After showing this to my course mate Alex (http://mrteaandcreamcrumpets.wordpress.com/) he made the observation that they transition between titles and animation went on for a fraction too long in his opinion, so since then on any future drafts I have reduced the amount of repeats with the boiling so it lasts a few seconds left. It definitely does look a lot smoother since doing that, so thank you to him for his input! I reckon that this piece will look even better once I’ve added the final colours this month.
This week’s group meeting was again, post-presentation with the client, when we had all returned to University It is useful having these sessions after a presentation so that we have an immediate recollection of what was said / suggested / altered, for future reference. Each of use use these videos as a ready point of interest to refer back to whilst developing into each new stage of the project. (Keeping almost ‘diary’ like accounts such as this is highly useful when furthering your evidence for a project – don’t forget to do it yourselves on your projects!).
Each of us review what was said to us by the client regarding each of our individual contributions, how they would like it changing / carrying on further, and what parts we plan to work on next. First of all, I comment on my part of the presentation with the client, followed by Callum, then Maddie, and then finally by Alex. Maddie was not present at the previous meeting, so it was good to have her feedback available for this one. If a member of the group is unable to attend then it is always made aware to any potential listeners at the beginning of the audio clip.
ALEX: Right, Oresome Gallery meeting #2…yeah…anyways, who wants to go first then?
ABBIE: I’ll go first seeing as I am first. Yeah, so I showed them my revamped idea which involved a lot more use of hands in a figurative sense, making all of the jewellery. What the feedback was that I got was basically include a few more of the in-between processes they do, such as the polishing and the soldering and that sort of thing. I need to look at some reference videos for that, which I’ll get off Alex at some point in the next few days. Yeah, I just have to work out – work on making it a lot more fluent, and another thing they suggested was in-between sort of each transition to each step, maybe having the figures in the scene like the hands and the ring sort of morph into the centre into the ring, and then into the next bit as well; some sort of transition like that, so that’s one particular option that I was given. All I really need to do now is work it in – work out how I’m gonna put in the colour scheme, which is green and like a hot pink colour.
ALEX: Yeah, it’s green and pink isn’t it?
ABBIE: So yeah, that’s – that’s mine.
ALEX: That’s good. You wanna go next, Cal?
CALLUM: Sure, I can do. With me, it was the case of she’s said she liked my idea, she said it had a lot of potential. I wasn’t actually as far along with it as I would like to have been by this point, so I didn’t have that much to show, but she said – yah she literally just said that my idea was really good and she could definitely see it being a really nice piece. She said just keep going with it. So, that’s pretty much it.
ALEX: Oh, brilliant. What about you?
MADDY: With mine, it was – she said improvement from last time, because I’m showing more of the traditional format than the other methods that were used. The other thing I need to do is do something different at the beginning with the chains – with them sliding across the screen – it forms into…
ALEX: Yeah.
MADDY: Try and do something with the colours of the jewellery pieces.
ALEX: Alright then!
MADDY: …and that’s pretty much it!
