Animal Firm development work

The brief in a nutshell is to produce development work for an animated series featuring an animal criminal gang. We have to hand in a 'design bible' before the 8th of June which will consist of concept,character and setting designs. So far I have found it to be an enjoyable project with a lot of creative freedom. The tough thing is keeping it going alongside the intensive group project.

Here is all the work I have done for the Animal Firm project so far...

Group project - mid-production update

Production is now well under way. I would say we have animated around a third of our final animation. Things are beginning to get exciting.. We have now entered the nightclub! Wooo!

The work I have been doing is mainly getting Dave 'rigged' in Illustrator and ready for animation in flash. I have also started making music for the Animation using Garageband.

As the director I usually find myself preoccupied a lot with telling the others what to do and keeping them busy, matching shots up to the original storyboard, helping out with flash, filling in the gaps of production and trying to keep things smooth.

In terms of group dynamics I think we are doing fairly well, I have learned there is no point getting stressed and nagging at people for not showing up as this just leads to pointless negativity! Instead its best to stay upbeat and optimistic. If someone doesn't come in you make do with what you got.

Here are my drawings of Dave that I have prepared in illustrator. I have handed these over to Ryan for animating.

Group project - layouts

I have been working intensively producing many many layout sketches to give to Patrick which he has been rendering out in a funky style. At first I was unsure what this job involved and how necessary it was.

Now I realise it involves developing the storyboard panels:- What environmental scenery and props will be in the shot, where the camera and people will be, how it will work. It is very necessary! I have underestimated how much thought must go into each shot/scene. So here is the full array of layout sketches I have produced which I have handed over to Patrick to make all nice and arty.

House:








Street:











Nightclub:










Hospital:

Group project - Animatic

After getting feedback from Derek on Wednesday, we were able to cut out some unnecessary frames, and I left it with Ryan to do the animatic. He did well considering the amount of time he had to do it. We showed this at the 'weeklie' session on Thursday and it got a couple of laughs which is promising.



The pace, content and timing could be worked on, Last Friday I gave Ryan a list of things that would improve it. Hopefully he has been able to edit the animatic accordingly.

Group project - Animation thoughts

I have been thinking about animation approaches. So I took the first scene and drew it out as if I was going to animate by drawing everything. Then I got a bit more realistic and sensible and decided that it is probably worth just drawing the elements into Flash and using Flash as our animation tool. I'm not entirely sure how it works if you hand draw it all.. do you have to add colour, ink the lines and cut around the characters in each frame seperatly or can you do it all at once on the computer? Instinctively I have thought that its best to run with what we know at the moment as it could be too time consuming to figure out the 2d drawn method (I know it is a very time consuming process anyway.)

So the process I think will work is:

Sketch out characters/props needed for a scene.
Scan these in and trace and colour in illustrator.
Use layers to define each moving part.
Transfer to Flash so it is ready to be animated.

Here I have done this with our main character Dave...



I have asked Sam to render out his characters in the same style using the same method.

Group project - update and Character drawings.

A lot has happened since my last blog... we had a massive set back after our 1st idea getting disapproved last Wednesday by Derek. However thanks to him we have worked hard to come up with a great new idea which fulfills the brief more effectively. We have been working on this since last Thursday.

Being the director, it has been slightly challenging to keep up the momentum of the project after a set back (1st idea getting disapproval.); And also the meandering commitment from fellow group members - who were unable to attend some important timetabled slots last week slowing down the pace of production. It would be great if everyone could make it in for all timetabled slots from now on so that we can keep a flow of communication, synchronise our artistic intentions and make a cool animation!

So far I have spent most of my time writing the script, working on the rough storyboard with Sam and developing Dave (the main character.) At the moment I am slightly overwhelmed by the amount of work ahead of us, the challenge of getting everyones work to flow smoothly together and keeping in line with the schedule. It is a fun and exciting challenge however so I will stop moaning now and keep the spirits high! Woooooooo!

Anyway, without much further ado here is my character development of Dave: