Evaluation

Overall i am very pleased with how my project has progressed. It took me a while to find inspiration and decide what i was going to do with my animation but i am very happy with the end product.

There are ways i feel i could have improved my project. Some parts of it ended up not as i intended. For example i would have liked to create more buttons which activated different animations. Having more animations would have given the user a better idea of the characters traits and what they were capable of. Constraints however, such as the small amount of progress i seemed to be making in comparison to the number of hours i was putting in meant in the end some of the features i would have liked to include were just not justifiable.

I would have liked Cartman to have also laughed, farted and a couple of other animations to make the project feel like more of a finished article. I also had the idea of the inclusion of another character somewhere along the line but once again this would have been just too much work.

My piece was created in the latest Flash software which is Adobe Flash CS4 Professional. To make sure the the final piece was compatible with the flash suite in the computer labs, which is Macromedia Flash 8, i had to save the project first as a Flash CS4 file to continue work on. Once my work was fully complete i had to convert it down to previous version of Flash which is Flash CS3. Then i had to locate a copy of Flash CS3 to covert it down again to be compatible with Flash 8. Through doing this i had problems with parts of my production. Obviously there are newer features in the newer software i was using with is not compatible with the older software. I had to be careful and make sure that any parts of the software i was using were available in older versions. This made the production more complicated as i knew sometimes i was doing things the long winded way just to make sure they would work.

My final production published as an .exe for Flash 10 was over 4MB. Looking for ways to shrink this file size was difficult and i was unsure as to why it was so large. However i did not want to try and change the file size too much before i knew i could actually get it down to Flash 8 and to work in the computer labs. Once saving the file down into Flash 8 format to work with Flash 8 mediaplayer the size of the .exe dropped significantly with it finally ending up at 2.37MB. This is a much more reasonable size to work with.

Looking back at my specifications and how i wanted my project to turn out i am very happy with the results. Most of the specifications i gave myself have been followed well and i am very pleased with the end product.

Here is an image of my final production,

Below is the output report once the .exe was published in CS4. The output report for the final Flash 8 piece can be found on the CD handed in.

Cartman.swf Movie Report
————————-

Metadata
——–
Bytes Value
—– —–
1290 Adobe Flash CS4 Professional 2009-04-16T10:58:37+01:00 2009-04-20T15:35:56+01:00 2009-04-20T15:35:56+01:00 application/x-shockwave-flash xmp.iid:2FFD28E8772ADE119536F736C5478045 xmp.did:2FFD28E8772ADE119536F736C5478045 xmp.did:2FFD28E8772ADE119536F736C5478045 xmp.did:26848D70B72DDE11A9868D4AB72DEFA3 xmp.iid:26848D70B72DDE11A9868D4AB72DEFA3 xmp.did:2FFD28E8772ADE119536F736C5478045

Frame # Frame Bytes Total Bytes Scene
——- ———– ———– —————-
1 34574 34574 Scene 1 (AS 2.0 Classes Export Frame)
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Scene Shape Bytes Text Bytes ActionScript Bytes
————————- ———– ———- ——————
Scene 1 0 0 297

Symbol Shape Bytes Text Bytes ActionScript Bytes
————————- ———– ———- ——————
Symbol 1 0 0 0
side_buttons 0 0 0
side_zip 48 0 0
side_feet 84 0 0
side_trousers 81 0 0
side_hand 69 0 0
side_body 203 0 0
side_face 181 0 0
side_mouth 42 0 0
side_eyeball 0 0 0
side_eye 109 0 0
side_hatbrow 100 0 0
side_hat 175 0 0
side_bobble 155 0 0
btn_laugh 0 0 0
btn_wave 156 110 0
wave6 84 0 0
wave5 87 0 0
wave4 89 0 0
wave3 87 0 0
wave2 89 0 0
wave1 89 0 12
mouth_speak1 60 0 0
mouth_speak 0 0 6
mouth_speak5 260 0 0
mouth_speak4 89 0 0
mouth_speak3 52 0 0
mouth_speak2 190 0 0
btn_blog 184 130 0
btn_speak 160 114 0
head_blinking 92 0 0
background_school 0 0 0
head_hatbrow 181 0 0
head_bobble 154 0 0
head_hat 71 0 0
head_face 0 0 0
head_righteyebrow 45 0 0
head_lefteyebrow 46 0 0
head_righteyeball 0 0 0
head_lefteyeball 0 0 0
head_righteye 75 0 0
head_lefteye 76 0 0
head_secondchin 66 0 0
head_firstchin 52 0 0
head_mouth 45 0 0
body_trousers 80 0 0
body_jacket 149 0 0
body_righthand 68 0 0
body_zip 40 0 0
body_buttons 125 0 0
body_shoes 103 0 0

