"Surprise" Animation Research (OUAN403)

I got inspired by many things for this piece. Primarily, Bird Box Studio's "Sketchy Ice Creams" video, which lent some inspiration to my background and character design.

What I found really funny about this animation, and what I sought to emulate in my own, was the fact that (for me at least) the physical comedy was funnier because the audience is very disconnected from what's happening on screen because there are no emotional facial expressions, no close up shots and no zooms or anything. With some short films, only using one camera angle is unlikely to pay off. I mean, I wasn't emotionally invested in these characters but because there was no emotional intensity to it made their physical humour funnier. I also looked at the sound editing in this animation, which had a really nice balance of relaxing background noise like tweeting birds and foreground noise like park swings and it made me consider the mix of sound I wanted in my animation. I included tweeting birds but decided against the sound of a gentle breeze because I was worried that it would negate the foreground noise. Obviously, this animation influenced me stylistically although I tried to aim for less of the "sketchy" vibe (for instance, the look of the trees in the foreground)

I made the boys' trousers matte black with no indication of which leg was which after being inspired by Bob Godfrey. I was watching some "Roobarb and Custard" and noted that with many of Godfrey's walk and run cycles, he doesn't distinguish between the legs of his characters and there's no depth, which simplifies the walk cycle by fifty percent and means less animation needs to be conceived. I learnt that Bob Godfrey is like the master of walk cycles, and the guy who created the two frame walk cycle. While I didn't want to go as simplistic as that, but I still adopted his principle.

Look at his legs! You can just repeat the same few frames because you don't need to redraw them as front or back legs.

At first I was having trouble with voice recording. I went into the soundproof booth a couple of times because I couldn't really record something that fitted with the video. Firstly because I can't sound like a ten year old boy and also because the dialogue didn't fit with the movements very well. Then I remembered that awesome Manchester Animation Festival short film, "Fishwitch", which had great comedy while the characters only communicated in nothing but garbled nonsense.

So I just recorded some garbled nonsense and I was pleased with the outcome.