Sound Effects Sheet

This sheet shows and explains what I have done to the sound so it is easily understood and can be repeated in case anything goes wrong.

Photos

I have take some photos of the characters when shooting. the lighting isn't great because I didn't want to mess up the set up for filming so will do it again after Christmas for the one sheet ect.

Production Bible Pages

These are the first tries for my production bible pages. Once we have figured out the layout of the whole book i will re-arrange the images and text but for now this is what I want my pages to contain. Also we need to know what font style and size we want and a colour scheme etc to follow throughout which I can apply later.

Some behind the scenes photos

Production bible schedule

What has been happening?

At the start of the week we were all trying to get the hang of the dope sheets and dragonframe (the software we are animating on). This took a few days, a few trials and eras and a lot of chocolate and mini heart attacks. BUT. We have got it. We are now in the swing of things. 

Claire is animating nearly everyday as she animates the bass and backing singers. Sam only animates the guitar, so, when he is not animating he is sorting out dope sheets for the next scenes or working on production bible. I only animate the lead singer so when I am not animating I am making more mouth shapes, characters and fixing anything that is broken whilst been animated. I also work on the production bible.

We would love to share our final scenes that we have done but we are going to keep them hush until the final edit of our piece. 

We will keep posted on what is happening and put some pictures up of us lovely people animating and working hard. 

New Schedule

As we are all new to so many things in our production there have been set backs. With the initial schedule we had to estimate how long certain things would take, such as making mouths, as we have never done it before. Due to the lack of knowledge and understanding of puppet making we are behind our original schedule.

BUT.

Thankfully. As we are using dope sheets which our genius Sam Mealey has been putting together (no idea how he is doing it!) the actual animating is rather fast as we now just have follow our dope sheets.

So. This is our new schedule for shooting. 

Hopefully no set backs this time.

My Final Replacement Tests

This is a few replacement tests testing the new swaying music which is more like a bop and sway now.

This is a quick one not taking any timing into account, just to make sure the shapes and replacements worked together. As you can see no detail was added to the models so I could just focus on the body shape.

Added hair to see if it also works along side the body shape. As said before, I toke no account of timing, just testing the replacement. 

Began to look at timing. Slowly up and quick down. Quick up and slow down.

Added music to work with the timing of the bops. 

In this clip I decided to concentrate on doing a quick bop up and slow down to the middle again. 

Lip Syncs

Here are my lip syncs that i made in Premier for the Bass and Backing Singers.

Mouth Shapes

These are the mouth shapes I came up with last week to lip sync with the audio.

Backing Singers

Bass 

Bass Test Animations

Over the last week I have been testing the movement of the base character.

These are my first few test. I found that some of the movements didn't work well for timing but was a good start to understanding what i need to do when animating.

After all the tests I did I cut the full track into 4 pieces and animated the exact movements I plan on using for our final animation.

Mice Mouths

Now, try saying that quickly!

So, we have began to make mouth shapes. First making the teeth and lip shape and moulding it out of silicon (blue stuff in the photo). This keeps every teeth and lip size the same and consistent for the replacement animation. 

We then rolled out black backgrounds for the mouths out of sylcon and bake them for a solid back. Then add the white teeth and then put on the lips on top (made also out of sylcon) and cut off the access background and bake again so the whole mouth is solid. 

And here is Sam with his mouse army!

Photo of first replacement idea

This is my first models testing my first movement idea for my replacement models. It was the idea of the mice swaying side to side with there whole body. I tried hard to make it work but it just didn't work.

An earful indeed

24 Ears later

Life onion skinning 

Cheeky chums, witness the fitness

The local post-office

Done and donner

Guitar puppet test

Guitar lip shapes

Lip-squeaks

What is happening?

We have been a very busy group this week, making Photoshop mouth shapes, sorting them in Premier, sorting dope sheets, mixing plasticine for final colours and making our replacements.
Thankfully, we are all on schedule. We were wishing to make our mouth shapes before the end of this week but unfortunately Mary could not see us to help us with this process until Monday. So, a long day on Monday finalising replacements, making mouths and eye lids and hopefully doing a test of one of the scenes so we can start animating on Tuesday.
Sam is sorting out everyones dope sheets this weekend so they are all in time and in order for each scene (he is a clever boy).
Also, we have got ourselves three level 1 students who would like to help us with our animation (WHAAAY!). As there is only 3 of us in our group this hopefully will help us a lot if we ask them to help us here and there.
So... go go go!! Just need to keep to schedule and get stuck in.

