Final Cut; Brush Stroke

CCR 1

 

How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or
issues?

CCR 2

How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?

CCR 4

 How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project?

CCR 3

 How did your production skills develop throughout this project?

The making of Ccr

As part of the film, I had to answer 4 Creative Critical reflections.These reflections are about my process through the production of Brush Stroke.For them to be creative , I wanted to try different styles of videos to answer them.But before doing all of this I first had to answer the questions and figure out the styles of the questions. I first answered the reflections in a text form which I used as a script and once I  was done i decided the style of videos.

How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or
issues?


During the preproduction phase while still figuring out the story I cam across Walter Sickert a famous artist who was seen as perturbed and obsessive with murder cases. this reminded me of the tortured artist trope. A well-known trope where an artist who is struggling in life, usually has a type of mental illness, and is sometimes misunderstood, and usually they are is a creative genius.A well used trope that has some merit to real life if you look at some of the most famous artists and my film uses this trope as my character is an artist that’d dealing with mental health but not in the conventional way. For tortured artist their art is an escape in which they create masterpieces. This trope has a trouble side as its been argued to romanticizes mental illnesses, makes it like mental illnesses are a key to creative and that suffering is worth it to create art..This is not something i want to represent I was to represent the artist that struggle to do their hobbies because of their personal struggles.And how mental health can be debilitating.

In this question I decided to make puppets with a little room.These puppet were different emotions of a character and I would changed them depending on the conversation.

- How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media
text?


Ever since watching who framed roger rabbit, and seeing all that beautiful animation on top of live action.It kind of blew my mind, like the technology they used to create all of that.I mean look at that live action hanker chief being moved by a 2d woman! This made the film very memorable and re-watchable . I wanted to do that with my film.I wanted my audience to see the animation and go like wow. It would steal their attention with the bright colors and fast animation, and maybe hopefully they would be able to watch it more than once to see little details added in.To make rewatch easier I would distributed through youtube as its the biggest platform to show films to an audience without payment, fees or contracts that are required unlike traditional media like theater or in streaming platforms.

In this I wanted to do a blog type of style, one were I could talk to the audience.

- How did your production skills develop throughout this project?-talk over


The creation of this film really tested my skills. I mean in general I had to learn a whole new medium, animation.I had never done animation and especially animation on top of video.Especially dealing with the planning.The process of incorporating animation into the production of my film was difficult. Story Boards helped a lot as it signal where animation happened, but while taking shots it was with the ideas of how the animation would look.This meant that I had to direct the actor a lot as It was especially challenging for her. Especially through out this whole second part, she had to interact with nothing and the only thing she knew about the movie was from my explanations. To counterbalance this I re-enacted the scenes while explaining what she was supposed to do.This helped a lot as she copied what I was doing and it helped her be more confident.

 This is going to be a directors commentary on top of the film.

- How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project?

.The most interesting integration of technologies in this project was during the post production phase. With the addition of animation it meant that the process in editing would be different compared to other projects.My post production was divided into 4 sections. First it was the video edit .This edit was to put the clips together, color correction video effects, and other visual effects needed There was no sound as the sound was reliant on the animation happening on the screen and this wouldn’t happen until later. This edit alongside the rest of the editing were done in the free version of DaVinci resolve.A program that I had prior experience and was simple to use.Then I moved the film put together to my iPad 13 through the use of google drive.a cloud service that allowed me to have the clips in multiple devices at once . I needed the video edit on my iPad to use Procreate Dreams an animation software that worked was iPad exclusive. IN procreate dreams I animated on top of the footage in 30 second interval clips as that was the limit of programs.With the animation done i used google drive again to transfer the videos to DaVinci resolve.This time it was only sound editing, which with the animation was a quicker process.With that done it was time to render the final cut.I Used Youtube as a way to share the final cut of my film.

This one will be a PowerPoint presentations showcasing the process that I described.

These scripts were guidelines and depending on how it went while recording things could be changed or added.

