Evaluation D&AD

 As a final result, I think we had definitely produced the work that we aimed to. It was clear and stuck to the newer Giffgaff emoji kind of style instead of relying heavily on the old ones. Our main aim was to create a golden wolf inspired piece that flowed between each other in one long shot, and I'm happy to say I think I planned that out well in the script and in the sketch layers. Even though I came in to the project hating sketch layers, I'm glad I had the chance to do it, as I think it improved my understanding of flowing movement, none character animation and composition when there isn't a full scene. 

One trouble we ran in to was the submission and it happened to be the most stressful day. I think the brief itself was very all over the place with very little clarity on which specifications were mandatory and which were optional. But as well as this, when we came to submit everything, there was a file limit and so we couldn't submit everything we had made. 

This resulted in a very sudden edit of the video presentation we had made to include the three moving Instagram adverts - as the file requested as we got later in to the submission file was that it was one single image that didn't move. So I had to choose the best screenshots available. 

We also found out at this point we needed a cover image, which I quickly made based off of Alex's banner. 

On top of this, we also saw that they could only accept one single mp4. Which in the specification, they mentioned the 20 second tv spot and a video presentation. So we were at least expecting to submit two - but we had five with the Instagram moving banners. So this meant we had to edit the video presentation even more to fit the movie in to it.

Despite, I think we all worked well together and that our result was the best it could be - and we submitted possibly more than necessary just inside the video presentation. And we worked together to quickly overcome the challenge at the end after hours of quick brainstorming and fast edits.  

I did feel a little overworked between this project and 502 , but I'm glad that in comparison to 503, I was able to communicate with Alex and they could help when I needed it and vice versa. I think we had a little trouble due to Ly's home situation but they did amazing work in what they did and we were able to balance what they couldn't do. So everything worked out in the end. 

I enjoyed working on the art side of things again, and I think our style (hopefully) stands out in the contest as much as our direction stood out in class. I'm also quite happy with how my script turned out , as I usually write scripts for things and work on someone else's. With the speed of getting a script done, we were able to stand quite early and I'm glad we had enough time to figure out our less straight forward design concept and leave time at the end for all the mistakes. 

What I did in the end: 

• Script writing (Alex formatted it)
• Designing assets
• Mood boarding and researching
• Pitch bible
• Sketch layer
• Linework (clean up by Alex) 
• Some colouring
• Instagram banners x3 (Animated)
• Cover image/ submission 

Evaluation and Final Animation

 

https://youtu.be/6IK7trvZRCM

I think even though my animation in this has been fairly simple, I know I have done a lot of tests in the walk cycle, learning how to rig twice and deciding which software would be better to use - harmony or after effects. As well as the animation tests in procreate for the watercolour and the texts. The text itself went through a lot of revisions, but I think in the end, I finally learnt a lot about typography.  I now know that as well as aesthetics and linking to theme, it's also about easy accessibility to read it as well as how it enters the frame. I think if I had more time for the actual animation, I would have slowed everything down and added more movement to the text. But for this project, I think the quick reveals helped the flow. 

Along with accessibility, I think this project tested my people skills despite working on my own. Contrast to 503 where I had more group members than I should have - I had none due to covid circumstances. Thanks to being in control of everything, I was able to design everything around the different tests that I wanted to try, softwares I wanted to use, and do a theme that really interested me - as I find it hard to gain interest in things, especially under the themes given (Science, History, Politics and Sustainability.) But this also meant I had to learn a lot more than I expected as I went along, like colour keys, video editing, choosing audio, fact checking and animatics. 

One thing I wasn't looking forward to was the social interaction with both voice acting clients and researchers. But I managed to find some nice people who were very open and communicative. I think the researcher was a little less easy going but I had enough research to make it work for myself. Unfortunately with all of the edits made, most of his facts and things we talked about got removed. We had a few troubles with tech on the voice actors side, but all it taught me was how to increase audio volume on premiere and being patient is the key. Being very through with what I gave to help her really worked in our favours for when the tech crashed. 

