Sam Cybs BA3B

This week I added our recorded dialogue to the animatic, and production has finally begun on the 2D advert sequence:

This week I finally completed the animatic, it just needs editing to time it to the music.

Continued with the bear building loops, working on the animatic, and continued making visuals for the presentation, such as a film poster. Got involved with voice acting for Andy Angels project.

This week I experimented with bear building animation loops and contributed to the presentation for next week. My idea at this point was to create the TV ad in Flash/TVPaint animation and the factory sequence in After Effects digital animation that more closely replicates the look and texture of the stop motion puppets. Since we came up with the idea to have the stop motion puppets moustache move instead of giving him a mouth, Corey wanted me to redesign the moustache a little (I also took this opportunity to test out several different eyes). I had some fun with the first approach, decided I liked the second top one best, and created several more grounded variations of it for the second batch of designs. I also began storyboarding the advert sequence. One thing we struggled with was how to plan out the stuffed bears 'origin story' that the ad would tell. Upon switching our setting to the 1950's, it no longer made any sense to have the ad be about a colourful ...

As needed, I created some construction sheets to help Corey with the proportions of our characters. I'm quite proud of the fathers one, with attention to detail in his slouching stance. Here, Corey had an idea for what the factory sequence should look like, and storyboarded it - and I  made a quick animatic for it. (Corey also had this idea that we should make our own choir of voice actors to sing silly bear related lyrics to the intense orchestral music that's bound to go along with this scene.) I also worked on creating some expressions sheets for the characters. In the fathers expressions sheet, I wanted to show visually how I imagined the fathers emotions coming almost entirely from the positioning of his eyebrows. Corey intends to have the moustache on a wire so it simply moves up and down when he speaks. The childs face is a little more complex, with smaller eyebrows and a smaller forehead on whic to move those eyebrows, movabl...

The Animatic is taking a little longer than planned, but this week I continued working on the character designs. Once we'd decided on the type of child we were going to work with, I went and designed a few outfits based on what I imagined a kid who watches 90's Saturday morning cartoons to look like, since that was my main inspiration for what I envisioned for the TV ad sequence. I intended to do some research into 'Care Bears' and other cartoons from that era. When designing the bear, I first went with quite a traditional one capable of standing on its hind legs, with tiny beady eyes. Of course I played around with a few other animals and costumes for it, and then tried something completely different just for fun - reducing the character to a literal circle and building cute elements into it. Later I made alterations based on the fact the story was now taking place in the 1950’s. Corey sent me a couple images of typical schoolchildren outfits for the t...

The decision has now been made to set our story at christmas time, so I implemented feedback into the animatic about adding an establishing shot next to a christmas tree and adjusting the timing.  In order to begin making the puppets, Corey needed some character designs, so I began sketching some ideas. When designing the father, I thought about the old semiotics trick of characters made of round shapes conveying innocence and square shapes conveying stability, and I thought that might be a good place to start considering I'd need to make these characters work in stop-motion. I also rather enjoyed making him look quite battered and leathery, as if reality had worn him down and taken the colour out of him. I'm not sure why I made the eyes wide and blank, but I think it had something to do with the simple but effective stylistic choices of animators like 'LemonyFresh' (whose style is pictured below): Coming up with a look for the child was tough,...