always open to helping students and encourage personal projects. They gave us a playlist of licenseable music that we would be able to use for our project and there is a whole range of tracks that would suit our project really well, I think we need to have a listen to the tracks in combination with the visuals and narration once everything is sequenced together so that we can decide what looks to be the best suited music for our project.
On 3rd May, about a week before the deadline, Gavin's friend told him that he won't be able to finish the music in good time. There was still a lot of time to source music if we needed it and it's good that he informed us of this with around a week to go. Due to this we will be using one of the tracks off the playlist by 'Epic Mountain Music' for the main background track in our animated documentary. Epic Mountain have a 'direct music licensing' playlist in which they are happy for people to use for projects such as this one as long as they are non profit or purposes such as ours, educational. I will make sure to include the track we used in the credits so that we aren't using it without making sure they are credited for their music. After listening through the tracks on the playlist my favourites for the project are:
These songs have a subtlety to them through the use of strings that means they won't be at all intrusive on the narration, and can be played at any volume of varying level throughout the documentary without any real problem. Furthermore they all sound like quite serious tracks, some of the tracks I listened to on the playlist sounded a little more 'fun' and less formal than I would have liked but the few I have chosen to look at further fit the animation theme quite well I think. They also have a sense of drama in them that may help to highlight the narration and give the whole animation some 'umph'. The next step from here will be in post-production where I play the tracks over the finished animation to see which fits best and what effect the visuals and the music have in relation to one another, and that is when I shall pick a final track for the animation.
On 3rd May, about a week before the deadline, Gavin's friend told him that he won't be able to finish the music in good time. There was still a lot of time to source music if we needed it and it's good that he informed us of this with around a week to go. Due to this we will be using one of the tracks off the playlist by 'Epic Mountain Music' for the main background track in our animated documentary. Epic Mountain have a 'direct music licensing' playlist in which they are happy for people to use for projects such as this one as long as they are non profit or purposes such as ours, educational. I will make sure to include the track we used in the credits so that we aren't using it without making sure they are credited for their music. After listening through the tracks on the playlist my favourites for the project are:
- Zero Gravity
- Space Travel
- Circular
- Rising Sky
- Discover The Light
- Makalu
- Behind The Mirror
- Into The Wild
These songs have a subtlety to them through the use of strings that means they won't be at all intrusive on the narration, and can be played at any volume of varying level throughout the documentary without any real problem. Furthermore they all sound like quite serious tracks, some of the tracks I listened to on the playlist sounded a little more 'fun' and less formal than I would have liked but the few I have chosen to look at further fit the animation theme quite well I think. They also have a sense of drama in them that may help to highlight the narration and give the whole animation some 'umph'. The next step from here will be in post-production where I play the tracks over the finished animation to see which fits best and what effect the visuals and the music have in relation to one another, and that is when I shall pick a final track for the animation.
OUAN505 - Changes to Scene 3
As the project progressed one of the roles I took on and was suggested to take on by Callum was more of a directorial role. This actually was quite an interesting position to take, and it worked to an extent because the method we were using for the project was an idea that I had nearer the beginning of the brief and all of my ideas were contained in my head. The ability to go to Callum and Gavin and ask them to change aspects of a scene or do something a different way without feeling like I was being controlling or too forward was quite a good position to have. It also made it so that we could talk more openly about the changes that could or should be made without feeling like we were disrespecting each others work. I think this type of hierarchy when it came to the style of the documentary made our communication as a team stronger and more productive. Numerous times where Gavin, for example was working on a scene he would ask me for my opinion and I would suggest changes to what he was doing. It's always good to get opinions and feedback on work anyway but this made it more of a steady production chain than just having a crit session when it came to gathering feedback. So, across the scenes we all worked on independently we were sharing what we had done at all stages. Being in charge if the visuals also meant that the style throughout the whole production was consistent and clean rather than having three seperate styles coming together. It's taken me a while to realise the benefits of having a person to make decisions rather than coming to a compromise for every action that has to be made. Doing so makes the work produced clash because of the mix of styles and decisions that are made as individuals so this approach I think worked quite well, but perhaps we should have adapted this a little earlier on in the brief. I feel quite heavily responsible for this project and making sure it went smoothly because early on I pushed the idea of producing the animation in paper and use cutouts to comprise scenes, so the pressure to make sure we all benefited from the experience was present with me from start to finish.
