Additional Budgeting And Scheduling for Little Red Riding Hood…

After identifying in the previous budgeting post the key job role that would be needed in order to make My LRRH animation, I decided to research how much hiring these specific roles would cost.

Glasshouse was a really useful source as it gave me some of the average wages of these key roles. I decided that because my animation is going to be quite short that I would then calculate the salary per month of each job role. https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salaries/character-designer-salary-SRCH_KO0,18.htm – below is a lose template of the job roles needed to create my LRRH animation…

SENIOR ROLES –

Producer – £5,000 per month – I would like to be the producer as they oversee the production process And make sure everything is following the schedule. This would ensure that the animation goes how I would like it.

Director – £4,557 per month – for my animation I would like to be the director as I know how I want the animation to look like, however, if the film was a large scale and complicated I would probably be inclined to hire a director. This may also be difficult if I was the producer too.

PREPRODUCTION –

Script – someone to come up with the story and create a final script

Storyboard artist – £2,601 per month – again I would like to create the storyboard for LRRH as I know how I want the animation to look

Animatic – adding a sound track/dialogue into a storyboard in order to see how the animation is going to look, giving good indication as to whether its all going to work or whether things need changing

Character designers – (couldnt find a monthly salary as most go off of hourly pay) £17 per hour – I would like to do this but because of the other roles I would want to do, this may be difficult, if so, I would hire someone to do this – would be designing all four characters in LRRH

Set designers – usually between £15,000-20,000per year – I went off of the middle amount of £17,000 per year – meaning that the monthly wage would be around £1,400 – pretty much the same for character designers, i would like to do this but would probably have to hire someone else to do this – would be designing the woods, house, rooms in house for LRRH

Prop creator – £1,250 per month – Would need to create the props for LRRH

Costume design – £1,400 per month – Would need to create all costumes for LRRH, the woodsman and the grandma in my animation

3D modeller – £2,100 per month – would need a 3D modeller to create all the characters as LRRH is a stop motion animation. As there are 4 characters to make, there may need to be more than one modeller

PRODUCTION –

Animator – £2,700 per month – I would probably have to hire a few animators for this role as this process is time consuming and would need multiple sets of hands – may need assistant animator as my animation is stop motion

Lighting – £2,300per month – Would need to control the lighting eg creating shadows in the forrest, making the hallway dimly lit – light casting over her face, creating the bedroom to be dark but with one dim light casting in the middle of the room etc

Camera control – £2,100 per month – would probably only need one person controlling the camera. They will make sure the camera angles are right and i would hire someone for this role for my LRRH animation

POSTPRODUCTION –

Editor – £2,000 per month – I would have to hire someone for this role as I don’t know enough about editing to edit an entire short film

Sound designer – £2,100 per month – For LRRH, I need a soundtrack which will make up the majority of the animation. The sound is there for added emotion during the scenes and to project ‘scary’ atmospheres throughout. the sound design is really important when creating an animation

Foley artist – £1,000 per week / £4,000 per month – Would definitely need a foley artist to add depth to the animation. I would like to do this, however dont think i would be able to with all the other jobs i would have to do

Voice actors – £109 per day – In LRRH, there is only some dialogue and its only between two characters – would probably only need one day max with the voice actors

Digital artist/painter – £2,300 per month – they would go in and touch up anything or add detail to the animation where it is needed. These make sure the animation looks as good as it can and i think they are very important. I would hire someone to do this for my animation

i think that because my animation is going to be quite short, the whole process could take around 12 weeks. I would allocate specific time slots to each individual process in order to stick to this time frame.

https://www.artella.com/index.php/2017/09/21/animation-production-step-step-guide-making-3d-animated-movie/ – this was also really helpful in separating the job roles within the creating process behind an animation. It went into detail about each role and made it into a clear step-by-step guide. This was helpful when planning my LRRH animation as i was able to clearly identify the jobs that would go inti creating my film. This made it easier for me to find out how much to budget for each role.

