[Extended Practice]Short reflection

I have quite a few thoughts during this stage of the production.
1) I wish I spent more time on storyboarding, considering composition, layout before drawing the final storyboard. Obviously I did not considered well enough so that there are some timing issues and scenes change during the production. Although there are no rules saying you can not change your plan half way through, schedule might be interrupted. In my case it is fine because I am working on my own but it should not happen that much if working in a team.

2)What I would like to improve this is use of camera angles and layout. I was doing PPP research and at the same time stepped back from animating and watched quite a lot of professional animations from different studios or just from internet. I noticed that my animation is very compact in comparison. It might be a problem happens to immature animators that trying to pack so much in such a short time. Problems I am facing is not only translating Cantonese into the international language, in this case animation, but also create this intense atmosphere. Sometimes I feel like I am too constricted with getting the realism in the animation so that quite a lot of moves and actions are limited. There are many examples on vimeo showcasing how space can be changed when characters are in their 'mental world'. 

3) To much information in a scene. I need to learn to simplify a scene, not only talking about environment but the art of showing where the characters are.

For instance, a scene from Behind the School Bag 2015 by Nic Ho uses only a door and a toilet to show where the characters are not even adding sink or mirror. Remove anything not needed, simplify the set to extreme. The problem of my animation is that no all the buildings are needed...so why not thinking about get rid of some in some close up shots?

Nevertheless, I also learn to appreciate my work a bit more. It is quite impress to finish a 2.5 minutes animation by myself in three months with other things going on. Considering the time limit and the 'workforce', I should be proud and treat this animation as good practice and reflection.

[Extended Practice] Complicated Scene

This scene took a long time to finish, not only because of the detailed drawing but also the morphing sequence. I also wanting this surreal expression of the intense atmosphere build up through out the scene, by the moment the door opens and every officers are alarmed and tense. I use only lines for the quick actions to give the sense of immediate action also they could go on top of the background without hiding any details behind.

I came up with this morphing idea during production since it will be bored to have too many cut scenes. I hope the colour help informing the audience about the identity of the character also simplified the scene a little bit. I think it works by showing what the polices and the gangster doing at the same time without the cartoony sectioning the screen or normal cut shot.  

If I have time to revisit this scene, I will slightly elongate the duration of the background so that when the bad guy finishes morphing, audience still understand where he is standing and relating his position with the background.  

[Extended Practice] The right things to do?

The colouring method I have been using, is probably not the cleverest way to use. I colour the character in white first and use clipping mask for the watercolour so that it will stay in the previous colour layer. 

It is very time consuming when doing this to every frame. Similar effect could be done in AfterEffect using tracking but it is difficult to get the exact pattern I want. I wish there is a quicker way to create the same result...

Having too many layers also easily causes confusion and mess up, luckily it just happened once or twice to the project. However it is not a sustainable method to use in the future because it will become a total mess during group project even if every thing is named correctly. I already tried to sort them out by putting them in folders and it helps organising a bit.

The other method I tried is combining the lines with the colours but it becomes a problem when editing after. I want the colour and the lines in different colours when the triangle shapes places on top so it does not work if the lines merges the colours. Perhaps colouring frame to frame is my only choice.

Nevertheless, the aesthetic is kept through out the whole animation and remain the consistency. I also like this scene because of the shifting perspective of the camera, showing the sniper at behind. The falling action is also smooth and making a pretty composition. 

[Extended Practice] Timing

During the Crit on the 30th of March, Mike also slightly mentioned about the timing of this particular scene. The running seems taking up too long and could be shortened a little bit. Personally I was struggling to furnish this scene due to the blank background at first. I found the character very dull in front of bank background so I used watercolour and some new cuts to create the current look. It is a bit worrying if it is way too surreal for a documentary like this and if the cut shots too quick. This is a scene full of unsure so I will definitely revisit it. What I will change is probably the duration of the running action also change the presentation of the 'pre-detonating' pose of the bad guy. Instead of showing the reflection of the grenade in Rambo's eye like how I was planned in the storyboard, I want to simplified it into just showing Rambo's hands grabbing the bad guy's hands in order to present a clear action of Rambo preventing him from detonating the bomb. Nevertheless, I like the gradient of colour built up in the close up of the gangster. It slowly generate tension and the level of danger in that situation which I hope audience could feel that from the screen!

[Extended Practice]time the scenes

During half way of the production, I was confused by the actual duration needed for every frame. The frame rate and actual time got mixed up and ending up do not know how much time needed for each scene. Even with the time code in the animatic, calculating time is the most horrible job in the world and I tried so hard but failed. Therefore it is time for to search the internet! I found quite a few frame calculator websites online and the one I am showing below is the most efficient and clear to use. 

