15 second animation PART THREE (OUAN403)

I completely deviated from my animatic. In the beginning, the boys would hit the hive with the rocks, causing the tree to become unbalanced and fall on them. Then I animated up to the bit where the hive landed on the floor and cracked open and a whole universe of possibilities opened itself to me.

In the new version the boys get mauled by a bear

This meant, however, that I had trouble keeping to the fifteen second brief because at the end I had no animatic to work from. The total animation lasts 15.82 seconds in fact. My one regret is that the animation wasn't allowed to be any longer, otherwise I reckon I could have shot the entire mauling scene.

Our course leader gave me two pieces of advice. Firstly, to add more detail to my backgrounds to make the environment more interesting. I wish I had taken some screenshots of the tree and beehive before I altered them because to be fair they did look a bit crap. The tree was just two block colours for the trunk and leaves and the beehive was an ellipsis with a bunch of lines drawn on it. I also added a couple of falling leaves to the background. I'm glad I changed it. It looks nicer.

I was also advised to add another camera angle or two, perhaps a close up to indicate the sneakiness of the little rascals. I had initially planned another shot that would have the boys in the foreground and the tree in the background, about to fall on them, but obviously my plans changed. Having said that, in hindsight there's no reason why I couldn't have done the same shot, but just replaced the tree with the bear emerging from the hive. Oh well. I'll just add that to the "regrets" pile. Also time constraints.

I edited this with PowerDirector13, my software of choice in A-Level. However, next time I promise myself I will use Adobe Premiere. The reason I didn't use it this time was because there were certain tools that I couldn't remember how to use and there was nobody about to help me so I thought I'd just stick with what was familiar. I'm quite pleased with the sound editing in this, although I keep replaying certain tiny details over in my head, like how the square headed boy's dancing and his humming don't match up properly by half a second and now it bugs the hell out of me. Still, having the soundproof booth at my disposal in this instance was a real blessing, I'm hoping to hone my voice acting skills over the course of the next three years.