The beginning of the major
At the start of pre production story development took place.
In the holidays before third year had begun I decided to think about ideas, what would I want my major be?
Being my last year, I thought to myself I better make it something good. I didn’t invest intensely in any ideas until I came back to class and got clarification on what idea to decide upon.
The process of deciding was tough, I was very indecisive on what I would like to do, I thought to myself I want to steer away from stop motion try something new and challenge myself to explore a different medium.
I then thought about incorporating 3D with a stop motion set not steering away completely.
Finally 2D was decided on mainly because of the concept ‘Pearl of wisdom’ I see it as 2D.
I was and am in love with this idea, I think it’s highly important to love your story it drives you to create it.
While writing the narrative of pearl of wisdom, organization and audio was thought about thought process of what needs to be done went under way.
The audio I though about what I wanted and started narrowing down straight away learning from last year how audio needs to be thought and planned out intensely I decided to get going and make a start.
I have called APRA and I need to register as a consumer then fill out a form I found out it cost about $150 get licensing to use production music for a student which included being able to enter in film festivals it is world wide and does not expire for the pieces of production music that will be used in the production you register for.
I still don’t know though, I am wanting to use production music from extreme music and I am wanting to get more clarification if that license covers production music from them, I guess I didn’t ask the right questions, but I shall, If I am wanting to use this music so bad I need to know if it is possible, cost wise and legal.
I also have a challenge of finding voice actor for which my piece is dialog heavy, I did get posters put up.
And am waiting on responses. If I do not get any I will have to try harder and get my directors cap on approach strangers and make something happen about finding voice actors.
The visuals like the story board, animatic and video block, was quite enjoyable to put together although I was rather confused on it’s due date with the date being changed verbally, I had another 2 weeks to hand it in when I could of improved it within those two weeks, but what is done is done and I know where I am heading with my production and have clarified and estimated the length and so forth.
As for the scheduling and planning, the schedule was the most daunting I guess I don’t like planning thinking of dates the time restraints that are put into place, but that’s life.
I now have a schedule and if I follow it stick to it I shall have a stress free smooth sailing rest of the year ahead.
Most enjoyable was writing the story and designing characters and concepts for the production.
Finally I did struggle with how I was going to animate I guess I freaked out had fears, thought to much and didn’t do enough.
From swapping from stop mo to 2D was dramatic, I sometimes think why? But I know why to challenge myself which I certainly am doing, it was a struggle for me to decide on software and how to go about doing 2D… I didn’t think flash was going to do any justice.
Thankfully I somehow got toon boom and this program is doing the production justice so very easy to use and is stylish when you draw digitally in Toon boom what you draw is what you get, this is what I wanted to do 2D digitally not traditionally, toon boom has made this possible, I feel at ease and am ever so ready to animate Pearl of wisdom.
This production has been a learning curb, with having learned many things along the way, problem solving and coming up with solutions so my production will get finished.
There where times in the production when things took longer than expected, and having to juggle roles with being everything yourself got a bit much sometimes.
In ways it gives you freedom, and in other ways it puts pressure on you, swapping from this to that and having to focus on numerous roles got a bit tiring from time to time.
Don’t get me wrong it’s lovely to have full creative control but sometimes you thought to yourself if only I had help with this role etc then I could focus on the ‘animation’ which I think would be fantastic to just deal with that one particular role, at the end of the day the visual is important having to spread out your concentration on all the roles it makes other aspects of your film suffer and nobody is good at everything you may not be good at editing and that would be the ‘let down’ on your production but if we had involved and looked for people to collaborate with the weight of doing everything yourself would be lifted.
Sole focus on what you want to do, weather it be animation or not.
My dedication to this production has made it possible for me to be able to see the finish line It is important to love what you are creating so naturally you are driven and motivated. It is also key that you enjoy the process rather than just focusing on the destination ‘the end’.
At the start of pre production story development took place.
In the holidays before third year had begun I decided to think about ideas, what would I want my major be?
Being my last year, I thought to myself I better make it something good. I didn’t invest intensely in any ideas until I came back to class and got clarification on what idea to decide upon.
The process of deciding was tough, I was very indecisive on what I would like to do, I thought to myself I want to steer away from stop motion try something new and challenge myself to explore a different medium.