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After finding out how much each job role would cost and figuring out the total budget for the animation, I decided to look at how to make a schedule table – basically a clear and easy way to see how long each process should/will take. This ensuring that the budget ins’t increased by wrong timings etc.

this is a template that i found which clearly shows the time frames for the whole animation. This will be useful to do for my LRRH animation. However, because mine is a short film, i will make my schedule into a weekly timetable, whereas the example one is monthly.

https://medium.com/cgwire/how-to-prepare-your-animation-production-part-2-the-schedule-cc413d0d8455 – this is another handy site which lay out a clear way to schedule for your animation. It tells you all the things to schedule and how to do so. I would defiantly use this for my planning of LRRH animation.

Links to Little Red Riding Hood…

A short film which I think links to LRRH is the ’Sandman’ by Paul Berry. The film is a short stop motion film based on a mythical creature who steals children’s eyes at night, if the child is awake.

The reason I’ve used this as a link for LRRH is that its obviously a short stop motion film – this is what LRRH will be. This film also doesn’t include any dialogue and only has instrumentals as a sound track – LRRH will include a small amount of dialogue but will mainly show emotion and mood through the music and lighting. The sound in the Sandman is all that is used to show the emotions in this film, the models are fixed faced models, meaning that they aren’t able to show emotions through facial expressions (i found this interesting as i thought that facial expressions were the main source of emotion through an animation, but this film proves that sound can have the same effect). This is something i would think about for my LRRH animation, after watching this. The sound in the Sandman adds dramatically to the eeriness of the film and works well with the tonal lighting to portray the sinister motive behind the story. The lighting is dark and creates alot of shadows, making the hallways look bigger (good hiding places for the boys imaginary fears to lurk). You can see that the boy is hesitant to leave his mother and climb the stairs as he is forced into the darkness, you can see this from him physically holding back, and also from the use of the music becoming suspenseful and unnerving. The use of foley in this film worked really well too. I highlighted things like footsteps, creeking doors and stairs – this intensifying the fearful mood. For LRRH, I think this would work really well as that too is supposed to be a ‘scary’ short film – i think it will also give depth to the animation.

You can see from the boys acting that he is terrified of the Sandman. After getting to his room he jumps into bed and almost immediately hides under the covers. As he is hearing scary noises in the dark, he starts shaking in fear and overall looks very uneasy. For my animation, i would like alot of the emotion to come from the characters acting – for example, LRRH nervously looking round in the woods as she hears noises, or when she hears the wolfs voice and jumps slightly, or when she enters the house and instantly knows something is wrong so becomes very guarded/cautious. I think that showing the emotions in this way is much more effective and ‘real’ then just using vocals to express the emotions in a scene.

I think another way that this film links to LRRH is that the main focus on the story is one character – however, theres a point in both where there are two characters in conflict. This is almost like the peak in the films where they come into contact with one and other. This is interesting to me because in both animations/storys the two conflicts involve a young-ish child and an older figure who has very sinister intentions.

Further Designs for Penguin animation…

I decided to do some further development for the penguin animation as I don’t feel as though I have enough.

After deciding that the ‘pencil drawing’ designs would fit the theme and style of the animation, I wanted to design him wearing a jumper (taken from the other designs I did). I really liked how these turned out as it adds a level of charm (close to the snowman film) which I really want throughout this animation. I defiantly want to use this design as the main baby penguin in the animation.

After figuring out the style i wanted my characters to be in, i decided to create some ‘emotion designs’. I wanted to experiment with how the baby penguin will look when feeling different emotions throughout the animation…

emotion = nervous — when he is approaching the other baby penguins

Emotion = sad — when he is left out and bullied by the others

emotion= sad/lonely — when he is alone has no friends

I wanted to do a rough animation test to see how the bay penguin is going to walk. Due to lockdown I only had my ipad to do this on so it didn’t turn out how I would have wanted. However it was useful as I know when his arms have to move in order to fit with the feet movements. I also found out that he needs to move side to side in order to get the waddle effect.

if my ipad hadn’t have broken whilst we were in lockdown i would have created more designs of this nature and also would have created a few more animation tests – however, just from doing these i have a good idea for how iwould expand on this if i were to create this animation…

for this animation, I want all the baby penguins to be wearing different coloured jumpers – making each on stand out but also being similar. They will all be normal sized but the main baby penguin will be much smaller than the others, as seen in the script. I want this to be really noticeable in the animation, making it clear hes being left out. The reason i also want multicoloured jumpers is that the background is quite plain in colour (due to it being snow), this will give some colour to the animation and also make it more interesting for children as its a child animation.

Animatics; how to…

Before this project I had no idea what animatics were and how to create them. I looked on YouTube to try and find some ‘how to’ tutorials. I found these really interesting and I can now understand why they are useful and necessary to animation. From my research I have found out that animatics are the stage after storyboards where the animation/film is drawn out in rough in order to see how and if the animation/film would work. This saves time and money before trying to film as you can see if a certain movement or scene is actually going to work.

The whole point of an animatic is to basically add sound/dialogue to a ‘storyboard’ in order to emphasise emotion of the characters and the overall mood of the settings. For my animations – LRRH will consist of spoken language between the two main characters and also will have an instrumental soundtrack to add to the intensity of emotion for each scene. My penguin animation will consist of no spoken language, however including a subtle instrumental soundtrack in order to show the emotions within the animation. Taking these into account, my animatics will include these properties, making it easier when it comes to animating.

This style of animatic would be really useful for my Red Riding Hood animation. This particular animatic includes paring spoken language with images, which is important for figuring out this will fit with the animation. For Little Red Riding hood, this would be important as its going to include the two main characters conversing during the animation. Emphasising where the dialogue would be is important as you can get a feel for what the mood of that specific scene will be. I also think this would be a helpful way of creating an animatic as it focuses on using colour to portray the particular atmosphere of that section. This on uses darker colours to show darkness – could mean that part of the animation has negative emotions attached to it – For Little Red Riding Hood, using dark colours will help to show the overriding sinister and scary feelings within the scenes. For example, as she is first walking through the woods, the atmosphere is light and innocent (don’t use much dark shading), however, the middle section of the animation has a more sinister feeling as the girl is scared and in danger (after the wolf encounter, walking to and through the house, and in the bedroom – will use a lot of dark shading and shadows to show these emotions)

I particularly liked this one as the drawings are very simple and focuses on if the movements would work in the final animation. This would be a very quick and efficient way of creating an animatic. I would like to try this style of animatics when creating my own. For example, when creating my penguin animatic the use of outlines will make sure that no detail merges into each other – (the final animation will consist a lot of similar colours as they are in the Antarctic). Having the simple frames and drawings will allow the animatic to clearly show the baby penguins emotions which will make it easier to figure out what emotions go where, within the song. The song, making it very clear as to what the overall atmosphere of the animation is – instead of using shading/colour like the previous animatic.

I thought this animatic would be a good inspiration for my penguin animation. This animatic concentrates of how the animation would fit with the specific soundtrack they have chosen. (my penguin animation will have a sound track over it instead of spoken language). Having music over the animatic shows the emotions that the animation will show at particular parts of the chosen song. Even though I wouldn’t want my penguin animation to have lyrics within the sound track (so its more like the snowman), the different moods of the song will correlate with the emotions going on in the animation. Eg, when the baby penguin is excited to meet new penguins, the music will be upbeat and hoppy. However, when he gets left out and bullied, the music will become slower and deeper to emphasise his sadness. This along with the close ups of the penguins face (showing his emotion), having the soundtrack match this will add greater emotion to the animation. Having this in the animatic will help the animators know how to portray the atmosphere of each scene.

Due to lockdown I don’t have the correct facilities to create my own animatic, however in the future I would like to try. I would defiantly follow the above videos when making my own animatic, as I think they are a good representation of how to make an animatic.

Foley/Animation Sound Research…

Sound is often recorded separately from a film or animation. A foley artist will use common objects to replicate sounds which would typically be found in each scene. Whilst watching the visuals, the artist will match the sounds with where they should be, this creating a foley track. I decided to research how artists will create these tracks and also what kind of objects they might use. I found a few ‘how to’ videos which, if I were making a foley track, would like to take inspiration from.

