[LECTURE] Lecture 1 - Clare Norcross

Claire Norcross has been connected to the University of Central Lancashire for the past 15 years, who was teaching Textiles and various Tech courses.  Currently she is a freelance designer located in Preston, she had done a variety of trade shows, created her own business, done work for commercial designers for high street stores, had her designs licensed and works directly with manufactures through her freelance work.

She is inspired by the natural world, which she states is “organic in their form”, however, she is not always visually or directly influenced. When she is working, she looks for materials or techniques which she can translate her inspiration into a product. For example; her lighting piece Aperture was inspired by the nature of a pinecone which can open and close according to the conditions it’s in, similarly, you can open and close each aperture to focus light and create a variety of effects. She was not only inspired by the pinecone however, but also by a frame she bought at a sale which was made using discarded cigarette packets. The product was created using paper, however, she doesn’t work solely in one material. The product was well developed, it changed from one idea to another until finally ending up with the Aperture.

One of the main things Claire Norcross wanted to get across was to “know your context” when designing a product. Claire then explained about another product, Eight-fifty a lamp made from recycled cable ties. Claire showed this design to a company known as Ferrious, a furniture design company located in Manchester (although now they have moved onto retail). Ferrious designed the base to the lamp, whereas Claire provided the shade. It was then presented at the 100% Design in 1999, although the lamp came runner-up she did received an award from Blueprint magazine. The press she got after exhibiting the light was great and the lamp was permanently included in collections such as the Conran Collection at the Design Museum and the Made in Manchester Galleries at Manchester Art Galleries. One problem she faced however, because of the actual design, it appealed to a much younger audience as it was a fun product. But as the lamp was selling for £385.00 and young people couldn’t afford it, the product ground to a halt as to where it was going to sell. More so, Claire was only receiving £85.00 of the money. This was a key moment in her practice, she learnt that she should know her customers, and know her context.

Her previous products were winning many competitions and getting a lot of press, however they were not selling because of the price. By working with a new company Habitat, Claire then designed a new version of the light which wasn’t nearly as costly to create. They sold hundreds of these lights and it was featured weekly in newspapers and magazines, she didn’t however get loads of money, but she did in fact get a large amount of press, be that on the side of Lorries and Buses, or just in Newspapers and magazines. Soon she was labelled as a lighting designer, she states that “it’s kinda been organic the way things have happened.”

I wont delve too much into what else was said here, but I will explain how I have been influenced by her work during my research assignment at a later date.

[PRODUCTION] Week 4 - Finishing the Rough for Scene 2

Scene 2 is a tricky scene, it only consists of 2 shots; one which consists of Max waving the Old Animator goodbye, and the second shot which flies through time as the room gets more filled with animation paper and various other nick-nacks. The thing that is so difficult is that I have to get everything in this shot perfected, or else I wont be able to carry on to Scene 3. This is because I need to figure out where each piece of animation paper is located on the wall, and which drawing will be on each sheet of animation paper, or else i'll have to do double the work by adding them to scene 3 at a later date.

I am currently in a slight struggle with myself over what I should be putting onto the animation paper, as I don't want anything to clash with Max the Cat once he runs from sheet to sheet, but I also don't want it to be bare. Back to week 4 however, I have finished the roughs for scene 2, all that is left to add to it is where the Old Animator will appear, and what drawings will actually be on the animation paper.

I am still ahead of the schedule, even with the week off which is a good sign. I feel like I can successfully get back on track and start plowing through shots of the animation.

[PERSONAL] Everybody can draw - The Concept

Now that I am well underway with scene 2 of the animations, I have realized that I need to create a number of drawings to fill the walls of the animation room. The front wall alone has roughly 30 sheets of animation paper in it which needs filling. I have thought about what to place in these walls for a while now, as they will feature throughout the animation, I toyed with the idea that it would be lots of different animated loops of characters and animation tests, but I feel that will be far too time consuming. I then typed with the idea of having the characters on the sheet of paper come alive only when Max is on that sheet of paper, but again, I feel that this wouldn't come across right in the final video. However, I have now thought of a way to not only fill the walls with drawings, but also get a message across to my audience; everybody can draw a picture for the wall.

