Competition - Week 4

I managed to finish an animatic before the pitch, but I think it turned out too cutesy for my liking.

Revised storyboard

First animatic

We got some valuable feedback regarding our pitch and got advice from Dotty about a few of our queries. We're also changing the character designs a bit. From the choices Damo showed me, I thought the design with more defined edges generally looked better but Dotty pointed it out that it was a bit out of place with the painterly backgrounds so Damo will be giving the character design a more painterly look with less defined edges.

What worked:

• Good distinction between backgrounds and characters
• Nice style with backgrounds and characters
• Good story

How can it be improved:

• Make it less cutesy by changing music choice and possibly message on card
• Cut down animation further by having black screen lit up by phone screen
• Add back of partner in bed at beginning and make main character sneak out
• Make character intend to go to John Lewis instead of wandering there
• Focus on character acting
• Add an escalator montage and move carpet man to escalator scene
• Have character looking at different things within same scene instead of walking past them
• Make the hands covering the eyes of the partner clearer
• Story discrepancy about buying mirror as present for partner instead of himself - add an implied engagement ring in a box at the very end
• Change character design to fancy version but take out tie and make him look look more painted

Competition - Week 3

This week I made the storyboard and we met up to decide if anything could be improved on it. We managed to cut down the beginning so it doesn't run too long and made a few notes on things to ask the tutors after the pitch as we weren't sure if a couple of things worked (like taking a picture of the carpet man). The aim is to finish the boards, character designs and make a start on a few backgrounds before the pitch date.

The original storyboard (before revision)

Competition - Week 2

Everyone pitched a few story ideas they had. One of my ideas (inspired by a friend) about a South Asian man searching for the perfect present for his boyfriend (only to realise there was no present perfect than his partner) was a hit with the team and as such, I'm directing  the project. (Funnily enough, this is the second animation in a row I'm doing based around a mirror.)

As Damo and Eleni have an interest in character design and backgrounds, respectively, they'll be taking on these roles while I do the storyboards and script. The first thing we did was actually go to John Lewis and take a look around for inspiration and take pictures for reference.

Competition - Week 1

For the new module we are picking our own team members and briefs. I'll be working with Damo and Eleni for the John Lewis brief, which we eventually picked as the message of a gift being more than a gift rang true to all of us. We'll meet up next week to pitch our ideas to each other and whoever pitches the most popular idea will be director for this project.

Telling Tales - Final Week

Over the break both Natalie and Emily sent me parts of their animation and I gave them feedback on a couple of things that looked a bit off after I updated the animation. They made the alterations and re-uploaded them and it looks much better. Natalie wrote an updated script before the break but I had to re-write it so that it read in a script format (which took a bit of learning from Google and YouTube), although I tried to use her words where I could.

In the mean time, I cleaned up the storyboards and made the preproduction booklet which Emily really likes the look of. Following Dotty's advice from before the break, we're overlaying the credits over the last mirror scene of the animation.

It was a last minute scramble to finish the compositing because I received the final animated parts and music the day before the deadline (and I had to manually edit the music because it was actually too short for one part). So without further ado and in all its glory, here is the final completed animation of Treasure!

What worked well:

• The animation is finished!
• The editing on one of the music tracks sounds surprisingly seamless
• Emily's extra animated bit with the hands at the end look great
• I like how the aesthetics of the preproduction book turned out

What could be improved:

• Time management between all members of the team
• It would've been better if I had time to contact the musician to fix the length issue from the source
• Some parts of the animation are a bit inconsistent in the character animation