The two above videos would be helpful when creating the LRRH animation as there will need to be background sounds to go with the spoken parts. – Things such as trees swaying, twigs breaking as someone steps on, footsteps, doors opening, floor boards creaking, material moving, window smashing, woodsman using his axe, wind, breathing, knocking (on wardrobe door) etc. These small sounds make the animation become more genuine, and also add tension to the scene (eg not knowing where the twigs are breaking from – eg wolf sneaking up on her) (also her creaking the door open to add suspense). Having these sounds can add to the eerie feeling to the animation – this being important in my LRRH film to add to the scary atmosphere of the story. These above videos were really helpful in allowing me to see how I could make some of these sounds could be made and what kind of objects could be used to make them sound realistic, for my final animation. I think adding a foley soundtrack to the LRRH animation would add more depth into each scene – also in Coraline, it is clear to hear that a foley track has been created for the film – this also influencing me to use one with in my LRRH animation..

Due to isolation I don’t have the access to any sound recording equipment/ a suitable place to record. However, for animation lab we created a small foley track for the silent animation shown above. This exercise was very interesting and educational. It was fascinating to create sound from normal objects e.g belts, chairs, water bottles, forks and even using my voice for certain parts. We used a small voice recorder and just played around with what sounds each object was capable of creating and then adding them to the film using Premier Pro. In the future I would like to experiment with a wider variety of sounds and try animating for different types of films. Having this practice will help me when creating my foley track for the Little Red Riding Hood animation, as I started to get a feel for how to create certain sounds which may be helpful in LRRH. Creating something like this would be important in my animation as many of the sounds will add to the atmosphere of the animation. It could be used to add suspense and fear to the overall LRRH story.

This is a really nice example of how foley is used within animation. Any sound that you would normally hear is created using objects which can mimic those sounds. For example – Metal on metal, door closing, footsteps, bed springs, mugs clinking etc. I think that using a foley track as detailed as this would work really well with my LRRH animation as it will make the movements feel more authentic with in the animation and will make the animation more intriguing for the audience. I looked at this particular video as I thought it was important to see how foley is used, specifically in animation, which will in turn help me when creating a foley track for my Little Red Riding Hood animation. This example video also gave a good indication to what kind of sounds need foley – even the smallest of sounds eg clothes rustling and floorboards creaking are really important to the overall sound/feel of the animation.

For my penguin animation, I have taken alot of inspiration from The Snowman, from the design to the sound. What I really like in this animation is the absence of spoken language and instead using an instrumental track throughout the entire film. This is how I would like to do the sound on my penguin animation as I think emotions can be more intense when shown through music, rather than spoken dialogue. In The Snowman, the main instruments used are wind instruments such as flutes, clarinets and trumpets – with the occasional piano. For the happy parts of the film, flutes are played lightly and are typically higher in pitch, this making the happy or excited moments noticeable, to intensify this, trumpets are also used. To show apprehension and fear, deeper instruments are used such as clarinets (eg throwing snowball at window and being told off). These deeper sounds are also used in the film to portray his sadness. This is a running theme through the animation which makes the viewer familiar with the sound standing for sadness. Near the middle, violins accompany the flutes which add to the happy and jolly atmosphere of these scenes. To show the peak in the story, a collection of wind instruments are played loudly, creating an intensity of emotion at this point. Instead of using a foley track, things like turning on the light switch are shown through instruments such as a xylophone with everything else in that moment being silent. This almost adds a humour aspect to the scene. – I think this would be a good way to add sound to my penguin animation.

I think this approach could work well with the penguin animation as there is going to be many changes of emotion during the story (like the snowman) and I think that having an instrumental track will emphasise these emotions clearly. For example, when the baby penguin leaves the house and is excited to meet new people, higher pitched and more ‘hoppy’ music could be played in order to match his upbeat mood. When he becomes intimidated by the amount of other penguins, the music could be slower and have more suspense in it, probably played with deeper instruments. As he starts to get bullied by the other penguins, the music could become louder, quicker and overall more intense (like what happens in the snowman), then slowing down when he has walked away and is sad and alone. The music could then come back to a happy and lighter sounding tune as he bumps into his new friend who accepts him. I think creating a track similar to what i have just described will really help to portray the baby penguins emotions. – Also, the penguin animation is going to be very delicate in its design, so I feel as though having the charming sounds of instruments only, will compliment the style of animation.

