Rap Revised

I reanimated my part of the rolo rap for the collaboration project. I think it syncs up better- it doesn't have the background yet either but hopefully once all the animators have put together their pieces, it'll flow nicely.

Evaluation

"250 word typed evaluation reflecting on your experiences of working in a group. This should include any problem solving and/or innovative solutions. This can be written on your blogs."

New to working in a collaborative environment, I definitely found it arduous and tedious at times when communication was lacking. However, when morales were high the work would flow easily and the input of different ideas, especially when from other sectors of art, would inspire our group to achieve a high standard work ethic.

Hard times arose when a couple of the team flaked away, leaving the rest of group to buckle slightly under their abandoned workload. We encouraged each other and eventually were able to organise ourselves around this bout of bad luck. No doubt had the group fully stuck together, we may have been able to produce an even better animated advert.

Good communication is an important attribute to have in any good working team. Luckily, our group was able to establish this fact early and we exchanged contact details, set up a shared Dropbox and created a private Facebook group, where we could discuss, upload work in progress, make comments and critique. Being able to easily reach to each other benefited the bond in the group and we found it comfortable to work together.

If I was to do the same or similar brief again, I would have made sure the entire audio sequence was transferred to dopesheets before allocating each animator a certain amount of work. Not using this method meant that some people was confused or misunderstood, and some parts were done twice by the same person and other parts were left unfinished. Therefore, when it was time to collaborate all the work, the final animation suffered, meaning the team probably did more work than was necessary. So, our organisational skills could be much improved, but having had this experience, I will be able to apply this knowledge in the future.

Little bit more...

I took in the notes on what i needed to do to improve the animation and tried again today, i made the intro shorter, and took out the blanks and finally got round to taking pictures of the plastic bag i kept putting back.

I even taught myself how to mask! this was useful when i had to animate the packet of rolos rolling out of the bag, so that i could scroll the text over the tube (so it looked like it was rolling) and using a mask, erasing the part of the text that would usually be seen coming off the edge of the tube.

I have no idea if that made any sense or was any easier to understand. But oh well. Here goes, test 2 without the sound:

It still needs a background..

But at least the most part is done...

Attempt to Sync... Preparing to Sink

Right, so after some much arduous lassoing on photoshop, and using the colour replacement tool for the tracksuit etc.. I've started to animate and compile the images together to make a sort of cut-out pixilation type of animation. It's still VERY rough and there are blank parts still which i need to fill with err stuff.

Here's a bit on what i've done so far:



1. it doesn't quite sync up with the sound as much as i'd like- maybe i need to go over this and sort this out (even though i have got a dopesheet, maybe it just needs some manual adjusting)

2. he drops his bag too suddenly

3. i think the intro bit should move up closer to the rest of the animation, so that the full view of the character isn't so strange.. the rather large portion at the beginning where there is no sound can probably be cut out.

4. it still needs a background

5. i hate how even on a low quality export, Flash still decides to muck around with it so you get these stupid shadows and ghosts.

6. i had to improvise the last part of the animation as i had some body photos missing so i had to reuse what i already had.

So far, so lame.

Let's get together! Yeah, yeah, yeah!!

Today, we took pictures in a pixelation style of Chris dressed in a tracksuit for the Rolo advert. The idea was that we'd upload these pictures onto the computer and replace his head with Warren's (the rapper head) and alter the colour of the tracksuit etc.

Here is some evidence of the antics we got up to today:

Chris working out how to use the tripod

Happy prospectus picture of Ashlea and Chris laughing at the tripod panel

Not our finest moment. Figuring what the hell to do now that we've switched on the computer.

Me helping with camera focusing.

Me doing chinese pose while helping with camera focusing

Marking down Chris' position with masking tape

Taking photos...

Research...

Looking at rolling camera transitions

Hahahaaaa!!!

Today we played around with the cut outs with photos idea.

Here is Ashlea saying "Frolo"... Why? We don't know but it's quite funny.

Styles

I'm trying to research some interesting animation styles for the confectionary project... a simple (and obvious) 2-D or 3-D animation wouldn't exactly be the most striking so we thought we'd do some research to try and spark up some inspiration:


I LOVE this style! always have. It's a mix between 3-D and 2-D.. almost like putting 3-D on a 2-D space. The characters have a sort of cut out effect, yet they're able to change their expressions- how do they d this?? it almost seems like magazine or photograph cut outs mixed with flash... it gives the advert an endearing charm- it reminds me of a kid playing around with paper dolls.

This advert reminds me of:

I used to watch this alot as a kid- looking back, im not sure why since the main character Angela has THE MOST ANNOYING VOICE IN THE WORLD. But, i did really like the animation style. Again, similar to the British Gas style but the characters seem more greyed out, like newspaper cut outs. The creators must have taken pictures of the characters from various angles and do the basic mouth shapes for talking (similar to normal 2-D animation) and then use Flash to switch the movements to make them look like they're talking.

Something slightly different:

I've always loved PES animations- they're so fun and creative! The method of using found objects to replace other things is ingenius and i know that it'd be hard to do this style for our idea but nonetheless- i absolutely love the idea. Maybe we could use actual rolos to replace animated ones??


