Hidden Stories: Finished Film Reflection

Now that the animation is at last complete I have time to write a bit about it!
So - here I have written about my work process and my thoughts, as well as what I think was successful about the film, what was not so, and what I have learned from this project overall. (I've also added some screen-caps from the final film - just so you know what I am referring too in the text. For a synopsis of the story, just in case you have forgotten, check back to my post with the animatic!)


The most challenging scenes first...

Once the storyboard and animatic were done and it was time to start animating, I was advised to tackle some of the more challenging and experimental scenes first. This was definitely a good idea as it gave me plenty of time at the start to experiment and get those scenes right, rather than rushing them at the end when I was eager to finish. They were also some of the most fun scenes to animate...

The first scene I tackled was the "war" scene - the dreamy, peaceful flashback that is interrupted destructively by the war literally marching over the hill. For this I tried something new to me; a mix of Adobe Photoshop and Flash animation together. I wanted to create a fiery glow that would look menacing and very bold against the greyscale scene, so for this I used tools available in Photoshop (and not in Flash) to create an orange/red hue, as well as plumes of smoke. I then brought this into Flash and animated on top of these scenes with a shadow of artillery and aircraft.
This created a look I had been hoping for luckily, so I feel this was a successful scene, and I gained from practicing more with Photoshop animation and combining the programs.

The next most challenging scene was the horse's walk cycle. I looked at Muybridge's photographs and a useful illustration from a book about horses:

I watched lots of videos of horses walking - slow motion videos were especially helpful! This then gave me more of an idea of the actual motion and the animal itself.

I wanted to express the breed of horse too; the horse in my story is a heavy farm horse. When the hooves hit the ground the animation needed to emphasis the weight of the horse and he should not move too quickly or swiftly. I am pleased with the horse walking scene, but I don't think you can really get a strong idea of the weight and character of the horse from this animation unfortunately. The scene was just too short, and looking back, I wish I had made this scene longer. Saying that however, this is probably the scene with the most frames in it and took a long time to complete!

The Flashback Scene:

When I decided to use Flash, I knew that the animation would be in colour and I wanted the flashback to be in black and white. The main reason - this would clearly define the present and the past/memory. Another reason is because this would give the memory an 'old/in the past' feel to it, like an old B&W war film or the photographs you would associate with WWII (such as those in the image below, again from a book on horses).

So to colour the scenes in black and white was again a new experiment! I looked briefly to B&W films, and in particular at the new Disney short 'Paperman'  - for the tonal contrasts and shades particularly.

When looking at Paperman, I was also inspired by the line used in the character's designs. The character's outlines are often broken and spaced which make the character look much more alive and moving. I tried to incorporate this style of line in my animation as well, particularly as I was using Flash and this would maybe help give the animation more of a 'natural' hand-drawn flow rather than a digital look. Although I do not think it is very obvious in my finished animation, I did try to incorporate this more sketch-like style when drawing the frames, or at least it was in my mind when I was drawing them!

My animation process and bringing the film together:

So, all the animation was made in Flash..

1. I started with a quick sketch in Flash to get the movement I wanted, then on a new layer drew neater frames over the top (deleting the underlying sketch later). This took a little more time but the sketch could be drawn up very quickly and was very helpful! 
2. Once all the outlines were done I coloured in all the scenes then added the backgrounds which I painted in Photoshop and brought into Flash. 
3. When the animation was finally done, I pulled all the scenes together into 4 "acts" which I made into Flash movies. These 4 Acts I brought into Adobe Premiere Pro and put them together with sound, music and credits (and some effects added, such as camera panning) and made it into the final, finished film. Using Premiere Pro to this extent was something new to me. It allowed me to put into practice the information I had learned from the technical tutorials we had. There was quite a bit of trial and error till I got the film working and got a good quality movie file in the appropriate format! But it was a great learning process and I now understand Premiere Pro much better.