So I can put in the starting time of the scene according to the time code and the finishing time as well, it automatically calculate the length of time of the scene. (remember to alter the correct frame rate before typing in the time). 

Eventually I got a list of the time needed for each scene in seconds 

THIS HELPS A LOT! After sorting out the time, I roughly understand how many frames I need to draw for each scene so that I would not over drawn or drawing not enough so have to revisit scene. The timing also allows a better overview of how scenes link to each other. For instance when a 2 seconds scene comes before a 8 seconds scene, I will leave 1-2 seconds at the beginning of the longer scene for transition when it is avaliable.

I should have done this at the beginning of production because every scenes should be precisely following the animatic otherwise the 'improvising' will messed up the rest of the scene especially having a voice recording to follow. This animation very different to the previous animation because I need to follow closely to the voice recording, unlike the previous documentary our OWL group did which we recorded the voice afterward. What is more, the 'improvising' is what I usually do, casually elongate or shorten scenes since there is no limitation. Therefore it is challenging to have a strict 'rule' to obey to but at the same time I feel more oganised and well-prepared. I think making the time plan is a good idea to continue in the future even if I do not follow eventually. It clears things up and reduce confusion.

[Extended Practice] Camera direction

A power of camera direction! I finished the scene when the bad guy goes down stairs. There are two options of this scene, one is the camera pans up and one pans down. Technically I know the camera should follow the direction of the action but visually it looks better when the camera pans up which also able to show the red colour of the bad guy's T-shirt. I should have drawing the character and the background smaller so as to allow space to zoom in or out, allowing more opportunities to alter the scenes in AfterEffect. If do so, the camera is no question panning down with the action.

After asking Mike about these two tests, he agreed that the colour of the shirt is more important and oddly the pans up of camera does not look strange in this scene! What I know is to draw the 'secure area' of every scenes so as to ease the editing and do not limit myself with the current storyboard. Just slightly larger than the canvas maybe 2100X1200? so that I could fit them into the 1920X1080 composition in AfterEffect.

[Extended Practice]Time table March to Mid May

I made my second time table from March to Mid-May just after submission. I found ticking boxes works best for me. Instead of strictly saying what to do each day, I give myself weekly plan, listing what must be done in the week and ticking out the scenes and how many blogs I have done. By doing so, it gives more satisfaction and sense of timing to my current stage. The time table including PPP blogs as well so everything should be right on track and by following so, the animation could be finished a week before submission thus having a bonus week to finish off other blogs and touch ups.

I also developed a habit of using sticky notes everything when a new thought or a 'work waiting list' come up so that I do not forget them in the next second also make sure they are under the spot light which will be accomplished. For the rest of the four weeks, I will be finishing the rest of the animation which is around 30 seconds, progressing well! 

[Extended Practice]30/3 interim Crit

There were not much comments for me on that day since mine is last of the list and it seems like my animation is on track so most of the feedback was just keep animating. At this point, I still have about 1min 30 seconds left therefore I should be fine to finish most of the rest during Easter. There are a few things I want to revisit after the crit.

Subtitles:

I looked at how Hong Kong movies usually have their subtitles and they are in white and in both Chinese and English. 

I added two bars to the composition according to the format of the traditional Hong Kong movies as well as the white subtitles. However the white colour did not show very well and I could not see the words from a distance. Therefore I am going to change it into black instead.

like the scene below, the grey background hides the subtitles so it is very unclear.

I will also consider different options like white words black borders or shading of the words.

Background Noise:
Reduce background noise of the voice recording.->search online!

sound effect:
Mike suggested using the sound library, using sounds effects only instead of using music. I think he is right about this because music does not really work for the documentary. If time allows, there will be a chance recording the sound by myself like walking sounds, wind blow and other environmental sounds. Nevertheless, I really want to stress the sounds and it should be important to the animation.

To round up, I want to finish most of the animation during Easter, leaving at least one week for final touch up. Catch up with blogs and PPP... Luckily there are no serious problem with the animatic so I can focus entirely in animating.  

H.P. Lovecraft animation

This is the last day of my collaboration with Callum and Hayley's group. Today I made a fireplace with the mantelpiece and painted it to a marble texture. I am very satisfied with the outcome and my painting skills! What I also did is cut all the legs of the desks and chair out of a long dowel BY A CRAFTING KNIFE...it was almost impossible to do. They are all in 3-7 cm which did not have a big supporting point for me to hold the dowel. I really wish there's a coping saw!  

