Animation Unit 10- LO3

P5

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This is how my animation was created. I have decided to do stop motion animation so my animation required me to make all the backgrounds and take each image of every moving thing to make this animation come to life. 

I had my own quiet room to make sure that I have the right resources to work with each background. The backgrounds were made out of colourful card and some of the elements that I wanted moving were not glued onto the background they were stook on by blue tack. This allows me to move each piece how I want too but it not be full stuck onto the background or else it just wouldn't work. The background was also stuck on the back wall with blue tack because I was going to be moving it through shooting and so that needed to stay unstuck but stuck to the wall. This was my overall set up for each animation. A chair would hold up the tripod and camera to get the right angle and so if anything needed to move I could move it about freely.  



The setting up of the character was very difficult and you can see here on my face it took a lot of time and effort. I cut up flexible wire and made sure I didn't damage my bunny but I stuck the wires into the bunny's arms, back, legs to make sure it was sturdy and able to move about with some adjustments. This worked really well it allowed me to get the bunny's arm to bend without it falling and becoming floppy. The sturdiness was there to create things I couldn't if I didn't use wire. This also helped the floppy bunny to stand up and that was great because it was hard. I had to make sure the wall was at the back too so the bunny had more support so it wouldn't fall all the time. 


This is both of the animations that have been edited and put together in one whole video, the speed has been adjusted and photos that I am not happy with or have been a mistake have been taken out. The only thing that needs doing now is adding my sound to this animation and cropping out the video so they are two separate animation and so the border is neat. 


Here are the images from the animations and here I will be going through each photo and cutting whichever image I think doesn't flow or match with the animation. There are a few examples through out but some of them just had too much light and so it look too over exposed and then some of then were very out of focus and so they had to g. All of these clips will have not made the animation look smooth which is what it needed to do.  



Here is a good example of lighting being too bright and it just made the image look bad and it didn't flow through out and so tis image was deleted and changed to the image below this. This linked in a lot better and it didn't look so overwhelming for the audience and so this image was deleted and changed. All I did here was select the image and pressed cut on the settings and it was gone. Ready to carry on... 



Here all of the clips are being deleted or changed as I go through them all because when I was filming/ taking images all of the clips were not perfect and so I think that this was great to see the animation come together and look like a full animation. However, the clips are too long and the speed and duration need to be speed up to make it flow and that's what I did next. 



Here is the section where I will be changing the speed and duration of all the clips for each animation to make sure it flows a lot better and makes it look like an actual stop motion animation. 



To change the speed and duration of each clip you can highlight all the clips and select the speed and duration section. Once you have clicked that, these settings pop up. I changed my settings for the first animation to 00;00;00;6 because this was a bit of a shorter animation I wanted it to last longer and it just made the animation flow a bit more and so this was a better speed for my animation. The second animation I changed the duration to 00;00;00;5 which was a bit quicker but it was a longer animation and so it just made this animation look more steady for the content in it. Both of them now flow a lot clearer and less robotic which is great because not only does it look better the children will be able to follow it a lot better. 

Both Animations (not final edit)- https://youtu.be/1jxShhCCk1Q


This is a small table listing everything I have done when it comes to making the animation and listing how long each activity took me to do. This is to make sure I have followed the production schedule and that I am doing everything within all of the deadlines needed. 

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P6

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Final edit and the processes 

Here is the process of my animation and how I have added the sound and slightly perfected the overall look of the animation. I needed my animation cropping because the outer boarder was not as clean as I wanted it to be. I am also adding some royalty free music to give it the upbeat and friendly approach that I want both animations to show. I will add simple text on the ends of both animations. 

Final edit for both animtions- https://youtu.be/22U-FgcPp2A

Sound

These are the sounds that I used for my animations. I used three sound effects that worked with both of the animations. This was logged down in an asset table and I have the process of manipulating the volumes to make it appropriate for the animation. 


This was the sound that I used for both of the animations, I feel like it was soft but still joyful which is what I wanted. Something relaxing fore the children and something that still matched the atmosphere of the animations. Some of the piano sounds were too dramatic sand might have been overwhelming for the children when watching but this sound is soft and relaxing for the children watching. 