Not having a group definitely made checking my work harder. With the audio, I had my voice actors help. But with the final timings and aesthetic choices - I was very in my own element having looked at my own product for too long. All of the feedback in the last weeks was a bit overwhelming but also pushed me to work through things quickly and thoroughly on the day of feedback. But I think next time, I would organise my schedule around the three weeks April break so that I could have had some animation feedback a little sooner.  I was on the script before we broke up. 

I think overall, it went well. I think the sound design was good and the assets were clear, as well as the story being told and its timeline. I feel like the topic was interesting - and though I'm disappointed there were lots of facts gone unnoticed, I think the press pack helps to delve in to my thoughts and feelings behind the topic nicely.  

Press Pack

FINAL PRESS PACK LINK: https://kaye3209.wixsite.com/warsthatburntacity

 In our lesson before the holidays, we looked at press packs and I saw that lots of them were websites. Lots of people last year made theirs using power point slides but I thought maybe after making a website in 502, I could experiment again and try to make a genuine one as a test for the future. 

I used a lot of design choices that I tried to carry through earlier in my project, such as the titles of each section having a 'Lulo clean' font with spacing and lines connecting them - similar to the small words on Grecian urns being very bold and round, san serif and with a LOT of spacing (but mine is easier to read). 

I'm quite happy with all of the fonts I used, as they all looked historical but also the serif fonts which are typically harder to read, are quite close to standard pre-set word fonts people are used to. 

With my animation being quite simple and all one continuous shot, I struggled to find some good stills. So I ended up sending a few people my animation and asking them to screenshot the animation at the most aesthetically pleasing moment. 

Also because of my fairly simple design choices, I didn't have a lot of assets to make the website look as full on the sides. With the website wix having a main viewport for older devices and an extended viewport for computers - I decided to keep all of the key information and nice background assets from the animation in the main box - and then extending the lines in to the outer ones. 

One thing I was happy with was using an old background where the frame and brown urn are combined - and it ended up nicely framing the smaller contact page. Off screen you can see the nice frame, and in the small box frame, it still looks like the rest of the breakers. 

As I'm in a group on my own, I decided to add my voice actor in to my 'meet the team' section. But as this was very last minute and wasn't really discussed, I didn't want to add any personal information about her like with my own Director's one. So I only included information already on her Mandy profile which is already linked below. I was also quite proud that I managed to make my own personal Mandy link button for her contact info. 

WWW

• I think I managed to get all of the necessary information as well as some extra interesting things like the FAQ. 
• I think the aesthetic is very recognisable and matches the poster and the movie
• I'm glad I chose to do the website over the power point, as it allowed for an actual contact box with notifications
• Everything is visible all at once so there aren't tonnes of tabs that you can get lost in - but also its easily accessible by using the scrolling tab. 

EBI

• The mobile phone version of the website was really difficult as it messed up the entire order of the computer browser version. I also think that maybe having the meet the team separate from the press kit itself was a bad idea, but as I'm the only team member, it was easy to put the key information paragraph in to the press kit. 
• If I had more assets to improve the appearance or maybe more team to talk about or awards etc
• I think the pdf script looks a little out of place but also writing it up as text would have looked too much. 

Final scene issues

I feel like in other projects, I usually run in to a lot of technical difficulties. And with this project being an experimentation project using rigs and multi platforms, I was surprised I hadn't had any yet. ...Boy I was wrong. This final scene was always a little worrying for me because the final bit needed a lot of rigs, even if they are duplicated - and the node view was overwhelming. Every time I copied a rigged character, it would reorder all of the parts which were very hard to find and took a lot of time. I also had an issue with the Achilles statue. I had to bring him in from another file and editing his actions and erasing bits of him (the hands turning them in to fists) caused an error. I didn't realise the error wasn't solved and so when I quit the program, the first half of my work deleted which I had to match to the second half. 

