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[cheznieba2a2]

Week 9

Lip Sync

Thankfully, I have now completed my animation and experimentation reel in time for submission, something I had strong concerns about. The rush I was in to finish the animation is, however, painfully obvious. My main character has many flaws, mostly in the head movements, and my second character barely moves at all apart from one point when she briefly looks at her watch. I am absolutely horrified with my time management for this project, and I am struggling to find a single aspect, aside from the gaussian blur on character 2, that I can say I am proud of or even like. Saying this, I do find the hands and the gestures they make to be somewhat acceptable, especially considering my deep dislike to drawing them and the lack of skill that has subsequently come from avoiding drawing them. Sadly, I did not manage to add any form of colour either, leaving the work I am submitting as just line work. I am still grateful that I have something to hand in, if I was to look at the positives, as it is still one character lip syncing to a chosen audio clip with a second character reacting.

I have also completed the experimentation reel for this project, using my usual method of putting the clips together in Premiere Pro, exporting and importing into After Effects where I then added the title card to the beginning and in-video subheadings to explain what stage each clip is from.

[cheznieba2a2]

A finished 2D animation? And an experimentation reel?! Never thought I’d see the day

Animation

Hate it, fully just hate it.

I am painfully aware that the fact that the thing i’m most proud of here is the gaussian blur I shoved onto the second character to add some depth of field magic to it, but hey, at least I have a positive thing to say.

As you can probably tell, I didn’t have time to go in and fix the little errors riddling my main character, and I didn’t have time to properly animate the second character, so all she has going for her is one movement. I’m not about to come at you with excuses, this is all on me, I had awful time management with this, and all I can say is that I apologise deeply. I really wish I had done this project in stop motion so that I could put as much heart into it as it deserved, but I’ve made mistakes here. 

It’s completely animating in Photoshop, and put together with the audio in Premiere Pro.

Experimentation Reel

Like every other experimentation reel I’ve made, I put all the clips of my process together in Premiere Pro, exported it out and then added a title card and video headings in After Effects. The journey was a simple one, The title is just text on a solid layer, and the video headings are just text on a 50% opacity rectangle shape layer. All I can say is that it looks pretty darn standard, my feelings are neutral here.

Conclusion

Not to be dramatic, but I crashed and burned to quite the extent on this project. I’m unhappy with the final outcome and actually prefer the look of the experimentation reel over the animation. Saying that, if I had just worked my time out a little bit better I probably would’ve loved it! The audio was so fun, and my ideas were solid, it’s just my execution letting the team down. In the perfect world, it would’ve been coloured, smooth and even not had the dark, thick line work, but hey, I’ve still learnt a tremendous lot from this project, and will without a doubt improve for any work similar to this in the future.

[cheznieba2a2]

Critically analysing in 1003 words

This analysis was tough for me, and I don’t really know why. Explaining my inspirations and processes is something I’ve so many times before, but I think this was just so close to my heart that I couldn’t get the words out my brain and into my finger tips to type them. 

The first thing I wanted to do was link my work to the source material, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, that part was somewhat easy because I really went for it with those themes. Then I moved onto the creative processes, which is where things got tough. Talking about what educational books helped me actually write the thing was a-ok, but the inspiration for how I presented my chosen themes is what got me. Mental health is a tricky topic for everyone, and trying to explain it in a non-depressing way posed as quite the challenge. Moving on though, I then had a little chit chat about what the actual animation would look like which I found super fun to write about. Imagining how this would come to life was like solving a proper artsy puzzle, connecting all the links between colours and style to thoughts and emotions. 

I am concerned that the struggles I had writing it up has impacted it in a negative way. Some of my points might be a messy and jumbled up, but I can promise you it was the best I could do. I re-wrote some sections a solid 4 times, each time sitting on the floor and stroking my dog to try and figure out how to put it into words, and then what order those words should go in. I am pretty darn pleased with my bibliography though, I think I have a snazzy selection of things I referenced! 

[cheznieba2a2]

Week 8

Lip Sync

Although I didn’t complete as much animation as I would’ve liked this week for Lip sync, I have managed to achieve my minimum goal of finishing the animation for my main, talking character, which also includes the lip sync. I have taken the animation into Premiere Pro, by exporting it as an image sequence from Photoshop, to test whether it lines up with my audio. Thankfully, my dope sheet was accurate enough for my mouth shapes to stay true to the voice actor even with the lack of me being able to check it as often as I would have liked. The reference footage has likewise proven invaluable for this aspect, as not only could I see what mouth shapes went where, but I could put some emotion into the face too.

In general, the animation isn’t awful by any means, but it certainly isn’t my best 2D work. I have smoothed out all of the bigger areas that looked rough, but there are still smaller moments within it that could do with some attention. However, with the deadline rapidly approaching, I will reserve being too pernickety for after my second character is finished. Sadly, I think I may have to accept that colouring this animation is merely a dream, and my poor time management is the cause.

