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Evaluation

The animation ideas generation was good as we came up with a range of ideas that would test our skills in areas we don’t normally focus on. This led us to the idea of doing a documentary comedy reminiscent of animated podcasts I used throughout my research.

Researching a range of podcasts showed me, many different ways to emphasise a joke or the comedic situation ranging from long awkward pauses to fast jump cuts. Creating characters designs of one another was, in my opinion, my strongest work from this project as it is a new interesting style I have never tried before.

Because of the simplicity of our group idea, I wanted to take on more roles for myself therefore I took the job of creating the final animatic with every members work in it as well as the addition of descriptions before every animatic. I feel like this gave the project a more professional appeal as well as a clearer identity as the title ‘Incident’ hits to a real story told through a documentary.

Areas I would have liked to improve are to experiment with other stories the group spoke about and to implement the chosen art style into my final animatic more. Although it is clear which character is which, looking back on my work, I feel like I could have added a more polished looked to the final animation rather than focusing on getting the comedic timing perfect. However, I feel like my main goal was to gain skill in applying comedic timing; I feel like I have accomplished this through my extensive research and enthusiasm for this idea.

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I had to upload this animation to youtube as it was too big for tumblr to upload as well as not having enough room on vimeo.

This is our finished group animatic, it shows four stories told by a group of friends with each story animated by a member of the group. Each member used the chosen art style to their own level with some not using it at this stage and just focused on timing and movement while others used it to get the final look and feel of the animation early.

This was due to not seeing each others work till towards the end, this was brought to our attention from the start as an interesting experiment we could attempt. Each story would be from our own prospective therefore would work better not being influenced by each other. There’s enough continuity to makes sense but by producing independent sections within the story we have achieved an interesting and unique outcome.

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I wanted to further my own ideas as i’m really passionate about the style, I wanted to test how the body would move with the head to see if it would actually work.

I feel like it works well however was very difficult to achieve, this wouldn’t be appropriate for this project as our aim is a stylised simple art style and to focus of lip sync. However, now i have created a walk cycle, i would like to use this character in the future.

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Finished group collaboration

Because my designs didn't get chosen for the style, i felt like i needed to contribute more to the group so decided to take on the task of putting everyone's animatics together with the soundtrack. 

As i was making this, i discussed with the group possibly using a decription before the animatic showing who created it and a name for the story. I originally came up with The Chicken Incident for my own animation however we came to the decision to use this format for all animatics, so we have The Chocolate Incident, The Chicken Claw Incident and The 

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This is the finished animatic for my section of the group collaboration, it shows the timing and basic movement that will happen with this animation. The lip sync will be the main part of this animation; this will happen with the first shot of the group talking to each other, the close up of me talking, again the shot of the group talking and finally the close up of the girl as shes eating. This will the focus of the animation as the movement should be simple as well as the character designs. 

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This is my storyboard for the section about the hot wing. It uses a lot of close up shots as they add to the comedic story like when she eats the food in my face and possibly when she realises the food is spicy. I also referred back to the group talking about the story within the animation a few times as i found this to be a key part when researching animated podcasts.

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Group Discussion

After reviewing all the group designs, we decided to choose Claudia's designs as the majority of the group voted for that. This will come to form later in the project as my animatic will be in a simple style to clearly show the timing and movement, we i use the animatic for an animation, that is when i will use the chosen art style.

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Different art styles from my character designs we could use.

The top left is just a coloured in and lined version of the original, this is the safest option as its not to stylised but still interesting.

Top right is a blue outline used in a few references I looked at, this is a good option for a more simple style that would allow us to focus on lip sync and timing.

Bottom left is a coloured in version without lines, this is extremely stylised and would be difficult to animate however if the group decides on my designs and this style it would be doable as its linked to my personal showcase style. 

The bottom right is a simple outline however in black and more doodle in style rather than using the line tool like the blue example above. 

I would like to keep the art style simple so one of the outline styles would be best for me, however whatever the group decides will be fine to work in 

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If we choose to incorporate this section in the animation it would be the introduction and would be set in the actual sound room. We would all lean into the mic and we claudia says ‘stop’, it would fade out and the first animated scene would start.

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This is when we finished our session and would be used for the end of the animation, this would be interesting to animate as the animation would be full of stories however would end with the actual end of the sound recording in present day. People saying they need a toilet break would be incredible funny as you would see the group interacting with each other in the actual sound room with the door closing behind them walking out of frame. 

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From our first 20 minute recording session, i decided to choose the story of how i gave spicy food to a friend without her knowing. I can already see how this scene would pan out as it would switch between the story and us talking and laughing around it in a doodle art style. 

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TREATMENT

Project Title: #goodtimes

An experimental docu-comedy 2D digital animation with a nostalgic theme.

Logline: A group of friends recount nights out at university, talking about all the unlikely situations they encountered and how they all became friends.

Synopsis: The opening scene shows 4 friends sitting in a room and talking about previous nights out over a few drinks. As they recall events there will be flashback scenes to illustrate the stories as they are being told (sometimes exaggerated for comedic effect).

Creatives (The Team) 1) Claudia (character designer, generalist) 2) Peter (generalist) 3) Conor (post production manager, generalist) 4) Theo (generalist)

The roles within the team are all generalist roles. We will split our story into four sections, with each one then being assigned to an individual. We will produce independent storyboards and animatics while working towards the common goal of completing the film, deliberately avoiding seeing each others work until the animatic stage is complete so as not to influence one another (hence the experimental style). As we will be using the same agreed style and character designs, there will be enough continuity within the animation for it to look consistent, but by producing independent sections within the story we hope to achieve an interesting and unique outcome.

Personal Ambitions Within the Project: • Peter: To improve composition and use a wider variety of interesting shots, and to work on inbetween work and 3d movement within a 2d stage. • Conor: To effectively used comedic timing with a lip sync and animation. • Theo: To work on improving my timings with animatics and improve my storyboarding. • Claudia: To improve my animating skills by pushing myself to produce shots with more action and lip sync than I am used to.

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Another style of animation that uses full colour and smooth animation however still focuses on lip sync. This animation uses strong language which may be the case for our sound recording session, in that case we might bleep the swearing out or just keep it.

At one point a persons phone rings in the background and they stop the story to shout at her, this then leads to more animation so we may need to do two designs one for the story and one for us speaking in the microphones.

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I like the use of colour in this animation as everything is doodle like on a piece of paper however when blood is animated its the only colour there. I will use this doodle style and the crunched paper for a background. 

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This animated podcast shows the group interacting with each other as the story progresses constantly moving back and forth between the story and the actual people sitting at a table talking about the story. 

The animation is very very simple how the lip sync makes up for it as you can really tell emotion and follow the characters easily throughout. 

I want to incorporate more animation than this in my own work however the focus on lip sync is interesting to watch.

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I had previously seen animated podcasts before where they animate the stories the people refer to which is perfect for our chosen idea.

This video starts of with the group talking into microphones and then chnages to the story they are talking about, the style is very simple as it is in some what a flashback, i really like this style so the colouring a movement mayb help with developing my designs.

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My character design is very simple in design however clearly shows which character is which. I wanted to try very stylised characters therefore i added a head separate to the body, it will move with the body but have a slight delay in walking and turning.