Adding the music and sounds was fun also, as I could play around with where and which sound effects to put in and what music would suit which scenes. I had originally wanted to add sound affects such as foot prints and horse hooves, but I didn't think this really worked without a larger range of sound effects as well, it just sounded a bit odd. With more time (if I had thought about sound effects earlier on in the project!) I could have made my own sound effects that may have been more suitable. 

So instead I just used music as the overall sound in the film (from Kevin MacLeod's website, incompetech.com), and had 'war' sounds for the war scenes which worked well as it interrupted the music and stood out as the only sort of sound effect in the film. 

Early on in the project I decided to have radio broadcasts from WWII in the background to help set the scene. So I have some brief radio clips at the very start, which I think worked well also. The website 'Internet Archive' was suggested to me for this; so I listened to quite a few Churchill speeches and broadcasts then tried out various ones with the animation till I found two that suited the film best.

So - what went well and not so well? And what would I change or add to the animation? 

• Overall I am pleased with the look of the animation. The style was realistic enough for my liking but not too difficult to draw up quickly. I'm glad I choose to use Adobe Flash, as it meant I could colour the scenes and make the flashback B&W and put in backgrounds easily and relatively quickly (I think using Flash overall was slightly quicker than doing the animation traditionally hand-drawn). It was also good to experiment and practice a bit more with Flash - as I have not used it for a few years. With more time I would have liked to have gone back and put more frames into some of the scenes to make the movement flow better, and to extend the animation overall and have less pauses on still frames. Flash can look a little less smooth and natural to traditional animation I think, but I think it is just a matter of how much time you put in and how many frames you draw. 
• I am most happy with the animation of the horse; the horse was interesting and fun to animate. I am probably least happy with my human character's animation due to his facial appearance being not particularly constant and quite variable throughout the film. I found it difficult to maintain a constant facial appearance. The flashback was the first part of the film I animated, and I think you can see that the human character's appearance is quite changeable unfortunately. The closest animation to my original idea and sketches for the PoW is the opening scene. While animating I drew up more sketches of this character (image below) to help me achieve a more constant appearance while animating, and this helped, but I should have drawn more sketches like this before animating and spent time earlier on getting a stronger understanding of how my character should look. Saying that, I also wished I had done a little more work on their clothing. Other than the German uniform, I did little research into clothing of the time- and it would have just been nice to have given the child and the soldier's flashback-self a more detailed, historically correct attire.

• I am happy with the transition scene into the flashback/memory, although like I said earlier, I wish I had made the horse's walk a little longer. Overall, the flashback is my favourite part, as it was the most fun to create and experiment with. Again, with more time, I would love to add a bit more detail to the war scene!
• If I had more time again I would also liked to have added some one-tonal shading to some of the scenes - not all of them, possibly the flashback, or the scenes where the soldier is sitting under the tree. This would have added some extra form to the character in these certain scenes, and just a bit more interest and variety to the animation. 
• I also rushed the backgrounds in the last scene a bit, so I would have liked to have developed them and made them a bit nicer and more of a finished location. (The location is a street, as the soldier leaves the PoW camp, and in the background in the green area is the camp he has just left - but I don't think that is obvious!) This was one of the things I left till quite late, which I now realise was a mistake. I think I should have created the backgrounds closer to the beginning, so I could create exactly the locations I wanted, and then I would have more of a sense of place for putting my characters into the locations as well. 

What have I learned from this project?

• Timing! I have learnt much about timing myself and how long things take to make. We had to think about many more things on this project other than the animation also, eg - a decent narrative, storyboards, sound, music, backgrounds, putting everything together - and it all needs a sufficient amount of time. I was quite organised and set myself deadlines but really had no idea of how long things would actually take to do and of course it always took much longer than I expected. Meeting the original deadline would have been a bit of a struggle! I now have a better idea of timing and how long everything takes to do. It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking you have loads of time ahead of you then it quickly passes by!! So hopefully I will know better for next time, how long I should dedicate to each aspect of the film.
• Like I have mentioned already, I learnt much more about the Adobe programs Flash and Premiere Pro (and Photoshop animation, which I had not really tried before).
• I learnt a lot about storyboarding also thanks to the handy post-it-notes and advice! I found the post-it-notes brilliant for the storyboarding, and I could stick them on my wall and change them about. I also scrapped a lot in the storyboarding stage and changed the ending of the story about 3 or 4 times!

