My Finished Animation!

My Cell Animation
I finally finished my animation. The animation last for 29 seconds. I'm quite happy with the final results. However there are a few things which I wish I did differently. For example, I should of used a tripod to get an accurate shot of each frame. I'm extremely happy with how the colours of each frame work and how they move on to the next frame smoothly. And I'm glad I used stop motion and cell animation together in my animation. I think the 2 types of animations work quite well and also it makes the animation a bit different.


What I have learnt: Softwares...
Looking back I do think I should of added more scenes of dancing and looked a bit more into the movement, not only in the wing action but body movements. Because the animation was made up from a cell animation, it was much easier to produce my animation using Istopmotion and Imovie. Because it made it simpler to insert all the frames after editing the frames on photoshop and then adding the music. I know how to create movement using After Effects, but because I wanted to make a cell animation, I thought it'll be easier to just photograph each frame and produce it using Istopmotion and Imovie.


Final Outcome:
Overall I'm really happy with my final animation and I've loved doing Print to Pixel. I've learnt some valuable skills from this project and hope to carry on this type of graphics in future projects.

Here is a screen shot of me combining together all the scenes and the music. I had to adjust the timing of some of the scenes just so it could fit in the 20-30 second time margin. 

Final Scene: Baby Bird

These are the final few frames of my animation. Its the part of the storyboard where the 2 birds are joined by a baby bird. And when beside each other shows the colours of the brazilian flag. Using the same flying technique from frames I used before, I included the same manhood into my final few frames. Making it easier to finish. I first had to show the new bird into the animation, so I had to leave about 2.5 seconds for the bird to be shown then its goes onto the ending where the parents join the baby bird and the animation ends!


I found it very difficult deciding how to put the introductory credits, showing the title. Because I already had the song in the background go according to the timing of the frames. So by including an extra few seconds with the introduction credits, it ruined the timing of the birds dancing with the music. So in the end I decided to include the credits on to the actual animation, in the first scene as well as the end scene.


Here is my development, which shows my workings on the final few frames of my animation.....

This is the final outcome for the scene before the actual ending of the animation...

And this is the next scene straight after. Same principles however the bird parents joins the baby bird.

Scenes 1-6....

These are all the scenes from my storyboard done so far. I think its going quite well. I have roughly around 6 to 8 seconds left in my animation, which again is plenty of time to finish my final 2 scenes in my animation. I had to adjust the sound in the background from the last time i combined my scenes, because I had to keep the music in key so when the birds start dancing the music starts!!!

Scene 6- stop motion animation

I really like doing cell animation but find it too be a long process. So I thought I'll include another type of animation into the animation i'm doing presently. Mainly because I wanted to experiment with different types of animation but also see how they work together. So I tried out an stop motion animation using the software 'I can Animate', where a love heart is formed from being crippled up. I think it looks quite effective and is a good experiment.


I also think the scene which the stop motion heart is included in works well because the next scene will be more of a surprise in the storyboard.


Before I made my final piece I tested out an experiment without he crippled paper opening and closing. I found works quite well and then decided to include this type of animation into my actual animation. I had to however include the same background colour from the cell animation to make it match. So using photoshop, I first took the photographs of each frame and then edited the background with the colour of the sky in the cell animation.

I had to edit each photograph by replacing the background with the colour of all the frames used in the cell animation. It was such a long process but I was really happy with the final outcome.

My final piece.....

Scene 5 & 6 

I then tried matching it with the previous scene to see how the frames would look together. I think it goes quite well. 

Scene 5- There Love

The next scene included frames of the birds flying together upwards, where they are joined together in love. I found it difficult to figure how to include the heart shape in the animation, to show there love. However found when drawing the frames for the wing action, if they were held at a lower point of the frame it'll look like a heart. I next issue was how to colour the heart without effecting the colour of the 2 birds. I later resolved that problem by using the 'motion blur' tool on photoshop, which gave a neater blend with the colours. Instead of just block colours, of yellow, pink and green!


Here I've demonstrated my development by screen shots. Showing the main parts on how I come to making this scene.

I started by drawing when the wings join together and trying to figure out how to blend the colours so as the frames progress it'll turn pink and into the heart.

Because the screen first starts of pink, the heart which i'm making from hand, which open and closes, is going to start of as a full view of the heart and then closes gradually and then reopens again. 

This is the final outcome from all the frames used in scene 5 of my animation......

The purpose of the heart going inwards as the scene finishes, is because I have an idea of having the scene 6 not as cell animation, however in a stop motion type of animation. Where I will create a paper heart and have it unfolding, showing the whole of the heart to a tiny fold up of it and then unfolding itself back again to the show the heart. Then going on to scene 7!!

Scenes 1-4 together!!

These are all the scenes combined so far. I went back to scenes 2 and 3 and edited parts of it again, because there were slight errors with how they were edited on photoshop when adding colour. I believe the animation so far is going quite well i'm especially pleased because the music in the background goes well with each scenes. I have around 12 seconds left for my animation, leaving plenty of time for me to add the other scenes.

Scene 4: The Dancing

The music in the background is now out to kick in, so I've got to start drawing the scenes where the dancing will begin. I found it quite difficult to figure out what dance movements should be included in the animation. Because I didn't want to make it hard for myself because I might of messed up the animation. So basically I drew simple arm movements, in this case wing movements as well as leg movements, which go from left to right and up and down. I tested this to see if it would work and it did! Here is the prototype I first did before making the actual dancing part of the animation.

Because it worked I then applied it to my animation, however this is the first dance movements to kick in with the music. There will be more dance movements as the scenes progress.  Here is the development however of this scene, but in colour.

This is the final outcome of Scene 4: