The Final Crit

This is the video I presented to my class today:



The feedback I received was generally good, with a few suggestions to make it better:

They thought it was good that I had done further research after the interim crit to lead me to this outcome.
I need to find and add audio - I explained that I thought sound effects would be the best way to communicate what's happening
They suggested that I add noise representing the cloud; such as a lot of voices in a crowd shouting insults at him.
The cloud could contain images or words flashing up (to show that the cloud is his thoughts and worries following him) It should also look more like a cloud rather then squiggly lines.
I should make the ChildLine logo at the end neater or draw it myself to fit to the style of the animation.

It definitely seemed to have an effect on everyone who saw it, so I must have used the right body language, colour scheme and words to get across the sad story.

Progress - The Second Half Of My Animation

I have made a lot of progress in the past few weeks;
This is part of my walk cycle, animated with the cloud that will be following the character:



I think I have executed the body language well, implying that my character is sad and plodding along slowly.
To give it a finished look, I added colour to the character, removed the circles on the knees and added clothes. I will need to add the facial features to complete the look.
I will also add a background, so that the viewers know where the character is walking.

Scene 5

Scene 6 is the character back in his room, stood as he gives a big sigh; the bump on his chest in the first photo is supposed to represent this.
Apart from that, the main action in this scene is the cloud floating above him, then moving off the right of the screen. The movement is consistent and flickery, which is the look I was going for.
Now I just need to add his eyes, which will hopefully show the sadness I'm trying to get across.

Scene 6

Scene 6

Scene 7 is the final part of the story - the suicide. To pull this off, I decided to have the cloud do the action, which represents the characters thoughts as his depression is tempting him towards committing suicide.

I think it moves quite well, and smoothly, as it twists around the rope.

Scene 7

Scene 7 - The cloud floats around through the noose and back to the top left of the screen

Scene 7 - The character fades out, representing the end of his life

 After the scene fades out, a series of texts will fade in and out of the screen:

A fact I found on their website
I thought it would be more believable if the viewers can see actual figures

I chose these words because I thought it was the simplest way to explain to viewers who may be going through this situation that they can talk to someone about their problems/worries, and that it doesn't have to end in suicide.

I thought a black background would represent death and how serious this situation is, and thought it would go nicely with the rest of my grey-scale animation.

Now that I have filled the 40 second limit, I can go back over my animation and add the final feature, change a few mistakes and have it ready for the Interim Crit on the 28th April.

Reference Material - Walk Cycle

To animate my walk cycle, I needed to look at how a sad walk cycle should look, so I found this:


Sad, Slow Walk Cycle from Lindsey Bunish on Vimeo.

Observing the body language, I can see the head and top half of the body are very weighed down, causing the legs and feet to stay close to the ground as they move.
There isn't a lot of difference in the height of the person throughout the movement, just a small bobbing action.
The back is arced, which is what is causing everything else to move in a lower position.
The foot flicks back slightly as one is lifted off the ground and moving forward into the next step, which suggests the toes stay glued to the ground as long as possible, suggesting the person is slightly reluctant to move.
The arms swing slowly in time with the legs, giving the whole body a slow momentum and allowing the audience to follow the pace more fluently.

After watching this video, I will take these points and try to apply them to my animation, to portray the fact that my character is sad/depressed.

Progress So Far...

After completing the backgrounds, I was able to start animating! Firstly, I drew in the keyframes on top of the backgrounds:

The first scene contains the alarm clock buzzing, signalling the start of the day. At first, I struggled to tackle the issue of how the alarm would be switched off (since it switching off by itself doesn't make sense) and fitting my character into the original frame I drew proved to be difficult.

My original visualisation of scene 1

I realised it would be better to emphasise the clock, so making it larger on the screen seemed to be the best idea; It also solves my issue of fitting my character into the picture, since now I can just have a close up of his hand hitting the clock.

Scene 1

Scene 2 proved to be easier to animate, since it only took a few frames to complete the arm action.

Scene 2

After doing this, I animated the cloud above his head. I visualised it moving quickly and moving at the same pace throughout the film, so I drew in a few frames and experimented with the speed at which it moves on the timeline. I ended up concluding that having it span across 3 frames (at 24 fps) had it moving at the best speed.

Scene 2 cloud timeline

It took me a while to get scene 3 right; I wanted it to look heavy and slow, as if he is reluctant to walk down the stairs. I thought the best way to do this was to exaggerate his actions; the first frame is the highest point during a sigh. I wanted to show that he is taking a really deep breath, so extending his chest was the more obvious way to do this.

Scene 3

After getting the exaggeration, I had to make him move. At first I thought putting in lots of steps would be the best way to slow him down - but that would mean using more frames.
Instead it was suggested to me by my classmate that I just put in a few steps that he plods down on heavily, and pause on every step.
This proved to make the action clearer and simpler, yet it looked better.

Scene 3

For scenes 4 & 5, I wanted to use the same character drawings for both scenes, because one background fades into the other:

Scenes 4 & 5 merged together

I realised after drawing my character in the right place between both scenes, the door was too low down, giving the impression that my character is very tall. So I selected and enlarged the door and windows of background 4 to make it look like this (underneath):

Scene 4 with the door enlarged

After this I added in him sighing, but timed it between the fading in-and-out of the two scenes, to make the animation flow better.

Overall, I think my animation is going well. After cutting out a few scenes from my original storyboard it has made it a lot easier to slow down the movements, which work better with the theme of the story.