By next week, I need the second character animated and the experimentation reel completed, it is imperative.

[cheznieba2a2]

The first character has been completed, finally

How many smear frames can you spot?

It’s not the best, I know this. some of her movements are a wee bit janky (especially in that head, and god knows how many times I’ve said that in my weekly summaries), and some hand positions look atrocious if you pause and stare at them which I am begging you not to, but I’m happy I’ve gotten this far.

Since I haven’t done a 2D animation in a regrettably long amount of time, I had forgotten how much it stresses me out. It’s odd, I can time things far better in this medium than with stop motion, but I just really don’t have the same amount of love for it in me. I thought that because I’ve done multiple 11 second club lip syncs and the first year of uni’s lip sync project in 2D, that I could breeze through it but turns out, I cannot. Shockingly, animation isn’t easy, and having spent most of my time focusing on Steve and the everything that goes along with him for that project, I’ve shoved myself into a tiny box of barely getting this done on time and pure, unfiltered stress. All I can hope for is that I can get that second character done quickly enough to neaten up some of my mistakes.

I abuse myself on this work greatly, but there are still some aspects I’m proud of. In my opinion, she’s far less 2D than any of my previous 2D work, and I know that sounds completely mental but hear me out. The flow of the watch straps and movements in her arms and hands are way more natural than anything I’ve done before, therefor making her look less flat. You might completely disagree with me with your professional eyes, but I kinda like how it turned out.

[cheznieba2a2]

Completed script, how joyous

Before I go into any detail about the contents of my script, I just want to say that it fully would not of even been possible to write it out without using  https://www.celtx.com/a/ux/ because despite all of Lynsey’s wonderful lectures, I still had no idea how to write out something like this in the proper way. So cheers to its creators, cheers to South Essex College for first showing it to me, and cheers to Lolly who remembered what it was called because I had completely forgotten.

Going off of the story outline I wrote up, I sat down, google image searched ‘script’ so I knew what bits went where and went to town. I found it super hard to get the right amount of dialogue, and to be honest, i’m still not sure if I managed it. Having the 1,000 word limit was super useful though, because it helped me limit the amount of detail I put into the ‘action’ portions, knowing myself I would’ve just gone mental on those bits and I would definitely not have enough dialogue. The books ‘The Seven Basic Plots’ by Christopher Booker and ‘Bagombo Snuff Box’ by Kurt Vonnegut were also huge helps in structuring my script. Honestly, I would’ve been clueless without them.

I went pretty hardcore with the themes of duality and addiction with my work, since they were the biggest things I took from the Jekyll and Hyde book. I also threw in a cheeky reference to how Victorians viewed mental health (particularly in women) at the end with just one line of dialogue from a non-important character. I didn’t touch on this in a big way, like mental health in general, because I just couldn’t see how to work it in, but I just wanted something since it perplexed me so much to learn that if a person had a bunch of symptoms that doctors couldn’t link to anything they’d just say it was hysteria, and that that thing happened mostly to women?!

For my first proper script, starting from scratch with nothing but a seriously classic book to adapt from, I’m rate proud of what I completed. Is it the best? No, I think my dialogue is a bit amateur and my plot slightly basic, but you can bet I worked hard on it, and really put my heart into it. It covers topics that I have struggled with and writing it out kinda helped in a weird way. For a project I was so unsure and nervous about, I think I’ve done reasonably well.

[cheznieba2a2]

Week 7

Character Bestiary 

I have now finished every aspect of this project and am beyond happy with the result.

After importing my 3 sequences into Premiere Pro and editing the timings, I am far more happy with the animations. I made my pauses longer and slowed down some areas where Steve moved too quickly. This was an easy process, as I have done it many times before and did not take me long at all. I chose to do this before green screen and rig removal as I knew that the result of my editing would be longer sequences, a mistake I made during the mystery box project. 

Similar to editing the timing, this was an easy part of the overall process, however, it was far more time consuming. Keylight did a lot of the work for me, and did a good job in removing most of the green screen, but, it did have some flaws. Where Steve had close to pure white in his fur, and a more than desirable reflection on his wheelbarrow, some of those aspects were removed by keylight. I chose to allow this to happen instead of keeping some of the green from the screen as I knew it would be quicker and easier to add the same footage but with the green screen behind, and mask in the areas that had been made transparent, than to completely mask around Steve to remove the green screen. Taking out the rig was also easy yet time consuming, however, there were some areas where I had not noticed the rig going in front of the object it was holding up. I fixed this issue by using the clone tool in Photoshop to ‘paint’ over the rig, and blend it into whatever it was obstructing. Photoshop also helped me solve the issue of one of Steve’s eye and eyebrows getting knocked during filming, as I simply placed a cut out eye and eyebrow from when they were facing the right way over the top, concealing the mistake. I feathered out the edges of these concealing layers to make it less obvious. Both of these adjustments turned out successful.

