Exeter Ident so far...

To create the Animated Exeter ident there are a lot of different techniques needed, which is good, and allows most people to get involved in what they are interested in. I initially took on the role of producer which I have to admit scared the crap out of me, but after I broke down each shot and we worked out how to actually do it, It became less daunting. Andy suggested that I should take on the role of Art Director and Adam and Holly stepped in to Produce and are doing a great job so far. this will be a huge post production job and so the bulk of the stopmo and CG needs to be done end of next week. we are still waiting for the black curtains to arrive so the stop-mo can begin, delays on this will have a knock on effect as post needs the footage to work on as soon as possible. In a budgeted Animation , Pre-production art would be created and given to all departments, with the set build I had use what I already had or could buy at DIY store so pretty pictures of how I imagine it to look are pointless. The set Build went well and Nat and Charlotte popped round to lend a hand. Now that it is set up at the studio there are a few minor problems that need thinking about,
1. how to lower the egg, originally from below in the animatic. There is no hole to insert a pole so may have to be done from above or a segmented pole used which can be shortened.
2. How to get the Phoenix out of the scene down the hole, this is only a problem if we use a stop mo model rather then CG which can be done in post!
3.do we dolly in or zoom in? zoom looks more promising at this stage as we dont have a way of sliding the camera in, model railtracks or a lathe were discussed at one point.
Answers on a post card please to me.

Narration for our pitch

Did some sound recording today with Rosie and will, pretty much forgot how to use the equipment but after a brief reminder from Steve we were good to go. took a few times to get it right as sometimes I could here my "normal" voice slip through but hopefully with the animation to watch no one will think its me. Wills doing an excellent job with the character designs and general look of the thing, very comical and those simple cartoons that he has been developing should bring a lot more comedy to our pitch. will try and post some sound bites soon.

The Pitch Project

It's nice to take a back seat on the art side of things for a change and concentrate on re working the initial idea of essay mistakes into a workable script that will help drive the animation, The concept of this series is fast past shorts, each dealing with a period of history i.e the Greeks,Rome,Egypt...I found a brief compilation of these online and it made me laugh. I need to elaborate on them without making them to cute or contrived- Rosie, Will and I discussed how it should be narrated, by a child or a kind of boffin like character called Professor Piddle for want of a better name. Thankfully we managed to get a Mum to record her child reading out part of the script, it did'nt really work. Its a lot funnier when ridiculous statements are read out with an authorative voice and the timing is essential if this is going to work. I have rewritten the script and will record in the sound room tomorrow, then its on to story boarding and producing the animatic.

The Animatic

Some shots were shortend to fit the allocated time however they will read better when I lenghten them in the final piece. The Elements are begining to come together but i feel like im just making it up as I go along at the mo, the set build is coming on and charlotte and nat have come by and lent a hand. Should be ready to go by monday.

ANIMATED EXETER design work

The actual animatic I will post as soon as I can but these go some way in showing my thought processes.

The Ident project for Exeter was to create a short 30 second animatic to celebrate the 10th aniversary of the festival,I had an idea initialy about a cuckoo clock and this was developed within our group into something that would encorporate many different techniques in animation and some motifs that would allude to the 10th aniversary and the Phoenix building itself, hopefully it will apeal to the Exeter audience who are described as being "a funny bunch". I story-boarded the scenes and produced some Concept designs to help communicate the idea. When it came to the animatic the first scene didnt work for me, it was a dolly in to the round window from the establishing shot, while this allowed the audience to see the various mechanical trumpets and such come out it also meant that the Egg on top which was to slowly rotate and desend became lost and obscure. I decided that a cut to the top of the tower (when we see the egg descend) was needed, then a pan down the tower and zoom through the window. we lose the trumpets but seeing the egg travel down inside the tower is more important. Rosie put the boards together in after-effects and it bagan to come together. Having the cogs move around and floor boards and the little wooden ducks really helped sell the idea, I dont think still images would have done it. Mike did some work on the sound track, the original idea was to have a slow build up of sounds based on the initail "tick tock" sound but this did'nt happen. I think trying to find the right sound effects took longer then expected.

So here are the stop mo models, not sure what happened with the colour of the last images! looks like its in reverse. I am going to try some stopmotion with the armatures before I start on helvis (If there is time), I seem to be focusing on what things look like and neglecting the actual animating which is something I did'nt want to fall in to. If I can manage to animate Helvis to the sound recordings I got then i will be very pleased.

The king is back!

Helvis is progressing as a stop mo model and as a result looks a little different to the 2D designs, as it happens I kind of prefer the new look. more work on the head is needed as well as the addition of a cape. I have posted the designs as well as a little bit of flat graphic work i did to get a feel of the concept as a whole. I will include these in the design bible when I eventually get around to it. I will post a picy of the stop mo model soon. I have also found some old ELVIS LPS I want to record and try some lipsync to! hopefully the new head wont melt.