PRODUCTION

Tuesday, 19th February 2019

Since the Christmas break, I have continued to develop the style of animation that I will work in to complete my final film.  My working process has sped up considerably as I am now working through a display drawing tablet, animating directly into Adobe Photoshop.  I spent some time working on rough, experimental samples as I got to grips with my new tool and working process while developing some free-flowing animation.  I also begin placing samples of animation on a timeline to see how they would fit with the poem.

Friday, 1st March 2019

As I continue with the production of "Stumble", I will create a full animatic from keyframes and begin to work methodically by filling the inbetweens.  Once I have developed each stage of the poem I will begin to consider colour more thoroughly.

Here is a clip of rough animation set to a clip of the poem.  I prepared this for my composer, Alexandra Katerinopoulou, as a guide.  To improve this section, I will finish redrawing everything in Photoshop and smooth out the transitions in After Effects, where I will also use the camera tool to zoom in and out of the animation and follow the path of the line smoothly.  I will complete the entire film in this way.

Wednesday, 20th - Friday, 22nd February 2019

Move Summit Animation Festival

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Move Summit was a great opportunity to listen and speak to animation industry professionals.  The highlight of my experience was the lecture and workshop hosted by Noah Klocek from Pixar, where he discussed his experiences with storytelling through his animation work and his personal children's storybook projects.

INTERIM: DISSERTATION

Thursday, 18th April 2019

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Here is the main body of animation assembled and sized on a timeline before I introduced the camera layer in After Effects.  I intended for each chunk of animation to line up seamlessly.  From here I keyframed the camera along the timeline and tweaked its movement so that It flowed with the animation.

Wednesday, 1st May 2019

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These are two alternative sequences for the intro and outro of Stumble that I had experimented with on After Effects.  The first sequence with the rigid lines came from a desire to have some animation that would contrast from the free-flowing, transformative line that held the body of the film.  I experimented with shape layers in After Effects, 

Saturday, 4th May 2019

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While I was trying to find a final shape which would hold the intro sequence of the film, my friend, a practising doula,  introduced me to Womb Labyrinths.  The labyrinth is an ancient symbol of the feminine archetype with its spiralling circle into the centre (the womb). Taken from Exploring Femininity.

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I understand this symbol to be used for relaxation, meditation, spiritual connection and healing.  My friend explained to me that doulas use the symbol to help pregnant women through labour, working from the outer circle into the centre and out again during contractions.  This was my final discovery moment which allowed me to complete the film.  I traced the symbol at the beginning of the film, to lead the audience into a dreamlike state, and used it in the end climax, layering it up in gold on a black background.

Tuesday, 7th May 2019

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When the final animation was complete and arranged on After Effects I started experimenting with introducing colour and texture.  I made up some blue and gold texture samples, the colours I had envisioned using for this project, and layered them into the animation.  This is an example of the intro sequences with the textures in place; I found that I loved the gold line, but thought that the textured background took some attention away from the movement of the line.