LO3: The Final Animation

Here is the final animated product:

https://youtu.be/RH9yn9PJk4Q

LO3: How the animation fitted with the plan

Here, in video I created below, you can see clearly how the planned storyboard fits with final product. During the production however changes were made to the chosen shots, for the benefit of the product.


The storyboard vs the final animation. from George Allan on Vimeo.

LO3: Adding Audio and Editing the Animation

After creating and exporting the animated visuals, I then added sound effects and voice overs for the characters by myself using Adobe Premiere, which is video editing software. The screen shots of the edit can be seen below, where you can see that the shots have been pieced together in order to improve the animations timings. In some cases I had to slow some of the visuasl down, which meant the frame rate reduced, however this was required in order for some of the lip syncing to work correctly. You can see in the screenshot that all the visuasl are in the top layer of the edit, and all the music/sfx are in the bottom layer of the edit:

LO3: Creating the Animated Visuals

The animation I have made has been created on the program Adobe Animate. Adobe Animate allows me to create 2D frame-by-frame, since it allows me to draw seperate drawings in seperate keys which are layed out on a time line. Once all these drawings have been drawn (through the use of a graphics tablet) they are then played out smoothly at a high frame rate of 24.00 FPS in order to create the smooth illusion of momvement in my animations. The keys which I drawn in can be seen below:

The image you can see above are a group of keys on seperate layers. All these keys contain a seperate drawing, which then plays smoothly when played at a high frame rate. 

Another feature which I use on Adobe Animate, to create for example the impression that a monster is floating around in space, is a classic tween. Classic tweens is an effect which creates the transition of a moving shape by filling in the gap between to seperate key frames. Classic tweens look like this:

You can see that the classic frame has filled in the gap between two seperate key frames. If used correctly this can create the impression of objects moving from one location to another, and can also have many other different uses. 

When creating frame-by-frame animation, I draw using a graphics tablet, which you can see me using below. 

Adobe Animate also features a very useful tool called onion skinning, which is used by frame-by-frame animators to see faintly the frame they were drawing previously, in order for them to successfully draw a smooth frame to play after wards. An image of this is below. 

My animated visuasl were also created through the use of layers, which allowed me to layer visuals over the top of each other in order to create a clear sense of a 2D world which still contained space. I included a screen recording of the final animated visual for the last scene, which shows clearly how layers have been used in the animation, and will also give you more insight into the 2D animation process.

Screen Recording of the final scene of GALEXACO in Adobe Animate from George Allan on Vimeo.

LO2: SWOT Analysis for intended animation for the client

Strengths:

-I have previous experience creating both 2-D and stop-frame animations, meaning that the process will not take long, and I am unlikely to come across any problem's while animating.

-The brief allows me to have as much creative input as I like, since I enjoy creating narratives that are intended for a young-adult audience because I enjoy using adult humour.

-2D Animation allows me to freely create a sci-fi like world since I can simply draw the visuals/ideas I am trying to portray to the audience through the use of a graphics tablet. While as animating a sci-fi through stop motion would be a lot more difficult, since I would need to create physical objects.

-The characters I have designed can all be voiced by myself, since I enjoy voice acting, and the characters I created are all suitable to be voiced by my style of acting.

Weaknesses:

-2D animation is a long process which will take a huge amount of time and dedication to produce.

-Certain scenes may be difficult to animate, for example the shot where the yellow monster enters the planet's atmosphere may be a difficult shot to animate, due to the fluent animated visuals required for such a shot.

-Certain scenes animation style may come across as bumpy since I haven't refined my animation style to perfect fluency yet, which often is the desired atheistic that audiences are looking for when watching animated films

Opportunities:

-Creating this animation will allow me to explore my imagination in a way which can be shown to others visually.

-Creating this animation will also help improve my own skills at animation

-Creating this animation will be a valuable asset to my port-folio

-Creating this animtaion will establish the series I am attempting to create in my personal time in the for of a PILOT, which means that I will be getting my brand/idea out there on the internet.

