Production Diary
WEEK 1:
This is the first week of my FMP. Before I started the project I did a pre-proposal so I have a general idea of the area I would like to explore for my FMP but I have no real idea of what I would like to do so this is a good way to get ideas flowing. My initial ideas are short animation or book illustrations. I'm worried that trying to make an animation will be too difficult as I have very little experience. To start this project I did some initial research to prepare for my proposal. First I researched Chris Addams because I own a book he illustrated which I used to read when was little and still love it. I love the book and think the drawings are funny and unique. I love the creativity. He is also the man who made the Addams family, another thing I love. I love their unique creepiness and the fact they see it as totally normal. I think this is very relevant to Chris Addams as he was strange, lovable and funny, like his work. Another author I researches was Dr Seuss. I have always loved his story's in all of their formats, film or print. I realise in some ways him and Addams are very similar, both have a unique world where nothing and everything makes sense. Addams is more creepy and Seuss is more fun.
After this research I move on to my proposal. I don’t feel very confident in writing my proposal as I still don’t have a clear idea of what I want to do. I feel either a rhyming story would be fun or I think a silent story. If I did a silent story with no audio this would save me having to lip-sync and save time not recording audio. This would also give me a lot of space to create feeling and expressions in the animation, as nothing is being said to depict what is happening, all of the story line, emotions and effects would all have to be shown through the movement of the characters. This, I feel, would be challenging and like nothing I have ever done before so there is no guarantee how it will turn out. But also it would be a great opportunity to learn about the principles of animation, things I have read about but never actually put into practice. If I were to do a rhyming video with audio I would need to record the rhymes first and I will need to decide if I should have someone speaking or if it should just be an audio on top of the video, like a narrator. Overall I don’t feel I have enough of an idea of what I would like to do to proceed and I feel I will need to do some further research about other people and ideas before I can create a clear idea of a story I would like to do. For this reason I decided to continue my portfolio as I have an interview for a university next week and I don’t feel very prepared. I started a website a couple of weeks ago but I feel very disorganised and it is starting to frustrate me so I've decided to re-start in a PowerPoint. I have already done basically the same amount of work but now it is more organised and I feel I have a better grasp of it. I still need to add some elements from other projects which I haven’t included yet and I need to add writing to explain what each piece is. I watched a very helpful video online about creating a portfolio which I brought three main tips from. Be clear, clear navigation, clear images and clear text. Clear which images are with which piece of text.
WEEK 2 + 3:
This is the second week of my FMP project. I am going to be finishing my portfolio as well as doing my research. I have two interviews this week, one on Tuesday and one on Wednesday. This means I will be missing a day off college and will spend a lot of time on Monday preparing. While completing my portfolio I was looking back over my work which reminded me about all of my previous projects and lessons which I can bring into this project. The time I spent doing research I was looking at already existing products getting inspiration for possible ideas. These products included mother goose, butterpat, fixed fairy tales. I've decided to make a short animation of a well known nursery rhyme with a twist. I have decided on a nursery rhyme ‘there was an old woman who lived in a shoe’ because of the inspiration from my childhood books and I am developing on this idea by looking at already existing products which I used to watch. I am also researching the rhyme to look at the origin and possible meanings to see if there is anything that could influence my story or character designs. So far I have learnt a lot from this research and I can take a lot of it forward into my work. I have learnt about different animation styles, I am more drawn to the more exaggerated forms of animating but I am not sure how easy of effective it will be for me to try and do this style. I have also looked at more simple animations too like hey doggie which will be easier to do and possibly quite effective. I think I need to do more research about animation, I am going to look at shows like pepper pig to look at how they got such effective animation by using such simple techniques. I don’t know if this is the style I want to use but it would be useful to look into it more. Some more things I could take forward in to my work is the main storyline. I have done a lot of research about the origin and meaning of the rhyme and there was a lot of links to poverty and the big family's people used to have so they could have successors. My rhyme is more modern where people don’t need to worry about stuff like this and everyone has opportunity's and they all go on to succeed, even the old woman who plans to go on holiday.
This rhyme highlights the issues of the old times so maybe my rhyme could highlight the issues in modern time… but I like being fun.
