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.