This is the sound that goes over the piano song in the first animation. When you think of summer and spring you think of life and sunshine. Well the birds singing a sweet song matched my first animation so well and paired nicely with the piano song. The animation also features a bird so I'm glad it worked perfectly. 


This goes in the autumn section of the second animation, it was just a little realistic sound to add in to make the bunny seem real like it is walking on crunchy leaves like the animation shows and I think this worked so well. 

The snow falling also worked well in the second animation and I really liked how it blended in with the piano song too, it wasn't too loud or dramatic and more atmospheric and calming for the children watching.


Here I am adding the sound by dragging the downloaded document into the editing section. This is a long audio so I will be cutting it down and duplication it for the second animation too by following just the same processes. 


Here I have cut it down like I said in the last animation and I am making sure that it fades out just so it doesn't cut I off at the wrong time, I do this by dragging the fx effect to the left of the audio making sure I have faded out the sound to my dire, as you can see shown here. I did this for both animations. 


This is a representation of both the piano song audio on both animations and that I am adjusting the fade out at the end. On the right hand side of the screenshot you can see the volume levels and that I am changing them to make sure it is not overbearing and going to be too loud for the children. There is a volume levels at the side of the audio that tells me if its too loud or not by hitting the red point at the top of the bar. This is why you lower the volume to make sure that the volume doesn't hit the red bar and deafen the people watching. 


Here I will be adding the sound effects and repeating the whole process cutting down each piece of audio and making sure the sound levels are right for me. The sound for the sound effects need to be heard over the piano but not too loud and so that is what I am doing here.  


Again, I am repeating all of the same processes to both of the other audios that I used and making sure that the volume is at the right levels for both of the audios and matched with the sound and cut to the right time. This is what I did here and once that was complete the sound was finished and I was happy with the results. 


Asset log for sound effects


Editing


When it comes to editing my animation I have wanted to crop the outline of each animation so I needed to work this out. With a lot of research I worked out how to do it. Firstly, you had to make sure your animations were selected and the transform effect and drop it over your animation, which is in the effects settings. 


Then you need to select the adjustment layer in the files setting, and it should be dragged into the editing section of the animation and you also want this to come up and press okay. This means that this layer should be on the whole of both of the animations. 


The adjustment layer should come up on the bottom left of the screen and this should be where you can click on it and the settings with appear to be able to adjust the size of the animation to be able to zoom in and out of the whole animations this is who I have edited the cropping issue. 


This is what the adjustment layer looks like over my animation. 


This is the settings that come up and the section that says 'scale' is what you need to change to be able to make the animation zoom in or out. I successfully got the animation cropped and there were no issues with the unclean finish.   



I also had to make the photo longer to make sure that the text that will be added to this section will be on long enough for the audience to read it. I have selected the image I want to be longer than the rest.  


The text tool was selected from the left of the screen and then the setting are on the right of the screen. This is were I inserted my text and I can choose the seize, font colour and more but here I am just writing it down and seeing how long I need it staying up for. 


Here I am adding it in and repeating the same process to both of the animations. 


I needed to make sure that the text looks more child friendly, I was looking through them all and I decided on comic sans, this is used a lot and you see it used in a lot of child related things such as in schools and more so I thought this was more appropriate for the children. This also enhances the animation and links its to the brief and target audience.  


Here is the completed text and the animation was then completed and I was happy with the outcome and all the editing was finished. 

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M3

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To make my animation better I needed to make sure it was clean, it would flow easily and look professional while keeping a fun and friendly atmosphere for the target audience. to do this I had to make sure that the animation was running at the right speed and the frame rate was successful for my animation. I did have to change mine and make each imagine stay on the screen longer before going to the next image. I did stop motion animation so it was important it would flow but still look smooth when watching. When it comes to the frame rate I had changed the speed of each frame to make sure I had a consistent flow through out. Then when it comes to pieces of the animation that needed to be seen for longer i had mad sure the frame rate was a lot slower so we could read the text that was present. This is how I optimized my animation. This made my animation look overall a lot cleaner and it was more enjoyable to watch, it was smooth and easy. 