Budgeting Research…

Animation World Network – Chart of Accounts form

Click to access 412-cwzdcofa.pdf

Powerhouse Animation – Animation Budget History

http://www.powerhouseanimation.com/wp-content/themes/maxima-v1-02/dist/index.php

Stephanie Ciccarelli – Producing an Animation – jobs within animation –

This page was really helpful in allowing me to see the vast amount of jobs that go into producing an animation. Knowing how many jobs roles are usually needed within the production will help you to budget for a film and what to spend money on. It was particularly helpful for me to get an idea of what kind of job roles i would need for my low-budget, short film – Little Red Riding Hood. It highlights many of the main important job roles that I would need to fill in order to make my Little Red Riding Hood animation. ^^^^^^^^^^

Category: Staff Fees

Producer – would be needed in the producing part of the animation (I would hire someone to do this as producing isn’t something I have experience in).
Director – I would be the director of my LRRH animation as I know how I want the overall animation to look
Other Roles – I might hire an assistant director in order to help me make decisions for the animation

Category: Storyboard

Supervisor
Artist – I would also be interested in being the storyboard artist for my LRRH animation, as again, I know how I would like my animation to look – being a storyboard artist is also something I am very interested in – this would defiantly be needed for my LRRH animation.
Supplies & Materials
Other Storyboard

Category: Audio

Song Fees/Rights/Copyright
Coaching
Production – I would need to hire someone to produce the background music for my LRRH animation as I wouldn’t be able to do this.
Musicians – I would need to hire some sort of musicians in order to create the sound track for my animation.
I would need a foley artist/artists to create the foley track – I would like to get involved with this process as I am also interested in this – however, might not have time to do this if I am director too
I will also need voice actors as in Little Red Riding Hood, there will be dialogue between the two main characters
Instruments
Rentals – If the musicians didn’t have their own instruments, its possible that I would have to rent a studio/instruments in order to create the sound track.
Session Fees –
Travel and Accommodation

Category: Animation Direction

Editor – I will need an editor as this isn’t something I have much experience in, I would like to hire someone who can make the film look as professional as possible – also someone who could edit the whole thing as LRRH will only be a short.
Assistant Editor
Dialogue Editor
Editing Equipement
Supplies and Materials – will need to hire SET DESIGN AND CHARACTER/ MODEL DESIGN ARTISTS – i will need to pay for material needed in order to create the set and the models as LRRH will be a stop motion short animation
I WILL ALSO NEED ANIMATORS – this is something I am interested in – I would need a small team of animators to animate the set, eg, trees moving from the wind, doors opening etc. Also someone/a small group of animators to animate the characters, eg, characters movements, movement of clothes etc.
Overtime
Travel & Accommodation
Other Fees:

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some more important information that i gained from the mentioned above page – these are things i will also need to take into consideration when planning and creating my Little Red Riding Hood animation –

Discover Who Your Audience is for Your Animation – For my Little Red Riding Hood animation, my target audience would be around 12plus, as it would be classed as a scary film – having it targeted to this audience means they won’t become too scared by it and are the more likely age group to want to see it/ and be able to see it.

Select a Subject for Your Animation – selecting a subject is important – I opted for using an old fairytale story which many people would know and be familiar with. Little Red Riding Hood.

Create an Animation Budget – I would have to figure out how much I could realistically spend on this animation – depending on how much money there was, would determine what roles I would keep and which roles I would have to get rid of, during the preproduction/animation process.

Account for the Amount of Time to Produce an Animation – I would need to create a schedule for the production of my animation. For example, giving a specific time period on all of the specific roles such as set and character design and production, the storyboard production, animating process etc. Having a clear schedule would make it clear to everyone how long they have on their section and when they would need it completed by – this allowing me to stick the finishing deadline.

Audience – 12plus

Message – the animation needs a clear message – for LRRH the message is you shouldn’t talk to strangers and to always make sure you’re safe when walking alone – having my animation made into a short will hopefully ensure that this message is given clearly and wouldn’t be too long so that the audience wouldn’t lose interest

Storyboard – would need a clear storyboard which indicates camera angles and character movements – also to indicate light and dark scenes – this making it clear to the animator on how they should be animating a scene

Resources and approvals – would need to ensure that all resources are accounted for in order to make the animating/ creation process go as smooth as possible.

