Month: November 2021

This week, our homework was to create a storyboard for our animation and animate a flour sack character by using a pose-to-pose method. My 10-15 seconds of the animation is at the very end when Fern has realised what the headmistress has done to the headmaster. As karma, she is then touched by the mushroom zombies and turns into one herself. It finishes with both sides at war. I initially took inspiration from clementine from the walking dead videogame and Padma Patil from Harry Potter for Fern. We then went with Cloe’s design for Fern’s Character. The headmistress was inspired by Mother Gothel from Tangled and Yzma from Emperor’s New Groove. We went with Eimear’s final design for her. With these designs finalised, I was able to make good progress with my storyboard and begin the first drafts.

Fern References:

Cloe’s Design:

Headmistress References:

Eimear’s Design:

I initially wanted Fern to be shocked and a little scared of the headmistress after realising she is the reason for the zombies. Then when she sees a hand move in slow motion about to grab the headmistress, she realises her anger, and doesn’t push her away, but lets the zombie grab her. She then turns into a zombie herself and stands with the others. We see a closeup of a wand, then of a zombie hand, and it pans out to the two groups standing opposite one another.

I then changed the order of a couple of the panels. We now see a closeup of Fern immediately going from shocked to angry. Instead of a hand grabbing the headmistress straight away, I wanted to show Fern standing up to her, so it is now the headmistress’s turn to feel small and scared. At the end, when both groups are opposite one another, Fern casts a spell that fills the screen, leaving the animation on a cliff-hanger. The screen then fades out from white to black. I had to change the descriptions in my storyboard as I learned from this week’s lecture that they are not meant to tell the viewer what is happening, each panel should do that on their own. I changed them to describe the timing and camera angle/movement of each panel, as well as character notes for when I start my animatic.

I really enjoyed creating the flour sack animation this week. I had only used Krita for creating animations for the first time last week, so this was my first time animating with forms on Krita. Learning about the principals when animating, such as using arcs, made the movements of the sack more realistic. I found it a little difficult in the beginning using the pose to pose method and drawing the in-betweens, but after a while I found it very enjoyable and am extremely happy with the result.

This week, our lecture was on the basics of animation and our homework was to animate 3 bouncing balls using Adobe Animate and to read chapter 4 of ‘The Animators Survival Kit’ by Richard Williams. I have used Adobe Animate before, so I found this exercise quite easy and very enjoyable. Through our lecture and the reading, I learned about timing and spacing. When animating a bouncing ball, the timing is how long it takes for the ball to hit the ground.  Spacing is how close or far apart the ball is at each frame of the animation. When the ball is in the air at the top of the arc, it moves slower, and the ball overlaps itself. However, when it is falling to the ground, it moves faster and is more spaced out. Spacing can be broken down into extremes and in-betweens. Extremes are the main positions. The drawings in between allow the easing in and out of the extreme positions.

I also learned about ‘squash and stretch’. When a ball is falling, it stretches, then squashes when it makes contact with the ground. When at the slower part of the arc, it returns to its normal state. The softer the ball, the more intense it will squash and stretch. For this animation, I worked on 1s at 24 frames per second, allowing a smooth, fluid motion. We also learned about 2s, which is a drawing every 2 frames, and 3s. a drawing every 3 frames.

During class this week, I learned how to ease in and out when animating and how to draw a ball on a ‘roller coaster’ in Krita. At first, I found getting the spacing right when easing in and out difficult as, unlike the previous exercise, I had no guide for the placement of the ball. However, I really enjoyed animating the ball on a roller coaster and feel as though it made me more confident when it comes to spacing.

This week my group also made some final decisions on our story, and we created 3 basic character profiles. To lay out all of our ideas, before class I wrote a basic plot for our animation with 7 parts, 1 for each person in our group.

The whole plot was kept, however, some parts were swapped as the group decided bringing the flashback to the start of the animation would seem less confusing for the viewer, so the story is now told in chronological order. There are also now 8 parts to the animation as Michael was added to our group.

Final Story:

1. black and white set up shot: the old principle and the new principle walk into the forest. She throws a beaker at him (Ben) the old principle is attacked by the mushroom roots and pulled underground. The new principles face looks menacing. She lifts the beaker and turns it. Curse is written on it. (Lydia).
2. Fern (the student) walks into the dark forest. (Show the school in the background to show its a school) She Is practicing Magic. Her spell misses and rebounds off a tree, hitting the ground where there is a pile of mushrooms. She steps forward to look having heard a noise. A hand pops out of the ground suddenly. Close up of fern screaming (Jasmin)
3. Fade from Ferns face to the principal looking happy. Students walking about in the background. Fern runs in and explains to the New Principle what has happened. They turn to the door. The new principle gets ready and raises her staff (Eimear)
4. Zombie emerges through the door- grabs two students and infects them. The principal and student look scared. (Michael)
5. The students touched have now become zombies. They advance forward. The principle tries to do magic to kill the zombies- it doesn’t work. (Cloe)
6. Fern tries to cast a spell on the head zombie- His hood falls to reveal his face. Fern recognizes him as the old principle. There is a fade shot to show the old headmaster in both forms. (Mark)
7. Fern realizes what the new principle has done and stops trying to help her. The Mushroom principle and the army reach the principle and surround her (Amy)