Font Name Bytes Characters
———————- ——— ————–
ArialMT 2140 BGSWaegkloptv

ActionScript Bytes Location
—————— ——–
191 Scene 1:actions:1
43 Scene 1:btn_blog:1:btn_blog(btn_blog)
32 Scene 1:head_speak:61
31 Scene 1:body_wave:61
6 wave1:actions3:1
6 wave1:actions3:36
6 mouth_speak:actions2:60

Bitmap Compressed Compression
———————– ———- ——– ———–
spbackground.jpg 24713 522240 Imported JPEG=102

Stream Sound:
Stream Sound: 11KHz Mono 8 kbps MP3

Event Sounds: 5KHz Mono 8 kbps MP3

Sound name Bytes Format
———————– ——— ———-
treehug.wav 3491 5KHz Mono 8 kbps MP3

Production

The first thing which needs to be produced is all the assets which will be used in my Flash program.

These will all be separated onto different layers and will include every small detail. The assets include things such as hat, bobble, eyebrows, eyes, eyeballs, mouth, double chin and many more. Each of these static assets are converted into graphic symbols and placed in the Flash library in a specific folder, in this case the Head folder.

Below is a simple timeline of the production of the character.

Once all the assets are produced it is just a case of placing them all in separate layers, naming the layers, categorising the layers and ordering the layers in the correct order. Once this is done the basic images are produced and finalised.

The next stage is to add the animation and sounds. Animations are created by creating a new layer and adding the first image of the animation to that layer. Once the first frame of the animation is created the other frames can be created. A new blank keyframe is created after the first frame and the next animation is placed in this blank keyframe. This process is then repeated over and over until all the animation is added in. This animation is then added to either an existing layer or a new layer.

Here is where the first use of ActionFrame comes in. ActionFrame uses code to process parts of the Flash program. The first piece of ActionFrame i am using is a very simple piece of code, it stops the animation i created playing automatically. The code is,

“speak.stop();”

This means the animation will not start unless instructed to.

Instructing the animation to begin requires a button to be pressed by the user, once again ActionScript is used, this time to initiate the animation.

The ActionScript which i have used is as follows,

“btn_speak.onPress = function() {
speak.play();
}”

This is placed in a separate layer which i titled actions. The script locates the btn_speak image and instructs the program to play the speak animation when the button is pressed.

Once the animation is finished the following ActionScript code is placed at the end of the animation layer,

“gotoAndStop(1);”

This ActionScript tells the program to go back to the first frame in the animation, which is indicated by the (1), and to stop. You could also tell the animation to loop by inputting, “gotoAndPlay(1);”.

Attached to the same button which initiates the animation is also a sound file which starts when the button is pressed. The idea of these two processes starting when the button is pressed is to make it look like Cartman is speaking, the animation will play the characters lips moving and the sound will play meaning it looks like Cartman is talking.

I also made my character look like he was waving, this is done in the same way as above but without the sound file added. I rotated Cartmans hand a number of time into different positions and then placed them in an animation layer to play upon a button press.

My final animation was to have Cartman walking into and out of shot. When the flash file is loaded Cartman is not present on screen. The animation starts and the character appears from the left. I produced this using the motion tween tool. The character can be moved an number of times to any number of different places along a path using this tool. I produced the path in an up and down zig zag way to make it look like the character was walking into shot. At the end of the animation Cartman proceeds to walk out, again done in a similar way, this time just as Cartman leaves the shot he says, “Screw you guys, I’m going home.” This is one of Cartman’s catchphrases and fits well with the animation.

I also added in a “Go to Blog” button. This button send the user directly to my blog. I did this using ActionScript again, below is the code i used.

“on (release) {getURL(“http://www.chrisw87.wordpress.com”);}”

This is a simple but effective way to make it easier to reach my blog.

