Sunday 31 March 2013

Extra's and their sound


We all have to do an extra for the DVD. We have all been allocated certain scenes. However, i have not been given any of the sound files? Therefore i am not sure where to find the sound tracks so everyone can draw their key frames to them? If either Felim of Remus could direct me to the correct place on media fire or even upload the sounds for us onto mediafire that would be fantastic! The sounds we need are – the zomit – crying/hug – gazongas – drinks/cocktails and what ever sound shaun would be happy with – maybe we could upload the voice overs and shaun can pick out from what is left on there as he missed the meeting?
I spoke to George before we split up and we think it really is essential that we head the sound so we know exactly what we are doing and we can be refreshed – will enable us to work quicker too.
Hope everyone enjoyed their easter sunday! 
Felim: I’m cropping all the sounds we need now. I’ll have them uploaded in 20mins.

Tuesday 26 March 2013

Title Scene Animation done - Colouring needed


I have downloaded the scene and i am going to start working on the colouring tonight. Animated by Remus.

This we still need to do...


Things to do:
  • Put the animation together? AE, PS, final sound amendments etc.
Remus – editing and we will comment.
  • Finishing/ touch up, Quality control.
Caylee
  • Sound control – sound dynamics
Felim – -10.
  • Menu for DVD.
  1. Play Film,
  2. Extra’s
  3. Credits.
  4. Production Art
Remus and George
  • Credits – make a list of everything that should be on the credits.
Producer
Director
Animators
Sound editing
Voice overs etc etc – (more on previous blog comment)
Caylee and Felim
  • Exporting, rendering the film and formatting.
Remus
  • DVD cover, CD label, Paper menu for inside case?
Remus and George and all input
  • Download all the files from media fire.
Caylee
  • Extra’s – only four scenes, key frames of animation.
  • Every one is in charge of their own characters.  Felim – Hug Remus, Gazongas, George – Drinks Caylee – Puke. Just relax with it – 15-20 drawings, Shaun – to be decided by shaun

Roles and Credits - Explanation of each role


Executive producer – Ron and Andy. Very hands off, ultimate decision of what gets made – name attached to companies. Andy Joule and Ron MacRae
Producers – bean counters, control budget. Generally tell you, get everything finished on time or they get sacked. Producers are responsible for putting together the production schedule. Make sure everybody knows what they are doing all the time.  Its about co-operation and being part of the team. Book voice talent, studios, pulling together the crew, wages, tax, insurance. They sign things off. CAYLEE
Director – stands between the crew and producer, director is a nurturing role, a good director will keep the team on board, so when you need to ask someone to stay on they will do so, a loyal army. Be aware of that the project requires, and what the team are good at, the director takes a project and story boards it, or a camera script and give it to a story board artist. Director is there to direct the action with in the shots to insure continuity. It’s a tough role, not very glamorous, REMUS
Animators – doing the graft, its your job to animate, when the animators feel like they have a contribution to a film works best, more passionate. A form of negotiation between the animators,  directors and producers work best.  Negotiation and compromise is the key.  GEORGE, REMUS, FELIM, CAYLEE, Shaun
Production designer – person that designs all the sets, backgrounds, over view of the charater designs, someone needs to step into this role by negotiation of the director. Everything you see on screen needs to be designed by the production designer.  REMUS
Layout artists- these people generally do backgrounds, not glamorous, but essential, more of a 2D role.  REMUS
Sound designer – the moment our project gets going we need to think about sound – its 50% of the film. Those of you who have a interest in sound should put themselves forward. Talk to director, what sounds do you think we need. Record dialogue, Foleys etc. No copyright issues, as it isn’t going on the web etc. But normally you have to be aware of copyright.  Carefully lease with the producer and director. FELIM
Editors – the editor should be working with the project from the start, The director would be working with the story, and break down into a camera script. Camera script – break down the story into individual shots – what action takes place and how would you frame it? Make sure you have got a nice rhythm between shots. Next stage is so block – a plan view of the set or location with the movement of characters and set. As much of the responsibility as the director – gather up all the shots as and when the come in. mail it to them on a memory stick so they can drop it into the time line, the editor and director will then short the shots.
Action editor -Remus
Colour editor - Caylee
Sound editors – Felim

Saturday 23 March 2013

Quality Control


Above: bad colouring.
Below: After quality control.

