Daily Blogs

Daily Blogs
April 10th
Today my goal was to draw a couple of backgrounds for my final major project, so that my piece has a bit more variety more than just one background for each animation despite the fact that I have film integrated into my piece, so maybe people won't even notice that its the same background again and again, continually.
 I only made one extra background on top of the one I had made in the experimentation phase, but I feel as if that is enough because if I move and zoom in on each background, in a different place for each animation, no one would notice that its all one image. The reasons for choosing the background are it fits with the theme and looks the part for my animation interpretation.

April 12th-13th
Today my objective was to make and draw any of the animations used in the first page of my story board, which looking at is  only one animation,which should be easy, however, it is the hardest one to draw. I also plan to film the remaining shots that I have to film in my Tae-kwon Do class, which is later this evening. I intend to incorporate my class' moves discretely and quietly from the side to get the best effects.
Unfortunately, I did not complete the animations due to distractions at home, and the fact that it did not look right when I came to drawing it in it's final stage, so, I gave up which I am annoyed with my self about. Instead I will be putting in a physical shot of my class at the start of my film, which leads me onto the fact that I did manage to film  my class, and got a couple of extra shots that I can use at the start of my film.

April 15th
Today my intentions are to draw and animate my Stances, which may sound easy, however, getting the proportions right when people that are in positions, and making them look good is extremely difficult as I found out in the last daily blog.
Despite the fact that I wanted to get all the stances done, I kind of did a mix n match situation. I did a couple of stances and a couple of kicks instead of just doing the stances on their own, purely because I found that some of the stances were too difficult to do straight away, and  some of the easier moves that were clearer, meant that I could practise, so when I did some of the more technical moves I was practised and understood what I needed do moving forward.

April 16th
Today I intended to animate the blocks for my piece, and blog about the animation process.
As I said in the last daily blog, for some of the harder moves I need a little more practise before I can make them. I don't want  this to look awful, so I did the same as the last time, in that I did a few blocks and then a couple of attacks. The reason for this is to build up my experience and get more used to process I need to apply. The fact I didn't achieve all of my intentions today means this will have to be carried over tomorrow , leaving more work to catch up on. Hopefully, the process should become easier as I work through it. As I work through the animations I can see the difference of how I have improved from the first ones I did. I can see how I have progressed and the quality is gradually improving the more I  gain experience with this software. this is certainly something I can use further to evaluate my progress at the end .

April 17th-18th
Today my goal is to draw and animate the attacks and kicks and to finish the items left over from yesterday regarding the blocks.  As most of the kicks and attacks had all ready been done, I am just finishing off what animations are left.
This has given me the advantage to use  my time to add more details. I considered adding more information but then decided the impact of this may confuse people. Keeping it straight forward and simple would enable someone to gain the most knowledge.

April 20th-21st
Today I am supposed to be finishing off my animations and starting to edit my film, but I have not had the time to do any work today, because my dad needed help with work, which I got paid for.
I did however, have my film in my mind all day and considered various options and additions I could incorporate into it making it more interesting and a more entertaining video. I considered adding in jokes and other add on's bit in the end I thought it would detract from the main objective of the theory I was trying to put across. I t would also detract from my main objective of the film, which was to make the moves and theory of Tae-kwon Do easier to understand and learn. So I  eventually decided to keep to my original plan and just work towards that.
It was good to think about it and to consider all the various options.

April 22nd-23rd
Today according to my plan, I should be editing in the  text and recording dialogue, however, because I am behind I intend to finalise all the animations and tidy them up for the presentation of the whole film. I thought about doing different comparisons with the instructions and explanations but, again I considered this to be complicated and kept to my original plan.
I am quite happy to say that I did get the rest of my animations done, not with the efficiency that I would have hoped for, so that is all I had done today.
It is very difficult to continue exactly to the programme I  have set for myself, as there are so many other outside influences within all this. If I was to be at college longer and more continually, i.e. a full day five days a week. I believe that this would eliminate and reduce some of the set influences.

April 24th
Today is the first day back at college from the Easter break. My goal today is to edit all of the video and animations together, if I manage to get that done and I have time, I will edit the titles and text into my piece as well.
I am glad to announce that I have succeeded with all that I set out to do today,  I may want to revisit  what I have done once I have recorded my dialogue, as I will need to either slow down or speed up or cut and add in video to match the length of each dialogue recording for each scene and move.
I feel now that my film is becoming more of a finished product, and all of my ideas are becoming a reality. I can now see the beginnings of  the end of a brilliant result, of all my planning.

