Inspired by Wile E. Coyote, I began this study task by sketching a storyboard featuring two characters who find a ticking time bomb, play hot potato with it and inevitably blow up, in a true cartoon-esque fashion.
Once I finished my rough draft and sketched the before and after designs of the characters so that they remained consistent, I soon began to animate them in Photoshop. I spent roughly four hours working on the timing in a scene in which they both realise their fate and reluctantly accept it by looking nervously at the audience, shrugging, and I had one character pull a sign out from behind his back that expressed his concern.
Then, the university experienced a power cut. Despite the fact that I frequently save my work, it soon dawned on me that I hadn't backed up my saved file and consequentially, lost all of my work. The only evidence I have is a photo I took to send to a friend, which sums up my feelings around this experience.
I decided to start again. I needed a story that captured the same sense of exaggerated anticipation as my original animation however I wanted it to be more personal and unique to me. Then, the answer came to me when my cousin filled me in on his day at the swimming baths.
I started again the same way I did my first animation, by sketching a quick storyboard and a turnaround of my cousin's head. The story goes, he went swimming and someone pooed in the pool. So, for my first scene, I wanted to portray an exaggerated sense of complete and utter disbelief and disgust. I thought the best way to do this would be a dolly zoom so I converted the background into a smart object and transformed the pool so it stretched behind him.
Link to Dolly Zoom
I animated the next scene again using Photoshop however found the motion to be incredibly shaky and distracting, so I removed the background and exported the image sequence to After Effects. I tried to stabilise the clip as best I could, with the help of my teacher as I haven't used this software before and then once happy with the new movements, I added my background and animated this around the character so it looked more natural.
Link to Failed Attempt
Link to Refined Clip
Follow Through and Overlapping Action
The next scene I animated was the shot where the poop is on a direct course toward my cousin while he is floundering around in the water. I thought it was comical how while my cousin is struggling and splashing the water about, this doesn't effect the poop (almost as though the poop defines it's own laws of physics).
Link to Panic Shot
In the next shot, the poop does sit more naturally on top of the water and bounces along it's ripples unlike the scene above which I feel only makes the previous scene funnier as I feel this personifies the poop, as though it was going about it's own business until it spotted my cousin, and then was filled with an overwhelming sense of determination to catch up to him.
As we had to include an element of mixed media in this study task, I painted a background in my book and using Dragonframe, created a cut-out animation. Then using Premiere Pro, I tried to correct the colour of the clip as the lighting gave the scene a yellow hue which I wanted to mute so the colours were cooler. However I haven't had this induction lesson yet either so I was limited in my practice.
Link to Poop Clip
Once I had finished animating these clips, I edited them together and added sound. While my original storyboard did have a couple extra shots that concluded the animation, I thought it was funnier to leave the clip on more of a cliff-hanger, especially after I added the screams.
Link to Final Animation
If I had more time, I would explore further scenes to see whether this would make for a better ending however considering that the university experienced three power cuts over the duration of this study task, I feel the footage I have demonstrates the principles well enough not to need any extra scenes.
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