Final Animation

My animation I feel and hope follows a message of the reality of how many people are suffering in the UK right now. Many people take away the seriousness from our current situation, speaking of “we've been through worse”, dismissing the situation, this allows room for the government to continue choosing profit over people and blaming the downfall of the country on others and reminding the UK how we have been through worse. This allows them to put us into worsening situations, I hope my animation brings to light how we shouldn’t dismiss these serious times, we need to look at the reality of how the government is failing us. 

I want the scenes marked in red done before mid March as this is midway before the deadline. I want at least a full minute of full completed animation by that point so that I am on time. The red scenes are the ones that I feel might come across problems or just be a bit more challenging so I want to tackle these first so I have time to fix any problems I come across. 

Character and room sketches

I played around with this piece quite a lot, the placement of the candles, the font, the colour of the font and settled on this as the final piece. I tried the whole font as being blue but it looked too bland. I wanted the “candlelight” to stand out and match the tone of the two candles on the right. My chosen title hints on the depressing nature in which many people are returning to using candles and switching off their lights, amongst changing countless things in their daily routine to attempt to survive the cost of living crisis. I felt the two candles on the right fit the theme and the black background as it contrasts from the candles, we see this bursting light amongst the darkness.

Coming up for a title for my animation, I created a mind map. I focused on the themes my animation looks at, a lot of the visuals look at light and dark. It looks at the cost of living crisis and the fear many people have that the worst is yet to come, this is the reasoning for title ideas such as “the looming shadows” it looks at the darkness yet to come caused by the lack of support from the government, many of the titles focus on how the public are all in these desperate times together and how cold, bitter evenings are all many people have coming. Due to the rising costs of energy bills. The two circled titles are the two main ones I have in mind. “Together in the downfall” looks at how the public are together in the downfall the government is causing”. and “By the Candlelight, we fall” looks again at the downfall being caused by the government, while referencing how many people are turning to turning lamps off and lighting candles instead. This one I felt was slightly more on theme with the candles we see throughout my animation. 

Example of short news segment regarding the cost of living crisis and how the rising gas and electricity prices are effecting businesses and the lives of people in the UK, I am going to take inspiration from the delivery and tone of how many people on the news speak as the deliver is important, the tone sets off how serious the topic is. 

If I have to opt for a software I can only use in one location I would prefer to use a software I can use on my own laptop as the studios in university shut on Sundays and shut at 9pm meaning I wouldn't have as much flexibility on when I can do my work. That puts me down to Procreate, Photoshop and Clip Studio Paint. Procreate can be used for small scenes but has a limit on frames and has no layers for animation. Photoshop I find too old of a software and therefor glitches too often, Clip Studio Paint seems like my best option. I am still learning this software as I have only used free trial versions of it but so far I haven’t had too many problems with it. 

This test was at 8 frames per second, I repeated 4 frames over to create this test. It makes the flames appear to be flickering which I like. I like the paint brushes for this software. A few I tested before when you drew over brush strokes it blended the ones underneath but this allows me to layer them which is much better. I feel I could use this one for my animation

Clip Studio Paint has a very similar set-up to 2D softwares I have used before, it allows for layers (unlike procreate) which is something I am definitely going to need in the production of this animation as I want the screen full of illustrative lines dancing across the scene, I want to build these up on layers. Clip Studio has lots of brushes to choose from which is great, this allows me to get the best brush stroke for the visuals I want.

However I do have a scene where we hear the tv on in the background, where the news is playing. The news playing I am hoping to find an older article from earlier last year when the cost of living crush’s was becoming a bigger news topic, and use facts and themes from these to create a piece a news castor is talking about in the background of these scene. Hopefully about electricity costs as in this scene we see the person in the apartment turn off a lamp and light a candle instead, in hopes of lowering their electricity costs.

This mainly speaking about the dancing scene in the happier portion of my animation, the light, romantic jazz music we will hear is reminent of some nostalgia myself of romantic comedies from the 80s/90s that featured similar music, for example - Sleepless in Seattle(1993), Youv’e got mail(1998). As I want this portion of my animation to feel familiar to people, showcasing the happy little moments people feel in life. These scenes of comfort and romance need to feel very contrasting to the later sad scenes, the more these scenes contrast the more the animation shows how much suffering the government and the cost of living crisis is causing. 

For a start trends in fashion and home decor have been known to function on a bit of a circle, themes and designs from certain eras often making comebacks, we see this the most in fashion with 70s,80s and 90s items becoming trendy again, this does not escape home decor either. It is often thought that in tough times people have coping mechanisms to soothe themselves, one common strategy is Nostalgia, items people grew up with n their youth they often bring back into their adult life because it brings that sense of nostalgia, sentimentality and general comfort of their childhood back to them. Also on the current topic of the cost of living crisis, many people can’t afford brand new furniture, people are often finding ways to embellish their home by taking old, unwanted pieces off family and friends, using second hand online platforms like Facebook Marketplace and eBay to buy these items at a cheap price, as well as visiting in person shops like charity shops to find second hand pieces. 

The first diagram shows the locations of each room near each other, the couple’s bedroom and the elderly woman's room are next to each other, with the child’s bedroom being above the elderly woman’s.  The child’s bedroom contains much more vivid primary colours than the other rooms as these are often associated with childhood and therefore found in many young children’s rooms. The elderly woman’s room is the most dated, many elderly people not keeping up with modern trends and having furniture items and other decor that they have had for many years. The couple’s bedroom displays many muted colours and appears a bit more modern than the other rooms, however it is a bit cramped with fitting in a double bed and a crib for their young infant. Their floors are all the same as apartment buildings have a set design plan that is used for all the flats, the tenants have personalised the walls and the wall colours but the floors remain the same. 

The child’s bedroom has more vivid colours than the other two rooms, as children’s toys littered in their rooms are often made with really bright colours to attract children’s eyes. There are often bookshelves and activity desks in children’s bedrooms.

Below, I have 4 videos I have taken. The first video is one of the last scenes of the couple sleeping. My parents helped me as I needed two actors. The wife is shaking due to the cold, both partners have coats on the bed to keep themselves warm, the husband wakes up and lovingly gives his coat to his wife to keep her warm. The next photo is the dancing scene, where we watch the shadows of a couple dancing. This was quite challenging as I needed a plain wall so I had to rearrange the room a bit and I needed the shadow to be somewhat crisp so I had to move the lamp I was using to create the shadow quite a few times to get the shadow crisp and placed central on the wall. The last two videos were of me lighting a candle and placing a notebook down(this will be a plate in the animation) just so I have references for the hand movements to attempt to recreate. 

Plate reference