midnightdreaminganimation

[midnightdreaminganimation]

What now?

What am I going to do now? Well, i don’t really know. I have another placement lined up as I said before, I am hoping to take a little break from animation for at least a little while. I have been looking into getting my tractor driving training license. Driving tractors give me a lot of joy, I am unsure how to get into it but lets just say I am definitely not working in a bar again and I don’t think I fancy doing a PGCE or a PhD. This year has been one of the most difficult for me, with financial difficulty, moving house from a flat with a leaking bathroom and everything else, we won’t go into it, I think I deserve at least a weekend away. :D That would be nice. Or just a week of sleep.

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Film Poster

I was cheeky here and reused last years film poster and replaced the image and did some different wording and now it is a whole different poster... fancy that!

This is my film poster it consists of a my cartoon self, my newly designed logo, a landscape that I have created from the black outlined backgrounds with the added extra of some of the colours icons.  I used the font Leafy for my film title, I was going to create something similar but I found a font that did the job for me, again, it is free for personal use. The letters are actually lower case but the capital letters were only dotted outlines and I wanted all the letters to be the same style. I really like this font.  I have put the quote at the bottom and also a credits in the font Agency FB which is very similar to the professional font used on the back of DVD’s really tall for the names and small letters for the, “Directed by” parts. 

After a little issue with the printer in the Library, I cut it down to size and it is going to be hung up next to my film.

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I learnt things.

For some of the animation I did research and some information I already knew but what I didn’t know was... Do fish blink??

The answer is no. They do not need to blink because their eyes don’t contact the air very often, so they do not blink but this means they sleep with their eyes open because they can’t close their eyes. FREAKY. I did research into what certain animals eat, which water type they can be found in and i found that I gained a lot of, arguably, useful knowledge.

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Logo and Business cards.

The top picture is my new created company logo, I have kept the name Midnight Dreaming Animation, if my understand is correct, it hasn’t been taken up yet and I know that is important for copyright reasons. I like this design. I drew the clouds moon and stars my self and I did some research into fonts tht are available for commercial use for free and this font is called.... Ruthie. The only part that is different is i swapped the dots on the i’s as stars and i think it is a quite well rounded design and I like it very much. If i am eager to carry on making my own animation business, I will produce a moving logo and keep this design as it is, or maybe with a more purple background still dark but not as flat coloured.

This would be the other side of the design with my contact details. It includes a little cartoon Kira which i quite like and a little bit about myself, now this would have to change a little bit because although I am a ukulele player and tractor enthusiast, it isn’t relevant, I just thought it would be funny to add something a bit interesting. It also says in small writing. I would of made this move but its a business card. Gives my business card a bit of spice.  I decided to change my normal msn email to a different one as it is more professional and it isn’t spammed. I will use my old email address for sign ups and getting free stuff.  I put my website on there although it hasn’t been launched just yet, i’m still working on lots of layout issues. Now, i haven’t printed these out because at the moment I need a break from animation, I don’t need 250 business cards if I don’t really want to be contacted. When I have finalised the design and want to be contacted I will sort it out and get them printed professionally. With the short notice, I didn’t want to pay out an extra £10.

Font choices.

I had lots of options for fonts, but taking into consideration future use I think I chose the best one for what I needed, which is also free for commercial use. 

These are the options I chose.

Not all of them are free for commercial use but they are all free for personal use, so it is okay for me to post them up here. 

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Posting Style

I have decided to put the layout of the blog in grid form, I feel that you can see everything but you wont be scrolling forever, I hope this is convenient for your viewing pleasure. :D

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Finding the ending quote

There are some lovely quotes here but i needed to choose a relatively short one to put into the production, the one that was most relevant and not including huge words was the “Education does not have to take place in the classroom.“ I was then looking for the author of that quote and came across a research study by Dillon et al (2005) looking at the benefits of learning outside and showing how beneficial it is, not just for the pupils but for the teachers as well and I thought it was a lovely ending. 

