Assignment 03: Concept & Narrative Development
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Assignment Brief:
I start my assignment 3 from Week 4, I first research about the school bullying case, gathering newspaper piece, and also facts about it. Then, start from week 5, I start to compile all the newspaper into animation. First, I use Phase to do it, but as I mentioned before, the process failed, I cannot export my animation out from Phase. But still, I screen record it and use CapCut to compile it into a complete video with wordings. Because I want to show this to our teammates for comments and also in next consultation session. As you can see from the video, it is very rough and not nice at all. This is my first draft:
In Phase, I use similar function like 'transform' in after effect, where I adjust the position, scale, opacity and rotation of the assets to create animation. It takes a lot of time, and I spend a lot of time to align all the newspaper nicely. From this experience, I learned to do the alignment first before animation, because in animation software, it is not that user friendly to do alignment like this.
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We have a consultation session with both Mr. Zeon and Mr. Shakir. We first explain about our storyline since this is the first time Mr. Shakir seen our works. We then proceed to show him our progress on some animation. We received a lot of constructive comments on animation and visual effects. Based on the storyboard, Mr. Shakir advise us:
Scene 1 - Warning scene:
- Add in a warning sign
- Add in instruction, tell audiences to stand in the middle
- Be careful of the scale, if the wordings are too big, audiences might not be able to read it
- Close off the frame on the central wall, don't leave the below part unconnected
- Prioritize the wall screen
- Can use the 'distort' effect in after effect to create the animation
- Focus on the wall screen
- Make it smalller
- Can use 'wiggle' effect in after effect
- Make the hands smaller, in the middle of the central wall
- Can use 'puppet tool' to animate the hand movement
- Can just use 'fade in' to animate the red nerves thingy, instead of animate line by line
- Can extend the black space, to make it have depth and more 3D
- Make layer for each hands, play with scale, opacity
- Use 'puppet tool' to create hands movement too
- When audience sitting on the floor, how to make the hands like really grabbing the audience
- How to make the effect more 3D naked
Scene 6 - Flashback:
- Since we have already drawn so many elements, we can use some elements to make transitions
- Make the elements smaller, can duplicate more, one element can appear more at the same time
- Download glitch effect from online resources and just use it
- Use more contrast, avoid using too much gray, use very, very white for white colour to create contrast
- Can put the newspapers onto the entire screen
- Narrow the facts and newspaper pieces into Malaysia only
So, we received a lot of comments on each scene, and we have clearer vision to create this animation. We have already delegated the tasks so we just went back to continue rush our progress. For me, I need to complete the last and first scene as soon as possible. I need to do hands movement next.
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LAST SCENE - NEWSPAPER (Second draft)
I first start with burring the faces on the newspaper pieces using Photoshop, Mr. Shakir advice to blur it. I use mosaic effect instead of blurring effect. Below are some of the burred pictures:
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After I insert all the newspaper, now, I need to make the sides of the screen roll, the newspaper should roll vertically in different directions. To do this, I add duplicate the newspapers, I delete the previous transform and add in a new one. I just need to adjust the position of it for this, no need to take care of opacity and scale. You can see from the picture below, there are some square lines, those are the extra newspaper I add in to roll with the others. There should be other solution to this, but due to time limitation, I can only do what I know best, I don't have that much time to go and explore and learn new things.
After the animation in after effect is done, I proceed to add in the wordings in CapCut. I change the sentence; we talk about Malaysia school bullying cases instead of worldwide.
Sentence: School bullying cases in Malaysia has significantly increases, nearly 6000 cases each year. Our children are living in fear. It's time we take action.
This is still an old draft compared to the final one, in this version, the wordings are not highlighted, and no handwritten style. It was just plain old white wordings, with typewriter effect. I also add in a transparent black background to cover the central wall; this allow the wordings to be shown clearly. You can see from the screenshot below, I separate the sentence into different section, this is to adjust the typewriting speed and also adjust the exact time I want the next sentence to be shown. This screenshot is from the final version, as I already made amendments in the same file, the previous version has already been deleted.
Outcome:
This is one of the versions. I made another version for this last scene, entirely on CapCut since I found an effect that can be used for this animation.
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LAST SCENE - NEWSPAPER (Third draft)
In this version, the newspaper pieces are still being insert one by one randomly, but the differences are, this one is in more messy form, I rotate them, scale them in different sizes to make them all looks unequal, and the newspaper pieces are only on both sides of the screen, not the central wall. I use the fade in effect here, since that it is messy, I don't really need to make it all perfect, so I only need to add effect. I align them manually here too. After that, I also just add in the wordings.
