Compositing

I'm really disappointed that we never fully coloured this film. I've learned either to minimise the amount of animation so colouring is easier (which I don't want to do) or to choose a style that requires minimal colour (which I'd much rather do).

Compositing in After Effects was really enjoyable. I'm happy with my abilities to compose a shot and it's exciting to see everything compiled. We added a white layer underneath our colouring because our chosen brush had quite low opacity, but that led to little obvious white spots on the drawings. This kinda works with the "hand drawn" look we're going for but on the whole is a little distracting.

The hardest shot to composite involved the camera moving from outside a building to inside, which I'd never tried before! Glad I did. I 'm pleased with the results and am keen to try and push the limitations of 2D animation, possibly by combining it with 3D influences in 3rd year.

It needs work, but I'm pleased with this film. I'd like to colour a couple more of my shots in my spare time, for my showreel.

SOUND

I enjoy recording foley sounds! I took a big box of rocks, polystyrene and sticks to uni and used them to recreate gunshots, explosions, creaking wood

My miscellaneous box of noisemakers

I want to look more into how to create exciting foley sounds and building up an engaging soundscape. I was a little inspired by listening to Francis Lee, director of "God's Own Country". He said that he recorded different types of birdsong that can be heard over each of the characters to best compliment their characteristics. I like the attention to detail used and the way sound can subliminally influence the audience.

Final Crit

The main thing that arose form our final crit was that we needed to make it more factual. Hence, I decided to re-introduce narration to the project. Only a little, as I don't want to crowd the whole film and bog it down. I want to make it quite snappy. I'm pleased that the animation is finished but colouring remains a bastard task.

I've been causing problems with my group. I didn't offer constructive criticism early on in the project when we were animating, out of fear that we wouldn't have time to finish or that I would upset someone. This has resurfaced now when, late into production, I've changed an element of one of my teammates' animation to make it fit in with the style of the rest of the film.

The teammate was understandable annoyed at me and I feel terrible for not mentioning that I didn't like the animation earlier. The fact that this project is janky and uncoordinated is entirely my fault. I wish I was more assertive.

Colouring is Hell

It didn't occur to me when I decided to colour with a watercolour-looking brush that it would take so long. Getting that hand drawn, artisanal feel takes time, maaaan. Ordinarily, I'd colour with the fill tool but getting the texture right in this film means hand painting every frame, which is a nightmare. It means I don't think we'll be able to finish the film with colour by the deadline.

I suggested holding each drawing for 3 frames (we're currently working on twos) or possibly making the colouring simpler by only using a couple of colours on each character to reduce the pressure of colouring, but my team decided that we shouldn't compromise.

I like the look of the colours! I'm keeping it loosy goosy. 

I drew inspiration from Marcus Armitage's videos to arrive at the boiling line, handmade aesthetic.

My Dad (Marcus Armitage)

The Laughing Policeman (Marcus Armitage)

Over Dinner (Marcus Armitage)

I've taken on the line art for my teammate's shots as well, so that we can at least have the animation submitted. I feel most comfortable when animating.

New shots I've taken on

Finishing my LINE ART!

I finished my line art this week and will get colouring very soon.

I'm becoming a much faster 2D animator. I learned only recently that I don't need to draw roughs for every single frame. In fact it looks better if I just rough the keyframes and then dive straight into the line art to make inbetweens. The hardest part of animation has been sticking to the character sheets and not returning to my default art style. This has caused a few concerns about continuity.

Eloise's drawings:

My drawings:

In some instances I need to thin the line art. I can do this on TVpaint quite painlessly, but I have learnt that we must communicate better, and be more open and honest.

Primary Research and Continuing to Animate

The Journalist for Australian Geographic I contacted, Jared Richards, got back to me.

He provided some useful sources, including a piece by historian Graham Willet about the history of queer bushrangers and offered to answer any specific questions I had about Moonlite. I was able to find Paul Terry, Author of "The Search for Captain Moonlite" on LinkedIn but he has been difficult to contact. I need a PREMIUM account.

I'm continuing to animate the line art. The hardest part is going to be making sure our group keeps the animation consistent. I made an animation guide to help us all.

I want to make sure we stick to the same methods. Otherwise we will continue to update each other on our progress.