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Final Animation

[mi6011joelturnbull]

Hero Image

For the Hero image I chose my London environment for this with the protest scene. I think this is by far my most visually symbolic shot, which truly conveys the message of my animation. 

[mi6011joelturnbull]

Design Document

[mi6011joelturnbull]

Sound Design

For my final animation I wanted to create a sound scape for the different environments to bring life into them. To do this I created two ambient tracks where I layered different sounds to create a pleasing ambience to accompany each of the different scene. I then added subtle sound effects on top of those to provide more depth to the audio. Finally I finished it by taking the audio clips into audition and adding different effects and adjusting the audio levels.

[mi6011joelturnbull]

Animation Development

For this final scene I wanted it to symbolise equality and change through the way I change the camera angle for this final shot and show a closer look at the people rather then having the high birds eye view of the scene. I feel as though this is also effective in the pacing with bringing a clear end to the animation. 

For this scene I used the Big Ben asset I created earlier but added to it to make the scene more interesting. 

[mi6011joelturnbull]

Animation Development

This shot is second to last and shows the gate to downing street. I wanted to have a crowd animated holding a protest as I feel as though it links in well with the audio clip as to what is said. 

I created a reference board filled with images to help with the modelling and texturing process. 

[mi6011joelturnbull]

Animation Development

My next shot is of a lecture hall within Oxford university. I faced many challenges with this scene as due to it being indoors; with the kind of camera angle I’ve chosen for my animation I had to model the room different to how I usually would in order to provide enough space to get good clean shots. 

I created a board of reference images to help in modelling this scene. Similar to before I modelled the scene based off the reference rather then creating a replication of the real life version. 

[mi6011joelturnbull]

Animation Development

My next shot is of oxford university. An extremely prestigious university in the UK, I feel as though this acts as almost a symbol of social injustice within the education system. As whilst it’s technically possible for everyone to apply more often then not its the people that received private education that have the highest chance of obtaining a place at this university.  

For this shot like the others I created a reference board filled with images of the scene I wanted to create. 

[mi6011joelturnbull]

Animation Development

My next shot in the sequence is a shot of parliament. To have it fit in with the rest I again made a life like representation of the real place rather then replication on a 1:1 scale. 

For this shot I wanted to have a lot of people but a lot of the same people. This shot represents the injustice in society in how only a select few have the opportunity to speak on how our country is ruled. 

Additionally I feel as though this shot links in well with the overall themes as well as the research on social injustice in England that I had conducted. 

This is the design board I created as a reference for my environment. 

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Animation Development

For this next shot I wanted to create a more cinematic piece to establish the following shots location. My final sequence of shots all take place in London therefore I chose a very iconic location to base this shot and to show the viewer that the location for the rest of this animation is in London. 

This shot is very relevant to the context of the animation as London is a place symbolic of social injustice. It’s a place filled with extreme amounts of wealth yet also inhabiting an extremely large population of people living in poverty. 

I created a reference board for modelling Big Ben with a colour palette to help keep everything matching. 

[mi6011joelturnbull]

Animation Development

Classroom render

This scene is recreating a typical British secondary school classroom in the style of my animation. It includes several images referencing my previous research in the area of social justice relating to the audio clip. 

This scene will be a great one to further bring in the research I have gathered. I have researched into many social justice issues prevalent in our society. Also I have been researching into Jeffrey Boakye's work and feel as though I could reference this within the classroom shot through decorative features in the scene. 

When designing this scene I did a lot of research into Jeffrey Boayke in order to be able to reference his work in my animation. Finding out that he was previously a teacher made this particular scene even more symbolic in my animation. 

Research Links

https://www.jeffreyboakye.com/all-books

“Malala Fund’s Education Champion Network supports the work of educators and advocates and helps bolster girls’ secondary education around the world.”

https://malala.org/

[mi6011joelturnbull]

Animation Development

This next shot brings us into our current time period and is a shot of a school. This relates to the audio clip as in the clip the education system is referred to as needing change in order to bring about a more fair and equal society. 

