22nd Jan 2018
For my first week I started to think up what ideas and concepts I had for the animated music video I was to make. I did a Brainstorm as I knew it had to be Christmas themed as the singer I was working for wanted a Christmas themed video to go with an original Christmas song that he sang.
He had given me the original voice over complete with the correct timing and vocals but without some of the backing instruments that would be added later to give me an idea of the kind of song it was going to be.
I came up with the idea of two robins who live in the top of a clock tower. The father robin decides to bring the spirit of Christmas to his son who is asleep, by decorating the clock tower overnight in a christmassy way and surprising his son in the morning with it. I talked to who I am working for about this and he agreed and let me do it as he thought it would be a great idea.
I started doing character sketches and storyboards to get an idea of what the story and characters would be like. I also started to buy props and accessories off amazon for my set like three victorian clocks to use as the inside of the clock tower and a mini Christmas tree and presents. The characters will be sculpted out of plasticine and the base of the set will be made out of wood.
29th January 2018
For this week I concentrated on getting the supplies for my model making of the two birds I had to create. I bought thick aluminium wire, thin aluminium wire, plasticine and white beads for the eyes. I sculpted the two characters out of plasticine and I also made a set using a backboard with a grey wall texture pasted on it and with various furniture pieces placed around the room. I made the bed using cloth and a white shirt. AndI had a section of carpet that was large enough for the floor of the room.
I began animating some scenes on the music video during this week. One such scene was the opening shot when you see the father robin tuck the small robin into bed at night inside the clock tower. This went very well and the animation came out fairly smooth. I did have a bit of trouble with the lighting at first as everything was coming out grainy but I managed to correct it.
Overall it was a very productive week and I managed to actually make a start at animating the finished music video. .
5/2/2018
For this week I the 3 clocks complete with cogs that would make up the inside of the clock tower I had ordered had arrived in the post. I did a couple of screen tests to see how they would look on camera. I also received a pack of small mini Christmas presents that I had ordered that also arrived that would be used later on in the film.
I also animated more of the music video this week such as one of the robins opening a cupboard door to take out some christmas decorations and the robin waking his son up towards the end of the film.(I am not animating the film in order of the sequences, I am animating each scene that I have all the props and set ready for) Which means that I will; be waiting on certain sets and props until they arrive.I also started editing bits of animated footage in an adobe premiere pro project to work out the timing of the animation with the given audio file of the song.
12th February 2018
I was very sick for most of this week so was not able to do too much. However I did animate on a little scene towards the end of the week and did send off for some more set pieces that will be used in the final film that all should arrive soon.
19th February 2018
For this week I animated some more scenes for the music video Including more of the end sequence of the film where the robin wakes his son up including a scene where the baby robin runs out of the room excited and the father robin looks expectedly for the young robins reaction to the decorated room downstairs. I am also waiting on stairway props that I have ordered to arrive in the mail so I can make the inside of the tower where the clocks are visible as there has to be a stairway that the robin walks down. I have not animated any of the scenes where either of the robins walk down the stairs as I can’t because I don’t have the prop yet.
I am getting more of a feel for the characters on this week as their personalities are starting to shine through in the film. This is the point that you want to get to often. The point where you feel like you know the characters very well and you feel like you could predict their next move. The moment where the father robin looks expectedly for the baby robin’s reaction is one of those moments where I feel like I know the character at this point.
26th February 2018
This week I continued animating more scenes for the film.Including one where the father Robin taps the baby robin on the shoulder in order to wake him up. And making a gesture in order to tell him to come downstairs.when the father robin taps his son on the shoulder to wake him up and makes a gesture to make him look downstairs I feel that his individual personality is shining through and I feel like I am getting more familiar with this character. The scene I am talking about is captured within the dragonframe software in a screenshot below.I am realising that it has to be very carefully lit since it is all one building so the lighting has to be very consistent on many of the various shots within the film. The background of the shots including the brick texture on the wall are printed onto paper and they do a decent job of adding texture to the background however it is not very cheap as a lot of them needed to be printed and it took up a lot of ink.
5th March 2018
I animated the robin character decorating the clock tower such as putting tinsel on the clock faces and also washing the front of the clock faces. This is the middle of the film and the scene that consists of a montage of the robin cleaning and fixing up the clock tower. The bit where the robin is cleaning the clock face the rag is not actually touching the clock in reality but it looks like it is on camera. It’s these cheats that are very handy when it comes to stop motion animation. The film is also animated on ‘twos’ for the majority which basically means that for each movement two frames are shot as opposed to working on ‘ones’ where for each movement one frame is shot. This often speeds up the process slightly and makes it slightly easier than working on ones.
12th march 2018
On this week one of the things I did was make a rough edit of the film in adobe premiere pro seeing how the film is paced and how the film flows so far and I did more animation and set building. Including printing off printed wallpaper to use in the background of the various shots of the film. Such as the grey brick wallpaper that appears in the inside of the clock tower and the Christmas wallpaper that appears towards the end of the film once he has decorated it. The idea is that he covers the walls entirely with Christmas themed wallpaper but since it is a bit difficult to actually show that I have to make do with it being there in the final shot. As opposed to showing him put it up which would have been quite difficult.