It is important that i go through all of the animation and check for high quality through out the animation. I have has to correct a few things on the colouring already. These two images demonstrate the changes i am making to the animations. I know i’m being over perfection with it but why loose marks on lazy colouring? 

Remus: If you do this you should be really careful not to create any inconsistencies between frames (colouring shapes that in the frame before were differently coloured) 

Me: I have gone through frame by frame and made sure that everything is consistent – ive gone a little brain dead but dont worry i have it all under control


New Folder Structure on MediaFire


If you guys have any of the left animation scenes to upload please put them in the right folder.
We have a ‘ALL coloured scenes” folder which is for any colour scene, whether if be the final version of various versions of a scene. We need to keep every version in this folder when coloured do NOT delete anything.
We also have a ‘FINAL ANIMATION PSD FILES” which is for final versions of the scenes. If you do not know whether it is the finished version, put it in the main menu (in no folder) therefore it is immediate to me or Remus that is is there and we can check. I only want to see ONE version of each scene in this folder – i have gone through and ‘copied’ all the final scenes into this folder. So there is only Scenes 3, 12, 13(s), 19 (under query) and 28-30 left to go into this FINAL FOLDER!

Background all done - Q's for Remus


Well done everyone we now have all of the background completed for the animation!!
I have been doing the inbetweens for Scene 19… but i cant paint the coins because i think george did some opacity setting on them? I am not too sure how to change this and make it coloured like scene 11 which Felim did and coloured! Maybe Remus if you had a spare 5 minutes you could have a look for me? Also George sent me the animation at a frame rate of 30fps. I changed this to 25fps but if couldnt let me put the frames to 2 frames ong (working on doubles) it would only let me do 2.5f or 1.5f? So im not too sure about that either?? 
Animation left to do:
Scene 03 – George
Scene 12 – Me
Scene 13 – All contribute
Scene 28-30 – Remus and George?

(and then the problems with Scene 19 – but the animation is done just not coloured.)
Remus: You can just upload the file you’re having trouble with on mediafire and post it here. I’ll try to fix it.
Me: http://www.mediafire.com/?z7vsy3a8gch7z03 that is the link to the file! The animation frames are all done its just the colouring options i am clueless about? Do you have any character animation you need me to colour? If so put it on mediafire and ill colour now! – Any animation for scene 13 etc!
Remus: Nope, so far I’ve been doing all the colour for the character animation scenes. I guess it’s better if I colour scene 19 since I have to decide what colour the fake coin should be.
Me: Felim already decided the colour of the fake coin in scene 11? Link :http://www.mediafire.com/?1ode6hd5t1vbcky
Remus: That isn’t the final colour for the coin, it’s the same as the first one. I’ll choose the new colour and I’ll post it up tonight. I don’t have anything that needs colouring.
Me: Okay cool. The coin for Scene 2 isnt coloured either? I dont know what you want to do with that one? shall i colour it in the colour Felim did the double coin? do you have anything at all you need colouring? If you have nothing to colour im going to Switch off from AP for tonight as i have been doing work constantly since 10am and get on with DS work! If you need me text or email MyUCA.
Remus: Sure, everything so far is under control so you don’t have to worry about AP anymore tonight.

