Evaluation

My chosen brief was to make a piece advertising the National Trust, the brief was asking for pieces of work that was aimed at the more mature audience (25 and up). I did a lot of mind mapping in order to come up with ideas. I wanted to link this piece of work with what I want to do in the future, Animations. After all the mind mapping I finally came up with an idea that shows the National Trust for the buildings that they have renovated and for the habitats that they have saved for the inhabitants (animals). My idea consists of animated animals running through each setting of the renovated houses and the protected pieces of lands. I first wanted to keep it more simple with just one animal running through each setting, the animal I chose to do originally was just a simple rabbit. I then had a talk with Mike Smith and he believed it would work much better if there was a variety of animals and I thought so too. I attempted to do a fox but that was much too complicated to animate each sprite with the time I had.
I then started to research what other wild animals live in these sort of areas. The results came up with squirrels, rabbits, hedgehogs, birds, foxes and deers. I drew many sprite sheets of squirrels,hedgehogs, birds and rabbits. I also attempted to do a deer but like the fox this was too difficult with the time I had. The birds, squirrels, hedgehogs and rabbits turn out very well with fluent movements. I am quite proud with how they turned out especially with it being my first time creating hand drawn animations. Each setting that I chose had to be a certain size in order for them to work together. I had a lot of problems in finding the right sizes to fit the animations on. Once I found the perfect images, with the correct sizes, I then came across more problems like the images that I collected was to still and didn't have any movements in them, obviously because they were photographs. I then had to try and come up with a way of creating wind, rain and snow. It was easy to make rain in after effects by creating a stimulation on the images chosen. It was the same for snow, these worked very well. However for the wind it was much more difficult. On a previous module Annabeth showed how to create a mesh warp in order to create grass movements in the wind. I tried this for the still images, however this didn't work as well as I thought it would the movements weren't as fluent as they was in the previous module, this may be due to the previous module just animating grass whereas this brief had more trees and bushes rather than grass. I didn't like the way it turned out. I attempted to create less movements and slower movements. This was much better than before but it still looked a bit odd. Due to time restrictions, I didn't have enough time to change it anymore so I left it the way it was, with more time I believe I could have change it for the better. 
For me to make my sprites more colourful and match up with the settings more, I had to redraw them in Photoshop. I experimented with colour a bit in order to find the right colours and make them match up more. I found that browns worked better for the animals. I used various shades of browns to give them different details. For me to animate the sprites I saved out each image separately, making sure I named them correctly e.g. RabbitRF01 meaning Rabbit Running Forwards image 1. I did this for each separate image, this took a lot of time to do. Before saving out each image I made a GIFF file format to show the animations working this meant that if something wasn't quite right I could change it much easier. I did encounter some problems, like working out how far to move the images across from each other, to give more fluent movements. This meant I had to experiment a lot in using the timeline in Photoshop in order to find the right distance to move them across. When I saved out each image I made sure that the background was a green colour, this meant that in After effects I could key light the background out easier, I did try to save the images out with transparent backgrounds but it didn't work for some reason, so to save me time I just painted the background green. With more time I believe I could have made it much better, like perfecting the wind simulations and creating bigger and more animals. I would have also had more time to create better sprites with smoother movements. I think that I managed my time wisely compared to the past where I haven’t. I believe I have managed it wisely as in my original plans I was only going to create one rabbit but I managed to create many more with different angles. I could have researched and experimented better as I didn't experiment loads I only did a few experiments. My research was also only an overview of what was there I could have gone into it more deeper and found out other things. Due to the deadline for entering the competition changing, I wasn't able to enter which is a real shame as I would have loved to enter and get my work out there to be judged. Next time I will keep track more in order to be able to enter and to find out when changes are made early on rather than a day in advance. 
Overall I believe it was a success, and I am really proud of what I managed to achieve with it being my first time creating drawn animation. I would definitely do it again as I really enjoyed making it.  

Finished Video.

After all the hard work I have finally finished the video. I think it works really well there are a few adjustments I could make with more time. However I am very proud of what I have managed to achieve in the time given. It was also my first time at making a drawn animation and I think I did really well, as they are quite smooth and fluent.

Editing

After rendering, I have now placed it into Premiere Pro and added Title sequences and End Credits.

I have added sound and music. 

Title sequence

Credit sequence

Music and Sound Effects.

I have researched into finding the appropriate sound effects. I need animal sounds, rain sounds, snow sounds and background music.

Here are the woodland sounds I have found:
Woodland sounds
Countryside
Day noises
Woodland path

Snow Sounds:

Snow sound

Rain Sounds:

Rain

Background music:

Memories

Calming

The sounds I chose was The Rain one, Snow one and the background music is the calming one as it goes much better in my opinion.


Sounds are subject to copyright.

Production Work - Scene Four & Five

Yet again more screen shots of what I have done for this scene.
Scene Four:

Scene Five:

I have cut out parts of the scene so that the rabbit can appear to be peering over the hedges.

Rendered:

I then render my project to the appropriate settings in order for me to use it in Premiere Pro.

Production Work - Scene Three

Again it is pretty much the same as the rest of the scenes but with different backgrounds and sprites.

I have added snow effect to go with the scene. 

Production Work - Scene two.

I do the exact same as for scene one for scene two. but with different sprites.

                                     

I have key framed the bird to get larger as it gets closer. 

This is me showing you that I have used mesh warp to make the effect of wind. 

Production Work - Scene one

Now that I have the animal sprites, I need to put it all together. I am using After Effects to place it all together. I will be placing each animal on individually using image sequences. After placing the backgrounds on that is when I will be placing the animals on depending on what background it is.

I have cut out the sign so that the rabbit can go behind it. 

I then place it back on the image.

I keylight the background out of the rabbit animation.

