After Effects induction 3

This was our third After Effects induction, this time looking at motion paths and more advanced key framing methods, which were all aspects of AE I had not previously worked on.

Concept artwork

As my idea is still pretty fresh and in it's early stages, I decided to do some silly sketches and doodles to help my visual ideas flow out with ease with less pressure for it to be 'perfect'. I had one page for sailor/fishermen concepts and a double page for bears. Although rough and raw I think these two images really show which direction my film is going in.

Equipment induction

Today we spent the morning learning how to set up different pieces of high-end equipment ready for our VFX production. Although I have worked with all of these pieces of equipment on set before, I have never learnt how to use them myself as usually I am working within the Art Department. 

It was great to get a good understanding of how to set it all up, but also how to use the equipment and overcome problems you may find along the way. After everything was set up we all had different roles in the production, with myself being one of the actors. As I was in front of the camera I didn't have any first hand experience with the equipment, but could look at what everyone else was doing whilst we weren't on film. 

Overall it was a really useful session, and I have definitely learnt a lot and feel more comfortable with how to work everything.

Initial discussion with Alex

After writing the long list of questions I need to ask myself and Alex to properly start the project off, I sent the list to him to have a read over. At first he answered the questions he was able to, which then led to a conversation afterwards.
 

Percy Pirate is aimed at children between the ages 2-5 (preschoolers), and isn’t directly aimed at boys but will naturally interest them more. We discussed this aspect and whether or not a female character needs to be developed to target girls separately in a different range of books. We both agreed that it doesn’t need to be gender specific, and we will ensure his unnamed crew will be a mixture of genders.
 

For this book the crew is made up of Percy, an unnamed pet parrot, the pirate captain and an unnamed crew of 6-7 others. When it snaps back to reality I asked Alex if the crew members are other children or if the characters are what Percy has made out of household objects or even imaginary friends, which Alex replied that they are other children who have come round to play out.
 

When talking about how we could make this more transmedia, we discussed creating a range of items which could be sold with the character branding. This also led to us discussing the possibility of more book in the series and different adventures they could take.

 

When we have a completed book, we have discussed looking to publishers at first to gage an interest, however if this does not seem possible we can then look into self-publishing. It is Alex’s vision that this would be a standard children’s book on any bookstores shelf and not a specialist collectors book. We discussed how we could make the book itself more interactive, by adding pop out and pull tab sections in the adventure aspects of the book, such as the actions “swinging” and “jumping.” He also would like the animation to go alongside the book in DVD format, which he would rather develop into a short series, which makes it more worthwhile to purchase. He gave the examples Peppa Pig and Pingu for animation DVD’s he would like us to go down the route of. This would be necessary as a DVD of the one animation alone would be a bit too small and unworthwhile for parents to buy, as it is hoped that each adventure lasts 2-5 minutes. If this didn’t work as we hoped, only then, would we post it on sights like Vimeo or Youtube.

 

We then discussed entering animation festivals to gain a global audience, and attending the Childrens Media Conference to gain a wider audience there too.
 

In relation to the format, Alex is most interested in having a book created, then an animation and if time then developed into an app. We agreed that the same style should be used across all three formats, which would make it easily identifiable and not too confusing for the children. Creatively Alex has given me full artistic license once we have confirmed the basic imagery. He has stated that he wants bright eye-catching colours, veering towards a hand drawn look rendered in pencil crayons and possibly a water wash, in full colour, with plenty of detail, not in a sketchy drawing style.

 

VFX Moodboard

Like my other modules, I have decided to make a design reference mood board looking into sailors, fishermen, bears, water, character design, tattoos, fish and other visual influences. The reason I use Pinterest for these mood boards is because it is so easy to see all of the images visually in one flowing display. Throughout this module I will keep adding to this board and refer back to it for inspiration.

http://www.pinterest.com/iambambiwillow/vfx-module/

Tattoos

For my fisherman/sailor character Ozzy has confirmed that he is happy to act for me. Which led me to thinking about how I want this character to look and act. I decided to go down the 'stereotypical' route but decided to push it to the maximum.

 

The first thing I wanted to look at was sailor tattoos, and spent an hour designing a range of my own. First I looked at different images of excising images and recreated them in my own style. I am really interested in blue ink and personally I feel this looks more aesthetically pleasing and links to the ocean more. I am really happy with my designs, and by creating my own rather than using other people's images, I think it adds more interesting detail and depth to my design and again adds to the hand-crafted look I am aiming for. I am also able to add humorous tattoos in too, such as the 'chips' crest.

 

I found this website about how I would make my own temporary tattoos from scratch. Although it sounds interesting, it seems a very time consuming method due to the amount I am wanting to create, plus it uses not so readily available resources which I would need to source from somewhere.
http://victoriacullen.typepad.com/queenwithoutacountry/2012/08/tattoo-you.html

As I am wanting lots of tattoos created, I was willing to get them all printed on transfer sheets you are able to purchase rather than getting them professionally printed as I simply don't have the budget to do that. I found this pack on Amazon, however it has really mixed reviews and I am sceptical whether this method would work at all, plus where I would actually be able to print them using this paper as I don't have my own printer and college is strict about using your own printing materials.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tattoo-Transfer-Paper-A4-Temporary/dp/B006ELY672

I also looked into other ways temporary 'tattoos' are made, which led me to thinking about henna tattoos, this is a much more drastic yet more permanent solution. I would not want my actor to have his skin stained for after the shoot and this would be a very last resort if any other method didn't work.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/TheRedHotShop-Beauty-Essentials-Mehndi-Henna/dp/B0050BIOC0/ref=sr_1_cc_3?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1382447300&sr=1-3-catcorr&keywords=henna+pen

This final method I found is definitely my first choice. It is basically a pen, almost like an eye liner, which you draw straight onto the skin and let it dry for a few minutes. I have read a few reviews where it doesn't stay on the skin longer than a day and washes off really easily, which is bad in their cases, but really useful for me.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stargazer-Semi-Permanent-Tattoo-Pen/dp/B003AWKM3K/ref=pd_sim_office_1

Here is a quick Google search into what some people have managed to produce using these pens, there aren't many results, and I have looked on other photo sharing platforms and found it difficult to find any different pictures. I am going to buy the pen myself and do some experimentation and see if it is smudge proof, which will be important if my actor is being thrown around as if on a boat.
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=stargazer+tattoo+pen&client=safari&rls=en&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=4EFkUvyjCuOQ1AXsvoHgDA&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ

Animation Documentaries

When I was looking for animation pre-production references I came across a great Pinterest account called Character Design References just as it first started out. Since then animators and illustrators all over the world religiously follow the accounts posts/pins and is considered one of the best collections of varying reference material. One of the boards is called Animation/Documentaries, which I hadn't previously looked at before, but the other day I noticed it again and decided to watch through a few of the videos they had on there. I ended up spending hours watching various different posts, and felt really inspired afterwards to animate and get better at animating. This is a really great link for any artist, and I am sure there is a video on there that everyone would relate to or be interested in, maybe that's just me being bias towards it though!

http://www.pinterest.com/characterdesigh/animation-documentaries/