Week 3 - The Escape C(l)an

This week started with a talk by Chelsea Hicks who is a previous MMU student who has been nominated for a Royal Television Society Award. She spoke to us about her work in product design and gave some key advice about character designing:
1) Start with thumbnail sketches
2) Move onto pencil drawings and
3) Develop Characters

Finally she said that the key components to an animation are:
1) The Characters Universe
2) The rules of the characters and
3) Characters, Colour and Story
I found her talk very useful and insightful as I am the character designer for my team.

Additionally this week, I worked on using a thinner wire to create my own version of the Pull-tab characters to make it easier to move them, in preparation for the pipeline tests. I recorded myself doing this for the 'Making of Video', here is a screenshot of the video:

On Tuesday 5th February we had a Second session with Adam Redfern and he gave us advice on our script and how we could reduce the screen time for scenes by making minor adjustments, for example rather than showing each Pull-tab being removed from its can. Just show the final one being removed and then thrown over to the corner of the table. Also in the script we are allowed to reference films such as 'Indiana Jones' to show what type of music we imagine in the background as the Pull-tabs are racing across the table. We found this session really useful as we made alot of Script Changes, making this our 4th Draft:

This week we also completed our first pipeline tests during the Group meeting/Studio day on Tuesday. We looked and thought about how the characters will walk/run, turn their heads and how they will see (eyes) as well as looking at how Cornelius gets past the Pizza Cutter. Here are our results:

Cork (Luna) Walk Cycle by Harry:

Character charging Forwards by Karla:

Pizza Cutter Obstacle by Harry and Tom:

Head Turn by Harry, Karla and Tom:

Eye Movement by Harry, Karla and Tom:

Furthermore this week, I refined the script, based on the advice and changes we made yesterday. I then uploaded this to Trello as well as the pipeline tests and the initial character profiles. Here is the refined script:

In Thursdays ‘Narrative Craft Group’  we were shown how to create  Gantt Chart using Excel and I redesigned my teams Gantt Chart so that it shows a daily timetable rather a weekly one. In addition to this we were advised that it is good to use Maya as a way to show the scene layout. Here is the refined Gantt Chart that I created:

Additionally this week we were told to come up with an idea for an exhibition in the CP-Visual Narrative Unit. My initial thoughts are to enlarge either one or a selection of my Inktober works to be shown in the Exhibition.

Karla sent this weeks Group report to the Tutors:

Successes: Rearranged and re-organised the Schedule. Started cutting down the Script, Pipeline Tests started and the Colour Script started.

Problems: Still haven’t finalised Script ready for the Animatic.

Ambitions: Finalise Script and Start Animatic. Also have a 3D model on Maya showing the table layout and a diorama of the full scene. Complete more Pipeline Tests including voice ideas and lighting ideas.