Threats:

-When creating this animation, because some scenes will require me animate using a huge amount of layers, which will require a lot of graphic power to be used, risking my computer crashing, which would result in a huge loss of work if I didn't save my work regularly, this would result in the project being set back which would be unconvinient in terms of the milestones that have been set.

-When the animation is released online, it may result in no views or attention, since the animation has a low budget and no spending power to boost the views

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LO3: Optimising the animated visuals

When exporting the animated visuals from Adobe Animator to video form, in order to be edited on Adobe Premier in order to combine the visuals with audio, I ensured that the video was exported at 1080p, in order for the final video to be a suitable file size which can load quickly online, aswell as having a high definition.

When exporting the visuals, I also ensured that the Frames Per Second option (FPS) was set to 24.00. This is because in this modern age, that has been the frame rate which has been recognized to show the smoothest visuals possible, since 24 images that are played in a second can not be noticed by the human eye, meaning that the illusion of movement is going to perfect for a human audience. 

Also, as you can see in the screen shot above of the FPS option, you can see below that the size I have chosen for the animation's canvas is 1600 pixels wide and 900 pixels tall. This is because I wanted the video to contain the aspect ration 16:9 since this is aspect ratio used on most YouTube videos, due to most smart-phones and screens using that ratio. This is important since my animation will be distributed on YouTube, and therefore is most likely to be watched on a phone more than anything, since the target audience are 15 to 21 year olds, who are digital natives and therefore are likelt to use a smart phone . Therefore it is important for me that the audience sees as much in the frame as possible, in order for them to feel as submerged in the crazy world of GALEXACO as possible. 

LO2: Pre-Production Plan

LO2: Storyboard for animation

LO2: Visualisation of ideas

This is the concept art which I created digitally in order to refine my ideas for the final animation. In the piece below I was exploring the possible possibilities of what a spaceship would look like in the world of GALEXACO. Because the world is very comical I thought it would be interesting to give the spaceship a face.

In the piece below, I was trying to create a character which will possibly be shown in the second scene where an alien is murdered by a robot. I tried to make the character look almost super hero like, and I experimented with perspective in order to make the robot's hand appear like it is closer to the audience.

In this piece I was trying to create a location shot for the planet which the first scene will be based on. This piece also helped me work on my wavy style I chose  to draw the world I am creating.

The image below is a rough sketch of what the planet would look like where the fuel station GALEXACO resides from spaceship's point of view. This is a location shot which will make the audience aware of the planet which GALEXACO is based on, as well as the sci-fi genre GALEXACO fits into.

This was a sketch developing the character Mr Grooper, who is the boss of GALEXACO, and is meant to represent an angry manager, which the target audience should be familiar with. He is constantly angry with his employees, however this is understandable because his employees Fred and Doopy are very stupid.

This was a development of the hunter character who abducts the huge yellow alien in the first scene. The idea was to give him an Australian like hunters hat, in order to connote clearly to the audience that the character is a hunter.

This was a development of a small worm like alien who gets stepped on by the huge yellow monster in the first scene. This is because in the first scene a clear idea of theres always a bigger fish, since the yellow monster first steps on this seemingly insignificant worm, and is then abducted by a hunter.

This is a development of the setting GALEXACO, the idea is to show a run down planet, with a rubbish fuel station which is ran by idiots. The genre is a comedic take on sci-fi, so in order to show that clearly, on the planet you are able to see other planets which are close by, in a similiar way to the view from the planet Skywalker is first on in Star Wars Episode IV. The landscape is drawn in a sketch and rushed way because that is the style I am aiming to create in my animation, and also to show clearly the shabby nature of the fuel station. 

The two sketches bellow were drawings which helped me develop the sense of angle I wanted to create in this shot, which shows the yellow monster being abducted by the hunter alien. I made the aliens legs look bigger closer to the bottom left corner, in order for the alien's legs to create the illusion that they are closer to the "camera" this makes the shot look more cinematic, and creates  clear sense of space in the world of GALEXACO which makes the story more appealing to the audience. The difference between the two sketches, is that the bottom image was drawn using the animation software, in order to be drawn with smoother strokes, and better colours.

This was a development piece of the two main characters in GALEXACO, the left showing Doopy, the tall, dumb and dopey character (inspired by Butthead from Beavis and Butthead), the right showing Fred, the smaller, hard working and easily frustrated character. This was also an experiment with the colours I decided to use for the characters, since I haven't decided fully what colours I should use for the characters. All I had decided was that I wanted the characters to have very vibrant colours, in order to make the visuals maintain the audiences attention.

The image below shows a developmental piece which I thought came very close to the final style/colours I am going to use for the characters. I drew this piece using the animation software Adobe Animate again, in order to get used to drawing the characters using the software, since I am soon going to need to animate the characters. 

LO2: Be able to plan an animation to a client brief

BRIEF: Produce a comical animation for a target audience of of 15 to 21 years of age.

IDEAS FOR ANIMATION:

THE IDEA USED WILL BE GALEXACO.

TREATMENT FOR GALEXACO:

GALEXACO will be a cartoon made for a teenage audience, about two dumb aliens who work at a fuel station called GALEXACO ran by their angry boss, Mr Grooper. GALEXACO will be based in a chaotic dystopian sci-fi world, where all the universe has to offer is madness. GALEXACO's purpose will be to entertain audiences with dark/wacky comedy and references to the satirical music genre vapour wave. This is because the world of GALEXACO is a representation of the wackyness and stupidity of the internet, which is why the internet will be referenced. The animation will be produced entirely by myself, using the software Adobe Animate, which will allow me to successfully create a 2D Digital Frame by Frame animation.

The target audience for GALEXACO will be people aged 15-21 and will appeal to that age group with its fast paced sci-fi references and absurd comedy (which I have found to be very popular among that age group). The main target gender will be males, since the narrative mainly follows males, however the narrative could still have a slight appeal to females, since the narrative mainly thrives of he stupidety of boys. The main characters Fred (the smaller hard working alien) and Doopy (the taller and dopey character) will appeal because of their contrasts in character and because of their relatability. Doopy especially will appeal to lazy teenagers, since he the steriotypical lazy teenager who doeesnt pay attention to much except video games and tv.

The basic narrative is as follows:

SCENE 1: On an unknown planet, a large yellow monster is suddenly abducted by an alien who likes collecting random aliens. The alien beams the yellow monster aboard his ufo styled ship.

SCENE 2: Meanwhile on another planet, a wimpy looking couple are watching the sunset. The male alien tells the other that he loves her. She replies "I like you too". The male alien goes for a kiss until suddenly the female alien bursts out screaming. The camera pans quickly to the left to reveal that an army of robots are preparing to attack them. The male alien assures the female, saying "don't worry, I'll save you". The camera zooms in to the male alien who then cries, "WITH MY SUPER POWERS". A voice (which sounds like a satnav) replies "YOU'RE POWERS ARE NOT AVAILABLE, PLEASE CONNECT TO YOUR WI-FI". The male alien is then lazered to death by a robot.

SCENE 3: The camera zooms out of the screen where the alien is being lazered to death, to reveal the whole of the second scene was a TV show, which the main characters Freddy and Doopy are watching. Freddy looks up at Doopy and says "What the heck was that?". Doopy replies "That sucked..." Freddy then flicks through the channels to find other TV Shows. Suddenly Mr Grooper (the boss of GALEXACO) burstes in saying "WE HAVE A CUSTOMER, GET OUT THERE!".

SCENE 4: Freddy and Doopy welcome the customer to GALEXACO who turns out to be the hunter from Scene 1. Freddy asks the hunter "What can we do for you?" and the hunter replies "Get me some fuel! Dumb ass".

SCENE 5: Doopy goes to get the fuel for the customer. He finds a barrel which reads "WARNING EXPLOSIVE" and takes it anyway.

SCENE 6: They fill the ship with the wrong fuel. When Freddy tells the hunter that its ready to go, the hunter says thankyou, and flies off into the distance. Freddy then asks Doopy  if that was the right type of fuel. Doopy replies "Uh... I think so..." and then the ship blows up in the sky. Doopy then says "Oops..."

