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:
- 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).
- 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)
- 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)
- Zombie emerges through the door- grabs two students and infects them. The principal and student look scared. (Michael)
- 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)
- 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)
- 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)