This is the questionnaire Emma has done as a rough layout for what she will be asking primary school children as they fit into our category of target audience. This can also let us understand how much they know about the overall subject. As we didn't know much about the subject, it would be interesting to learn whether they are being taught about it at school or not as it is more of an issue now. These questions will be easy and include pictures so the children can clearly understand what they are being asked.
Stacy has done this quick treatment for our project, as she knew most about treatments as she has done them in the past whereas we haven't. The treatment outlines the story we are trying to tell and the structure it takes on.
These are the character development sketches the girls have done for their puppets, as I am in charge of doing all of the sets, this wasn't much to do with my process. Yet it still is a process we have all been talking through. To do with size, materials and method of construction. The method of building the puppets chosen, is needle felting. We all loved how this looked overall as they look fuzzy and innocent, this benefits our animation as they are supposed to be the innocent animals in their own home, before humans come and destroy it all. These developments show their different styles so it will be good to see how each stage will go with the different styles they both possess, but as they are both needle felting, the Orangutan's will still look the same and related.
This page is showing concept are from all of us. This was put together to show our thought processes' to gain the end result and the different ideas we all had at the start. The mix of mediums, also shows our diversity overall.
Marie, is the mother within our animation. As she is bigger and has more movement, she is built more structurally sound than the baby will be. She will even have bolts in her lower spine, to keep her steady when she is sitting and standing. These are all of the character sheets done for her by Emma who is in charge of her design, as Emma has built puppets in the past, it made sense for her to build the bigger harder design. These sheets also include how the puppet will be built and the textures she will have.
These character sheets are for the baby, Louie. He moves a lot less than the mum so he will be more flexible and not include replaceable limbs, whereas the mother will have, for her arms. His character sheets were done by Stacy as she is in charge of the baby Orangutan. This again shows how the puppet will be built and where the milliput will be placed.
This is an image of all of the emails sent to different foundations for additional information and facts about the cause. Most got back to us and replied with positive feedback about what we were doing and how we could go to certain sights for additional facts. This showed us that we are doing an animation that can help further a cause and make a difference. This meant a lot to us for their reply and helping us learn.
Finishing Anamatic, Presentation, Set Designs -Week 6
This week was a busy week as it was the build up to the presentation for next week. I am so proud of the work I have been able to achieve with the animatic as our tutor said it was nearly a finished digital animation. Although it is still jittery and sketchy, it shows enough detail and movement to let the audience understand what is going to happen. The slight colour, lets the characters stand out and the leaf change become more obvious. This was a lot of work to complete but I didn't want to let the group down so I worked hard to complete the animatic early. This can now go on the presentation and show what needs to be completed.
This is the background mood board for what we hope to produce. This will either be in digital or watercolour depending on what the set will look like physically. This is to make sure that the overall look will be coherent. As long as I can make it look dense, green and full, it will work for what it is supposed to be portraying.
Here are some designs of different rainforest trees that were a possibility for either the Orangutan tree or the trees surrounding. I did these in watercolour to quickly show colour and what the background could possibly be built up to look like. These concepts were to test out the trees possibility for a nest that the Orangutan's could be in, the taller trees could all work as they have lots of foliage to cover the nest and keep them safe inside, but the smaller ones are obviously more for the surrounding forest trees.
To figure out what the sets will physically look like, I started sketching out what they will look like for both designs. The first, very closed in and safe for the animals inside, and the second open and free like forests should be, yet sadly showing deforestation from construction vehicles. This set will be shown at the end. These were done in watercolour again to carry on the aesthetic from before. These really helped my team understand what I was wanting to create and gave them a chance to look into what needs to be achieved and how their characters will be placed within the first set.
This is a close-up of doing set 2 and adding the construction vehicles and deforestation into the scene. This also will help show the scale of the set and how big it needs to be compared to the toy vehicles. The stumps will replace the trees half way through to show the change, so they will be placed within the set and the ground will be made browner. The ground placed on the greener set before this stage, can then be brushed off so the change can be seen.
Set 1 is a lot more closed and close packed in. The leaves will be going up the edges and the tree stump can be seen showing at the back corners and across the front showing it to be more enclosed, but also adds more depth. It will then be covered with twigs and straw to build the nest. I have also included, along with various notes, the camera view, so the corners and edges cannot be seen so it has no harsh corners, only curves.
This is set 2 in its two stages. The green stage at the beginning before the destruction, and then the redder scene from when it has been destroyed. I have made this harder for myself as I have added extra trees, but I feel they are needed to show the depth of the forest and how packed in the trees are, so it shows by the end they have all been cut down, the scale of how much forest that they plough down and burn. the tree will also have vines and different branches going everywhere so it looks more realistic to what we are trying to show. The set has to match what the puppets will look like so hopefully they will all go together and immerse the audience.
This is the plan for the set 1. This shows more detail on how it will be constructed and what it will be constructed using. This is so that when it comes to making the sets, I have something to follow and use as a guide.
This is the second set and how I am going to build it. It shows how I will be using mesh, foil, paper mache and then glue gun glue for the texture. This is how I will be hoping to build it as we dont want to spend a huge amount just on materials. This is why I will have to try and source as many as I can to keep the price down.
This is the colour pallet we will be trying to stick to. As Palm Oil beans are red and orange, as well as the Orangutan's, it made sense to try and show this as much as possible. Our story shows that our rainforest scene will start out green and happy and end red and burnt. This is why the pallet shows a lot of different tones as this will make it more visually interesting for the audience.
This is the colour script that shows what I mean about the colour journey that our animation takes. This makes our animation quite serious, but since the cause is something more people need to be aware of and be worried about, this is why we felt it needed to show this kind of real danger they animals face. We also show the mother leaving as this ties in most animations, as the mother is always the first one to die as it leaves the young truly vulnerable.
This is the script I created for us to follow, this is because it helps us to follow a template of movement, sound and for when the scene changes. I split the scenes into shot changes and major plot developments or movements. This means that when we come to doing the stop motion, we have a very easy template to follow that can easily be understood. Becomes very easy as everyone in the group can now what needs moving at what stage. This is also so sound can be worked out so nothing will be forgotten when we come to filming later on.
This is one of the scenes, where the mother opens up the leaves and sees the destruction, I am happy with how this scene turned out as the background shows depth and how the diggers have impacted on the overall rainforest. At this stage, when adding in the background, we will be showing half of the background already gone, and the other half, being cut and burnt.
This is just where I was building up the scene and figuring out what motion would be best for the puppets to make. This was a good scene to work on as it included all of the elements we will be building, the puppet, the set, background and the construction vehicles.
These two images are from when I was trying to work out colour for the Orangutan's for the animatic. As I was doing it monotone, it was black and white, but after looking at it for a while it made them look too much like gorillas or chimps. This is why I will not be showing subtle colours for the Orangutan's as well as the leaves for when they turn red. This is just a small change I can easily make so it wont take too much time out of finishing the animatic. Although it is taking more time to complete than first thought, I want to pull my weight within the group and produce something I can be proud of and let the audience understand what we are trying to create when we pitch out ideas next week.
Stacey quickly did this target audience research page so we can understand who our documentary is aimed at. This is also to help with primary research as we needed to know who we could question in order to get a better understanding of what they understand from the Palm Oil, or if they even knew what it was.
When we met up this week, we wanted to get ahead and stay on top of the tasks, so by the time the presentation came, we had all of the work done and animatic complete.
This is the rough storyboard we created together to get our story sorted. It was important to us that we do this stage together as we needed to share our thoughts so we could be completely happy with our overall story. This was the stage in which we could go into more detail with our story and the layout of the stages. This is like the motions of the Orangutan's, the smoke coming in and the set designs. Slight colour was added to show the leaves changing colours as well as any details that needed to stand out.
Overall this was very useful and let us move onto the next stages quicker and with no arguments between us as everything has been discussed. Emma is now going to go ahead and complete the digital version of the storyboards so I can do the animatic.
This is our storyboard in colour that emma produced. This let us understand more of the scenes and visualise what we were going to produce. As I am doing the set, this is something I will be evolving within the animatic as I want sure this was the best way to show the Orangutan's nests as it just looks like leaves. This is useful to show people what we are planning to do with the packets and how the leaves are going to change over time.
As the storyboards end with going to black, it makes the realisation of what is happening to Orangutan's more prominent. This is where we will be hitting the audience with hard facts that will hopefully make a difference and make people think about the products they are using and the effect of what is happening in other countries.
Here is the slogan and poster that is used by campaigns to show the animal effected and how they are being wiped out. Our tutor did bring up that it may not be ok to use this slogan in our animation but I think it furthers the campaigns cause and how people are trying to help. We are going to ask the Orangutan Foundation if it is ok to use though, as it is completely fine if we cant but confirmation from them would be good to have, as it would double as their concept with the project as a whole.
The slogan would, if we got the ok, go at the end. It would be after all of the slides, facts and be the last thing the audience will see. As the animation ends with smoke rising into the tree from the rainforest being burned down, I am adding a crackling sound into the animatic so the sound of fire is really deep and makes people think about what is happening in other countries at this moment.
This is a screenshot from my process doing the animatic. As you can see, I have worked out scene length with Emma's storyboard, so not I am using it as a template to work on and figure out what the scenes look like in more detail. As this is an animatic, it is to let people understand what our animation is about in more detail. This is why I am keeping it mostly monotone so the detail can be understood and the movements are what it is trying to show.
