3rd character 'Woman in black'

Final Design:

 

Test run

I took a print screen of the program because it shows the 'Bones' I have to use to animate and move the actual character. Along with this you can see the layers in the right corner that I have to use to keep the body parts separate.
The program was difficult to get the hang of at first because there are so many options to do but once I learned how to create a 'Bone layer' which would enable me to choose the areas that could move, the rest was just following the steps from the tutorials I watched and the notes I took on my ipod.
I had to add a bone to each limb which would then have to be sized and then I'd have to adjust the effected area to around the size of the limb to make it so that it was more realistic and the area it moved wasnt too much on the body and would start to effect other limbs. I also had to edit the parent limbs on the bones, this meant that each bone would be connected to a specific bone so that it would pivot off that bone. So in the case for my figure all the bones were connected to the central bone in the body, so I had to adjust all the arrows so the were pointing towards the centre bone because when I first set them the arrows were connecting limbs to other limbs making my figure move messily and incorrect.

Test run:

Although I had an issue with the video because I accidentally left a large pause at the end of the video.

Charcter designs - Digital

These are the final character designs for the two main characters, I needed a side view and a front view to be able to do the shots I planned. Each limb on the character had to be edited on a seperate layer (as shown below) to enable me to move them properly once I imported them on to animestudio pro. Although Im going to have to fix the layer with the lantern on as it bend instead of moving when I try to use it in the program but I think if I include it with the layer the arm is joint onto them it should move properly. I had to individually edit the inverted layers as I couldnt just place the invert effect on top as each limb had to be done seperatly and it would change the colour of the rose. I needed the inverted layer for some of my shots so I thought it'd be better if I had some inverted charcters ready to use for when I needed them.

I enlarged the layer area to show 'Character 1's' body layers and how each one has to be individual.

 

AnimeStudio Pro

A friend of mine gave me the program Anime Studio Pro to work with, so I thought I'd try some test runs to see how well it works.Along with this I had to watch a large amount of tutorials in order to make sure I could use it well enough to create a music video.

I watched some tutorials on Youtube and took some quick notes on my ipod to help me when I tried the test shots.

some of the tutorials I watched were:

Reception Theory - Stuart Hall - 1980

The theory demonstrates that even though one message is sent out that not one understanding is made from the text and allows for a media text to be consumed individually and takes in to consideration the meaning of a text and the relationship an individual person may understand from this in connection to sociological factors.

Hall wrote about 3 different types of audience readings of the text.

Audience types: 

·         Dominant or preferred – completely agree with the chosen message by the producer

·         Negotiated  -Partial agreement, opinion is presented ending in compromise

·         Oppositional – Disagree completely and rejects the preferred reading

There are a few reasons that effect which reading we take. Which are:

·         Life experience

·         Mood at the time of viewing

·         Age

·         Culture

·         Belief

·         Gender

An example of a negotiated reading of a video is Robin Thickes 'Blurred Lines' song.
Robin Thicke says his single Blurred Lines is actually about his actress wife Paula Patton and defended the song claiming that the erotic and seemingly aggressive lyrics were harmless and intended to celebrate his 20 year relationship with wife. But although many people see the song as harmless, the song has set off an outrage with many people with them claiming it was deeply offensive and derogatory towards women given controversial lyrics such as 'I know you want it' and 'let me liberate ya'. With the original video being removed from Youtube after so many complaints. This is an extreme example of conflicting opinions on a media product.
Which is why I mentioned it as I want the message of my music video to be clear. My music video is based on a song about love and death so I wanted it to be clear what it was about using symbols stereotyped or mentioned with the lyrics and then using a couple in the video.

Animatic Problems and changes

From working on my animatic I worked out that certain shots were too long or needed to be changed. These shots are:
shot 6 - From 11 seconds to 8
Shot 19 - from blank black bakground to a starry sky
shot 22 - from 12 seconds to 8
Im going to download a better version of the song as it cuts out the last word from the song and I had to cut 4 seconds of silence from the beginning of the track.
Alot of my shots seem quite long but some are being drawn onto the shot or have the characters moving which was hard to show in my animatic, so it'd have to be shown through just the animation instead.

Animatic

Risk assesment

Due to doing animation there isnt alot that could be put into the risk assesment as I will mainly be working from home or college meaning I dont have to go on location to film certain shots or include other people in my work.

Types of animation

Using Film and other animation clips as an example, here are some types of animation:

Classic 2D animation: Also known as Hand drawn animation or traditional, each fram is hand drawn and it takes 12 drawn frames for a second. They are later scanned and put together to form the entire piece. This was manily popular until CGI animation.

 

Digital 2D animation: created similar to handdrawn but done using a digital tablet or mouse instead. Most commonly used in TV shows.

 



3D digital animation - now the most popular technique, it is done with 3D models that are textured, rigged and animated in virtual space.

Stop motion animation - requires photos to be taken of a subject which is moved or changed gradually so that when the photos are placed on after the other it gives the appearnce of change or movement.

Clay animation - this is a type of stop motion animation but with the figures made out of clay making them possible and giving the producer more room to be creative.

Cut our animation - another stop motion technique but this one is done using many different materials like card, paper, cloth and photographs.

Paint on glass animation - This is done by manipulating slow drying oil paints on sheets of glass

Drawn on film animation - this is also known as direct animation, it is produced by creating images directly on film stock unlike any other form of animation.

Storyboard

Storyboard from s0015160

Characters and other concept ideas