SCENE 7: Meanwhile in space, the huge yellow monster is floating in space, and then begins to enter GALEXACO's planet's atmosphere. It looks confused and angry as it hurtles towards GALEXACO.

SCENE 8: Whilst Freddy and Doopy are stood watching the spaceship blow up in horror, the yellow monster suddenly crashes down to the ground in front of them, and rises up roaring. Freddy screams, whilst Doopy laughs at it's appearance. Mr Grooper hears the roar and bursts out of his office demanding "WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?" he then sees the yellow monster and says "WHAT?! OH NO! NOT ON MY GALEXACO!". Mr Grooper then pulls a lazer gun to destroy the monster. He fires and the monster disintegrates. The title credits then roll.

Once the animation is completed, GALEXACO will be distributed for free on my YouTube channel, where other wacky animations are featured. This is because the target audience are very likely to use YouTube since it is a very popular streaming website among the target audience's age range of 15 to 21 year olds. The reason the film will not be sold for money, is because it will be a very short film, and because the target audience are not likely to have much disposable income that they are willing to spend on a short film.

LO1: Understand the types and uses of animation

Techniques of animation:

Stop motion:

Stop motion is a form of animation which is created through photography. Puppets can be created through many different ways, however the most popular way to create puppets is with plasticine. This is because plasticine is very pliable, meaning you can create the illusion of theses puppets movement, by moving the puppet slightly, and then taking a picture, this process is repeated until a sequence of movement following a narrative has been created.

Then these pictures are edited to play at a high frame rate,  meaning that the images play through smoothly showing the puppet moving. Stop motion can be enhanced with armature's, which can be altered in terms of height and shape. These armatures ensure that the puppets don't move during the animation process, since when animation certain movements (like walking) the Plasticine (without an armature) can fall or bend out of place, ruining the realistic continuity of the animation.

Because stop motion involves capturing real life images, a very important factor that needs to be retained during the project is the lighting. This is because without lighting, the natural light being used may change depending on the weather (for example a cloud covers the sun) this means that when the animation is played at a high frame rate, the lighting will change at a very quick on inconsistent state, making the animation less convincing. With steady lighting, the lighting chosen for that scene will stay constant throughout the scene, making the illusion more successful.

For similar reasons, it is very important to use a tripod to keep the camera steady and still whilst animating. This is because it is important for the camera to stay still whilst animating, so it appears still and views the subject at the same angle for the entire shot. There are ways to include camera movement into you're shots, however you will have to move the camera's position/angle in the same way as you would move the puppet in order for the speed of the camera movement to feel natural at a high frame rate.

Set is also a very important factor, in order for the narrative to feel more in context. This is a very exciting property of stop motion for people who like creating sets on a miniature level. The great thing about stop motion, is that there are a huge range of physical materials which can be incorporated into a video.

Stop motion is very appealing to a wide audience, however it targets kids especially since they believe that the characters they are watching are real, because technically they are actual physical models. Kids are also used to playing with action figures which are made in similar style to actual animated puppets, for example the show the adventures of Abney and Teal use models which look exactly like the toys their target audience would play with.

2D Digital Animation:

2D Digital Animation is a type of 2D animation which is made specifically on a computer. This is because these animations are produced using a range of software to create any type of animation which is digital and 2D. Different styles of 2D Digital Animation include 2D Digital Frame-by-Frame, which is the style which is used on the show Adventure Time, where each individual frame is drawn to create a traditional styled animation through use of digital drawings.

Another style of 2D Digital Animation is the type which is used in Rick and Morty, where a 2D model is drawn, which is then programed to create fluent movements of characters walking patterns, and hand gestures. This type of animation is usually mixed with parts of 2D Digital Frame by Frame for more unique gestures like facial expressions and dialogue. This style of animation is useful because it speeds up the animation process, meaning that the animations are cheaper and quicker to make, this is a important factor to considered when working on a large scale in which many episodes of a certain show are demanded. The sequences created are also made of vector files, meaning that the resolution of animation will always be able to be rendered in a completely lossless format, since vectors graphics can scale virtually for eternity. 

