Applied Animation- Editing Our Animation

Editing Our Animation

One of the main scenes that needed editing was the hand scene when the mother pulls the trees to see the diggers below. For this we set up a blue screen for us to remove later on to leave just the frame. Yet this was wrong because when setting up there was a shadow on the screen which we didn't see when filming so when trying to remove it, it wouldn't pick it all up and looked wrong.  This is why we went on After Effects and I had to make shapes on each blue screen present and remove the background. This was so we could put a scene in behind in the hole and fill in the scene. This was something I did not know how to do previously so this was an incredibly useful task but very time consuming and went wrong a few times, slowing me down further.  This can be used for green screens in the future so is a skill I will try to remember, but if not, peers proved to be extremely useful as some do only digital so knew how to use this software.

It is hard to see from the screen shot I was able to get, but above the hand is now a hole that a sky background can be placed behind, as I tried to place the digger within this place but the cut out had left a halo around the outline, that if deleted, removes the leaves with in, so this is why I chose the sky scene as a replacement and as an experiment and problem solve.

This is the scene I was able to create. As this was the main scene I was going to do apart from the first image of the trees so I wanted to make it look as good as possible. This is sadly not something I can be proud of. This was because I could see the flaw of the outlines and how if we had realised at the right time, it could have been a lot cleaner and just better overall. Although I was proud of how much work I was able to learn about within editing so this has really helped me for next time and I will use these in the 3rd year.

One of our members knew how to use After Effects more than us so she did colour correction, so I edited the trees brightness and effects. So I could carry on contributing before we finish the scenes. After this we added in facts at the end after getting the scenes to perfectly fit to the song. This was when I looked up the facts from the start which are the most hard hitting and informative, as well as our slogan of Say No To Palm Oil. So this gave us the hard hitting end to make people think about their effect on the rainforest. As well as tying of the animation, we then added on credits and our logo with the uni logo at the beginning and end.

Here is the first animation that we rendered out so we could see what we had and gain opinions from people. After showing people this, we were told to change the text. It looked too small for long distance showing, as well as being a bit off from our theme so this was something we could easily change so this was fine. Although he did point out a spelling mistake so it was good he spotted this as we had not.

He also said things about the actual animation as general pointers. One was about the dead look in the puppets eyes as they dont blink which is something we can change in the future, as well as how the set looks flat. This was an issue I had from the start, so I may have to take influence from Aardman, and have the background very far away and the foreground very up close. To add in depth and perspective. So these were all points to learn from in the future and we have gained lots of experience throughout this module.

When doing work after the animation we needed to finish the pitch bible, the press kit and CD/DVD cover and disc. These are all easy to do but very time consuming, so I took charge of the disc, case and contents with blurb about the animation on the disc case. while the two other members did, one the pitch bible, the other the press kit. 

To get a good image of the character for the cover, me and one of the members of the team went into the stop-motion room and took images of the baby within the tree set with a spot light to get a high quality image as the ones on our phones were not.

Here you can see the one of the left is very dark, but we preferred dark compared to too light as this was easier to edit and become more effective. So this one is a good angle and shows the scared feeling of the baby puppet. Here on the right is when we moved the spotlight around but ended up creating quite a spooky look overall, so this is something we didn't want so we have moved the light around and gone for a darker look that we can edit.

Here was another angle and look for the puppet, where he looks more innocent, scared and alone. So this shows what our animation could be about. So this was a posibility for what we could use but we will look through the camera at all of the images and pick the best one to show what we are about.

Here you can see the press kit image we chose, as well as the info we included on this page. Here is what it looks like printed out from when we got all of the press kit together, as the pitch bible all together in a folder for submission.

These are the other 3 pages from the press kit, telling people about our animation, about us and sea motion as well as the credits at the end. This was another easy task as it was just adding info we already know about, as well as info we have mentioned in our initial pitch and our jobs. When we have entered our animation into competitions. We can add other pages if we are accepted or if we win awards so we can show our support, accomplishments and show we are a good company. I was the assistant on this project, adding in data and info on some of the pages to save time and show my input into the design and information shown.

This is the disc case and cover I have created for us. I used images from our photo shoot from earlier that day, as well as images from the set, and scenes, and the logo. This was to include our information on the documentary. The logos and company, as well and the title and images from the animation.

Here was the template I was following for size and the case size. It seemed really complicated, but once in photoshop, it was easier to understand.

This is the disc before I got the clouds in the right shape, so I could see placement, as well as what it will look like before printing and cutting it out.

And here is the complete disc and dvd of our animation for festivals.

This was a real proud moment for me as we could see our hard work, as well as see what the look of our whole animation is. Which looks very bright, abstract and looks like a forest animation. This was a lot of fun to do but was very difficult to get the sizes right, so I was lucky to have made them the correct size from the different templates from online. So this worked to show me how to do this in the future. Even though discs aren't used often for competitions and festivals, it is better to have one just in case. So this is always something to consider when making an animation for festivals, so it covers your back. So I now know how to do this for the future, and the disc looks really good so this was good for us to see.