Edwin & The Bear

Hello there!

So here’s a bit more of my film to see, I may not post too much more- maybe little snippits- so that the final film is a surprise!

I tried changing up the walk cycles for the dog and the bear which Jeroen and I went through, but I’m not sure that I’m much happier with them yet, they’re both really fast and a bit strange… anyway it’s also got a bit of new work on the end which is quite nice to see!

I’m still plodding along, my pencil is getting smaller… I was bad and tried to do some corrections now rather than at the end, so I won’t do it again because I’m not sure it paid off as perhaps I rushed it and it still needs more review time and practice, I’ll have it all down soon though!

A lovely thing that I’ve figured out is that I’ve done 60seconds of this film in 4 and a half weeks, so if I carry on like this I could have the draft done in another 7weeks, leaving me a good 4weeks left to add in details, backgrounds and to do lots of improvements, which is a very good amount of time, very very good.

Hello!

So this video shows the First Draft Animation I’ve done so far. I went through it with my mentor Jeroen Jaspaert from Tandem Films over the weekend, and got a lot of feedback for improving it.

We agreed in the end that it would be best for me to continue animating, taking on board what was discussed, so that the next batch of animation will have improved- then according to how much time is left, I can come back and improve it.

The main things we talked about was the balance between me making my own animation and observing real life bears, blind people and dogs. So the walk and run cycles are the main things that need work. The man needs to be lead by his stick tapping, the dog needs to jump less high and jerky and the bear needs more weight and to be slower. I also can improve my silhouettes.

There were also smaller things from our meeting which really helped, for example we put my film in to flash, and at Tandem them have screens which are tablets so he can draw straight in to flash and we drew over my frames so I could see what really helps to change the feel of the character. He also showed me BBC Motion Gallery which looks really helpful, suggested a slight texture to my film, and photocopied me some Muybridge reference material from a book he had.

Secondary changes include things like, more resistance when taking the collar off, more negative space to make the staging clearer, and more excitement and movement in the dog at first meeting with the bear.

The most interesting thing I found was that I didn’t realize how much I used straight lines where circular or figure of eight guides would move the frames in a smoother way.

For all of these improvements, Jeroen did say that he liked it, thought it was, good, was glad I wasn’t trying to be like someone else, and that if I focus on really making sure that I have got what I want out of the animation rather than settling to soon, then it’s really going to improve, but I still need to be cautious of time.

When I’ve got my disposable camera developed, I can post photos from my trip to Tandem along with the work Jeroen did to show me improvements to my frames using Flash.

Over and out.

I’ve managed to whip out a better animatic with some of the new raw sounds from Keir, which demonstrates what I’m getting at a bit better, it’s got a few more keys and breakdowns now, I could keep adding detail, but as I’m the only one animating from it at the moment, I’m going to prioritize getting the animation done.

So Monday morning- my first proper day at work on this film looks bright and sunny. I’ll dope out the first scene I’m going to start on and begin building up animated bits, can’t wait!

I’ve also had contact with Jeroen and will be heading over to Tandem Films to see him soon! I’m also going to meet up with some animation friends of mine to see what they think. It’s going to be great!

So my first four weeks of work have happened, I only planned this short time (as I am still in employment at The Lab Newport so I’m juggling the two), to get a rough animatic with example sounds ready for my sound man Keir Doherty to create me some high quality sound bytes ready for when I begin work on the film in September.

I chose Keir Doherty, who also went to University of Wales Newport, as he did such a brilliant job working with me on my Degree Film, he is very reliable, passionate and as much a perfectionist as myself, his work is outstanding, and I’m so glad I can pay him this time! www.keirdoherty.com

I made sure that the animatic drawings would be reused, so that the time spent making the animatic could prove more useful, so the animatic shows most of the keyframes. I find key framing much slower than animating.

I’m apprehensive to show the animatic too much as it is not paced correctly yet and has terrible example sound which luckily Keir says is enough information for him to get creating.

I’ve asked him to give me the sound in clips so that I can do a quick, good, little re-time just before starting animation, just to be clear of the timing I want, which is so essential in animation and for a film which is going for subtlety.