April 26th
Today I was supposed to be editing in sound effects to my piece, but because I am behind I will be recording my dialogue and writing blogs on my production processes.
I did mange to record my dialogue at home, and I also started my blogs on the production process, eg like how I animated, and how I filmed my shots.  I also received  feedback from my teacher on the project so far. She gave me some pointers of where I could improve, so I have added in what she recommended, so hopefully, that will bump up assignment 1 and 2 a further grade. (fingers crossed)

April 27th
Today I intend to edit in all of the sound into my piece, for example music, dialogue and sound effects, which I feel is do - able, as each shouldn't take very long. The hardest part is finding some suitable music. I searched using the YouTube audio library , which offered a great choice of music. So, I randomly found pieces of music and selected a choice which I thought was suitable. I then whittled out the stuff that didn't suit my film and eventually chose six which I tried editing into the film to test them. I finally chose two pieces I considered the best and most fitting to what I  envisaged my film to have.
I was happy in the fact that I had edited in the music and dialogue, and I was pleased with my music choices. The music seemed to be fitting to Tae kwon do as it seemed oriental or eastern influenced to me. I did not finish editing all of my sound effects into my piece. I will start again tomorrow, which should not take that long and  I can do this  at home quite easily with no problems on  my computer..

April 28th
Today I plan to finish off my edit for my piece and export it, so that I can start writing my blogs. I continued adding the sound effects and finished off any outstanding editing I felt that was needed on my home computer, I started to reflect on what I had done, and the process I had used in putting all this together. This will help me to compile my blogs.
I am happy to say that I have finished my piece and exported it, all there is left to do now is to write  my blogs about the said piece.
In conclusion it felt quite daunting at the beginning but with care careful planning I found that piece by piece like a jigsaw the bigger came together with persistence and dedication, and I was quite chuffed actually with the finished result. I also, would like to say that I am very lucky to have a patient understanding good friend who assisted me on the crucial major part of this giving up his whole day to help me . Which I am very appreciative and grateful for.
Overall, I found this process challenging and I learnt a great deal . this has given me an insight to what I am working towards as a profession. I enjoyed the experience of having this opportunity.

Production Plan

Production Plan
Here is a detailed production plan to help me get my head around when i am going to draw animate and edit my final piece, this just helps to break it up i have made a virtual version of this plan as well which i will tick off as i go through it.

Script Analysis

Script Analysis
My script is based off of my storyboard and i have written most o the script to match the storyboard as it is going to be dialogue dubbed over the video rather than on shoot recording. I have tried my best to make the dialogue last the same amount of time as the scene it partners with. For example the title is Tae Kwon-do Theory so my dialogue is Tae Kwon-do Theory and Basic Techniques which will last the allocated 5 seconds, that scene has.

When  i go to actually recording the dialogue i am going to record each line of dialogue separately and label them accordingly i.e. 1-50 or what ever amount there is so that i know what order they are in. this will make it easier for me to edit them. i am going to recorder it all in one go as well so that i have options of what i am going to use but i feel that it will most likely be the separate recordings.

I am going to initially record the dialogue at home using my mic on my headset as it is pretty good quality in terms of sound. I am going to use a piece of software called Open Broadcasting Software or OBS as it is more well known as i am familiar with it and it does a good job at recording plus you can set the quality and file sizes you want so there are options if i want big files with amazing sound or smaller ones with acceptable sound. Failing that and it not sounding very good i am going to borrow one of the colleges professional audio recorders and a microphone from a boom mic, which is proven to produce good quality sound.

Here is the script:
     

Storyboard Analysis

Storyboard Analysis
For my storyboard I have decided to keep it fairly simple, so on the images there is not much detail, but just outlines of characters and backgrounds. I have decided to have five of each type of move, so 5 stances, 5 blocks, 5 attacks and 5 kicks. At the start I have put a couple of title scenes and some other facts that you have to learn, like by who and when was TKD formed. At the end of the storyboard I have briefly drawn a scene of a competition fight as the credits role this has all ready been recorded at the last competition I did.

I have allocated set amounts of time for each shot/scene however, I am taking them with 'a grain of salt' as there maybe a little fluctuation in each of the shots as some may be a little longer than what is written depending on how quick I can say the dialogue whilst still making sense and not leaving the details out. On page one there is a shot that I have put the infinity sign and said however much time is needed as I do not know how long that shot will be, but I have a feeling it will be between 20 and 30 seconds which may mean that the video is longer than the intended 5 minuets, this is not much of a problem as projects adapt ,I do know if this was a TV show there would not be the possibility of doing this.

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Page 7: I have forgotten to put the time needed for the final box but i will be between 5 and 10 seconds.

Assignment 2 Vlog

Assignment 2 Vlog
Assignment 2 i found fun however there was a lot to do which is why i would say it was ok and not easy.
The whole point of assignment two was to build a basis on what the project will be. For example all or most of the research i conducted was during this assignment and all of my experimentation was on it as well. i enjoyed doing the experimentation as it meant i got to try out new techniques that i researched on line and also ask people what hair eyes and style i would use in my animations. my questionnaire for my experimentation was good as well as it was not biased and didn't have a focus group as such as i had around 20 people take part of all different ages male and female and not all of them were english as i asked my french friends and my Japanese friend.