Max GW. Animator

My 3rd year FMP “The Litter Mermaid” is a comedy drama film about the large amount of plastic we have in our ocean and the danger it is causing to sea life. In my film, an innocent fun loving mermaid Marnie is a dear friend to all the sea creatures. However, when plastic pollution becomes a serious threat to her friends lives, she must work up the courage to confront a human woman Madeline to stop throwing trash from her yacht before the situation gets much worse.  

500 word reflection

The production of my grad film was a freeing and thrilling experience for me, for in many ways this was my most ambitious project yet. Production started right after finishing my dissertation in January and I was able to develop a comfortable routine for myself to have a bit animated each day. This was even before Ozzie came back to guide us through our process, in that time we had people like Emma and Steve who gave us useful feedback on our films. However, due to the world crisis my healthy routine soon changed and by no longer having the equipment of the university, production of my film got considerably slower in the last two months.

Before production began, there were still some things that had to be reworked in the animatic. In both my sessions with Steve and Robert they offered some useful changes that would benefit the plot of the film. For example, my mermaid character Marnie now looks hopelessly for Skip among all the trash to better illustrate that he's a victim of the ocean pollution in the story. By developing a strong relationship between Marnie and Skip I feel the audience better understand how the tragic demise of Marnie’s friend drives her to angrily confront the problem in the films climax scene.

For the animation process of the film I looked at various references for the cartoony style I was going for, while animating my scenes. For my mermaid I had already studied Disney Animator Glen Keane’s style of animating Ariel the Little Mermaid during pre-production and just had to remember to give my mermaid a smooth and flowing movement when she swims across the shot. However, there were moments when I overthought her shapes and she came out a bit rigid, forcing me to have to redo some frames to make the movement smoother. Skip’s animation was quite simple on the other hand and I was able to draw most of his line art straightaway, as I mostly based his movement off a propeller after watching videos of mudskippers swimming. Since my characters go through a lot of emotions, particularly Marnie when reacting to things, I mostly looked at my two inspirations of Zig and Sharko and Tom and Jerry, both very slapstick references. This added a bit of exaggerated humour in contrast to the serious crisis these characters are in.

This was further supported by the voice over I got from my actors I imported into the project while animating.

Editing process

Website

Portfolio

Showreel

Postcard & Businesscard 

Web design - About me section

Editing process 

Last minute backgrounds

Here is a link to a pdf of my portfolio, as well as a link to my portfolio on my website: https://maxgwstudio.weebly.com/portfolio.html

Portfolio design

For my portfolio I first made it on my website I created on weebly. I originally thought of just having a gallery of all my work and would only include my illustrations and personal work, as everything on my films had its own section. But after showing my website in its early stages to Harriet and James, they suggested that I showed art from my final year films at uni, as it is still some of my strongest work. As a result I decided to instead have a slideshow of my films at the top of the page so it would be easier for people to scroll through them. I made a slideshow for each of my 3 films and added a title at the top so they know which film they are scrolling through. The only thing, and this was mentioned at the crit is that its not always clear theres more before one scrolls down, as someone will only see one image from the slideshow when they open the page. For the rest of my work (illustrations, etc) I did keep the gallery, as I think it looks more artistic and aesthetically pleasing for my “Everyday Objects” for example.

When we met with the music course I was not sure what kind of music I wanted for my film but after listening to Biju’s music who’s examples included a mix of underwater sounds I was quite excited about having him as my music composer. 

I gave him some references that included Finding Nemo, The Little Mermaid, Zig & Sharko and Spongebob tracks for inspiration for the films score. As well as that Biju was inspired by the dark aspect of of my film for the music. With this information I wanted some smooth fantasy music that would gradually change to a more intense and traumatising tune. 

This 1st draft Biju sent me was already very promising. He clearly was inspired by the references I gave him from The Little Mermaid and Finding Nemo for the opening. The transitions between peaceful and intense music was well executed. This also includes the sudden sound of Taylor Swift music playing when we meet Madeline that i suggested. This adds a nice bit of humour before the crisis continues to escalate.

There are still some things that need revising. Some parts sound a bit too depressing in the moment. For example the scene where the dolphin pukes all over Marnie can be dramatic but with a more humorous tone, as after all my film is a comedy/drama.

Animation process - Dolphin encounter

Business and postcard design 

Link to my cards to download:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1drTnkGpCcaEp1usY-eM9pQhocl0Zh6jv?usp=sharing

After my crit I made some changes to my business and post cards. For my business I simply moved the designs closer away from the edge as both the design on the front and logo at the back were too close to the cutting line.

Here is my new showreel for this year that I have made changes to. I have included new clips from my grad film and live project as well as my grad assist work. It was tricky for me to get the contact page right. Originally I had a clever idea of having the contact page in the gun hole when my hunter character shoots at the end. This did not work because it was too small to see. I then decided to have the contact info show up when it blacks out. At first it faded in, but it looked too static, so I changed it to a smooth moving credit scene, which I think works well. This also let me add an end credit scene of one of my characters.

Postcard Design