When it comes to the shapes and images that I have created, I did a stop motion animation. This is where I took photos and had a scene to photograph and create a full animation. I did this by making my own background firstly with different shapes and my own creations. I did this by drawing and cutting up the shapes and each moving element out of card and make my own backgrounds. The shapes are simple and I have taken inspiration from current cartoons and how they display their backgrounds. Most are as simple and as colorful as what I have created so I'm happy with that and it has reached the right target audience. The shapes are either glued and stationary or they are moving and have just been attached with blue tack, this was a quick and easy way to make the pieces move and create a really cool effect. This was s the background wasn't fully stationary because if so it might have been too simple and been shown as boring whereas if it has slight movement and it isn't always the seem it might get it some more personality.

The images that I have created are what makes the animation an animation, it was a quick process and some things needed patience but mostly a very enjoyable process. this is where I set up the bunny character and that was the process of my images just taking photos of each section that I wanted and sometimes there was mistakes but it was fixed through the editing process. 

Frame rate is always important in any animation and that it needs to be perfect to make sure the animation runs smoothly and how it is needed to run. The frame rate I used for the first animation was 0.5 seconds, this was changed but enough to make sure that the frames of each image ran smoothly. However, when it came to the end frames I needed one of them to lost longer so the frame rate was 4.0 seconds, this is slow enough for the target audience to read what the text says and then it is quick enough to make the animation still flow and not look all cloggy. Looking at the animation the times that it tunes out to be was 15 seconds which is what the brief asked for which I am happy I could reach that goal. The animations look smooth and it isn't confusing for the children watching which means that frame rate is a very important part of the animation so I am happy that could work out what I needed. Originally it was set too quick and it didn't have that smooth flow that I wanted. 


For the process of exporting my animation I did a few simple steps. When I am on Premiere and everything is ready to be exported what I do is click file. Find the section that says export file, then i go and select the file that I want exporting so media, that is the animation I have created on there. After that it will take me to the file name and it being ready to export. What I did next was change the name and pressed export. This is the quickest and most efficient way of exporting a file when in Premiere. When it comes to using high quality animations and that means when it comes to exporting it means you have to get the best way to export because you don't want to damage the quality of the animation itself. 

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The reason why I picked to do stop motion animation is because not a lot of people would think to do this this type of animation. The thing that puts people off this type of animation is because it consists of precises skills, time management and patience. This type of animation needs someone that can handle working for a long amount of time and a lot of patience because it is a bit of a tedious task. I knew it would be a challenge for me but I wanted to give it a go. It was a quicker process than I thought however it still took me a while consisting of 2 hours filming and an hour roughly making the background. It was a bit of a struggle getting the teddy of the bunny to do what i needed it to do but thankfully for me I managed to get it done and it worked perfectly. I did need to delete a few mistakes and make sure everything was clean and polished before is tarted to edit and continue with the process. Stop motion animation is used thought tv and film for many of kids films such as Box Trolls, Coraline, Wallace and Gromit. Even kids shows such as Shaun the Sheep, Pingu, Trap Door, Timmy Time and all of these are old and still being shown on tv today. All of these have been my inspiration to do stop motion animation and that I have always wanted to try it. I am happy with the outcome and I wish I could have done a project that lasts longer because I really enjoyed it. 

The frame rate I have already spoken upon however, I just want to make sure that it is clear what I did. When it came to putting all of my photos into premiere it put an automatic speed/ framerate onto them. When going through the editing it was very quick and so I just wanted to slow it down a bit more and that's why I went to change it and slow it down slightly. 

This is what everything was set to and so it allowed the animations to be a lot slower but still flow in a way that the children would understand and still enjoy. It would then fill out the 15 seconds limit I had and so it worked perfectly. I did have to make sure that one of the images and frames had a lot more of a slower framerate so that the text on it would be seen and read and so I did have to change that one to be up for a longer amount of time. I did change it to 4.0 seconds and so it allowed the animation to still flow but the target audience could still look at the text and be able to read it. I chose this to make sure everything was clearer and comfortable to watch. I needed to reach the right target audience and so by making sure it is an easy watch this would help my audience. That is why I chose changing the frame rate. 