ALEX: That’s pretty much it. Anyways, for me: she liked the idea; she liked the animatic; she would like to see the polishing stage being added – although in the previous storyboard it’s already there, but I removed it due to possibly timing issues. But we discussed how we could apply – adding this animation onto a website instead of it just being a sting that’s about 10 – 30 seconds – we decided we could use it use it as a form of introduction video, which is an introduction to the website, which could be placed anywhere. Most jewellery websites that I’ve researched into that use video to represent their processes tend to use this: So it’s only logical that we do the same. The difference between ours and theirs is that ours is animated so its got that unique style to it. As for the idea itself she like – I need to fix the flux segment because it was a bit wrong, you’re only meant to add flux to the area that needs soldering – not necessarily wrap it all in – which is my own fault but oh well, easily adjustable. For the render – from the storyboard renders which I showed her: she still likes the coloured version but she also likes the sepia colour test, which I had 5 versions of, which she saw and she liked – seemed to like all the variations. She would like to see if I could try and blend them with the colour scheme that she suggested. I’m gonna have to sepia, can I actually blend these colours light green and pink? Because I don’t know if you can. I can see it working better even just being a full coloured version and picking an element that’s their colour scheme, and if it’s black and white and keeping those colours most noticeable – because they will draw your attention to it so I might try that, see if that’ll work – for a test anyway.As well as that I showed her various rendering tests of what the shots can look like and she seemed to like them as well. She has no objections to them so I’m guessing she’s liking the visual approach to it as well. Over all, I can actually begin animating certain sections, so I can just – and I only need to tweak two areas and just make sure they’re synched up correctly. So I’m onto the area f production. As well as taking to the client we also discussed how she could use the actual work, because it needs a purpose for when it could be used. I – the suggestion that I did – other ideas we could use – she could use it for is like an eCard advertising…
ABBIE: Yeah, yeah…
ALEX: Which can have links to – of the video as well as the descriptions where it can be placed, and due to how the website’s being built, and how everyone else has built their animation round it, it’s easily adjustable; So it can be placed anywhere, assuming that everyone’s working at 920 x 1080, so you have the correct resolution – so it doesn’t matter if it gets too big or too small, because it should be able to compensate regardless of whereabouts on the website they build it. But of course, that’s all down to the web development area – that’s not ours – as long as we’ve got the work that can be applied anywhere: that’s fine…and that’s pretty much it for me. We won;t be obviously having a meeting for another two weeks, because Easter Break, so whatever you’ve got: Do that, plus more.
ABBIE: Okay.
ALEX: …and then we’ll have a meeting again on the Monday we come back, see where everybody’s at, and on that week, I’ll phone up the client again and we’ll go for another meeting. That should be it! Just conclude that. Another thing as well I need to add: Has everybody been looking into like code of ethics of working…?
MADDY: No actually…
ALEX: Nah, that’s something I don’t – I mentioned it in a previous meeting i believe. I’ve updated by blog about it anyway. You need to look into things like code of ethics, and how you approach clients. It’s something that I completely overlooked as well. So, you like at like how – there’s guilds that work around it. It’s not so much laws, it’s just so much how to be a better artist and how to deal with that. It’s quite – a lot of it is like common sense, just being – you being respectable to a client and the client being respectable to you.
ABBIE: Well obviously, yeah.
ALEX: So you know how they won’t scam you or try to swindle you, as well as you can’t swindle them, so if it happens…
ABBIE: A mutual understanding.
ALEX: I would recommend looking into stuff like that. I’ve found certain ones, specifically like the – there’s an animation guild and I found that they had like a – they have a Twitter as well, which I found and – as well as like various other different countries that have them and there’s one in Britain; There’s one n America; Japan as well.
ABBIE: Yeah.
ALEX: Not many but there’s also other ones like illustrations and designs, which I would also recommend that we look into because we’re still in that area as well. So, something to look into and just post up there…and I guess that’s it then.
We have decided as a group to have recorded sessions throughout our Client meetings, for as long as they are necessary. This approach as taken in the last Client Based Project, which unfortunately fell through towards the middle of the assignment. (You can see all the work which we submitted for that here:http://projectbarbossa.wordpress.com/). These meetings allow us to not only catch up with each other and see what stage people are at, but also will help us get through any difficulties we encounter through group discussion. It is an invaluable resource being able to get outside opinions, and I recommend them with any group or individual project. This meeting was hosted during a scheduled session at University. We utilised our time and resources there, to get each of our individual approaches for this project edited together / finished off and whatnot.
ALEX: For starters, form now on we’ll do it recorded
ABBIE: Yeah.
ALEX: Purely because it’s a more accurate recording of what we’re talking about.
CALLUM: Yeah. We’re writing and uploading these recordings then are we?
ALEX: …and the fact that nobody else seems to be updating their blogs.
ABBIE: Yeah, yeah.
ALEX: …which is a growing concern, because this is where we’re heavily marked on, so I suggest the idea that we record them from now on. We did it in – used it in our previous client-related project; we were doing ‘City of Culture’, and that seemed to be quite successful. So, why not use it for this project as well?
CALLUM: Yeah, yeah, okay.
ALEX: Anyways this meeting is just a quick update os what basically everybody’s done as well as any concerns. Also I have to note as well that Maddy isn’t present…
CALLUM: Yeah.
