Unit 4 - Short Animated Film Group Project

Unit 4 is the longest unit we have completed so far. We were tasked with designing and creating a two minute long short animated film, using blender. We had creative freedom when it came to the storyline, content and design. Firstly, we were randomly split into groups of three that we would work in for the duration of the unit. Overall, I was quite excited to work on this unit, as I had never done any animation before but have always wanted to. I was also slightly nervous, as it was a group project and we were all working remotely, so I thought that this would perhaps bring up some challenges.

After going through the unit brief and being told our groups, I met with my group to discuss our initial ideas and talk about the unit brief. We were all quite enthusiastic and I was glad to discover that all members of our group were thinking along the same lines when it came to the storyline of the film. We decided to stick with a simple, light-hearted, comedic film that would appeal to all ages. We decided to each brainstorm individually and then come together to decide on the best story idea.

I first decided to look at some typical tropes that you often see in children's animation, such as good versus evil, and subverting that. For example, a story of a princess saving a prince from a dragon or an evil witch. After coming up with some initial ideas, I decided to do some research and get some inspiration from existing short animated films. I watched many Disney and Omeleto short films to brainstorm some ideas. After watching several films, I found that many of them seemed to be about relatable topics and that this is what attracted people to them. People enjoy watching a film about something they have experienced in their own life. This is why I then started to brainstorm some relatable topics and issues that most everyday people come across; for example, procrastination, not wanting to exercise, work and school. The idea I settled on was a story about a man who finally decides to go on a run after putting it off, but then everything goes wrong. Once I had decided to go with this idea, I tried to come up with ideas to make it more elaborate and exciting. After some brainstorming, I changed the story to a man who finally decides to go on a run after putting it off, however he then imagines everything that could go wrong which eventually deters him from actually going and he ends up staying home.

After coming up with my idea, I met with my group to discuss which idea we would go with. After presenting each of our ideas, we decided to go with mine. Next, we had to write up a log line and synopsis to follow. I took on the responsibility of doing this, as it was my initial idea.

Log Line:

A man finally decides to go on a run after realising the unhealthy ways of his lifestyle, however the potential dangers of this could outweigh the rewards.

Synopsis:

A man is sitting on the couch, watching TV in the dark, while eating crisps and has a beer in hand. He has a stubble beard, a beer belly and is wearing pyjamas. An advertisement comes on to the TV, warning viewers of the dangers of not exercising and eating too much junk food. The man’s expression becomes increasingly worried as the advertisement plays. It then switches to determined, as he decides to do something about his current situation. He marches to his cupboard and puts on his exercise gear. He puts on sweat bands and trainers to the sound of “Eye of The Tiger'' music. He opens the front door and is about to step out before his face switches to an expression of deep thought. We get a look inside his head. A series of imaginary scenarios play out: he accidentally steps in dog poop, he falls into a ditch, it starts raining, etc. These scenarios become more and more crazy with things like potentially getting abducted by aliens and getting struck by lightning. We return to reality, with the man staring out by his front door with a blank expression on his face. He slams the door and returns to the safety of his couch and television.

The next step was considering the design of our character and the environment. We first individually came up with some initial sketches and ideas for the overall design. I did a sketch each for the character, outdoor environment and living room.

When meeting together to discuss and look over our individual ideas, it was clear that we were all thinking along the same lines in terms of design.

We clarified that one person would go on to develop the character design, while another did the outdoor environment design and another would do the living room design. I chose to do the outdoor environment, while Charmiane did the indoor design and Lulu worked on the character.

I first created some mood boards for inspiration. We all decided to use The Simpsons as our primary source of inspiration, so I looked at that, as well as general suburban street areas.

After gathering some sources of inspiration, I went on to develop another concept art sketch. This time, I focused on the design of The Simpsons and the typical American suburban neighbourhood look.

I decided that this design looked too rigid to me and the perspective seemed off. I tried doing a final concept design, in a more stylistic design style.

I was satisfied with this piece of concept art as our final design for the outdoor environment. I decided to show the view from the character's door to make it more immersive. After this, I also did a simple bird's eye view of the street to help when making the layout later down the line.

After confirming which design style we wanted to go in, we had to move on to storyboarding and deciding on how we were going to tell the story. The first step in this was constructing a shot list. We went through the synopsis and split it into shots and decided on the type and length of each shot. This would make the process of storyboarding much easier.

Next, we moved on to storyboarding. We decided that Charmiane and Lulu would halve sketching the storyboard frames. Then, I would take those sketches on to my iPad, neaten them up and then edit them into the animatic. I found storyboarding much easier during this unit, with the experience of doing it during the last one. I also found working in a group made the whole process much more efficient.