Final sound work

Other than the original sounds I created, I also used sounds taken from different medias.

While editing I started thinking about sounds I needed for the film.One of those sounds is that I wanted the animation to have a big sound cue for when they showed up.I wanted distorted radio/record scratches  as part of the cue.This made me think of game series that I had played before that had the sounds I was looking for which was the Little Nightmare series, 2017.

    This is a collection of music used in the game which I took different parts.

I used parts of the screeches  for the intrusive thoughts

Previously I talked about my inspiration that I got from Arcane,2022 and while editing something felt like it was missing in the animation sound cues.And while rewatching parts of Arcane again I heard the metallic glitch sounds of Jinx’s intrusive thoughts and I real liked liked it.So I took parts from different scenes and added them on top of other sounds.

While editing sound, I take parts of sounds clips and use them as it matches with the film.This means that the timeline ends up being quite messy once it’s laid out.Especially when I start overlapping sounds.Im very particular about editing sound so a lot of the small lines in the timelines  are singular notes I take out from sound clips.

The long line is the ambience sound of the room.

 The middle section has the most sound clips.With a combination of both foley and unoriginal sounds.

This timeline shows the amount of editing I did on the sound.I like doing this because even though a lot of the sounds are from other media, I want to add a twist to it.Trying to find some uniqueness  and making the sound match more to my film is very important to me.

The art of foley

The original plan for the sound of the film was to have music but with the change of plans in my last post, I had to do a lot of post recording of sounds.A more practical reason for the music use in the film was because the environment too loud  and difficult to get a quiet take without other people talking or animal sounds.

To record the sounds I used Razer Kraken gaming headphones that had a microphone and the audacity.This way I didn’t have to transfer the sound into my computer from my phone.

Some of the sounds I created were more specific than others. For the intrusive thoughts and animations i did voice acting for whispers,and screeches. I scratched my nails on the canvas to add more distortions to the these screeches.A sound that was difficult and took multiple times to do was the brush stroke sounds.The difficulty came from integrating the sounds in the film.The timing was very difficult to do and multiple times I had to redo the sounds because they didn’t match the film.

An important sound that I did was record the ambient noise of the environment I filmed.This was easily done by filming the room when it was quiet.This gave me a base level and caused the film to sound more real.

This has the brush stroke sounds and the ambience sounds.

I also recorded the sound of the character tripping back in this scene. I did this by doing the same actions the actress did in the same type of flooring except with the microphone on the floor.This is one of the sounds that best matches the actions of the film.

Doing foley was a learning experience with a lot of trials and error. On the brush strokes alone i took at least 30 takes.So many takes were because I messed up the timing or I hit the microphone and more.By the end of recording the sounds for the tripping, I myself had tripped multiple times.So I really had to persevere through the mistakes to get the perfect takes.

Sound decisions

while sound editing I made a very big decision in the beginning that changed my plans for the rest of the film . In my original plan for the sound design, There was supposed to be classical music played in the background . In my Portfolio Work Day 2 : Work statement blog I explained that the reason for this design decision was that "classical music will bring the character back to the real world." I wanted the music to be a grounding subject for both the character and the movie.

This choice was inspired by Black Swan,2010 use of the of ballet Swan Lake’s music. 


But once I started editing it felt too crowded, and it was too difficult to balance the music and the sound effects for the animation. The music took away from the animation which is the focal point of interest in the film.So I have decided that im diverting from the original plan, taking away the music and having more reality to film.



This was a difficult decision to make, and not the one I wanted to make. It went against my vision but throughout this production.This has happened multiple times and every time it happens it becomes easier to let go.To not be scared of leaving plans behind.

Rotoscoping or a Different solution

Before the fix

After the fix.

one of the biggest parts that was pointed out for me during the criticism was the outlets and spots that were distracting on the wall. I didn’t have any idea how to fix it but a friend told me that rotoscoping it could be the answer to my problem.


