Here is the finished product finally! I think a collaboration with a musician would have been good for this but I'm quite happy with the subtle, random wind chimes and voice over. Maybe music as well would have been too much... I'm really pleased I took it slow with this animation and let the shots linger and become more cinematic. I'm also very happy with the choice I made to keep the backgrounds and characters separate as there was so much more detail achieved working this way on both elements. I felt like I could draw the characters in my usual illustration style rather than worrying that they were too stylised or detailed, and equally the backgrounds could be more atmospheric. I think in the future, now that I have the hang of the technique and know how to composite the layers, I will take this forward and create environments with separate foregrounds, middle foregrounds and backgrounds to add more depth. I might even step away from the digital compositing and try out Yuri Norstein's glass layers effect.
Things I'm happy with: * The colour palette - the very, nearly monochrome and inky blues work well to create an atmosphere I think. * The movement of my characters, in particular the seagull and various insect leg movements. Research paid off here. * My northern lights - perhaps because it required real thought to come up with the solution, or maybe just because it's pretty and is the only splash of colour in an otherwise muted palette, which gives it more magic. * I've finally started getting more technical using software like after effects without relying on it too heavily or losing the personality of the animation. * The general feel of the animation. I think it's the right mix of beauty and melancholy - could maybe have had a dash more creepiness. Things I could be happier with: * The sound - I think my recordings could have been sharper which might have left more room for a gentle melody to flow through in the background. * Some elements of the stop-motion and pixilation didn't seem as smooth as some of the hand-drawn elements, making me wonder if I should have stuck to one style of animating throughout. However, part of me enjoys the clunkiness of the puppetry as it's a bit jarring, so I'm still undecided on what the best decision might have been. * I wish I'd made my ant sequence longer and creepier. Equally, given more time I might have included more close ups of the various creatures. Just shots of jointed insect legs or pincers etc. * Having now looked at The Hedgehog in the Fog, I think real water in the lake would have been a brilliant idea. * I wish the backgrounds had just a little more depth in some shots. Maybe more atmosphere by animating clouds or having movement in the reeds from a light breeze might have improved this.
Up to the final few days of creating this animation for 2nd Year Unit X project, I was panicking about how to create the effect of northern lights in my animation. Certain things are good for creating an effect as a still image, for example brusho and bleach or wax resists, but they would not have the fluidity for a smooth animation. Both these techniques prove too unpredictable for a smooth, fluid motion. In the end I turned to photoshop to create gently glowing lines which faded in and out using the frame animation timeline on Photoshop CC, this allowed me to keep control via the opacity levels, glow levels, colour intensity and spread. This technique alone was not enough though as it is too clinical and computer-generated for my taste and would not have sat well alongside the hand-drawn and puppetry elements. I combined it instead with layers of film I shot of watercolours swirling in a glass dish. This combination grounded the photoshopped animation, made it more tangible and gave it an elemental feel. The real footage also provided a natural movement that would have taken weeks (if not longer) to perfect.
This was some recommended viewing I was given in a tutorial, as it fits with the ethereal effects I was trying to achieve through my tracing paper layered backgrounds and they reminded my tutor of this short film. I think Yuri captures this ethereal vibe better than my attempts do, but I'm not sure of the technique he used. In some sources it mentions him using real smoke to create the fog, which seems simple but in reality would be incredibly difficult to control. Another source says that the fog effect was created in a similar method I've been using, which was to hold a sheet of very thin paper over the scene, drawing it up frame by frame until the scene went blurry. This is a technique used a lot in shadow puppetry and would work very well. I wish I had thought of this for my backgrounds instead of relying on a static image. It would have made them look more misty and mysterious. I love the detailed and visually complex textures against the blankness of the fog. It's just really, really beautiful. My favourite image is the tree fading into the mist and also the 'Someone' in the water. In typical Russian animation style, I feel like there is a lot of symbolism going on that I'm unaware of. The film has a melancholic feel to it throughout and the fog seems like a character or entity in itself, it crowds the frames and I felt myself constantly anxious for the safety of the hedgehog because of that looming presence. All in all, it's just stunning to watch and
I managed to layer up some of my separate elements of animation today in a line test of the real thing. Need to fiddle around with the saturation and exposure I think to get the tone I want for the background but I can do that easily in Final Cut Pro X. Tech-wise I used Dragonframe to capture the hand-drawn elements of animation and for the pixilation of the background waves (made using layers of coloured tracing paper). After avoiding Dragonframe for ages because I was too scared to leave the comfort of iStopmotion, it's actually a lot easier to use and more professional. For one thing, the cameras link up with the live view so lining up shots is ten times easier and quicker than using iStop. I then adjusted the exposure and colour in Final Cut on my characters before importing to Adobe After Effects to blend out the white paper background, using the 'Darken' Blending Option. All quite simplistic but I don't want to go too heavy on the effects, I think it's nicer to keep it simple for this animation, and best to take it slow with After Effects as I'm still really new to it! So far I'm happy though. It's going as planned... I hope I haven't spoke too soon!
I was introduced to the animations of Antony Barkworth-Knight by a tutor earlier this year but his name had fallen into the recesses of my brain until a recent opportunity to work with him came up and I took another look at his work. I've gone for setting a scene rather than a more abstract approach in my current animation but Antony seems to be able to blend the two really well in 'Wash' particularly. I wanted to have some close-ups of the insects to change the scene a little, now I'm thinking maybe I can take it further and layer up more images with varied opacities to get a more abstract feel? Anyway, this is beautiful stuff regardless. I love the simplicity of his lines. He gives you just enough detail to know what's going on but you still have to work for the story. It's more immersive for that.
Setting the beach scene in this forth-coming animation required a foraging seagull really anyways, but I'm glad I managed to squeeze in a nod to the suspense of the Alfred Hitchcock film I remember from my childhood. Although, admittedly it is hard to make one, lonely seagull as sinister as a crowd of silent, staring ones. Making diagnostic drawings of gulls from different angles and in different positions definitely helped make animating one a lot easier. The movement was easier to figure out having done the still sketches than by just working from memory of how a seagull moves.
I did some line tests of my creepy crawlies today and it looks like it's coming together quite well. All that anthropological research seems to have paid off because the ants are moving better than I imagined and the none of the tests had any timing issues. Big relief when the deadline for end of year show is looming! So here's a sneak preview of the ants creepy around...