Next was adding the 2D elements. I found some tutorials online to help me, and used After Effects for the clouds of smoke and 2D for the doodle style ‘decorations’. Although I would’ve liked to create more realistic looking clouds, I still that that it works well with the stop motion, and I am so glad I made the decision to add them in.

Once the sequences were put together, I used various sources, to find the sounds I liked and though would work. I initially tried to complete the addition of these sounds to my animation in Audition, but being a software I am still unfamiliar with, I switched to Premiere Pro once again. I knew I could do this as the sounds did not need any fancy editing, just some fade in and outs, which I knew was possible in the programme I chose to use. I really like the final outcome, I think the animation is to a good standard and the sound design fits in well.After my animation was complete, I created the experimentation reel in both Premiere Pro and After Effects. I begun in Premiere to put all the clips I had accumulated together before taking it into AE to add titles to clarify what stage I was at and what I had completed. Having made a multitude of these during past projects, I completely this with ease and in not a lot of time, as well as liking the final outcome.

Lip Sync

Once again, I have not managed to reach the goal I had set for myself in the previous weekly summary. However, having completed my Character Bestiary project I can now put more attention towards this section of our current unit. I completed a further 5 seconds of animation on my main character during this week, unfortunately, to the same standard as my previous work on it. Adding the extra work to the fringe and ears that I discussed last week has help marginally, but the movements are still of a lower quality than I would ideally prefer. Being two weeks away from deadline, my main focus is on finishing the work and the polishing of it will be done in whatever time I have going spare.

My decision to use the rough, pencil like brush within Photoshop has been quite the blessing, as it has been saving me a lot of time and stress when doing the line work. From previous experiences when I use a smooth brush (like the default one), I can spend up to 5 minutes on a single line, a sad result of unreasonable perfectionism that I cannot seem to shake off, so a brush that in its nature, hides the slight wobbles that can appear in lines is a wonderful compromise.

By next week, I absolutely must have and need the first character to be animated. In the perfect scenario, I would also like to have the second character finished so that I could spend the final week making final tweaks and adding colour.

[cheznieba2a2]

Steve is finished and now I feel empty inside

Finished Animation!

The Process

You can view all these changes in the experimentation reel at the bottom of this post!

Here’s what I did:

Timing editing - Premiere Pro - mostly I just slowed down a lot of the clips, it’s something I’ve noticed in all my stop motion animation where I just do the movements too quickly. I also made a lot of my pauses longer, added in that fun anticipation principle before the follow-throughs.

Green Screen removal - After Effects - The Keylight feature found in the effects panel was my BFF here, it did most of the work for me but sadly did remove some of the areas on basically everything (Steve and props). I fixed this by just shoving in the clip again but without Keylight attached to it behind the first one and mask add the areas which had been turned transparent.

Rig removal - After Effects - Using the mask subtract for this one.

Adding the backgrounds - After Effects - I literally just imported the images and shoved them underneath the Steve layers, scaled and positioned everything to make it fit and that’s it

Extra rig removal because i’m an idiot - Photoshop - There were some areas that had rigs go in front of the thing they were holding up, so I couldn’t use a mask to get rid of it. I used the clone tool to cover that nonsense up.

Wonky face fixing - Photoshop - there’s this one bit in sequence 2 where I knock one of his eyes and eyebrows and didn’t realise until it was too late, so I used the lasso tool and grabbed a bit from a frame when he didn’t look drunk to put over the top and then feathered it out to blend it in. 

Doodle style 2D elements - Photoshop - nothing but the brush tool and a blank video layer 

Motion graphic smoke clouds - After Effects - I used these tutorials I found after a a quick search on youtube to help me out for this one: https://youtu.be/73It3gZUg0w & https://youtu.be/eQPcso-Lcbc

Portal - After Effects - Oooo, another tutorial because I lack the knowledge of anything that isn’t incredibly basic: https://youtu.be/V2XYqMknozI

Sounds - Premiere Pro - I tried so hard to do this in Audition, but I couldn’t even figure out how to fade a clip in or out, and since I was happy with how they all sounded anyway, I switched to Premiere Pro, I’m sorry. I’ve put the links to all the sounds I used after this nice chronological list

Title card and credits - Photoshop, After Effects and Premiere Pro - I used Photoshop and a brush tool to draw the titles in the title card and credits, just because I can’t get enough of that wobbly hand drawn effect, After Effects for the text that isn’t a title in the credits, and Premiere Pro to stick them into the final animation.

