Here is the final version of the Alexander the Great Animation with sound:
I will know compare my final product against my aims:
The aim of this animation is to produce a Animated Biopic based on the Ancient Greek Conqueror and King, Alexander the Great. The Animation will be 30 to 45 seconds long and not a second over. The animation will tell a part of Alexander effectively and utilize sound effects that are suitable for the chosen content that will help tell his story and make sure that the target audience is not offended. The Animation will aim for a target audience of school children since Alexander is a Historical figure and is consider a important part of our history, so it make sense.
I can successfully say that the animation just hits the maximum time limit since I managed to make the corrections that I stated previously in the post, such as I needed to size down the information within the speech bubbles because it made them harder to read in the given time period. I managed to also fit the credits into the animation without going over the time limit. The animation successfully tells the origin story of Alexander the Great with the speech bubbles and the images that I developed to help increase the understanding of the story that I want the target audience to see. The project doesn’t offend anyone that I have shown within the target audience and they stated that the project was quite funky and easy to understand with the animation style I used for the reference images to help with the subjects in Alexander’s origins and the cleaver use of the statue to tell Alexander’s story. I have utilized the sound effects that I have gathered and created myself successfully into the animation and have been told that it makes the animation much more entertaining and easier to understand with the unique combination of images and speech bubbles. Overall I am quite happy with the final animation for this project, it has plenty of information, is very informative about a chosen figure and fulfills all my intentions for this project.
Here is Prototype 9 of Alexander the Great Animation:
I will now compare my animation against my aims:
The aim of this animation is to produce a Animated Biopic based on the Ancient Greek Conqueror and King, Alexander the Great. The Animation will be 30 to 45 seconds long and not a second over. The animation will tell a part of Alexander effectively and utilize sound effects that are suitable for the chosen content that will help tell his story and make sure that the target audience is not offended. The Animation will aim for a target audience of school children since Alexander is a Historical figure and is consider a important part of our history.
This time I have successfully gone past the minimum time limit for this project and I am actually cutting it close with the maximum time limit, which is also why the speech bubbles with the information of Alexander’s Origins are moving quite quickly and in some of the speech bubbles there is too much information. Unfortunately this is a problem because I still have a few things to add on to the end of the project mainly the credits. I may go over the maximum time limit which then breaks one of my aims. So I will have to shorten the information in the speech bubbles as there is too much information in them (This makes it hard for the target audience to understand what is actual there and how Alexander is involved regardless of my symbol animations to the side) and also I will need to make sure that the Animation meets the given time limits. Again like I mention I have successfully created a suitable animation style for the target audience which is school children for educational purposes. No sound is needed yet so I still not required so this box is needed yet.
Here is the sixth prototype of the Alexander the Great Animation:
I will now reflect my work against my aims:
The aim of this animation is to produce a Animated Biopic based on the Ancient Greek Conqueror and King, Alexander the Great. The Animation will be 30 to 45 seconds long and not a second over. The animation will tell a part of Alexander effectively and utilize sound effects that are suitable for the chosen content that will help tell his story and make sure that the target audience is not offended. The Animation will aim for a target audience of school children since Alexander is a Historical figure and is consider a important part of our history.
Straightaway after watching this animation I can tell that I have failed to fulfill one of my aims which was to produce an animation that was at least 30 seconds long, but because this animation was another test to see if I had successfully got the motions that I had placed in the animation to work properly such as the eyes blinking and the mouth moving to show Alexander is talking. Due to the animation was a test it didn’t require at the time any vocal or sound effects in the animation, so another aim failed. Again one of the aims is ticked with the target audience with it’s animation style and the chosen information that Alexander speaks about briefly with the amount of present frames, which does get what information was placed across to them effectively.
