The Prince of Egypt

The Prince of Egypt has been a big influence on my animation, especially in the backgrounds. I really wanted a painterly look for them and to lok all full of sand and dust. I also like the deliberately unrealistic style this film is drawn in, it makes it more memorable and interesting looking

Mocott

I've been looking at Mocott's artwork and I love the simplistic designs of all their characters. As soomeone who is, honestly  speaking, not that good at illustration I have a lot more appreciation to simple designs that look really nice. The combination of photographs and art looks really nice and is something that I would like to experiment with in the future.

the Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec

While looking for inspiration for my main character I came across a french film which features a female adventurer looking for Egyptian treasure, much like mine. This is great as it is perfect reference for my own character, one of the main reasons I chose to make the main character female is too often the role of a main action hero goes to men and not women, which is just a bit boring in my opinion. I am sure to take a lot if inspiration from Adèle Blanc-Sec

Night Light

Night Light from Qing Han on Vimeo.

I watched Qing Han's Night light quite a while a go and loved it, however recently I discovered they have produced a tutorial based on this short film. They explain the step-by step process of creating an animated short from initial design to the final animation. It's always interesting to see how other practitioners work and how it compares to my own work ethic.

William Gibbons

I recently discovered an illustrator and animator William Gibbons who does great work that I really enjoy. He uses colours really well and I love the simplistic designs of his characters. I would love to emulate this style of drawing but i fear tat I am not talented enough. Perhaps one dayI would be able to produce this kind of art for the characters in my own animation.

This Actually Happens a Lot

This Actually Happens A Lot from Tom Law on Vimeo.

This Cal Arts animation by Tom Law is really great and relatable. I particularly like the use of the sketchy and uneven lines. The animation makes use of boiling lines which is what I am using in my own animation, though to a smaller scale. I have chosen to make my animation with no dialogue but it is interesting to see an animation with a lot of dialogue and still work really well.

Oreos

Oreo Wonderfilled Anthem :90 from Martin Allais on Vimeo.

I just watched this truly inspired spot for Oreo's. It's a brilliant advert which genuinely makes me want to re watch it again and again. The music fits very well with the animation, which is something I want to emulate in my own animation I also really enjoy the simple illustrations used.

Nihonbashi Koukashita R Keikaku

Nihonbashi Koukashita R Keikaku from Takuya Hosogane on Vimeo.

I have recently seen this short music video produced by Takuya Hosogane and love it! The animation is gorgous and fits so well with the music. I am a ibg fan of mixing seemingly mundane talks with extraordinary things, which this music video does a lot. Despite an often low frame rate in the scenes it still feels like there is a lot of movement going on, As someone who is working on two's for my animation it would be useful to look into have I can give the illusion of faster movement in a lower frame rate.

Final Crit

The final Crit has been shown and I am very behind on work. To compensate I have been working on two's, keeping colours as simple as possible and leaving out sound effects.  Jess gave some very useful comments that will help.

Ryan - Awesome music, very fitting to the animation. It still seems like there is quite a lot to be done though. Going on the first little bit of animation it looks like the finished result will be very fluid. Although the rest of it was an animatic its nice to see how its coming along and its clear to see what is going on in the story despite it not being properly animated yet. Not sure if its just going to be the music that is already in the animatic or not but maybe it could be an idea to look into using cartoon sound effects for running / mummies groaning ect (The old Scooby Doo sound effects for example) I'm not sure what your transmedia work will be in this project but maybe think about designing a retro movie poster for your animation? Study the old Indiana Jones film posters / Star Wars ect.
So far it looks lovely, I really like the style of the animation (nice simplicity) and the story has a nice twist and is well thought through. Just try to get more of it animated fully if possible!

Music

Originally I had hoped that my Brother would help me produce the music for my animated short. Unfortunately he had to back out of the project due to being too busy. This caused me to panic a little as I didn't have a solid backup plan for music. I had been producing a mix of royalty free music in the event of having no original music for the shot, however this was not ideal.

Luckily while talking with friends over the internet, one of them offered to produce the music for me for free. This is extraordinarily lucky on my part as the deadlines are drawing much closer and I thought my chances of finding anyone willing to produce 150 seconds of music for free in such a short time span was slim. I will be in in constant contact with my new music producer to ensure the music will fit with the shot.

Animatic

Using the storyboard as a guide I have produced an animatic. This took a lot longer than I expected as the animatic had to fulfill three roles. Not only did it need to provide a guide for myself, it also needed to demonstrate the backgrounds needed for Lija, as such I had to redraw all of the shots to make the backgrounds more clearer. I also put up some example music over the animatic so that when I hand it over to the music guy, he has a good idea of what tone I want for each shot.

Storyboards

I have produced a simple storyboard that will help me estimate the timings and camera movements of each shot. I originally started working in the animatic first, however I quickly realised that it would be a lot easier if I created the storyboard first, then produced the animatic. It is important to follow the order than professional practitioners follow as it will prepare me for work outside of college.

Background art

I have decided to collaborate with Lija Jursins to help produce background art for my animation. Background have always been a weakness of mine and I wanted to have decent looking backgrounds for my responsive piece. Often old cartoons would have nice painted looking backgrounds while the characters were animated on cels, that is something that I would like to emulate.

I have offered to help IN lija's filming project in return for the background she is producing for me.

Initial designs

iI ave produced some initial designs for my animation, right now theres are pretty rough but they are a good indicator of what  want for my animation. Hopefully I can expand my drawing style for the final animation, though I may not be able to due to time contraints.

Mind Maps

I collected various images for my animation, looking into locations, Mummies and adventurer a have archetypes to help identify what I want. My animation will definitely involve a lot of neutral colours with the amount of sands and browns involved in the locations. I also want the mummies to look fairly menacing but also quite comical, much like the zombies in Paranorman. For the main character I have decided to make it female, as the archetype is genrerally dominated by male characters I wanted to buck the trend a little.

Interim Crit

Today I showed what work I had done for the responsive brief. I explained to the group that I wanted to create a small 2-D film around 2 minutes in length based on an adventurer exploring an Egyptian tomb. I showed off some of my moodboards for location, the main explorer character and for the Mummy's. I showed off a very rough synopsis of my story in the form of small doodles and I showed off some basic concept sketches for the main character, Mummy's and the location.

One of the main piece of feedback I got was the concern for time. 2 minutes is a long time for frame-by frame animation and that I might struggle to hit the deadline with it. It is definitely going to be intensive   to work on but I thing I will be able to pull it off, so long as my pre-production is finished smoothly and quickly. I have been working with Flash for over 5 years now and I've been able to refine my workflow very well. I understand my pace and I feel that i'll be able to finish it in time. Should it look like I am unable to finish it, I will keep the animation on 2's instead of full 24 FPS animation.

another piece of feedback I received is my backgrounds are a bit lackluster. Obviously this is a very early sketch to just give an idea however I do know where my weaknesses are. I have already asked for help from Lija Jursins for background drawings. In return I will help her in her film project.

I was complimented on my designs for the Mummy's and was suggested to look into Hotel Transylvania for interesting Mummy designs. What I need to work on more in my designs for the main character. Right now I feel that she is too simple looking, I need to look into more realistic proportions and head shapes for the actual animation.

FInally there was some concern about the sound design of my animation. I want the music to match what is happening I the film like a proper soundtrack. Since I have no experience in creating music I will need to look for someone else to produce it. I am planning to create a poster and post it to the local Music College, however that is not a guarantee of acquiring music. if push coms to shove I can commission music online, though my budget is quite small.