WEEK 4:
This week I am problem solving. So far in my problem solving I have identified a number of issues mostly revolving around the themes equipment, ability, time, storage, and techniques. I started by making a spider diagram including the themes, the problems and the solutions all in different colours. This was more for idea generation so I can later put them into a grid with the three titles, Problem, effect, solution. Some problems will not come to light until I am in production and any new problems I experience I will add onto the list for future and I will record the solutions I come up with both in this reflective diary and the table as I go through planning and production. Because I am animating I don’t have as many problems as people who are filming, for example the weather wouldn’t effect me as much as most of my work would be inside and I don’t have any actors, only one narrator. The only thing similar I have to worry about is sound, I am going to include sounds other than narration which I will have to go outside to collect which could cause some other problems. There are some practical activity's I can do to help solve some of my problems, like practicing with sound, looking at different techniques, experimenting with different animation styles. So next week that is what I am going to do. First I will record potential narrators and see what problems there are, who would be the best match and how I would like them to say the rhyme. I think doing this will present a lot more problems which I don’t think about and getting a good recording could be harder then I first anticipate because there are a lot of things that can be expressed and different words to be emphasized which could change the meaning of the sentence and possible the animation to match the sounds better. I will use bold and italic words on my script to try and guide people in how to say it.
This week have also started to sketch out some character designs for my video but I am not sure they are suitable. I don’t know what I am going to animate them like so I don’t know how to structure the body's.
Thursday: I am don’t know
WEEK 5:
This week I started by making some concept art for the setting of my story . I am struggling to picture what my work could be like , I don’t have a clear idea in my head. I thought making some concept art would help me vision the thing better but no. I made a shoe by using Photoshop and a graphics tablet and am really happy with the result . It was very detailed and took me a long time to do, I am thinking maybe I have been too ambitious and I'm not going to be able to get it done or meet my own expectations and I have to show my work in a presentation which I don’t want to do if my work is bad. After making the shoe I think maybe I should do a story book instead of an animation.
I am going to make a story board because I feel it will help me organise what I am doing and it will be easier to break down my work into sections making the work better quality.
It is important to look at sounds. Story board will also help me with this because it will give me a more solid screen of where and what sound will appear through the piece and I can practice with them to
[This week I started by making some concept art for the setting of my story . I am struggling to picture what my work could be like , I don’t have a clear idea in my head. I thought making some concept art would help me vision the thing better. But no. I made a shoe by using Photoshop and a graphics tablet. It was very detailed and took me a long time to do, I am thinking maybe I have been too ambitious and I'm not going to be able to get it done or meet my own expectations and I have to show my work in a presentation which I don’t want to do if my work is bad. I could just animate pages turning. And slight animation of the characters, duggee instead of FTPD. The animation doesn’t have to follow every word, there doesn’t need to be a flow.
There was an old woman who lives in a shoe (woman stood in front of shoe, animation blinking and bobbing)
So many kids didn’t know what to do. (kids appear, like duggee and the snake in the house)
They fight bite argue all day (same as last. Old woman getting sadder/lower)
Etc.
Character design in same style of shoe.
]
WEEK 6:
This week is the 6th week of this FMP project. So far this week planning has been a little slow. I am a little overwhelmed and stuck for what to do next. There are still things from last week which I still need to hand in but I don’t want to. I think I’m a little bit of a perfectionist and I don’t like handing in work for feedback until I feel it is the best it can be so I don’t finish it in time to start the next document and eventually the quantity of work stacks up and I shut down, ignore it and hope it goes away.
Over half term I recorded sounds using a voice recorder. I recorded two people saying my version of the rhyme ‘There was an old woman who lives in a shoe.’ initially this was to test the quality of the sound and the amount of background noise but it has turned out to be very helpful in looking at the story itself and how it is told, calmly of enthusiastically, which words to emphasize to get the best effect and which will match the animations and drawing style best. I recorded two people, Ian who had a very calm and clear voice and Helen who has a very lively voice. It was really interesting to compare the two and I'm not sure which I prefer. to help get my thoughts in order I am going to draw a rough version of a story bored.
I have re-written the story so it has a better flow and understanding. I prefer the new story better and am much happier with it. But it has come to my attention how unprepared I am. When writing the story bored there are some scenes I am struggling to fit with an image, and I have realised there are 14 characters mentioned in the rhyme which I will need to design and animate, not including any side characters which may be included in the visuals.
I have organised myself so now I have a clear idea of what I still need to do.