Schedule – this is vital when planning an animation – I would probably be in charge of creating these schedules as this would be my responsibility.

Studio Pigeon – How much does it cost to Produce Animation and why?

https://www.studiopigeon.com/en-gb/blog/how-much-does-it-cost-to-produce-animation-and-why/

This source didn’t have much information, but there was a small bit of information which may come in handy in the future. Because I am wanting to produce a 3D stop motion short animation, it was interesting to learn that, 3D animation production costs alot more than producing a 2D animation. From this article, the cheapest it could be is 10,000USD – per minute with no characters. This obviously wouldn’t work for my animation as there are characters in Little Red Riding Hood, and the animation couldn’t work without them. Some animations can cost up to 200,000USD – these are for more complex projects with multiple characters and advanced features. Even though this would be good for the making of LRRH, this would be a difficult amount of money to come up with on my own, so, I would probably need investments from an animation company.

Full Rotation Animation Studio – price guide

http://fullrotation.com/how-much-does-animation-cost/

This source wasn’t very helpful to me when trying to research the budgeting for a stop motion film. It reiterated that 3D animation is much more expensive than 2D, but didn’t specify a price for the kind of animation I would be created.

Set design for penguin animation …

For my initial set design idea I decided to do some rough designs of an igloo – this to go with the Antarctic aesthetic. I liked the idea of having the penguins living in igloos, this stems from the child’s show ‘Pingu’. I wanted to keep everything, but the characters, neutral/ pale colours – 1. to keep to the design close to how an actual igloo would look (eg. white and blended into the background), and 2. to make sure thee characters stand out and for no attention to be taken away from them by the background. I also duplicated the image to have a rough idea of how it would look in the actual animation (a town of penguins).

I then took the igloo design and placed it on a larger scale background. the background I decided to use was a sort of ‘ice cliff’ which was enclosed by ice wall, with only a small gap to get out of. I wasn’t keen on this design as think the concept of it looks to unnatural and almost claustrophobic. I would prefer the background to be more open and realistic.

Not only did I take inspiration from ‘The Snowman’ for my character design, but I would also like to take inspiration from it for more se design. I really like how soft and naïve this style it. I will be taking some aspects of this design and placing it within in my own penguin animation design. For example, I will be taking the subtle colours within the background eg white and different shades of blue. I also like how the textures of the pencils/brushes that have been used in this design, I will also take this and apply it to my designs, by making sure to leave the texture there. I also think this will give it a much more hand drawn feel. I think this style will work really well for my penguin animation as I want it to possess lots of emotion which the audience would be able to connect with. (I think the snowman does this really well, which is why I have taken inspiration from it).
I also like the subtle colours which appear soft, I have decided to use this in my penguin animation design as I think it fits the theme really well.

For this design, I kept the idea off an ice cliff, however, created it much more open space and realistic. I added hills/mountains in the far background to allow the image to have depth to it. I also added the sea as a big part of the scenery, again to add layers to the image and to try and embody what the real landscape would look like. I really like the subtle colours in the design, it almost gives a soft effect to it. I stuck to different types of blue for this image as it wouldn’t allow the characters to blend into it. As a final touch I decided to add a setting/rising sun in the sky, giving it a bright orange glow to it. Because of this, I added sweeps of orange on all of the places where the sun would naturally hit in the image, remembering to add the orange highlights to the clouds. I think adding this ties the whole image together, connecting the sky to the land. I also kept some of the textures in the design, from the brushes used, this inspired by the Snowman’s design. I really like this effect.

Keeping the same landscape I then added a few igloos to see how the animation could potentially look. Again, I kept the igloos grey/blue so it was obvious that the were made out of snow. I made some of the igloos smaller to make them look as thought hey were further away, this giving the scene even more depth.

I then added a few tiny images of the penguin designs I had already completed to add life the design. This gave me a feel of how realistic my characters need to be, as a more cartoon version of the penguins wouldn’t have fitted with the landscape theme. From this, I decided that the more realistic penguin designs that I have created would go well with the background style. I really like how this idea has turned out as it still has a ‘dreamy like’ effect over it.

