The Final Animation!

Although it is a little late as I passed the NCFE animation course ages ago now, I feel obligated to post the actual final product of my two years hard (ish) work onto this blog. I have finally been able to put it up on Youtube (previously, I had troubles with putting up the video and it is only recently that I've been able to put it on the internet and working the way it should. So in short I put it on Youtube and didn't think to put it on the blog until now). Here it is, Evee and Bentley:

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.