Friday 22 March 2013

IMPORTANT - all in group my read


Scene 01: Animation finished. Background: Done  - George = A and C
Scene 02:  Animation finishedBackground: Done - Remus = A   Caylee = C 
Scene 03:  George??     Background: Done
Scene 04: Animation finished. Background: Done – Remus = A   Caylee = C
Scene 05: Animation finished. Background: Done - Remus = A   Caylee = C
Scene 06: Animation finished. Background: Done - Remus = A   Caylee = C
Scene 07: Animation finished. Background: Done - Remus = A   Caylee = C
Scene 08: Animation finished. Background: Done - Remus = A   Caylee = C
Scene 09:  Animation finished.  Background: Done - George = A and C
Scene 10:  Animation finished. Background: Done - Remus = A   Caylee = C
Scene 11:  Animation finished. Background: Done - Felim = A and C
Scene 12: ??  Caylee this weekend    Background: Done - Caylee= A and C
Scene 13: GROUP CONTRIBUTE. (1/4 done)
Scene 14: Animation finished. Background: Done - Remus = A and C
Scene 15: Animation finished. Background: Done - Remus = A  + C
Scene 16: Animation finished. Background: Done - Remus = A and C
Scene 17: Animation finished. Background: Done - Remus = A     ?? = C
Scene 18: Animation finished. Background: ??   – George + Felim = A and C
Scene 19: Animation finished. Background: ??   – Caylee + George = A and C (upload 23/03)
Scene 20: Animation finished. Background: Done - Remus = A  Caylee = C
Scene 21: Animation finished. Background: Done - Remus = A   ?? = C
Scene 22: Animation finished. Background: Done  - Remus = A  Caylee = C (upload 23/03)
Scene 23: Animation finished. Background: Done – Felim = A and C 
Scene 24: Animation finished. Background: Done - Remus = A  Caylee = C
Scene 25: Animation finished. Background: Done - Remus = A  Caylee = C
Scene 26: Animation finished. Background: Done - Remus = A  Caylee = C
Scene 27: Animation finished. Background: Done - Remus = A  Caylee = C
Scene 28: Animation ??? . Background: Done
Scene 29: Animation ??? . Background: Done
Scene 30  Animation ??? . Background: Done
I hope this makes sense? I have broke down everything that has been completed. What needs to be done or question marks if i don’t know where things are. If you guys have some of the missing files please just upload it when you have a spare 5 mins :) .. I also spent a long time checking over all the clips to make sure that everyone has the recognition for what they did. If i got anything muddled up please done hesitate to tell me and ill amend :)
If i have wrote Animation – Finished this means that all the colour is completed too. I know we have most of these on computers so im looking for:
Animation:
Scene 3 ??
Scene 9 - Media fire. (Caylee colour 24/03)
Scene 12 ??
Scene 13 ??
Scene 28- 30.
If any one of you have some of the files on your computer please comment on here and i can correct everything! :) Thanks 
Remus: 12 doesn’t need background and 22 and 24 already have backgrounds (for 24 it’s the same as 25) the animation for scene 2 is done (it’s in the uncoloured section of mediafire because the coin is uncoloured), scene 9 is finished and up on mediafire now. One of the series of scenes for scene 13 is done (about 1/4).
Me: okay brill i will ammend the list. And i will download and colour scene 2 tomorrow.

Monday 18 March 2013

Scene 15 needs colouring

Again, a collaboration between Remus and I. Colouring will be finished by tomorrow (19.03.2013)

Saturday 16 March 2013

Meeting Monday 18th

Hi, I will be in monday for an hour or so, so i can get caught up with everything, we can go over all the scenes and everything that need to be done – (They are mainly my scenes) Thanks for doing the table below Felim – i was going to do that this weekend, so you saved me a job! :) Shall we say monday 10.30am? a little later due to traffic for me and Felim :) 

Remus: Sure, Monday at 10:30 in G01 sounds great.

Friday 15 March 2013

Which Layers do i colour?

What layers am i to colour? only the wolfs head? how so i make everything else black like the wolf head if i am to colour everything?

Remus: If you look at the video groups in the Layers window you can see that the “Mule” one and the “Wolf’s Body” one have a lower opacity setting. You can also hide the video group layers that get in your way when colouring by clicking on the little eye next to the video group in the layers window. The Mule’s eye and beer bottle have already been coloured in for one frame for you to have an example of what the colour should be.

Scene 27 Animation done - needs colouring


Remus: I also fixed some problems with the coloured version of Scene 08 and uploaded it to the coloured mediafire folder.
Also Caylee : please upload the coloured scene 20 to the mediafire account so I can have a look at what went wrong with the shirt colour.
Me: Uploading scene 20 now on media fire. I can colour this for you. On scene 25. I am assuming 25 and 26 are on the same time line? also Only the wolfs head is outlined in dark black- the rest is very grey. did you only want me to colour the wolfs head? I will upload a picture for my query.

Thursday 14 March 2013

Colouring Scenes


Hi boys – i recently finished colouring in scene 10. I have nearly finished scene 8 – its taken me all day to do but its looks really good. I will jump on scene 25 and 26 tomorrow as i wont be in the DS lesson. Jon already knows. I may need some help animating my scenes as depending on results tomorrow i may be absent for a while but colouring will be my thing :)  
So just to clarify with everyone, i will upload scene 8 when im finished colouring and i will download scene 25 and scene 26 and colour them. I will send out a email tomorrow with the schedule for next week. And maybe, Remus you could give me a quick update on things that were discussed today if you guys managed to have a meeting. 