I then thought about incorporating 3D with a stop motion set not steering away completely.
Finally 2D was decided on mainly because of the concept ‘Pearl of wisdom’ I see it as 2D.
I was and am in love with this idea, I think it’s highly important to love your story it drives you to create it.
While writing the narrative of pearl of wisdom, organization and audio was thought about thought process of what needs to be done went under way.
The audio I though about what I wanted and started narrowing down straight away learning from last year how audio needs to be thought and planned out intensely I decided to get going and make a start.
I have called APRA and I need to register as a consumer then fill out a form I found out it cost about $150 get licensing to use production music for a student which included being able to enter in film festivals it is world wide and does not expire for the pieces of production music that will be used in the production you register for.
I still don’t know though, I am wanting to use production music from extreme music and I am wanting to get more clarification if that license covers production music from them, I guess I didn’t ask the right questions, but I shall, If I am wanting to use this music so bad I need to know if it is possible, cost wise and legal.
I also have a challenge of finding voice actor for which my piece is dialog heavy, I did get posters put up.
And am waiting on responses. If I do not get any I will have to try harder and get my directors cap on approach strangers and make something happen about finding voice actors.
The visuals like the story board, animatic and video block, was quite enjoyable to put together although I was rather confused on it’s due date with the date being changed verbally, I had another 2 weeks to hand it in when I could of improved it within those two weeks, but what is done is done and I know where I am heading with my production and have clarified and estimated the length and so forth.
As for the scheduling and planning, the schedule was the most daunting I guess I don’t like planning thinking of dates the time restraints that are put into place, but that’s life.
I now have a schedule and if I follow it stick to it I shall have a stress free smooth sailing rest of the year ahead.
Most enjoyable was writing the story and designing characters and concepts for the production.
Finally I did struggle with how I was going to animate I guess I freaked out had fears, thought to much and didn’t do enough.
From swapping from stop mo to 2D was dramatic, I sometimes think why? But I know why to challenge myself which I certainly am doing, it was a struggle for me to decide on software and how to go about doing 2D… I didn’t think flash was going to do any justice.
Thankfully I somehow got toon boom and this program is doing the production justice so very easy to use and is stylish when you draw digitally in Toon boom what you draw is what you get, this is what I wanted to do 2D digitally not traditionally, toon boom has made this possible, I feel at ease and am ever so ready to animate Pearl of wisdom.
Major
animation Screen Project – Evaluation and Critique
This year everyone has a short animated film to produce, from birth (pre production) to death (post production & a finished film).
I will be discussing the process of my production Pearl of wisdom, which will include topics of discussion such as:
- Discussion of the general process of Pearl of wisdom incorporating birth to death of the production.
- Outlining the strengths, weaknesses and inconsistency throughout the entire process.
- Providing solutions to weaknesses found in any stage of the process and addressing throughout the process.
- Discussion and opinions on what could of and should have been done different throughout the entire process.
- How I found the experience of creating Pearl of wisdom.
Where did the idea/story for my production originate?
This year everyone has a short animated film to produce, from birth (pre production) to death (post production & a finished film).
I will be discussing the process of my production Pearl of wisdom, which will include topics of discussion such as:
- Discussion of the general process of Pearl of wisdom incorporating birth to death of the production.
- Outlining the strengths, weaknesses and inconsistency throughout the entire process.
- Providing solutions to weaknesses found in any stage of the process and addressing throughout the process.
- Discussion and opinions on what could of and should have been done different throughout the entire process.
- How I found the experience of creating Pearl of wisdom.
Where did the idea/story for my production originate?
Well I recall the idea first
originating over general conversation over dinner, I was having dinner with a
friend, I remember ordering calamari and it was delicious!
Over dinner conversation I was talking about the industry, they commented on how I had wise words to say.
Then I thought and said “What!? Wise words? Me? Ha am I some sort of pearl that walks around whispering wise words, ‘pearls of wisdom’?” It was fitting the seafood menu! The name ‘pearl of wisdom’ came from the phrase ‘pearls of wisdom’ from the name the visual of the character was thought of instantly, and having done ‘round characters last year ‘oranges’ I seem to have a thing for characters that are round.
