Year Overview: Year 3 Blog Content

This post contains links to all my work and is divided into the two categories of my Course Work, Independent Practice and Creative Futures: Pro Practitioner.

A quick warning about this post all the links work but for some reason when no mouse hovers the actual post, the Creative Futures: Pro Practitioner section looks like there are no links and when it does all the links light up and so does the text, just click the links  and it should take you to the desired post. I apologise about this I have gone of the link software several times and I don’t know what is causing this.

Independent Practice:

My Independent Practice process started with me deciding what I would do as my main project. I draw up some brainstorms to help me come up with ideas for my project as well as what I could possibly do within these projects during the process of making them.

Brainstorm 1,

Brainstorm 2

Once all my ideas for this project were presented clearly on a piece of paper, I began to decided which project I wanted to pursue for my final major project as long as it stay within the brief that we were given at the beginning of the year. The project I had chosen for my final major project was Bubble and Squeak, I created these two characters last year, but I wasn’t really happy with the way they had come out last year, so I decided to redesign them and create a new episode of Bubble and Squeak. Since I started a new project had had to come up with some new objectives and aims for said project:

Bubble and Squeak Aims and Targets

I started to then come up with several potential narratives for the animation, these scenarios where simple ideas that popped into my head during this creation process to find a suitable story for Bubble and Squeak to follow in this new animation:

Narrative Idea Inspiration,

Narrative 1,

Narrative 2,

Narrative 3,

Narrative 4,

Narrative 5,

Bubble and Squeak Narrative Ideas Development 1,

Bubble and Squeak Narrative Ideas Development 2,

Bubble and Squeak Narrative Ideas Development 3,

Bubble and Squeak Narrative Ideas Final Ideas 1,

Bubble and Squeak Narrative Ideas Final Ideas 2,

Bubble and Squeak Narrative Synopsis,

Once I found a suitable narrative I began to redesign the characters Bubble and Squeak putting them into various scenarios to see what sort of reactions that they would get involved in and how they would deal and react to them. This includes of course Bubble’s sudden change of species after I began to realise that him been a fish severely stunted the animation and it’s narrative:

Squeak Redesign Ideas,

Squeak Idea’s 2,

Bubbles Character Rethink,

Bubble Species experiment,

Bubbles Character Rethink, Crab vs Snail,

Bubble Redesign 2

Bubble and Squeak Sketches,

Bubble and Squeak Sketches 2,

Bubble and Squeak Animal Motion study,

Bubble and Squeak Sketches 3,

Bubble and Squeak Sketches 4,

Once I chosen the species Bubble would become I began to write up potential story boards to help make the narrative of the story that I had chosen and developed a lot easier to understand. These storyboards went through several different versions of the same story as well as different ones.

Storyboard 1, Storyboard 2, Storyboard 3, Storyboard 4, Storyboard 5,

I began to do tests in Adobe Flash to see if it was suitable for this project, I eventually found out that this was bad idea as it seemed to drain the life out of the story, the characters and the animation.

Flash Test 1,

Flash Test 2,

Flash test 3

I began to experiment with the line reader to create a stopmotion animations with hand made puppets of Bubble and Squeak the first few steps of my project were a little rough as I was still new to stopmotion animation.

Stopmotion Test 1,

Stopmotion Test 2: Bubbles,

Stopmotion Test 3: Colour,

Stopmotion Test 4: Colour 2,

Stopmotion Test 5: Squeak Asleep,

Stopmotion Test 6: Squeak Asleep 2

Once I grew confident enough to use the line reader I decided to use it and stopmotion to produce my final major project since I have never really used any other means of animating other than Flash so it might be a nice road to go down this year:

Bubble and Squeak Early Takes

This was one of my early takes at creating Bubble and Squeak via the line reader and stopmotion animation after my experiments, so their was still a lot of room for improvement, my later work see down below shows that I started to improve both in my understanding of the technology and the animation style.