An example of this in action is in a scene that Gavin did, the third sequence in the animation. The visuals represent the Earth as a whole before the narration discussed the impacts of logging, fuel wood harvesting and forest fires being big factors in the amount of forest that is removed. Initially we had the scenes switching from one to another, but it didn't seem to flow particularly well and felt clunky. I experimented with overlapping the different scenes using a mixture of blending options and changing the opacity and I think it worked quite well. Earlier on in the project as agreed as a group that something that would contribute a lot to the success of the documentary since there wasn't much movement was imaginative and interesting transitions from scene to scene, so this was an attempt to implement this idea. Using effects such as fades made the scene feel a lot smoother overall and less like it was just a number of straight cuts from scene to scene. The last thought process for me behind this idea is that since we were using paper the objects and shapes are very simple and are essentially silhouettes. By layering objects and changing the layer properties and adjusting the opacity it means that a layered paper effect is achieved, which in turn makes the objects and the scenes feel more complex.
An example of this in action is in a scene that Gavin did, the third sequence in the animation. The visuals represent the Earth as a whole before the narration discussed the impacts of logging, fuel wood harvesting and forest fires being big factors in the amount of forest that is removed. Initially we had the scenes switching from one to another, but it didn't seem to flow particularly well and felt clunky. I experimented with overlapping the different scenes using a mixture of blending options and changing the opacity and I think it worked quite well. Earlier on in the project as agreed as a group that something that would contribute a lot to the success of the documentary since there wasn't much movement was imaginative and interesting transitions from scene to scene, so this was an attempt to implement this idea. Using effects such as fades made the scene feel a lot smoother overall and less like it was just a number of straight cuts from scene to scene. The last thought process for me behind this idea is that since we were using paper the objects and shapes are very simple and are essentially silhouettes. By layering objects and changing the layer properties and adjusting the opacity it means that a layered paper effect is achieved, which in turn makes the objects and the scenes feel more complex.
OUAN505 - Animating 'The Lungs of the World'
The way we were producing this particular animation meant we relied heavily on simple movement and visual accompaniment to the narration as oppose to sophisticated movement as it would have been too much information for the audience and could have been overwhelming. The animation for the 'lungs of the world' scene was an example of this very simple movement to illustrate the point being made in the voice over. After Effects was used to create the simple level of animation we needed and it was no different here. I prepared the assets in Photoshop and made sure to keep everything on a seperate layer so that any aspect of the scene could be moved and adjusted later. The right lung in the scene was comprised of three different sections each getting progressively smaller so that they could be removed from the scene and it would appear like the lungs of the forest were in a sense, shrinking away or being removed - relating back to deforestation. Even though I wasn't originally part of the production team doing smaller tasks like this one meant that the work was divided a bit more equally during the production process and also made it so that both Callum and Gavin don't have to worry about this scene and can concentrate on the others. It just made sense for me to take on some more work since I wasn't meant to be doing anything during the production stage. I don't really like the regimented system that was implented in our group at the beginning. Gavin opted out of pre-production as the project began so it meant it was shared between Callum I, with myself doing the majority because Callum was planned to also work on the production stage most. I think if we had all split the project up more equally across all stages it would mean that the project would have been a lot quicker and more work would have been done. I recognise that everyone has their strengths within processes like this and that's where the division of labour comes in, but at the same time if we had implented a 'lead' for each section of the process with the others in the group helping where they could I think it would have been more efficient and allowed us to move through the project at a much quicker speed that we have been.
This scene was a very easy scene to do but nothing of any real difficulty was really present in the animation side of the project as we relied on the shapes of paper cuts and the visual side of things more than the movement. Perhaps some other aspects could have been moved like clouds in the sky or the sun setting to make the scene more interesting. At the same time however, I was concerned that if too much is going on the audience won't pick up on the significance of the sections of lungs dissappearing and the scene wouldn't have the impact we desired.
This scene was a very easy scene to do but nothing of any real difficulty was really present in the animation side of the project as we relied on the shapes of paper cuts and the visual side of things more than the movement. Perhaps some other aspects could have been moved like clouds in the sky or the sun setting to make the scene more interesting. At the same time however, I was concerned that if too much is going on the audience won't pick up on the significance of the sections of lungs dissappearing and the scene wouldn't have the impact we desired.
Wednesday 4 May 2016
OUAN505 - Paper Fruit Bowl
The next scene I worked on to aid in the production process was the scene involving a fruit bowl. The aim of the scene was to accompany the narration which states that trees give humans what they need to survive, both in terms of food and oxygen. This scene is only on screen for a couple of seconds so it didn't have to be overly complicated, it just needed a smple fruit bowl to accompany the narration. I took some of the different paper I had been collecting over the course of the project from all of the different paper cuts I had done for different objects, so; orange, red, green, dark green, yellow and brown and cut various fruit shapes out of them to act as apples, plums, bananas and oranges. Once they were scanned in I adjusted the colours slightly to better suit the image and started placing them in the fruit bowl shape I had cut out. It was quite easy to arrange them in a way that was appealing and working as a composition. Doing this digitally also meant I had the ability to duplicate certain objects if I needed more of them, whilst being able to modify the sizes of different fruits was also helpful.