There is a part of me that should of looked into this side of things before when doing my research studies.It would of maybe turned out the same but with a different approach, I think looking at the technological side was an interesting direction and I do believe that with children getting phones earlier and earlier we need new ways of encouraging them to collect memories that aren’t just connected to the people on the other side of the screen. Nature is a personal memory everyone experiences it differently but if you are never in it, how can you experience it.

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Sound

Sound Effects for Neglected Nature Animation

I’m copying over some wording from the learning agreement.

For the sound, I originally came up with a full list of sound effects and ideas about what I wanted and I was going to do the creation and placement of the sound myself, however, after a conversation with the tutors, I was offered the opportunity of someone else doing my sound which took an item of my workload, which was beneficial to me. I sent the almost finished animation off to Lee and Pete to look at and I had placed the recordings of my voice over’s underneath, so he could match up the sound and volume levels.

I understand that my recordings weren’t the best quality but they sounded good enough for the film, so I kept the originals and just placed them in line with the visuals. These recordings were imported into Adobe Audition to increase the volume level and I had a few issues with what I was meant to be achieving. I understand the audio colour shouldn’t go up into the red levels, but I didn’t really have a comparison for what volume the computer sound should be at to what the audio should sound like.

Lee had combined the voice recordings and created sound over the track and what he created was rather lovely. There are less sound effects in the second half of the production but I don’t think it is that noticeable, I really enjoy listening to the water bubbling in the Ivy scene.

Neglected Nature – Length – 3:30 Background music to carry on until 3:45-4:00

Backing track – Nothing to over powering, must be able to hear everything else that is going on. Subtle, calm and easy listening. Gentle acoustic or piano? Or maybe just woodland and water sounds throughout. Nature sounds :D

All sounds will be quiet and subtle to take into consideration of the voice over.

A –  Rustle of the oak leaves at the start of A, Quiet whoosh/falling sound as acorn falls

B –  As blackberry drouplet falls, squelching sound

C – Cracking sound as conker opens, Woodland walk noise.

D – Wind whooshing sound

E – Egg shell crack.

F – Fern rustle when shell section hits, droplet hits water noise. Balllooop

G – Stream bubbling, quiet under water babble/bubble.

H – Water bubble bloops to the surface. Stream bubbling quietly.

I – Stream bubble continues quietly.

J – Do beetles make noises… Woodland walk noise.

K – Kingfisher bird call. Water bubbling. Water splash In water.

L – Snapping lobster claws. Under water bubbling.

M – Small bubble noises, under water bubbling

N – Water noises

O – Water noises sped up/ fast forwarded, time passing.

P – water noises and when pearl is on the statue, small twinkle sound.

Q – Bliiiing noise with light shine.

R – Light shine noise fades out and disappears.

S –  I was thinking like a mini helicopter sound. It will be spinning but woodland is fine.

T – woodland

U – water bubbling over rocks.

V – wind blowing

W –

X – desert sounds, eagle soars, sun blazes, crickets.

Y – Buzz of yellow jacket wings

Z – Water bubbling noises.

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Extras

Activity book

I know in my poster presentation I stated my interest in producing an activity book and just because I didn’t produce a physical copy, this doesn’t mean I haven’t put a lot of thought into what I would of liked to put into the activity book if I did have time to create one.  Sponsorship Firstly, I think the idea of an activity book having endorsements of some kind is really interesting gets people thinking about what else there is other than their usual environments or events.  For a published activity book, I would of got permission and advertisements from companies/business/charities, I am unsure as to which some of them are categorised under. 

Geocaching - The world wide treasure hunt. This is an inspiration for my main idea, using technology to find caches (tubbleware/film pots/chests/magnets etc.) with logs in them. Whilst looking on the map and finding your way, geocachers explore the countryside whilst finding these caches. I think it is an excellent way of exploring nearby areas and getting some exercise that everyone needs, everyone dreams of being a pirate and finding the treasure and this is a way of becoming one. The use of technology and nature really inspires me.  If I was to express ideas to parents or even spark an interest in children to get their parents to help, I would make the Geocaching community known and maybe a voucher for 3 months premium which is only £7.99. I am have become an active cacher although I have slowed down a lot to complete my degree but it is something i would like to get into. It is a cheap or even free way of getting out with the kids which i know is difficult with single parents or people in low income families and I think it is entertaining and interesting and the boost of adrenaline when you find a cache is an incredible feeling.

