Through technicality, this is the fifth week of FMP, but I’m calling it Week 1 because this is my first blog update regarding FMP.
For Final Major Project this year, my main theme is to do with memories as that is a special topic, and as we’re in hard times, I feel like we should all look to the past, remembering good times we’ve had be it young or old. My main goal achievement is to produce a digital animation of memories.
This was my early draft of the storyboard. This is basically what I drafted out. Panel 1, old man is sitting on a chair looking through a scrapbook. Panel 2, we see what the elder is reading. Panel 3, we zoom into a picture of someone kicking a football into a goal. Panels 4 & 5, other pictures, more animations of what is going on in them. Panel 6, someone lowers the scrapbook. Panel 7, the elder sees a young adult. Panel 8, the two hug as a small box is shown.
This was an early idea I had planned as I was doing my presentation. Not the best of ideas to go on, but something to work from at least.
This is my research mind map of certain highlights to look at during the research week. (and beyond research week if needed) Most of these highlights I’ve looked into.
My first inspired animators, Richard Williams. (page under construction)
If you can’t read what it says on the page. ‘Richard Williams was an animator artist and director who was well know for his unique approach to animation. For example, his pencil animation short film, Prologue, 1971 Chuck Jones’ adaptation of A Christmas Carol and probably his most beloved classic that mixed animation & live action, Who Framed Roger Rabbit.’
‘His animation skills are quite unique and inspired a few animators, but what I find intriguing is how he managed to animate everything he made out of pure paper, ink and pencil! That type of animation is mostly rare these days. This inspires me to try and do something similar.’
The images provided are examples of his work.
Second inspired animator, Tyson Hesse.
Incase you can’t read the description. ‘Tyson Hesse is a comic book artist & animator who works on webcomics and web short films, well known for his ‘DIESEL’ comics and his web animation ‘Sonic Mania Adventures’. The way he animates his work/commissions are interesting as while focusing on the main story, he also adds funny scenes in the background. As I’m aiming to add humour to my animation, this has helped me think about trying this out.’
The images provided are examples of his work.
This is basically a page about memories. A small dig down to what memories are, why they are important and reasons we have them.
If you can’t read what it says. ‘What are Memories? A part of history. Mirror of the past. What people look back to remember something. Stories of life. Memories are important because they can help people grow, learn from mistakes and solve problems.’
I’ve left the last part out because it’s basically what I typed in earlier.
This one is more to do with an animation director than an animator.
If you can’t read what it says. ‘Cartoonist and Director of almost every episode of Looney Tunes & Tom & Jerry, until his death in 2002, Chuck Jones was well known for creating well remembered characters such as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck or a certain comedic due of Cat & Mouse. With each animation he directed, he made the characters colourful, rememberable and humorous. From this, he entertained the world with the wonders of comedic animation. Something to take into account as I do my animation.’
While he may not be an animator, his work is something of interest and one of the things most people tend to think of first when it comes to animation.
This one I actually watch on Youtube. Note, this isn’t the celebrity. Here’s a link to his channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC44G0QdnNQbBLkvK5HybamQ
If you can’t read the words. ‘Pedro Araujo is a Youtuber who makes fan animation on Japanese Video Games. (notably Pokemon & Sonic) He focuses on story, simple or meme animations. However, how he makes the animation makes it seem either realistic or poetic. He inspired me a lot with these animations, and the way he focuses on back-story is what gave me the idea of the theme in the first place!’
Images provided are his fan animations.
Another bit of research I looked into was to do with the Snoopy Dog Comics. This was suggested by a teacher, but at the same time, I think it’s a good way to look at other comedy outside of animation because comedic scenes are kind of what I’m aiming for.
To do animation, one of the big highlights to look into is the birth of animation himself, Felix the Cat. The first animated cartoon character that inspired all animation series to date. And why is he important to look at? Because his series was in pure black and white and was a silent film, yet the stories were still entertaining even when being competed against two rival icons of Disney.
What Felix represents today is history of animation as well. The simplest of animation started with this iconic black and white cat and his style was unique because of the many traits he could do with his tail for comedic laughs.
I decided to look into Sepia Photography as well as my main idea is to have the pictures in the scrapbook in an old photography like style, and I might try the same for the actual animation when it goes to flashbacks. Maybe as a bit of a black and white start, then sepia and then to modern day photography.
These are the character designs for my animation. With animation, it’s always best to have character designs handy so the writers and illustrators know what they’re drawing and what the character’s personality is like.
I did similar character designs last year for FMP, and I will be doing a comparison to last year and this year’s FMP soon.
This page explains what my target audience for this year is. However, it needs a little more thought put into it. (I believe it needs a little more thought after having a tutorial with one of the teachers)
This was my first attempt at trying an animation storyboard. It is a bit of a rough sketch, however, not the worst.
This was before I got a link to a cheat sheet about camera movements in an animation. Once I had got that, I started making an improvement on storyboarding.
This is an example of said storyboard improvement. Note, this isn’t tied in with the storyboard or the animation. This was just a test of the camera movements.
This is a vast improvement compared to the previous one, but still has a few flaws. For one, the boxes aren’t the same size. However, again, this is a test for camera movements and not part of the animation. After this, I decided to do printed out storyboards to make things a bit easier.
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