Some time was spent making the grapes and arranging the fruit in a way that I thought worked well. I had in mind from the beginning that two options for the scene was to have the fruit fall down into the bowl from above or alternatively, just use it as a still image when the scene comes onscreen. The final step for this scene was to include a background so I added a simple table and a background colour. Callum and Gavin liked what had been done and so I passed it onto Gavin to animate and start incorporating it in with the other scenes that had been completed.
Some time was spent making the grapes and arranging the fruit in a way that I thought worked well. I had in mind from the beginning that two options for the scene was to have the fruit fall down into the bowl from above or alternatively, just use it as a still image when the scene comes onscreen. The final step for this scene was to include a background so I added a simple table and a background colour. Callum and Gavin liked what had been done and so I passed it onto Gavin to animate and start incorporating it in with the other scenes that had been completed.
OUAN505 - 'The Lungs of the World'
As time was pressing on within the project I thought it would be better considering the work load that was remaining to take on a couple of the scenes that were left. One of the scenes I took on to work with was the scene we called 'the lungs of the world'. This was essentially a scene consisting of paper lungs surrounded a background in the Amazon rainforest. The right 'lung' has three seperate components of different sizes and getting increasingly smaller. The ideas was to have them fade away slowly until just a small part of the lung remained. This reduction in size is representitive of the deforestation occuring in the Amazon rainforest which is often referred to as the 'lungs of the world'. Once the paper components were scanned in and arranged I thought that the shapes running through the lungs would look better if they were extended as they were shortened by the laser cutter cutting them a little too short. To do this the 'liquify' tool was used on Photoshop to drag and twist the shapes making them look a lot longer, and covering a larger area of the lungs. This improved the scene a lot in my opinion and the added detail brought up the visual quality of the image. Once the lungs were in place I created a background using various paper cutouts that I had used over the course of the project, they were quite random in their shape and this worked quite well to create almost a collage type effect for the background - acting as the rainforest from distance. The last thing that was added to the scene was a sky, simply by painting blue and orange in the area left for the sky I was able to create a 'sunset' feel. To complete this and tie the scene together I added a slightly orange hue to the whole image making it look like the scene is set as the sun is setting.
I spent some time finalising the scene by altering the colour of different areas in order to create a greater contrast between the different shapes and between the lungs and the background. I spoke to Callum to see what he thought and he thought the lungs needed to stand out more than they did so I worked on that to make sure they were clearly visible. He also said that there was a little too much texture on the background and it wouldn't fit as well with other scenes that have created that don't have as much texture on them. I used a 'cutout' filter to simplify the level of detal and simplicity on the shapes so that the level of detail was close to that other the other scenes. It was helpful talking over scenes with Callum so that we could come to a mutual understanding on what we needed from each scene and also discuss the best direction a scene could go in. It was really helpful when trying to work out the best combination of colours for this scene, and when thinking about the positioning of the different objects.
I spent some time finalising the scene by altering the colour of different areas in order to create a greater contrast between the different shapes and between the lungs and the background. I spoke to Callum to see what he thought and he thought the lungs needed to stand out more than they did so I worked on that to make sure they were clearly visible. He also said that there was a little too much texture on the background and it wouldn't fit as well with other scenes that have created that don't have as much texture on them. I used a 'cutout' filter to simplify the level of detal and simplicity on the shapes so that the level of detail was close to that other the other scenes. It was helpful talking over scenes with Callum so that we could come to a mutual understanding on what we needed from each scene and also discuss the best direction a scene could go in. It was really helpful when trying to work out the best combination of colours for this scene, and when thinking about the positioning of the different objects.
Monday 2 May 2016
OUAN505 - Group Dynamics / Communication
As a group throughout this project I think our communication has been rather good and we've been able to utilise everyone type of communication online as well as in person to make sure that everyone knows where the project is and where it's going. The use of social media, Google drive and E-mail in my opinion have been quite important to ensuring the progression of the project in a more efficient way than it would have been otherwise if we hadn't been able to discuss the project outside of the classroom.
