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Alice Nightingale Crew Assignment Production File
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Crew Assignment: Production File
Barista
Initially working on the Barista project was suggested to me by Tom
Dowler, who knew at the end of first year that my area of interest was
leaning towards Flash and 2D animation. I attended the third year pitches
at the Poly and was impressed by the stylistic look that Alex wanted to
achieve and how much of the story he had already planned. Tom
introduced me to Alex, and I expressed my interest in working for him
and it was decided I would work on the project as an animator.
My Role
Although it was originally decided that I would work on the project solely
as an animator, this role changed drastically throughout production as
various changes and technical problems meant that the large crew Alex
was initially assigned ended up being whittled down, leaving the two of
us not just to animate the main body of the project but to produce,
organise, create, edit and direct it as well. This is something I never
expected to happen, but I feel I have taken the changes to my role, and
the pressures and workload that came with it, in my stride. Consideringthe setbacks we have had to encounter, the two of us have managed to
create a five and a half minute film which we intend to see to completion
in time for the September screenings in London.
The Team
The original designated team of second years and their roles to work on
Barista were:
Alice Nightingale (me) 2D Animation Charlie Minnion 2D Animation Hugh Herbert 3D effects and Modelling Joe Hill Textures / Foley / Animation Ass istant Alberto Montana 2D Animation Thomas Spettel 2D Animation
Tom Gameson 2D Animation Rozi Barnes Background / some Concept art
Of these, the ones that remained working on Barista are:
Myself 2D Animation/Co-Producer/Co-Director/Editing Charlie Composting/Post-Production Hugh 3D Modelling (not used in hand-in, due to script cutbacks,
will be used in finished film)
Joe some Textures / Foley
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The main reason for team cutbacks were due to unforeseen software
compatibility issues that were only discovered after production had
began. Without knowing, Alex and I had both purchased copies of the
second version of Animate, there are no visible differences between the
two versions or their output, other than that the two versions are not
backwards (or even forwards) compatible, this reason was only
discovered after Alex had sent many querying emails to ToonBoom asking
why they wouldnt work. We had wondered whether the compatibility
issues were due to Alex having a Mac and the studio computers being
Windows, however this was disregarded as we had no compatibility
issues between my PC and his Mac (the only troubles came when using
external hard-drives to transfer files that were formatted to one system
and therefore read only on the others computer). This meant that all the
scenes that had been prepared for the others to start work on couldnt be
accessed by them, Alex made the decision to use his time to animate tothe standard he wanted rather than re-prepare the scenes and then have
to spend time cleaning up the work others completed for him. This was
especially frustrating for Charlie who worked on a scene with two
stickmen and kept having to tweak it again and again for about two
weeks when Alex managed to redo the same scene how he wanted in a
day or two.
Expectations
The role was certainly not as I expected it to be when I approached Alexback in the first term. The cutback of team members meant that Alex
became more reliant on me as the project progressed. I ended up
assigning and prioritising the workload between us and organising Alex.
This project has been by far the hardest thing I have worked on during the
course so far, but I feel it has also been the most rewarding and the one I
am proudest of. I feel that my effort has been truly appreciated and
acknowledged by Alex, who, without my asking, has credited me in the
final hand-in with the role of co-producer and co-director.
Creative Development
and Career Considerations
Working on Barista has been a steep learning curve, before starting the
project I had never touched Animate and now I feel like I havent used
another program to animate (with the exception of creating the animatic
in Flash) for months. Alex has also allowed me to have a lot of creative
input in the film, helping him to edit the script, create the majority of the
animatic and create characters (which I will go into more detail aboutlater) and animate them. I have also been allowed quite a lot of creative
freedom with the scenes Id been given to work with, Alex believed I
knew the story, characters and style well enough to be able to and would
be able to create my own interpretation of the scene that he would be
happy with without strict direction. Alex also showed his trust in me by
giving me the opportunity to design the third main character, Carol, who
pre-existed in the story as a stick figure, until some feedback from Derek
convinced Alex it would be more interesting (and fitting with the rest of
as yet the unanimated story) if she was to become a real character. She
was based on some designs I did for Tims ex-girlfriends, with a few
modifications to have her fit in as Tims co-worker.
