So Far So Good

I have managed to produce the first few seconds of my animation, where the rabbit is bouncing on his trampoline, and I'm very happy with the results. The order of my story now goes:

1. Rabbit bouncing on trampoline with it's friend watching from the side on the grass.
2. The bouncing rabbit gets higher and higher until it eventually jumps so high that it disappears from sight.
3. The spectating rabbit looks around very puzzled.
4. The bouncing rabbit is then seen hanging onto a hot air balloon containing a female rabbit (ooh err)
5. The balloon floats away and makes its way over various famous landmarks like the Eiffel Tower, the Giza Pyramids and the Sydney Opera House.

Here is the first section of my animation, which currently works pretty well!

Extra Scenes: Background Ideas

Here is a selection of images that I could use as an influence for my final scenes in my animation. I like the idea of the balloon flying over the landmarks, so I think the pyramids, the operahouse and the eiffel tower would work well as they have more height. I will take these into Illustrator and play around with different techniques to fit them into my animation.

  

 

Hot Air Balloon

I have made my hot air balloon in collage but then I transferred the design into Illustrator to see how it would look if this scene was done in cel.

 

I really like the idea of using cel for part of my animation, but I also love the effect of the collage on the balloon, and the card characters. I think I will add an extra scene to my animation, both to elongate the time and to allow for some more techniques to be used.

POSSIBILITIES FOR EXTRA SCENES:

• Floating hot air balloon into distance and turning into silhouette
• Views of different places around the world, with balloon floating above
• Watching rabbit looking bemused and chasing after the balloon
• Floating rabbit climbing into balloon basket

Out of all these ideas I think the most fruitful ones would be the second or third option. I like the idea of using different places or landmarks in the world, as it would give me more of a chance to experiment with backgrounds.

Paper Characters

After my development, I have been playing with some characters in paper and making them move, with results that I'm really keen on.

Character and Story Development

After looking at the two possible endings of my story, The helicopter option seems somewhat ambitious, and would also require a different sound to achieve the full effect. Toby also expressed this concern in my Storyboard Assessment so I think that the hot air balloon idea may be a better option. I have been working on how I can get my characters to move and to interact:

 

After looking into this further, I have decided to return to my original idea of using stop motion, with paper cut outs, as I believe it will be more suited to the nature of the music, and I will be able to use a technique that I have found really enjoyable.

However I may use an element of cel animation using the tools on After Effects, possibly with the balloon scene.

Collage Background

After seeing the effect of a collage filter on the landscape photo, I decided to make my own collage background with different colours and textures of paper found in various places.

First I went about making the simple sky background, which could also be used later on in the animation when the rabbit flies away.

 

By using angular cut out shapes in small sizes I have been able to create more texture, emulating the result I got from the filter. I have been able to incorporate more pattern and tone by using fabrics and gradients.

 

Here I have overlaid a strip of collage using green and brown tones to make the grass and earth. I found a great piece of paper in a magazine with moss and flowers which I have used for the upper layer.

Here are some close ups of the background, showing the various colours and patterns.

 

I will definitely use this in my final animation, I love the handmade style of it and I think it will add much more dimension to my final piece.

Background Possibilities - Illustrator

Just to be sure I get the right result for my background, I have produced another possibility on Illustrator:

I like the simplicity of this but I feel that the texture of the collage effect would work better and give more depth to the animation.

Background Possibilities - Photographs

For my animation I need a background image which involves sky and grass, on which I can place the trampoline and jumping rabbit. I have taken a couple of photos that could be used in this instance.

Above are two photos I took of landscape which could work as backgrounds for my animation.

I have decided to edit these to see what other effects I could produce.

Here I have brightened the images to make the colours more vivid, but I feel that the clouds have been whited out too much, so it makes the photos look bleached and artificial.

Here I have used a few filters on the first image, pixelize, brushstroke, and collage. I really like the effect the collage has produced and I think I would like to use different patterns and colours to hand make my own background. I like the depth of texture and tone that you get from this technique.

Research - Credit Confidential

I was watching TV the other day and have seen this advert a number of times, but never really paid any attention since it's about financial stuff and not really applicable to me. But when I actually focused on the animation side of it I was really impressed with how the effect had been achieved. I like how it combines a real backdrop with a hand painted character, making the setting realistic and adding animation to it.

I may look into using photography to produce background images for my animation, perhaps combining them with cel animation for the foreground.

Storyboard

This is my final storyboard for my animation, I decided to have 2 possible endings so that I had a choice when it came to developing the characters more. I will decide on the ending within the next few days when I start drawing the frames for my final animation. 

 

Here are the enlarged images from my storyboard, showing the number of seconds each event belongs to, and what is happening in the animation.

 -----ALTERNATIVE ENDING-----

 I don't know which ending I will decide on yet, but I do like the idea of the hot air balloon as it corresponds with the word 'light' which I chose as one of my 3 words to describe the music.

Story Development

After settling on a story that I want to use, I have gone into more detail with the characters and the plot, as shown below with annotated drawings:

I will develop this more once my storyboards have been handed in, so I can decide on how the rabbit will be taken away.