Wildlife Trust looks into gaining money to keep, restore and create nature reserves for all sorts of creatures and insects, you can visit these nature reserves to experience the environment and the animals that live there. Becoming a member can encourage children to go exploring and give adults a chance to unwind after a long week. from just £2.75 it is a great way to help the environment and habitats as well as allowing the opportunity to go to the most beautiful place in the UK.

 National Trust, a member gets free access to over 500 unforgettable places in the UK with other benefits. They aim to look after and preserve places for future generations. These places are museums, national parks, historical buildings, educational but interesting.  I feel these would be a great addition and to have their support in collaborating to encourage people to go out, enjoy themselves, exercise and learn would be really beneficial to all parties.

It would be free/cheap advertisement for them and if they decide to join forces with my magazine/activity book and gave free memberships or discounts that would be incredible. There are so many of these nature places that help encourage people as well, it is just getting people interested and wanting to go outside.

Activities

I researched into what my target audience is capable of achieving with only small supervision so they get a sense of accomplishments. I looked into words they can spell, small words, I was thinking about creating word searches as they are to do with spelling, looking for the next letter in a word helps children spell and understand the language the book is published in. I found a lot of the words i was grouping together were longer words. 

Categories could of been - Trees, insects, animals, plants, birds, lots of different things, I made a deserts word search, not the sundaes and cakes but the xerothermic places of the world. See what i did there. ;)

I felt these were almost to difficult so I was thinking of expanding my audience to slightly older children, 7-10 year olds. This way siblings can help siblings and you haven’t got information that can’t be used but is still educational and therefore if you have several books, nothing will be missed out, it’s all about spreading the knowledge we gain and have. 

After doing my research with other activity books, i must they are incredibly cringey and feel almost forced, the kids have dressed up as a hedgehog and is rolling around on the floor. I don’t know if this is the difference between an activity book and a magazine. (See magazine picture below)

In my activity book it would be mostly based on the words I have used but also the list of other words that have been deleted but it could included any nature related words, regardless of whether they have been deleted. I would like to have included handwriting pages, capital A’s and lowercase a’s with dotted lines and then fill in the rest of the line, this would be handwriting and spelling practice which coincides with the missing words. Acorn, Blackberry, Conker etc. (See picture below for example).

There should also be counting and math activities, how many flowers on this page, to harder problems like if each animal eats 10 of the animal below it how many of each animal are need to complete the food chain. If 1 Kingfisher eats 10 minnows, how many flies does the minnow eat. For example.

There will be ‘Go Find Me’ pages, a picture of a willow tree, go find one. Mazes, newt to reeds, kingfisher to perch, etc. 

Help finish the drawing of the kingfisher, there will be half a large kingfisher in a grid and half is missing and then a smaller picture of the finished kingfisher. Or learn how to draw a lobster. (See pictures below) 

Colouring pages are important, so I would use the black outline designs to be coloured in. 

Also including creative activities that including using toilet rolls and household objects to make little animals or things to put in the garden. 

There should be planting flowers information with maybe seed packets, if it is a magazine style book these can be released with every magazine in accordance with when to plant them. There will also be information on recycling and looking after your garden for example, weeding or even making places for little animals to stay safe. Bug hotels, log placement and cute little fact files about hedgehogs and insects and animals that would be found in the garden.

Other things that could be included. 

Dot-to-dots or follow the alphabet. Posters Origami animals for the older children. Fill in the gaps. Simple cross words. 

I feel there is a lot of good ideas in this post and I am somewhat sad that i couldn’t get an activity book finished but I am afraid I just didn’t have the time to complete it but I hope you can see here that I have thought about the pages I would if included. .