Below are some more images of parts of the flash program and its progress throughout production.

Here is the profile of Cartman form the front and side.

This is the background i decided on. It is the bus stop where the main characters from South Park are often seen.

These are the buttons used in my animation.

Storyboard

Here is the storyboard i came up with for my animation.

The storyboard gives me a good idea of how i want my piece to be produced and what i want the end product to look like. Obviously this is very basic and just a guide for now but it gives me something to work towards.

Eric Cartman is a very brash and outspoken character. He is seen as rude and offensive and swears whenever he gets the chance. I aim to portray this as best as i can in my character sheet. This will give the animator a very good idea of how to interact with the character.

Cartman’s body language is often confident although he is far from comfortable with his appearance, often citing that he is big boned rather than fat when comments about his weight are made. One of his many catchphrases is, “I’m not fat, I’m big boned.”

Other catchphrases which Cartman use include,

“Screw you guys, I’m going home,”
“Screw you Kenny,”
“Respect my authority” and
“Die hippy, die.”

The technical details i am looking at for my project are as follows, these are not set in stone yet but will give me a good guideline.

Dimensions: I am looking to make the size of the flash animation around 500px x 300px.

Framerate: I will be producing my movie to around 30fps and around 10 seconds in total which will loop.

Data Size: This is important because a big file can mean long loading times which no one wants. I am aiming to keep my production below 2MB once finished and published. I need to keep a close eye on the amount of resources i am using and the amount of frames and layers i will have.

Sound: I may include background music which will most likely be the South Park theme tune. I would then have a stop and play option available if the user did not want to hear the sounds. I aim to include buttons which upon pressing will play a sound and activate an animation making it look like Cartman is speaking.

Layers: I aim to have a lot of layers which will make it easier to animate separate parts of the character. Layers of the character which will be key to animate include things such as the eyes, eyebrows, mouth, hands and feet. Once i have produced each part of the character and separated them into layers i aim to group the layers into appropriate folders. For example all the parts of the head of Cartman will go into a folder called head, the same will happen for Cartman’s body, the background and any buttons i create.

Assets: All parts of the static Cartman body will be converted into graphic symbols. Any parts of the character which i decide to animate will be converted into movie clip symbols which play on request. All the buttons which are intractable by the user will be converted into button symbols.

User Interaction: I aim to make all the interaction done by the user via buttons. This will make it easier to know what the character is able to do. If i get chance i may add in a couple of hidden buttons which can be clicked to activate an animation. I feel this would be a good extra to add but may not be in the right context for the project.

The layout: I feel the simpler the better with layout, i have seen very advanced flash with drop down menus and other advanced features but i do not feel that is required or would fit with the theme of my piece to have these features. The layout will have the character in the centre of the screen with buttons around him.

Movement: I aim to have Cartman moving in a number of different ways. Initial ideas i have had include, waving, smiling, walking, running and swearing. There are obviously endless possibilities when it comes to the movement of the character. I feel however that i need to make sure Cartman isn’t doing anything which he would not usually do and would be out of character.

Initial Ideas

After taking inspiration from a number of different animations. I decided to use the character Eric Cartman from South Park as my subject.

I feel that Cartman has a lot of different expressions, animations and quotes which can be used to create a diverse and reliable character sheet.

The way in which Cartman is created and animated means creating the character and animating him myself should not be too difficult yet still be challenging enough to use all the skills i have acquired.

Below are some images which give a guide to Eric Cartman.

My aim is to create all the graphics required in Flash, i feel this way will be the quickest and easiest way forward. However, if i do require some more advanced images and image editing then i may use Illustrator or Photoshop to achieve the required effects.

My next task is to research Cartman’s character and find all his attributes and characteristics to successfully transfer these into my flash production. This requires looking at more images, videos, sound clips and reading up about the character. Once i have done more research i will produce a storyboard which will give me a basic idea of how i want my final production to turn out.

The storyboard will look at things such as dimension, framerate, duration, data size, the layout, colours used, visual signposting, typography, sound, speed, animation techniques and the overall style of the piece.

Inspiration 3

For my third assignment in Creative Tech i am required to produce a flash animation.

The animation is a character model sheet for an existing or created character

This model sheet is required to show key animations and traits of the character to give animators a good idea of how the character acts.