19th March 2018
I did more animation and editing on this week. Using Dragonframe and Adobe Premiere Pro. I am getting more of a feel for both Dragonframe and Adobe Premiere Pro as I am using them more often and getting a stronger understanding of how they work. I am using various ttools such as the slice tool, cutting tool, preview and effects toool in Adobe premiere pro and I am learning about onion skinning in Dragonframe. Which is where you pull a slider and it fades from the frame you have just taken to the frame you are about to take which shows you how your animation is coming along and if the character is moving in the way that you want it to. By placing the slider exactly at the halfway point, you can see both images simultaneously on the screen which shows you also how much the character has moved. This is a very useful tool as before the days of software like this you had to essentially work blind. You could not preview your work and you could not compare the image you are about to take with the image you just have taken. What you had to do was wait for the film develop, see the result and you are unable to change it.
26th March 2018
I animated more shots such as him decorating the clock tower with tinsel. And lightings and putting up a christmas tree and decorating it with a bow. This scene involved the Robin being very delicate and holding on the bow with two fingers and then releasing it. There’s also a scene where he turns on a fairy light and it lights up in bright blue His reaction is one that had to be carefully animated in order to show his full reaction. Most of the scene were mirrored as the clocks appear in the background and they had to be mirrored so that they were facing the right way round. The clock appeared in most of these scene even if it was out of focus in the background it was still necessary to mirror these shots. One scene that did not get completed this week however was a scene of him vacuuming the clock tower and pressing a button to light up the fairy lights. This scene will be completed later on in the filming process.
2nd april 2018
I created a stairway for the robin character to walk down into the middle of the big room with the clocks and animated it. It was quite hard as the character had to be really stuck down and fastened down securely to the stairs so that it does not fall off. However unfortunately it did fall off and I had to change the angle of the shot halfway through the Robin walking down the stairs in order to disguise the fact that the robin had fallen off which I think worked reasonably well.
Also the picture had to be mirrored so the numbers on the clock were facing outwards and the right way round. Fortunately in the finished shot it is hard tell that the image is mirrored and it does not show very much. However this was necessary in order for the clocks to make sense. So in one particular scene where the clock is moving and going through the various times it appears the clock is moving backwards but this is because we are facing it from the inside of the clock tower. I added a fade effect to make it look like time and many hours were passing as the clock was moving.
9TH April 2018
On this week I edited the song I am really getting a feel for Adobe Premiere Pro at this point as I am managing to edit picture to sound and it allows me to get a feel for pacing in a film and how to match a film to the accompanying music.to picture and continued animating. I animated the very last scene and shot that appears in the film where the baby robin sees the fully decorated clock tower with furniture, tinsel and fairy lights and wallpaper including various shots of his reaction to it and also the very last shot that appears in the film has been completed. It is where we see the two robins with their backs towards the camera and the father robin puts his arm around the baby robin and looks up at the decorated clock tower. It then cuts to a close up of one of the fairy light where the camera unfocuses and it blurs and fades out to the outside of the clock tower where it slowly zooms out and then slowly fades to black. There is a picture comparison, above is the decorated inside of the clock tower and below is the decorated version of the clock tower complete with tinsel and fairy lights. Here is a small segment of the animated film (note that the music is rough as the audio has not been fully finished by the singer yet) The room is lit by fairy lights to make it more warm and cosy looking as opposed to lighting the scene with an overhead light.I will post the full animated film on google drive when it is fully finished and edited including the rough soundtrack as the singer will have not finished the song for a few more months as it is still being worked on in a studio.
16th April 2018
On this week I did more animation on the end sequence such as the reveal of the decorated living room at the end. I lit up the scene with coloured fairy lights and very little else to give it a cosy warm Christmassy feel to the small room. It ended up looking great and very very cosy and small colourfully lit.
I also went up to Cork city to film the exteriors of the clock tower and other cityscapes with my Nikon DSLR and tripod. I shot the exterior shots of the clock tower during the day and I then edited them on Adobe Premiere Pro to make them look like they were shot in the evening.Using the levels panel I lowered the red and green level in order to colour them blue to give them a moonlight look on the clock tower. I also used my Canon Dslr which is lower quality but had a longer zoom lens so I could zoom in really close to the tower.
I went up to Cork city to film at a specific time so I could capture the clock at the right time but unfortunately the clock was showing the wrong time and a different time on all four sides. So I just had to make do with what was showing on the clock faces. There is one particular scene in the film where It has to be dark at night so using Adobe photoshop levels again I coloured the clock tower a bluish hue and then cut out the sky and replaced it with a starry one. I also had to move the clock hands to make it so that it was at nighttime and I also increased the contrast.
19 April 2018
This week finished the animation of the final scene of Father Christmas giving the little robin presents and then putting them under the tree. In the edit I added an orange glow using the lighting effects panel in Adobe Premiere Pro to father Christmas himself to make it look more magical and Christmassy. The robin is looking down shivering in the cold and then he looks up to see and orange glow and then Father Christmas appears and gives him presents. I also worked on the final edit of the film.
It has been a long journey but I have finally finished my work experience project and the music video is now ready for the professional singer. The biggest challenge was making the sets and backgrounds as they had to look sturdy and of good quality. One prop in the set that was a particular challenge was the stairway as I had ordered stairs online on Amazon but they never arrived in the post so I had to end up making them out of pieces of wood bought from my local hardware store with a bit of help from my dad who is better at DIY and hardware construction than I am. Overall I am quite happy with the result of the music video even if it is not perfect and I hope that the singer likes it too. The film is around four minutes long and fills out the music perfectly. I feel quite satisfied with the result as I have put a lot of work into it and hopefully have gotten something that is heartwarming and Christmassy and very wholesome and I hope that the singer enjoys it.
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