I did not use keyframes or tween, I had been using stop motion animation and so all of the images that I had taken worked for this animation and that it was already smooth by doing each frame with such precision and accuracy. 

I did use frame by frame, my animation was a stop motion animation and so I had to ensure I had each frame with a movement to keep the animation going and smooth. The frames in each photo allowed the animation to be smooth and to run like an animation. In each animation I have to made sure there was movement through out so that it didn't look like there was pauses in the animation and so it was a continuous story. This is really important because if the animation doesn't look smooth or it jumps so it looks unnatural it will nit be as successful as you think it is. This is just not going to look a good and so frame by frame allows you to get the movement and the flow that you need in the animation. 

My animations each were 15 seconds like the brief wanted us to have. The reason for this is because of what type of animation it is. This is an ident that goes in between kids tv shows to break up the shows and to make sure the child depending on the age and the adults know what the child is watching. It is an indicator to tell us when or what they are watching. This is safe for children and allows the parents to not work about what is on the tv. This is 15 seconds each because you want the information to be given to the parent quickly and shapely so it is more like a warning and an alert but you want it to be enjoyable and comfortable for the children. It might be too boring if it is long for the children and it might not get the message across it the parents/ adults in time and so that is why it is roughly 15 seconds long. This is just a few reasons why it is that long and it will just be more comfortable for the children to enjoy a little animation in between popular shows. It is fun, relaxing and sweet and the children should be happy watching. It is giving the message across to the parents that the children are watching the right and safe things and it could also be enjoyable for the adults knowing that safety and comfort.

The animation has got a target audience and that is children are aged 4-10 year old's, my animation is a cozy, soft, simple and peaceful animation. This is just what I wanted to breakup the tv shows that the children will be watching. This is relaxing and welcoming. It matches the brief requests when it comes to showing the children the seasons of the weather I think this is an educational touch to show the children about the seasons. This was just a nice element to make it more enjoyable. The animation has a small bunny as the mascot/ character, this is similar to the kids tv show such as Bing, Peter Rabbit and many more. With a different looking bunny but a similar character this can be comforting for the children and familiar for them too. Children like seeing things they know or recognize because they don't typically like something new and different it might be concerning for them. To see a bunny that is familiar is good for them to see and it brings the comfort to them. It is a very charming and simple animation that is just there for the children to enjoy and for the adults to be relieved of the fact there children are watching safe and friendly shows. That is also a good message to put put there that my target isn't just for the children its also for the adults to have that comfort in knowing there children are watching safe and good tv. Sometimes there can be mistakes that children may geta hold of the remote and watch something not safe for their eyes and so this is there to tell the parents that they are still watching the same show and that the children are in safe hands, well... eyes. In this case i think that both animations are friendly, comforting and safe that they are good for the children watching and that it is good for the adults watching too. I'm happy with this outcome and positive it matches for the target audience. 

Improvements are always needed to be made. When it comes to everything and anything its not always going to be perfect. Now looking back on the animation a few changes could have been made. I think that maybe when it comes to the quality that the last few shots ended up coming out blurry, this was not the image I had taken this is what happened after I had edited everything and exported it. This means I need to next time ensure that I have a better quality software to export my work and make sure it doesn't come out blurry when its completed. I also think that next time if I was able to make it a longer animation and maybe give it more of a story line. My animation was simple but effective but in the future I wish to make it longer and give my bunny more personality. I really liked my animation and the sound effects/ music was fine for me I was happy with the levels it came out with and how perfect matched the animation. I think  my overall, only concern would be the quality of the images that were zoomed in and towards the end of the animation. It does ruin my animation a bit and I was unhappy that they came out blurry but like I said this only happened after I had exported it and so that's why it was disappointing. That is what I would be careful with and change next time. 

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