Production Diary Schedule Second Term

Week 1

Even though I was pleased with the work that I had produced from pre-production in the first term, I
still wasnt completely sure about the story for my final animation. However, I knew that I definitely
still wanted to portray a story about father and son. With this in mind, I had more tutorials with the
lecturers and after hearing their advice, I decided to plot more story ideas that I thought I could
carry out in the next 12 weeks.
Week 2

Over these 2 weeks, I researched other animations and films that included a story that contained the
relationship between a parent and child. Also, I looked at adventure/fantasy type genres in order to
get a feel into what type of style I was going to go for. This draws upon the research that I had
completed from pre-production. In terms of the new story that I came up with, I have listed the
details below:
-

Dad is a famous explorer but he passes away. The son isnt much of an explorer but wants to
continue the legacy of his dad. He goes on a journey in order to find out things about himself,
as well as overcoming his fears and succeeding his dad. At the end of the story, the boy is all
grown up, and we find him with his family, maybe his young son or daughter as if its a cycle.

Even though I thought this idea would have been really interesting to do, I dont think I would be
able to pull this off in the time period that Ive got as Ill be doing this project individually.

Week 3

In week 3, I had some more talks with the lecturers in order to get more ideas for the story. Another
idea was as follows:
-

Dad goes missing and the boy goes on a journey in order to go find him. Instead of doing the
castle idea, why not have him travelling to different locations around the world? A desert, a
forest, a snow place etc Then right at the end of the animation, the boy is tired and
prepares to give up. However, he then hears someone, and there he finds his dad trapped
where he must help him out. The animation would end with them reunited.

This idea was also something that I thought could be really interesting to do. Although, again, in the
time period I have and with only me working on it, I dont think I would be able to pull off the story
well enough and in a lot of detail.

Week 4

By week 4, I had finalised what I had wanted to include in the story but I still wasnt sure about the
status of the father. For example, I wanted the boy to overcome his fears of particular things such as
the water, and heights and learning how to be an explorer. However, I wasnt sure whether to have
the dad just missing or whether he had gone and the son was just carrying on with his legacy. From
there, I decided that the legacy idea may be better to do in the time that I have remaining for
production. The story now goes like this:
-

The boy is now alone as his explorer father has sadly passed away. The son looks at the
pictures of his father on all the journeys that he had been on and then decides (looking at
the map of a mountain that he had not visited), that he would go to that mountain in tribute
for his dad. During the animation, he will travel through the forest, conquering his fears and
learning how to cope/survive. By the end of the animation, the boy will have finally found
the mountain and even though he feels accomplished, he still feels sadness without his dad.
However, feeling a sudden presence, he visions his dad and looking at the mountain in the
sunset, the two of them look on.

With the remaining time that I have to produce this animation, I think that this storyline will be good
to go with as it combines all the aspects that I thought of for the previous ideas. Next week, I will
begin to work on the animation.

Week 5, 6 and 7

In week 5, 6 and 7, I began to work on the sketches for the animation passes for each scene. For
reference, I had recorded me acting out particular scenes and even got other people for reference to
in order to gain a variety of footage that I could then choose. By gaining this reference, it helped me
a lot with posing, posture and proportions. Furthermore, as well as producing my own references, I
went along to the 2D animation classes in order to improve my drawing skills as well as learning
more about how to animate my characters. Examples of this were drawing the son with different
expressions and body postures in order to portray how he was feeling in each scene.

Week 8, 9 and 10
During weeks 8,9 and 10 I continued to work on the sketch animation passes for my final animation,
and started to neaten them up for the second pass. In this second pass, I worked on the blocking
that I had done in previous weeks and added the in-betweens so that the movement looked a lot
more fluid. As well as this, I started to look at what backgrounds I would use in each shot of each
scene and for reference, I looked at everything I had learnt about perspective and composition from

pre-production. Also, I looked at numerous films and animations in order to get an idea into how
things were positioned and what camera angles to use to portray a particular mood/setting etc
Once I had my basic sketches for the backgrounds, I neatened up a bit so that I knew where the
characters would be in each scene.

Week 11 and 12

Before the Easter break, I wanted to complete all the basic animation and in-betweens so that over
the break I could work on my backgrounds in Photoshop and in more detail. With this in mind, I
continued working on the animation in order to polish it up and managed to complete it all before
the break. In the Easter break, I started to work on my backgrounds although, after researching
more styles of backgrounds in animations and films that I had watched, I decided to change my style
in order to fit the style that I had drawn for the characters. Beforehand, I wanted to make the
backgrounds really detailed although, I wasnt really happy with the colour palettes that I used and
the detail just didnt look right with the characters. After gathering my research and reference, I re
painted my backgrounds and re-addressed the colour palettes. Also, during this process, I learnt a lot
more about different textured brushes in Photoshop and how to use different tools to get a really
great effect. For example, I learnt how to use the render features that allowed me to alter the
lighting to look more effective and I learnt how to use the lasso tool in order to create really nice
shapes for the texture brushes.

Remaining weeks before the hand-in

After the Easter break, I decided that I would put the backgrounds aside for now and started to work
on my animations in order to neaten them up ready for colouring and shading. This process took 4
weeks as there was a lot of animation for me to line and occasionally I had to readjust some of the
poses or proportions. Although, once I had done this, I started to colour all my scenes and started to
include the shading. As I had the main colour schemes planned out from doing the backgrounds, I
was able to pick these colours in Photoshop and apply them to my characters so that I knew exactly
how the lighting would be in each scene. This was really helpful when I was colouring the characters
and shading them. Even though initially I wanted to line and colour my animation all in Photoshop, I
was running out of time so I decided to do it in Flash. Another issue I had was that I didnt know how
to get good lining qualities in Flash, however, once I learnt more about the no smoothing and the
pen pressure option, I found that this made the process a lot easier. In the last week before the
hand-in, I had finished all the lining and colouring of the scenes and all that needed left to do was
the detailing of the backgrounds. Once I had completed them, I imported them into Flash and then
compiled all the animation and concepts that I had done together and took them into Premiere Pro
in order to be put into the final animation film. With the music that I had chosen previously, I added
this and then the final animation was complete.

Overall, even though I would still like to work on my final animation to polish up the story and some
details of the characters, I am pleased with what I have produced by myself and I feel that I have
learnt a lot about the production pipeline of creating an animation. If I had to improve what I had
created, I would have perhaps added a bit more to the story as it seems a bit lacking although, really
I wanted the main focus to be on my animations and concept art (backgrounds etc) as I would like
to get into the 2D animation industry as an animator. Also, I think that if I had more time, I would
have been able to achieve this although I will continue to work on it ready for the London Show in
July.

Scene 1 Opening Scene Boy in Room

All work produced by Me

Scene 2 Boy in Forest, climbs tree and looks out at mountain

All work produced by Me

Scene 3 Boy rowing in a boat, loses paddle and falls out of boat
All work produced by Me

Still images photo montage of his journey (fishing, making campfire, making bed of leaves, walking
on bridge)
All work produced by Me

Scene 4 Boy finds the Mountain, reunites with his father (presence)
All work produced by Me
Editing and Compiling of final animation All produced by Me

Music credits: Jason Pedder/Andreas Georgallis/Ben Ziapour Secret Encounter