Overall I have definitely learnt a huge amount over the course of this project, that I will then apply to future projects, whether my animation was successful or not. Of course it was not without stress and frustration, but in general I found it a lot of fun and enjoyed every stage of creating the film from the initial story research to the pre-production. There are loads of things I would love to add to it and improve on (especially now after the Mark Andrews lecture and his tips on visual storytelling - I am now eager to experiment with this new knowledge and apply it to my work!!), but overall I am quite happy with the result, and am satisfied with what I have learnt from this project. It was worth the time and effort definitely! 

~

I also just realised that, strangely, I never actually posted an image of the toy horse the film is based on. So here it is! It was really great to make a film about an actual object - it made making the film that little bit more interesting I think, and now I have become quite attached to this toy... 

~

Here is my finished animation - I think it is probably ok to let you all see it now! The password to watch the video is "clash":

https://vimeo.com/64105838

Hidden Stories: Development

Development sketches for the Hidden Stories animation:

I sketched a lot while developing the story and the storyboards. This helped me to get an idea of what the scenes may look like in the film and identified what the challenges would be. 

I wanted the end of the story to be about 'letting go', and I went though various different endings:

 At the very beginning I wanted to show my PoW character as an older man living in Edinburgh still, and he gives the toy to his grandchild. But this would not have worked for various reasons - one of which being that that would involve too much confusing time travel in the final film. In the image below you can see some of my discarded storyboards, and another idea I had where the PoW had left the camp and was sitting in Princes Street Gardens (although this again left a lot of unanswered questions and wouldn't have been particularly historically accurate). So the ending I  finally decided on is the PoW being taken from the camp either to be transported to another place or back to Germany, and that is when he sees the child and gives her the horse. I have really enjoyed playing around with the story however, and trying out different paths the story could go down.

The image below is a very early storyboard; as you can see, some aspects have stayed the same and are in my final storyboards, but some aspects have defiantly changed. Using the post-it-notes for storyboarding really allowed me to play around with the story and scenes more.

Character design sketches:

Inspirations and Research:

Again going back to the early stages of development; I briefly researched into things like what WW2 German soldiers looked like (their uniforms), and some of their experiences in British PoW camps. I was also inspired by my parents story of a real life person who was one of our old neighbors, who had been a German PoW in Scotland and decided to stay here.

Above: German soldier with a dog

Below: German PoWs, working in Britain

I also thought of a book I have back home called "War Boy" by the illustrator Michael Foreman.  Searching for examples of "War Boy", I came across another book of his called "War Game" - and it looks like this book has been made into an animation as well.  I have always liked Foreman's work, and if I had the time I would have liked to have maybe made my animation in a similar style and with a hint of watercolors like his illustrations.

Lastly, I probably can't get away without mentioning "War Horse" as well (the original book also illustrated by Foreman!). Although it has not influenced me directly, after working on my story a bit I could see there was a slight resemblance... 

Anyway - it's now time for some intensive animating!

Hidden Stories: Storyboards/Animatic

Here is an animatic of the storyboards for my Hidden Stories animation, made using Adobe Premier. I loved using the post-it-notes for the storyboards, as I could stick them on the wall and look back at them all, get others to look at them, swap scenes around - which was all really helpful. It is maybe not the neatest of animatics (the large border around the storyboard post-it-note bothered me slightly!) but I feel I have got the timing somewhat how I want it to be in the final film. Looking back however, I may make the start scene slightly slower just to ease people into the film so it's obvious where we are and what is going on. The film should be between 2-3mins long.

The story is based around a wooden horse toy; it is about a German Prisoner of War in Edinburgh at the end of WW2 who is making the toy and thinking back to his home in Germany. However his flashback to home is interrupted and destroyed by the war that literally "marches over the hill" in his imagination as he remembers that his home will now be war-torn. In the end scene he is leaving Edinburgh - either to be returned to Germany or moved elsewhere. A child notices his horse toy and at first he hesitates to give it to her, but in the end he realises he has to let go of the past and he gives her the toy.