ABBIE: Okay.
ALEX: …for this meeting. So, who wants to go first?
CALLUM: You might as well start!
ALEX: I’ll start. Well, for mine, I basically am currently rendering out one of my animatics which will be done by today, and that will be ready to be presented. Not only that I have two rendered storyboards of two different sets of colours: one’s in the actual coloured version the others are in a sepia tone, as well as a series of render tests that I did for the client to show – purely because for the animatic I’ve been using Flash and there came up as a problem where – Flash being a vector tool it doesn’t really get across much of a hand craft look. So, what I’ve done is I’ve got a render test in Photoshop which has a much more satisfying result. The idea is, is for my process as well is to get around the problem one, is that I animate in Flash, then I rotoscope in Photoshop.
CALLUM: Fair enough! That’s interesting.
ALEX: …and it does this – the texture look to quite a nice standard. So, I’ve done that as well as – I think that’s about as much really. Apart form that, yeah, just cracking along with that.
CALLUM: Alright.
ALEX: Today I’ll also be phoning up our client and we will be having a meeting on Friday.
CALLUM: Yeah.
ABBIE: Okay.
ALEX: I’ll tell you all later today of what actual time it’s going to be. That’s it really from me. Are you going next?
CALLUM: Well, not gonna lie, got bit behind because I was concentrating on F.M.P, but as I was talking today about potentially – the basic – it was originally just rotoscope; I’ve established that that’s kind of boring, kind of like not really completely my own type-of-thing, so I thought that maybe if I continued with the rotoscope aspect but I add some of my own stuff to it like – I’m working on this idea at the moment where the ring is actually – the piece of jewellery is actually being drawn, I’m just using a ring as an example, and then – actually, sort of becomes 3D and then it’s picked up, and then the actual rotoscope of the ring being made is within the band.
ABBIE: Yeah, ahh cool.
CALLUM: …type of thing? So I think that’s a lot more interesting than what I did have, so I’m just literally just in the process of storyboarding it roughly, and then I’ll do a render of it and then…that’s what I’v done so far. So yeah, that’s my plan.
ABBIE: Well, after going to the meeting that I had to rebook last week, and showed them what I had done so far, they gave me a few suggestions on what to do: Including the colour scheme of the branding…
ALEX: Ahh right, yeah.
ABBIE: …within the animation so that’s good. So if, you know, I’m gonna add some jewels to the ring that’s being made within my animation, you know like that sort of – in the logo, so that’s – you know that’s one idea. But the idea I’m going with, which is sort of along similar lines as my original idea where there’s sort of – you know the whole aspect of hands being a focus of the animation, which they sort of liked the idea of that, but they wanted to show – me to show more of the process. So, I’m gonna be doing like, say, you know, the first set of the process, which you know, you took those three videos that we can all reference from, so…
ALEX: Oh right, yeah, yeah, yeah.
ABBIE: So I’ll do, say, the first part where they’re sort of bending the metal – and then the lines from that sort of move in a varied way across the screen into the next step, and then – and into the next step and then onto a ring on someone’s hand. That’s sort of around the end of the advert, and as far as that goes I’m working on the rough animatic at the moment, which I will be scanning and putting together tomorrow or Wednesday.
ALEX: Alright, okay. What you done so –
CALLUM: I was gonna say – you know that thing you said about the colours and stuff? I thought we weren’t actually –
ABBIE: No, they actually said to me within the meeting that I was allowed.
ALEX: Yeah, client – we specifically asked if they could use it. We were told prior to it, but since we’ve been suggesting other ideas to tackle: Might as well just stick with that. Unless you wanna do a test and see what it’s like?
CALLUM: Nah, I’m fine, I’m just giving it –
ALEX: These are questions you can ask them on Friday.
CALLUM: Yeah.
ALEX: If you really wanted to, you know. like could we possibly use them? I’m gonna email Maddie…
CALLUM: Yeah.
ALEX: …see where she is, because I haven’t seen her…
CALLUM: No, I haven’t seen her for a while.
ABBIE: Yeah, that’s fair.