One of the major influences for this project was actual this animation:
While this animation does appear to be completely fiction, that is incorrect because the animated series of Arthur was used to teach kids life lessons and this influenced the way I thought about presenting my animation. Because it was a animation that focused on a target audience similar to my own I thought that this might be a good example to follow with friendly characters that almost anyone could relate to. This is why Alexander looks and acts the way he does. It is also the reason why the speech bubbles are the way they are because it is almost a kiddy like style that is apparently easy to learn from.
Here is the Prototype V3 of the Alexander the Great Animation:
This animation was a test more than a an actual animation to see if I had captured the sleeping and snore motions correctly for the opening sequence of this animation project. I will analyse this against my aim:
The aim of this animation is to produce a Animated Biopic based on the Ancient Greek Conqueror and King, Alexander the Great. The Animation will be 30 to 45 seconds long and not a second over. The animation will tell a part of Alexander effectively and utilize sound effects that are suitable for the chosen content that will help tell his story and make sure that the target audience is not offended. The Animation will aim for a target audience of school children since Alexander is a Historical figure and is consider a important part of our history, so it make sense.
Straightaway this doesn’t come close to completing any of my aims that I set my self at the beginning of this project, the only aim it probably ticks is the age group for the target audience which if for school children. This can be seen with the animation style that I chose for this project, that utilizes a few images of an Alexander Bust and Mural that wasn’t copyright protected as either the background or main body of Alexander. The actual animation is quite childish but at the same time looks quite mature. The other aims unfortunately were never ticked due to the fact that not much was started in this test, so the animation doesn’t even reach the time limit minimum or even required sound effects at this moment in time.
Here is the animatic of the Alexander the Great Animation:
The aims for this are:
The aim of this animation is to produce a Animated Biopic based on the Ancient Greek Conqueror and King, Alexander the Great. The Animation will be 30 to 45 seconds long and not a second over. The animation will tell a part of Alexander’s life effectively and utilize sound effects that are suitable for the chosen content, this will help tell his story and make sure that the target audience is not offended. The Animation will aim for a target audience of school children since Alexander is a Historical figure and is consider an important part of our history.
I created this animatic as a test to see if the actual story works with the sounds that I have collected. Even though the animatic didn’t have all the sounds it still helped carry the story on quite well, especially the song, it helped influence the mood by making the factual side of the animation quite fun and it draws in the target audience. When I make the full animation I hope that all the sound effects that I have gathered will help make the animation much more successful. The only down side with this animatic was that I had to edit it to include the logos on certain parts that didn’t originally have them and that not all of the given sound effects fitted in the animatic. This animation fits into the designated time frame and while it is only a prototype it does in deed suit the designated age group that I set this project for. The only slight problem might be that there is the reference of his father’s assassination, people may be put off by a weapon and the mention of a death but the used animated image for this part of Alexander’s origin doesn’t seem to much of a problem hopefully.
I have created this post to show the music and sound effects that I will consider or will use in my Alexander the Great Animation, all these sound are either my own or royalty free sounds:
Horse:
I chose this sound effect because it contain a lot more sounds then I believed it could possible hold, this single file supplies me with a majority of noise that a stereotypical horse is known for making. This makes it perfect for this narrative project because it helps me add on to the actual effect that the horse is more than a small motion based image and this will help add to the realism of the selected scene for Alexander’s History with his horse. The downfall with this is that I need to make sure that the actual motion of the horse is easy to see and understand when this is presented or the sound will not make sense to the audience. I will be using this audio clip for the Alexander the Great Animation because it seems to fit well with the animated horse logo that I have created for this project and it seems to cement the fact that one of Alexander’s closest friends is a horse, who experienced many of his greatest achievements.
I chose these two audio clips because I was considering using more than one clip to help bring the animated image to life making it seem more like the actual creature it is supposed to be. The downside with this is when I align these two into the actual animation it might be quite tricky to do as there might not be enough room/time for them both to completely fit unfortunately.