I remember what was said in the first year where an animatic needs to show movement, this is why you cant just use storyboard boards as the final image. I will be working hard to show as much movement as I can before our presentation in a few weeks, as we will need to have all of our pre-production complete, ready to start production.
This is the mood board I made to let me understand what orangutan nests look like in more detail. This was when I was designing the structures but not looking into the cinematography, I can see how it looks and how I need to make it look to add depth and layers. I did this by looking at and taking inspiration from Tarzan, this is because for a short scene, they were in a tree, but for one of the frames, there was a thick branch going across the front and this really inspired me to set the camera in a way that does this as it draws the eye into the nest I am designing and the scene will flow and look deeper when the character are within it.
This will be the first scene showing the tree. In our song/ poem that will run alongside this animation as narration telling the audience about the facts, It shows the tree as tall and large so this is why the tree is centred. I have written basic instructions to myself. This is so I can remember what needs to move and where.
This is Stacey's song she has written as she can sing and provide the audio when we need it. This will be telling facts as we want to make sure our animated documentary is in fact a documentary so we will be trying to tell the audience as many facts as possible.
This month I again took part in the Character Design Reference Challenge. This month started out as a difficult one. The theme was Maori Warrior. These are a tribe in New Zealand. As this was a real tribe, it took a different approach to the others as it could be sensitive and I wouldn't want to do a design that is offensive, which is always a worry in animation when the topic is about real people. Yet I enjoyed it much more than any other themes so far.
This image shows the strength the warriors portray. They are a very proud tribe so this was important if I wanted to portray a male. The women are not shown as equals in this tribe as they are typical, nurturers and care givers. So this could be interesting to show but I am really taken with the theme this month.
Here are a few mood boards of different elements from their culture. The masks, tribal symbols, clothing and personalities are all shown within these images. They let you get an understanding of what their tribe is like and their lives. The last mood board is of children. As I was thinking more on the topic and wanted to do something different, and I haven't really ever tried to draw children. This was why I was looking at poses and how they are proportioned.
This is the initial sketch of my mini Maori Warrior. She is holding the proper weaponry, correct clothing and hair styles of their culture as I wanted her to look like she belonged within the tribe. As this was the first time drawing a child, I did a few initial sketches to get the shape, size and overall apperence to look correct.
This is the design I have done by dragging in the initial sketch into Photoshop, then going over it with the different paint tools. I am really proud of how this design turned out as it is the best drawing I have produced in a long time. This was because I have recently really liked how the overall design tends to look after keeping the initial sketch on the underneath. She turned out just how I wanted and really portrays how the tribe shows the young how strong they need to be early on.
This is how she looks after editing her and changing the lighting in After Effects. This really made the colours pop and make different elements of her stand out. Doing this monthly challenge has really helped me develop myself and my designs as I didn't know too much of how to do characters to set briefs, so this has let me learn how to approach the different tasks.
This is a screenshot of my submission for the competition from the month of February.
Initial sketches, Ghantt Chart and Team Planning- Week 3
To start getting into the project, I started sketching the main animals that are effected by Palm Oil. These are Rhinos, Elephants, Tigers and Orangutan's, but I didn't get a chance to draw the Orangutan's before meeting up with our group again. These sketches let me research more into the brutal way these animals are being wiped out. This made me feel more passionately towards the cause and why Palm Oil has been able to carry on without anyone knowing.
When meeting up with our group, we went through job roles and time management. Here we were deciding what needed to be done, then splitting up the roles equally and to what jobs people would prefer. Here there is a key I have made to show the different jobs as well as who is responsible for what. After discussing I have taken responsibility for the set designs, blueprints and animatic. This was becuase I enjoyed building the sets the most within the last stop motion. The girls also wanted to try building puppets so this worked out well with no arguments.
This was the first draft of a calendar Gantt chart. As there were gaps in the calendar, this meant we could get on with work without struggle as we know what needs doing and when for. Even though this was roughly done, it was incredibly useful to keep up with what needed to be completed and where we needed to be. As one of our members has never done a stop motion, some of the results were a bit unrealistic, like setting the production time to two weeks which most likely will not be enough time to do the puppets, sets and backgrounds. Yet I was a learning curve as she now knows it takes more time than this to create physical objects but we will do our best to keep up with the plan and not get behind.
After meeting up again. This was the result of putting time into the Gantt chart. This is done to make sure we are done in time with a lot of time left over to get editing done and completed as soon as possible. The dates at the top, leave a lot of time to do the sections so we can make sure to keep up with production after pre-production is done. This gives us clear structure to follow and understand. The colour coding still comes in handy as we can clearly see where we are and what we need to complete. Overall this looks much more professional than the other yet both have proved useful.
After this week, it has been really useful to know where we all stand and to know which tasks need to be done fairly soon and which can be extended. This week sets us up for the rest of the module so we can plan and get all of the pre-production done.