Another style of 2D Digital Animation, is photo manipulation, where mixes of different types of photographs (including real life images, and computer generated images) are manipulated through programming to create the illusion of movement. A good example of this is David Firths short film "Cream" where he uses photographs of humans and collages them together to create unique looking characters which have a very surreal sense of realism to them. 

The great thing about 2D Digital Animation is that unlike Stop-Motion, you don't need to rely on a physical set to create a convincing animation, nor do you need to rely on physical puppets for models. This means that you can create virtual any world/character imaginable as long as you have the ability to draw/use a software to create an image.

Another use of 2D Digital Animation is Anime, which is almost an art form as much as it is a form of entertainment, since the Japanese drawing style is very unique and noticeable. Common traits of Anime are unusual proportions, such as large eyes, and small nose and mouth. The shot types that are used are also very unusual, including shots which contrast antagonists with protagonists in separate shots. The interesting thing about Anime is the unusual choice of frame rate, which is slower than the standard, but gives Anime a very interesting style. 

2D Digital animation appeals to a wide audience, since the majority of children liked to draw at one part of their lives. Therefore they enjoy watching narratives which feature drawn characters, this applies even more to young children, who are drawn to characters which are cute, colourful and crazy, since children usually find it hard to concentrate on characters which are dull and not very active. 2D Digital animation also appeals to older audiences, since 2D Digital animation can be a very successful platform for adult humour, for example shows like Bojack Horseman and Rick and Morty. 

3D CGI Animation:

3D CGI Animation, is any type of animation which manipulates virtual shapes and textures which have been generated by a computer. This type of animation is completed by very powerful computers using software such as Cinema 4D and Maya. Companies that use this type of animation include Pixar (creators of Toy Story and Monsters Inc) and Blue Sky Studios (creators of Ice Age and Robots). In theory this type of animation is very similar to 2D digital animation, since all the set and characters are created digitally, yet in a 3D way. 

3D CGI Animation is good because like Stop Motion, you are able to consider "filming" the animation with uses of camera angles and camera movements, since you have an actual virtual space to do this in, unlike 2D Digital animation. Through 3D CGI Animation, you are also able to come very close to realistic visuals, depending and the quality of the animation's textures, shaders and graphics.

Scenes which are used in between video games, sometimes use a type of animation, which is acted out by real actors, who have sensors all around their bodies, which are then tracked by a computer, and matched onto a computer generated model. This type of animation was used in The Hobbit: The desolation of smaug, where Benedict Cumberbatch wore a similar suit, and acted out all the dragon's manerisms. 

The bad thing about 3D CGI Animation, is that it is the most difficult form to learn, and therefore is the most expensive, and takes very long time to produce. It also requires very powerful computers to produce successfully, so it is a very expensive form of animation to pick up as an individual. This is because 3D CGI Animation requires dedicated graphics cards, which have recently increased in price due to the rise of crypto currency. 

The good thing about 3D CGI Animation, is that it allows users to create very appealing and beautiful animations, which appeal strongly to children, since it is a step between live action footage and computer generated images. Toy Story is probably the most notorious example of 3D CGI Animation, since it allowed the creators to create very realistic toy like models, to fit the narrative.

The uses for all these different animation styles, is usually to entertain audiences, since audiences find animation particularly magical due to the characters being created in a way much more different than live action films. Animation can also be used as a way to educate audiences, since many audiences find that animated tutorials are very easy to follow (usually because these audiences are visual learners).

Different animation styles across the globe:

The three distinct styles which differ massively across the globe are Anime, which is the Japanese style of animation, Stop-Motion, which originated from England, and 3D CGI, which is originated from America.

One of the first Japanese manga and anime creators was Osamu Tezuka, who is considered the godfather of anime. He was most renowned for the creation of Astro Boy. He was born in the 1920s, and always loved to draw cartoons, however during World War 2 he was forced to work in a factory to support military means. He was a huge fan of Disney animations, and was reported to watch Bambi more than 80 times. It was suggested it was because of the over sized eyes which were used in Disney Movies which encouraged him to increase their size in anime, which is one of the main visual traits in Japanese Anime.