The toughest challange will be communicating the flashback/thoughts of the PoW - I will need to clearly define what is flashback and what is the 'present' in the animation so the audience do not get confused! Depending on time, I could maybe do the 'present' in colour, and the past in black & white. Also, I am keen for the "war" that appears over the hill to be bright fiery red/orange colours in contrast to a black and white scene.
I definately hope to add some sound affects to the animation (some indicated in the storyboards) and would love to have radio broadcasts about the end of the war as a background sound also, which would help with setting the time period.

Hidden Stories

Happy New Year!! Our first project of 2013 is to create a 1-3 minute animation based on an object held in one of Edinburgh's museums or galleries. It will also be entered into their competition called "Hidden Stories".

So to begin our research we visited some of the museums that are part of the 'Edinburgh Museums & Galleries' group. I visited the Museum of Childhood, the Writer's Museum, the People's Story Museum and the Museum of Edinburgh. The Writer's Museum and the People's Story Museum offered some opportunities; writer's lives, and about the different ways of life in Edinburgh through history. Then in the Museum of Edinburgh I was quite surprised to see Greyfriars Bobby's collar - which I didn't realize existed in a museum. So the museums were full of lots of interesting and surprising things!

There were two objects however that sparked my imagination in particular:
Firstly at the Museum of Childhood - the only thing that really caught my eye was the various toys related to horses, and the idea behind why horses were such a popular theme:

The object of most interest here was a wooden horse that was carved by a Prisoner of War in 1945. That is all the information that was given, but I thought this could have potential for an interesting back story - factual or imagined. So far I have been imagining a back story to the wooden horse starting with that the horse was carved by a German PoW in Edinburgh, as there were a few PoW camps here including Donaldson's College. So far I have made some quick sketches - some in a sort-of storyboard style to help me imagine how the short film might begin:

The second object which inspired me was in the Museum of Edinburgh. It was a stags head with a metal cross on it's head. The actual object was a bit gross I admit, but it had an interesting legend to go with it! The legend is about the creation of Holyrood Abbey and the Canongate Burgh in the 12th century, and explains why the Burgh's arms is an image of a stag with a cross between it's antlers. I thought this could make a fun little film and is maybe something little known about Edinburgh's history:

Here is a quick sketch of my imaginings of the legend. The story is set in a forest, a stag charges at King David I but stops suddenly, and David said he saw the holy cross appear between the stags antlers. I imagined that in this forest there could be some dramatic lighting from the sun shining through the dense foliage, which then makes the 'cross' appear above the stag in sunlight.

I really like this idea, but I think the wooden horse story could give me more scope with the narrative, and maybe be a bit more interesting in the long run (even though a stag with a cross on it's head is pretty dramatic). Although I think I will return to the legend at another time!

So I have decided to develop the PoW wooden horse story further, and I am looking forward to getting started...

A Christmas Card from Edinburgh

Here is my animated Christmas card, for our last project of 2012!
The idea for it is a magical reindeer flying over the city of Edinburgh and lighting up all the Christmas lights and decorations. I didn't really manage to animate the reindeer flying or anything like that, but I did put the reindeer in at the end there. The reindeer was animated on the computer with Adobe Flash, but the rest of the animation was drawn with pencil and pastels. I first walked around the city sketching the scenes from life and taking photos, then animated the Christmas lights. I put some scenes that are personal to me in as well - the castle view from Grassmarket, which I see on the way to uni, and the Conan Doyle Pub!

Anyway, hope you enjoy this Christmas card, and a very merry Christmas to everyone and a happy new year!!



Christmas Lights - Alison MacPherson from ECA Animation on Vimeo.

Time for Tea

Here is the finished animation for the "When Balls Go Bad" project. It is a little over 20 seconds, and is all hand-drawn.  I have decided to name it "Time for Tea"...



