P5: Create the Content for My Animation and Meeting Deadlines

  

 P5: Creating the Content for My Animation and Meeting Deadlines

 

 

                                               This is my completed Club Europe animation.

 

There are lots of programs I have used to create my final Club Europe animation. First I created lots of pre-production documents to help me picture what my animation would look like. I followed my storyboards very closely so I created my illustrations based on my storyboard ideas.

I found it easier naming my illustrations after what scene they would be used for since this made it easier when placing them into Adobe Animate. I created my illustrations using Adobe Illustrator since this program is perfect for creating drawings and I feel comfortable using this application. I used a computer mouse and the pen tool to draw my illustrations, with an image in the background to help me illustrate objects correctly. This is importnant since my animation is informational. If  the audience couldn't understand what my illustrations were, this would make the animation harder to follow and a little confusing. I followdd the rules set in place by the client brief. They wanted me to use the Club Europe blue and yellow colours often so this is what I used. I added colours using the paint bucket tool and the eyedropper tool if I needed an exact colour. Layering my illustrations was very important since I wanted my illustrations to look realistic. For example, when drawing my character I had to make sure the hair layer was below the face layer to stop the hair going over the character's face. I have included a few screenshots above to demonstrate my illustration process in Adobe Illustrator.

 

Adobe Animate is a new program I know how to use now because of this animation unit. I found it easier to place my Adobe Illustrator graphics in as I went along creating the animation. I created lots of folders, one for each scene on the timeline to help me gather my graphics together and to make it less confusing when I am animating. I originally had sound in my Adobe Animate file as you can see in the screenshotsabove. However, when I played my sounds, they were very static like and sounded low quality even though I edited the audio.

 

 

 

I used the alpha tool a lot to make my animation or the objects in it fade in and out. I would do a fade in by having the alpha to 0 at the first key frame and 100 at the next. The time in-between the two key frames is when the animation fades in. Vice versa for the fade out. I lean that animation is on average 24 frames per second which was important for me to know so I could do the same for my animation. I also learnt that animation works with key frames. At each key frame, the animation transitions and moves. I decided to tween my animation since I find it hard to draw several frames and this would help me achieve the deadline given to me. Tweening made my animation look smooth which is the approach I was going for.

 I used the text tool to create any text in my animation. I changed the font to Nunito Sans since the client brief requires me to use the same font that is used on the Club Europe website. I changed the colour, size and so on of the text using the properties panel for it.

 I recorded my voiceover audio for the animation using the UM-900 Professional USB Condenser microphone, my laptop and the voice recorder app I have installed. Just like you would in the industry, I recorded several versions of the dialogue so I could choose the best version. The voiceovers were recorded as M4A files. However, I wanted to have the best quality audio so I edited this in Adobe Audition. I used the DeNoise and Parametric Equaliser effects to ensure my voiceovers sounded clear.

I decided to place this into Adobe Premiere Pro. I added my audio and subtitles and exported my animation. I used the captions option under essential graphics to create the subtitles. They automatically generated and I read through to make sure that all of my subtitles are correct. They generated based on my voiceover audio.

Throughout this whole process, I have created pre-production materials such as my mood board, concept art.... I did this so I can visualise what my animation will look like. In the production stage, I created my animation. I did this using industry standard software such as the Adobe Suite (Animate, Illustrator, Premiere Pro). I then edited this and exported my animation. I have followed the industry standard process.

This is my GANTT chart; I created this pre-production document to help me plan my times and reach the deadlines set. I factored in the illustration, animation and voiceover processes and split these into different tasks to help me visualise what I will need to do. There are a few things I did differently to this GANTT chart, however I did them to the set deadline. I did not end up using Adobe Character in my finished animation, so this gets swapped out for adding the audio and subtitles into the animation using Adobe Premiere Pro. It still only took me a day as planned. The pre-production documents took less time to make than expected, the animation took longer, and the sounds took less time too. So as a result, I finished a little earlier than the set deadline of 22nd July 2022.