The concept is simple; I ask around 50 people or so to draw me a single drawing, be this a character, a background, or just a doodle of a flower, as long as the idea is original and not an already existing character, I will use it. This will not only save me time, and let people join in with me in this animation experience, but it also allows me to put across a new message: everybody can draw. The whole idea which inspired When Dreams Became Data is that there aren't any 2D animations in mainstream cinema, I want to show that 2D traditional drawings are relatable to everyone, as everyone has the capability to draw, be that draw well or not.

It is only a concept so far, and I will look into it further and see how viable it actually is, but if it all goes smoothly then I will have all the drawings I need for the walls, anyone can have there drawings in my animation and a message will get across that anybody can draw.

[RESEARCH] Animation Contacts

As stated previously, I am wanting to contact a variety of different Flash Animators and ask them a variety of different questions depending on their current animation situations. I do not expect a reply from all of the people I make contact in, as I have currently accumulated roughly 40 different flash animators who I could contact, these include: Pearl Zhang, Max Gilardi, Harry Partridge, Paul Ter Voorde, Chris O'Neill, Anthony Price, Jonathan Gran, Arin Hansen, Josh Palmer and Yotam Perel to name a few (The user icons for each of these animators are located around this page in the order written).

Many animators who use the Internet as their platform for animation often use alias', this could be for a variety of reasons; to make them stand out more, to hide their identity, or maybe even to separate their online life to their personal life. However, because of this it makes it difficult to actually make contact with these people, as they usually don't want to be bombarded with spam emails or fans of their work.

I hope that out of the 40 contacts I have collected, atleast 10 reply, as I want to be able to compare the answers to one and other and see if there are any patterns before I delve into the essay. I am still figuring out what questions would aid me throughout this project, as well as the overall question to put them under.

I will contact these animators in a variety of ways, if I can get their email address' then this will be the main way I will contact them, however I will also send them messages through Tumblr, Twitter, YouTube and Facebook asking if I would be able to send them a brief questionnaire.

[PERSONAL] The New Reflective Journal; Blurb

Blurb is a self-publishing platform which allows it's users to create and sell their own books, be that ebook or actual print through websites like Amazon. Blurb is interesting, as it is not only allows you to create books through their website, but also offers downloadable software in order to make it easier if there is no internet connection, or if you just find it easier to use software of your own, these software include; 

• BookWright
• Adobe InDesign Plug-in
• Booksmart

The service also allows people to upload PDF files to create their desired books.

The service for me is a fantastic concept, after using the software very briefly I felt it easy to use and wrap my head around. I will opt for using the BookWright software rather than the actual Blrub book creation tool as I felt you had more freedom in this software, I am not too up to scratch with InDesign as of late, however because I will be creating my poster using InDesign I will need to get my skills back up to standard. The book I want to create will feature almost everything in this blog, however it will be much more organised and written more professionally, as it wont be me just speaking my mind or how I am feeling in that moment. The book will feature everything from the inspiration, to the pre-production, to the concept-art to the actual production. As I haven't finished the production or the post-production, I will be updating the book as often as I can, as well as the blogger itself. Also, as you may have noticed, I have created labels for all of my posts, to ease access around the blog and find what information goes where.

[PRACTICE] Updated Schedule

I have updated the production schedule from the last version as I felt that there wasn't enough information in regards to Max's scenes, as I feel that they need to have their own scheduling due to the time it takes to actually animate it. I also felt that it'd be easier if I added an easier to understand Key at the top with more colours than before to show more variation in where I am with that scene. You'll also notice that there is a tally at the top of the schedule as well,  this is for me to acknowledge how many scenes I have done in total and how many scenes I have left to do.

To view the updated schedule, click here.

As I said in a previous post, the production has slowed down a lot as no animation was produced last week, so there will be a gap in the actual schedule, however, as long as I finish at least one more scene during this week, i'll be right on track with the schedule.

[RESEARCH] Research Question

Now that Research 1 is marked and I have received the feedback, I will begin the second essay I need to write, however, to do this I first need to think of a research question. I know what I want my question to revolve around; 'Adobe Flash', however I am not sure what it is exactly I am wanting to ask. There are many different things I could research; Can people make a living using Adobe Flash as their main source of animation freelance software? Is Adobe Flash a viable form of animation software for mainstream film? How has Adobe Flash helped independent animators get into the industry?

