504 - Documentary Initial Style Tests

After creating the moodboard, I found that I liked the idea of both lineart styles and more messy non-lineart styles, therefore I did a BG test of just a simple branch to give me an idea of the process as well as the outcome:

(BG is a photograph of New Guinea that I blurred) 

After showing this to Ducky, we both decided that we think the non-lineart style may work slightly better, however they both work well. I found that the process of the lineart version was a lot quicker and I could get better results more easily, however the lineart could be too much. One idea is to combine these and have only the focal elements of the BG be lined.

I decided to paint a full scene to get more of an idea of the style with other elements, as well as the process of it. Again, I used a blurred photograph as BG foliage, however I painted over it a bit to make it fit with the main painting. In addition, I added one of Olivia's character designs onto it to see how it would look with the bird:

(Olivia's bird character design)

I quite like how this looks but I want to try out some other styles first before committing to this. I really like the roughness of it, and that could be something I experiment with more. Although the saturation of the colours is quite high - which goes against my original more muted colour palette I had in mind - I feel it actually works quite well and doesn't steal the spotlight from the bird.

However currently I think it looks a bit too digital for my liking, which could also be because of the use of the blurred photo.

504 - Documentary Pre-Production Presentation

Here's the feedback from the pre-production presentation:

• Research is good. Mat asked about contacting experts however I said that there's no extra information we would need from them as all the information is already out there. If we need narration, it would be an idea to contact some. 
• Mat also suggested contacting/visitng local aviaries after the documentary is done to see if they'll show it
• Mat liked the depth of my location research, as well as the style tests, specifically that:
• the blur works really well
• he likes the muted colours more than super bright ones
• he likes lineart equally as non-lineart
• Keep the number of birds chosen limited for time reasons
• Mat likes the idea of the more abstract visual representation of the birds dance

Next steps for me are to go more in-depth into the development of the BG style, and to do more research and tests. In addition to this, start researching motion graphics for text, as well as collecting and analysing good examples of it. Do this according to direction by Ducky to make sure it fits her image of the idea.

504 - Documentary Moodboards

Here is the moodboard with actual images of New Guinea:

I was thinking about the type of shots that would be in the documentary whilst creating this, so a collection of aerial/establishing shots of the canopy, as well as shots showing the flora on the shrub and herbaceous layer.

• I still think I need to create more in-depth specific moodboards for each bird/habitat, that shows both images of the accurate flora as well as images of that particular location. The more references the better
• Looking at the moodboard, for the aerial/establishing shot I need to make sure that the canopy is not just flat all the way through, as most of the birds themselves reside in the montane forest areas therefore the canopy is going to be multi-levelled. The floor of the forest is usually very busy with flora, mainly ferns, moss and palms, and there is a lot of stray sticks. This messiness would be something I really need to figure out how I show it, as it allows freedom as I don't have to be super accurate, but also would be a challenge to simplify and to not make the BG's too cluttered
• I can take all this information into account when I create the BG's

Here is the inspiration moodboard for the style:

When creating this moodboard, I was selecting images that I thought would fit the visual style of the film I had in my head.

• I found I gravitated towards softer more loose styles, as I think this would fit the busyness of the forest whilst not detracting from the focus of the birds. 
• I also was choosing more muted darker styles, as again it wouldn't steal the spotlight from the flashiness of the colourful birds
• The final thing I noticed that I really liked, was the fact that a lot of these images have blurred/washed out sections that don't suggest the depth of field, but instead help create a soft look and focuses the eye on different areas. I want to use this in combination with depth of field blurs to again solve the issue of visual clutter, as well as as a stylistic choice
• Using this I can start doing some stye tests to figure out how I can paint the BG's. Once that is solved, I can then collate more references of the styles I like the most and go into more detail with style development. 