ALEX: …and it’s a growing concern.
CALLUM: Yeah.
ABBIE: Yeah, that’s just –
ALEX: Seems to be – seems to be moving in and out all day today.
CALLUM: It’s alright, I can – I can edit out the background noise later.
ALEX: Alright then. Any concerns from anyone? Is everybody alright? On-board for this Friday?
CALLUM: I am now that I’ve got a sort of – a more solid idea, yeah, that I’m actually happy with.
ALEX: Okay, that’s good then.
CALLUM: Yeah, yeah. Like I said before, my other idea was a bit lame, to be honest.
ALEX: Other than that, yeah, mine’s all on track. I’ve got the sounds I needed. Background music: just gotta be made! Just gotta be rendered: that’s it. Timings are done. That’s it, that’s what I’ve had to do for mine.
ABBIE: I’ll probably have to get into contact with –
ALEX: Tom?
ABBIE: Box Head that does all the music for us. Just to, you know, see if he can put together something quick once I’ve got my animatic together, so…
ALEX: Yeah. That’ll work, yeah. I’ve just used – I asked this musician who had a series of music and you’re allowed to use them.
ABBIE: Ah, cool.
ALEX: So I just used that for a quick alternate route. I might ask Tom as well: see if he can just compose something, so it’s a bit more custom – and legal to an extent because although I’m allowed to use them: it’s just that you have to put like a reminder saying what it’s from.
ABBIE: Well, obviously, yeah.
ALEX: …and it’s quite difficult to put it into an animatic, so it’s something to take on board. So, yeah, anything else?
CALLUM: Just to clarify: These sound recordings – are they to go up on the blogs? Or are they just to keep and hand in?
ALEX: Hand em to everybody else.
CALLUM: No, I mean like, do we put them on our blogs separately?
ABBIE: Yes, we can put them on the blogs, yeah.
ALEX: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
CALLUM: Ir we just keeping them and handing them in on a disc at the end of the –
ABBIE: Yeah like, someone uploads it – you know, someone can upload it to YouTube, then –
ALEX: Yeah, just make sure – what I’ve – an idea to do is instead of it being one person just constantly recording it we could have it like it goes in a circle.
ABBIE: Yeah.
ALEX: Somebody does it then uploads it so everybody ends up getting by –
CALLUM: Which is – I thought because I had my computer, I thought of just doing it –
ALEX: Yeah, doing it from my phone was a pain, a complete pain.
CALLUM: Yeah. The quality is a bit better from my computer anyway, so…
ABBIE: Yeah, that’s fine.
ALEX: Yeah, so that’d probably be a bit – we’ll probably do these – we should’ve probably, to an extent, done em sooner, but I just thought: pencil, paper, did the job.
CALLUM: We’re having – are we having another meeting before we go to the actual client meeting on Friday?
ALEX: We’ll have one after.
ABBIE: Okay.
ALEX: …because this – for today, we’re just – well there’s no point doing another meeting prior to it because it’s just like – just get it done, get it ready, If you have any concerns or any problems: we can then discuss em.
CALLUM: How is everyone presenting their stuff on Friday?
ALEX: Ah, yes, how is everybody doing it? I’m same: iPad.
After the meeting last week with the people at Oresome Gallery (http://www.oresomegallery.com/), who have commissioned us 3rd year students to generate them some stings, I got to work creating the animatic for my new idea. During the meeting last week, they offered me some constructive criticisms and gave me some input as to what they would like to see in the second draft of my animatic. They specified during that discussion that they would like to see more use of hands within the animation, to reiterate the fact that all of the jewellery is after all, hand made. You can read the article I wrote on the meeting here: Oresome Gallery Meeting Notes.
I will be presenting this animatic alongside the works from my other classmates this afternoon to the owners of Oresome Gallery. Hopefully they will approve of the reworking that I have done on my original idea and we will see how I get on in due course. I will be updating my blog as and when I get chance after the meeting – which will no doubt be sometime this afternoon! We have all been working quite hard on getting our ideas together for this meeting, and are working adamantly towards upping our grades for the end of the year. There isn’t long to go now for the four of us!
AbbieSTABBY 