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The other new concept I learnt was taking on a producing roll. At the
beginning of the project I would not have considered applying for a
producing role, however, now that I have actively taken on the role and
the majority of activities expected from a producer, I have enjoyed it and
would contemplate taking on the roll again for another project now that I
have more of an idea of what the roles entails.
Taking on a producing role has also made me aware and reinforced just
how much pre-production work needs to be organised before starting
animating in a production, the creation of the animatic was vital,
especially since Alex and I could not complete all of the rough animation
between ourselves in time for the hand-in. Using parts of the animatic
and rough animation may not look particularly polished for the final film,
but makes the story more successful than having finished animation and
big gaps between them. (Getting the narrative to work successfully was
the most important thing to Alex and as a result of the crew cutbacks, we
had to cut down the story, the hand-in film is about a third of the original
script. Given the length of the section we have completed, it can be
estimated that if were able to get the entire script animated, it would
roughly be around fifteen minutes in length.)
My experience will definitely help to plan my own third year project and
the mistakes and setbacks I have come across (especially software
compatibility issues) will mean that I will both plan and test things
thoroughly before starting animation. I will consider using Animate,however if I was to use it as a part of a major project with others working
with me, I would organise things differently (such as deciding on final
palettes and textures) as well as setting up the file structure differently
(to make it more manageable and easier to access files), now that I have a
better understanding of how the program works.
For the future my main area of interest is still primarily focused on 2D and
I am glad I have been able to learn to use Animate. This time last year, my
favourite program I had been using to animate with was Flash. I see using
Animate as a natural progression from Flash and recognise its advantages
as more professional animation program. I will continue to experiment
with it and learn to master using a 3D camera in 2D space and play
around with puppet animation, as cut-out has always interested me. I
would like to continue using both vector based programs for future
projects, though I would still like to experiment with more traditional
areas of animation, both hand drawn and stopmotion, that I know I need
to practice.
Barista Work
In early January I met with Alex to discuss the work that he wanted me to
do, initially as explained earlier, I was just to animate the scenes Alex
assigned to me. I decided to purchase my own copy of Animate , if I hadnt
Im not sure how Alex and I wouldve been able to work around the
incompatibility issues we faced.
The first scene I was given to animate, was a the opening shot of the
pigeon flying through the city, although this has since be redone by Alex
to include the pigeons full body (following Georg & Andys advice).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1yEbCOMyLw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1yEbCOMyLwhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1yEbCOMyLwhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1yEbCOMyLw8/6/2019 Crew Assignment Production Report
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Planning for Pigeons wing movements:
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Original storyboard Alex gave me and
corresponding stills from the animatic.
Jan/Feb:
Alex holds a few sessions in the studio designed to teach the team of
animators how to draw in the style he wants to use. We are given .pdfs
on how to draw stickmen and the production bible presented at his pitch.
Feb/March:
Begin working on the animatic, Alex already has up to the first part of the
dream sequence having used a program (Storyboard Pro?) designed to
create storyboards, he wanted me to use but when starting to show me
how, he couldnt remember how to work it himself. I told him it would be
quicker for me to create the animatic in Flash to produce a similar result
but much quicker. I was given small versions of the final backgrounds to
use and then created the characters and their actions on top.
Animatic: (My W.I.P.) video links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwLUOZnEftQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjcP8oxTalA&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5vhrjjO680&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4UGt3H-h28&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIpb8XXWkxI
Animatic (combined with Alexs beginning):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0Dej6lZrTM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwLUOZnEftQhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwLUOZnEftQhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjcP8oxTalA&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjcP8oxTalA&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5vhrjjO680&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5vhrjjO680&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4UGt3H-h28&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4UGt3H-h28&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIpb8XXWkxIhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIpb8XXWkxIhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0Dej6lZrTMhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0Dej6lZrTMhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0Dej6lZrTMhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIpb8XXWkxIhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4UGt3H-h28&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5vhrjjO680&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjcP8oxTalA&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwLUOZnEftQ8/6/2019 Crew Assignment Production Report
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Feb/March:
Personal problems meant that I had to head home a few times, but I
found work that I could do for Barista whilst at home. This included
designing the 16 ex-girlfriends that Tim finds himself face to face with (or
so he imagines) on a bus. This scene was cut around mid-march, but atthe time of designing we were trying to get as much done as possible, the
exes were cut after deciding to end the story at point that would make it
work as a shorter story, so Tim never made it out of the cafe to get on the
bus to meet them. Alexs only direction was that they look hot, so I
found some pictures of hairstyles and Alex picked his favourite ones,
which formed as the basis for the exes looks and varying styles.
