uriniobahor

[uriniobahor]

What’s NEXT for you?

So, whats next after this...

I have worked very hard to get to this point down the line with my animation. I have done something which I thought was almost impossible given my lack of animation skills and my complete ignorance of animation on a whole. I have learnt a lot, from software to how to create the animation to actually bringing all of the shots together into one cohesive film, that an audience can enjoy. I plan to send this to companies such as BAMCCNI and such, to help aid them in their work of raising the awareness of BAME children in care or otherwise. Growing up in a country which lacked cultural awareness and diversity especially in my school years, I understand the importance of learning about culture and different lifestyles that are different to my own. As well as being the minority I never understood the majority, so on both sides I think it is important that we learn about each other, in order to resolve conflicts before they even start and settle our differences, to get along with each other.

[uriniobahor]

PREMIER instead of DAVINCI

As a filmmaker, I have used a variety of different softwares to piece together my work and so I know almost if not all pieces of software to edit videos with, so when I found out that Davinci wasn't clearcut for animation and as there was a few bugs in it, I opted for premier pro instead to edit the animation together. I had no problems with it at all surprisingly and I was able to export the project in seconds.

[uriniobahor]

“...seconds, minutes, days and seasons...”

So what do you think? A question thet I asked myself all throughout making this animation. I was in the process of making every single asset but then realised that there was no passing of time, or more to the point there was no passing of time that was clearly defined in this animation. In my animatic it was not defined and so I set out to make it more clear to the viewer. I started with making the houses and house of Martin and made three different shots, one where is it set in the morning, afternoon and lastly one at night. I was able to merge the day and night together once exporting them and I was able to reuse these shots and add Martin in, in the times where Martin is going to and from school. 

Night Shot

Day Shot

To make it more realistic I added an alarm clock to show that, it is morning rather than just the sky representing the morning has come. 

‘Timer’ shot on Adobe Animate

From my more updated film, I was given quite a bit of feedback today on my animation, like adjusting the eyes so they don’t overlap the eyeball, a transparent line in Martin’s clothes and to change the amount of windows, as previously I had only two or one on each house and Mark Mason, advised that I add a few more to give it a more realistic feel to it. 

[uriniobahor]

RECORDING LIVE in 3,2,1... ACTION!

I am at the last leg of this animation and just to get all of my voices correct and more realistic per the feedback from the last viewing of my animatic. I was told to record the voices again but at the same time. I decided to contact Grey Kempster a week before and he told me he was busy two weeks ago and the last week he said he was also busy and there was no word from him for the whole week, so I ploughed through my animation and two days ago I decided to call him and there was a train strike, so I couldn't get a hold of him and he told me he would be able to do today.However, last night I cancelled him because he wasn't so reliable as a source for my recording so I found an actor who had always wanted to work on animation with me, so I got him in. 

Mark Snake is a remarkable actor with loads of experience on screen as the baddy, offscreen as a photographer as well as perfecting his voices in his spare time on Facebook reels and instagram. He is also a bodybuilder and he has also been sponsored for vyromax and he is a famous tattoo artist for being the first freehand artist in the UK.

Once on set he performed extremely well! He was there on time and he was able to project Martin in a significant way, adding emotion to the character, which Grey (although good in his own right) lacked.  

[uriniobahor]

Read my Lips... Oh, sorry, they’re not in SYNC!

LIP SYNC

Out of everything, this was one of the main reasons why I chose to use character animator for this section of my animating process. I realised that this software could use the voice of someone whether it is live or a recording and match the mouths, that you create to make the character speak. With the little time I had and the lack of the ability to use animate or any software, I decided this was my alternative. I was able to do the recordings and I didn’t really have a lot of trouble with this one but I put it in the list of problems I had because it was literally the biggest problem I was facing. Also whilst doing it, I discovered that the process was  a procedure and certain things needed to be switched on like the ‘face’ and a few others to make it work successfully. I was able to add the tracks in and I was able to  make it sync with the project.

[uriniobahor]

Trouble with SOFTWARE... AGAIN!

TRIGGERS

I found it very hard to use triggers and that is why I didnt use them as much as I did with anything else. Triggers allow the character to do small things or big things throughout the animation with just a click of a button, when it is on recording mode. 

I used it to make the character blink and for Martin to cry a the end of the film. it wasn't easy to do these as they would never sync up and sometimes parts of the face that you were trying to control wouldn't work because of no reason that I could even explain now. I made both character blink eventually by going into the photoshop project and pressing unhide on the binks that were already created on the puppet, but to make it mine, I added a different colour and made the blinks match the size of the eyes. I went through a lot of tutorials on this and one tutorial really helped me, as the others were too technical and far from the point.

[uriniobahor]

Adobe Character Animator should really be called ‘Adobe ‘Problem’ Animator’

I encountered sooo many problems with character animator...

BODY NOT MOVING

Whilst working on both the characters in this animtion, I found out that the characters were not moving, I tried to look on a variety of videos which talked about the tool called the ‘dragger’ but this tool ‘dragged’ my time so much. Therefore I decided to utilise the character animator services and get a free puppet as they are all remade and free to customise and change to your liking. After much searching I was able to find the right puppet for me. This is also the reason why I couldn't do anymore turnarounds as I would have to go on the photoshop project and change things to get a turnaround. Also whilst making this character I thought of the idea of making the Mum character stay in one position throughout the whole animation, making it easier for me to work with. Even in the reaction shots I decided to make the character position themselves in the same place but move the angle of the camera by creating a new set for the character. 