Rotoscoping in editing is cutting out parts of the video by tracing it. That’s a very easy simple version of what rotoscoping is. In Davinci Resolve rotoscoping isn’t too difficult for someone who is familiar with editing. This idea was reinforced as I watched a couple of videos about the subject. I quickly realized that even when videos claimed that it was for beginners, some of the language and expectations of prior knowledge were not things I knew. Still I carried on and tried the different methods that different videos had.

A Video about Davinci Resolve Rodoscoping

Yet I came upon some big difficulties that stopped me on my track. A big one was that some methods included features that only the payed version of the program had which I didn’t have. Another big one was the difficulty of color matching as thanks to the lighting the colors were varied and difficult to color match in the program. I had to take a break and start in a different aspect to think more about what I could do to solve these difficulties that were starting to frustrate me.

Taking a step back and turning my focus into the animation allowed me some time to breath and think. While animating I realized something what if I could cover it the dark spots with animation? A big problem I had was the color matching and the technical aspects that I didn’t quite understand.

This was the best solution, it was a bit out of the box but it worked really well. I was able to brighten parts of the harsher shadows, and make it seem like the outlets were never there by painting.

This whole ordeal reminded me that there is something that people aren’t good at. Each person has their own strengths and I was able to use my own in this situation. I tried the editors way and it didn’t work out yet I learned a lot generally about the program like color correcting. And then I did it my own way which I’m very happy about.

The Animation

The animation process was the longest part of the production.It took 4 days of work to get 35 seconds of animation to get done.This was around 840 frames of animation.One of the reasons why it took so long was because of the reputation required for animation.Especially because the animation style of the movie is jittery, having too many of the same frames would go against it.So often times it was drawing the same movement with different pencil strokes.

This is the photos of the animation timelines

On my Procreate Dreams blog, I talked about the program I was going to use for animation. One of the big topics of the blog was the lack of Alpha lock in the program.The lack of this feature added the need to use more layers while animating which slowed down the process.This became annoying and made parts difficult like this one.

One big part of the animation was that I decided to use the color purple .The reason for this was that while doing  the animation without a color palette was too obnoxious and crowded.So I decided to cut down the colors and have a palette for the rest of the animation.Practically speaking it couldn’t be a warm color palette because the rest of movie was surrounded with warm light and colors.It couldn’t be black because of the character’s clothing and  not green or blue because the paintings on the backgrounds had a lot of those colors.So that left the color purple which brought contrast.This decision added a meaning to the color purple in the movie.It became a symbol of the intrusive thoughts of the characters.

Adding restrictions to the color palette was a good choice.Restriction brings out creativity and it caused me to think more about color placing with the contrast and matching with the rest of the film.It brought a cohesive look to the film.

The first cut

Im done with my first pass of editing and most of the visual editing too.This edit consists of the final shots that are color corrected and visual effects.alongside a rough set for the title and credits.Which I cant finished editing at this moment because of my plan.


The reason for the existence of this cut is because of the use of animation in my film.Once I start animating on top of the footage, I wont be able to edit the individual footage without the animation.With this in mind I edited most of the film first to make sure it was cohesive and no reason for me to restart animation.


This is one of the reasons for the title and credits not being done, because of the need to cover the outlets on the wall which I got an idea how to do it but that couldn’t be done with the texts on the screen.


Preparation is really important even though it isn’t the most exciting part to do.Getting it done its important, and the planning to set up for the animation will make it easier for my future self.

Fixing eye shot

A shot that needed to be reshot was a close up on the eyes.Which is surprisingly difficult to align.It took me a couple of times to do the first version of the shot I  liked. I was worried about making the features of the face look symmetrical with each other.A slightest change in the angle meant that some features were warped because of the canner of my phone.


I hadn’t noticed the fact that too much forehead was showing until I did a test screening with my peers.Once they told me I couldn’t unseen it.The shot bothered me too much and it was a simple fix that I couldn’t leave it.And so I reshot it keeping in mind to have less forehead.