WEEK 7:
This week is the 7th week of this FMP project. Because it is my last week I have been focusing on what I feel are the most important areas to finish before production. I am focusing on my story board because it will help my plan my sounds, designs, effects and is basically the backbone of my planning. I am finding it a little difficult to plan, I find it easier to learn as I go to find the problems and the best way of doing things and the sounds, narration style, animation style. I just can’t picture things in my head or plan how to do it. So far the designs are the best area of my planning and is the area I am most confident with. I feel I have a solid design of both the shoe and the characters and a vague idea of how to animate them. Other then this I don’t feel very confident. Through out production I think I will be looking back at my story board a lot, reviewing and adding to my plans so I can keep on track what I need to do. I think it would probably be helpful to make a list of some sort so I am confident I have considered everything and have not left any details out. This isn’t the first project where my planning isn’t as well developed as I would like it to be but I feel more pressure this time as I feel there are more things that could go wrong and I have less knowledge in how to fix them. In previous projects things don’t go wrong because it cant go wrong if you don’t plan it.
Because of this lack in planning have an idea which will limit the amount of mistakes. The narration is going to have to be the first thing I get, I am not sure of the other sounds I will need so they can wait until I have a better grasp of the story. They are not completely urgent so I could possibly get them at the start of the second week and also re-record the narration if I have to. I will record the narration first and then draw the designs of every scene before I animate. Then I will start from the beginning and animate each scene individually. I understand that most of this is trial and error but I have a story board which does have notes on my thoughts and different ideas so I wont be doing it blind. I still have the weekend which I will be completing the areas I still need to work on such as confirming the storyboard sound list and the narrators availability. Finalising the character designs and the location designs so I know I have a solid base for starting on. I do have a production schedule but I think it is probably very inaccurate as I have never made an animation before and I’m not sure how long each task will take. I greatly underestimated how long lip-syncing would take in my last project and that effected the quality and detail of my whole video. I don’t think it will be very useful but it will help me keep track of the tasks I have to do so I can keep time but I don’t know if it will be the planned time. In the planning I have done I feel I have learned enough to start and not be totally lost but yeah. Cool.
WEEK 8:
This is the first week of production and I am already frustrated and close to quitting. I want to use the programme clip studio paint which is the software I have at home. It has better art tools on it then and I just find it easier to use to draw with then Photoshop which I have at college but I cant transfer my work between the two software. I can use the clip studio paint and save as Photoshop document but I cant do it the other way round and I cant copy and paste my work between the two either. I don’t have a good version of Photoshop at home so working on it that way is very difficult in addition to trying to do it on a good Photoshop I find frustrating as there is a lot less flexibility with the tools and the tablet isn’t as easy to use as the one I have at home. Doing my work at college is hard without the Clip Paint software and my tablet which I am used to using.
So far in production I am just drawing the background of my work. I’m hoping this will help me organise my scenes and prepare for the animated aspects of it. I am trying to add a lot of detail in to the still images which is taking some time but I want to speed up because I am worried about not finishing the animation. I think this is the easy part. Just drawing still images. They are not as good as my original design with the shoe, I am putting some of the blame on the tools I have, but I think it will turn out ok. The character designs are the next thing I have to do before next week . I want to start animating as soon as possible so I can get the hang of it sooner and not mess up so drastically.
WEEK 9 + 10:
This is the 9th week in doing this project and the second week of production. I am really worried about this project. I don’t know how to start to animate. I am just drawing out the backgrounds. I have a plan to draw out each scene in the story board and when I've finished that I can re-draw in-between scenes to create a 2d totoro style animation. This is the only way I can think to start to animate things. I don’t know how long this will take. I booked out a sound recorder for the weekend. I get it on Thursday and give it back Monday. I have a list of sounds I need to collect including the narration. Getting these will help me visualise my story better and will help with the in-between drawings.
So for this week I am colouring, shading and perfecting three of my scenes, I don’t know what the best thing to do is either leave all of the colour definition fresh or blended. When it is fresh I think as a piece it looks better and stands out more but I an forgetting the fact this is a background piece so blended may be a better option. To give it more depth however I will highlight some areas with a sharp brush, for example areas where the sun is hitting or depending on the materiel. Doing this means it will create a more dramatic, realistic feel to it and make the image less flat. I feel good about the work I have already done and feel it is at a good standard. I’m just worried that there isn’t the right quantity as their should be. I think I really need to hurry up if I want to finish in time.
I am enjoying this work. Although originally I planned to have the rhyme in a more modern setting but the design has ended up having an old feel to it with wooden supports and stained yellow walls. I don’t know why, it’s just what happened. Maybe it can become more modern as I go though. Instead of the shoe being old and rickety it could have been new extensions like story buildings with all glass walls and windows and really modern. This would also link to the opportunities they have in modern times and the lack of death. I could link what the children are doing to things that went aloud or they didn’t have those days. Doctors, stay at home dads, women workers etc.