There has been a good understanding of each others roles and responsibilities within the group, and I was pleased that everyone remembered which part of the project they were in leading. For example, when it was time for the production stage, Callum and Gavin both took over and began working on that section of the project as I was delivering the assets they needed. Furthermore, it was good to know that they were keen to make progress and we would be asking each other on a regular basis where we were up to so that for example I had made some of the assets that required animation this could be done immediately rather than having them at hand but not making any progress. Most of our groups meetings took place on a Monday because this is when we had timetabled sessions for the module, but it also meant if any more progress worth talking discussing had been made over the weekend then we could regroup and talk about what we were going to do next. We did have extra sessions where we came together on alternative days and discussed the direction of the project but this happened more frequently in the early stages. I'm pleased that as a group everyone was so good at vocalising ideas and using the tools we had available to us to inform one another of our progress as I think this project has rested heavily on generation of ideas and being able to discuss various thoughts we had with one another. I also think that we reassured each other throughout the project which kept us motivation to meet our goal of completing the animation to a standard that we were happy with. This was made slightly difficult in that we were using a medium none of us had used before, so this was another reason to make sure everyone understood the process we were using and our individual roles within that process. Up to now it's been quite successful and I'm confident that if we continue to work with the focus that we have had when we've been working on the project then we will finish before the deadline, and considering there isn't long left we will need to work hard as a team to make sure our goal is met and that the project is concluded in a successful and hopefully relatively relaxed manner.
There has been a good understanding of each others roles and responsibilities within the group, and I was pleased that everyone remembered which part of the project they were in leading. For example, when it was time for the production stage, Callum and Gavin both took over and began working on that section of the project as I was delivering the assets they needed. Furthermore, it was good to know that they were keen to make progress and we would be asking each other on a regular basis where we were up to so that for example I had made some of the assets that required animation this could be done immediately rather than having them at hand but not making any progress. Most of our groups meetings took place on a Monday because this is when we had timetabled sessions for the module, but it also meant if any more progress worth talking discussing had been made over the weekend then we could regroup and talk about what we were going to do next. We did have extra sessions where we came together on alternative days and discussed the direction of the project but this happened more frequently in the early stages. I'm pleased that as a group everyone was so good at vocalising ideas and using the tools we had available to us to inform one another of our progress as I think this project has rested heavily on generation of ideas and being able to discuss various thoughts we had with one another. I also think that we reassured each other throughout the project which kept us motivation to meet our goal of completing the animation to a standard that we were happy with. This was made slightly difficult in that we were using a medium none of us had used before, so this was another reason to make sure everyone understood the process we were using and our individual roles within that process. Up to now it's been quite successful and I'm confident that if we continue to work with the focus that we have had when we've been working on the project then we will finish before the deadline, and considering there isn't long left we will need to work hard as a team to make sure our goal is met and that the project is concluded in a successful and hopefully relatively relaxed manner.
OUAN505 - Final Crit
On the day of the final crit we showed the majority of the scenes we had at hand and discussed any final adjustments that could be made with Sara and Martin. At this point none of the scenes were sequenced together in a final way but were simply scenes strung together during the making process in After Effects, so this is what we showed. Up until this point the idea for transitioning between scenes was to have the objects and various sections of a scene move off screen to make way for the next scenes assets moving on screen. There were some issues raised with this during our final showing of the animation, particularly that the time it took to move the different aspects of the scenes in to place made it so time was lost where the audience could view the visuals and it wasn't a pleasant viewing experience because of this. In other words, it was over complicated and perhaps a little bit overkill. We were told to tone this down or find an alternative way to link scenes together in a creative way. With this in mind we went away and found that we liked the idea of having page turns to transition from scene to scene. Using a page turn made it feel like reading a book, and since the animation was made of paper this had a certain charm to it that worked quite well. The page turn from scene to scene is quite a nice effect but we didn't end up using it for every single transition because it lost some of the impact it had, so we tried to use it more sparingly.
This was the main point that was raised during our final crit, however Martin also mentioned the use of text to back up facts and statistics that we were discussing in the narration. He was referring back to a conversation we had earlier in the project as a group about the use of text and he mentioned again during the crit to highlight as many of the statistics as possible to aid the audience in understanding the importance of what is being said. A positive that was mentioned after showing what we had done is that Sara said what we had done was really nice visually, and that the quality of the scenes was good but things like the transitions needed to be smoothed out. We were also asked about the music and if Gavin's friend was still able to produce it for us, we relayed what we had decided within the group that we're collecting a back up soundtrack in case we don't get the music in time but it that it would be good to get the music done specifically for us. Finally, there was also a concern because of the perhaps lack of completed scenes we had to show that we wouldn't be able to finish on time. However, we had a lot of scenes in the works that just weren't ready to be shown. I do understand the concern and I think we will be able to finish in enough time. At this point I think everyone knows what they have to do and what is left to be completed and because of this I don't think that we won't be finished in time and the animation will be completed when the deadline comes.