I have chosen this as one of my considered sound effects because it the thunder sound in this clip, while not exactly the clearest to hear but the volume and consistency of the sounds are what I am looking for in this animation because it suits the actual animated clip for the Alexander clip quite well. If anything it is slightly long for the required frames, so if anything I will need to shorten the clips and maybe connect them to suit the speed of the vast amounts of the lightning that flashes in the animated clip. I have chosen this clip because once it has been edited, it fits in with the actual section of the animation involving Zeus really well.
Once I heard this clip I knew it was perfect for this animation because during the ending of the animation the assassination of Alexander’s father is told and due to the close relationship between Alexander and his father, Philip Alexander was devastated when this happened and the combination of this with the actual animated image makes the moment that Alexander is describing.
I chose this animation straight away for this animation because it sounds like a royal tune, which made it perfect for when Alexander was crowned king because it helps show that Alexander was not only ready for the taking the thrown but he had big plans for it and they were extremely passionate. The downside is that because of the way the actual sound of the audio clip is set up makes the editing or shortening of the clip is hard to do but I will find a way.
I chose this as one of the definite sounds for the assassination clip because it sounds like a proper weapon is been drawn, the only down fall with this clip is that the sound is too high pitched, so it sounds like a extremely small weapon is been drawn and it isn’t very threatening then is it.
This is another weapon sound effect that is very similar the previous one but is a lot deeper in pitch which made this perfect for the animation because it makes the weapon sound more like an actual sword, which is needed for the assassination scene.
This was one of the worst sound effects for this animation but since the other stabbing sounds where more for horror and that would have been more inappropriate for this animation due to the target audience, which I have aimed for students because it is a educational animation.
I chose this sound track because it seemed to have a museum sort of beat or theme to it and it suits the environment setting of the animation. It is quite cheerful and chippy but also has a historical feel to it as well.
This sound effect was chosen becaues the very tune seems to describe the personality of Alexander the great that I have researched for this project. I would have chosen this song but I thought that it might not have been the most appropriate since it is a factual animation.
This sound effect was just what I was looking for the opening of the animation, the only down fall is that I need to edit it so that it fits into the section of the animation that it is needed in.
Here is a new version of the storyboard for the Alexander the Great Animation. As I stated in one of my previous posts for this project I have decided that instead of having the story of Alexander told like it is actually happening, I have decided to have a bust of Alexander tell his origins to the audience. The reason for this is that I think one it will be a nicer way to hear his origins story because it makes it seem like it is more personal and let’s face it often a tale is better from the Horses mouth (Pardon the phrase). So Narrative wise it is a good choice because it allows not only the target audiences attention to focus on the bust but it feels more personal coming from Alexander.
Here are the aims for this project:
The aim of this animation is to produce a Animated Biopic based on the Ancient Greek Conqueror and King, Alexander the Great. The Animation will be 30 to 45 seconds long and not a second over. The animation will tell a part of Alexander’s life effectively and utilize sound effects that are suitable for the chosen content, this will help tell his story and make sure that the target audience is not offended. The Animation will aim for a target audience of school children since Alexander is a Historical figure and is consider an important part of our history.
This storyboard is a lot more successful then my previous one, the story is easier to understand then it’s predecessor because of the way the narrative is presented to the audience. It is clear, precise and doesn’t go of in a tangent at any point during the animation/storyboard. For example the opening to the animation has Alexander’s name and title as the name of the animation/storyboard showing what or in this case, who is the main character within this animation. While the storyboard may appear not to be much, it still gets the narrative across successfully because all the focus is placed on the bust. While the stories of Alexander’s past are been told there are symbols, some will be animated and some will not. This is to help strengthen the narrative of the story and to make these events more recognizable to the target audience, so that they can understand what is happening in the animation, as well as what happened to Alexander. The only down fall with this storyboard, I believe is that the animation might be just short of the 30 second minimum, so I will need to tweak the actual animation to get this to work.