Next week I'm just going to go though my story board starting from the beginning and start to draw each scene. I have already started the first scene today but I had a doctors appointment so I haven't finished yet, but it is going well.
This week I'm just going to go though my story board and drawing each scene from the beginning so I can start to try and organise.
So basically I drew out and coloured scenes. Apparently.
WEEK 11:
This is the 4th week of production. So far I am happy with my work and this week have started to animate elements of it such as Archie the dancer. Overall I have been continuing my work like last week, sketching out and colouring scenes. Monday was good and I made a lot of progress I drew out and coloured phoebe and the twins, emmet and Dylan, ruby, Logan and Emma. I am happy with most of the work but some are still not complete and they all still need animating. I think I might re-draw Emma's bar as well because I don’t feel very happy with how it turned out. Tuesday was less productive as I had electronic issues at home and problems with my software but I sorted it out and sketched out all of Archie's scenes. I used a real human as reference so I could get the body shape right, I struggle to draw the main body (from the hips to the chest), but I am really pleased with how they turned out. Today is Wednesday and to stark I have to re-organise all of my files and split my work into multiple documents. So far I have just kept all of my work on one Photoshop document but it is becoming to big and it is making everything very slow and unable to copy onto some of my memory sticks. So I sectioned up my production work and now have multiple documents. I think I will have to do this again in the future but for now this works fine. Also on Wednesday I started to re-draw Emma and I was able to put all of Archie's sketched in an animation to check if they all work well together. Thankfully they all flow together well and I feel it is good quality. I spent the rest of the day colouring him in. I have to colour each scene individually and I still haven't quite finished it. I will try to finish it tonight along with Emma's bar which I am not happy with yet. On Thursday I think I will start to animate all of my work, starting from the beginning and working through. This is also a good way to check if there are any scenes missing which I will just add when I get there. My main worry is not finishing in time. After Easter I only have three weeks which I didn’t realise, I thought I had more time, and now I am scared I will not get everything finished. I am able to do work over Easter but I don’t know if I have faith in myself to actually do as much as I need to do. I just want to not do anything.
WEEK 12 + 13:
This week I am sorting out my audio, I feel I have done most of the visuals but I am getting a little confused which ones I have finished and which ones I haven't and its all starting to get a bit disorganised so I plan to start putting it all into premiere and start to actually make the video so I can see what I have done and fill in the blanks of what i have not. I started by getting the audio sorted and I think it sounds really good. I chose the recording of Andrew because I just thought it was the most suitable and it sounded so cool. I couldn’t not use it its so good. After editing the narration, which didn’t take long, I started to add the visuals. I started at the end of the video because that is the area with the most cut scenes so there is more I need to edit and adjust. I think its going good so far. It took all week to get the second half done. I had to draw some areas which I was missing and it took me a while to do the animations in Photoshop because of all the layers but I found it really fun to do. Some of it isn’t how I originally planned but I like it and its been a really good experience.
I still have so much to do. I think I may come in on Friday to try and do more. Last week I sorted out the audio and started adding the visuals over. Today I have realised that I am missing the middle of the visuals. A lot of the middle. And I don’t know why. Maybe I just didn’t draw them but I need to get them done. I can draw it all out at home but I cant animate it there. Ideally I would have all of tomorrow at home so I can draw and all of Friday in college so I can animate them into videos. I would have wanted this week to be the last of actually making the video so next week could be finalising the animation and making it the best it can but now it might be a rush to finish it.
WEEK 14 + 15:
These are the last weeks of production.
It's going ok. Its basically all in premiere. So that’s cool. I only have a couple of scenes I still need to finalise and export from photoshop. I will have a finished piece of work by the end although it may not be the standard that i planned it to be and there will probably be elements missing from it but someone new watching it wouldn't be able to tell because it is still a finished piece which is good.
I have finished production. on time. I’m so happy. And its not terrible either. I actually rather like it. Especially considering its my first ever animation. Now I start evaluating my work. Some areas of planning are still incomplete so I spent the first half of this week filling in and re-reading my previous documents such as my proposal, research and planning. So far the evaluation is going well. I am struggling a little to put things into words and some questions are weird like how I dealt with emotional trouble. I don’t really know how to answer that you just deal with it. But so far it is going well and I am making progress.I feel this was a really good experience.