This was the main point that was raised during our final crit, however Martin also mentioned the use of text to back up facts and statistics that we were discussing in the narration. He was referring back to a conversation we had earlier in the project as a group about the use of text and he mentioned again during the crit to highlight as many of the statistics as possible to aid the audience in understanding the importance of what is being said. A positive that was mentioned after showing what we had done is that Sara said what we had done was really nice visually, and that the quality of the scenes was good but things like the transitions needed to be smoothed out. We were also asked about the music and if Gavin's friend was still able to produce it for us, we relayed what we had decided within the group that we're collecting a back up soundtrack in case we don't get the music in time but it that it would be good to get the music done specifically for us. Finally, there was also a concern because of the perhaps lack of completed scenes we had to show that we wouldn't be able to finish on time. However, we had a lot of scenes in the works that just weren't ready to be shown. I do understand the concern and I think we will be able to finish in enough time. At this point I think everyone knows what they have to do and what is left to be completed and because of this I don't think that we won't be finished in time and the animation will be completed when the deadline comes.
OUAN505 - Laser Cutting Final Elements
After talking with Callum and Gavin I made a list of the remaining scenes that we needed to complete and noted down all of the different assets that were required to bring the final scenes together. I had planned around five or six different extra aspects of the scenes including a fire sequence, more trees for variation from scenes to scene and the lungs for the 'lungs of the world' scene. I've tried to illustrate the process I use when cutting assets using the laser cutter through Photographs, but usually once the objects are drawn in illustrator they are then imported into a piece of software called 'ApS Ethos'. Ethos is an industry piece of software used for things like embroidery design, laser Cutting and laser engraving. The way it works is by taking a vector path and cutting the path onto an object, which for the purpose of this project is paper. Once the illustrator files have been imported into Ethos the paper is placed into the laser cutter and the origin is set so that the laser cutter knows the dimensions of the workspace. Following this, the object is cut out. I like using the laser cutter for creating assets in this way because it's efficient and gives great results. The quality of the shapes and drawings really relies on the path that's drawn all the way back in illustrator - so it's important to make sure they're of a high standard before they're cut out. One issue I did have with the method I was using is that the laser cutter was going over the same path two or three times each time an object was being cut. This had a number of negative effects, for example, it made the process two or three times longer because it was essentially doing the same job several times. As well as this because the laser was going over the line several times it meant that extra sections of the design was cut away. To rectify this where I could, in the instances where there was a single object being cut I decided to stop the laser cutter after it had gone over the shape just once in order to save it from being damaged. I'm not sure why this was happening and I've heard that other people have been having the same problem so I can only assume that it was a fault in the software or the presets that had been designated to the material settings on ApS Ethos.
The use of the laser cutter has been vital to the success and steady progression of the project. I've tried to do as many sessions with the laser cutter as was necessary to make sure assets are ready for both Gavin and Callum. This was made a little more difficult by the popularity of the tool and the hour slot that is allocated when its booked sometimes wasn't enough to do everything that we wanted to. Despite this it's been good to use and I've learnt a lot about how to create nicely cut assets using paper in quite an efficient way. As my roles throughout the project have been majority pre and post production I think it was a good thing that I was able to supply the production side of things with a steady flow of assets throughout the project. The way this project worked was to have he 'pre-production' stage running parralel to the production stage and essentially have a continuing feed of one into the other. This is not a standard method and not one that would normally use but in this case it worked quite well due to the high volume of assets that had to be created and the number of scenes that had to be compiled and rendered.
The use of the laser cutter has been vital to the success and steady progression of the project. I've tried to do as many sessions with the laser cutter as was necessary to make sure assets are ready for both Gavin and Callum. This was made a little more difficult by the popularity of the tool and the hour slot that is allocated when its booked sometimes wasn't enough to do everything that we wanted to. Despite this it's been good to use and I've learnt a lot about how to create nicely cut assets using paper in quite an efficient way. As my roles throughout the project have been majority pre and post production I think it was a good thing that I was able to supply the production side of things with a steady flow of assets throughout the project. The way this project worked was to have he 'pre-production' stage running parralel to the production stage and essentially have a continuing feed of one into the other. This is not a standard method and not one that would normally use but in this case it worked quite well due to the high volume of assets that had to be created and the number of scenes that had to be compiled and rendered.
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