“Bright pupils who go to comprehensive schools are almost just as likely to attend a high-status university as grammar school children with similar backgrounds, a study says“ - Social inequality 

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/bright-comprehensive-pupils-just-as-likely-to-reach-high-status-unis/2013791.article

I found this piece of research very interesting in how closely it links to the underlying theme of the audio clip. It states something that seems so clear and obvious however when looking at the text further you begin to realise how unfair and unjust the education system in our country is. Where there is a huge inequality in the high standard of education children born into a wealthy family receive compared to a child born into a poorer family. 

To reference this in my work I plan on re-creating this building in my final animation. 

[mi6011joelturnbull]

Animation Development

These next two scenes were created using assets from the previous environments. These next two shots of the animation have been left empty without anyone in them as the focus is shifting towards the structures themselves. 

I wanted this sequence of three shots to highlight the divide between the upper and lower class of the 19th century. To do this I re-created what would be the working class housing conditions and a large mansion that would’ve been owned by a wealthy business man. 

I used darker muted tones for the lower class and bright vibrant for the upper to highlight this change. 

Reference for the mansion

[mi6011joelturnbull]

Animation development

My next shot was referencing the 19th century industrial revolution. For this I wanted to re-create a factory. 

I found that this shot is very relevant to the audio clip as the industrial revolution in Britain was a huge driving factor in creating a huge divide in wealth throughout the countries with factory owners becoming richer then ever whilst the majority of the population were living in poverty. 

I used this image as reference for creating the scene. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution

[mi6011joelturnbull]

Animation development

For one of my shots I wanted to reference the British empire as this to me is a huge symbol of inequality with what it stood for in British history. Further it links in with the audio clip as it is briefly mentioned towards the beginning. 

Visual reference board:

Research links:

To provide further context and depth to my animation I researched into the British empire and re-created a scene symbolising my research. 

https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/learn/story-of-england/victorian/war/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Army_during_the_Victorian_Era

[mi6011joelturnbull]

Playblast / Intro sequence

I’ve finished the first three shots of my animation with having added in all the of people walking through the two main scenes. 

From here I plan on completing the rest of my animation using the same workflow I have used to create these first three shots. 

[mi6011joelturnbull]

Character Animation

A key part of my animation is going to be animating large crowds of people populating the different scenes. In order to do this I’ll first have to research how to execute this as well as design, model and animate the different characters for each scene. 

I found a great tutorial showing how to animate a large crowd over different types of terrain. This will be perfect for what I’m attempting to do. 

I collected some reference images and drew some very basic character designs. I wanted these designs to reflect the majority of society in their time era rather then the upper class as I felt as though this would relate much better to the brief. Additionally I kept the designs simple as you’ll only ever view the people from a distance and therefore keeping the outfits clear and readable is very important. 

After having designed the characters I started by modelling the two male variants that I had sketched. I then UV unwrapped, rigged and animated the characters. 

However trying to implement this rigged model in my scene ended up causing several issues when trying to duplicate the animated model. 

Instead of rigging the model myself I used a website called mixamo (mixamo.com) to animate my character. This created a file containing a far more simplified rig which allowed me to then duplicate and make changes to the animated character. 

I feel as though from a technical stand point this website is extremely helpful in enabling me to do so much more with my piece; As the main focus isn’t on the character animation. So instead of spending a day or two rigging and animating I’m able to skip these stages and get straight onto creating visuals. Furthermore from a creative standpoint it allows me to really push for what I’m attempting to create without having the animation skills that would have been necessary without this website. 

After using Mixamo I imported the two character files into the scene and used multiple mash networks to duplicate and spread out my characters throughout the scene. 

Overall using this workflow has enabled me to create what I had initially envisioned for this scene. Additionally the use of these new tools has saved me lots of time that I can now dedicate later on in the post production.

Playblast of character animation