Exporting and size of animation

In recent lessons, Mr Andrew's taught the class how to export correctly and how to make sure the size of our animation is consistent. These two things are very simple to understand and comprehend, but after he explained this to us, I realised that my first two scenes were of a much smaller size than the rest of my animation but I don't have time to do these scenes again, so I will have to deal with this. The scenes still look good, they are just smaller than the rest of the animation, so when the scenes are all put together, the first bit of the animation will be blurry. 

Scenes To Work On

In the coming lessons, I have to work on a few more scenes. Next lesson I am going to work on the scene where the stick figure falls off the paper and into the classroom and once that scene is complete, I will work on the scene where the figure will climb up the post and back onto the table. After these scenes I have a few more to work on in the school and on the paper.

I also need to work on the scenes where the stick figure climbs up the post and back into the paper, the scene where he leaves the classroom and goes into the locker room and a few more.

Even though I have a fair few scenes to go, I am confident that I will get my animation done.

Around Classroom Scene

This is a very quick scene that will go between the figure climbing back into the classroom, and the figure climbing the post back onto the paper. There isn't much to talk about this scene as it is very quick and is just a quick shot of the classroom. 

Post Scene

This scene turned out pretty well as well. I am very happy with how my animation is going. This scene is the scene where once everything in the 'real world' is done, the stick figure will climb back up onto the desk and back into the paper. This is the first part of that scene. In this part of the scene, the stick figure walks into the shot and realises how tall the pole he has to climb actually is. I photoshopped his mouth in this scene when he looks up at the pole so he looks surprised/scared/anxious about the climb. This scene worked out well and I am happy with it. I am looking forward to making him climb up the pole but I think filming it will be a bit of a challenge. I am very excited to continue working!

Into Classroom Scene

This is my favourite scene so far! I am very happy with how this scene turned out, though there are some little details that could have been more controlled. This is the scene after the locker scene. In this scene the stick figure is climbing back into the classroom. I think that the stick figure actually looks like he is climbing up the little step and I am happy with how it looks overall. 

Once I had completed the scene, I noticed that there was a leaf in the background that had moved throughout the scene, which I could have controlled better. Though the leaf moves around quite a bit, it doesn't really effect the whole look of the animation, it just shows that everything around him is still moving. 

I also ran into a bit of trouble while filming the animation. Halfway through filming the scene, an Ibis started walking around in the background. I managed to not notice it at first and took about four shots with it in the background. The Ibis moved a lot in these four shots so it was very noticeable, so I had to delete the four images and redo them, which wasn't too much of a hassle. 

At the moment, I am contemplating whether to put a scene in the middle of the locker scene and this one, of the stick figure walking from the locker room to the classroom, I am yet to decide whether to include this. I managed to complete this scene very quickly which I am very happy about. 

I changed my idea up a bit within the past couple of weeks. I cut out quite a bit of my original idea and replaced it with a lot more of the real world. I cut out the bits of him and the horse and dog on the paper and decided to do a lot more with the figure moving around in the real world, which I thought would be a lot more interesting. I am happy with this new concept and I am excited to move on and complete the animation. 

Locker Scene

This is the scene I filmed in the locker room with Ilona. At the beginning of this scene, I plan to have a school bell ring and then the person will walk past while the stick figure is on the wall, scared. Ilona helped me with this scene by being the feet and walking for me. Again, this scene took a few tries to get right. We had to figure out where Ilona should step and how slowly she should move to make it look like she was walking. The first few goes were too fast, too slow and too blurry, but we figured it out in the end and I got the results I wanted. Again, the zooming in is a bit shaky but it shows the effect of him being outside and out of his comfort zone, I would have liked it a bit smoother but it looks fine this way. The walking of the stick figure looks a bit odd, but that is just how he moves throughout the entire animation. I also plan to have some footstep sounds whilst Ilona is walking past the stick figure. I am happy with this scene as I am with my previous scenes. 

SCENE 2

This is the second scene of my animation that I also completed at home with a school laptop. It is a very short scene but will be used to show the emotion of the stick figure once he is out of the paper. I filmed the scene first, and then photoshopped his mouth in the last few pictures so he looked surprised/shocked/scared. He is feeling this emotion because he didn't expect to come out of the paper he was drawn on. It took me a couple tries to get the zooming in right, but it worked out in the end. The first few tries didn't turn out how I liked, they were a bit too jumpy and shaky, but I worked out how to fix this and I moved the camera a bit slower and didn't move it as much each shot so it looks a bit better than my first few attempts. I am happy with this scene and am excited to move onto the next ones. 

SCENE 1

This is the first scene of my animation. I completed this scene at home whilst I had borrowed a laptop from the school. This scene is the scene where the stick figure is drawn and comes to life, out of the paper. I am happy with how this scene turned out, but I ran into some trouble whilst photoshopping out the stick I used to hold the figure up while he was standing. The photoshopping wasn't done extremely well, but it looks fine in the animation. I had trouble matching the colours of the paper and shadows in the process of photoshopping, but I continued and it  doesn't look too bad. I had fun filming this scene but it took me awhile, I think that now the stick figure is out of the paper, it will be easier to move him around and it will be quicker to film. I didn't run into too much trouble in the filming of the scene except for the photoshopping. The figure did fall down a few times, so I had to reset him which was a bit hard as I had to match it up almost exactly with where he was in the previous shot, but I managed to and I finished the scene. I have a lot more scenes to do, but I am happy with how the animation is looking so far.

MY ANIMATION

Throughout last term, we were working on our animation, storyboards and shot lists, to get ready to film this term. This term we spent the first couple of weeks finishing our storyboards and things off so we could start filming our animations. I completed these within these weeks and I am ready to film either next week or maybe a bit later, once I have finalised my idea and sets and where I am filming. I am excited to start this unit of work and I hope my animation turns out well!