Adaptation A: Submission Post - How To Build A DIY Frankenstein Monster

Reflective Statement:
Going into this project I was quite nervous about it since graphic design and animation are not necessarily my strengths. However, I wanted to do my best and use this project to hopefully improve on these sets of skills that I often put on the back burner. Overall I'm happy with what I have been able to make, despite my nervousness and lack of confidence at the start. I feel I was lucky because I had used After Effects to create VFX for past projects including 'Leviathan', 'Pikatti', and animating my 'Denoria' digital set. I'm happy I was able to learn more about After Effects because I realised early on how useful it can be especially when it comes to cutting down render time in Autodesk Maya by creating VFX in After Effects instead. I feel I could have possibly added more to the sound design, but I didn't want to overdo it due to the 'silent film' aesthetic I was going for. I had a few moments I was very frustrated with my music because I had to spend a lot of time desperately trying to loop it so it could last the whole length of the animation. In terms of design, wish I could have spent more time designing some of my assets, especially the monster. While I feel that the black and white works well for this project because I was influenced by Frankenstein (1931) and Young Frankenstein (1974), part of me wishes I experimented more with colour just to see what it'd look like. Lastly, I'm happy with how the animations came out and I think I was able to blend animation from the Plug-In 'Animation Composer' with my own keyframes and special effects effectively. However, there are parts of the animation that I wish I had more time to figure out, such as maybe having the needle actually weave in and out of the monster's skin as the head gets stitched on. Despite these things, I'm happy with the result and I'm hoping I continue to improve my graphic design skills in the future.

Adaptation A: Sound Design Progress #2

I've decided to add in a few extra sound effects to my animation as I returned to my files to edit the volume and positioning of some of the clips. I added an extra popping sound effect when the Periodic Table appears, which I think helps improve that part of the animation. I also added in a scream sound effect to accompany the blood splatter, which I think works nicely. I've also gone back into After Effects and fixed a few issues with my animation that I noticed - most notably a problem where my monster's head appeared darker than his body during one of the fading out transitions. I'm not quite sure why this happened as it only appears in some of my compositions in After Effects, but adding some brightness keyframes seems to have improved/fixed this.

Adaptation A: Sound Design Progress #1

I've put together the sound effects that I wanted for my animation along with my music. I wanted to add an old film projector sound effect over the entire animation as an overlay to enhance the 'silent movie' feel. Overall I think it is working well but I may go back and add in a few things while I go in and readjust the positioning volume of some of the sound effects.

Adaptation A: Animation Adjustments

After receiving some feedback, I went back into my infographic and adjusted some of the animations. I added a wiggle/shake when the lightning strikes the lightning rod to give it more of an impact. I also changed some of the animation on the name tag sequence, now it scales up slightly before it quickly slaps onto the monster's chest. I'm quite happy with how my animation is now, so I'm currently waiting for it to render out, which is taking a long time because of all the special effects. In the meantime, I'll continue collecting sounds that I can use for sound design which I hope to begin working on once my animation is rendered. If I notice any other bits that need to be fixed, I'll go back into my animation and alter them.

Adaptation A: Animation Progress #2

I wanted to quickly make another update for my infographic. Since this video I've nearly completed the animations for Step Four which includes the lightning effects. I think things are coming out well so far, however after seeing this video I've noticed a few things I need to tweak and I want to tone down the film grain. I've also spent time on my audio looping my music because it already wasn't long enough for my three steps but I think I've sorted it for now.

 

Adaptation A: Animation Progress #1

After finishing up the assets, organising the images, and cleaning up my After Effects file I was able to begin animating. Some of the animation I've been doing on my own while some others I've been using a free plug-in called Animation Composer. If I use Animation Composer, I go back in and change some of the settings. This is only a small portion of my animation, and I hope to get the majority of the animation done tomorrow if not all of it. I've begun to realise how long this may take to render due to the amount of effects I have such as film grain, opacity/position wiggle animations, and multiple layers of fractal noise to give different effects. I will also have more animation for my assets, lightning, and a blood splatter so I'm trying to be wary of render time so I can be as productive as possible.

CG Artist's Toolkit Project 2: Animation & Character Submission 2015/2016

Animation & Character - Final Showreel 2015/2016 from Deanna Crisbacher on Vimeo.

Animation & Character Submission (2015/2016) by Deanna

Animation & Character: Lip Sync - "You're going to need a bigger boat..." (Updated)

Fantastic Voyage: Rough New Animatic

Since I now have my voiceover, I decided to quickly piece together an animatic so I know the new timing better for when I start animating. It only has the voice and is missing the sound effects but I at least have a better idea of the timing/pacing now. I also changed the sequence 0:26-0:44 so there were less scenes where it's just a black screen (in the animatic I just reused some storyboards of kelp and bacteria silhouettes).

Animation & Character: Crit Showreel

Animation & Character: Excited Decanter with Sound

I think the sound is working with this, it took me a very long time to find the right sounds for glass dragging and 'bouncing'. I was also surprisingly difficult to find the right liquid spilling/pouring sound. After playing around with the pitch and trying to add a little reverb without going overboard, I think it works.

 

Animation & Character: Lip Sync - "You're gonna need a bigger boat..." Final

I thought this animation needed a little bit more so I added a few extra frames, made the boat sink more and added some lake waves, creaking wood, and water spilling sound effects.

@Phil - Fantastic Voyage: The Leviathan Animatic Progress II

The timing needs to be worked on a bit I think, but I'm going to start working on adding some sound effects, but I was wondering if I should add subtitles or annotations for the narration, if I should leave it without subtitles to not block any of the images and present the narration using my script/3 acts, or if I should do a version of both for the pitch?

* Update*I might be getting Joe to do some narration for me, so that question is more for if I'm unable to get a recording tomorrow. I know I can do it myself too, I'd just prefer not to because I don't think my voice would work well but if that's a better option than subtitles or just presenting a script (and if I can't get anyone else to do it) I'll obviously suck it up.

Animation & Character: Excited Decanter Further Progress

I've added in some extra frames and a I made the decanter peek around the fridge before jumping around so he doesn't look like he appears out of nowhere.

Animation & Character: "You're gonna need a bigger boat..." Progress

Animation & Character: Excited Decanter Progress

Animation & Character: "You're going to need a bigger boat..." Animation Start

Today we were to choose an audio clip and create an animation using that clip only put the dialogue in a different situation. I chose "You're going to need a bigger boat..." from Jaws. For some reason it made me imagine a big dog (specifically a Mastiff as my mother has a Boerboel) on a small little canoe with a fisherman (probably because in New York we bring our Golden Retriever with us on boats with us sometimes, and a lot of other people bring their dogs fishing). Since the dog is so big, the boat springs some leaks and begins to sink so the dog says "you're going to need a bigger boat". It's not done yet so I'll include a GIF and a video clip even though the dog's mouth doesn't move yet.

From Script to Screen: Final Animatic (Sound and Music)

Animation & Character: Decanter Progress

Adobe Premiere: Titles

To practice using titles in Premiere Pro, I added each type of title to my like-for-like animatic. For the dialogue, I used the 'crawl' title but I had them remain stationary.