sound links

backing music - https://youtu.be/78O7KpdGrak

whistling - https://freesound.org/people/Fabrizio84/sounds/457967/

‘hmm’ - https://freesound.org/people/andrutzab/sounds/337615/

plastic bash - https://freesound.org/people/junggle/sounds/274030/

elastic ping - https://freesound.org/people/lungimahlaresound/sounds/445624/

transportation magic - https://freesound.org/people/spookymodem/sounds/249817/

ladder magic - https://freesound.org/people/renatalmar/sounds/264981/

You can bet your two front teeth it’s all royalty free

Experimentation Reel

Premiere Pro was the software of choice to put all the clips together (obviously, I live in Prem at this point), and After Effects for the annotation cards. I simply used the text tool and a rectangle with the opacity turned down for this. Super easy and somewhat quick.

Conclusion

I absolutely love the finished animation of Steve. Sure, his movements could do with some improvements, but if you ignore that then this is exactly how I wanted it to turn out! The 2D adds a subtle yet perfect amount of pazzaz and the title and credits are simple yet fit the animation so well (if I do say so myself). This whole project has been a blast, and I’m genuinely close to tears that it’s over, well, aside from the theory aspect obviously. 

I’m gunna miss you Steve, you became a good mate to me over the past few months.

[cheznieba2a2]

Week 6

Character Bestiary 

This was a big week for me in this project, I completed a lot of work and am proud of my progress.

During this week, I made the decision to tweak my ideas for the animated sequences, completely changing two of them all together. The changes I made are as follows:

Sequence 1 - Instead of Steve playing around with his new found ability to create portals, this sequence will be for context only. It will feature him wheeling his barrow and bumping into the plastic dome containing the necklace. I changed this as it cuts down on the amount of animation (both 2D and stop motion) I would need to complete, as well as allow me to zoom more into the bookcase to make Steve more visible.

Sequence 2 - This is the sequence I have changed completely. Instead of Steve exploring the shelves, it will be a mid shot of him picking up and trying on the necklace, still in the bookcase of the sequence. I wanted to add a more close up shot into my animation to show the detail of the necklace causing the ball on his head to light up more clearly, giving the audience a better understanding of the context.

Sequence 3 - This sequence will now take place on the shelves originally intended for sequence 2 instead, however, the plan of him conjuring up a ladder to get to the higher shelf is still in place. I made this change as the background of the interior of one of my cupboards was far to impractical, and would not have looked right in the animation.

After this change of plan, I retook my background pictures with success, and edited them to be the correct lighting and colour in photoshop. I also used the tools within that software to straighten up some of the lines within the photo’s to create a neater and more polished look. Once the new photos were complete, and I was 100% happy with the new idea, I wrote out my narrative. Although this is a very small aspect of this project, I thoroughly enjoy how it turned out, and had fun while writing it.

Possibly the biggest achievement in the last seven days was completing the filming. With the help of James, I found it to be a good experience, and possibly one of my more efficient and successful visits to the stop motion studio. As always, I need to take the footage into Premiere Pro to edit the timings, but overall I am very happy with the results. My favourite aspect would have to be the roll Steve completes in sequence 2, as this was unplanned and a decision made on the spot that turned out being some of the smoothest footage I got. The next course of action will hopefully be finishing this project, and in doing so editing the timing, removing the green screen and rigs, adding the backgrounds, and adding the 2D elements.

Lip Sync 

I regretfully say that, having spent my time this week preparing for and filming the animation for my Character Bestiary project, I have neglected the Lip Sync project and have not even come close to reaching the goal I had set myself in the previous week. However, it has not been a full failure of a week as I did not leave it completely behind and managed to fully animated a further 5 seconds, bringing me to 10 seconds of animation on my first/main character.

Saying this, the current 10 seconds that are currently drawn out are not of the best quality. I find myself rushing through them in order to compensate for time I have lost by being so focused on the other projects. This has left some of the movements of my character looking rather unnatural, and in particular, the head movements. To save time, I have simply been rotating and moving the main oval of the head alongside moving the facial features in any direction. To try and fix this issue without having to re-animate, I was thinking that redrawing the ears when the head moves and changing the position and angle of the fringe could work. It still will not look perfect by any means, but I’m hoping that it will at least make a positive difference.

I have carried on with lip syncing as I go, and so far it is looking ok. I will aim to have the first character finished by next week.

[cheznieba2a2]

The day is upon us, Steve has been animated

Sequence 1

Sequence 2

Sequence 3

These are definitely a slight improvement on my previous stop motion animations, but I will be the first to say that they need a wee bit of timing editing in my trusty savour, Premiere Pro. I also think it’ll be fun to do a cheeky zoom in on that final thumbs up and wink from Steve in sequence 3, just because I really like how that turned out in my turnaround I filmed what feels like years ago. 