Bubble and Squeak Opening,

Bubble and Squeak Climbing Prototype,

Bubble and Squeak Climbing Prototype 2,

Bubble and Squeak 3D Background Experiment,

Once I started to get the hang of this new type of animation I also began to compose more complicated scenes with my puppets as well as putting together my older animation clips to see how well the animation came together with some sound effects.

Bubble and Squeak Narrative Experiment,

Squeak Close up Experiment 1,

Bubble Close up Experiment,

Squeak Close up Experiment 2,

Bubble Close up Experiment 2,

Bubble and Squeak Climb Sink Part 1,

Bubble and Squeak Climb Sink Part 2,

Bubble’s Tap Attempt 1,

Leaky Tap Animation,

Bubble’s Solo Climb and Attempt V2,

Bubble and Squeak High Five,

Soaked,

Squeak Solo Climb and Fail,

Look at the Tap,

Soaked V2,

Squeak complains to Bubble,

Once I had done most of my scene I began to realise that I needed to also create my credit and opening sequence so I began to design design the Title Card and Credits in order for me to record this last sequence.

Title and Credits Cards Design,

Opening and Credits Animations,

Eventually I posted up my combine all my clips and sound affects to produce my first final version of Bubble and Squeak:

Bubble and Squeak V1,

Although after watching the completed video I realised their was still corrections to be made.

Bubble and Squeak Final Blog,

Bubble and Squeak Final Youtube,

During the process of creating Bubble and Squeak I also researched several different animation technologies, visited sites of exhibits from Hull City of Culture and done several sketches to help improve my overall art skills. As well as Develop my image in the art industry with creating my own business cards.

Animation Technology Research 1,

Animation Technology Research 2,

Animation Technology Research 3,

Animation Technology Research 4,

Google Web Designer 1,

Google Web Designer 2,

Independent Practice: Adobe Photoshop Practice 1: Line Work Notes,

Logo Ideas 1,

Logo Ideas 2,

Logo Ideas 3,

Logo Ideas 4,

Business Card Idea 1,

Business Card Idea 2,

Independent Practice: Lines of Thought Workshop,

Hull City of Culture: Opening Exhibits 1,

Hull City of Culture: Opening Exhibits 2,

Hull City of Culture: Opening Exhibits 3,

Hull City of Culture: The Propeller,

Hull City of Culture: Poppies Waving and Weeping Window

Independent Practice: Drawing Practice,

Independent Practice: Drawing Practice 2,

Independent Practice: Random Sketches 1,

Independent Practice: Random Sketches 2,

Independent Practice: Random Sketches 3,

Independent Practice: Random Sketches 4,

Independent Practice: Random Sketches 5,

Independent Practice: Random Sketches 6,

Independent Practice: Random Sketches 7,

Independent Practice Human Anatomy Research and Practise,

Independent Practice: Human Anatomy,

Creative Futures: Pro Practitioner

My Creative Futures: Pro Practitioner project started with me trying to decide what I could do for a potential client project and who I could find as a client for said project or in another way a client who would provide me with a project for the third year course.

Client Project: Ideas,

Client Project: Women of the World or WOW!,

Now that I had decided what project I doing for a client of my choosing was, I was going to have to understand more about the women of Hull that were famous and I decided that 10 women would be a good number to help keep the length of the animation decent and interesting.

Women of the World or WOW! Women of Hull Research 1,

Women of the World or WOW! Women of Hull Research 2,

Women of the World or WOW! Women of Hull Research 3,

Women of the World or WOW! Women of Hull Research 4,

Women of the World or WOW! Women of Hull Research 5,

Once the women were chosen I began to draw up story boards of idea for potential narratives for this project. The ideas that I first created for these storyboard were only basic and I would later come back to design or develop new ones later on, some of the later on storyboards are after I started to do all animation redesigns for the women. These redesigns of these animations toke place after story board 3.

