Bernard The Bird - Scene one and two first draft no sound

This is the first time that i have put two scenes together finished with the editing. Due to the fact that the first scene is an opening scene and is not relate to the story at all it would work if i had simply put a jump cut to the first scene of the story (were he gets kicked out of his nest). So i had to think of a way to change the scenes over without doing a fade  because they don't look very professional. So i decided to make it looks like a cloud front is going across the screen meaning that it would cover up the background changes. The after has work okay as it does what i wanted it to do however there are a few things that i would like to perfect about it. There is one cloud that is last to leave the screen and it moves a lot faster then the other drawing the audience to look at that and not the animation. The next thing i would change is making the clouds look realistic. Due to my lack of skills in Adobe After Effects i am still unsure on how to do a lot of things and making the clouds look more realistic and making them move more realistically is something i do not know how to do yet. However if i do develop these skills then i can always come back to it.

These two scenes edited together like this is only draft 1 and i'm sure it will change and develop a lot more with more and more edits. But as a first attempt i think its turned out really well. The edits are sharp were they need to be and the effects have worked really well. I need to work on the sun as it was in the wrong places at some points during the animation but that's not hard to change. If i could i would make it a bit higher quality in some points, but due to how I've made the animation this wont be possible.    

The Equipment I have used to Create My Animation!!

Having the correct equipment is a very important thing when it comes to making anything. Therefore to make this Animation i had to go out and buy a few thing to help me out. I think that if i hadn't bought these things to be able to do my work at home and to become better on them, i don't think my animation would have been half as good as it is now. 

One of the first things that i bought to help me out was a Wacom Bamboo Graphics Tablet. What this is is as a tablet were you get a pen and you draw on the tablet like you would with pen and paper. However when the pen is touching the tablet the pen then turns into a mouse. This means that i am able to do more fluid lined drawings and shade faster and more realistically then i would have been able to do with just the mouse. In my animation, everything you see in the scenes has been drawn and coloured in was all done by me, and to aid me to do this i used my Graphics Tablet. 

The next thing that i have to aid me with my animation was my all-in-one Epson printer. This printer doesn't just print but it also as the functions of a photocopier and a scanner. It was the scanning capability that has really helped me out with this piece of equipment. This is because when i have sketched out one of my designs it means i can scan it into the computer and post it on my blog. It also means that i can use the drawn images as a template when i starting to draw my images in Photoshop. 

Just because you have the equipment doesn't mean that its good enough for the job. For example you may have a computer to make an animation one, however if it has very low specification then it wont work very well compared to a high specification computer. This is the computer that i use to make my animation. Its a Lenovo H530s. This computer has an 8GB RAM meaning that it can handle big tasks and work with high end software such as Abode After Effects and is able to render the videos without freezing or crashing. 

   

The most important piece out off of the equipment that i have is a new thing that Adobe has released and that 'Adobe Creative Cloud' What Adobe have done is, instead of making you buy one piece of software at a time for a lot of money, that have instead decided to give you all of the products for a monthly subscription. When i discovered this i thought i was the best idea very. Because i am a student in full time education i get the monthly subscription for more then half the price as a normal subscription. The main four software's that i use out of the package is Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Flash Professional, Adobe After Effects and Adobe Premiere Pro. Photoshop is an important piece for this animation as this is were i create my backgrounds and create them in layers so when they are imported into aftereffects i can add effects to them to make them look better. Once the backgrounds are complete i then import the background into flash as a template to see where things should b animated to make them match the background. Once the animation is complete in Flash i then export the animation into a PNG Sequence. In After Effects i then import all the background layer, the animation and i start the editing such as blurs and zooms. I haven't yet used Premiere Pro however what i will be doing with is is adding the sounds into my animation. 

Health and Safety Warning Sings!

As i am creating a fully digital animation there is no need for me to go out and film, therefore reducing the risks of having as accidents. However there are still things that could cause harm to me whilst creating the animation as computers can still go wrong. 

Bernard - Girly Girl Scene First Draft, Incomplete

What we have here is the first incomplete draft of the

Animating The Girly Girl Scene!

Other Girl Characters!