I really need to say a huge thank you to James who only briefly popped in to give me an energy drink, but could see that I was struggling after the lengthy process of that initial walk cycle (which was literally the first thing I did, so the future was looking bleak to me early on) and sat in and helped me out. Having a second person there to tell you when your puppet’s right ankle is lined up right because you accidentally knocked it while moving a finger is beyond a god send. My finished animations would without a doubt look far worse he hadn’t helped. Like i’ve said before, when it comes to stop motion my heart is in the fabrication, and the actual animating is a challenge for me.

My favourite part has to be that rolly-polly. It was completely unplanned and to tell you a secret, was so that I could get around doing another walk cycle. I promise you that isn’t out of laziness, I just really have some trouble making those look right. I know that’s a huge issue considering it’s a fundamental of animation BUT you have to admit, that roll adds way more of a jazz factor than any funky walk could.

[cheznieba2a2]

A cheeky idea switch and some new BGs

What’s the plan, Stan?

Sequence 1 - Instead of Steve playing around with his new fun power to create portals, this sequence will be literally just for context. It will feature him wheeling his cute lil barrow and bumping into the plastic dome containing the necklace. I changed this one around because it cuts down on the amount of animation (both 2D and stop motion) I would need to do, as well as allow me to zoom more into the bookcase to make Steve less subtle.

Sequence 2 - A complete switch-up. Instead of Steve exploring the shelves, we’re going for a mid shot of him picking up and trying on the necklace, still in the bookcase of the previous sequence. I wanted to add a more close up shot into my animation to show the detail of the necklace causing the ball on his head to light up more clearly, making it wayyyy more obvious to whoever watches this

Sequence 3 - We’re switching to the shelves originally intended for sequence 2! But don’t fret, the plan of him conjuring up a ladder to get to the higher shelf is still in play. I made this change because the background of the interior of one of my cupboards was just not going to work due to sizing, space, all that, but honestly I wasn’t too keen on it before anyway

100 word narrative

If happiness was a thing, it would be a Steve. He roams the world contently, collecting whatever catches his eye, storing the objects in his trusty wheelbarrow. He wandered the bookshelf, of which he wasn’t entirely sure how he got there, and bumped into something that caught his interest. It was a yellow dome, and he couldn’t resist seeing what secrets it was hiding. Without hesitation, Steve investigates and finds a charming string of beads that he knew would just look fabulous around his neck, so the decision was made and he had a new necklace. The cheerful chap then found himself with the ability to not only teleport, but to make things instant with just a point of his little fingers, how fun! Don’t worry though, the power will never go to his head, as he is at his happiest just being Steve.

New BGs and a cool comparison between the OGs and the edited

Sequence 1

Sequence 2

Sequence 3

All the editing was done in Photoshop (of course) 

Conclusion

The new idea is far more practical for the actual stop motion animating and will make Steve easier to see. I noticed the issue of him being too small and fading into the BGs when I did my style frames, but have only just gotten around to fixing that (sorry). I really like it to be straight with you, and I like the narrative despite it having an odd writing style. All that’s left now is the animating and evaluating, baby.

[cheznieba2a2]

CLoud inspo for Stevey Boy

I had some idea of what I wanted Steve’s magic cloud nonsense to look like, but I wasn’t entirely sure how to pull it off, so I took to the interwebs for guidance.

Source: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/324188873155443448/

Source: https://dribbble.com/pvonborries/projects/496156-2D-FX-Animation

Source: https://dribbble.com/pvonborries/projects/496156-2D-FX-Animation

Source: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/422001427576527128/

Source: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/752241943982426893/

I literally just searched ‘2D explosion animation’ into google images and came across this plethora of beautifully made gifs. It’s certainly given me a way better idea of what I need to do when the time comes, and I know for a fact I will be so grateful to myself for finding the time to hunt these puppies down.

[cheznieba2a2]

Beat that sheet

Did I do these right?? Not entirely sure, but here they are anyway

Idea 1

Victorian day setting

Jekyll has a mental illness

Hyde is bad side, Carew is good side

He wants to seek help but Hyde is telling him that everything is fine and the doctors will just say he has hysteria

All Jekyll can hear is arguing between Hyde and Carew

Jekyll see’s Hyde killing Carew

He never seeks help and lives a miserable life

Idea 2

Modern day setting

Hyde is the disorder, Carew is sanity

Jekyll has an eating disorder but Hyde tells him society doesn’t believe men can go through that

Hyde is slowly poisoning Carew

Poison is via food so Jekyll eats less and less thinking it will make him better

Jekyll gets admitted and tube fed

He gets counselling realises Hyde and Carew don’t exist

Happy ending

Idea 3 (based on idea 1)