Visually what my mind imagined was the character that is now known as Pearl.
Ever since that I have been drawing little comics wait no they are not comics just little scenarios Pearl can be in. I became quite fascinated with drawing this pearl of wisdom character as you can see below;
Pearl started to develop and evolved, changing ever so much as I continued to draw him.
But before Pearl another idea was cogitating, over the holidays I did come up with another story I named it 'Show me that you love me' this story consisted of a young girl who misses her friend who went over seas, the reason why I didn't end up going with this is because when it came to writing the script the story was flat it had no beats, no exciting incident it was just a little girl who misses her friend and basically I couldn't come up with anything that had a ‘meaning’ to it and that would grip people (the audience) to emotionally sympathize with this little girl.
Over dinner conversation I was talking about the industry, they commented on how I had wise words to say.
Then I thought and said “What!? Wise words? Me? Ha am I some sort of pearl that walks around whispering wise words, ‘pearls of wisdom’?” It was fitting the seafood menu! The name ‘pearl of wisdom’ came from the phrase ‘pearls of wisdom’ from the name the visual of the character was thought of instantly, and having done ‘round characters last year ‘oranges’ I seem to have a thing for characters that are round.
Visually what my mind imagined was the character that is now known as Pearl.
Ever since that I have been drawing little comics wait no they are not comics just little scenarios Pearl can be in. I became quite fascinated with drawing this pearl of wisdom character as you can see below;
Pearl started to develop and evolved, changing ever so much as I continued to draw him.
But before Pearl another idea was cogitating, over the holidays I did come up with another story I named it 'Show me that you love me' this story consisted of a young girl who misses her friend who went over seas, the reason why I didn't end up going with this is because when it came to writing the script the story was flat it had no beats, no exciting incident it was just a little girl who misses her friend and basically I couldn't come up with anything that had a ‘meaning’ to it and that would grip people (the audience) to emotionally sympathize with this little girl.
What I knew was I aspired for a
short film that at the end of it you felt warm and happy for this girl, a nice
heart warming short film.
With me not working enough towards such a story, with the time ticking by and with a decision that had to be made within weeks so pre production could move forward, Pearl was chosen having a more developed and driven story plus having a slight obsession with drawing this character, it made sense to go for the stronger idea that I had at the time.
Next was developing the story, re writes after re writes and finalization and locking off the script.
Writing the story for Pearl was an interesting process a book that helped out with the ‘quotes’ Pearl says was a proverb dictionary.
I felt that time was of the essence with having the final written story it seemed the sooner the better and with time needing to be allocated to other processes like; schedule, thumbnails, storyboard, animatic, video block, sfx & music and so on while writing you had to keep in mind of all the other processes to follow, it was a bit much having several roles at once but you managed, one day you would be writer, the next director, then sound and so on.
Whilst re writing the story it developed because of input from fellow classmates and teachers their creative criticism made me re visit the story and make changes to the original that was written during the Christmas holiday break.
Pearl of wisdom developed and became a sizable story, which I ‘thought’ about shortening but choose not to.
Which now thinking the ‘shorting’ of the story would not of weakened the production but made it more manageable.
With me not working enough towards such a story, with the time ticking by and with a decision that had to be made within weeks so pre production could move forward, Pearl was chosen having a more developed and driven story plus having a slight obsession with drawing this character, it made sense to go for the stronger idea that I had at the time.
Next was developing the story, re writes after re writes and finalization and locking off the script.
Writing the story for Pearl was an interesting process a book that helped out with the ‘quotes’ Pearl says was a proverb dictionary.
I felt that time was of the essence with having the final written story it seemed the sooner the better and with time needing to be allocated to other processes like; schedule, thumbnails, storyboard, animatic, video block, sfx & music and so on while writing you had to keep in mind of all the other processes to follow, it was a bit much having several roles at once but you managed, one day you would be writer, the next director, then sound and so on.
Whilst re writing the story it developed because of input from fellow classmates and teachers their creative criticism made me re visit the story and make changes to the original that was written during the Christmas holiday break.
Pearl of wisdom developed and became a sizable story, which I ‘thought’ about shortening but choose not to.
Which now thinking the ‘shorting’ of the story would not of weakened the production but made it more manageable.