504 - Documentary Initial Location Research

I did some more in depth research into the habitats of the birds-of-paradise, looking at information about the forests of New Guinea:

Here are the main sources from my research:

https://wwf.panda.org/discover/knowledge_hub/where_we_work/new_guinea_forests/area_forests_new_guinea/new_guinea_forests_ecosystems/forests_new_guinea/ - great info about the forests

https://www.naturepl.com/search/page-2/new+guinea+forest - images

https://www.worldwildlife.org/ecoregions/aa0122 - lowland hill forests region

https://australian.museum/about/history/exhibitions/birds-of-paradise/western-parotia/ - western parotia (and other birds)

• I think doing this kind of research is good as it allows me to understand the environment a lot better, and gives more authenticity to them despite the stylisation. It'd also allow me to add little details that are specific to that particular bird
• I need to do a lot more research into the specific environments of the chosen birds, such as finding images of those particular forests, as well as researching the specific individual plants and flora that reside there
• I've learnt a lot about forest environements and the subtle ways they differ to one another, even within the different areas of New Guinea
• Using this information I can make sure my BG's are accurate, and this kind of research is something I want to do with all my BG's in the future as it gives me more focus for the piece

Next steps:

• Create moodboards of both actual images and styles for inspiration
• Do some painting style tests
• Research individual flora of specific habitats
• Do stylisation paintings of some common flora 

504 - Formative Feedback

Here are the notes from my formative feedback session with Michaela:

• More self reflection needed on blog, use these points:
• What works well/what doesnt work?
• What can be improved?
• What have you learned in your process?
• How does this step/kmowledge/process/outcome lead your practice forward?
• Competition brief is coming along, need to get it finished and show to tutors before submission
• Double check if we're allowed to use copyrighted music in giffgaff brief
• For documentary brief, Micheala likes the idea of text instead of narration, however I'd need to do a lot of research on how to do motion graphics as well as analysis of effective examples, as incorporating the text has to be done spot on otherwise it'll look terrible

I discussed this last point with the group, and asked if I could be in charge of the motion graphics side of things in addition to the BG. In addition to doing the location research, I will need to do text research too.

504 - Documentary Pitch

Here's our pitch:

And here's the script for it:

The feedback from the pitch was mainly to choose which idea we want to go with. Mat said he didn't like the 2nd and 3rd one, however when asked he said that that was just his personal preference so it didn't mean that we shouldn't do them. He also encouraged us to actually contact an expert.

After the pitch, our group had a chat to see which idea we were liking the most. Both Ducky and OJ were liking the 3rd idea (no narration but information through text). This allows us to still tell information, but deviate from the traditional format, and in addition to that we don't need to hire a professional narrator.

We then decided on a rough story script for how the short would unfold:

We really liked the idea of having a more experimental, almost abstract style for when the birds dance, as that could be very visually engaging. 

This is subject to change when Ducky does the storyboard, however currently this is our core idea.

Next steps are to research more, and for me to start visual development of the BG's.

504 - Documentary Initial Ideas

For this project, I am working with Ducky and Olivia. We started by suggesting ideas, but found that our favourite was Olivia's idea of the birds of paradise, as the very unique and colourful birds along with their mating dances allows us a lot of freedom with telling the story in a playful way.

I was really happy with this because personally I don't like documentaries, so wanted to avoid doing a topic that was information heavy, preferring to do a more visual and fun idea and this is certainly that.

Olivia showed us several videos of the birds and their dances, namely from Our Planet:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rX40mBb8bkU&ab_channel=Netflix

OJ suggested the traditional documentary format with having a narrator, and in addition to this I suggested these ideas that deviate from that format a bit:

My reasons for these were that I wanted to deviate from the expository documentary style of seemingly all nature documentaries, and be more playful with it. The actual dances are almost absurd and I wanted to reflect that with our storytelling.

The group liked these ideas and we're just going to wait till after the pitch to both get feedback and to think on which idea we're going forward with.

504 - Intro Scenes

To start this scene I animated the phone. Ducky created the asset for it:

(Ducky's work)

I then created the arms in after effects using a shape layer and offset keyframing, and added my drawn hand asset onto the end of it, to create this:

From there I added this to the phone and used CC Bend it to add some more movement. Here's the final phone animation:

Once this was done, I then animated it and the text, using google to help me learn how to do things.

As this is meant to be an advert that the character is looking at, I wanted to add some effects to help show that it is being viewed at on a screen, so I made 2 different versions. Here they are:

The main animation for these scenes is done, I just need to add wiggles as well as maybe some motion on the landfill.

I found this quite challenging but also very fun, as I learnt a lot about after effects in the process and ways to tackle things. 