Modern day setting

Tina is drunk, overhears arguing from flatmates Mary&Malcolm

Mary&Malcolm are yelling about Tina’s mental issues

Mary is saying that she’s fine, drink and drugs is helping, Malcolm disagrees

Arguing is getting worse, Tina prepares a line of coke

*Cut to the room Mary&Malcolm are arguing in*

Mary throughs a book at Malcolm

*cut to Tina*

Tina snorts the line

*cut to Mary&Malcolm*

Malcolm is yelling that Tina needs help while wiping blood off head

*cut to Tina*

Tine is prepping 2 lines of coke

*cut to Mary&Malcolm*

Mary yells that this is good for Tina and grabs a mirror off the wall

*cut to Tina*

Snorts both lines of coke

*cut to Mary&Malcolm*

‘She’s better off without you’ - Mary

Mary smashes mirror over Malcolm

*cut to Tina*

Smashing of the mirror can be heard and then a thump, Tina turns up music

Tina lays back in bed, blood runs out nose

*cut to a TV in a middle age couple’s house*

News anchor talking about a girl who died from a coke overdose

Woman - ‘I can’t believe they didn’t find her for 3 weeks’

Man - ‘that’s why you shouldn’t live alone, you go hysterical’

Thoughts and feelings

I found it really rather difficult to get into the swing of things to be completely honest with you, I had James and Lolly trying to coach me through while I was on the brink of quitting uni and running away to Canada. HOWEVER, once I did get into it, I came up with an idea I really liked. 

I wanted to get the themes of duality and addiction from Jekyll and Hyde into my script, as well as a cheeky reference to the Victorian way of dealing with mental illnesses by just saying it’s ‘hysteria’. I think I finally mastered that in my third idea, hence why it’s got the most thought out beat and why it will be the one I will carry forward into writing my script. Although I do like idea 1&2, all they have going for them is the addiction aspect. Well actually, saying that I’ve also got the Victorian hysteria business in idea 1 but not in a way I particularly love.

I’d also love to say thank you to Jon for giving me the names for the final idea, that was a rather large help

[cheznieba2a2]

Narrative Strategies W5

I’m actually torn up emotionally that this is our last narrative strategies lesson, I’m not ready to fly the nest yet

You guessed it, chapter summaries

Chapter 9

fully about the letter written by Lanyon earlier on in the book

Lanyon recalls receiving a letter from Jekyll telling him to get a bunch of ingredients from Jekyll’s house and take them to his home where a dude will come grab them at midnight

Hyde showed up (not recognised by Lanyon) and made a potion out of the ingredients

Hyde asks Lanyon if he should stay or leave to drink it, Lanyon replies that he wants to stick around to see what happens

PLOT TWIST once Hyde drinks the potion he turns back into Jekyll and obviously Lanyon is shocked

Chapter 10

Similar to chapter 9, this is in the form of a letter but this time from Jekyll

Jekyll explains that as a young chap he had a double life, having a good and a dodgy side to him

He focuses his scientific studies on this division within himself 

The results of Jekyll’s experimentations was a solution or ‘potion’ if you want to be fun, that turned him into Hyde

Hyde basically meant he could do whatever without feeling shame

Jekyll started transforming into Hyde willy nilly and unwillingly so he stopped taking the potion BUT he was addicted so it didn’t take long for him to start up again

Because of that period when Jekyll didn’t take the potion, Hyde was repressed so when he relapsed, that’s when he killed poor, sweet Carew

This made Jekyll quit the potion completely

Now he was transforming against his will and during the day so he needed Lanyon’s help to get stronger doses of the magic stuff

The first problem was that one ingredient was completely run out and eventually when Jekyll got his hands on some it didn’t work the same, leading him to the problematic conclusion that the batch he used in the first place must’ve had an impurity

With his last remaining dose, Jekyll wrote a letter to Utterson explaining how he’s unaware if Hyde will surrender or top himself, but that he was 100% sure Jekyll was over

Reflective essays

We should follow 3 very important rules when writing out our essays:

Discuss the set text and how our screenplays were inspired by it

Discuss our writing process and the creative decisions we made

Discuss how we would film our screenplays

Unlike my blog, I’ll be writing this in the proper academic way, using citations and having a delightful bibliography at the end. The good news is though, it isn’t an academic essay and can be written in the first person since we’re analysing our own experiences.

Victorians and their take on mental illness

The reason we’re looking at this is so that we can get a better grip on the social beliefs that went into Jekyll and Hyde.

Having Jekyll and Hyde be two parts of the same person, which is even told by Jekyll during the story, was birthed from the ye olde Victorian theory that the different hemispheres of the brain hold different personalities. There’s also the reference to hysteria from Lanyon when talking about Hyde which back in the day was a diagnosis given to patients that have weird symptoms that don’t seem to have a cause (thank the heavens for modern science). Similarly to MPD (multiple personality disorder), it was considered a ‘feminine’ disease that usually only women got.