This dragged on for the majority of the day and once I had the puppet, things did move more smoothly but the more I added things, the more it became harder for me to move my character, so I had to position my assets in the same places, as the puppet previously had, for example, the arms were in a set position when I had the puppet and I moved it and now I had to change it to make it work.

[uriniobahor]

TURNAROUNDS

Since I am starting practically from scratch with only a few weeks left I dont really have the time to form turnarounds for these characters. they are basically the same but with some different to the original ones that I had made a few months ago. 

Here is an example of the type of characters I am working with:

[uriniobahor]

Not all CHANGE is COMFORTable!

I got into the way of things whilst using animate but I was being very comfortable with using Adobe Animate as I was just doing backgrounds, the Martin character and very few bits of animation. I was very frustrated with all the problems I was having with such a new software and not being able to efficiently complete a shot without feeling there must be something more to this. with having no experience with animation before this I was very reluctant to try anything new, thats why most of the shots are repeated so often, leaving me more time to do other parts that were more complicated. 

later I started to realise that I had not made an effort with the more complicated parts of the animation. I wasn't able to fully focus on it as the frustration and the lac of knowledge of animation softwares really gave me a lack of motivation, UNTIL I saw a friend’s piece of work which was done on Adobe Character Animator. I had seen this before but I never really got into it. Now I have started to use it, and let me tell you, its as hard as Animate hehe... no surprise there! 

[uriniobahor]

Just... ONE VOICE, singing in the darkness!

I was watching one of my favourite animations called ‘The incredibles’ directed by Brad Bird and I did a bit of research into the characters and who voiced each character and I found out that the director himself played Edna. I was utterly surprised with this new knowledge. That was one of the most iconic characters and one character that everyone remembers for her straight, blunt vibe. it was said that Brad Bird voiced the character and it was then decided that his voice would be used for the film. 

Since I couldn't find anyone I decided that my voice would be used for the film and later talking to friends, family, classmates and my lecturers, they all agreed that I use my voice for the film. They have also suggested that I keep the jamaicain accent too. I am doubtful but if the audience wants my voice, I might as well go for it, what have I got to lose!

Mum’s Perspective

I didn't realise it until someone mentioned it to me. by being the voice of the Mum, I am literally reliving the experience and seeing it from my mum's perspective. although I didn't know what racism was and it wasn't so drastic in regards to identity as it was for my older brother, it still hits a note with me and resonates with me as speaking from my mums side of things rather than seeing it from only my perspective. it also show that with age and experience you start to gradually understand from a parent’s perspective what it means to keep your identity, in a world which is constantly evolving and changing.

[uriniobahor]

Time has definitely GONE BY...

We are quite a few weeks in and a month to go basically, well two if you count this month. I have been thinking a lot about the voice of Martin’s Mum and I discovered that Martin’s Mum should be voiced by someone who has the accent. I havee tried everywhere and I can't seem to find anyone who could voice Martins Mum anywhere! I have tried using a website called Starnow to get all my actors but that doesn't seem to be working so I have to use another alternative and use my voice for now until I find someone. I was told to do some posters and put them up around town. Later I am going to let family and friends review it to see what they think of it and move on from there.

[uriniobahor]

Animatic Test... and more TESTING

I have now added some more SHOTS, here is the outcome:

[uriniobahor]

TESTING... TESTING... so many TESTS!!!

[uriniobahor]

Tweening... what's that?

It has taken me ages to understand what tweening was in animation and how to make it work for the animation. I found that the animation needed tweening to support all the symbols and assets and make them move. I had to select all of my frames from my character and sometimes the backgrounds and select ‘classic tween’. Once I clicked on that I was able to make the animation move and therefore I started making the animations move and have some life. I am still not able to make individual assets move on the body, like the arms, legs etc but I guess this is a learning curve for me. I am going to do this for all of my shots that I have created in the last week.

The KITCHEN

The STAIRS

The STREET

The SCHOOL

When exporting these shots I need to remember to add a different sky to each of them, just so the viewer knows the time of day.

[uriniobahor]

WA COM pad

The wacom pad didnt work a all whilst working on this project and it was literally coming to breaking point for me when it wasn't working for my animatic. Mark Mason, my lecturer had extended my license of storyboard pro to the end of May and I thought that would work out for me but when most of my time was spent on fixing the pad, time went by quickly and I had to find an alternative to using a pad and draw like feature to making actual backgrounds and doing everything myself.

[uriniobahor]

Testing, testing!!!

I didn’t like the outcome of the animatic but it was something to look at and get a reference from. I was using Storyboard Pro and a drawing pad to make the animation, but since I was using cut out animation I added the two characters in using the figures I made in illustrator. 

I was told to change the way the last scene ended, so I decided to leave that to the end, but I will show you what it looked like and you will see for yourself why it needed to change. The turning of the tables didn't work and the character lacked emotion. 

[uriniobahor]

Animatic

Add animation here