Personal Film Project

I would say that this project as a whole was probably one of the most stressful situations of my life. I encountered so many instances of trial and error that I honestly wasn’t sure how this film was going to end up. Changing my idea to Skin Deep at such a late stage in the process was a gamble that I knew would possibly risk me my entire grade. Lifeline was a concept that I put an immense amount of time and effort into concepting and planning, but I just didn’t think I had the level of skill needed at this time to complete it to the standard that I envisioned it. With that being said, due to the amount of planning that went into both projects, I am quite proud to say that I essentially planned and almost produced two films within my time, almost three with the level of planning that went into ‘My Heart on my Sleeve’, the concept just before Lifeline. 

By swapping over to Skin Deep, I completely changed what my showcased skill is. Whereas before I was choosing to showcase my pre-production and narrative skills, I opted to rather show what I had visioned in my head, a fully moving tracked animation. This was not without its challenges however, the motion tracking software was something I was not wanting to use from the get go, I wasn’t happy with how animations moved using the function from my tests, so instead I poured hours of time into positioning and scaling the frames of my animation individual throughout the entire film onto my canvas. I knew this was a risk with mere weeks to get this project finished, but I am genuinely happy with the limited amount of work that I produced. Although the amount of animation is limited, I probably spent as much time putting it all together as most people spent on the duration of their films. 

I wanted my work to be to a standard that I saw fit, and I wasn’t willing to just cram unfinished pieces of animation into it the final piece just to fill up time. I wanted this to be a project that I was proud of, and at the end of the day I would say that although I did not produce what I initially set out to achieve, the skills and decision making processes I have learned along the way have been more than worth the incomplete conclusion. Choosing not to do a traditional 2D animation was something I knew would be a struggle from the get gop, but I am immensely proud of myself for sticking at it and not choosing to take a safer route, regardless of the outcome. 

Above is my finished concept film. There is a lot I would love to add or change in this film given the time, but working with what I had and what blocks I hit I am actually very happy with what I was able to produce. The inner perfectionist in me is screaming at the fact it wasn’t completed, but at the same time I am very proud of the skills and techniques I learned along the way. If you would have said to me two years ago that I would be designing and producing a film such as this I would have simply laughed.

Despite how minimal it is, I think this could be one of my favourite parts of the animation. Its such a subtle little touch, but I feel like it ties everything together perfectly. 

I want to wrap my film up on a key shot that will help sum up the animation.Due to death seemingly overpowering throughout the film, I thought it might be a nice touch to end the animation on a shot of one of the cherry blossoms starting to bloom again, to represent that life continues no matter how much death surrounds us.

As there was not much camera movement, I feel as though this is the scene I managed to get to look the best while hand-tracked. Once again, its not perfect, but it looks consistent enough for me. 

After finishing my upper back, it was fairly easy to know what the position of the tattoo would be in relation to the lower back. This meant that I could position the last frame of the animation onto the new camera angle and continue animating from there. I choose to bock out my animation onto a still image of the shot so I could make sure all my positioning and angles were correct.

I started with the hourglass forming in the snaked mouth, giving the impression of him representing the countdown of life.

After the hourglass forms, sand begins to build up and begin pouring through it.

From the sand, we begin to see the mass of the demon begin to take shape.

As the demon takes its full form, it leans back in a position to prepare to charge forwards.

After lunging forwards, the demon smashes through the surface of the hour glass, effectively breaking free.

The demon pulls its entire mass through the now hole.

After breaking through, the demon begins to rebuild its shape just before the camera cuts off of it. 

I put together a selection of demon sketches that I intended to use for both the upper arm and lower back of the film, however I wont have time now to put together the arm animation so I will just have to use these to put together the frames for my lower back instead.

The amount of time hand tracking the sections of animation was not factor I took into consideration when re-planning this project. I had limited time to begin with, so the increasing amount of days that I have lost through simply spending each day lining up footage was a downfall that’s really going to effect the finished animation.

Realistically, I estimate I have enough time to complete possibly the lower back animation and that is all. I wont even have enough time to add the video effects I was hoping to experiment with in post. Although I am disappointed, I didn’t expect I would be in a position to have a finished film, so I am happy with what I have so far. As I am planning to showcase a development of skills, I am going to refer to this piece as a ‘proof of concept’, I am showcasing what I could create with more time and practice, but still want to show the skills and techniques I have picked up thus far.

Although a lot of the footage has a mild shake to it throughout, I am actually incredibly happy with how this segment came out. For someone who didn’t use any motion tracking at all, I almost feel as though you wouldn't be able to tell in some parts.

I think the fact that the forming of the branches happened on the turn of the shoulder worked to my advantage as it saved me having to keep the same image consistent for the entire rotation, but having the frame change shape throughout the rotation it was a lot easier to mask individual inconsistencies.

The footage shake is a lot more noticeable as the snake travels due to the camera movement being so minuet that it was almost harder to hand track then moving footage, however I still think it worked incredibly well, more so then I imagined at least.

This is the stage of the animation that I was dreading, and quite rightly so. It has literally taken me days to get to an a subpar standard in this back animation. The rotation of his shoulder before the back becomes from on has been a nightmare to animate as it had meant editing the individual perspective and scale of every single frame for at least the first 3 second of animation, then the remaining animation had to remain tracked to the slightly shaky camera footage.

Rose Blooming Roughs

Below is the footage I will reference to create my rose animation

Progression of back animation

Above is the finished progression for the back from start to finish. I thought it would be easier to just compile this footage together as it was a number of minuet changes at each stage.

The snake came out a lot more consistent than I had imagined. I’ll admit I was skeptical at first as to whether I would be able to get the weaving to look realistic or believable, but I think it worked really well.

I really liked how the blooming and wilting cherry blossoms came out in this as its probably the most fluid thing I have created, when partnered with the gradual build of the branches I think it looks great.

I managed to find the above reference material that I feel will be really beneficial to my animation. It shows how snakes tend to weave and cling to branches and their overall weight distribution. Obviously my snake will be moving a lot quicker than this, but its good to have a reference point. 

Cherry Blossom Animation

Below are a selection of videos I will be referencing when it comes to planning out the animation of my cherry blossoms.