To plan for perspective of this animation, I decided to draw the above design from far away and slightly above. This gives an indication as to the actual shape of the land and could also be helpful for far away shots which may occur in the animation. I then added the igloos and penguins to see how they would look from this angle too.

Just to test out what whether the animation should involve, I decided to take the design and add a snow storm to it. For this I also made the sky slightly darker. However, I decided against this design as I feel it would be too distracting from the actual animation. I also got this idea of the snow from the Snowman also, however, I don’t think it works as well for my design style. I wanted to see what the scene would look like with snow in the foreground (like in the snowman), however, thought this may make it difficult to see or focus on the animation, so i decided against it.

I then decided to design a less rough igloo.

I kept the colour palette to blue and white. However, I didn’t really like this design as it looks ‘too fake’ in comparison to the landscape and character design. It also ended up having a some what ‘glowy’ effect to it which I also didn’t really like. I much preferred the last igloo design I did .

Moving away from igloos, I decided to experiment with a house/ log cabin design. I thought this might be a different approach to how most animations involving penguin habitats would look like. I decided to place the house in deep snow, with the idea of the baby penguin trudging through it, to show his size. I also gave the house a quirky shape so that the overall mixing of the penguins and the houses wouldn’t look too odd. I quite like the outcome of this design and would possibly use it for the animation.

Penguin initial character designs and sketches…

I decided that I needed to use reference picture of real life penguins in order to get my designs correct, for example, shape and form of the penguins. I also wanted to use reference pictures to be able to study the penguins movements, this was a helpful practice.

after looking at these photos I did a few digital sketches on my ipad of realistic penguins. This allowed me to get a feel for drawing penguins and also capturing some of their movements and traits. I focused mainly on the penguin chicks in my sketches as that is the main character in the story, however did do some observational drawings of the adult penguins too. I really like how these sketches turned out, I like the softness of the drawings and the penguins personal characters come through. I decided to keep the sketches black and white, with only a small amount of orange on the adults. I liked this outcome as the sketches came out tonal and emotive.

After doing these sketches and liking the outcome, I decided to look for some drawn animations which had a similar feel to them. I came across the snowman which I feel has the same qualities as my sketches. Both styles look very soft and almost childlike. I really liked the design of the snowman as you can clearly see the pencil outlines which add to the hand drawn feel. I would like my final designs to have this certain quality. I also really like the dull colours used within this animation, it adds to the softness and ties everything together. However, this pops of bright colours eg orange add a nice vibrancy to the animation, almost bring some life into it.

After doing these first initial sketches I decided to try out other styles of design to give me more variety to chose from for my final designs.

For the above designs I decided to simplify to drawing, adding less shading and more block colours into the design. I feel as though this gave the penguins more of a clean cut appearance, whilst also giving them a soft looking texture. I also included the clear outlines as noted in the previous designs, I liked this effect. I imagined the penguins wearing different clothing items eg jumper, scarf, mittens and ear warmers. I liked the idea of having the penguins possess some human qualities so that children may connect more with the characters. However, I wasn’t as keen on this design as I feel it got rid of a certain charm that the first lots of designs had. I feel as though these designs would make the animation lose its emotion and effect. – I think using the more realistic drawings would fit more with the animation.

Due to my ipad breaking during this lockdown I can’t expand on these designs. However, if I had my ipad I would have developed the first set of designs further, to make them more suitable for the style of animation. I would like to add clothing to the penguins to try and bring a more fun and child-like quality to the story. Also if I did this I would be able to decide a name on the main baby penguin, which I would then use in the title.

Penguin tries to make friends Pre Production..

For my second pre production I will be using this short clip as my script with a few added changes to the story (especially the ending). I was originally going to base this animation around global warming and its effects on Antarctic animals – however after looking at documentaries about this I decided I would like to do something a little more light hearted. This clip gave me the best of both worlds, Antarctic animals and light hearted content. The story will follow the baby penguin closely as he will be the main character.