I never would have realized the problem with the shot until someone pointed it out.I’m really thankful for these criticism because even though I might not be able to fix it, I can still learn for the next time.

Filming day 3

It was the final day to record, and I had a planned setup already. On the final day, I planned to have the least number of shots. I expected the horizontal arc shot would take the longest out of the rest. Originally there were a lot fewer shots where I was supposed to do but on the last filming day, I had unforeseen trouble with a shot.

The horizontal arc shot was a type of shot I had never tried before; it had a lot of different aspects that I was worried about. One was the movement, in an arc shot the camera circles a character. The movement made it hard to keep the subject in frame while being steady. This was specifically because I didn't have the correct equipment for the shot.



In professional films something like a curved dolly adds stabilization and makes the shot smooth. I did not have that, instead, I had my phone on a tripod which caused the first takes of shots to move away from the subject and shaky as the tripod was very light and easy to move. How I got around this was by adding a bag of weighted objects strapped to the tripod which gave a point of center to the tripod.



After figuring out the technical parts of the shot, it was just a matter of practicing to get the timing correctly. The angle was difficult as making sure the character was focused throughout the shot was a chance of luck. Thanks to the confide space I had I couldn't view my phone while I was recording the shot. It just meant that after every shot I had to check and see how it went. This shot took me around 12 times to get it right.



Now the rest of the shots were far easier and less demanding. The Dutch shot was simple to take, and it took only a couple of tries. And my final shot which was the canvas shot meant I was done with filming.



Thanks to my plan, filming was quick to do. Setting everything up helped lessen the frustrations. During the 2nd day of filming, I became frustrated because of the shots so I deviated from the plan which made me even more frustrated. On the other hand, today I had a simple plan that I followed which kept my spirits steady and made me move quick

Curved Dolly

Horizontal Arc Shot

Horizontal Arc Shot 

Screening to get advice

To get another perspective I screened the first 30 seconds of my rough draft that I showed in the first session of editing the blog. This rough cut had the first resemblance of animation and the organization of clips. I wanted to get critics more oriented to the cinematography, mise en scene, and the tiny section of the animation.

I showed this clip 3 times with a few extra repeats of the animations, and classmates pointed out some problems and gave solutions to things I wasn’t happy with, but I didn’t know a solution.

Overall Critics

One of the first things pointed out was that there was a black electrical hole during the wide shots, which breaks up the effect that I intended. It's a very bothersome section as it's pure black compared to the light pink of the wall. While filming I tried positioning the camera differently, but it didn’t look right so I accepted that that hole was going to be there to haunt me for the rest of my days. But a classmate gave the idea that I could try and rotoscope  it out which is something I didn’t think about. I'm still new to editing and I have never rotoscoped anything but there is always a first time for everything.

One thing I should have noticed before that one of my classmates said was that the Blue Spirit mask from Avatar the Last Airbender,2005 was so distracting. It’s too dark and it stands out compared to everything. What is worse is that it's close to the character's body which makes a competition for the attention of the viewer. The only way I could fix this without spending hours on the computer trying to figure out a way to tone it down would be to reshoot, something I don’t have the luxury of.

Another thing pointed out was that the lighting was harsh in places, which I agree with. The only way I can see fixing it without reshooting would be to color-correct more the scene. Instead of hiding it I'm going to try to make it part of the aesthetic of the film as fighting it will cause more problems.

Shot Critics

The establishing shot of the film is a wide shot that depicts the character from a side view, it's static and quite long. I wanted to make it eerie and uncomfortable for the audience. One of my classmates said that it added a cheap short film feel to the movie, the classmates said that maybe adding more movement like going down the painting would be a good way to fix this issue. I mixed on this because I can see where it's coming from a lot of times movies have that type of credit sequence but at the same time I like the long establishing shot on the other hand the long establishing shot isn’t fulfilling its purpose right now. Maybe if I add the sound design and edit better the uncomfortable feeling, I'm trying to invoke will come but what if it doesn’t? I must think more about this because I want an isolating atmosphere to work.

