11 Second Club - Flash Animation

Here is my 11 Second Club flash animation!!

Flash is, again, a program I have pretty much no experience with so this was a new challenge for me!

As someone who previously hasn't really enjoyed animating, I really enjoyed the challenge & learning to animate in a different style.

It was a relatively lengthy process due to the amount of layers from key framing, to rough posing, in-betweens, clear outlines, lip sync, details, shading etc.

But it was enjoyable! & things such as the lip sync were a large challenge having only lip synced previously before. & choosing birds...

But after watching animations such as Valiant I gained some insight into how to do this easily & effectively!

Some details of the animation work particularly well in my opinion, for example the interaction between the characters when the male character talks. I also think the female character comes across with the personality I wanted to portray in her! The subtleties of eye movements were something

mentioned in a lecture which is a detail I tried to work on, attempting to create personality in the eye movements & to also aid the anticipation of her running after the worm.

If I were to do this project again, or I had more time, in my starting point of key frames I would concentrate on the body shape of the character's more! I didn't think about the squash & stretch of the females body as she was moving so she remains the same shape throughout.

She also has a floaty foot thing going on... I did try to rectify this, but it didn't seem to help. I think the shape of the legs doesn't help this situation, but I'd really have to work on the amount of frames for each step etc to create the impression of her walking.

Also the overlap! I looked over the overlapping of the movements in the animation, for example when the wings go down toward her body they wouldn't stop at a complete rest straight away.

Push The Envelope - Animation Shots

These are the shots from the short piece of the narrative & short that I animated!

This is the scene where the female character flies into a fit of rage due to her insane desire to fight crime!!

Creating the shots in After Effects was new to me...

I am not an AE pro, but it was exciting to try & experiment with new tech! Even though my knowledge is relatively limited.

I was originally considering animating in CelAction, but due to the scene I chose being more special effects related than character animating, After Effects was suggested.

Either way I'd have been starting from scratch regarding the program & tech.

The process was essentially creating the layers & images in Photoshop, but with lots of details separate to mess around with in After Effects.

Then I basically experimented with using the puppet pins to move the character, which was... awkward... still not completely sure how those work... turned my character inside out on a few occasions. But I managed to get the appearance of her shoulders rising & falling as though she was breathing.

Shot of the fire were layers & layers of flamey shapes changed & scaled & made more or less transparent etc in the keyframes. & then I messed around with lots of lighting & awesome things you can use in After Effects because it was exciting frankly...

But regarding the time period I chose a good shot to animate & I also think it does illustrate the style of Amazing Stories as it's highly dramatic, with flames, bright & harsh lighting, dramatic music & sound effects & a lot of use of colour!

If I were to do this piece again, or I had more time, I would try to physically animate the characters more & have the female particularly in crazy poses & motion.

I think I'd also redo the guys face again as he looks a bit odd... but full of fear. Which was what I wanted in this scene!!

Push The Envelope - Animation Shot Animatic

One of the shots within the animation - one of the vital scenes - was not quite right...

The scene in which the female protagonist basically goes mental & flies into a fit of fury, didn't quite illustrate that. There was no real sense of her anger.

So my mission was to illustrate the intensity of her infuriation & her anger at her male counterparts!!

Whilst trying to bring it into the Amazing Stories style.

So dramatic, with bright colours & a sense of anger!!

So here is what I came up with...

Flames & red cheeks & cuts & close ups.

Push The Envelope - Additional Concept Art.

A concept piece in the scene where she becomes enraged at the behaviour of her colleagues around her & the fact she is unable to do as she wishes.