In the final presentation, I finished almost the whole animation and I showed it to my tutors. This time I got more advanced suggestions which I had never thought before.
Firstly, there were still some timing problem during the tracing. I need to adjusted the timing and pacing slightly. The second point suggested by Su-Lynn was about the twinkles I had in my animation. She said it was common and general in lots of animation works. I need to develop my style of showing this. This was really a new concept for me and I was stuck by this idea for a while. What is my style? What can I do to make it special and different with others? These questions actually have bothered me for a long time in illustrations and now I meet them in my animation again. However, when I was thinking about this, I got some ideas. Finally, I also got some advice on the zooming and light direction in the background. There were more techniques I could try to make my animation clearer and convey the message more obvious. Here are my notes:
- Try my best to develop some special twinkles by myself to show my style.
- Finish the animation and do the credits
- Try lighting and zooming if I can.
Music part
“As soon as I saw the animation, I intended for the music to be light-hearted but tense at the same time. I used pizzicato strings to create a comical atmosphere, quickly followed by string tremolos to create suspense. The pizzicato bass line compliments the rhythmic ride cymbal. The music then changes mood slightly as we enter a more ‘battle-like’ theme when the main character begins following her target more quickly. Here, I added some cinematic drums, forming the foundation of this section. The next section is signified by a snare roll where we hear a more ‘victorious’ theme. This is arguably the climax of the composition, where the character in the animation completes her drawing. This is then met with an ironic silence, highlighting the sound design used in the piece. Overall, the process of writing the music for this project was extremely straightforward and the animation helped me come up with various different ideas, motifs and moods.”———from Euan Su.(Music composer)
Conclusion
Overall, I finished my work on time and received lots of feedback from my friends. This journey was so challenging but also interesting. I have learned a lot and I want to do reflection in three categories.
First of all, the technical issues. This time, I knew that the time was limited and I was not confident about my speed of drawing by using the tablet. As a result, I used IPAD and my main softwares were Callipeg and Procreate. They were really good and supported me to finish the work smoothly. However, there were still lots of limits on advanced functions like zooming and lighting which were essential for my work this time. In this way, I want to practice drawing with tablet more and learn about the softwares in the holiday. In the future, I need to cooperate with others and use the same softwares together. Secondly, the schedule issues. I was especially satisfied with my schedule and plan of the work for this project. According to the experience in Guildhall project, I realised that good schedule could avoided waste of time and made the storyline better. I spent almost a month to do the research and writing my stories. As soon as the final version was decided, I made a clear work sheet and followed the plan strictly. In this way, I completed the line up and the colouring quickly and smoothly and it was the key reason I finished work on time. In the future, I hope I can keep this habit and work systematically. The third point is about cooperation and communication. Although I worked solo this time, I still got lots of support from others and they were necessary in my projects. I showed my work to others frequently, because I thought my target audience was all people in the society. Then my classmates helped me to think about the plots together and told me their experience of sketching. My tutors also gave me lots of hints and questions which lead me to discover and complete my style and my story.My composer was really talented and he supported my project actively. I really appreciated everyone who had supported me in this project. I will continue to communicate more with different people to discover more perspectives and I will support others’ work too.
When I started learning animation, basic drawing skills and animation principles are the most important also the only thing in my mind. When I finished the Guildhall project and also this exploratory project, I found that there are much more stuff I need to considered in an animation. It is totally different with illustration and I really learned a lot. I will keep working, practicing and never forget what I learned this time.