The other shot that was talked about was that the close-up shot of the eye is too low, and it should be higher because there is too much forehead now. This is an easy fix as I don’t have to set up anything and I can just get my actress to come in and do a quick shot.

 

Listening to other people's advice helped me figure out solutions to problems I didn’t know how to fix. This is my first time doing a lot of things in a production and learning from more experienced peers in sections I lack like editing has helped me figure out.

First editing session

During my first editing section, I had a goal of selecting the best takes, getting a very rough cut, and at least a small bit of animation. I was worried about the time it would take from getting the film off my phone to the computer to then my iPad for animation. I hoped that I could cloud service like Adobe Premier Rush which is where I filmed but it didn’t work. Instead, I had to figure out a quick process that worked best for me in selecting clips. As I took a lot of shots transferring all of them to the computer was difficult

Media Pool feature Davinci Resolve

The final process was that my clips were on my phone, and I separated them by using the album feature of the iPhone. Two albums one of good shots and one of bad shots. The Good Shot album got uploaded onto Google Drive and I put it into Davinci Resolve. Davinci Resolve has a media pool feature that holds all the clips to put into the timeline or take them out when I want to. This way I was able to select the best takes and start cutting up clips. through this I put all the clips together to see how it worked, it was rough, and it was just a test, on my first try I decided to edit the first 30 seconds as it had also a small bit of animation in there.

Time line of the rough draft

As stated previously in my animation software blog I used Procreate Dreams, and in my learning about animation, and live mix animation I showed that I had practiced on it. However it is still a very new program to me, and it was a slow process to animate that small section, especially with the restriction of the clip length of the program.

I wasn’t happy with the animation, I felt like it was too overpowering, and yet the accidental stroke was lost. I needed that to be the main attention but the animation that happened surrounding it took too much attention away from it which is something I'll fix in the next editing session.

Rough draft with noncut clip

Rough draft with cut clip

I also created two versions of the rough draft, the difference between the two was that in one I hadn't cut out the pullout of her putting paint in the brush and going to pain while the camera moved away. I really wanted that shot to work but it was too slow and not angled correctly. Yet I couldn’t fix it as I realized too late that the painting had already been altered. So the cutting felt like the best move, yet I still wanted to see it.

The first editing session was one of learning and experimenting. Finding how things worked and what I liked was important. This first pass of the edit and animation made me realize that I didn’t like the animation I was doing which is better to realize that now than to be halfway through the 2 minutes, I realized that some shots had to be redone as I swift through the various shots I took. I'm not happy with it but it made me realize why I’m not happy and I already have some ways to fix those reasons.

The hardest shot

In the last blog I said that the hardest shot of the film was shot 7, a Dutch angle dolly zoom.As a new filmmaker, this shot was ambitious as it had movement from becoming not straight and at the same time using dolly zoom to pullout and yet zooming in. So, from the beginning, it was going to be a difficult shot no matter what. But there were problems I didn’t think of that ended up influencing how the shot would look in the film. For some reason, the Dutch angle movement kept on almost moving too early than intended by the camera.

In the last blog, I showed this clip, but without knowing there is not a lot that stands out, But I wasn’t moving the camera for half of this clip. I only moved the camera when the sudden quick movement came in yet the camera slowly moved into position. It was almost like it had to prepare. This happened with every shot no matter what I did.

So now it was time for a creative problem solution, I started experiment seeing if there was a certain movement that would not cause this until I got to this movement. Which I liked, still did the disorienting feeling that the Dutch angle would have done, and it didn’t do the weird slowly turning thing.

The pain with this shot didn’t end there as I switched from one difficulty to another. This type of movement made it so that we needed to follow the paintbrush with the camera. Making timing very important and necessary. This meant that I had a lot of practice footage with the same movement repeatedly.

