Georgina Hammond
Animator
Advanced Animation - 11 second club
In this project, the brief was to create an animation for a pre-selected sound clip from 11 second club. I engaged in and completed a wide range of preproduction techniques to finalise my ideas before moving on to produce an animation to complete the sound clip.
The video below is my final outcome for this project brief. Beyond that is then all the processes I undertook to get to my final result.
The Brief
The key outcome for this project is Lip Syncing to sound, to achieve this result I had to engage in a series of preproduction exercises for choreographing character animation with sound, leading up to 2D drawn animation/cut out stop motion/3D animation. To complete this brief I was introduced to the '11 Second Club' and shown the following video;
The above video was the winner of the 11 Second Club, October 2014 competition. It was created by Animator Yonatan Tal who took juist two and a half weeks to create the finished video. The sound is provided by the 11 Second Club, the clip was taken from the film, Turner and Hooch. below is the transcript and the sound clip;
Voice One: "Oh, no, no, no! You're eatin' the car!
Don't eat the car! Not the car!
Don't understand a word I'm sayin'."
This is also the same sound clip i will be using for my animation. I will use the 11 second club to look at examples of weight, timing, anticipation, gesture, squash and stretch, wild frames, limited animation and subtlety and try to take some of these examples and examples of other artists in to my own work.
Acting Scenarios
Right at the beginning of the project, none of us had a clue on where we should start, we was all struggling to get ideas together on what our animation should be about, what characters should we have, what scenes, where do we beginning? So, we decided that we would all get together and act out some possible scenarios, we all threw in some ideas of character, how they should move, what they should be doing and we decided to test them out and see how they look. This was a great opportunity for us all to get some ideas off each other and start forming ideas of characters we wanted to create, how these characters should move and act and even some loactions these scenes could take place.
Ideas
Once given the brief my mind was flowing with ideas, my initial idea was a giant pet slug that started sucking on the back of its owners’ car and ate it up in one go. I wasn’t overly keen on that idea though and after drawing up the storyboard I was already finding it dull. My second idea was a giant gorilla (King Kong style) parading down the street causing havoc, picking up a car with the owner climbing out the window on to the roof, jumping up and down shouting at the gorilla, the gorilla would then pick the man up by his head and fling him off. Although this was a better idea and I loved the idea of animating the little man being thrown, the entire gorilla scenario seemed very cliché and I noticed there were other entries on the 11 second club website using gorillas. My ideas then changed to some form of a two-headed giant in a similar scenario to the gorilla. That then completely developed into a two-headed ogre living in a swamp, the bigger head of the two going to eat a wooden cart and the smaller head fighting with him to not do it.
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Character Designs
Once I had my ides sorted my initial idea was to have the main character as a two-headed giant, this giant was based on the body shape and build of a rugby player but bigger! After getting some life drawings of rugby players in action and happening to watch Shrek around the same time my character then evolved into a two-headed ogre. The larger of the heads being the ‘dumber’ of the two and the ‘smaller’ head being the smarter one. The larger of the heads being the ‘dumber’ of the two and the ‘smaller’ head being the smarter one. It will be the larger head who tries to eat the cart with the smaller head trying to stop him by pulling the cart away.
Loyout Designs
With my character now being an ogre and after watching Shrek I want the location to be a swamp in the middle of a forest. The ogres house will be based at the back of the location with a swamp to the left, a forest right at the back behind the shack and a cliff edge with boulders etc. along the left. The cart that the ogre is going to eat will be to the left of the shot so that the ogre can walk from the swamp on the right over to the cart on the left. I drew up a very rough idea of the layout and then painted that with water colour, I also did an aerial view of the layout so I could see what positions would be good for lights and cameras. I then done another outline version drawn in Photoshop and then coloured that up.
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Shrek
Shrek has been a big influence for me on this project. Shrek is a 2001 American animated fantasy-comedy film directed by Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson. Shrek who finds his swamp overrun by fairy tale creatures who have been banished there by Lord Farquaad. To get his swamp back, Shrek makes a deal with Farquaad to bring him a queen in exchange for the deed for his swamp. Shrek sets out with a talking Donkey and they find Princess Fiona. While they take Fiona to Farquaad so she can marry him, Shrek starts to fall in love with the princess and soon discovers a shocking secret about her. I’ve also taken the idea of an Ogre as the main character and have taken influence from Shreks swamp into my own.
Model set - Light and Camera Test
At the start of this project I was struggling to get my ideas down, I knew how I wanted it to look in my head but I just couldn’t get it down on paper, so I decided to just build it instead! Using mostly match sticks I took the ideas I had in my head and made a small model of how I wanted it to look. This model not only helped me get my ideas out there but also helped me with other aspects of my animation such as the lighting I should use and the best camera angles. I wasn’t sure on what camera angles would be best to capture the animation or what lighting would make the set more realistic, so the best way to move forward was to use my model set and play around with the possibilities. I took several photos of the set and some videos using different positions, brightness and coloured lighting and also using different camera angles and setting the cameras in different positions. This resulted in me being able to work out the key positions for the cameras and the different lighting I should use depending on the time of day I’m setting the animation and the mood I want to get across.
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Idea 2
At this point I hit a brick wall. I no longer liked my idea, I was struggling to move forward and draw in my characters or animate. It just didn't feel right anymore. I tried leaving it a couple of days and coming back to it to see if I could get the creative flow back but I ended up staring at the screen for ages, hating any of the work I did on the animation. so I decided to start again, I came up with a whole new animation. This one is based on a bear called Percival Shrewsbury. He’s asleep in the woods and when he awakes he is hungry! After a stretch and a scratch against a nearby tree, Percival spots a cart near the end of the path and decides to go and investigate. He takes a seat next to the cart and as he goes to take a bite an ant, Herbert Edgar Fortismere (Heffy) shouts out to him, ‘Don’t eat the cart!’ however Percival is a rebel and eats it anyway.
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Zoo Photos
What really pushed me to change my idea was a trip I took to the zoo. After seeing these red pandas, I had a whole wave of ideas. The red panda is slightly larger than a domestic cat with a bear-like body and thick fur. The pandas use their ringed tails as wraparound blankets and they have an extended wrist bone that functions almost like a thumb and greatly aids their grip. I absolutely loved watching these animals and sat there for quite some time seeing how they climbed through the trees, I even had the chance to feed one! Their faces hold so much character and they’re beyond cute! I knew a Red Panda wasn’t the character I wanted to use as its small and slow moving. Instead I used the facial features and movements and imagined them on a giant bear, thats how my character was born.
A Bugs Life
A Bugs Life was where I got the inspiration for my second character, initially I was thinking of having a tree come alive and tell the bear to stop but after watching this film I loved the idea of using an ant. A Bug's Life is a 1998 American animated comedy adventure film produced by Pixar Animation Studios. the film involves a misfit ant named Flik that is looking for "tough warriors" to save his colony from greedy grasshoppers, only to recruit a group of bugs that turn out to be an inept circus troupe. Flik was exactly what I was looking for so after re-watching a couple of scenes I came up with my character, Herbert Edgar Fortismere (Heffy)
Jungle Book
Along with seeing the Red Panda’s, a lot of the inspiration on the shape and size of my bear, Percival Shrewsbury came from watching the original Jungle Book, produced by Walt Disney Productions in 1967. The plot follows Mowgli, a feral child raised in the Indian jungle by wolves, as his friends Bagheera the panther and Baloo the bear try to convince him to leave the jungle before the evil tiger Shere Khan arrives. Baloo is one of them characters everyone knows and using him for inspiration was perfect as his character covers everything, there’s scenes with him dancing, scenes with him scared, scenes with him hiding, if there’s anything you need to see about animating a bear, I feel like Baloo can show it all.
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Character Designs
I created both characters in Photoshop, first doing then outlines, with each position on a different layer. I then added the colour to each character, again all on separate layers so that I can adjust anything if needs be. Percival is made with a black outline, using a brown for the majority of colour, a slightly darker brown for shading and a deep brown for his arms and legs. Heffy was drawn with a dark blue outline, mostly blue body with two different blues used for shading.
Percival Shrewsbury
Percival is a great, big, clumsy being. He’s 9 years old and easily distracted by food and things that fly. Other than that, he is an educated fellow who enjoys reading a good book. Although he’s relatively young for a bear he has an old man element to him, until he smells/sees food, that’s when his messy teen side comes out.
Herbert Edgar Fortismere (Heffy)
Heffy is 2, he likes order, always follows the rules and gets in a panic if he’s with anyone who doesn’t. He will take the time to help anyone but always fears that he is running out of time to do things which makes him anxious.
Loyout Designs
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Key Frames - Animatics
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Conclusion
This project was one that really took my out of my comfort zone and one I really had to work hard at. Once I was given the brief I was really excited to get started and I had so many ideas flowing around in my head I couldn’t wait to get them down on paper. That was the biggest problem though, once I had written my ideas down, I didn’t know where to go from there, I had so many ideas that I didn’t know which one was best, what sort of animation I wanted to do, there was so much to choose from so I feel like I wasted a bit of time at the start not deciding on exactly what I wanted to do. Finally, I decided and I really got into the swing of it, I absolutely loved making the models and building the set, I think that was the best part of this entire project, getting hands on and just making what I can visualise in my head is something I really enjoy doing. However, after thinking I was going full steam ahead, I crashed. I just didn’t know what to do next, I had so much fun building the set and after I had finished, everything else I tried to do just seemed dull, I didn’t like the work I was producing and I felt like nothing I could do was giving the set justice. I left it a short while, hoping I could pick it back up when I feel in a better mood towards the project but it just didn’t come. So with only a couple of weeks until the project was due I decided to start again with a whole new idea.
The second attempt at this project flowed much more smoothly, the characters were just so much better, the layout I feel is the best work I have produced so far, I really felt this new idea and knew exactly what I wanted to do so much so that it felt like I was getting the work done without having to push myself, it just came out and I wasn’t struggling with myself to get it done. I am pleased with my final video, I feel like I’ve taken a massive step in my animating, especially my character design and layout design – layout design is something I would really like to go in to detail in and practise a lot more of, I enjoyed every single bit of drawing up and colouring this layout. However, there is a lot to this video I would like to change and improve on, the lip syncing isn’t as perfect as I would like it to be, I can see that it doesn’t sync up, it’s only a slight miss but I see it! Ive also really struggled with time management on this project, with delaying at the start and then deciding to start the project again there was a lot of time lost and now I know that if I had that time back I could have definitely animated to the full 11 seconds in just key frames but I would have really liked to have finished the short piece I have done with all the in-between frames so I have an animation that really flows.
Im definitely going to use this project over the summer, I want to get them key frames done and I want to get the syncing perfect. I also have a few ideas for Heffy, I love his character and the personality I have made for him in my head so I have had a friend recording some speeches which im going to animate and make something with over the summer.