Final Movie

Here is my Final Animation.. im happy with the result of it and feels as though it portrays my story well and the music works well with it. If i had the chance to do it again and improve on it would perhaps learn how to use Adobe Flash to make the character better animated when the camera zoom's in on his expression. i may also perhaps animate the other notes in a way so you can see their expression close up too. I like how the backgrounds i designed in Photoshop have come out and the actual idea of the story even if i did take me 3 storyboards to get me there!

Making an ending

After i had made my animation and edited it in Premiere i then decided that it needed a text ending with the words "Animation by Nathan Fidler" so i watched some tutorials on how to make it look as if the writing's being wrote as you watch. 

In order to do this i had to choose a font i wanted to i used a handwriting one to make it look more effective and then i had to draw over it with the pen tool and add a stroke and keyframes to it. 

Editing My Animation Using Adobe Premiere

Ater i finished making my animation in Atereffects i then rendered it out as a quicktime movie and opened it in Adobe Premiere to add the finishing touch's to it. i had never used Premiere before and had not had a workshop in it neither so i used the online video tutorials to teach me the basics. i used it to trim certain clips and to add video transitions.

There was many of custom preset video transitions i could have used but decided to use the "page peel" effect which i though would look effective.

Making Another Scene

In this scene where all the notes have left the score i imported the background i created in photoshop and put all the notes on the tree apart from the odd one out thats following. I then used the keyframes again to set the times and rotations of all the notes to move and fly off as well as having the odd one out note flying around the tree looking for the others notes.

Heres the end result below

Heres a screen shot of Aftereffects where you can see all the layers being used in time a sequence.

Close Up Animation

In this scene of my animation i wanted it to look as though the camera had zoomed in on the note that had been left alone and he was to then smile and wink. I decided to go back to my research on stopmotion and use the technique's i had learnt to animate my character. i created four photoshop designs of the note with a straight face, smiling face and with him winking so wen i put them together in the right order it would show the effect i was going for.

Here below are the original images..

and heres the final result..

The Music Notes With Aftereffects

To start with to make my first scene i had to import this file below that i created on photoshop i had to make every note an individual layer so that i could make them all move at different times and in different directions.

In order to do this i had to select the layer (the note) i wanted and add keyframes for the time i wanted it to move and the direction i wanted it to move and how long it took to move the distance i had asked it to. This was quite a time consuming job for all 34 different layers that i had to say the least. i then had to add another keyframe for its rotation so that it wasn't just flying of straight because this wouldn't look as effective. i did this by using the rotation keyframes as seen below

Here below is the final result..

Creating My Backgrounds Using Photoshop

 I created the backdrops for my animation using Photoshop so that i could then import them into Aftereffects when making my final animation. I then added all the notes as separate layers to each of the backgrounds on aftereffects later on 

Storyboard 3 Final idea

I decided to start yet another storyboard! i had a sudden change of idea's and decided i was going to do my final animation using Adobe Aftereffects instead of using Boinx StopMotion and do it more abstract because after listening to the music i was given more i started thinking differently about it. i decided the music i was given was all about the build up and all the different instruments used in making the sound and i came up with the storyboard below from it.

The main story is theres a group of notes on a score and they all come to life and fly off however one is left behind. The note that is left behind attempts to follow but hits the side of the frame and bouces back and looks sad that the other notes have all left him. He eventually follows but all the other notes hide from him in a tree. All the other notes end up back on the score and the one thats following thats been left behind finally catches up and is happy again to be reunited with the other notes.

More Experimental Video's

For my Final Idea i will be using stopmotion so i decided to experiment further into using figures and seeing how effective it looked. After endless attemps this video below was the most realistic looking one out of them all and although it could look quite effective i decided that i wouldnt use figure for my final design looked planned with my first storyboard.

i looked into doing stopmotion using digital images instead of using a live camera and filming real life images like the video above and the result was quite effective. I created a character that looked like a southpark character and made over 30 still images of him pulling different faces and looking different ways to create a moving animation. I decided to put music over it and make it look like he was singing along to it.

The result was more effective and worked better than i was expecting so i decided i was definatly going to do my final animation all digitally. In making this video in boinx stopmotion i learnt alot of techniques in timing and how to sync the pictures together to bring my character to life.

Experimenting After The Workshop

After the workshop in using aftereffects i bought the software and carried on making some more short animations. I imported a background image and used the same skeleton photoshop file i used in the workshop. I added music to the clip to make it look more complete like a finished animation

I then had a go at making an animated background because i felt as though thats what let the video above down so i quickly went on photoshop and drew out a simple background and added a few layers to see if i could add a moving cloud and bird here is the result below

Workshop 3 AfterEffects

In this workshop we learnt some basic skills on how to create an animation using the software Adobe Aftereffects. I found it quite difficult at the start but the more i experimented and practiced with it i slowly got the hang of it. In order to get the skeleton to move it was much harder than i was expecting, its all done through layers and u have to attach certain layers to each other in order for them to follow in a human way. For example i would have to attach the upperarm to the torso and attach the lower arm to the upperarm etc this is called parenting. 

Storyboard 2

This is my second storyboard i have come up with. i am still undecided in what to do for my final idea so i have done two final storyboards and will continue further with developing them until i decide exactly what to do.

the story is a character will go outside and its a sunny day he will lay his towel down to sunbath and as soon as he does the sun will go in and a rain cloud will come along. He then goes back inside and the sun comes out again, he comes out and starts sunbathing again and as soon as he does that a lighting cloud comes over.

Characters initial idea's

Here are some initial idea's of characters i may use in my storyboard and perhaps my final piece.

Workshop 2

In this work Shop we drew out 37 sketches of a quick story that we are then gong to scan into Adobe Aftereffects and make a video from. This is called cell animation

I have uploaded the key frames of the story onto the blog to show the story.

Storyboard one

Here is my first storyboard i drew out. Theres going to be a villian than comes into shot and plants a bomb however a good guy comes along and saves the day.

Ive still not decided yet wether to draw my own characters out or use figures such as lego or actionman to show the movements.

Experimenting With Stop Motion Continued ..

Heres another quick experiment using iStopmotion again. There are a few mistakes in it but this has helped me learn more about the software so next time i should be able to overcome these mistakes.

Experimenting with Stop Motion

I downloaded a software called Boinx iStopMotion and carryied on experiemnting on my own mac at home. i set a timer for 20 seconds per frame so that i had time to change tshirt for the next shot. i think te video is effective however if i was to do it again i think i would make me have more movement in it.

Workshop On Stop Motion

The clip above is from the stop motion workshop we had. We used the software iStopMotion to create a small clip using the figures provided.

First Impression of the Audio

Concierto de AranJuez by Miles Davis the piece of audio i will be using for my final animation was recorded around the 1950's and sounds Jazzy. Other words i would use to describe it would be;

Suspicious, Old Fashioned, Apprehensive, A feeling of uncertainty, A dilemma, A build up, War, Devastation, Tension building.

The Audio I Have Been Given

For my Final Piece i have been given the song Concierto de AranJuez by Miles Davis.

Stop Motion

I researched into stop motion and came across some inspiration videos that were made using stop motion.

Matt Groening

Matt Groening the man who created The Simpsons is a big influence for me on this module.

Matt started out by designing a comic strip titled "life in hell" that was quite succsesful and then this lead on to bigger and better things such as the tv cartoons The Simpsons and Futurama.