Even worse this shot included the character doing something that was not easy to clean up and set again. It includes the character messing up the painting with black paint, which if messed up meant an extra 30 minutes of wait time to do it again because I had to cover the black mark with more paint. By the end of taking this shot the cloud section around the area was protruding out as it was covered with so many layers of paint. It’s also a shot that affected the rest of the film so it was necessary to do this first and then do the rest. Which slowed production down.

I would like to say that all this effort was worth it and I was able to get the perfect shot and it looked amazing but I wasn’t. Time restraints and needing to continue made me decide that though the idea of the shot was cool, and it could be good, it’s not something I'm capable of now. And so all that works for just a normal shot. And this was the result.

It’s a bit sad, as I put so much effort into trying to get this shot done but I lost sight of things. I should have realized the lost cause; it was not worth putting back production for this one shot.

Filming Day 2: Starting again

The shot list and which ones I got done

one of the worst things that could happen in a production is having to restart filming again, especially after putting so much effort into already-made footage. But what is necessary has to happen, and today before filming began, I had to make the difficult decision of finding a different actress.

My original actress became too busy and had something that came up stopping her from being part of the film. This caused me to panic because finding a different actor in such a short time is very difficult. Yet my cousin saved the day as she volunteered. With that decision done it just meant restarting from the beginning.

The first day of filming footage got scrapped but it wasn’t a total loss. As I knew how to set up the shots I liked and had more experience handling the camera. This allowed for an easier and faster experience as there were fewer accidents or errors on the 2^nd day. Most shots went smoothly and I was able to get done a good chunk of the shots.

Today it was the first time we did shot 7, which surprisingly was the most difficult shot of the film and it had to do with moving the camera to a Dutch angle while filming was difficult. The problem was that no matter how fast or slow I made the camera movement, the Dutch angle would slowly happen before it was desired. I wasn’t sure how to fix this problem, I tried changing the frame rate, and exposure, did slow camera movement, and did faster camera movement to stop this but it just wouldn’t for any of my scenes.

So, a difficult decision had to come where I would have to cut the Dutch angle or have one that moved up and down instead. I still wanted that to be part of shot 7 so I decided that the camera would move along the paintbrush up and down to when the accident happened. I knew it was going to take a lot of practice, but I hoped that this could still give the sense of disruption that the original Dutch shot was supposed to be.

This day truly tested being able to keep moving forward and straying from the plan. I had planned to start filming at 9 am, continuing from where I left on day 2, and then keep going until 5, which would be enough time to do all the shots. Instead, my actress got replaced and I couldn't start filming until noon, and I had to restart everything. So, everything went wrong but I persevered and though I didn’t get close to finishing it was a good way to start again.

Filming Day 1: Starting

The first day of filming was quite eventful, it all started with setting up which took the longest. The wide establishing shot was def the most difficult during this day as I had to get far away enough that the floor covered with the carpet could be seen but not the actual floor. I ended up on my bed with the camera on the tripod supported by my hands and a cardboard box. This allowed me to get this shot

But as it's seen a lot showed up in the frame, more than it was wanted. So that meant reconfiguring my room again and trying to hide everything away from camera view. Which took quite a while. Another difficulty was the unstable surface, it was very easy for it to become skewed if any movement happened. To fix it, I had to hold down the tripod, not move a muscle or breath, and let the camera roll because moving to stop filming would cause the camera to angle incorrectly.

But once I figured it out, I took the chance to record all the shots that needed that specific angle just because setting it up was such a pain that I didn’t want to do it again.