While writing the story other
processes took place like planning/scheduling creating a timeline for the
production.
Which leads to the discussion of have I stuck to my timeline?
The answer to that: Yes and no, I will explain; Planning is one thing but actually sticking to a schedule is another.
I planned the best I could with allocated estimates on how much time each process would take. I say estimate because some processes took longer than expected.
My weakness is making a schedule and allocating not enough time or too much time to certain processes, but my knowledge in the field of 2D was lacking, having this be my first major 2D production I went in to this project a bit blind folded if you will.
Having done stop motion animation last year, my knowledge on that medium is stronger than 2D.
I choose 2D because I could see my idea in the medium and I honestly wanted to explore different mediums of animation, I am intrigued with all stop motion, 2D and even 3D, I was unsure on what I would also like to specialized in and what better way to learn than put a medium of animation to the test with creating a sort in the medium.
I also wanted to challenge myself in ways, and improve on the drawing side of things, I am not a fantastic drawer but I give it a ripe old go.
What I have found with 2D this year was coming across hurdles… but they wouldn’t call them hurdles if you could not get over them (which I have).
Hurdles that I faced were lots of problem solving and if I can’t do it this way there is another way, figuring out a technique and committing to it!
I started off with wanting to use flash then traditionally (light box, paper and pencil) then in after effects, toon boom. My problem being it’s not about the software you use (it’s a bonus if you know that in’s and out’s of a program mainly time saving) but it’s about your animation itself, learning can always happen with software side of things, it’s knowing technique of animation that is of great importance.
So choosing how to animate was my downfall, I ended up choosing toon boom animate pro 2 for the animation of the main characters which are Pearl, Wesley the wisdom tooth and Paris the female Pearl.
With a few tutorials and putting the program into practice soon lead to me knowing how to use toon boom relevantly fast.
As for the background characters they are animated in after effects with the puppet tool, which is simple to animate with and time saving at the same time, the background characters Bee, Elephant, Mullet, Lolly, Celery, Cat, and Little girl pig have minimal movement which made after affects the perfect program/way to animate them.
What has been helping me animate is the animators survival kit, truly a must have as an animator it is ‘the bible’ to animators.
Having so many characters has also been a challenge but I have created them all, my motivation was strong and my enthusiasm and joy to be creating an idea I love has really driven me this year with commitment and energy.
It would be ideal to have less characters but I just can’t help myself and hold back on my creativity, I have proven that with having made a total of ten characters. Dedication to my production is a strength, which I am glad to have.
Now getting back to have I followed my schedule I’d have to say yes, with completing the designs, thumbnails, storyboard and collaboration with Neale with backgrounds which was fantastic, without collaboration with the backgrounds I would of had to dedicate time to doing them myself, and the production would not be at the stage it is today.
Having purchased a Wacom this year has been a massive time saver; the saying time is money I believe to be true now. What was great was being able to work at home and well anywhere I carried my Mac and Wacom, being able to set up anywhere and continue to work on the production.
When colouring the backgrounds I set a challenge to do one a day some took two just setting a goal like this fast tracked to getting things done.
SFX & music last year was a challenge, I started on sfx & music straight away spending hours on production music sites searching for what I looking for my production. I found music and sfx pretty much straight away and along the process of the production I have made slight changes to the sfx & music, for the better.
Main source for the production music is extreme music, a lovely site that has high value production music and sfx sources from various royalty free sfx sites and pro tools (which I have been told you are allowed to use) and I did borrow a zoom and stand at a bus stop suspicious recording buses pull up and drive off I used a sound effect that I recorded in my production, I must say I enjoy piecing together sound for production it is intriguing! Because sfx & music was a challenge last year it made me peruse sound early this year and everything has worked out well, I have not had to worry about sound this year.
This image is from my blog, where I bloged about sound quote from the blog entry ‘Music & sfx you are my Mt Everest I shall conquer you!’
A closely related topic to sound…
with my production featuring dialogue voice actors I uploaded a advert to starnow.com in hope to find eager actors to voice act for my production.
Although having it be a student film I did not offer pay which if I could go back in time I think I would off a small amount of money.
As you can see I got quite a few views and this was early in the year.