Posters of animals, I think my posters would be high quality pictures of the list of nature words that was deleted not just the ones I have used.

Above is the forced pictures I was talking about, the 12 year old being a spider and the 8/9 year old who called a woodlouse a tarlegrade. Its just a bit creepy I definitely would not be including these things in the magazine.

Above is Similar to a go find me page done over the summer.

Above, some more ideas of things I could of included in the activity book/magazine. Maze idea of yellow jacket to fruit.

Above. Alphabet dot to dot example. A-Z, small pictures with lots of help for little ones or just numbers to make larger pictures.

Below is an example of a colour page but also learning about byproducts and teaching about recycling and keeping nature clean. Geocaching use a ‘cache in trash out’ opportunity, you find a cache and then you take some rubbish from that area to help clear up the environment.

Above, handwriting and spelling example. Around an oak tree and using the letters of the alphabet. 

Below, Information for older readers about climates and deserts and a word search example below that.

Below is the different types of desert word search made for an older audience.

Other ideas from the book that could be incorporated.

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NEGLECTED NATURE - The Finished Film.

Fancy that, it all came together. I am relatively happy with my work, I think it could be better but it could also be a lot worse. I’m glad it is finished and it is at an acceptable standard for showing. It isn’t half finished or uncompleted, it looks  like a finished article with lots of backing research and ideas and I feel with all the other projects I have completed, I am proud to even got this much completed when at points in the year I didn’t think it was possible. 

I know it is for a younger audience but I would of liked to put some more detail in certain areas such as the portrayed Junebug above, I feel the animation could of been more advanced but with the time and stresses I have faced I still think it is satisfactory. I hope with the amount of animation I have produced and the research and progress I have taken in the industry, is enough to be taken in consideration for my grade. I have done the best I can do, in a quite difficult year and I hope this has been seen.

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Kingfisher reference photos.

These are some reference photos of cartoon kingfishers I really liked, I think they all have an interest to them. I feel the geometric kingfisher at the top would of been really interesting for my other project, I was doing at the beginning of the year. I liked the flying sequence but this is for when the kingfisher comes back from the water and comes to perch.

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KINGFISHER Animation

This is the kingfisher animation, simple but it fits into the animation the way I want. 

Firstly the background, I had issues rendering the transparancy, I looked online on the forums but I wasn’t getting the same options as everyone else seemed to, I knew I was meant to render with the Alpha channel added, but I was only getting the options of AVI or DNG (whatever that is) and the option for alpha channels were greyed out. So after a quick discussion with Steven, and I should of thought about it before, I know all about key-lighting with green screens, he said to colour the background and then keylight it out in After effects. This worked well but I had to choose the right colour. When doing a green background the colours within the kingfisher disappeared, it was translucent, so I had to choose the best colour to get the least effect on the design. I think in the end I used a red background. The reason I have show the purple is that the colours on the computer pop and I think it is important to be able to see it.  Due to the transparency issues, I had to double up the kingfisher to get the same pop of colour because any colour I used affected it. This was really handy in the end, when the kingfisher was in the water you could reduce the opacity of one layer and it looks like the kingfisher is actually in the water. I think it worked really well, I think the only issue I have is the quick dive, but this is what it is like in real life, it happens so quick you can almost not see it. I did my research and I learnt that kingfishers only flap if they are on a high perch on such a low branch over the water there was no need for flapping which i was relieved about, I know the animation is simple but it works, especially for a younger audience, you cant overpower them with information and movement as they can get easily distracted or even confused..  The added extra for this scene is the water splash and ripple that the kingfisher makes in the water as the camera pans down. I think it gives that little extra bit of detail that even though it isn’t really seen in the animation it is noticeable, and if for some reason the film gets paused it will look really good.

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Black Outlines Continued

I didn’t see these two escapees. This is the home for the tulip, as you can see, I mixed grass with tulips and I feel that worked really well, The fence gives the picture some height as does the fork.  Within the Animation this scene blur as it moves and I feel I might of accidentally clicked the three little circles that is motion-blur, but it doesn’t look bad at all.