Women of the World or WOW! Women of Hull: Storyboard 1,

Women of the World or WOW! Women of Hull: Storyboard 2,

Women of the World or WOW! Storyboard 3,

Women of the World or WOW! Storyboard 4,

Women of the World or WOW! Storyboard 5,

WOW Storyboard 6,

The links below are my different ideas for the new animations, as well as some of the inspirations for them included:

Women of the World or WOW! Design Ideas 1,

Women of the World or WOW! Design Ideas 2,

Women of the World or WOW!: Phone Research,

Women of the World Maureen Lipman/Phone Sketches,

Hull City of Culture: Opening Exhibits 2,

From here I began to animate my project:

WOW Animation V1,

Women of the World or WOW! Animation Prototype 5,

Women of the World or WOW! Animation Prototype 11,

Women of the World or WOW! Animation Prototype 17,

Women of the World or WOW! Animation Prototype 24,

Women of the World or WOW! Animation Prototype 30,

Women of the World or WOW! Animation Prototype 35,

Women of the World or WOW! Animation Prototype 41,

WOW Animation Changes,

WOW Animation Changes 2,

Once my main animation was finished I began to look for a potential client who would be willing to show my work to the public:

WOW potential clients for my project,

WOW potential clients for my project: Maritime Museum,

WOW potential clients for my project: Kadromah94,

WOW potential clients for my project: Kadromah94 part 2,

Creative Futures: Pro Practitioner: Client Project WOW potential clients for my project: Kadromah94 part 2

A few days later I revived another email from Mal my client:

My animation has caught the interest of my client and he would gladly display it to the public but I only need to make a adjustment to the file since I made a spell mistake with Theatre, I have since then corrected this spelling mistake and have began to look at a way to present my work on one of the screen at the Kadromah94.

 

Creative Futures: Pro Practitioner: Client Project WOW potential clients for my project: Kadromah94

One of the other locations I investigated for my client project was the media cafe the Kadromah94 located at 94 Alfred Gelder Street Hull, I went to investigate this as a potential client that would be able to host my project since it host a wide range of Media based events. When I visited the cafe, I asked a member of staff if I could talk to the manager of the establishment. I was asked why and I told them that I was a third year Animation student at Hull School of Art and Design and that I was looking for someone who could host one of my works to public as it is part of my course.  I was given a email address that the manger prefers to be emailed and that he is all ways busy so this is the best way to reach him. I email the manger of the Kardomjah94 once I got back:

I received a response two days later requesting that I send a MP4 format of the file and that I should try Humberfilm. Once I received this email I began to trying to find a way to converted my file for famous women of Hull into a MP4 unfortunately SWF files and FLA files can’t be tranfered into these formats without loosing actionscript3 which is a key component to my Famous Women of Hull Project, so my Tutor Gareth suggested that I do a screen recording of it and send my client that instead.

Creative Futures: Pro Practitioner: Client Project WOW potential clients for my project: Maritime Museum

I have written a proposal to the Maritime Museum asking I am able to show my interactive animation to general public at the Maritime Museum. This form not only stated what my intention was with presenting my project but also gave my potential client a way to contact me about my project. A day later after I handed in my project proposal to one of the members of staff at the Maritime Museum I got a response.

The response I received for my proposal was from the curator of the Maritime Museum Robin Diaper stating that at this present time the sites that were under his durastriction were unable to show my project to the public but wished me luck in my future endeavors and my project. So I will not be able to show my project at the Maritime Museum unfortunately but I have at least got some more experience in this part of been an animator.

Creative Futures: Pro Practitioner: Client Project WOW potential clients for my project:

Since this is my client project I need to find a suitable client who is willing to show my animation to the public, as I have already failed to see my first client I had chosen and organise to show my project at the Women of the World event, I have to find I new client. The other day I went around hull trying to find suitable locations and clients to allow me to show my interactive animation, unfortunately the downfall with such a project is that I need to find some where that is suitable for this sort of animation.

Hull and East Riding Museum:

One of Hulls major museums that has a wide range of art exhibits form across different time periods that are both interactive and attract a wide range of tourists mainly children which is a plus in this as that is one of my main target audiences.