The sounds for this animation will be researched into later, although I have already considered various sounds that I might utilize within this animation, when I create it. For example the Horse animated clip will have either just a audio clip of a horse neighing or hoofs colliding with the ground with this scene in the animation:
The reason why this will help is that it makes this scene a lot easier to understand since not only is the character talking about the horse but there is a animated image of it. I think this scene works a lot better than the previous storyboard version and it allows more time to be seen on Alexander who is telling his own tale. The only down fall is that I have to be careful about what sound I use i.e. if I just use hooves the people may not associated this sound with a horse they may either see this as a Donkey instead which isn’t correct.
Other sounds I have already considered for this animation is for the actual talking of the character Alexander. I personally think in order to add to the character and make it appear more realistic and to draw in the target audience, Alexander should appear to talk in a unknown language something like Ancient Greek. This is so that the audience can’t understand him unless they read the speech bubbles coming from the characters mouth, which contains the actual information about him. This is done not only to represent the character’s old culture but also to make him seem more mysterious to the actual audience watching the factual animation. The down side is that I will need to be careful with the speech bubbles since they won’t be able to fit everything in them and the sound can’t be to annoying or people will get fed up with not only with them but may also be offended with them.
Here is an early storyboard concept that I did for the factual animation, there are several reason why I dropped this from the project which I will reveal later on:
The aims for this project are:
The aim of this animation is to produce a Animated Biopic based on the Ancient Greek Conqueror and King, Alexander the Great. The Animation will be 30 to 45 seconds long and not a second over. The animation will tell a part of Alexander’s life effectively and utilize sound effects that are suitable for the chosen content, this will help tell his story and make sure that the target audience is not offended. The Animation will aim for a target audience of school children since Alexander is a Historical figure and is consider an important part of our history.
The reason why this storyboard was dropped from this factual animation project was that it didn’t seem to properly convey the life story of Alexander that well when read through, especially at the beginning. This might be because of the way I introduced this storyboard. There is no indication that this animation is about Alexander, the only thing that you do see is a lightning bolt strike a barley noticeable female figure (Something that I need to work on, afterwards). The narrative within this is absolutely awful and therefore makes no sense to the audience who are either reading it or are watching it when it is animated. So straight away I knew that I could either tweak this storyboard or do a completely different one. I think the only good thing with this sequence of the storyboard is actually that the female figure was fairly decent, except once the frames were put together it looked like her breast where jumping from her chest to her stomach when she breathed unfortunately (I will need to work on my female anatomy).
The next problem that came up was the actual flames that showed Alexander would be a conqueror in his father’s vision. The way I drew them was absolutely awful in appearance, to me personally they looked more the ocean/sea than fires raging across the land, so next time I draw fires they need to be more like this:
Another problem that popped up with this storyboard was the actual baby form of Alexander, while it did represent some form of baby it looked more like a mutant or gremlin than an actual human baby that it was supposed to represent. So personally I felt a bit of confliction with this, I felt pleased that I had developed a character that had some form of close representation to a baby, but at the same time I felt concerned that the baby came out looking more like a monster than a human, so I will need to work on this in the near future.
The last concern that popped up was that the actual animation would come out shorter than 30 seconds, so I couldn’t use this for the project unless I expanded this story. At the current moment the tale of Alexander wan’t enough so I would need to expanded on this with the narrative to at least reach the minimum time limit. The only positive of this was that I got a working horse within the storyboard that looked fairly decent, so the target audience would at least understand Alexander had experience with a horse.
Here are the Development/Final Idea for this project:
The Aims for this Project:
The aim of this animation is to produce a Animated Biopic based on the Ancient Greek Conqueror and King, Alexander the Great. The Animation will be 30 to 45 seconds long and not a second over. The animation will tell a part of Alexander’s life effectively and utilize sound effects that are suitable for the chosen content, this will help tell his story and make sure that the target audience is not offended. The Animation will aim for a target audience of school children since Alexander is a Historical figure and is consider an important part of our history.
As you can see I went back to the clouds and lightning symbols for Zeus because I felt like they needed a bit more development for this project, since they didn’t exactly look like proper storm clouds. So again I went for the basic idea of having a standard cloud with some lightning coming out of it. While the idea is very simplistic it does get the point across about him been Zeus’s son and since Zeus is the Greek God of the Sky and Lightning this was the perfect choice for this matter. The lightning looked a lot better than the previous design thankfully, but there are still some kinks that need ironing out from it before it reaches the final stage. I could improve this by making the lightning a bit longer and more defined than before as right now this image is short and quite fat in appearance.
The next couple of designs I tried both had black clouds and more lightning to make the clouds look more sinister, which in some sense worked because Zeus was known for getting quite angry and this would cause thunder and lightning. Although this probably wasn’t the best idea due to the fact that the dark clouds don’t exactly give an accurate representation of the Greek god of the sky so, it might not be the best idea for this animated logo.
Next I attempted to add static to the actual clouds to make it seem more realistic with the clouds producing thunder. The first design seemed to work really well with the static, but the other two seem to me scribbles on the clouds regrettably and the lightning looks to thick. So I went back to how I did the static from before and decided that a single but longer lightning bolt might be a better idea for several reasons. The first been that it shows the power Zeus actually possess due to not only the static but the length and width of the lightning bolt, which helps show that his power can not only make the bolt go further but can contain a lot of raw power. This lightning bolt also shows effectively in the narrative that the bolt or Zeus did have the power to reach Olympia so that Alexander could be born. The down fall with this Zeus symbol was that it was rather boring in appearance because it is a single lightning bolt with a bit of static coming of it. I might use this animation logo as a back up in case my other idea I have chosen as the final design doesn’t work in the animation. This is because it is one of the better designs out of the rest both in simplicity and design.
These are the final logos for the animation. I chose this throne sketch because I believe that while it is fairly simple in design it still shows that the character Alexander is now a king/ruler which is what I was aiming for.Since most of the Macedonia Architecture is ancient Greek in appearance this seemed to fit in quite well, although it may not have the design of the pillars that the Greeks are famous for the throne still gets the point across quite well. The dagger design was chosen because it is small and easy to conceal, making it perfect to represent the assassination of Philip of Macedonia within this factual animation because the blade literally screams assassination weapon. What also made this weapon a good choice was that it had a strong form of narrative because it takes influence from both Greek and Persian weaponry, which where the countries Alexander and Philip were known for been at war with constantly. This again refers to my original aims within this project as I am taking into consideration how effectively the symbols are connecting to Alexander’s story.Next time I make a weapon in a sketch I will need to be a bit more careful with the handle angle because it doesn’t seem to work that well, so next time I will fix this. The thunder cloud while basic in design still does get the point of him been related or at least Zeus having something to do with Alexander, but I feel that this may be rather basic in design, if push comes to shove with this design during the animation I will use a different one maybe the long static bolt. Although next time I need lightning in a animation I will need to work on that a bit because it still doesn’t look like proper lightning but it does look like cartoon lightning which I don’t always need.
Here is the next set of design ideas for my Alexander the great project. First I have decided to change my plans instead of my project been a full scale animation of Alexander walking about acting the moments I want to tell. I have decided that the best solution for this factual animation is to find or create a bust of Alexander and animate it so that it’s like he has come life again and wants to tell the audience about his life. I can do this by also using small animated symbols to show key events within Alexander’s life that I have deemed important. This section will focus on the symbols for this animation since I have technically got a bust design from my previous designs all ready.
My Aims are:
The aim of this animation is to produce a Animated Biopic based on the Ancient Greek Conqueror and King, Alexander the Great. The Animation will be 30 to 45 seconds long and not a second over. The animation will tell a part of Alexander’s life effectively and utilize sound effects that are suitable for the chosen content, this will help tell his story and make sure that the target audience is not offended. The Animation will aim for a target audience of school children since Alexander is a Historical figure and is consider an important part of our history.
