More Work Completed

Directors Commentary

Introduction:

This is the introduction of our film “Never Give Up”. We chose to do the introduction like this as we thought it was creative and would enable a good first impression. We chose the natural brown colour as the books cover as the animation was set in a natural environment, which was the park.  The purple trim was chosen as it attracts both boys and girls, which is our target audience. We used black and white writing is easy to read and then we decided to make it shade in to give it a bit of class. This scene means a lot to Georgia and I as it was our first time animating something like this. We had to solve the problem of keeping the book in the same position after gluing which we did by moving the book as little as possible when we decided we wanted to glue something down. To animate this scene we did have many practises to learn hoe

Scene 1:

This is scene 1 of our animation. It is the first scene of actual animation with our clay man. This scene is not that well done, as it was our first scene we completed and did not have time to re-shoot it before the due date.  We used different skills to shoot this scene such as making our character move smoothly and changing the colour tone to make it look like it is the middle of the day. We chose to make the scenery very plain so our target audience would focus on the characters and what they are doing.  This scene means a lot to us as directors as it was the first scene we have ever shot using this type of animation in out lives. We filmed this scene from a level angle as it also made it simpler.

Scene 2:

Scene 2 is then the complication of the story of our animation as the boy has just bought his balloon and then the dogs lead comes and trips him over. We decided to put the conclusion close to the start of the animation, as the rest of the scenes are how he try’s to fix the problem and get his balloon back. We chose to have the dog as the problem as it was another character in our film and it suited our target audience. Children are interested little animals such as cats and dogs and this would then attract them to our film. This scene was filmed with  simplicity as it was very plain and was filmed from a level angle. We had to solve the problem of getting the lead around the boy’s legs without him falling over. This was hard as it was a very small gap where we had to put the lead for our fingers to fit. WE overcame this by using a toothpick and dragging it around slowly without it braking.

Scene 3-4:

This scene was one we had to add in as we realised we missed the boy sitting up from when the dog tripped him and he let go of his balloon. We added this in as it made the scene make a lot more sense. This scene was filmed from ground level as we were looking at the boy as he stood up. This scene was also very simple as it was last minutes add in. This was one of the problems we had to solve and we did by luckily by having enough time at the end to film it.

Scene 5:

Scene 5 was the start of the complex scenes. In this scene Georgia and I had to use fishing line to make the balloon float through the sky. This was very difficult, as we had to hold the fishing line a tiny bit and try and take a picture without it moving. We ended up doing two of these scenes as the first one was a bit dodgy and was more of a learning experience. If we had more time to complete our animations I think we would have liked to have shot this scene again and have made it even more precise and smooth as it would have made the animation as a whole better quality.

Scene 6:

This scene is when the boy is walking along and discovers that the balloon has got stuck in the tree. This scene is one of the smaller but more complex scenes. Scene 6 was the Georgia and I used Photoshop to insert a light bulb. We decided to do this as instead of the character just looking up at the tree we really wanted to emphasise the fact that he was thinking. After he has thought of solution of how to get the balloon out of the tree he then walks off towards to the left to find what he needs.

Scene 7:

Scene 7 is shot at a medium eye level height. This scene is the scene Benji has his first attempt at throwing the ball at the tree to get it down. This attempt is a fail with the ball rebounding and going off the set towards the camera. The boy then also goes off the set towards the camera to retrieve the ball. We used the technique of using fishing line as an invisible support for the ball. This scene was difficult as the person holding the fishing line