Replacement tests for Lead Guitar mouse

Replacement test 1

Within this test I tried replacement tests with the idea of the mouse swinging his head through his whole body. With a wave effect flowing through the 'blob'. This test is shot in 4's to get an idea. I feel like its needs for inbetweens to make the move smoother.

Replacement test 2

I tried testing the wave movement through out the body again adding in two more replacement shapes. I feel it still doesnt work and this movement might be to complex for such a simple shape. Also, I need to mix more colours more so the whole colour is mixed through properly. 

Replacement test 3

This test is a very quick one that I did at the end of the day, after I mixed the colour of the plasticine even more and made replacements with the idea of the mouse 'booping' his head up and down, left and right. Even though this is very quick you can already see that the simpler the movement the easier it reads with the simple shape. I did to smooth out some of the replacements but I think this will be my final replacements.

Lead Guitar mouth shapes

These are the finalised mouth shapes for the Lead Guitar Mouse. It is based on some mouth shapes I worked with at Flickerpix during work experience and Preston Blair mouth shapes. These will also be brought into Premier with the lead final recording, which we recorded last week and edited over last weekend. When we set up all the mouths in Premier in time with the recording then we can write the mouth shapes on our dope sheets.

ALL OVER LIFE!

SCHEDULE UP UNTIL CHRISTMAS

Friday 16^th November

ALL MOUTHS COMPLETE AS JPEG

Start testing with mouths and music in Premier

WEEKEND

Sam – synopsis, script, log line

Claire – Set and painting of theatre

Cathryn – One sheet and poster

Monday 19^th November

In University all day putting mouth shapes to your character in premier

Create a dope sheet for everyone to use Monday night

Tuesday 20^th November

Look at everyone’s mouth shapes in premier. Review and correct.

Everyone write his or her mouth shapes onto dope sheet for each scene

Wednesday 21^st November

Make mouths and eyes for your character

Test under camera with dope sheet

Thursday 22^nd November

Make mouths and eyes for your character

Test under camera with dope sheet

Sort out movement with mouth shapes on dope sheets

Friday 23^rd November

Test mouth and movements put together on dope sheet under camera

WEEKEND

Sammy Gammy visits

Mr and Mrs Mealey visits

NOTES

Max Miller 7.30pm on Monday

Case studies in on Tuesday 2pm

EVERYONE MAKE MODELS AND REPLACEMENTS ALL WEEK HAVE TO BE DONE FOR SUNDAY NIGHT

Have main replacements made for Wednesday to compare to everyone else’s characters under camera and to confirm mouth shape sizes

((Claire have set done FOR SUNDAY NIGHT)))

Monday 26^th November

Claire set up lights and set

Test scene of 3 characters in it – movements and mouths. Final test!!

Tuesday 27^th November

Scenes 2 & 6

Wednesday 28^th November

Scenes 3 & 5

Thursday 29^th November

Scene 9

Friday 30^th November

WEEKEND

Mother Gamble visits

NOTES

Creative writing handed in Tuesday 2pm

Monday 3^rd December

SCENE 4

Tuesday 4^th December

Scene 10 & 8

Claire animate curtains

Wednesday 5^th December

Scene 11

Thursday 6^th December

Scene 7

Friday 7^th December

WEEKEND

Make small cheeses, roses and pick bra

NOTES

Monday 10^th December

Scene 12

(cheese, roses and bra)

Tuesday 11^th December

Scene 1

Wednesday 12^th December

Thursday 13^th December

Show off day. CV, blog and business card

Friday 14^th December

Blue = Claire

Green = Sam

Red = Cathryn

Testing scenes

Had two days doing quick 4 fps scene tests under the camera. This was for us to get into the swing of the movements and the hang of timing. 

As the director I will make my own notes for myself, Sam and Claire on what I feel needs to be improved.

Who is animating who, I hear you ask?

Well, I am animating the Lead Singer.

Sam is animating the Inflating Guitar.

Claire is animating the Bass and Backing Singers.

I also will be directing every scene and after the Guitar deflates, Sam will help assist me and Claire on our parts. 

Final Animatic

After talks within our group, peers and a tutor we have came to our final animatic (sigh of relief). We have included the idea of a poster at the beginning, promoting the concert that Micetro are singing in. This establishes the era, setting and feel of our piece. 

Concept Art

I looked at stages and the different possible looks they could have. This is what I came up with.

I like the shading on this one gives the image depth.

I like the colour in this one but may not be appropriate for this set up.