As you can see I have gone through various symbols that I might be able to animate for when the bust of Alexander the great tells his tale. The first top three are basically symbols that focus on the fable of Alexander actually been the son of the Zeus according to legend (While this may be an actual legend, Alexander himself is to have encouraged these tales often wearing symbols or clothes that link him to this tale so it is kind of factual since he himself used this.) The sketches in the largest image are not the best example of lightning (which is Zeus’s symbol of power), they still capture the narrative of this part of the tale but barley due to the bad design which makes it harder for the target audience to understand. The lightning bolt was the same bolt of lightning that zapped Olympia (Alexander’s Mother) on the night of her wedding leading to her been pregnant with Alexander. Since the first few lightning sketches went badly especially the one at the bottom left of the image, I knew that I needed to fix this. So I tried again with the next two images of the storm clouds which went a lot better than before. This can be seen with the images of Zeus holding his master bolt or the few stray bolts of lightning in the sketches above. The designs also stay within my target/aim of effectively bringing the story to life through just showing Zeus’s presence with this symbol. I have considered using Zeus’s Master Bolt because it helps show that Zeus was involved with Alexander the Great.
The next images are designs and developments of the actual horse of Alexander. There aren’t many designs for this horse the reason is that it is often shown within the old mosaics in a dark colour. So I had the colour choice already for this animation, but I was terrible at drawing horses and other animals so I experiment with Donkey’s and Horses for both my fiction and non fiction animation. As you can see I have successfully captured the shape of the horses in each one of these sketches. I think that the only down fall with these sketches is that the head of the horses are terribly out of proportion, making the horses head either look too big, small or just not like a horses head in some cases. Personally my favorite horse development idea is the one with the sketches of thrones and weapons because it captures the actual appearance of a horse as well as Alexanders. This again effectively shows part of Alexander’s tale to the target audience but we will not truly know the final result until I finish the animation.
The actual horse was chosen for the animation to show that it was an important part in Alexander’s life. This was when he given his horse by his father after he tamed it, (Involving a dodgy merchant trying to sell it to his father Philip) and later on that very same horse went with him, when he traveled to India.
The next images contain sketches that focus on the the fact that Alexander’s father was assassinated and that Alexander eventually took the throne. A majority of the weapon choices came out really well and were inspired from games such as Assassin’s creed and other medieval weaponry.
The swords and daggers I think were one of the more successfully animated ideas that I came up with for this project. When I drew them they seemed to come to life and look like proper weapons, yes a few which were more of my experimental ones didn’t look the part unfortunately, but none the less I still felt happy that some of my ideas came out alright. Originally I was going to use the Assassin’s creed logo for the assassination animation but I felt that it wasn’t suitable for the factual animation. I decided against this idea because if I had it wouldn’t have followed my original aims, therefore would be inappropriate for this animation, as I am aiming to make it as realistic as possible since it is a educational animation. So I chose to go with daggers and sword which suits this part of the animation’s narrative perfectly.
As you can see some of these weapons were indeed heavily inspired by both real life weaponry and from the Assassin’s creed franchise. A Majority of the weapons I drew do look like true weapons and have the same feel to them as well as proper weapons used for assassinations, since most of them are very small and easy to conceal. There were a few weapons that didn’t come out looking like true weapons such as the blade with gaps within it and in our world the blade would most likely break from a strong impact and doesn’t even look very appealing to the naked eye.
The taking over the throne part was the worst out of all my design ideas unfortunately because I went through several different design trying to capture this part of the narrative. After going through several awkward designs such as the royal scepters with spikes and uneven edges that looked like an eye sore, I did eventually come up with a suitable throne which screamed royalty as well as suitability.
While most of the scepters did have a awkward design, there were one that did work, which was the one closest to the left in the image with my sketches above. It took some time but I based the design on the green scepter in the image above or at least it was influenced by it, because while it is basic in design it still allows it to be used effectively and it won’t harm the user. So my design followed this concept and had a fairly basic idea that still looked somewhat pleasant to the eye and still had a practical use.
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