Version 2:
I send these two versions of last scene for my teammates to review. Sze Ching like version 2 better while me and Riona like version 1 better. So, I just choose version one at the end. After the confirmation, I edit it more since the draft version has a little bit of imperfection. After finish this, I started to do the first scene. This is very simple, I only need to add in warning and a circle.
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FIRST SCENE - WARNING
First, I search in CapCut for stickers or shape that I can use for the circle, but I can't find any. So, I went to Pinterest and found one red circle. I import it into CapCut file, add it onto the floor screen. Then, I add in the warnings. I did not add any enter animation for it because I want the audience to read it as soon as the show started, I did add a fade out effect. I also did add animation for the circle, I added fade in and fade out. I then add in instructions: "Stand inside circle" to remind them to stand inside the circle. I added fade in and fade out effects too.
Warnings: This video contains violence, extreme language, strobe lighting and scenes that some viewers might find upsetting. Please watch it with caution.
Outcome:
Again, I sent it to my teammates for review. Sze Ching suggest changing the red circle into glowing circle and change the instruction wordings into white colour. So, I quickly made changes and done.
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Week 7
HANDS GRABBING
During the weekend, I started the hand grabbing scene. I imported the assets from Sze Ching into After Effect file. I learned again the puppet tool from last tutorial session with Mr. Shakir, we have class recordings. I It's not hard to learn it, so after I know what to do, I started the scene with the arrangement of hands. Originally, the hands is fully spreading out on the floor screen, but I want it to focus on the location where the audiences stand only. This way, they can truly feel that the hands' target are them, the hands are trying to grab them. So, I take the cirlce from the warning scene, make it as a frame, I then insert the hands one by one, rotating, scaling them to fit the whole circle.
After that, I started to do animation. But, I have 2 ideas, one is just the hands emerging from below, another one is the hands will swirl in circle motion, from bottom to top, one by one. I am not sure which one is better and I was trying to do both. I first started with the swirling version, because this is more to our original idea, as I was doing so, I realized that this will take too much time, and we might not have that much time for all the hands to come out one by one in just 10 seconds. So, I decided to do simply emerging animation with finger movement.
First, I have to select the hand I want to animate, then I select the puppet pin. I place several pins on the joints of the hands, I then use them to move the hands, the fingers. By doing so, I also need to take care of keyframe, I need to turn on the position for the puppet pins, select time, move the pin, in order to insert keyframe. This is done for every hands which of course, takes a lot of time too. After I finish one hand, I check the animation, whether it is smooth enough or not, it moves naturally or not and etc.
I only managed to do 10++ hands during the weekend, since I was also doing other assignment. We have another consultation this week with Mr. Shakir and Mr. Zeon. We showed our progress to them. We received some comments on it too.
Scene 1 - Warning scene:
- Add in a warning sign
Scene 2 - Word scene:
- The nerve effect is very good
- We can use distort effect to do the wordings animation, use polar coordination or others
- The bully eyes should look at the audiences direction
- The animation is already fine, no need to add swirling motion
- Change newspaper into black and white
- Highlight the wordings '6000 cases'
- Change the 'Stop bullying' wordings into handwritten style or something else that suited our theme.
I ask for further clarification on the last scene, Mr. Shakir said that I should highlight the words like 'xxx cases' to make it pop out, attract audiences to look at the number of school bullying cases each year. I also ask for the effects Mr. Shakir mentioned to the wording's animation. He shown us the way to do it, by adding adjustment layer, and using distort - polar coordination effect. He also mentioned that I can use adjustment layer to change the colour of the newspaper scene into black and white. After the consultation, we went back to continue our progress. I continue to work on hand grabbing part.
Sze Ching drawn 21 hands. When I was doing the animation, it took me too much time, so I was thinking about duplication. After I do until about 23-25 hands, I realized I do can use duplication, I just need to change their position. Imagine this, I have all the hands arrange nicely on floor, now, some of them already have animation, while some of them not, but they are all the same set of hands. So, I duplicate those I have done the animation, I move it, adjust its scale and rotation, to place into the other 'no animation' hands. I delete those with no animation, and I change the position of the duplicates into the position they are in right now. I repeat these steps until all the hands are animated. After I am satisfied with the results, I send it to my teammates for checking. They all satisfy with it, so I start to do hands choking animation soon.
