Planning My Final

Animation
By Rosie Swain
I chose a word to
develop and
create ideas from I also took words from a dictionary
it. I chose the and came up with ‘random’ ideas
word ‘grow’ and which could be involved in my final
produced several animation.
ideas including
growing hair,
growing trees
and growing
apples.
This was one of the
ideas I came up which I
decided would be
included in my final
animation. I produced
this idea from looking in
the dictionary and finding
random words to put
together which could
work. I found a lot of
words that could work
well together but I found
that this one would be
the best for making up a
story with, as this
appears to be a
humorous character,
which already has a
name [murdering] that
can immediately give me
ideas on a storyline, i.e.
involving a murder.
This came from the word ‘grow’
which immediately made me think
of a tree. I felt that although this
would be a nice animation of
something growing and developing,
it would take either a lot of time or a
lot of effort to keep the consistency
of the appearance if I had to keep
drawing it again and again.
If I were to use this idea for my animation, I
would use whiteboard animation because I
would not have to draw the same drawings
repeatedly, risking it not looking continuous and
smooth.
I also like the idea of it appearing that my fingers
are making the trees grow, which could easily
be done through whiteboard animation.
 Initial Ideas

When planning
my animation I
first sketched my
chosen character
from my other set
of drawings and
developed the I felt this idea was the
character with best as I could
different develop different
expressions and personalities and
personalities and expression for it. I
the other also felt that because
character I would this was a slightly
use. humorous and
I still haven't decided on what media
strange character it
I should use but I think that either
would make a good
claymation or pixilation using tracing
paper would be the best. story.

I have now decided to use cut out

animation using acetate paper
because it would enable me to make
the movements of the characters
more animated easily so it would be
more entertaining.
I then drew different versions of my character
with different emotions. I managed to
differentiate the different emotions by the shape
of the characters eyebrows and what his arms
were doing. I tried drawing eyes but it made the
character look innocent which is not what I
wanted as i wanted the audience to be aware
that the marmite was ‘evil’.
This is one of the
main personalities for
the marmite which is
‘sad marmite’. I liked
the idea of it crying
actual marmite and I
would either do this
by using ink or paint.
This is the personality of
the marmite when it is
about to do something
evil. I think this is the
best drawing out of the
ideas page as it is the
most humorous and can
be used to surprise the
audience.
This allows me to see what I
need to collect (props, material)
and how long it will take to
prepare for the animation.
This production schedule helped me
clearly state what I intended to
complete each week. I mostly stuck to
this plan and this helped me keep on
track of everything. The only thing
that I did differently was upload and
edit my animation on only one week
(17/12/10) as I realised it did not need
that much editing or time going into it.
This is the main setting of my animation. There are ‘tear
drops’ and drops of ‘blood’ on it as I took the photo after
my animation was completed. I felt that the cartoon like
appearance suited my target audience (young children),
as it had bold colours and simple drawings, to keep it
focused on the actual characters and storyline.
This is the other setting which was used at the beginning of the animation,
when the character is walking up the road. Yet again, I wanted the trees to
remain simple and bold, to appeal to the target audience, and suit the rest of
the animation.
This is my final main
character, which I drew I also decided to go
on acetate and stuck against the idea of
white paper behind it, to the character having
make it stand out eyebrows, as unless
they were an
against the coloured
unnatural character,
background. Although I they would get lost in
originally did not think the black lines and
of putting paper behind would just make it
it, when I placed it on appear cluttered and
my settings, It got lost messy.
in the colours of the Because it did not
background, so I cut have eyebrows in the
out paper the shape end, which was
and size of the originally supposed
character and stuck it to determine the
characters different
behind it to make it
emotions, I decided
stand out against the to focus his emotions
bold colours of the on the sound effects.
background. After doing
this, I found that it
worked and made the
characters much bolder
and brighter looking.
The next stage before the actual animation
was to do a storyboard however this file
was corrupted.

Whilst doing the storyboard I really had to think about each scene and what
angle/zoom I would take it at. I did about twelve different main scenes that
determined the storyline.
Doing the storyboard helped me see the different scenes and confirmed
how long this animation would be.
 Sounds
I chose to record my sound effects after the animation because I wanted to
base the sounds on the animation so it wasn’t the other way round where I
would have had to fit the animation around the sound effects. This is the
reason why I chose not to create a dope sheet, so when I analysed the
animation repeatedly, I could then create the sounds based on what I saw.
Doing it this way enabled me to think freely about the sound effects and made
me focus more on the animation. This also meant I could have changed the
animation to improve it or if needed added any more scenes, as the choice
of sounds came afterwards.
I chose to do non-understandable sounds, to appeal to the target audience,
(young children), who wouldn't necessarily understand words yet anyway. It
also gives viewers the chance to find out about the characters for
themselves by judging on their characteristics and the tones or types of
sounds they make.
Problems I had along the way and
how I solved them
One of the main but easily solved problems I had was when I had created my
character but when I placed it on the background it got lost in all the colours,
so I cut white paper the same shape as the character and stuck it behind
the acetate. This made the character stand out against the setting and
made the colours on the acetate stand out even more.
Another problem I had was the place where I shot the pictures had harsh
lighting which bounced off the acetate, leaving a light spot, covering some of
the detail. I then moved from the original working spot and found a dimmer
place. This got rid of the disruptive light and doing it in the new place made
the lighting more consistent.
 Where I departed from my original
plans
One of the most effective changes I made was deleted a scene towards the end of the animation.
Originally I wanted to have the character back in the first setting, walking back up the road but
I found that I would have to make another character and it would inevitably appear different,
so it could confuse the audience. So instead I had the character walking back to the start of
the second setting, before the bars came down and it got trapped, as planned.
Another change I made just before I started making the animation, was when I created my story
board and decided to stick to two settings instead of more. Originally I wanted at least three
more settings which weren’t necessarily completely different but were drawn from different
angles. This, I realised would have forced me to draw my character from different angles and
sizes, so in the end I decided to stick to the two main scenes where the most action took
place and where I could use the same version of the character for. During the making of the
animation, I decided that I had made the right decision as it was much simpler, and the story
kept at the same pace.
I also changed the colour of the blood, as I first wanted the blood to be ‘marmite coloured’ blood,
as the character is a pot of marmite. However, when I tried it, it didn’t look realistic and it
could have been confusing to the audience of what it was supposed to represent [blood]. So I
changed the colour to red, but when it came to the ‘crying scene’ I kept to my plans as having
the tears ‘marmite coloured’, and made sure that it was obvious that he was crying by having
crying sound effects.