I then place it on the image and add rain stimulation on the background image. 

I do the same for the bird.

Transmedia Essay

Transmedia storytelling is a way of showing what you have across multiple platforms whether it be an animation to start with going to a game or a documentary going to an animation. Henry Jenkins stated “The coordinated use of storytelling across multiple platforms can make the characters more compelling” This could be true as you are telling more of a story about a character that is already known in the media industry, if it is a popular character form an animation for instance “Woody” from Toy Story the audience is already interested and will love to see more about the character from a different platform. They would also want to know what happened next after the animation. Quite often transmedia storytelling is not based on the individual character or specific stories but more on the complex fictional worlds which can sustain various characters and plots within it. Not only can you extend various worlds between gaming and television, you can also extend them across radio shows and books for example the BBC extended the Dr Who series across the radio by telling dramas to keep the audience interested. Comics and books are commonly extended across multiple platforms such as the Marvel Comics series have progressed onto making films and games, The Avengers is one of their successful movies produced from the comic series.  The Hunger Games have also been broadening their platforms by making movies which have been quite successful. Transmedia storytelling requires a high coordination in order to contact people from other platforms such as you might contact Microsoft if you want to make a game for the Xbox platform from your original film or whatever it may be.  This then requires you to network a lot. To expand a universe more and to get the audience connect to the media you could release figures of characters from the media you are broadcasting, this would then get a lot more people interested in the franchise. This also then encourages children to make their own stories up about the characters. Transmedia storytelling does not include sequels, it is simply using the same world on a different platform.  

The brief that I chose meant that I could make an animation based on casual animal movements. It is mainly about advertising The National Trust. There were many ways that could go about in advertising the National Trust, my first thought was to make a poster, but I wanted to include animation as that is the field I want to go in to. I would like to broadcast my idea across multiple platforms. There are many ways I could do this, one of them might be to make a full feature length animation telling a story about the animal, maybe about a family of rabbits overcoming human like problems like what Watership Down did. The way I would do this is by creating multiple characters of the same basic concept and inputting a story with them. There would be a lot of additional things to do as I would need separate sprite sheets for each character and I would need to incorporate mouth movements to represent them talking. I don’t think it will be possible for me on my own to create a full feature length film, I would need additional help such as a scriptwriter, animator, editor, producer and director. I would probably need more. In order for me to make something like this by myself I’d need a lot of time and even then I would probably only be able to make shorts.However shorts could be another idea as it could be a TV series like The Simpsons. Even then I would need additional help.  The idea is coming away from advertising The National Trust, however I could make the family of rabbits have a problem about losing their habitat/ home to people wanting to build on it, then the National trust can come and rescue their home. This would then advertise National Trust as being something like heroes.  Another idea for a different platform could be a game. This idea consists of playing as a rabbit (anthropomorphism) through a first person perspective and then explore the surroundings uncovering new National Trust locations. You could possibly have tasks such as helping to renovate the buildings alongside National Trust people. This also helps to advertise the National Trust for the buildings and the animals. There is also the possibility of meeting other characters that are animals and you could complete other missions that include problem solving like point and click puzzle games. You could also have additional missions that include new locations like map packs that you could get after getting the game, this would have replay ability status and keep people interested in the game with the side missions after the main story.  Another way I could expand the brief is to make a animated documentary about the National Trust. The characters could be the ones telling the facts about the National Trust and they would be jumping from scenery to scenery to show off the National Trust buildings whilst talking about them. You could then make this a short TV series show that reveals a new exciting place each show and the characters could tell the audience what the National Trust has done to preserve the locations and how it has helped the historic building and the animals. They could also tell the audience what they plan to do next and what locations they have planned for renovating. There are loads of ways I could expand my universe, my favourite idea would be to make an animated documentary TV show as there are many ways of telling the facts and many different characters I could use.

Finished Artefact

Here is my finished artefact of what I managed to come up with, in the time we had. I used photoshop to manipulate each images separately.
These are the images I took of Victoria Quarter.

Here is the final video.

Artefact Explaination

My archifact is representing an already, sort of utopian building we have in Leeds (Victoria Quarter) changing into a dystopian style building. I have chosen to do this as it represents everything I have talked about in my essay, which is on how utopias and dystopias are represented through film. I chose Victoria Quarter as it is shown as a fabulous, clean and decorative building. This is clearly where people with a lot of money go to shop, as Luis Vuitton shop and Harvey Nichols are found there. All the shops show a quality of high standards. I thought it would be a good change between the way it normally looks to it being very run down and destroyed look. As there are various types of dystopia I had to think about what type I wanted to use. I went with the deserted look as Victoria Quarter is usually very pack full of people shopping. I wanted to show it without people walking through so it is like it is not important to the community anymore. I used mainly photoshop to create the distorted photographs, I then went into use After Effects to put it all together. If I had more time I would have done a lot more scenes and more in between shots to show it being destroyed slower. I would have also tried to create the feel that you are walking down the building but with the limited shots and time I was unable to do this. I am very happy with how it turned out as it does show the drastic difference between before and after. In my original proposal I said I was going to create a utopia and a dystopia building/ place in Leeds, however with the limited time and the amount of work it would have taken to create a utopia I decided to just keep with the dystopian theme. If I were to have kept with the utopian one as well I would have had to create a whole new building and place it in a dystopian look in Leeds which I didn't think it would have been obvious it what I was trying to do, I really didn't have the time either. I am glad I kept to the one as it meant I could concentrate more on manipulating the still images.

Concept art - Artefact

For my artefact I am relating it to my theme of the essay, Dystopias and Utopias. Here are some collected images that I have drawn over the top to give an example of what I am doing.

The plan was to make a video, where a dystopian style place already in Leeds would change to a utopian style and a utopian style place to dystopian style. So they end up becoming opposites of each other.