Osamu Tezuka, however different use the traditional happy story lines which America liked to follow. Disney's cartoons were happy, melodic and aimed to entertain a proud American audience, whilst Osamu Tezuka had just witnessed the loss of a war, country and sense of identity. This was evident in his narratives. Astro Boy starts with the death of a child, who's father tries to replace with an android. This narrative already contains themes of loss, sadness, however they were designed to give hope to the devastated nation of Japan. The difference between American narratives and Japanese narratives is that Osamu Tezuka wasn't afraid to show the world as it really was. Astro Boy at first was

A step forward from Astro Boy are the highly acclaimed Ghibli films. This is where relationship between studios in America like Pixar and Ghibli began to grow for better. These studios both created  stories which inspired wonder, mystery and surreal ideas in children minds, however all done with a brilliant sense of humour. The main difference in narrative again was the spiritual side of things, which the Japanese writers were never afraid to shy away from. Watching many of their films, you can tell that their is always an underlying sense of Easter Philosophies. This is very evident in the film Spirited Away, where the Chihiro Ogino is transferred to a world of spirits and strange beings.

You can see that the style evolves massively between Astro Boy and Spirited away.



In Astro Boy, you can see that although the Anime style is clear, the basic shape of the character, angle and aspect ration is very similar to some of the original Looney Tunes (Silly Symphonies) and Original Mickey Mouse cartoons.



Whilst in the frame taken from Spirited Away, uses character proportions more closer to reality, and seems to take inspiration from fantasy imagery. The colours especially have been given keen attention, creating a spectacle out of every shot. If you were to pause a studio Ghibli film at any point, the still image would be beautiful.

Stop Motion was created by J. Stuart Blackton, however personally the person who revolutionised Stop Motion and brought it to the big screen was Nick Park. He created the charming and very English characters of Wallace and Gromit, and captured all the quirks, flaws and humour of English people (especially Northerners). For a start the visual style is based more on live action films, in a style which uses practical lighting and set in a very similar way. The characters however, are made in more expressive ways, with larger proportions because in order to animate plasticine, it is more practical for the characters to have larger features to animate (since animating small objects is very difficult).

The style of Aardman's animation has had a large influence on the stop-motion scene in general. Since many stop motion creator's are mimicking the mouth movements, including large chunky teeth, and big smiles. 

Laika, on the other hadn't, have recently successfully blended the Japanese style with stop motion, which I found fascinating because of the huge difference between the two styles. This was achieved through the character designs, which had the usual conventions of an Anime character, including the large eyes and huge heads. The shot types used were also very Anime inspired, and the narrative itself was also more like a Japanese Anime narrative, and had interesting links to Eastern Beliefs which gave the film more substance. 

Meanwhile, American animation can be fairly represented with 3D CGI animation, since the style was revolutionised and made popular by the studio Pixar, the creators of Toy Story, Monsters Inc and The Incredibles. All three of these films were a huge part of my generations child hood, all telling stories which played with the hearts of grown ups as well as childeren, and inspired many imaginations. The style of pixar's characters evolved over time, starting with characters which were clearly made out of previously rendered 3D shapes, for example The Adventures of Andre and Wally B (which was originally presented by the name "LUCASFILM COMPUTER GRAPHICS PROJECT") follows two characters made out of various 3D shapes such as spheres, cones, and prisms. 

To a modern audience, the short film's graphics would be considered terrible, however at it's time this film would have blown people's minds. The graphics of Pixar's recent projects such as Inside Out however, have maintained the modern standard of high definition graphics. Compared to their older projects, their films now show detailed attention to shading, textures and lighting, creating very realistic and pleasing visuals. In comparison to other global styles, I'd say CGI links closely to stop-motion due to the principles of creating a physical set, since you are technically creating 3D models and sets for CGI animation, the difference is CGI manipulates virtual space, however the concept is still the same. This allows CGI animation to create more cinimeatic visual, which are more simliar to live action films, since you are able to use filming techniques which are used in live action movies, such as changing angles, and using camera movements, whilst in Japanese Anime, you need to draw the characters from a certain angle if you want to create that impression.