I took on the responsibility of doing the animatic. I enjoy video editing, so I was quite keen to take it on. I found that the sound effects and timing were what really added the comedic effect we were after. I played around with the timing of these until it produced the effect we wanted.

After the animatic was done, we had completed all of the pre-production and it was time to move on to production. The first task was to create some proxy environments that we could then use for layouts, as we build each asset to replace the proxy ones. Charmiane took on the living room and I did the outdoor environment.

I modelled some simple, low poly objects as proxy models for the assets we would need to build, such as the houses, hedges, fences and mailboxes. As we created each asset, the proxy ones could be replaced over time.

The next task was to decided what assets needed to be modelled and assign who would model what. We had a group meeting to decide this and we concluded that each person would work on the set that they had been working on so far. This meant that I would be responsible for most of the assets in the outdoor environment, Charmiane would do the living room assets and Lulu would model the clothing for the character and modify his appearance according to our design.

I planned out a simple design for the house, as this was the most complicated asset to model.

As each asset was modelled, I replaced the proxy models with the final assets in the street environment. Once each one had been replaced, I had a final environment that we could make layouts with and eventually animate in.

Once having all of the assets modelled, we needed to have a layout for each shot - this would make the process of animating much more efficient, simple and organised. We split the responsibility of this between the three of us.

For each layout, I positioned the camera, character and any assets that would be in the shot. This means that when it comes to animating, we won't have to worry about setting up the shots.

Finally, it was time to move on to animating. We had a group meeting to decide on who would animated what sequences. We decided to split the film into 7 main sequences: watching TV, getting dressed, slipping in dog poo, falling in manhole, raining and lightning strike, UFO abduction and back to reality at the end. This would make it easier to keep the animation consistent. To help us stay organised, we made a table to assign the different shots and track our progress.

I was responsible for animating the dog poo sequence, the manhole sequence and the ending. I was looking forward to animate these sequences, because of their elements of physical comedy. However, I was nervous about animating running.

I first started with the ending, as I thought this was the easiest sequence to begin with. This was quite simple and I enjoyed animating the different facial expressions. I used some reference footage that we had shot of me shutting a door to help me mimic the movement in blender.

The next bit of animation I tackled, was the dog poo sequence. I was nervous for this, as I would have to animate a running loop, however this ending up working after several attempts. I used reference footage we had shot and videos of people running online to work out the key frames I would need to animate. I decided to animate 2 steps per second and 2 keyframes per step (one foot touching the ground and then both feet travelling in the air), meaning that I would be animating 4 keyframes per 24 frames.

I used this video to identify the different poses I would need for each key frame. I took four screenshots for each keyframe.

I animated each of these 4 keyframes and then copy and paste them for however many steps I needed the character to make - this gave me a running loop. The next step was to key frame the character in the starting position and his end destination to make him travel. The last thing I did was make the character leave the ground and raise into the air a bit every other key frame when both feet leave the ground.

I had some issues with the knees being wobbly, however this was because the knee joint rig points were sometimes moving behind the rest of the body. I solved this by just making sure the knee rigs remained in front of the body - this made the running loop much smoother.

Next, I had to animate him slipping on the dog poo. To do this, I looked at reference footage we had shot and attempted to mimic those movements. I also had to make the dog poo smear on the ground as he slipped. To do this, I animated the asset being squashed and stretched as he slipped on it.

The last sequence animate was the manhole sequence, where Bob falls in a manhole. Luckily, I was able to reuse the running loop I had animated for the previous sequence, which made the running animation much more efficient and kept it consistent. I just made some very small changes with the amount of keyframes and how far the character would be travelling.

For the actual fall, I looked at the clip we originally sourced as inspiration for this shot (a short clip from Disney's Soul), as well as reference footage we had shot. I aimed to mimic these movements and make sure to capture the moment of surprise, his body leaving solid ground and his arms being dragged after him.

After animating all of my assigned sequences, I moved on to rendering them. We edited as we rendered to make the process more efficient and smooth. This meant that as each shot was rendered, I would replace the animatic shot with the final rendered one. This also meant that all of the sound effects were already placed and timed.

I took on the responsibility of editing the footage together, as I enjoy video editing and my two other group members had taken on more complicated animation sequences. I found it satisfying to see our animations come together and take shape as a film. I added some effects, such as rain, blurs and transitions. I also designed and edited in a title and credits.

Overall, I am very happy with our final product. Initially, I was nervous to work with others, however I found it very rewarding. I worked very well with my team due to clear communication and collaboration and the equal division of tasks. This unit has taught me valuable team-working skills and has given me the skills and confidence to animate basic movements.

Final Film - What Could Go Wrong?