We also went down to the print room to print out the wall papers and the floor and the patterns are found by Hayley which I think go well with the furniture. They are in matt so when the light hit the paper there will be no reflections that cause unwanted light source as well as looking more like really wooden floor.

After all, I do not think I did much for their group. It is very difficult to cope with two project in one time especially when both are important. I do not want to disappoint their group for not being productive so I asked many times if there's still anything I could help but I think Hayley also wants to take greater part in props making so she politely declined so I did not ask anymore. Anyway, I enjoyed working with the team. I learnt that it is important to understand their story before helping because looking back at first, there was no questions at all from me to their project, not even their storyboard and I just wanted to craft so badly. Later, when their schedule started, I did not understand the background and time period of their story so Hayley explained to me why we painted the furniture into dark brown colour. All in a sudden, I knew that I should treat this as my own project, by doing so saves more time and excess work, also creates the best sets. It is a very precious experience! I think I am good at taking orders and be a good teammate since I work fast and efficient. The collaboration informs me my ability and I shall embrace them in the future collaboration work as well. 

[Extended Practice]Reduce background noise

I noticed that there are quite a lot of background noise in the voice recording. It might be due to a low quality microphone or the room is not entirely silent. It is too expensive to get a high quality microphone which costs about 50 pounds so I bought a 20 pounds microphone that has all the function I need for recording just has a bit of flaws of being a bit too big and only works with a computer. So instead of lending a professional recording room like what school has, I choose to record my dad in my room so some noise from the street was unavoidable even when the windows are closed. I realised how perfect the equipments we have at school for free since a professional recording studio costs a fortune in Hong Kong, it is not a price students could afford.

To solve this problem, I decided to search for noise reducing methods in both AfterEffects and Premiere. It turns out that the 'noise reduce' tools in AfterEffects is not for the sound track but the noise grains in pixels so Premiere is my only saviour [for free]. 

Open the audio effects and use DeNoiser which is a radio looking tools that reduces the background noise perfectly and it is so easy to use as well. This a a very useful tool to use in the future as well especially when there is buzzing noise in the background, not sure if it is powerful enough to reduce street noise but still exceptionally brilliant to use. 

[Extended Practice]9/3Animatic Crit

It was our Crit on animatic today and we had chance to show our work in process and other semi-final work far work to the rest of the class. I enjoyed watching everyone's animatic because there are such diverse genre of animation that everyone is doing which we could give constructive feedbacks to them. Before this crit, many of them had seen a clip on instagram which I posted and they loved it. There are a lot of positive comments and compliments on the intro of the animation that I am very happy with. Obviously the 3D engine in AfterEffects gives so much credit to the aesthetic I am achieving and therefore it is a sign to keep exploring the use of 3D elements in 2D. Also I asked couple of questions:
Which character design they like the most?
For my dad's character:
they raised an issue of the place of the warrant card. Many of them suggested that it will look more like a cop if the warrant card is put around the neck and it just looks like a helper in supermarket if it is clipped on the clothes. I think it is very constructive because I have never thought about this issue. At the beginning I assumed audience know that they are the police but I really not suppose to make any assumption. This is why people always say bring as much details as you can in the animation and pretend that the audience know nothing about the topic I am working on. So even this kind of minor details could make a big change of the story.

Also they like the second outfit of the first illustration more. Personally I like the first one but I will see how the outfit will go with the background.

For Rambo, They pointed out that I drew him too bulky like Ralph in Wreck-it ralph. haha probably because of the hands and the huge feet. This is a result of lack of practice in life drawing and try to draw muscular people without knowing much about human bodies. It is good they pointed out these mistakes and I will visit the design again.

For the bad guy, many of them love the idea of having the bright red on the top which makes the character more villainous and contrasting to the officers. 

I also asked about the issue of triggering the grenade and the subtitle issue.

As I said before the grammatical differences in Cantonese and English is huge especially in the order of words and I do not want to expose the plot on subtitles before the images on screen and Annabeth said it is possible to change the meaning of English slightly to solve this problem. It does not have to be the exact translation of the voice recording so I could rearrange the English subtitle whatever it fits the sequence. Also they suggested me to work on the grenade scene first so that I could show it and discuss the scene further more with the class at the next Crit. I will definitely spend some time on this scene first but maybe not this week and it might be useful to make a better plan of how the bad guy detonate the grenade before starting to animate. What is more, I need to blog about festival in PPP, look at the range of festivals I can submit this animation to and where it fits.