There are a few different routes I could go down with this question, however I will be contacting various animators from around the web who primarily use Flash Animation as their main medium of animation. I will be asking questions about how Adobe Flash has influenced their animation life, questions such as:

• What inspired you to get into animation?
• What did you start using when you started off animating?
• What was your big breakthrough?
• Where do you publish your work, for what reason?
• Can you make a living with freelance animation work?
• What makes a good animation portfolio and/or reel?
• What would you recommend to amateur animators who are wanting to get out in the field and wanting to get known?

I will be asking these questions plus a couple more, depending on their situation, as some animators may have animation studios, they may be part of a community or they might just be independent animators who use animation as their freelance job. I will continue to think of my overall question, as I am hoping to collect a variety of different possible contacts to contact over the next few weeks.

[PRODUCTION] Week 3 - Burning out and the Revival

Between the 16/01/2017 and the 22/01/2017, I intended to do a few more scenes in the animation, this includes the majority of scene 2. However, this week I found it difficult to get in to the mind set of work. I believe this is because I never gave myself a proper break once I submitted my Practice 1, I jumped right back into production. I was concerned about the work that I submitted to be marked and I feel that this played a big part on my work ethic for this week. However, after a week of no animation and now that I have received the feedback from my work, I feel like I can jump right back into the production of the animation.

I think I needed this break, as I now feel confident to continue the production of the film. I will continue to produce the animation to the standard I want to, I will begin to create more digital backgrounds for scene 2 and try to get the traditional shots for scene 2 out of the way this week. I have not fallen behind schedule because of this break, as I was ahead anyway, this means that I do not need to do any extra work to catch up.

[PERSONAL] 20/01/2017 Presentation and Feedback

On the 20/01/2017 I saw my university lecturers for the first time in the New Year, this was to obtain feedback from both the work I have submitted and for the work I am currently working on right now. However, today was slightly different than the other times I have presented my work, as rather than present it in front of all my peers, I instead only presented it in front of one lecturer.

20/01/2017 - When Dreams Became Data - Presentation from Jack Alexander Gray

The feedback from the work I submitted for my Practice 1 was extremely positive, it focused mainly on my; attention to detail, the amount of work showing the development of my film, how quickly my production is coming along and the standard of work. There were a few things that were mentioned such as:

• Some evidence or transition to show that time has passed between the old and the new animator. Does the room looks shabbier? Is it dusty so that the new animator has to wipe the cobwebs away? The scene needs a little bit more work to make it clear. 
• Take the words off the animator so that you can see how clearly the scene works without the words in the animatic.

These are some things that I can work on before the next hand-in for my work.

Aside from the feedback from my hand-in, I also received feedback on the work I am currently animating. I have shown my lecturer Week 1 and 2 of my animation, and the reaction is positive, mainly about how well the transition between the digital animation and the traditional animation work. I was also praised on having a production schedule that I am working to, which is a positive reaction. I will continue to create the standard of work and continue to update my reflective journal for any information I can give about my project.

[PRODUCTION] Week 2 - Traditional Animation Starts

Week two has been much more of a challenge than week one, as during this week I have not only continued the animation process to get 11 shots done, which is all of scene 1, but I have also done a shot using the light-box aswell. The scenes I completed this week weren't too hard, they were fairly simple to complete, colouring in a few of the previous scenes however proved a fairly difficult task. This week I have learnt that because I am only animating the outline first and colouring in later, when it comes to colouring I have to break each part of the body apart. When I do this, I cannot edit the character nearly as easy, making it a one time deal, once the character has been broken up, the character will stay in that position. If there is an in-between that looks out after this, it'll just have to stay that way unless I draw the character all over again and reanimate the shot.

Animating Max the Cat, as stated in a previous post, also proved to be a difficult task. The finished outcome isn't the best thing I could have done, but I am particularly proud of how he jumps up at the very end of his shot, I feel that this is the smoothest piece of traditional animation in these six seconds of screen time.

Overall, I feel that I am making good progress, I have completed 11 shots out of the six I should have done, so I am just under double the amount I should have done. I will probably slow down the animation process from here on, as I don't want to burn myself out too quickly, these next shots also require alot of traditional animation, so it'll take time for me to animate these in contrast to the previous shots.