Another issue was the cape. As I had rigged the cape with bones, unlike the rest off the character, when I came to fade out the coloured version in to the stone colours, I couldn't erase the cape. I tried to make a new replacement layer but the cape stayed red. After a lot of trying to get around it, I realised I couldn't keep the cape flowing and grey - one or the other. Having a red cape looked off, mostly because when the army came in, the red vs blue made them look like they were fighting in front of a Spartan shrine - in Troy, the base of the Trojans. And so I decided to just remove the cape entirely which also works and makes Achilles look more like a general war hero.

I used Hector's model for the Trojan army. I was going to make him a leader of the army. But if Achilles is a dead statue, Hector would have died before him. So I multiplied him and changed the hair colour to make him look like  general soldier and gave him a Trojan shield from Priam's treasure - which ties it all together. 

https://youtu.be/36h5apYonLU

WWW -

• Timing of the armies coming on and their walks - good walk speed, matches the sound effect later on, matches the audio of 'not only A war but Multiple Trojan Wars'
• I think with the simple rig, it's still clear he's flexing and then turning to stone. 
• Pulled off the background switch which looked complex in the animatic

EBI -

• I think the flames are a little funny but they look better with the fire effect and help with the understanding of the transition better. 
• I had to speed up Achilles turning to stone in the editing as that didn't match the audio - as well as hold the army at the end. 
• The stone aspect might not b super clear for other people until the zoom out and the plinth 

This is also where I figured out how to increase the volume in my editing! Press G over the audio clip. 

Friday Crit - Mat and Michaela 30/4/21

• Centre Agamemnon and the mask in the scene!! (I didn't realise they weren't!), easy fix. 
• Try getting rid of the extra texts around the mask and the spear I think it did work, but the pause on the mask and Agamemnon might be a bit too long in comparison to the others. It's a nice break from all the rush but seems long compared to the other fast paced actions. 
• Change the font again. Bolder. No serifs.  During my research, I didn't come across anything about san-serif fonts - not remembering a media class I once took - San serifs are easier to read. I just thought it was very against the style. And the san serif font found on a Grecian urn has a LOT of spacing. (I will use this font in the press pack though for titles)

This is where I found the opportunity to add in the credits for the sound. They were both too long to have in the nice Greek font. 

• 

  The current new font is Kohinoor Deranagari, which still looks taller and older, but with the 'semi bold' and san serif, it's a lot more clear to the viewer, with a slight kerning just to keep them a little apart. 

• They think it looks weird that things can pass outside of the border so make it so things stop after the solid black lines I figured out that I could import an image as an import toon boom bitmap, and this would let me key frame an image and edit it inside harmony. Once I removed the middle, I was easily able to copy and past this layer in to every animation file so far so that they all had the same bits erased. 
• Maybe start thinking of it as an old timey screening of the archaeologists' work instead of an urn - add a vignette, or more of one. I didn't add this one as I had already had one on the background, and I felt like some things on still frames that are very close to the edges would have been lost inside a double vignette. 
• Audio is too quiet. I turned the volume up to max for this update, but it was still too quiet, even if it was an improvement. I realised by selecting an audio and pressing G you can alter the original base volume later on. 

• Good timing! Much better improvement Yessss.
• Better title shot, more time for the audience to ease in to the quick dialogue and speed up with the pace. Much more establishing 

https://youtu.be/95jNvY-OcjI

WWW

• Better timing, getting good understanding
•  I think the new animation added from the last week update has good action and timing
• Very proud of all the layers and erasing that the walls rising up took. 
• I seem to have chosen appropriate spots to transition between scenes, where I don't have to copy and paste as many frames and assets. 

EBI

• Audio is still quiet at this stage - my laptop must be really loud because its very clear even on half volume
• No sound effects or bg music yet
• I added a bit of a slow down on to the horse because I animated that really fast - but I think it could do with some manual retiming so that frames don't get really badly extended. 