It goes very quickly and is maybe not too obvious or clear to viewers what is actually going on.  The narrative I tried to put in this film was most likely far too complicated for a 20 second film! Hopefully the film explains itself but just incase viewers are confused (and I wouldn't blame them!!), then here is the reasoning - a brief synopsis of the film:

The dog is in an inventor's studio where a "tea making machine" is being built. The dog wants the rubber ball on the shelf so jumps on the shelf which sends the ball flying. The ball then hits the tea-making contraption which is only a 'work in progress', therefore the ball breaks the machine/ sends it into havoc as it is not yet finished or trustworthy! The tea tray hits the old piano which then wobbles and the piano wheel (which is supposed to be unstable in the first place) gets forced off only then to fly across the room like the original rubber ball and cause more havoc. In the end the room is somewhat destroyed by the sequence caused by the dog and the original rubber ball (which then bounces back over to him at the end of the film, the dog having forgotten about it in the midst of chaos). The dog is happy at the end because he is rewarded with a rubber ball and a tin of biscuits, ignoring the room that is now in a total mess!

Anyway I hope you enjoy the very short animation! It was a lot of fun to make, and I learnt much from this project again.


Lastly, here are some photos for those non-animation folks to see a little of what it is like making the animation. Here is a photo of the lightbox where almost all my drawing was done and a photo of all the sheets of paper that made up the finished animation!

When Balls Go Bad - Animation Development

Now that the final film is finished, I can post about the development of my animation during the time I was creating it! The final film will too be posted very soon...

I made quite a lot of development sketches before and while creating the animation. This helped me to figure out how the action would play out. Here are the storyboards I drew up (which I made into an animatic that I posted on the blog earlier on):

The environment had to be clearly altered by the ball's movement. So I wanted to show the room before the rubber ball was let loose by the canine character, the ball then beginning a chain of reactions with the objects within the room, then the room at the end of the film after it had been completely dismantled by the balls actions and everything is in a mess. But the dog is happy because he got the ball, plus a tin of biscuits that fell of a shelf! (loosely inspired by the risk project also, and all those quotes about taking risks like jumping on a dodgy shelf to get a rubber ball. It is sometimes a good thing to do and has it's benefits...   like biscuits).

I wanted the room to be a sort of 'W.Heath Robinson/Inventor's studio' so I put in a contraption/invention that would help the chain of reactions and relate back to this original inspiration. It could also help the narrative and animation be a bit more dramatic, although probably quite far-fetched. Then again however - Robinson's inventions are very far-fetched and silly!

I decided this contraption should be a tea making machine because I noticed a few of his sketches included people having tea (I especially liked the one of a horse's head being used as a tea tray... very silly of course... but I managed to reference it very briefly in my final film, so see if you can spot it!!). Designing the tea making contraption was challenging and took a lot of thinking through and sketching out ideas! I took most inspiration from Robinson - his designs also included lots of cogs, wheels and strings. I think the final version of the invention in my film is still a bit unbelievable, but with more time maybe I could have made it work a bit better. Keep in mind when watching the final film that the contraption is meant to be a "work in progress" and any disturbance could cause havoc!
(also if you remember the video by "OK Go" in my initial research post, that is where the inspiration for the piano came from. There is something very comical about a piano... whether I achieve that in my own film I don't know, probably not, but I can but try!!).

I wanted to know whether the animation would work timing and movement wise - so I sketched all the scenes first which I would then go over later with pen, neatening up the animation and the sketch lines. Here is the sketch test I made:



This sketch test was the task that took the longest time during this project; I was a bit slow and relaxed when creating it, and I now think I should have made done this much quicker so I could focus more time on finishing up the final animation. But I have learnt much from this project again!

When working on this project I also realized the importance of the previous project! What I learned from making the simple bouncing ball animations was vital when creating this animation. Not only was I again animating a bouncy rubber ball but also a dog jumping, a tin falling of a shelf, a kettle and tea cup falling, and piano wheel - for all these things I had to think about weight, material, arcs, and the time these things would take to fall and jump and land etc.

The final film will be posted very soon...