Below is the soil scene, where the camera flips 180 degrees underneath the soil, so it isn’t upside down. I thought this was an interesting transition rather than just tracking left all the time it gave it a little interesting touch. I included an ant trail, some sticks, leaves, worms and some rocks and what I really like is the tree roots coming into the shot as it twists. This is one of my favourite transitions in the film and it gives an interesting twist.

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Black Outline Backgrounds

These are the black outlines, some are used for the final film and some have been updated. I will let you know for each one.

This is the Autumn floor used for letters C and D. A few leaves made the extra little spice that it needed.

Kingfisher twig, it hangs over the lake for the kingfisher to perch on.

Radish Patch - the original was quickly drawn and needed revamping. Below is the newly vamped allotment, there are cabbages, carrots and beetroots and of course radishes. I really like the improved version and think its a lovely addition to the film.

This is the unfinished heron lakeside. I realised I had to elongate the background so that when the camera panned over to the heron the background wasn’t cut off and just being white. So i extended the background and this was the outcome, peaceful and tranquil and a lovely addition. I think it works really well. :D

The rock pool scene hosts both the Urchin and the Zooplankton. In both scenes I used the puppet pin tool to sway the reeds and I feel this gave it a bit of extra movement. The puppet pin tool has been used quite regularly in this and I think the trick is to not move the pins too far, too quickly, this gives the movement a realistic smooth movement which doesn’t look to odd. It could of however been made to animate properly, either frame by frame or whatever but I was running out of time and I feel what I made worked well for the short space of time seen on screen. The puppet pin tool was also used for, The tall reeds in the goldfish and newt scene and also all the other reeds in the newt scene. The starfish in the oyster scene and the Junebug’s legs when he had unfortunately flipped over on the rock and got stuck.

The tree in this scene is my favourite of the black outline backgrounds. It is used throughout the film and the bark on the trunk looks really great. If i was to update this tree, i would give it some more leaves on its branch but other than on the Egg you do not focus on the tree leaves and therefore it was not changed.

The goldfish lives here, this is technically used in both the goldfish and the newt scene all though on the newt scene the left hand lake bank is cut out and extended to the left to allow room for the lobster and minnows. I liked the little extra in the sand floor, I feel they pull the design together to give every aspect of the drawing something interesting to look at.

This scene with the windmill is the backdrop of the main lake, it brings the sides of the lake together meaning there isn’t a break in the designs. The only time you see this landscape is for the ivy dipping in the water the other time is for the Junebug and Kingfisher but they are really zoomed in. The twig changes through the film but as you only glance at it in this scene it didn’t feel important to take it out and replace it. The only thing I notice with this background is the thickness of the line seems to be heavier then the others. I was hoping to keep them all the same but in reality with different canvas sizes and lots of brushes it isn’t too far off the normal size,

The blackberry bush originally had other little blackberries on it but I thought it was to distracting and didn’t think it needed it. I think it looks good with out them. The bush is duplicated and rotated in its own scene and this gives that scene some more depth. I really like the leaves on this blackberry bush.

This was the original platform for the beetle to be on, the lines of the reeds are erased so the beetle could be placed. I think they were originally on one layer which is my mistake and joining lines isn’t my specialty. With the extra lines of the zoomed ivy lakeside background it doesn’t look as empty.

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The Pearl Statue

I had a couple of issues with the pearl statue, firstly its placing within the scene, I wanted it ideally on a table but when I was drawing it, I was thinking about its movement from the pearl to the quartz to the radish patch that was on floor i thought the angles would be difficult to create. I decided to put the shell on the floor for ease and I don’t think the placement of the shell actually makes any difference. These are some reference photos of the pearl statue and then I mixed a few concepts together and created my own. 

This was the animatic version of the pearl statue and below is the new shell with its background. A LOT BETTER!

