adasjuskaanimation

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Two Minute Film Production Process Reflection

I was really excited about this project as I had a lot of ideas. And that made it a bit complicated because throughout the making process I got lost many times. However, the main idea to animate something about the time, its loop and how different it can be understood, still remained. I have been trying to achieve the feeling of something confusing but very understandable at the same time. It was really hard at some point to explain my ideas to the class and tutors. But as it was going further it was getting better and more clear. I believe I could have done a lot with this project. My film idea was to show people how important and how little time we actually have. And all of the daily rush sometimes is not worth it. Especially when there is no one to share it with. 

Hopefully, now I can take my ideas to the next year to try and create something even more better or maybe something simplified. I will see what summer will bring up, as for now I can not work anymore on my two minute film, as all the stuff is left in the university, and I do not have the right equipment to continue working. However, it was a great chance to get my hands to work on a big set, on character designs and puppet making. I think I could still use it at some point for my future projects. 

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Animatic This is the same storyboard of my two minute film, just put into the very ROUGH animatic. As I was thinking that most of this film is going to be stop motion, I thought I could have a very rough animatic and work my way out while I would be animating. By that I mean to fix what is missing and fix scenes where it was a bit confusing. I think this way I would have saved some time. So that is why I left my animatic just like that. 

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Storyboard 5 Once again a cut scene just as it can be seen the very first time Jaco experiences the time rewind. As the train passes he falls back. Just as in the begging but instead of falling on the rail tracks he felt back. Train is different this time. and when the doors open he sees the same old guy, who invites him to go as the time is gone. When the main character goes on the train and they leave. There is no more time indicators left in the shot, no clock or anything else. which shows that it was actually his last journey.

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Storyboard 4 Once again the character wakes up at this desk. Now it happens before he gets drunk. Suddenly he realises that something is not right and this is not a dream that he is feeling. For the last time he takes a look throughout the window and takes a glimpse to a photo on his table. As it would show that he understood that everything before that - all the rush and stress was not worth it. Calmly he arrives at the metro. As now he understand that he do not need his job anymore which was getting him killed he is throws his case into the bin and gives the homeless all he had so he would not spend it on alcohol. Suddenly he sees an old man standing next to him. The main character realises that all the time it was him who was controlling the time and trying to show the main guy what he was doing wrong. Jaco smiles and closes his eyes while the train is coming and the wind is blowing.

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Storyboard 3 The main character loses his consciousness and falls back onto the rails while the train is coming. A cut scene where time is shown going back and everything behind the clock rewinds until the moment where the last flashback left. (He slept after working and drinking and that was why he was late). Now when the time re-winded the main character Jaco thought that it was a scary dream but he got so scared that he got drunk and very mad about the situation in his life. When he arrives at the metro he goes berserk and smashes everything, while suddenly he slips and falls back on the tracks again. Now there’s a shot where mysterious old man exhales and starts to turn his wrist watch.

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Storyboard 2 The main character is in panic, and suddenly he is so frightened that he has another flashback from the last day, which kind of explains why he was late for the train today. After the flashback he sees the clock again but there’s a mysterious figure behind it. Main character is more scared now.

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Storyboard 1 Entering shot and a flashback scene to the boss office. Once the metro is shown, the main character is late for his train.

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Character design Here are the final design of all characters in my film.  The main character Jaco - tall, slim, working man, who is going through a lot of depression and is stuck in the routine. Jack -  an old man, observer, mysterious guy who is working as a clockwinder. Boss - the one that insults and gives work for Jaco. Homeless man - a guy who shows the differences between those who have everything, and those who need a little something. I was pretty excited about how the characters turned out. It would also be cool to finish creating the puppets.

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Background design 3 different locations where the action should have taken place. The metro station, work office, and a room at home.

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Progress 3 After I made my base for the set and had to work fast, I have decided to move onto the puppets. I had already built armatures for each of the puppet, and started making clay faces. Unfortunately I could not finish making them.

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Progress 2 The set is getting bigger and more complex. It looks like it is closed but actually you can separate it in two depending on where the camera should go. I made it very easy to access and animate. So when I would be animating I would not need the whole set but maybe only one side of it or even just the base. Even though it can be separated, when connected it holds just as strong. Nothing is wobbly. 

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Progress 1 I have started of with the set. It took a lot of measurements and cutting to do to get the main shapes right.

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Sketchbook  These are the sketches for technical solutions. How everything should be combined and built.  For the puppet sketch I wrote down each material and drew each part separately to make it clear what goes on what to build the whole thing. This always reminds me of any anatomic books with human body and its structure pictures. Also I have tried to design the clothes while imagining how I’m going to sew them. The set was a little bit more difficult to plan out as it had to be one of the biggest and most complex sets I have ever made. So I tried to plan everything out just right so it would not be a problem later. I came up with loads of solutions for it. But the real decision making began when I started building it. 

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Sketchbook These are the very first sketches for my Two Minute Film. Idea have changed a lot since then. But here are what I thought would be fun to create. First character designs, sketchy storyboards and random words flying around my sketchbook.

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Inspirational references from the internet I was looking for the late 60′s or 70′s aesthetic style for my film. And I have found amazing photographs from that time that really inspired my film. Especially the man on the ladders behind the clock. I think it is such an amazing shot.

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Photo references I went out to have a ride on the tube while capturing details and different angle shots for different perspectives that I would have used for my film. At the same time thinking of how I am going to build my own set to be easy accessible for camera. It was a nice journey just to spend time in the underground while it was quite empty.

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Reflection report

This project I was working with an awesome 3rd year animator - Stephen Quenet. From the very beginning he knew what he wanted from me and what he could expect so our communication went really smooth. Before the project, he had already done a lot of work for his film, such as creating stop motion sets and puppets but because he had a lot of different sets to do for different scenes to shot for his film, I was asked to create one of the sets. It was a street set, which was pretty tough but very interesting to create. I have immediately started helping him out as at the same time I was about to build my set for my own film as well. But firstly I wanted to start and get smaller set out of the way. That’s why I have worked so much first two weeks. As we were working in class and as he saw me finishing the set, we were also talking about me helping him out to do 2D animation. I was supposed to learn how to animate the shots he took for his animation in his style in TV Paint. But sadly the university closed and I did not get a chance to do it.  However, recently he said that the animation is on the way. He is going to finish his film because he has everything at home. It was a really great experience working for him and I can not wait to see the final result!