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March:
After feedback with Derek, it was decided that Carol would become a real
character. She is based upon the design of Ex-Girlfriend #9 . I used Alexs
turnaround of Alice as a base for getting Carols proportions correct.
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March/April:
Inclusion of Carol means changes to the animatic, adding her into scenes.
With Carol:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GT2wfxHR8X8
The full animatic:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xPUlRRmAow
I also came up with a storyboard idea for when Tim has to leave Alice to
clean up broken cups. Alex liked the idea, so we ran with it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GT2wfxHR8X8http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GT2wfxHR8X8http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GT2wfxHR8X8http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xPUlRRmAowhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xPUlRRmAowhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xPUlRRmAowhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xPUlRRmAowhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GT2wfxHR8X88/6/2019 Crew Assignment Production Report
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After putting the animatic together Alex and I went through it and labelled the shot numbers and the corresponding background that shot would use. I then
drew up a table in Word that we could both follow, this is the first version... the numbering became a bit confusing, so we changed it to simplify things.
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Updated version to correspond with the new shot numbering system, and a column to show which of us is working on that shot. It was thought that Thomas
Spettel could work on the rotoscoping hands, but after Alex gave him the files to work with in Animate 1, for some reason unknown to us, he declined.
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Third (and so far final version) of the shot list Alex and I share, I keep mine updated (pictures follow after this one) and end up up dating Alexs when we
meet to discuss what else needs to be done/how far we have progressed. It needs to be updated, since we changed the beginning sequence (shots 6
15) into a montage where the camera is split in half and action happens on both sides of the screen.
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This is my used version, I highlighted all my scenes in yellow. (Note, I meant to write that there is no shot 7 due to a numbering error, but I had been using
the computer for too long and wrote deleted...
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Ali Ni h i l C A i P d i Fil
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The first drawing of Carol... For a long time she had no nose or mouth. Thinking about it now, shes such a moody
character it would have been better if I had put her eyebrows into a default frown...
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Struggling with designs for
her ponytail, in rough
drawings she had a flick at
the end, but it looked to
over the top when drawn
properly in Animate... she
has been drawn so that
you cannot see the flick
from the view because it
is hidden by her body.
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Drawing Carols head when
creating the puppet for the first
time. Now that I have more of an
idea how to use Animate, I would
definitely add more angles, and
change the eyes so that the
pupils and irises are on the same
layer rather than separate.
Carols body is sketched in very roughly using a Wacom, then neatened up. (Explained how on the next page...)
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g g g
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To Animate Carol, I import her head into the scene first so
that I can get the size of her body to the right size ratio. This
also means that her body doesnt change drastically
throughout the scene, which is something I sometimes
struggle with when animating straight ahead. I animate veryroughly in blue using straight ahead animation to try and get
the timing of the action correct. I then go over it at least once
with another layer with a red line to neaten it up, sometimes
for things like the hands I use a separate layer (for the arm
gesture Carol uses when she says Whats so funny?, I kept
one frame for the right arm and body and had a separate
layer on top for the moving arm). I then go over it using
straight lines in the method Alex directed me to, use the
Cutter and then head on to smoothing it.
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To begin with using the Contour tool and Smooth tool took a long time to
get used to, especially in the style that Alex wanted: having blocky style
fingers (which are a bit of a nightmare to draw) to contrast with smooth shirt
collars and elbows. To begin with I was really quite slow at drawing the
neatest version of the figure (Alex taught me to draw them with straight
lines and then to use the Cutter tool to get rid of the end bits I didn t
need.), but as the project has progressed I have become much quicker at
doing so, the image on the next page was used for the DVD cover and tookme roughly around twenty minutes to draw the rough versions of her pose,
neaten her up and texture her.
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Planning for compositing the
coffee montage together.
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For some reason the videos I have exported from Animate keep failing to
convert when uploaded to YouTube and Vimeo, they work when played
on computer, so I am going to try and upload them to Moodle in a .zipfolder. If this fails, I will put them on a DVD to hand in with this report.