I think that these scenes are snappy and visually satisfying, but I could have made the text motion feel more like an object than text following a line. Also, I could have exaggerated the phone's arm movement more as it is quite subtle from the small size.

Here are some of the sources I used to help me with after effects:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOUTLzAiDX0&ab_channel=MotionArrayTutorials 
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRP94C98Uhc&ab_channel=ShortTuts 
• https://community.adobe.com/t5/after-effects/text-on-a-path-is-anchored-by-top-of-text-instead-of-bottom-is-there-a-way-to-change-anchor/td-p/10865978

504 - Progress Presentation and Feedback

Our 2nd presentation was about our progress thus far, here are the slides:

Most of the feedback was for Luke's developed scenes, but here's the feedback that relates to me:

• Make sure to keep the flow of the advert
• Keep continuity with the type - think of it more as a character
• Play with type transitions
• Keep consistency with the green of the aliens and of the turtle
• For the stars in space, I could use after effects particle generation to give it some movement
• Cut your own scenes into the overrall animatic to see them together, and to make sure that it is visually cohesive as currently each scene seems too different from one another

With this, we decided that I should do all of the text at the end once the core scenes are done, to make sure it remains cohesive. In addition to this, we could keep a cutout style through all the scenes, as well as use the same texture and even have half tone dots in multiple scenes. Also the wiggles as secondary animation will help too.

504 - Alien Style Frame

Here's a rough style frame I created for the after effects alien scene:

Creating this style frame highlighted some problems I may encounter when animating it, the main one being how to animate the blink. I decided that it would be simpler to just hand drawn animate the blink open, and then use after effects to add the rest. To do this, the style's would need to be consistent. Ducky offered to do that as she knows adobe Animate.

The other problem is making the alien eyes look good without being too detailed. For this style test I added shading, however that would be tricky to animate with. A solution to this would be having a more general texture like half tone, and that would also link with Luke's use of it in his scene.

 

504 - Feedback

Here's some feedback and changes we made as a group:

Firstly, I edited one of Luke's concept pieces to suggest a different way of colouring that's more polished. 

Here's Luke's concept image:

(Luke's work)

I thought that the BG was a lot better than the original one as its less cluttered and overwhelming, but I thought that to make the scene feel more finished that he could digitally colour the green. This would make it pop more, so I edited his image:

(My edit)

Luke liked this idea, so I showed him how to do it for moving image and how to composite it.

Me and Ducky also suggested making these changes:

504 - Pitch

Here's our pitch presentation:

Here's the script for my part of the presentation:

Feedback from pitch:

• lots of work
• great company analysis and research
• theres conflict between text and visuals - too busy
• pay attention to title and action safe boundaries
• very clear of the brief and what's required
• liked that it was kept to giffgaff style
• liked how snappy and attention grabbing it was

504 - Animatic and Style Frame

Here's the animatic for the ad intro:

The hardest thing I found with this was getting all the information in in 5 seconds. I had to change the idea a bit but I think this sets the context for the ad well whilst not being too long. To shorten it, we could use narration over the text, and have it on screen for a shorter duration.

The humour of this also fits in with the giffgaff brand.

I wanted to create this very much in the style of giffgaff's traditional branding, using 3 primary colours and the monochromatic imagery. I think this works well, but maybe changing the text to lowercase and in the animation giving some motion to the wiggles and the landfill would be improvements.

502 - SWOT Analysis

Here's my SWOT analysis form:

I tend to do a lot of reflection and self critique naturally, however I found this quite hard to do as collating all that information and categorising it caused me to think about everything in a different way.

I think that a lot of my weaknesses will be improved on through experience with actually making an effort to do them. More active tasks I can do to reduce my weaknesses would be to practice drawing and my fundamentals more, doing studies in my own time, as well as experimenting with my process more to keep things fresh and interesting.

I realised before this that I wanted to focus my practice on backgound art, so this was in a way tailored to that. I find that I gravitate towards backgrounds not necessarily because it is the thing I am best at, but because it is what I enjoy the most and it covers so much.

My current main platofrm is instagram, as it is the only social media I keep up to date. I think keeping it like this suits me and my needs (especially as it took me so long to get used to, and social media in general overwhelms me), however I want to also make a website to hold my portfolio and represent me and my work in a more polished format. I can also incorporate my branding on it and really tailor it to my aesthetic.