[INSPIRATION] Max Fleischer's Betty Boop

Max Fleischer is a pioneer in animation, particularly rubber-hose animation. Now I have mentioned Max Fleischer alot throughout this blog, however I have never really specifically talked about any cartoons in particular. Fleischer created a handful of wacky and crazy characters full of life, and in my opinion, one of the least wacky and crazy character he made, Betty Boop, is him most famous character. Betty Boop has a lot of history around her than any other Fleischer character, aside from Popeye the Sailor Man, the thing with Betty Boop is it caused controversy in many different ways; she had a lawsuit against her, she was the first cartoon sex symbol in a show whose demographic were children and she was affected greatly by the Production Code of 1934 which restricted sexualised  content and innuendos. 

Now, as you may have noticed, I don't feel that Betty is the wackiest and craziest characters Fleischer has ever created, nor do I feel that she has an appealing design, however, she does have a very specific animation design which is works well with no other character than her, however, the thing I want to talk about specifically isn't even Betty Boop herself, it's actually the characters in her universe.

Because of the stories that the Betty Boop cartoons follow, she almost always has a different character with her in every episode, she is never seen as a one woman act. More often than not, the characters that are featured in these episodes are usually incredibly active, and energetic and just downright funny, to contrast the milk toast humor of Betty herself. Wiffle Piffle is one of the characters and appears in two Betty Boop episodes, he is a short, well-dressed but odd-looking character whose animation is very interesting to look at, his entire body just sort of flails, a perfect example of a rubber-hose character. Another example would be Irving, a practical joker who just wants to prank people, however with his lanky body shape, he is a very rubbery character who usually just waves his arms around and around, he is another great example of a very bouncy and free character.

Overall, the Betty Boop cartoons are fun to watch, but not for Betty herself. She is the reason these characters all work though, it's like two binary opposites, usually Betty does not want these characters around and has to deal with them. I think it's interesting what max Fleischer did with the Betty Boop cartoons, intentional or not, I feel that the fact that these episodes consist of a character who isn't that bouncy and a character who is the definition of a rubber-hose character works nicely.

[PRACTICE] Max the Cat's First Shot

Overall, there are 37 different traditionally animated shots, each of course are all centered around Max the Cat, the only character in my animation who is animated using a traditional medium. Now with this in mind, I have never animated using a light-box, aside from the odd animation test, so this proved to be a real challenge, taking a total of 7 hours to complete 6 seconds of footage, below you can see the final outcome:

I feel that I could have done this better, however the final shot where he bounces up to me feels very spot on, and exactly what I wanted to achieve. There were many issues when creating this 6 second clip, the main issue was the fact that I had to get used to it not being a computer. The amount of times I made a mistake and I went to press Ctrl + Z were too many to count, not to mention the frustration of not being able to move the head slightly with 2 clicks of a mouse, instead having to draw it out all over again, but with a slight head change. 

With all these in mind, it was a nice wake up call in a very strange way, animators including myself, are used to tricks and cheats in order to get what they want. I could have done around 2 shots of the old animator in the time it took me to animate this 6 second clip, however, regardless of how many mistakes there were and how rough it looks, I am still incredibly pleased with the outcome, considering the lack of experience I have had using a light-box. I may attempt to create a traditionally animated shot every week, however this may prove difficult considering how long they take to animate, what is more distressing is the fact that I have only allocated 34 weeks to animate everything, and there are 37 different shots, I may need to think of a plan to animate these scenes, or else I fear it will all come crashing down towards the end.

[BOOK] The Animators Survival Kit

The Animators Survival Kit is one of the first animation books I ever bought back in 2012, it was incredibly useful to me back then when I was getting my feet with animation, and to this day it continues to be a huge help. The book is quite possibly the best source for animation references I or anyone could ask for, it has a vast amount of walk-cycle examples, expression and lip-syncing techniques and how weight can affect these characters. The author of the book, Richard Williams, who was the animation director for Who Framed Roger Rabbit gives incredible insight into animation as a whole.