Scene 22 Animation finished - Needs colouring


Remus - Animation.... I have coloured

Monday 11 March 2013

Some Questions for Remus


I finished colouring scene 7. I am on scene 4 like you asked. There seem to be parts of the own missing, did  to want me to leave them blank? for example for a few shots the owl doesn’t have any pupil, just a white eye ball? Did you mean it to be this way or do you want me to fill it in?
Also the sound on scene 7 and 4 didn’t work on my computer, so the new coloured scene 7 (and later 4) may need the sound put onto it again?
Remus: Yes, the owl’s eyes are supposed to be blank. I’ll loop the frames with the pupils in After Effects. I think the sound will work when I open the project on my computer again.
Me: Okay brilliant, also could you possible tell me exactly what layers are what, i’m getting confused with what layer i should be filling in to colour the wolfs arms.. As they are on a different layer to the torso etc? I find im colouring in something and then later i find its the wrong layer :S sorry to be a pain
Remus: That’s no problem, it would be easier to explain if you bring your laptop in with the project tomorrow and I’ll help you out with your coloring problems then. I’ll also start naming the layers for the next psd files so they would be easier to navigate.
Me: Okay Perfect, Thanks.

Scene 8 Animation and colouring Done



Remus - A..... Me - C

Sunday 10 March 2013

Possible design for the environment the characters would see in bar.

I thought i would have an attempt at designing the part of the bar where the wolf and owl start off at the beginning of the animation. I used visuals from different moodboard on the blog and my own research. Im hoping we can take bits from this drawing. I havent coloured it cause i wanted to see what we all thought. THIS IS WHAT THE CHARACTERS WOULD see. Table design to be uploaded tomorrow morning.



Felim: I like the posters Caylee, but I don’t think it looks dingy enough. Personally I think it looks a bit too neat and tidy. I wasn’t sure about the spotlights and the hanging bottles so I did a little bit of research and apparently bars didn’t start hanging bottles until 1963, which is when it was made illegal for bars to give customers short measurements of their drink.
I was thinking maybe we could have some lamps instead of fixed lighting, and bottles on shelves? I did a quick sketch to show you what I was thinking that I’ll post now on the blog.

Me: Being an illegal betting den they would probably be selling alcohol illegally anyway – i doubt this bar would even have a licence lol. Remus has fixed lighting sources on the ceiling of the initial designs and that is what i based the design on; the geographical content of remus birds eye plot. I do like how your design is much more cluttered, i drew mine in a very clinical way to make it easy for Remus/ anyone to see exactly what i have put in there and then recreate it or parts of it in the animation style. Thats a shame about the hanging bottles.. However, as much as it is good to be politically correct with creating the visuals, you have to remember, we are animating a talking wolf and mule betting with a owl – its not realism

Remus: We’ll discuss it tomorrow guys. Both of you guys have some great ideas for the bar background and we’ll be able to take elements from both for the final design.

Felim: Haha yeah I know, just wanted to give you an opinion on your design.And I know that having hanging bottles in the 30s-40s is not as bad as having a plasma TV. I thought I’d better mention it so at least we know what we’re doing.

Remus: Yeah, you have a point about the hanging bottles. I think if we added that to one of the sides of the little bar space it wouldn’t be that noticeable and no one would really question it. The bar space is shown in the background of 3-4 short scenes, so it wouldn’t matter too much what design we choose as long as it’s consistent with the aesthetic of the rest of the bar. I like the idea of having a brick wall (makes it look dodgy) and the posters as well as having shelves for the bottles (without the shelves it wouldn’t really look like a proper bar)

Scene 09 Animation and Colour completed

Remus did all the animation work and i coloured all the frames. Earlier today i made a mediafire account so we could all upload our work onto there. It makes it easier to share our work, and also its so much easier to stay up to date with everyone. I will do a blog post about MediaFire later on today.