Researching for actual cut out animations- i found this. It's very short but this animator used after effects to create the inbetweens for cut out movements. Therefore, making the overall style quite smooth and cartoony. i need to learn how to use after effects!!!

Let's get depressed

For our sweet advert brief, Chris (my group member), came up with the idea of a charity style ad, showing homeless lame rolos that have been discarded and forgotten about... possibly crying caramel tears, and a strapline similar to "Just 40p could help save 10 rolos"...

I thought this style is quite clever, but depending on the possible mixed reaction we might get, we may have to add in a lighthearted scene at the end of the ad..

Anyway!! i've done some research on some depressing charity ads to see what they do besides showing footage of poor people to twang the heart strings:

This is a typical charity ad, with footage of the less fortunate people in 3rd world countries, with the plea of donating money to help, and gradually getting happier when you get to see what difference the money does (cue, happy kids playing with water and running into the sunset).

This other ad for Christian Aid was very clever, instead of the usual tactic, they've created almost a short story with all the narrative being very informative of the reality of what's going on. It also has the man (supposedly the dad?) looking after the baby, and as the horrible men in suits take away everything, it makes the audience go "OMG! NOOO!!"... I've never seen a charity ad like this until now (at least i dont remember), i like it's originality and doesn't give the "rolling-eyes slightly irritated" reaction that most charity ads do.

Another common tactic in charity ads is using a child's (particularly a child because you feel sorry for them more than adults) experience of poverty. The ad tells the story of the struggle this little girl has to go through to survive...

This Oxfam ad isn't anything like the normal ads, infact i included it because of the animation in it. It has a strong meaning behind it that all these disasters, poverty and other things wrong with the world feed into this giant ugly creature known as injustice, and if you speak up and make a difference, it'll make the world a better place etc... I like the strapline at the end "Be Humankind" conveying that we are all humans, and therefore being human kind, we can look after eachother etc...

SO! This bit of research has shown me different angles to take this charity ad from- typical style so it's recognisably a charity ad, a short story and experience telling. I'm not sure the last example would be as an effective one for the idea we have at the moment.

Confectionery Research

Our new Digital Animation project involves us collaborating with other students from other sectors- graphics/illustration and advertising. I'm quite looking forward to getting our teeth stuck in as it'll give me a taste of what's to come in the industry when you regularly work in a team.

Anyway, the project requires us to choose a confectionery product and make a advert for it, allowing the benefits of the sweet to shine through and make it tempting etc and be attractive to kids.

I've done some research on well-known, old and odd sweet adverts and looking at why they are and have been so successful:

Everyone's familiar with this gorilla, drumming for Cadbury's... it's crazy and fun- and makes the viewers laugh. Through this humour, the audience is easily able to remember the brand and probably try to mimic it!

This advert is very old, im not sure how old but you can probably tell quite old (haha) because these days, 2-D animation isn't usually shown on adverts, however, with the hand involved when it's drawing, it seems to be mixed with live action also... Anyway, i thought this was a very cute advert as they're implying that Rolos are so tasty that you'd only share your last one with someone you reaaaallyyyy love- and with their famous slogan "Do you love anyone enough to give them your last Rolo" makes people particularly remember them.

Fruit Pastilles have got a new, upcoming star to perform on their advert to attract the young people, especially with a beat-box star- it attracts everyone's attention! The cheeky young kid at the end adds a little light-hearted humour, and the advert emphasises the irresistable chewiness of the sweet.

This is a more recent Chewits advert. The Chewits dinosaur stood for a well-known story of when monsters attack a city, however, the monster is soothed when he finds Chewits! They've also introduced an alternative to a well-known song to get it stuck in the viewers heads. (How annoying).

I've always loved M&M's adverts, they're very funny and sometimes relatable. And the clever use of mixing live action with CG animation, almost makes the viewer live it too (even if it's just an advert). I love how throughout their massive series of different adverts, they've even been able to give each M&M their own personality :)

Succchhh an old advert, and they use the old grandpa for all the Werther's Original adverts, and throughout my research of this sweet, the same script aswell! even in different languages!!... I guess the advert is trying to get the idea across that the sweet has never changed, and it's a sentimental sweet that adults should share with their loved ones.

These adverts i really never get, but i have friends that find them highly amusing. The random dialogue and the light-hearted humour highlights the "natural fruit" quality of the sweets. I like how they use the actual sweets as characters aswell.

Noone will forget the sexy Cadbury's Caramel Bunny- she takes it eassssyyy like the gooey caramel center. After discussing with many of my male friends, i don't think any of them would say no to the alluring fictional rabbit. I guess that's how people remember her!

One of our groups ideas was to advertise Jawbreakers or Gobstoppers... Although there aren't any adverts for this very well-known sweet (apparently they sell themselves!) It always reminded me of this cartoon i watched when i was younger- Ed Edd n Eddy! When they would always get up to mischief and earn money to buy Jawbreakers- and their cheeks would grow ridiculously big when they had them in- haha! I loved it!

What i learnt from looking at all these examples is that the characters (if any) personality, would literally be the sweet personified e.g. laid-back sexy bunny- gooey melty caramel, cheeky m&ms are soft on the inside but hard on the outside... And all the adverts try to sell the single benefit their sweet has compared to the others on the market. Also, humour plays a massive part in the commercial business so i need to get my funny owwwwnnn!