Animation Spidergram and Animation Timeline

Feedback

Throughout the animation course, I received a lot of feedback on things such as my ideas, the animation, and how to animate it. This played a large role on how the animation turned out, and really helped the progress of it all.

My peers were very positive about my ideas for Evee and Bentley, which gave me the confidence to stick with them. My animation teacher, Mr Haycocks, gave feedback by furthering ideas on different ways of how Bentley could be animated, such as interesting ticks and amusing habits he could have. One of these ideas was for him to move his thumb and finger like a mouth when he talked; unfortunately, as there was no talking during the animation, this idea could not be used, but it helped more ideas for Bentley's movements to spawn. Another improvement Mr Haycocks helped achieve was the way Evee moved, by thinking of more interesting ways she would walk.



Stuart Messinger gave feedback on the actual animating of it; as an experienced animator himself, he suggested that I use keyframing, which really helped me create smoother animations more easily, particularly the walk cycle.





Spencer, a technician at the school, suggested that I use Anime Studio - a program on Mac - to animate Bentley. This would have made things a lot quicker and easier, but it didn't suit the style of Evee and Bentley so I decided not to use it. However, I did use his and Adam's suggestion of using Final Cut to put it together.



Various other aspects of the animation were altered due to comments and feedback received by peers and teachers, such as music, repeating backgrounds for the walk cycle, and reusing the walk cycle to both fill time and to show it off.

Transferable Skills

Throughout the project, I needed to apply skills outside of animating to help me progress. Drawing, a skill developed through art lessons, was needed most greatly for animating and developing Evee and Bentley.

Acting as a skill was needed because knowledge of how reactions of the characters might ensue was needed. Furthermore, knowledge on physical reactions of arms and hands rather than facial expressions was greatly needed, as this is the only way that I could portray Bentley's emotions. Having previously done amateur dramatics out of school and drama lessons in school, plus some talented classmates to learn from, I felt I knew enough about acting to apply it to my project.



Writing was another transferable skill required, in order to filter ideas for Evee and Bentley; to write them down and solidify them. Animating Evee and Bentley would be impossible without any solid foundation of ideas to push them into entertaining situations. Having written stories and ideas down before, plus honing this skill in English lessons, it was easy to use this skill for animation purposes.

ICT skills were also required, but as I did not know everything I needed in this area, I had to learn throughout the course of the project. I feel that throughout the project, I learned a lot about ICT and using the computer to help me animate.

Animaton Stuart Messinger's Notes

Animation Standard Risk Assessment Form and Production Schedule

Animation Development

Quite a few elements of my production have changed or developed, influencing my final work. The use of the computer program "Final Cut" was brought in in the later stages of production to put together my animation, despite my original intentions to create an animation entirely by hand. It was used to make the walk cycle work better, the overall line quality of the frames better, and a function to create repeating backgrounds was used to increase the quality of my animation. Overall I have acquired many transferable skills through ICT and using the shooting/camera equipment to shoot my animation.

Animation Evaluation

Overall, I am pleased with my completed work. I feel that I got the hang of animating pretty quickly and so was able to enjoy the process of animating the story of Evee and Bentley; however if I was to do it again I would make much more of an effort to manage my time efficiently. I decided the sequence was successful as I feel it kept fairly well to the animatic and ideas I had in my head.

I have learned a lot during the whole process about how to animate certain things, plus how to vary speed in animation and such, and learned I should really be more organised. I have also learned to use various equipment and software on the Mac, which was difficult as I am not accustomed to using Macs.

My ideas developed steadily, although admittedly not by much, but overall in a way I am satisfied with. I used a hand-drawn technique with as little computer aid as possible to keep it as close to what I had always wanted to do as I could. I'm pleased to say my work portrayed most of my original ideas and intentions, although some had to be simplified for various reasons such as time and effort. I kept to the original storyboard, although I had to cut quite a bit out as it was too long and complicated for me to animate in such a short space of time.

I got my ideas for the animation from characters I had already invented, purely from imaginings of what might go on in Evee and Bentley's day-to-day life. The hardest part of my animation sequence was starting each scene off, but as soon as I had got started it was usually fairly easy for me to get into it. Drawing the walk cycle was the most difficult thing for me, and I had to reference an animation book in order to be able to complete it. The easiest part was coming up with the ideas and storyboard, as I already had a lot in mind for Evee and Bentley. I made sure to keep safe and professional within working practices, although I did avoid the assigned control measures for risks such as wearing gloves to prevent paper cuts, as I did not feel they were vitally necessary.

Animation Developing Ideas

How did you develop your script, characters and environment?

For my animation, there was little need for a script as most – if not all - of the Evee and Bentley animation is visual. Evee and Bentley are characters created by me that already existed before I decided to use them for the animation project. However, they went through a few design changes for the animation: Evee was not only made younger, but her whole design was simplified greatly, mostly to make her easier and quicker to animate. The environment changed merely to fit around the antics of Evee and Bentley; for example, halfway through the animation I wanted them to play catch, so I decided to take them to a park to give them a suitable setting to do so, whilst still fitting in with the storyline.

Animation Aspects Discussed and Feedbacks Received

What ideas have you presented to your tutor and peers?

I had in fact brought two ideas to present, but the first idea was so well-received that there was no need to present the other. I had presented Evee and Bentley (a girl with a scarf that can move like a pair of arms and even had his own personality) concept, along with several ideas for situations and actions the pair could take part in.

What comments did you receive? How have your ideas and original plans changed in response to feedback and changes in circumstances? Consider the resources available, time, cost etc.

The feedback was extremely positive, supportive and encouraging, which I very much appreciated. My ideas and plans have generally stayed unchanged, albeit certain reductions and changes in some to simplify the project and make things easier for myself.

Few resources are really needed for this hand-drawn animation other than paper, stationery and a light box, although later on it was decided that backgrounds would be added with computer software. Thankfully, cost has not really been an issue. Time, however, has been a rather prominent obstacle. As hand-drawn animation is so time-consuming, as well as being busy with other school work, time has indeed become a frequent predicament.

Animation Initial Ideas

This is the final design of Evee and Bentley: the current design chosen for the animation. Below are the various stages of Evee and Bentley's development. I tried various styles, trying to find the one that both fit Evee and Bentley and the one that I was comfortable with to animate.

Inspirations (including those listed below) include: the Pokémon Anime Series, Richard Williams "The Thief and the Cobbler", Yves Bourg "Supercrash" (www.supercrash.net, thebourgyman.deviantart.com) and Bill Watterson "Calvin and Hobbes".










This is the first ever drawing of Evee and Bentley: a doodle in the computer art program Paint. The style was my own, but as a whole inspired from the Pokémon anime cartoons from my childhood.











These are the first drawings of Evee and Bentley I did by hand, based off the one I did on the computer.













An older Evee.




















This style for Evee and Bentley was inspired by Richard William's "The Thief and the Cobbler"





































This style is based on the cartoons of the 1920s. It was very fun to draw, and its role in the development of the characters was substantial as it helped construct a simpler design for Evee and Bentley.












This was an attempt to make Evee younger, smaller and simpler to draw.










This is a character based on Evee and Bentley, although the incarnation of Bentley is not in fact alive, making the main focus the superhero girl. This was inspired by the comic "Supercrash" by Yves Bourg. (www.supercrash.net)






Where and how did you get your ideas?

Evee and Bentley are characters I had invented a while ago, purely for my own amusement – a girl who owned a scarf that could move on their own like a pair of arms: an idea I thought was pretty entertaining. Immediately I wanted to make the scarf have a personality of its own, so Evee could have an emotional bond with her scarf – inspired much by creations such as Phillip Pullman’s Dark Materials trilogy – as well as to make the scarf more interesting. More inspiration for Bentley came from a fascination with ghosts and the ability ghosts are claimed to have: possessing (or being spiritually tied down to) an object.

As soon as I started the animation course, I thought that Evee with Bentley could be quite interesting to animate, and I had tonnes of ideas and situations that a girl with a living, moving scarf could get into. This inspired my idea for a “day in the life” of Evee and Bentley: an unusual pair of best friends with a bizarre ability.

Evee was originally a character based on myself, but evolved into her own person with separate traits and individuality. I also made her a lot younger than me: in the animation she is twelve years old, mainly to increase the variety of situations that could occur (such as playing catch, and encountering school bullies).



What research have you done?

Because Evee and Bentley was basically planned out in my head way before the animation course had begun, so not much research was needed to be done. However, much research on how to animate the piece was done, such as walk cycles (studied by reading “The Animator’s Survival Kit” by Richard Williams), due to being an inexperienced animator.


Why are research and drawing skills important to the animation development process?

If I had done no research on how to animate things that I had no knowledge on animating, my animation could have been at a much poorer standard. If I had a complete lack of drawing skills, the designing of Evee and Bentley, the animatic and of course the animation itself would have been impossible to go about doing. There is a huge reliance on at least some drawing skill and initiative in order to be able to successfully develop and execute a piece of hand-drawn animation.

Animation Storyboard

Obtaining Permission

Due to copyright issues, in order to be able to use the song I wanted for my animation, I had to request permission from the copyright holders of the song. I did this via a license data form on their official website.

The song I wanted for my animation was "Day at the Seaside" by John Renbourn from his album "Another Monday". Originally I had wanted "Better Together" by Jack Kohnson, as I felt both the meaning behind the song and the gentle, calm mood of the song suited Evee and Bentley. However, I found another song that I felt suited the animation even better: "Townshend Shuffle" by William Ackerman. Not only did the song carry the same gentle, calm but at the same time cheerful mood that I wanted, but it did not have words, which suited Evee and Bentley.

However, I could not obtain Copyright permission and I did not even have access to the song. To compensate, my animation teacher found an album he owned that had a very similar kind of music. The song "Day at the Seaside" from this album fitted perfectly with my animation, and so I decided to use that instead.

Animation Developing Skills

This was a button drawn in Adobe Illustrator and then put into Macromedia Flash to be animated and made interactive with a mouse cursor.









This is a screenshot from an animation, created during a session that taught the group how to use Macromedia Flash to animate.