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My Masters Progress

Through my progress presentations in front of the class, I realised that the tutors were concerned about my progress, I’ll be completely honest it has been a very difficult year for me. So I know my progress has been slow but I have tried my best to keep on top of everything and I believe I have actually done quite well. I have managed to reach deadlines and I feel that this is important to keep a professional reputation.

This is a progress update - As of 28th August 2018

So before I went home to Ipswich I was stuck on K is for Kingfisher, I was majorly behind, I have now reached the letter Z. I knew the change of scenery and being around my family would prove beneficial for me, I had a lot of support and it really helped me power through. I worked some long hours to get it done but majority of the camera movements and the simple animation is done, I now need to focus on the extensions of the black outlines, creating more black outlined designs to take into consideration the feedback from Mark. 

He suggested background outlines, like extra minnows and extra acorn leaves and I feel this idea was really good as it gave the picture depth.

I completed some extra black outlines for some of the letters already including A and B , it makes it more interesting to look at, at the moment it is quite simple but I have been learning new skills and I feel it is okay to be simpler because of the target audience, younger children don’t need every detail. For example I learnt how to use the effect ’Magnify’ for the magnifying glass and had to manually move it rather than simply add an algorithm, it just wasn’t working for me.

Here, I added an adjustment layer above the zooplankton layer, and made it a circle shape to fit the inside of the magnifying glass. I turned the magnification up to 150 and key-framed the center to the movement of the magnifying glass. It turned out really well. There were some issues. Originally, the magnify effect echoed the background so it was duplicated but faded and it just looked terrible so after a little adjustment and look online, i managed to figure out after about 5 hours. It took its time but I did it.

I have also used the beam effect for the reflective light of the Quartz Icon and I think it looks quite interesting especially with the lens flare added to the whole effect. 

The quartz beam consisted of the beam effect and changing the start and end points and then key framing the length of the beam to move with the screen movements. I then added a light beam to the effect to add the glow, it wasn’t exactly how I wanted the scene I would of liked just a lens flare but found the brightness of them difficult to get right. I even downloaded a whole pack of different lens flares but looking at them, they were really confusing and not quite what I wanted... I was unsure of what I wanted but these were a bit to futuristic for my garden scenes.

Things to do

There is a lot of animating to figure out, I have planned the kingfisher’s main key frames out.

Plan of action –

Extend black outlines for landscapes.

Draw black outline icons to enhance the animation. Minnow, tulip, etc.

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Neglected Nature Poster

The title has changed to Neglected Nature.

- The lost words wasn’t a complete representation of the story. Not all the words are ‘LOST’.

- Vanishing Vocabulary was to much of a mouthful.

- I settled on Neglected Nature because children are neglecting nature for technology hence why the words are being deleted because dictionaries reflect the worlds in which children live.

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The Creative Innovation Zone

The CIZ is part of the university and want an animation completing. For confidential reasons I can’t discuss the project. I have had three meetings in total for this project, one with the CIZ team and the others with the script writer It was certainly and interesting experience, she was lovely and very enthusiastic about the job but…

… Although her ideas were good I just don’t think they were right for a professional business aiming at business people.

So at the meeting we discussed these ideas and they gravitated towards my main idea. They also showed me a motion graphics video they liked and wanted a similar style which made me happy because I don’t do very character heavy animations. The second meeting with the script writer on the 21st of August was interesting as well, her wording of information was really good but actually I’m not sure whether it would be better if I was to do the script to detail the visuals and then create it, motion graphics is a simple but effective way of getting a point across without tonnes of animation and characters and I don’t think that was coming across in her script, I came up with some more nice ideas that are being incorporated and I hope it works well.

This project won’t be completed until after my Masters, but I will be doing my pre-production in the next couple of weeks. I have pushed the deadline back a week for the pre-production to be done on the 15th November. I am concerned with having my masters degree show and extras to complete for that, I wont get as much done as I think I should. I have emailed them a few times and they seem to ask a lot of questions that they could do themselves. I am not producing everything, the script is done if you want a voice over it isn’t scripted it is going to be lip-synced so just get the person to record the lines. I don’t really understand but it is what it is... WISH ME LUCK!!!!