Gothic Horror

Jekyll and Hyde are arguably part of the gothic horror genre, since it slots nicely into those gothic-y themes of crazy landscapes v. imprisonment and re-emergence of the past. The book also shares the exploration of the limits of what is means to be human that the gothic horror genre contains, chatting about internal desires, outside forces of control and perverse sexual nonsense. One other fun little parallel is the use of the uncanny trope, which you can find in the depiction of Hyde and the disturbance he causes to anyone who see’s him. There is one notable difference between the book and the genre though, like Jekyll and Hyde going into the vulnerabilities of women.

Writing dialogue

Dialogue doesn’t need to be completely realistic - we can edit out all the pauses and hesitations

We gotta link that character’s desires into the dialogue

It helps to put yourself into the character’s shoes when writing the dialogue - really understand what would be said in that situation

Sometimes it’s better to go with silence over dialogue - tell a story through actions, not words

Avoid having the characters talk to the audience via heavy and completely unnecessary exposition - dialogue should not be a simple question and answer sesh, it should have an element of surprise and a neat flow

Be ruthless - cut anything that doesn’t advance the plot or reveal something about a character

Tragedy

‘when you lose control and you’ve got no soul...’ - Steps (sorry, had to)

The 5 stages of tragedy identified by Christopher Booker in 2004 and put into context with the book:

Anticipation - You can find this before the book even starts, when Jekyll was a younger lad and not only identifies his dodgy side, but also wants to release it

Dream - For a wee bit, Jekyll successfully lives a double life being good and bad

Frustration - Things aren’t going too fab for Jekyll and he starts turning into Hyde unwillingly

Nightmare - Jekyll caves into the urges to be naughty and turns back into Hyde but ends up murder a guy

Destruction - Jekyll ‘dies’ when he can’t make the potion again and gets stuck as Hyde who then proceeds to kill himself and gets found by Utterson and Poole

Conclusion

Talking about how to write both our essays AND our scripts was absolutely magical, I feel like this was certainly one of the most helpful for me. It was really interesting to talk about the Victorian views on mental illness, and is certainly leading me towards making mental health the key factor in my own script. Between you and me though, I’m still completely terrified to write this thing. 

[cheznieba2a2]

Week 5

Character Bestiary 

Similar to the actual puppet of Steve, I started making my props back in December, but finally finished them this week and I really couldn’t be more happy with them. The fabrication of stop motion production is the thing that captures my heart most in animation as a whole, so it was no surprise that this has been one of the most enjoyable projects to work on so far. I made sure to sand down and varnish finish each piece to give my work a more professional tone, however, there is a less positive side to this. I have spent a lot of time and energy on this portion of the Character Bestiary project, and I am now afraid that I have let the other two projects in this unit slip. Sadly this is a mistake I end up making for most units when there is one project in particular that I really enjoy. I am now also somewhat nervous about getting to animate Steve, as I fear that my lack of skill (through my own negligence) in properly planning out and executing movements in stop motion will let my hard work in the fabrication go to waste. To try and prevent this, I am aiming to have reference footage ready for my slot in the studio, and I have reserved it for the whole day to allow myself to really take my time with it.

Alongside finishing the props for my animation this week, I have made notable progress with the character bible, having now completed the character sheet, model sheet, and style frames. Granted, this was easy with my decision to use my actual puppet for them instead of drawing them out, but I still feel as though this was the right choice. Using Steve to create these pages has given them a more polished look than what I most likely would’ve gotten with drawing them out, and it did also save me some needed time. I am thoroughly pleased with the final look of them, although if I do have any extra time, I want to remove the green screen. I am leaving this as just a possibility, as it is not essential for my submission.

Lip Sync

Although I have achieved my goal of fully animating the first 5 seconds of my main character, I still feel as though I have let this project slip my attention. Completing the initial 5 seconds was a bare minimum target I set myself, as when I put it into consideration with the possibility of adding colour and the necessary addition of a secondary character, time may not be as in my favour as I would’ve liked. 

Moving on from the negatives, however, I am mostly satisfied with the animation I have completed so far. The movements are mostly fluid, the hands (which I mentioned struggling with last week) have significantly improved, and I’m liking the look of it aesthetically speaking. I say ‘mostly fluid’ when talking about my animation as there are certainly improvements to be made. At some points the head jerks unnaturally and my line work isn’t the smoothest, but these are issues that I can fix somewhat easily with just a little bit of time and patience. 

I have been adding the mouth shapes as I animate, which I have yet to decide with myself whether that is a good idea or a bad one. I can’t have my audio in my photoshop document and am relying fully on my dope sheet and reference footage to know my timings. Although I have no doubts in my dope sheet itself, I am still nervous that the only time I can check whether the animation lines up with the audio is when I fully export it as an image sequence and take it into Premiere. This isn’t a difficult task by any means, but it does take some time, so I am not checking as often as I would really like to.