Saturday 9 March 2013

Animatic - Remus and First Sound track - Felim

Animatic with sound

Remus: Just finished editing this morning after working on it a bit last night. I also added the background music the band is playing, fits with Felim’s ambient noises very nicely. The final audio for this should be much more polished (with all of the audio tracks set at an appropriate level, all of the other sound effects included etc.), but so far I think we’re more than halfway done with the sound. The line Fred read a bit faster (the “chisel enough dough etc.”) didn’t work that well with the rest of his dialogue so I had to not use that. Also, slowing down Fred’s dialogue for the Mule to change the pitch ended up lowering the sound quality considerably (I tried it in After Effects – maybe with some other sound editing software it would work). I was also thinking about having the end scene also be the title and credit scene, so we could maybe cheat our way into making it a couple of seconds longer – if not we would have to cut a bit of the background shots. Note – Viemo Compressed the audio in a strange way, the background stuff is supposed to be a bit louder.

Me: This is great – initially i was all for George’s piece of music he found, but after watching it with the background sounds and the other voice overs, i am just not too sure that it works that well. I think we should look into the music sound track a little more. As much as it is a nice piece of music, we need it to correlate some what with the visuals on screen (and i’m not feeling it). Everything else is fantastic but i just feel like we have settled for a track and not thought about it in great detail, and it would be a shame to settle for second best.

Me: Well, after watching it another few times … If you are determined to use the music track then i would advice that we make the violins stop when the coin falls. Otherwise you have the coin spinning with the violins and then the coin stops and the violins are still going. We need to make a relationship between the music and the visuals. I think it would fit better if you move the sound track up a little bit to fit the coin spin?

Remus: Sure, as I said this is still an unpolished version of the soundtrack. I’ll try editing the music so it fits more with the animation and also try some more of the songs I had in mind. I’ll be working with George and Felim on it.

Me: Okay brill, i will try and have a look around the house this weekend for some CD’s that could be of help. Ill sort it all out when i finish work later this evening! 

Remus: No need to worry that much about the music Caylee, you have enough to work to do already already (you could also start working on the colour for a scene I’ll be putting up later on today if you have the time). Me, George and Felim will discuss how we can fix the music the music – as me and George already have selected quite a few songs we could use.

Thursday 7 March 2013

Scene 20 Animation and Colour.


Scene 20 Animation and Colour

Above is the link to scene 20 of our animation. It was created and finished by Remus and I and we are al so pleased with the outcome. This is the first piece of action that we have made and edited to a high standard that would be good enough for the final film.

Scene 07. Remus and Caylee

Remus animated the scene and i coloured the frames - it looks so good!!

Action in Scene 20 Done - Remus and Me


All action in Scene 20 in animated and coloured.

Wednesday 6 March 2013

Shot Distribution







01= George
02= Remus
03= George
04= Remus and george
05= Remus
06= Remus and Caylee
07= Remus
08= Remus (background and key frames for mule) Shaun in-betweens
09= George
10= Remus
11= Caylee (key frames) Felim (in-betweens)
12= Caylee
13= ALL
14= Caylee (key frame) Shaun (in-betweens)
15 = Remus (owl) George (key frames mule and wolf) Felim and Shaun (in-betweens)
16= Remus
17= Remus (key frame) – Shaun (coin spin)
18= George (key frame) Felim (inbetweens)
19 = George (KF) Caylee (IBN)
20= Remus
21= Remus
22= Remus and George
23= Felim
24= Remus and George
25= Remus and George
26= Remus and George
27= Remus and Shaun
28= Remus, Caylee and George
29= Remus, Caylee and George
30= Remus, Caylee and George

Scene 6 - Remus and Caylee's work

Scene 6 - action

Scene 6 action and finished colour what do you guys think? I’m slightly concerned about the time it took to colour the animation. took around 5 hours and even more… This was done to almost perfection though with every single pixal coloured apart from one i just noticed on the final frame. We possibly need to be a little more relaxed about it. But really we need to have 3 animators and 2 people colouring. And where possible the animators need to colour! 

Remus: Looks great Caylee, thanks for all the work you put into it. I think you’re right with being a bit more relaxed about the colour, we should be able to refine the edges in post-production. Also, I think Vimeo messed up a bit with the timing of the audio (as it tends to do), so bring it in tomorrow so I can save a copy of the colored version of the scene on my laptop.

Felim: Nice work guys, and yeah colouring takes longer than you think it would. I agree with being more relaxed about it and then tidying it up in post-production


Monday 4 March 2013

Smoking Mood board


Possible inspiration for background designs for posters or other imagery that could be seen in the bar. I am using some of the images as reference for the bar scene.