My interests in animation include classic shows such as The  Simpsons, Family Guy, American Dad and South Park.

Other interesting animation techiques, however, include shows such as Ren & Stimpy, Rex the Runt, Afro Samurai, Angry Kid and other types of animation which do not follow conventions and use different methods to achieve results.

When it comes to deciding upon a character to use or to create a character a number of different constraints have to be taken into effect.

Using an already created character will eliminate the creative side of the project which is the character creation. This is a double edged sword, on one side this eliminates having total control of the character. On the other side using an already created character will save time in the long run.

Some of the animation in the videos above is obviously a lot easier to produce than other, if for example i was going to create a character in the style of South Park it would be much less complicated than creating a character in the style of Family Guy simply because of the way they are created. South Park is created in a 2D way whereas Family Guy is produced to look 3D.

When taking ideas from my inspiration i need to make sure i choose something which is doable but at the same time is not going to be too simple to produce and not use all the necessary methods i have learnt.

Evaluation

I believe that my project went well. I feel i may have had too large of an idea to start with and with the constraints of the film only being 10 seconds it made it hard to use some of my ideas to better effect.

I do however feel that my final piece is a good representation of what i hoped to acieve and believe it is a good quality piece which shows the audience what is intended.

I felt that i could have improved the final composition in a number of ways. First of all, the short amount of time avaliable made filming all the pieces of footage to the highest quality i could difficult. It meant i had to settle for some of the footage rather than try and produce a top quality recording. Another way the film could have been improved would have been using a more varied number of shots. All the shots i used consist of a static camera. If i had had more time to produce and direct the shots i wanted i felt i could have had a more varied number of takes and shots to choose from. I could have looked at different angles, perspectives and more of the rules of film could have been taken into account.

Overall though i am pleased with what i have produced. I did not submit the film to The 10 Second Film Festival as i feel it would not have been accepted due to lack of quality in some shots. For my first time using a video camera however i feel that my results are good and can definately be worked on.

Capturing & Editing Footage

The capturing of my footage was done over a weekend with a Panasonic NV-GS300 video camera. With the short amount of time to capture the footage it was imperative i knew what i wanted and got good quality shots quickly.

I took shots of myself in bed for around 15 minutes. I intend to speed this footage up and use it as the first part of my film. I shot the footage rom as high up as possible to give a good view of myself in bed and as much of the bed as possible. Obviously i had to do this in daylight as oppose to at night time. But i hope it being in the day gives the same impressions. Maybe even a better impression, showing a student in bed during the day is probably a better vision of the student lifestyle.

The next piece of footage i shot was of someone drinking a can of lager. I shot this footage of my friend in my room with natural light and the lights of my room.  I shot it against a plain background to give emphasis on the events happening. I used an empty can of lager which the actor pretended to drink as quickly as they could. This shot gives the impression of students drinking alot. Watching back the footage of this recording i realised i should have tried to use more natural light as using my bedroom light meant large shadows behind the actor. Also the image should have been framed better, as there is something to the right of the shot that shouldnt be there.

I shot footage of me typing on a keyboard from a birds eye view to give the impression of someone doing work. I also recorded video on my computer screen of me on Facebook. This was to show a student logging on and checking Facebook rather than doing work. This shot could have been done better, i should have tried to aim for having the camera directly above the keyboard as i think it would have given a better shot.

Once i had filmed all the footage i needed i extracted the data from the Mini-DV in the video camera onto my computer. The tape is played and recorded into a computer file. This file is an .avi file. AVI stands for Audio Video Interleave. AVI files contain both audio and video data in a file container and allow audio-with-video playback.

For the process of editing the footage i had filmed i used Adobe Premier Pro. Using this software i cut and spliced parts of the footage i recorded together. I added titles and credits into the film. Using software and these techiques is known as non-linear editing. Non-linear editing is in the simplest terms cutting and pasting parts of the film in software such as the one i used, Adobe Premier Pro, to create your film. By using these methods you can easily change different parts of your project if required. I decided to use a single track over the whole film, i felt that using seperate pieces of audio for seperate parts would have been to confusing as each piece of music would be no more than a couple of second long. The audio i chose was Janie Jones by The Clash. I thought this fit quite well with the subject of the video. The lyrics which can be heard are,

“He’s in love with rock ‘n’ roll, woah
He’s in love with getting stoned, woah
He’s in love with Janie Jones, woah
But he don’t like his boring job no…
No
No
No
Let them know
Let them know”

I exported the film from Adobe Premier Pro as a Microsoft AVI file.