The best thing about the book, by far, are the walk-cycle examples. I would not even know where to begin with a walk-cycle without this book, it has over 100 pages dedicated to different variations of walk-cycles, run-cycles, jog, sprint and skip-cycles. These references will be incredibly useful now that I am in production of When Dreams Became Data, as particularly for Max the Cat, there are a good few walk and run-cycles located throughout the animation. Even as I read through the book now, 5 years after purchasing it, I have learnt something new which will greatly improve the traditional animation process, using animation charts to see where each movement will be on the animation paper.

Out of all the books I have purchased, along with The Illusion of Life, I cannot recommend it enough and I consider it one of the best books I own. It is insightful and tailored towards animators who already have the base knowledge of animation, most animation books or "how to animate" books are usually tailored towards people just starting out in animation, or people who have just taken interest, this book is certainly not that, it is written as if to help animators who understand the concept and principles of animation and make their lives so much easier.

"Many cartoonists and animators say that the very reason they do cartoons is to get away from realism and the realistic world into the free realms of the imagination. They'll correctly point out that most cartoon animals don't look like animals - they're designs, mental constructions. Mickey ain't no mouse, Sylvester ain't no cat."

[PRODUCTION] Week 1 - Getting started

Since the 02/01/2017 I have been in production of When Dream Became Data, as stated before, I have estimated that I will need to do atleast 3 shots a week in order to make the deadline I have set for myself, the total shots I have done this week however are 7, so just over double the amount I had previously set. One of the things you may notice while watching this is that the character 'The Old Animator' is drawn very roughly, this is a conscious decision as I want to do all the colouring and in-between animation at the very end of the production, there is also a shot of Max the Cat which requires animation, however, due to location circumstances I haven't been able to use my light-box do do any scenes where he is animated. Animating Max the Cat will become a number one priority in due time, as previously stated, I feel his scenes will be the most difficult to actually animate.

I had a problem with one of the shots, that being shot 5, the second shot where we see the Animator drawing Max the Cat, this was because I had previously broke the groups of the hand after the first shot of the animator drawing Max, so I had to redraw and regroup the hand, making it slightly different the the first shot, however I don't think it is massively noticeable.

I am very happy with the progress I have made this week, I feel that if I can keep this up I will have the animation done in no time, I still need to factor in the 'Max the Cat' scenes and the 'Clay Animation' shot, because of this I need to do more than intended during each week, however I feel like this is going to be achievable.

[REFERENCE] Sitting Down Reference

As I am currently animating When Dreams Became Data, I feel that having visual references will help me greatly when animating the human characters. I took a few videos of me acting out the second shot, as I wanted to make sure I get it right; pushing a chair into the shot and sitting down, below is the video I took:

After studying the reference videos, I decided to jump in and begin animating, it took a couple of days, but I feel I successfully captured a realistic sit down motion. Below you can watch the clip where I animated the above shot:

I will continue to record a variety of shots if I feel they will be difficult to animate without a reference, this will aid my animation process as well as speed up the time it'd take to animate.

[PRODUCTION] Max the Cat; on screen shots

While creating my Scene and Shot list, I noticed that in some scenes, I would need to draw using the Light-box, so rather than have everything in one file, I wanted to create two separate files, one which has every scene and shot, and this one which has every shot where Max appears on screen using the light-box. I still use the Scene and Shot lists order, but now because of this list I know how many different scenes I need to draw using the light-box, this will be very helpful when I begin to create shots using the light-box, as I feel that these scenes will be the most time consuming and the most difficult to animate. Below is every shot where Max the Cat is animated using a Light-box:

Scene 01: Max moves from his standard position, checks his left arm, then his right arm, then raises them both and smiles at the camera.
Shot 10

Scene 01: Max is placed upon the wall, he looks confused so he checks his surroundings, looking left and right.
Shot 12

Scene 02: Max waves at the old animator exiting the room, he slowly lowers his hand and smiles to himself. He then happily enters his standard position. Once the shot has entered 02, he lowers his arm and looks left, then right, then he starts to look sad and lowers his head.
Shot 01 & 02

Scene 03: Max moves from his standard position, pressing his hands onto the animation paper, he looks slightly to the right, then his eyes fall down as if he is following something.
Shot 08

Scene 03: Max is trying to look at what the animator is drawing, he is trying to peek over, he looks in every direction he can to see what the animator is drawing.
Shot 12

