Change of State: Rough Animation

I have produced a rough build of my 'Human to Superhero' animation, which can be viewed above. I worked out the in-betweens of each key frame and added a classic tween to create the effect of the character floating upwards. With the rough animation in place, I can now work on finalising the animation and adding colour.

NOTE: For some reason, Blogger cut off the last second of the video when I uploaded it. Sorry about that.

Change of State: Animation Keys

I have produced animation keys for my 'Human to Superhero' animation. I started by downloading the song I used as the soundtrack. Then I used Audacity to trim the song down to the right length and loaded the edited song into Flash. With the song in Flash, I could sync up the keys to the parts of the song that are pivotal to this animation.

The soundtrack in the animation is part of the theme song for the computer game Awesomenauts. Awesomenauts was created by Dutch indie developer Ronimo Games and the theme song was produced by audio studio Sonic Picnic, which is local to Ronimo Games. I was originally going to use a piece of original music that the Youtube channel Hat Films use as the intro jingle to their gaming videos, but I went with the Awesomenauts theme song because I thought that it better suited a superhero, and the part of the song I used fits perfectly within the 8 seconds time frame.

Research Task: Bradford Animation Festival

To get an idea of what the client in this brief is looking for, we were tasked with looking at and analysing past submissions to the Bradford Animation Festival.

Looking at some of the examples of previous entries and winners of the Bradford Animation Festival, I had not realised just how diverse the entries to the festival can be. There was professional content as well as amateur work, student films and even work done by children. The diversity of media is also remarkable, covering traditional, CGI and stop motion, among others.

Though the Bradford Animation Festival website does not always give access to the full versions of the films, I can get a good feel for what they are like through the trailers. What I picked up on is that an animator can submit pretty much anything they like, so long as their own ideas and unique style come through in the final piece.

I found the piece titled 'Women's Letters' by Augusto Zanovello particularly interesting. It was an unusual concept; a stop motion animation in which a field medic in World War I uses the letters of beloved women to treat the wounds of the paper soldiers. I assume that the idea behind this is that their letters from home helped give the soldiers on the front lines the emotional strength they needed to keep fighting despite abject despair.

If I can think of an unusual slant on the 'Human to Superhero' transformation theme, I should be able to create an original answer to the brief (and maybe even have a contender for the BAF).

Change of State: Initial Ideas

I was absent on the first day of the brief, so I did not know what themes my group had gone with. My first idea was to animate a selkie transforming from a seal into a human, but it became defunct when I found out that the two themes my group were using had already been decided on; 'Human to Werewolf', and 'Human to Superhero'. Finding the idea of 'Human to Werewolf' rather boring, I instead went with 'Human to Superhero'.

Development sketches for my original 'Selkie' idea

I went with the 'Human to Superhero' theme because I thought it would suit my brighter, more 'bouncy' style more than the darker theme of 'Human to Werewolf'. I decided to use an original character I have had for as long as I can remember, a teenage superhero who goes by the identity of Mega Boy.

Development sketches and notes for the 'Mega Boy' character and animation

One element of the design I wanted to get right was the character's body shape. I wanted the character to be visually appealing, yet easy to animate. As can be seen in the notes on the upper right and lower right corners of the image, I decided from the start that I wanted the animation to have a soundtrack as well as special effects.

Turnaround sheet showing final designs for the 'Superhero' and 'Human' versions of the character

I finalised the designs of the character very quickly, and I am very happy with the results. My tutor even told me that she could imagine him being in his own children's television show, transforming all the time. This kind of feedback has given me even more confidence in my designs, and I feel that they will translate perfectly to animation.

Visual Literacy Animation Brief: Change of State

For this brief, we are back in our agency groups, only this time we each have to produce an animation (minimum of 8 seconds in length) as if it were to be submitted to the Bradford Animation Festival into the Professional Films category. The theme is 'Change of State', and there is a selection of themes to base our animations around; each group selects up to two themes for each of their members to work on. I am looking forward to this brief, because I have been leaning more and more towards the animation side of this course, and I am eager to develop my skills further.