Sound Design - end credits

After speaking to Will again, he sent more samples my way for a potential credits track. The examples I listened to seemed slightly too up beat for this animation, and it would have also caused too big of a juxtaposition in tempo when going from the animation o the credits. Therefore I asked him if he was also able to send me some exampled with less drums in them. Over this project I had been sent a lot of different tracks by Will, so I felt confident that we would succeed in finding one that would work for the end credits!

I also had the potential idea of using either the same track from the animation, either alone of with a mix of static, muffled noise. I decided jut to see how things went with the new tracks I was receiving from Will, and I would then after another week make the final decision.

Outcome
Since Will was very relaxed and happy for me to use or not use any of his tracks, I didn't feel pressure to know exactly which track would be used for the end credits at this point. This was definitely a good thing, because it meant I didn't need to rush to make that decision weeks in advance. This also meant that I could potentially experiment with more than one track and see which fitted the role best.

CROSSING OFF PANELS!

As I was getting further through with animating, I had the very satisfying reward of being able to cross of the panels that had been animated. This was not only beneficial for mentality's sake, but also because it allowed me to visually see what I had left to animate. 

Also, because I was dipping in and out of animation and drawing backgrounds at the same time, it also meant I knew exactly what background I needed to crack on with next. I wanted the backgrounds there for when I was animating, because I needed to reference! 

Second Crit Feedback

When it came to the second crit, I was much further along than I had been previously, which I flet good about. However this once again was an opportunity for me to be given feedback on what I had to show so far. This time around, there were two main things that were brought to my attention.

The first of which was the backgrounds. I explained to my peers and tutors that I intended to give the backgrounds some noise in order to make them slightly mobile, however it seemed to be a popular opinion that I kept the background as they were, since the characters had a wobble too. Many people felt this could result in being too much for the audience to take in.

The second, was my walk cycle at the start. It was suggested to me that the walk cycle needed a bit more personality and that I should consider adding in some extra frames, to make it look more unique.

Outcome

After this crit, I was slightly relieved that so many people suggested I leave the backgrounds as they were, because the could potentially save me a lot of time. However I decided to wait until post production, and then see if I had enough time left to play around with this some more. In regards to the walk cycle, I took on board the advice that was given to me, and decided that I would come back and make correction to this segment when I was a bit further down the line with animating, because I was in fear of spending too long on one small segment when I had the rest of the film to animate. But I was adamant thatI would come back to it.

Background development - Wobble wobble

Since I had previously decided to give my backgrounds some added noise in After Effects to create a gentle wobble, I knew I needed to become familiar with how to go about doing this. A friend showed me an example of the look that could be achieved on one of my backgrounds by adding "turbulent noise" and the result was exactly the kind of thing I had been imagining. So I went on to note down each stage of how to do it, because it was a much longer process than I had expected!

This was so that I could then move on to do this without having to constantly look up tutorials or get help. 

Something else I needed to be sure of, was that the colour aesthetic for the character & the background would work well together. In order to check that there would be no unexpected clashes in colour, I did a test by placing the lead character with in one of the key environments.

This test enabled me to see what exactly needed changing. Since this test was done at an earlier stage, the background used was not the final background, however the colours were all the same. 

Outcome

After playing about with this, two things were brought to my attention. One, was that I could potentially make the colouring for the character slightly more intense, if the background were to be as pale as the one above. Also, it reminded me the importance of beginning the characters' colorings from block fills, and then working up with shadow from there, in order to keep consistency! 

Another things that was reassuring, was that the order in which I was working through production, meant that I could be adding colour to the characters with the completed backgrounds behind, allowing me to see straight away if something needed changing. 

Presentation of work so far - 09/03/17

After getting into the swing of production, it was soon time to present my progress that had so far been made. For this presentation I added in the animation I had done, to my animatic. At this stage, I had around 20 seconds of uncoloured animation to show, which I was happy about, because I felt as though I was making good progress!

Feedback

After showing the work I had so far, I came away from this presentation with a clear idea of what I needed to do. Aside from the obvious fact of simply continuing on with the animation, I had two specific things to think about:

- music 

- background perspective 

I was encouraged to think about the possibility of making the gentle music in the background slightly muffled, to suggest it may be coming from a broken radio. I really liked this idea and this is something I decided to keep in mind for post-production. 

It was also brought to my attention that the perspective of the counter in one of my environment drawings was not quite right, so I spent some time after the presentation putting this right. 

This crit was incredibly useful, because it allowed me to hear thoughts & areas for improvement that I hadn't thought of, which is the good thing about getting work in progress looked at by fresh eyes.