Scene 04: Max still in his standard position, moves his eyes slightly following the animator until he leaves, he then rubs his head, confused and curious at the drawing
Shot 01

Scene 04: Max runs to the left of the animation paper off it
Shot 02

Scene 04: Max from the right hand side of the animation paper, when he reaches the centre of the paper he crouches down and jumps down into the second sheet of animation paper.
Shot 02

Scene 04: Max falls down onto the sheet of animation paper, he then lands squashing down and springs back up, he turns back looking right, as he can finally see May the Cat
Shot 02

Scene 04: Max continues to have his hands pressed against the animation paper with an open mouth, he then smiles happily, continuing to press his hands on the animation paper.
Shot 03

Scene 04: Max smiles and waves at May eagerly.
Shot 04

Scene 04: Max stops waving and runs to the right of the animation paper off the sheet.
Shot 06

Scene 04: Max runs to in from the left hand side of the animation paper and turns back to face May
Shot 06

Scene 04: Max smiles at May and grabs his head, he then pops it off and pulls his hand up and off the sheet of animation paper.
Shot 07

Scene 04: Max’s head emerges on the next animation paper next to a vase with a flower on it, he bites the flower and his arm springs back down, his head follows shortly after.
Shot 08

Scene 04: Max’s arm springs back to a regular size, and his head comes flying down, back onto his body, he then raises his arms in a ‘ta-da’ fashion.
Shot 09

Scene 04: Max smiles and slowly melts into the sheet of animation paper, leaving behind a puddle, a small heart emerges from the puddle. He then leaps back out of the puddle and smiles back at May the Cat.
Shot 11 & 13

Scene 04: Max smiles and slowly places his hand on the sheet of animation paper, he then realises he cannot reach her, grabs his hand while looking down, is expression is very sad.
Shot 15 & 16

Scene 05: Max is taken aback by the young animators entrance and bounces up.
Shot 02

Scene 05: Max bounces up from the bottom of the sheet of animation paper and right back into the standard position
Shot 03

Scene 06: Max slowly moves from his original position, and presses his hands onto the animation paper, he then quickly moves and begins to run to the left of the sheet of animation paper.
Shot 01 & 02

Scene 06: Max runs across the sheet of animation paper, right to left and leaps into the next sheet of animation paper.
Shot 02

Scene 06: Max lands onto the other sheet of animation paper and runs right to left off the sheet.
Shot 02

Scene 06: Max runs across the sheet of animation paper, right to left off the sheet.
Shot 02

Scene 06: Run cycle of Max the Cat
Shot 03

Scene 06: Max runs from the right of a sheet of animation paper, then leaps down to the bottom left of the sheet of animation paper
Shot 04

Scene 06: Max is leaping down from the top right of the sheet of animation paper, lands and continues to run, then leaps down to the bottom left of the sheet of animation paper.
Shot 04

Scene 06: Max is leaping down from the top right of the sheet of animation paper, lands and continues to run until he runs off the sheet of animation paper.
Shot 04

Scene 06: Max runs across the whiteboard he slows down slightly and looks around, before carrying on to reach the edge of the whiteboard.
Shot 04

Scene 06: Max runs across the sheet of animation paper, from right to left
Shot 04

Scene 06: Max drops down a little bit but carries on running from right to left
Shot 04

Scene 06: Run cycle of Max running from a front view
Shot 05

Scene 06: Max runs across the sheet of animation paper before coming to a quick stop, just short of the centre of the page. He is curious at the projection but slowly enters the other half of the animation paper, he raises his hands up in a ‘ta-ta’ pose, then carries on running left of the sheet of paper.
Shot 06 & 07

Scene 06: Max runs into the middle of the sheet of animation paper, he stops still. When May enters he looks at her, and a big grin comes to his face
Shot 08 & 09

Scene 06: His big grin turns into a small smile, he then reaches his hand out to her hand
Shot 11

Scene 06: Max’s hand reaches May’s hand, and they finally shake hands.
Shot 13 & 14

Scene 07: Max is in his standard position, however he is now holding hands with May the Cat.
Shot 03