Having not ever done anything like this before I was new at how to go about I, how to address actors and so on.
I decided to try to do some research I got recommended by my mentor a great book called ‘Directing Actors by Judith Weston… I started to read the book, but have not finished it, with having to focus on other roles I did not have the time to sit down and read a whole book. Although what I did read helped here and there.
So for the voice actors that applied I sent them more information. I got a lot saying they where interested but when contacting them they did not reply or was unable to make the audition I asked them if it would be easier to record the lines and email there audition to me if they had access to a microphone. Here is one actor whom got back to me;
I did have one actor who made a audition time with me in the holidays but she was a no show, I contacted her back and she replied with she had work and totally forgot about it. The rest of the voice actors who applied either didn’t get back to me or had other commitments.
Collaborating with actors I failed, perhaps I didn’t be demanding enough or have the right attitude. All I know is I started to focus on design of characters and other processes to the production as soon as the search for voice actors didn’t seem to work out.
What I would do differently is take charge, go to uni’s and post up auditions and make the audition easier for them? Like if it was at other uni’s I would go to them.
One other thing Matt Rooke gave me a card to an acting agent whom I called and she also did not get back to me. At this stage I had a ‘I give up’ attitude, which is never good.
I have walked away learning from this, which is a positive thing I can say about failing.
The design process…
The characters, from the beginning I knew what pearl was to look like but what about other characters in my story? Originally I had a world full of pearls as seen below;
I was hesitant to change the idea because of how simple the all the Pearl characters where I ended up designing diverse characters like these;
The different array of characters I am very glad that it changed from a world of pearls to characters such as elephants, lollypops, celery and a stunned mullet.
Which leads to the discussion of have I stuck to my timeline?
The answer to that: Yes and no, I will explain; Planning is one thing but actually sticking to a schedule is another.
I planned the best I could with allocated estimates on how much time each process would take. I say estimate because some processes took longer than expected.
My weakness is making a schedule and allocating not enough time or too much time to certain processes, but my knowledge in the field of 2D was lacking, having this be my first major 2D production I went in to this project a bit blind folded if you will.
Having done stop motion animation last year, my knowledge on that medium is stronger than 2D.
I choose 2D because I could see my idea in the medium and I honestly wanted to explore different mediums of animation, I am intrigued with all stop motion, 2D and even 3D, I was unsure on what I would also like to specialized in and what better way to learn than put a medium of animation to the test with creating a sort in the medium.
I also wanted to challenge myself in ways, and improve on the drawing side of things, I am not a fantastic drawer but I give it a ripe old go.
What I have found with 2D this year was coming across hurdles… but they wouldn’t call them hurdles if you could not get over them (which I have).
Hurdles that I faced were lots of problem solving and if I can’t do it this way there is another way, figuring out a technique and committing to it!
I started off with wanting to use flash then traditionally (light box, paper and pencil) then in after effects, toon boom. My problem being it’s not about the software you use (it’s a bonus if you know that in’s and out’s of a program mainly time saving) but it’s about your animation itself, learning can always happen with software side of things, it’s knowing technique of animation that is of great importance.
So choosing how to animate was my downfall, I ended up choosing toon boom animate pro 2 for the animation of the main characters which are Pearl, Wesley the wisdom tooth and Paris the female Pearl.
With a few tutorials and putting the program into practice soon lead to me knowing how to use toon boom relevantly fast.
As for the background characters they are animated in after effects with the puppet tool, which is simple to animate with and time saving at the same time, the background characters Bee, Elephant, Mullet, Lolly, Celery, Cat, and Little girl pig have minimal movement which made after affects the perfect program/way to animate them.
What has been helping me animate is the animators survival kit, truly a must have as an animator it is ‘the bible’ to animators.
Having so many characters has also been a challenge but I have created them all, my motivation was strong and my enthusiasm and joy to be creating an idea I love has really driven me this year with commitment and energy.
It would be ideal to have less characters but I just can’t help myself and hold back on my creativity, I have proven that with having made a total of ten characters. Dedication to my production is a strength, which I am glad to have.
Now getting back to have I followed my schedule I’d have to say yes, with completing the designs, thumbnails, storyboard and collaboration with Neale with backgrounds which was fantastic, without collaboration with the backgrounds I would of had to dedicate time to doing them myself, and the production would not be at the stage it is today.