My idea for this animation, after doing some initial animation research, is for the final product to be a digitally hand drawn animation. the story will start with the mother/father penguin getting the baby penguin ready and prepared to leave the nest and go and explore his surroundings. On his travels he struggle through the ics and snow and pass many penguins on his way. He will then arrive at a place where all the baby penguins meet together and become friends. As the baby penguin approaches the other babies , his noticeable height difference becomes clear and you will see the other baby penguins looking and whispering about him. As he tries to make friends he get picked on and push/ shoved. He becomes sad and walks away from all of the baby penguins. However, as he is on his own outside of the group, another baby penguin, who is extremely tall, bumps into the small baby penguin. They are both sad about being picked on and decided to play a game together. They then become friends.

My script video ends with the baby penguin been alone and doesn’t really end in a happy way. However, I imagine this animation to be for children so wanted to alter the script to have a meaningful message and a happy ending. The meaningful message, i see the animation having is, that all differences are okay and even if some people don’t accept them, other people will and that you’re never alone in how you’re feeling. Also I want this animation to have the message of how bullying makes people feel and how it can look from the ‘bullied’ perspective.

my script video ^

In my animation I will defiantly be closing in on his size compared to the other baby penguins – maybe being quite drastic. Making him look vulnerable and weaker than the others.

some examples of hand drawn animation styles –

The two above animation’s we a good source of reference for what a rough hand drawn animation can look like. They were both very fluid in movement and because they were just outlines, they allowed you to see more of the mechanics behind the animation, for example, how the animals should move etc. However, I wouldn’t use this style as I don’t think it would work very well with the story I would be animating and I think these types of animation can sometimes look boring and or rushed. As my penguin animation is going to be hand drawn, these were good examples of how I could create ‘test animations’ to figure out the movements of the penguins – however, I would want my finished penguin animation to be less sketchy looking and full of colour.

I much preferred this drawn animation as I looks as though a lot of time has gone into it. I like the use of colours (especially the pastel colours, which I would like to use in my animation). I also like the ‘not too polished’ look to the colouring in part, I would like to include this in my designs for my penguin animation as I think it adds more charm to the hand drawn appeal, keeping the animation looking simple also. From this animation, I also like the use of thin dark lines to outline everything. I think using subtle dark lines would work well in my penguin animation so that everything in the scenes will stand out and not all merge into one.

After considering the hand drawn aspect of animation, I was still drawn to the Lily Allen music video including the drawn and stop motion aspect of animation. I think this could work really well for this particular animation.

I like the idea of the penguins in my animation being drawn and printed out (like in the above video), but having most of the things around them as being physical objects. I think there’s something quite magical and touching in the example video, something I would like to bring to my penguin animation. I think having the penguins as individually drawn puppets will give them more flowing movements and will also allow them to portray more emotion (instead of reusing some of the drawings, every single drawing would be slightly different). I sometimes feel that some stop motion only films lack the raw emotion that you can find in drawn animation. I would defiantly like to experiment with this particular style for this preproduction.

Storyboarding…

Before creating my storyboard I looked at few ‘how to’ videos, as I had never really made a real animation storyboard. I wasn’t very sure how detailed the storyboard needed to be and also how many different frames you would need for each key scene/movement. Watching tutorials on this helped me to gain a better understanding of this process.

I also made a storyboard Pinterest page so I could get some inspiration for what type of storyboard to create. A lot of the examples I found were pretty simple drawings which I didn’t really like. However, I found some more detailed examples which I think give a feel for the mood of the final animation. I have decided that I am going to try this more detailed approach when creating my storyboard, showing the overall atmosphere of my story. – eg dark and scary.

MY STORYBOARD –

1 – camera angled up at trees – dark colours, dusk time of day

For my storyboard I took the advice from the videos and Pinterest pages and decided to keep a grey and black colour palette. I used dark grey to shading and overall darkness. I used black to outline everything within each image, this to make each object stand out. I then used light grey for everything else. I liked this way of drawing as it make the story look tonal whilst also keeping it simple. In a few of the images where a lightbulb is present within the image, to show this I just a faint yellow/orange colour. This allowed me to create highlights and made it easy to differentiate between man made light and natural light.