[PRACTICE] Max the Cat Drawings

I have done many different traditional drawings of Max the Cat, as I will be animating Max using a traditional medium, however I want to try and draw him using digital techniques similar to what I would use to animate and draw the other characters in the animation, to see what he would look like. As I have previously scanned the sketchbook I now have all my drawings digitally, because of this it was very easy to decide which drawings I wanted to draw digitally, below are the few I drew using Adobe Flash:

As you can see, I used the same colours as the original digital drawing from a previous post. I used some of my favourite poses; the pose where Max has both arms in the air, and the pose where Max is sitting down. Now that I am starting the production of my animation, I want to keep drawing Max in a variety of poses, as I want him to be as un-solid as possible, I want him to be very animated in the animation, more so than all the other characters in the short.

[REFERENCE] Photographic Evidences - Animation Paper & Whiteboard

I want to get as many different photographic references as possible for my animation, as my animation has many different assets in it; from desks, to animation paper. I will be using these as references when I animate to get various angles and shots, both the animation paper and whiteboard will be used when I animate Max the Cat, so they will play huge roles in my animation, so I need to make sure they look correct for the animation, below are the images I have takes:

Animation Paper:

Whiteboard:

[PRODUCTION] Scene and Shot List

After the New Year, wanted to create a schedule for production, to do this I needed to figure out how many scenes there are in the animation, and how many shots there are in each scene. While I was finding this out, I decided to time each shot to see which would take the most time to animate. Overall there are seven different scenes in the animation, not including; the opening quote, the end credits and the logo at the very end. Below is the list of each and every scene and shot in my animation, all timed with a short explanation of whats happening on the screen:

Scene 01

Shot 01 – 10 seconds – Slow Zoom on Light-box
Shot 02 – 05 seconds – Old Animator Enters and Sits down
Shot 03 – 06 seconds – Animator Draws Max the Cat
Shot 07 – 04 seconds – Slow Zoom showing the Back of the Old Animator
Shot 08 – 05 seconds – Animator finishes the drawing, Reveals Max the Cat
Shot 09 – 02 seconds – Animator looks at his drawing happy
Shot 10 – 05 seconds – Max the Cat comes alive, checks his surroundings and Smiles
Shot 11 – 04 seconds – Old Animator smiles and places Max on the wall
Shot 12 – 03 seconds – Max the Cat is placed onto the wall
Shot 13 – 02 seconds – Old Animator looks at Max and turns towards the door
Shot 14 – 02 seconds – Old Animator opens the Door
TOTAL TIME: 48 seconds

Scene 02

Shot 01 – 22 seconds – We are thrown through time as the old animator lives his life while Max watches
Shot 02 – 10 seconds – The light turns off and the room is no longer touched, Max is left alone
TOTAL TIME: 32 seconds

Scene 03

Shot 01 – 05 seconds – Shows the side of the room where Max is on the wall
Shot 02 – 05 seconds – Shows the side of the room where the whiteboard is
Shot 03 – 07 seconds – Shows the side of the room where the door is, The Young Animator enters
Shot 04 – 03 seconds – The young animator looks around the room and notices something on the wall
Shot 05 – 02 seconds – Max is on the wall
Shot 06 – 05 seconds – The Young Animator walks over to Max and looks at him
Shot 07 – 02 seconds – The Young animator picks up the light-box
Shot 08 – 03 seconds – Max wonders what the Animator is doing, and tried to have a look
Shot 09 – 02 seconds – The young animator places down the drawing tablet
Shot 10 – 02 seconds – The young animator sits down at the desk
Shot 11 – 06 seconds – The young animator draws May the Cat
Shot 12 – 04 seconds – Slow Zoom showing the back of the young animator drawing
Shot 13 – 05 seconds – Animator finishes the drawing and gets up out of his chair
TOTAL TIME: 51 Seconds

