End Credits

We have discussed for a while that we want our end credits to tie in with our Movie Poster. The movie poster can be seen below…

 

 

We aim to have this same white background in our end credits, the text will roll down the screen whilst Hank is moving about the screen dancing, trying to get a bone etc. We have took inspiration from the end credits of (one of my all time favourite shows) Bobs Burgers.

Bobs Burgers “Boyz 4 Life” End Credits

Although we have not made our end credits yet, i took some rendered images that Shelley made and used them to create a false end credits image, so that we could see what it looked like, and understand the look we want to achieve.

Look 1.  This was my original idea, i liked the idea of the credits running down the centre of the screen as credits traditionally do. Whilst Hank appears from both sides of the a screen doing different things, such as fetching a bone etc.

Look 2. This looks inspiration was directly pulled from ‘Bobs Burgers’ as can be seen in the beginning of this post.  The image (or piece of animation) is to the left of the screen, whilst the credits roll down the right hand side.

Look 3. After showing the first two looks to Shelley and Niamh, they suggested that it may look nicer to move the text to the left, and have Hank come slowly creeping onto the screen from the right. A few weeks ago when we first got our Hank rig, Shelley decided to make a comical small piece of animation with Hank dancing, we are considering fixing up this piece of animation and having it play whilst the credits roll.

I enjoy each of these credit ideas and am pleased that we have kept with a clean and simple idea. I feel it reflects Hanks intentions and the simplicity of our story.

 

Finding a Soundtrack

One of the main worries we have all had in the back of our minds,  was our film’s soundtrack. In our original animatics we had used the song ‘Best Friend” by Harry Nilsson.  However, we were told this song could not be used unless we got the rights.

I did some research and contacted the production company explaining we wished to use it for a non profit, non commercial, student project, and they got back to me telling me we could use the song…for £250. So that was a hard pass.

Over the past weeks i have spent a little time researching free music and sounds, which is hard when a lot of them just don’t suit. In the end i stumbled across a fantastic website, http://www.bensound.com. At ‘Bensound’ i ended up finding 3-4 options that could have worked and in the end we all knew that the song “Jazz Comedy” was the winner.

Jazz Comedy

 

 

The Final Animatic

Today we presented our final animatic, as in just two more weeks, we will be handing in our final film.

At this moment in time we have a lot of animation done, but no animation is completely final, and most still needs a lot of work. However, within the next week of hard work i don’t see this as being our biggest worry, i know we can do it and achieve it.

Our biggest worry at the moment is our scene has a lot of noise (which has finally been fixed in the past 24 hours)  and it takes a lot of time to render. Whilst Niamh and Shelley focus on animation, i will be focusing on researching baking lights, shadows and ambient occlusion.

Once i understand what i am doing, i will implement this research and add in our ‘god lights’ through the window from After Effects. This will effectively give us a much shorter render time.

Hank Animatic

The difference “Denoise” makes

After doing some research into how to apply ‘denoiser’ i decided to render a few frames to see how it reacted to our scene, as you can see below it has definitely made a difference.

Before…

After…

As you can see, the top image has a lot more ‘graininess’ and harshness that gives the impression that the room is foggy or dusty. However, once ‘denoiser’ is applied like in the bottom image, it has a much more smooth and clean appearance.

Overall i think this is a success and will definitely give our final film a lovely finish.

Artistic Ambition

As mentioned before, we all like the idea of the film having a ‘toon’ look like “The boy who learned to fly” and “The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker”.

After discussing this, Niamh came across an animated short called “June”. It is a beautiful film that tells a very heart warming story about an elderly woman who becomes a taxi driver and becomes known in her community.

June: Life is better when you share the ride

June: Behind the scenes/ The Making of

The story is irrelevant, however, the design, look and style of this film is something we would love to achieve.

That is not to say that we want to ‘steal’ or ‘rip off’ this style exactly, rather than that we want to pull inspiration from this look and transfer it into our own designs.

What i am most interested in from looking at this film isn’t the character design, but the design on her home. It is built out of a lot of sharp lines and contrasting light and shadow. The shot composition is also something i want to take note of, when it comes to laying out our apartment.

What we need to consider is ‘Why is the camera positioned where it is?’ and ‘Why is each item in the shot? Does it add to the story and narrative? If it doesn’t, should it even be there?’  These are questions i need to keep asking myself throughout the design stages of making our film.

What i also love about this film is the use of light and how it opens up the scene. It leads your eye directly to the character or whatever it is that the audience should be focusing on.  The casting shadow going across Junes body is also something to point out for when applying the same idea to our turtle character.

The shot above is nothing less than beautiful. The first time i saw this shot i immediately said to myself “this is what i want to achieve.” perhaps not in this exact style, but the layout and composition is a great visualisation of what i have been imagining in my head for our film.

After watching “June: Behind the scenes” I found out that Junes apartment is based in the South Side of Chicago, she lives a lonely existence and this is represented from the things around her in her home. The colour is dull and not very vibrant, and there is little to no light.

The style of the film is described as a “moving illustration”  and “Flat and stylised, but fully dimensional”. These are comments i need to take on board when creating our environments.

Keeping Turtles as Pets

Over the years turtles have decreased in popularity, to the extent that i do not know anyone that owns one. This is because turtles spread diseases such as salmonella  which can affect young children, the elderly, pregnant women and those with a lower immune system. Because of this turtles are rarely even sold anymore. Especially if they are under 4 inches in size.

After looking into this further, i have found that if taken care of properly and proper hygiene is carried out, owning a turtle should really cause many problems. The problem is, most homeowners would choose a cat or rabbit or something that won’t have these extra health issues to begin with.

More information can be found in the following link…

Turtles kept as Pets

Reasons not to get a turtle

Time to set all this information aside…

In our story, the homeowner, has a turtle as a pet regardless of the information above. In our film we need to show the turtle in the house but also in a cage/aquarium. This is important to the narrative and story so that the audience knows this a turtle with  a loving owner who gives him the care he needs.

 

Looking into turtle cages has shown two main point, they need a lot of water space, and only a small amount of land, and they can be personally customised in anyway you want. This will become very interesting once  concepts begin to be produced.

Turtles eat anything from fruit and veg to insects and mice, so it would be a nice touch in the film to show a full fruit bowl in the kitchen, and mini selection placed in the turtles cage for him to nibble on.

Early Character Concepts

We have already discussed the potential to make the turtle character more stylised and ‘boxy’ but below are my first concepts of the turtle, in some i tried to make him do ‘doggish’ poses such as begging, rolling over etc.

I did the most of these roughly in pencil in a sketchbook, this helps explain just how early these sketches are, and i am already working on the next version of the turtles style journey.

Style Inspiration

We are currently in week two and discussing the potential of the film being stylised in a very ‘toon’ way. After watching “The boy who learned to fly” we thought out film could also look lovely in this similar style.

It is also similar to style to a game i play “The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker”.

and a short film i love dearly, Disney Pixar’s “Feast”, Feast is also a helpful reference to study how dogs act, this is something to consider when animating a turtle in similar poses.

In order to accomplish this look we would animate in 3D in Maya but using Toon Shader. This would mean the film would still be a 3D piece but with a more ‘cartoon’ 2D feel.