The Maritime Museum:

Another good example as the Maritime Museum has a section dedicated to the public to allow artists to show their work to public but you have to put your name forward first and state what you want to show to the public. One of the Hull New Media Students has already held and exhibit here called Lou in Games design.

 

Creative Futures: Pro Practitioner: Client Project WOW Animation Changes 2

This next post came up when my project of Women of Hull or WOW! as it was originally known as, had to have few more modifications, according to my tutor Sally the project wasn’t quite their yet so she suggested that I make it interactive to the target audience. Wen I asked Sally how I could go about this she suggested that since I was using Adobe Anime/Flash I should install buttons that the audience could click or press in this case on an interactive board or tablet of some sort. I began to look up to how install these button or at least create them for this project, while I did find the way how to do it on the official Adobe Website Help Page and several other websites and youtube videos, the way it was explained still made it very difficult to understand as well as some of the video qualities been quite horrendous. I eventually learned how to stop the animation on Animate/Flash but after that you could do nothing unless you had a button or another command in to tell it to play after so long. The basic command to stop Animate/Flash on Action Script 3 is to type in the actions command box on the desired lay and frame is stop(); . That took me about an hour to get right and finally understand, after words I started to create buttons for the animation, this took me at least two hours to learn how program correctly before I managed to set them all up correctly through out my Women of Hull Animation (The coding I couldn’t hand type, fortunately both Animate/Flash comes with instant commands that can be tweaked ever so slightly to change which frame the button jumps to. This can be seen in the images  below:

This first image is of the button that allows the target audience to start the animation, it will also change into a different shade of orange when hovered over when or pressed and then vanishes.

These two buttons allows the user to jump back to the introduction of the animation and to the animation associated with the introduction of the women that the button is linked too.

 This button is at the end of the animation and allows the user to jump back to the introduction animation.

The names on the intro have also been turned into buttons and allow the user to jump to the women who name has been clicked.

This makes the animation not only a lot more user friendly but also fun as it has become interactive and makes the educational aspect of it a lot more effective to the target audience and hope they will begin to learn more about the city of Culture and who has originated or been educated here.

Creative Futures: Pro Practitioner: Client Project WOW Animation Changes

My Women of the World Project is almost complete but I have to make several changes as it didn’t tick the boxes for this course in order to pass my final year. These changes were pointed out to me by one of tutors Sally who said that the animation is within the video are good but I need to introduce another way of showing which women is which instead of just allowing the target audience to guess of just the animation and sounds that they produce. Sally suggested that I make information pages within the animation to replace the portraits that I was originally using to introduce the famous women of hull. These information pages consist of two pictures of the Women showing them doing what made them famous or at least what was associated with them. The information pages also included there names in a colour based on what they had done and a short description about their life. 

This made the animation not only look a lot more appealing to eye but also made it look a lot more professional as well compared to the previous versions of the animation as each introduction of the famous women of Hull, where it was just a portrait in black and white and a basic font in colours of the city of culture logo. Which back then, now that I think about it made it not only hard to read but also quite bland and not very professional and this wouldn’t have made it easy for me to find someone who would be willing to take my project and present it publicly. The next thing that I was told by Sally is that since I had got rid of my original introductions for each women and replaced them with these much more effective ones I should also change the opening page and animate it.

This opening Introduction page made a huge difference to the whole animation like the individual introduction pages for each women from Hull also adds something to the animation an makes it look not only a more like an educational documentary animation but also much more professional than the previous version which personally (as I have look at it recently) very childish. There a lots of difference between the new intro and the old one, for example the original opening consisted of two different frames (You could say), the first been a bland title sequence that used the colours of the city of culture logo for the background and opening title (Which was in a very generic and universally used font). It didn’t really catch the attention of the target audience, the only thing that sort of made it unique was the colour scheme and even then it wasn’t really my own creation and felt wrong to use it. The next frames of this sequence was the portraits of the famous women of Hull in the middle lined up in an organised manner, which was the only eye catching thing about this set of frames but it was still rather bland and basic. See above for the two original frames sequences for the opening.