These characters are basically the same as the main girl character, the only difference between them is the hair. This was due to time issues as drawing out three individual characters would have taken to long. But for the scene they are going to be in that should matter to much. This is because in the scene you only actually see all of the main girl bird. The other two birds that i have drawn you can only see the upper halves of so it wasn't really worth spending a lot of time re-drawing them just to see there upper half. 

The hair styles that i have chosen for the other girls were chosen as they are simple to draw in flash and you can see the hair style with out having to complex drawings. The only reason that i have focused on changing the hair so much is because the body are the same therefore i needed something that shows the difference between them.  

Main Girl Character!

So far the girl characters out of all the characters i have already drawn had to be the hardest. This is because when drawing them i needed to get across they were girl birds but also they fact that they are meant to be attractive. The main way that i have made the bird look like a girl compared to the boy birds was by my choice in colours. I have decided to go for the colour purple for the girls as that is a stereotypical girl colour. The reason i didn't go for pink is because i didn't want the birds to clash with the pink birdhouse. The hair plays a huge part in defining that they are girls because with out the girly hair style you could easily mistake them for boys.

Another big problem that i came across when drawing the girl characters was there different face expressions. I needed the characters two looks, cuteness/attractiveness however i also needed there expressions to be able to go from that and then go to looking anger and mad. As you can see above i think i have captured these emotions quite well and keep the main features the same by doing simple things by raising there cheeks and dropping there eyelids. 

Overall i feel that the out come of the girl character is a lot better then i had expected it to be. It took a lot of doing and a lot of re-drawing but overall i feel its been worth it. I feel that i have captured the essions of the girls cuteness and attractiveness by the use of the hair style, eyes and the bow. I feel another key feature that makes this work so well are the shapes of the body. This is because its not a very big shape therefore you don't get the feeling of over powering but its not an odd shape because that shows there either muscly, fat or just a bit of a misfitted.

   

Drawing the Girly Girl Background!

When creating this background i had one aim in mind and that was to make the bird house look like a bird house and also make it girly. As you can see there is a fair bit of change between the first and the second picture as the shading was reduced and the detail had started to be added. As i went on my main aim was adding good details and make it look very girly. At the moment i am not 100% sure with my final outcome, but i will do a focus group to find out whats people think about them and could be improved. 

The reason that i have chosen to do a birdhouse for this girls scene is because its seemed appropriate for the feminine style and was a cuteness of a birdhouse is just like the girls are meant to be, which is cute. On the bird house i have decided to put bunting round the birdhouse. This is because bunting is seen as a young/ childish things to do and reinforces that this birdhouse is full of girls. I chose to put a white wooden fence in the background as in all the background i want some sort of fence to keep the continuity between that backgrounds. The colour white was chosen as its symbolizes purity and innocence just like the look i want to girls to have in the scene as they are meant to look appealing to Bernard.

Due to the lack of time i to create the backgrounds, i wanted to either put a mansion in the background to symbols wealth or but a city scene in the background to represent a rich city girls. Howver because of my time constrictions i had to put some hills in the background to fill up the space and they were fast to create. However this actually works quite well for the continuity side of things as the opening scene has hills in the background so putting hills in the background of this scene reinforces the area they are in.  

Girly Girl Stereotypes!

The reason that i have made this reader profile for the girly girls is because i wanted every stereotypes of a girly girl in one place so when it comes to animation and creating the characters i can always have a reference to what i think they should be like. I have taken most of my inspiration and most of my ideas from the film 'Mean Girls' (the background) this is because Mean Girls is one of the most popular girl films. This is because the girls within the film are the complete stereotypes that are associated with girly girls. These stereotypes are things such as popularity, wealthy, spoiled, attractive and normal very judgmental.  

Jock Scene Draft 1!

Animating in Flash!

Been able to animate in Flash is something that i think I have improved massively on. Compared to my first animation attempts that i did back in September, you can really see the difference. The reason for these improvements is by doing trail and error and watching tutorials on the internet. One of my biggest inspirations would have been from the digital artiest 'Jazza' who's wide range of YouTube tutorials on animation in flash and drawing in Photoshop. Even though this is my third scene that i have completed animating, there is still a lot to improve on and a lot more to learn, but by the end and this project i aim to be very confident about making short films in flash again.