Final outcome:
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HANDS CHOKING
This part is easier as I only need to animate two hands, which takes me less time to do so too. I first get the assets from Sze Ching, I import them in After Effect. Then, I place, scale, rotate them to the position and visuals that have better visuals impact. Again, I use puppet tool, I place puppet pins on the hands, I move the pins and animate them. It is the similar process with hands grabbing.
But for this scene, I need to make the hands looks like they are using force, they are choking something forcefully. So, I try to find effects in After effects that can give it the motion I needed. I test some of them and finally found the effects I needed. I first use Zoom - spiral effect to create a fast-emerging motion towards the audiences. I then add Wiggle - position and Wiggle - scale, to make the hands wiggling, it looks like it is using too much force so it is wiggling uncontrollably. I change the wiggle speed and wiggle amount to makes it looks more naturally.
I encountered a small problem here, the hands images look broken when its moving, I have no idea why it looks like that. But after some try and error, I found out the problem. I need to finish all the puppet tool adjusting before I apply any effects. Or else, because of the effects, the puppet pins cannot move the joints completely, some of the parts will be broken because it will stay with the effect.
So, I amend it and will remember to avoid this next time. I send it to my teammates for comments, the only comment is to make the finger loose a little, don't hold too tight. So I amend it and below is my final outcome.
Final outcome:
DOCUMENTATION & PRESENTATION SLIDES & AMENDMENTS
I now started to write the documentation and presentation slides. I write mostly about 2D animation, and a little part about visual effects. I also write about iteration. For presentation slides, I write iteration, conclusion and reflections. Throughout the project, I also do some mockup to check on the scale and overall visual effects. I also amend the first and last scene according to the comments from last consultation session. I added warning sign, and I change the last scene into black and white, I highlighted the number of case and also added handwritten style for 'stop bullying', Sze Ching and yeye draw some version, at last, we choose Sze ching's version.
Some mockups:
Final outcome for First Scene:
Final outcome for Last Scene:
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SCENE 2 - WORDS ANIMATION
I quickly go to the last animation I need to do. I need to do wordings animation for scene 2. Again, I get the assets from Sze Ching, all the handwritten wordings. I import them in and I add an adjustment layer on top of all the wording layers. I add Distort - polar coordination taught by Mr. Shakir. It immediately changes the whole visuals, I then adjust the interpolation, to kind of adjust the angle. I then use transform function to adjust each of the wordings, position and scales to create animation. I move them across the screens to create movement.
My animation should be combined with Yeye's animation, so I made two versions of it, one is in red colour, the other is in white colour. To change red to white colour, I just apply Black & White effects, same with the newspaper scene.
I found out that I can apply more effect to make it looks more distorted, but I don't want to overdo it because I still need to combine this with Yeye's animation. But at last, we didn't use Yeye's animation because it's kind of too late. So, I did add one more effect on it, which is twirl, by using twirl, I can distort the wordings more, adding more curves into it.
Final outcome:
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PRESENTATION AND FINAL SUBMISSION
We have a presentation on 22 March at Muzium Telekom. We listen to everyone's presentation, we Rebulb is the sixth group for presentation. We have delegates parts for each of us to present, Riona will try to grab attention of the audiences with questions at first and introduce our project, Sze Ching will explain storyline in detail, I will talk about technical execution and challenges while Yeye close the presentation. Our presentation went well, both Mr. Shakir and Mr. Zeon gives good comments on it. The only amendments we need to do is the last scene, I forgot to add in fade in effect for the transparent black cover. Besides that, our project is all good.
We need to submit final documentation, working files, e-portfolio and peer evaluation on 26 March. So we all go back to do our own e-portfolio. The documentation is nearly done. I amend the last part and submit to Sze Ching for final compilation.
Submission:
Presentation Slides:
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REFLECTION
I am very thankful for my teammates, especially Sze Ching. She done a lot of works and she leads well. I think everyone is able to communicate with each other well, when we are having discussion or meeting, we all share our opinions, we also accept each other opinions and comments with open heart. I think we produce a good product at the end. I also want to thank our lecturers, both Mr. Shakir and Mr. Zeon. They always share constructive advice for our projects, help us to build better project. I learned a lot in this semester, I am also happy with my learnings in Adobe After Effects. I hope to have more chance to work on projects like this, I would like to explore more on art installations, projection mapping and more interesting projects in the future.
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