Having purchased a Wacom this year has been a massive time saver; the saying time is money I believe to be true now. What was great was being able to work at home and well anywhere I carried my Mac and Wacom, being able to set up anywhere and continue to work on the production.
When colouring the backgrounds I set a challenge to do one a day some took two just setting a goal like this fast tracked to getting things done.
SFX & music last year was a challenge, I started on sfx & music straight away spending hours on production music sites searching for what I looking for my production. I found music and sfx pretty much straight away and along the process of the production I have made slight changes to the sfx & music, for the better.
Main source for the production music is extreme music, a lovely site that has high value production music and sfx sources from various royalty free sfx sites and pro tools (which I have been told you are allowed to use) and I did borrow a zoom and stand at a bus stop suspicious recording buses pull up and drive off I used a sound effect that I recorded in my production, I must say I enjoy piecing together sound for production it is intriguing! Because sfx & music was a challenge last year it made me peruse sound early this year and everything has worked out well, I have not had to worry about sound this year.
This image is from my blog, where I bloged about sound quote from the blog entry ‘Music & sfx you are my Mt Everest I shall conquer you!’
A closely related topic to sound…
with my production featuring dialogue voice actors I uploaded a advert to starnow.com in hope to find eager actors to voice act for my production.
Although having it be a student film I did not offer pay which if I could go back in time I think I would off a small amount of money.
As you can see I got quite a few views and this was early in the year.
Having not ever done anything like this before I was new at how to go about I, how to address actors and so on.
I decided to try to do some research I got recommended by my mentor a great book called ‘Directing Actors by Judith Weston… I started to read the book, but have not finished it, with having to focus on other roles I did not have the time to sit down and read a whole book. Although what I did read helped here and there.
So for the voice actors that applied I sent them more information. I got a lot saying they where interested but when contacting them they did not reply or was unable to make the audition I asked them if it would be easier to record the lines and email there audition to me if they had access to a microphone. Here is one actor whom got back to me;
I did have one actor who made a audition time with me in the holidays but she was a no show, I contacted her back and she replied with she had work and totally forgot about it. The rest of the voice actors who applied either didn’t get back to me or had other commitments.
Collaborating with actors I failed, perhaps I didn’t be demanding enough or have the right attitude. All I know is I started to focus on design of characters and other processes to the production as soon as the search for voice actors didn’t seem to work out.
What I would do differently is take charge, go to uni’s and post up auditions and make the audition easier for them? Like if it was at other uni’s I would go to them.
One other thing Matt Rooke gave me a card to an acting agent whom I called and she also did not get back to me. At this stage I had a ‘I give up’ attitude, which is never good.
I have walked away learning from this, which is a positive thing I can say about failing.
The design process…
The characters, from the beginning I knew what pearl was to look like but what about other characters in my story? Originally I had a world full of pearls as seen below;
I was hesitant to change the idea because of how simple the all the Pearl characters where I ended up designing diverse characters like these;
The different array of characters I am very glad that it changed from a world of pearls to characters such as elephants, lollypops, celery and a stunned mullet.
Conclusion
This production has been a learning curb, with having learned many things along the way, problem solving and coming up with solutions so my production will get finished.
There where times in the production when things took longer than expected, and having to juggle roles with being everything yourself got a bit much sometimes.
In ways it gives you freedom, and in other ways it puts pressure on you, swapping from this to that and having to focus on numerous roles got a bit tiring from time to time.
Don’t get me wrong it’s lovely to have full creative control but sometimes you thought to yourself if only I had help with this role etc then I could focus on the ‘animation’ which I think would be fantastic to just deal with that one particular role, at the end of the day the visual is important having to spread out your concentration on all the roles it makes other aspects of your film suffer and nobody is good at everything you may not be good at editing and that would be the ‘let down’ on your production but if we had involved and looked for people to collaborate with the weight of doing everything yourself would be lifted.
Sole focus on what you want to do, weather it be animation or not.
My dedication to this production has made it possible for me to be able to see the finish line It is important to love what you are creating so naturally you are driven and motivated. It is also key that you enjoy the process rather than just focusing on the destination ‘the end’.