The frame size is 720 x 576 which is a standard 4:3 ratio. I exported the film at 50fps for the AVI file and used the compressor Microsoft Windows Media Video 9. These settings are for the standard file which is played from your hard drive.

I aslo had to convert the file to a DVD format to play from a DVD disk. The .avi file has to be converted to a .vob file to be able to play directly from DVD. VOB (Video Object) files are the container formats contained in DVD-Video media. They contain all video, audio, menu and subtitle content in stream form. The film was converted into PAL format, to make it playable on European DVD players, and the frame rate was converted from 50fps to 25.

Below is the final film on YouTube.

Storyboard

Above is a simle storyboard of how i expect my film to pan out. Below i will go into more detail on ideas for each shot.

The first frame is the title of my film.

The second frame shows someone asleep lying in bed, i intend to have a caption infront of this shot saying “Sleep” so that the viewer knows what is happening. I intend this shot to be quite a long shot from high up to capture a large part of the bed. This will depend on the height in which i can set up the camera and the distance away from the bed. I also intend to shoot quite a long piece of footage and then speed it up. I am aiming to use about 3 seconds of my 10 for this scene.

The third frame shows someone typing on a keyboard. I will have a caption before this scene reading “Work”. I intend to shoot this scene from above looking down at the keyboard showing a person typing. I will then cut to a related scene which can be seen in the fourth frame of a computer screen showing someone either doing work or checking their facebook account. I thought showing someone using facebook would be a clever twist and give the impression that people are often on facebook when they should be doing work (which is often the case). These two scenes are intended to last a total of 4 seconds.

The fifth frame will show someone drinking alcohol, this will have before it the caption “Drink”. The scene will be shot at medium range from a straight on angle with the person. This scene will probably also need to be sped up and will last 3 seconds, giving a total of 10 seconds.

The sixth frame shows the end credits.

In the case of audio for the film i am unsure of what to use yet, whether to have just one peiece of music playing or a number of different parts. I am leaning towards one piece as the timeframe is so short and will be thinking of inspiration for songs which have some relevance to the theme of the film.

Decision

After much delibetation i have decided to produce a film showing the life of a student. I envision the film to show typical things which a student does. This may include things such as eating, drinking, sleeping, working, not working, procrastinating and so on.

My intial ideas involve having a person in bed asleep followed by someone downing a drink and then someone in bed once again. Showing these three clips will give a good impression of the life that a student lives. Editing wise i am going to try and incluse short sharp shots as 10 seconds is not alot of time to portray alot of information in. I may also resort to speeding some shots up such as someone drinking as this would take too long if it were done in normal time.

Inspiration 2

After watching a number of videos in lectures and around the internet a few different ideas sprung to mind on what to do my 10 second video on.

I had a number of different initial ideas. My first idea was to has someone getting hit in the groin by something. I took inspiration for this idea from an episode of The Simpsons, the clip can be seen here. I liked this idea as i thought it would get a good reaction but felt that it was too simple and was not original enough to be used.

Another idea was to record myself sleeping overnight and then playing it sped up. This idea was inspired by a number of different timelapse and one scene videos. One which we were shown in lecture of a car driving across america can be seen here. Another is a music video directed by Michel Gondry which can be seen here, although the video is not sped up it is edited very well to make it look like one continuous shot. Another aspect of this paticular video is the use of images in parallel to the music. Certain parts of the video, such as train carriages and people, represent notes and beats in the music. I like this style and although i feel having a video of just me sleeping may not be interesting enough i intend to incorporate some of the inspiration from these videos in my final film.

Another source of inspiration comes from one of my favourite films Requiem For A Dream. The was the film is edited with alot of short sharp cuts adds to the drama and intesity of the story. Most films usually use around 600 to 700 cuts. Requiem for a Dream contains over 2,000. A number of examples of this can be seen in this homemade trailer. Although the techniques used are good inspiration, i feel it may be hard to replicate anything used with the short amount of time avaliable for production and the length of film allowed.