Animation: the rise and fall

So I was really quite excited about animation. I tried some rough gif animation stuff last year for my ppp presentation and I really enjoyed it. I watched this video that was compiled of clips from studio ghibli films including behind the scenes clips and making of; all set to this song. The combination of the song and the images made it really emotive, proper gives you the warm and fuzzies.

I liked how since it went with the song the fact there wasn't a linear narrative to the video didn't matter. Instead the images and videos go along a theme and combined with the song create certain emotions.

I  decided to tailor my animation around a song too, coincidentally I really like the song they used on that video, so I decided to use 'something beautiful'. I thought if it was put with animation of Pratchett and the world he created in the discworld series it would create a video that would cause the audience (pre-existing Pratchett fans)  a reminiscent piece that would open up that world of imagination to them again.

Seen as the limits are 30-60 seconds I sat and listened to the song countless times trying to get the right snippit. unfortunatly I couldn't find anything less that 60 seconds in it without it sounding abruptly cut off.

So I aimed high and decided that I could definitely do this much animation. sixty seconds is seven hundred and twenty frames. At the time of this planning I wasn't aware of that, and was clearly ignoring my previous lesson in animation which is; it takes a really long time, it took me a day to do one second.

But ignoring all warning signs I started drawing out my first frames.

I was really pleased with this mainly beause its the first animation I've ddone where it actually looks like my drawing while still moving. SUCCESS.

I roughly planned some of my seconds. The lyrics the song clip open on are 'the tide crashes over me'  so I decided to try and set the scene. I  was going to have some legs kicking in water then it cuts to a book on a lap and the kicking legs splash a bit of water on the page and a hand wipes it away. Alternatively it could zoom out to show the whole sky above with planets and stars.

I decided to go for the big open sky. Thinking about maybe making it linear and this is like his childhood where he got into astronomy.

I used stencils to make these two because it was easier to understand where it would be next if i could just literally move it. Also drawing feet s hard and i doubt i can draw 36 the same.

This was going to be a section where I wanted to have a child reading under the covers but that's really hard to draw. Even with reference I was sucking at it. so i decided to not do it literally, the hand come outs from behind the pillow and into it, opens the book adn turns the torch on.

After this point I had my tutorial with Fred. Realising that i set my sights too high for someone with such low organisation skills. So it's not possible for me to finish a sixty second animation. Fred suggests I aim for the 3-6 10 second stings instead. I'm still planning on using music to structure it because I found it easier to think about when could split it in to blocks of a second or two.