My goal for next week is to get to at least 15 seconds of fluid animation.

[cheznieba2a2]

Style frames, character sheet and a cheeky turnaround

Style Frames

Firstly, I took some pictures of the places I wanted to become scenes in my animation and uploaded them to my handy dandy google drive. From there, I went to the stop mo studio, shoved those pictures into dragon frame as line-up layers and got to work posing Steve in whatever way would fit and look a little bit fab. 

Once I got the Steve pics I needed, I shoved them with their corresponding backgrounds into my BFF Photoshop. First thing was to remove the green screen and any rigs from Steve, then I shoved him into the background, used the brush tool and some mad opacity tweaking to make some magical clouds and there you have it! Style frames!

Do I like how these came out? Hell yeah baby. It looks exactly how I wanted it to which is honestly so rare. How many times do you have this really cool picture in your head and the final real life outcome actually meets your expectation, because for me, that only happens 9.5 times out of 100. The only thing I would change during the actual animation is zooming in though, I don’t want Steve to get lost from being too tiny on screen.

Character Sheet

Steve is so fun to pose I had an absolute blast doing this. I also added in the props just for 1. the giggles and 2. to make sure they really did fit with him, both aesthetically and proportionally. Found out he holds on really well to the ladder and barrow with those little 3 digit and a thumb hands he has so result. He also isn’t that difficult to keep upright, I don’t need a lot of rig work to position him which is just brilliant in the long run.

Model Sheet

I won’t lie to you, I just took screen shots from the video turnaround and put them into the photoshop document, sorry. But I have to say, he looks pretty swell from all angles.

Conclusion

I had such a fab day in the studio. Steve is everything I wanted him to be, sturdy (apart from a slight weakness in the hips but hey, it runs in the family), easy to pose, easy to rig, and he works well with the props. I am so so so excited to get animating with him, this blows the mystery box project out the water by miles, so thank you from the bottom of my heart to whoever wrote this brief. 

[cheznieba2a2]

Making props mostly for the sheer joy of it? Yes ma’am.

I love making props, this is my bread and dairy free butter

Wheelbarrow

I used some random scrap of MDF I found in the garage to make this fun wheel for Steves wheelbarrow. I used a paint test pot (also randomly found in the garage) as a perfect circle template, mapped out the middle and then used a handsaw to cut that business out. For the jammy dodger hole in the middle, I used a drill and then proceeded to sand my life away making it smooth and round.

Returning the love of my life, lollypop sticks, I made two panels like the one pictured and two smaller ones without visible support panels with the help of a hot glue gun.

Using an electric nail file, I cut up some dowel rod and created these two indents so that it would fit snuggly between even more dowel rod. This is what’s gunna hold the wheel!

Once again using a hot glue gun, I secured all my pieces together before adding little details with milliput.

Terrible idea to secure the details before painting, FYI

The inside looked absolutely atrocious so I cut up some canvas bag and used a good technique of folding and hot-glueing to neaten it up and make it all pretty.

Ladder

I picked up some mini planks and even more dowel rod from B&Q and got to work.

I cut the planks to size, worked out where I wanted the dowel to go for the steps and drilled a whole bunch of holes. Followed this through by cutting enough dowel sections for the holes I drilled and rounded off all the edges so that it would be easier to shove ‘em into the plank. Used some wood glue and multiple clamps to stick it all together and bam! a basic ladder!

I cut both planks at one end on a nice little diagonal to it would lay flat on a surface, then got to work adding dowel rods as support systems so that I could incorporate the support into the ladder instead of using god knows what rigging system that I would ten have to edit out in post.

Once again, everything was done with a handsaw, sandpaper, wood glue, and determination.

I learnt from my mistakes with the wheel barrow and made all the details out of clay separately, baked them and painted them before attaching them to the ladder I also painted the wheelbarrow details at the same time.

To protect my little wooden creations, and make them look more professional and less made-in-my-bedroom I sprayed them with a semi-gloss varnish (not full gloss, we don’t want green reflections over here) and left them to dry.

viola! they’re done! With the addition of random nic-naks I found laying around my room in the wheelbarrow for that real borrowers effect.

Conclusion

I have one bad thing to say about these, the wheel is not secure whatsoever. I mean, not in the terms that it’s just gunna fly off at any given moment, but that it wobbles around on it’s support rod and doesn’t really enjoy supporting the barrow, so that is 100% going to be an issue in filming BUT I’m hoping I can work it into the animation?? Give it some rickety old wooden barrow charm, ya know??

Overall, I am so stoked about these props, I absolutely love them and I think they match Steve rather well. So three cheers for fabrication!!