Scene 04

Shot 01 – 04 seconds – Max the Cat watches the young animator leave the room
Shot 02 – 08 seconds – Max moves from paper to paper to reach May the Cat
Shot 03 – 02 seconds – Max smiles to himself while staring at the drawing
Shot 04 – 04 seconds – May looks at Max the Cat, waving at her
Shot 05 – 03 seconds – May turns away from Max the Cat
Shot 06 – 05 seconds – Max walks from one side of the drawing tablet to the other, to get back into her view
Shot 07 – 03 seconds – Max removes his head and extends his arm up off screen
Shot 08 – 05 seconds – Max reaches his head onto the paper directly above him, and grabs a flower
Shot 09 – 03 seconds – Max’s head lands back onto his body with a flower in his mouth
Shot 10 – 04 seconds – May the cat laughs at Max’s actions
Shot 11 – 03 seconds – Max melts into the floor
Shot 12 – 02 seconds – May stops laughing
Shot 13 – 02 seconds – Max leaps back from the puddle
Shot 14 – 02 seconds – May places her hand on the screen
Shot 15 – 02 seconds – Max places his hand on the paper
Shot 16 – 08 seconds – Max and May are holding their hands out, however they cannot reach one and other
TOTAL TIME: 60 seconds

Scene 05

Shot 01 – 02 seconds – The Young animator emerges back through the door with a projector in his hands
Shot 02 – 02 seconds – Max and May are surprised at the animator’s entrance
Shot 03 – 03 seconds – Max leaps back into his normal position
Shot 04 – 02 seconds – The young animator places a projector onto the table
Shot 05 – 02 seconds – The young animator shrinks the tab where May the Cat is
Shot 06 – 02 seconds – May the cat disappears from the screen
Shot 07 – 03 seconds – The young animator spins in his chair and turns the projector on to watch a film
Shot 08 – 10 seconds – CLAY ANIMATION
Shot 09 – 05 seconds – The young animator sits and eats popcorn while watching the film
Shot 10 – 03 seconds – The young animator is asleep as the room is now darkened
Shot 11 – 10 seconds – The film comes to a close and the tab is closed automatically, revealing May the Cat at the back of the application
TOTAL TIME: 44 seconds

Scene 06

Shot 01 – 03 seconds – Max notices that May is on the other side of the wall
Shot 02 – 05 seconds – Max runs from one sheet of paper to the next
Shot 03 – 03 seconds – Close up of Max running
Shot 04 – 07 seconds – Max runs from one sheet of animation paper to the next as well as a whiteboard
Shot 05 – 03 seconds – Close up of Max running
Shot 06 – 02 seconds – Max reaches where the animation paper and the projection meet
Shot 07 – 05 seconds – Max slowly enters the projection, and then runs quickly off screen
Shot 08 – 10 seconds – Max reaches a sheet of animation paper where May the Cat is, she looks at him and shrinks to his size
Shot 09 – 03 seconds – Max and May finally see each other again
Shot 10 – 04 seconds – May looks at Max, smiles and reaches her hand out
Shot 11 – 04 seconds – Max looks at May, smiles and reaches his hand out
Shot 12 – 02 seconds – May reaches her hand out
Shot 13 – 02 seconds – Max reaches his hand out
Shot 14 – 04 seconds – The hands finally touch each other
TOTAL TIME: 57 seconds

Scene 07

Shot 01 – 06 seconds – The young animator is asleep, he then jumps up and checks his watch
Shot 02 – 03 seconds – Shows his watch ticking
Shot 03 – 10 seconds – The young animator runs out of the door, the camera then pans to the right revealing Max and May holding hands
TOTAL TIME: 19 seconds


OVERALL TIME: 5 minutes and 18 seconds

[INSPIRATION] Clay Characters

Clay characters aren't the easiest thing to create in my personal opinion, so I have collected a range of different images to study and see how they have been created. I don't want to create anything too difficult, as I cannot focus too much energy into animating the Clay scene because of the time restrictions I have this year. 

I would have liked to have created something similar to the image to the left, a boy made out of clay, however I will be limited because of time and skill. I will more than likely end up with something simpler. However, with this in mind, I want to take inspiration from this clay character, I feel that his expression works well in Clay, small pea like eyes and a tiny mouth, perhaps a small friend to keep him company, perhaps if I were to combine this with a character similar to Morph on the right I could create something aesthetically pleasing, but easy to animate. I have recently acquired clay animation equipment which will allow me to create clay-mations easily, this equipment is known as Animate it! Morph Edition and will allow me to create characters such as morph. 

I will continue to research characters made out of clay and study them, so I can be prepared for when I create my own clay animation. Below are examples of clay characters I have found which have inspired me.