Sound and poster

Sound List:  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1M9R3RaHB1N7AwATRNeIHw7q3W7PsqrMm/view?usp=sharing 

I spent some time looking deeper in to the sound effects and making some of my own such as the rolling wood of the trojan horse wheels. It took a little longer to find some background music, but I eventually chose a string instrument, like something played by a bard. String instruments were very popular in the Roman era, with hand held harps (lyre) as well as the lute, a medieval guitar often used by bards. I think it is quiet enough that it doesn't overpower the soft narration, whilst also being past paced enough to keep up with the narration speed. There were a few tests that just didn't match the pace as historical usually means slow and calm. 

I made the poster for the press pack on procreate, replicating my rigs on a new software. This turned out very dynamic, which I suppose doesn't set the mood of the animation itself. But with my style of animation and simple actions, there wasn't really anything exciting to incorporate. I considered having a spartan and a trojan fight, but decided that the documentary is based on mythistorical study. The battle between myth and history, Mythos and Lagos, and how they prove and disprove one another. So the best figures would be the man who proved Troy was real, Korfmann, vs the most recognisable face of the myth, Achilles.  Though this turned out very clean looking, I didn't replicated the same line texture and weight of the animation, but this turned  out for the best as it was an image I could expand fairly large in the press pack website without it blurring. 

Friday Crit- Michaela 23/4/21

• Speech starts before the logo and she felt like she had to go back and rewind to check she hadn't  missed anything
• The logo is too long for a film that is only 90 seconds long.
• 'Mythistory' information is unnecessary and too long. She can't read it and process the audio facts at the same time. Replace with a shot of a ruin or a dig to establish the shot (I think maybe Troy/Hisarlik because the big impact of the documentary is when Troy is proved to exist. ) 
  

• She liked the watercolour effects and possibly it could unveil the city?
• Everything comes on as its mentioned. Have things on before they're mentioned. Slide on, start talking, hat tip. Timeline, Priam drinks. Left to right. 
• Don't overlap actions, make sure they come on after the other. I think I could do this by changing where Schliemann pauses. 
• Fonts need work!
• Get rid of the swirls in the timelines because they distract from the numbers. 
• Clear font and not a Greek one. 
• Change the font colour from white to a colour that blends a little better. 

This is where Anatoli requested possibly changing 'voice talent' to 'narrated or narration by'

• Watch a few typography videos 
• Lots ended up being about how to make them move and come in to shot
• All very large fonts 
• All the same size characters
• A common one tends to be snaking on to the screen
• usually have a block shadow
• Possible constant panning shot slow? Not really possible with how I've structured the scenes in Harmony, unfortunately. My computer and brain couldn't handle that many layers in one file haha. I've noticed that rigging takes up a LOT of layers and node view space. 
• 
  Make the map a darker colour either land or sea. (Land would be easiest because the sea connects to the rest of the scenes in multiple places where as the land only connects once. I forgot to add this one but did create the asset and added it in to the final. 

• Learn from mistakes and try to organise production where you can do some bits in after effects and others in Harmony, because some of the easy after effects transitions weren't as smooth in Harmony or Premiere.  

https://youtu.be/IlM_Kx8YfVE

WWW

• I think the timing was definitely improved and a lot clearer
• I definitely had a lot of time with the new city scape beginning, so instead of holding it still, I had it rise from the ground, which I think was a nice effect. The font colour is very subtle but it blends in more whilst also staying visible among colour that are all very similar. 

EBI

• I designed the city of Troy at the start with inked colours, the same as the final logo, the flames and the treasure - but I couldn't animate all the parts separately with the colours as well. I think it still works and maybe the amount of colour I had was overbearing on the dark background either way. I can still use it in the press pack. 
• I don't like the shape of the timeline without the swirls.