The corrections made to introduction can be seen in the image above the previous paragraph. I had made a complete overhaul of the introduction of this animation with slight guidance from Sally my tutor, who told me to be a bit more creative with the images of the women and the opening. So I found  new images of the famous women of hull placed them in photo shop that was set to the size of the Adobe Animate/Flash standard frame size and began to cut and places the images in a unique way before giving it a colourful introduction title and a box with the names of the women I had chosen in order with the background faint allowing the audience to see it. This title and opening not only draws the attention of the target audience in with it’s unique appearance but it also shows the women of hull really well and doesn’t make the project looking boring or over informative.

Their was one problem when I transferred these new introductions and openings to the Adobe Animate/Flash which was that the file refused originally to be transferred over in fragment without having a massive white background with them so each layer would unintentionally cover the previous one,w hen I needed the blank parts of each frame to be invisible. I eventually found a way around this problem but it took along time and a lot head scratching, to be honest I actually discovered how I did to get each other from Photoshop to Animate/Flash by accident. But once I knew how it was a piece of cake to transfer each layer over as it’s own in Anime/Flash and animate them to work allowing each women photo and name to appear in order in the introduction of the animation.

I transferred the sound files over to the Adobe Audition, this allowed me to manipulate sound files to the effects I desired such as speeding up my mouse squeaking file to make it sound like Squeak was getting angry or lower the audio levels.

Creative Futures: Pro Practitioner, Client Project: Women of the World or WOW!

Unfortunately due to several unforeseen events I was not able to get my Women of the World Animation for WOW at Hull. These events led to my project been delayed and me having to correct and fix several glitches that had occurred in the prototype animation. These glitches varied from my book animation for no reason constantly changing to white for no reason and no matter how many times I changed to colour of the book back to the desired and chosen colour scheme the book would revert back to the white colour. Eventually I managed to get the book to stay the original chosen colour scheme. Other problem that were involved with this project were also minor such as the Bumblebee suddenly become detached from it’s wings and moving a few frames ahead instead of the two frames sticking together. So I had to go back to main frames that were centred around this glitch in Flash and manually correct it, which while doesn’t seem to take long the process can be quite tiring and does take a long time because of Flashes settings. Due to the some of the mentioned occurrences that have happened my project has been pushed back leading to me missing the Women of the World event. I can make up for this by not only finding a new client some where in Hull since it is the City of Culture this year but I can also make more tweaks to the project to make it look more professional and correct anymore mistakes that have happened before I show it to said client.

Creative Futures: Pro Practitioner, Client Project: Women of the World or WOW! Animation Prototype 41

Here is another prototype version of the Women of the World/Women of Hull Animation:

I corrected the animation so now their are Chimney’s that are smogging up a city which my target audience said connected to Norma a lot better than the previous animation and I made a better animation of a sailing boat that went across the whole screen to show Plain Sailing better.

I created the latest version of Famous women of Hull by utilising the brush tool to draw odd angles such as the sails on the boat, the line tool for the straight lines in the scene such as the phone in Maureen Lipman’s scene. I also used the eraser tool to remove mistakes and the paint bucket to fill in were more colour was desired.

Creative Futures: Pro Practitioner, Client Project: Women of the World or WOW! Animation Prototype 35

Here is another prototype version of the Women of the World/Women of Hull Animation:

This animation is now now reaches it’s own credits and the animation are all complete. Debra now finishes her performance and poses for the audience. The walking animation is now much longer and does a bit more helping draw in the target audience a lot more effectively. The phone now sits on a table while it rings. Norma Waterson’s animation is based on Dirty Old Town and shows a town that was once clean get dirtier and dirtier. (My Tutor Janis did point out that maybe I should just show chimney’s smog up the blue sky) to save not only time but also make the situation much more believable. Tracey Thorn’s animation shows a sail blowing in the wind but this doesn’t portray the connect to her or her song Plain Sailing very well so I will need to go back to this later on.