Palette shot from the side

After this was done, I moved on to the palette shots which was one that I decided to do that deviated from the original plant. The planned shot was one of the side views of the palette at ground level but because of the palette I used which was more like tiny cubes full of paint, I thought that maybe having a top-down view would be better to see the actual paint. I did both versions just in case to figure out if liked it or not later while editing.

palette shot from the top

The first day was light, it was a lot of setting up, getting familiar with the equipment, and learning its limitations. Considering that it was a 4-hour session half of it was taken up by moving furniture around, I'm quite happy with what I was able to accomplish. Being on a time crunch for film is super stressful and sometimes it feels like the plan is just to shoot as much as possible, but taking it slowly makes the process more relaxing. Slow and steady wins the race, that’s the saying. I always have a time limit on my mind, but something can't be rushed because then it will end up badly.

 

Mise en Scene

The setting of my film is important, as it correlates to the character's journey through the film. In my genre statement, I said that one of the themes of the movie is isolation. This is depicted through the setting, which is mainly the character's bedroom, so it was important to make the setting feel almost detached in a way like how the character feels.

Because of the isolation theme and the main set being the bedroom, the first 2 minutes of the film had to be in the bedroom with the characters by themselves. And the mise en scene had to be in a specific way.

The first two minutes take part in a tiny section of the room where there’s a corner that has a door that leads to it. This section is part of my house and was one of the influencing factors for the story. It even influenced me for the bug film that I was working on with my prior group. I have always looked at it as the weird part of the room as it wasn’t supposed to be there just a consequence of building in a old house. How I decorate it influences the mise en scene as usually it's covered with pictures and posters everywhere but in the beginning, had only some posters and it was unsettling almost like it was half done. I hated it as it felt like such a detached corner of the room, and I got the idea of what if it could be something.

What if I could use the section of my room that I don’t like for being isolated, detached, and eerie for that same reason? And so, I decided that I would go with that idea for the mise en scene. Having paintings or decorations hung in an awkward manner where there is no rhyme or reason and it is all in one place yet it feels like something is missing would be the set design.

Before doing my solo project, I had pitched this idea to the group film that I worked on. In my figuring out the details blogs I had sketches of what I pictured scenes of the bug movie, and one of my ideas was a taxidermy wall. A quick way to showcase a character's likes and hobbies. This wasn’t possible because of the resources but I liked the idea and I felt like I could get all the possible props for it if it was with painting instead. And that’s where most of the colors come from in the scene.

My room is naturally painted with warm and pastel colors, and I wanted to contrast that. A big thing was that I added a rug to my floor to keep in mind the paler color scheme I was trying to achieve as the flooring contrasted too much.

The character wears black bottoms, and a white shirt along with her black her it sandwiches the colors together. She wears messy clothing with her hair in a lopsided bun to show her struggle with her physical appearance. Throughout the shots, I put the access in the center or close to one of the walls to showcase that she feels trapped and isolated. The fact that she is so centered is unsettling.

Setting up all of this took a long time to do especially with moving things around in my room. My room still hasn’t recovered from the mess I created. But it was worth it to fulfill what I envisioned.

The mise en scene  of my film, plus a dog

Creation of props

My film asked for some specific props that I needed which  I had to create or specifically look for.

The Painting

The wall of paintings is a big part of the film. I wanted to get a wide arrange of paintings to represent the character’s erratic mind. This train of thought also came from the fact that with my limited resources having the paintings look cohesive would be too difficult.

Collecting the props for this film was challenging while on a budget. A lot of the paintings were created by me over the years, from people around me or I bought some of them. The production time is short and as I’m working solo creating totally unique paintings for the wall was not possible. This was the best way to get the paintings as quick as possible. It also added characterization to the character that I didn’t intend to but welcomed.

For example thanks to my sister lending some of her Rapunzel paintings the character is a fan of  Tangled,2010

The character also likes Avatar The Last Airbender, 2005 now thanks to my friend Eri's blue spirit painting, who gifted it to me.

Then there are the ones I created, some are totally original, and others are fan art I have done of things I personally like.

For example, a redraw of a shot from Pride and Prejudice 1940.

A painting of Red Hood from DC comics

And then ones that I bought from goodwill, which were the most detailed and had the prettiest fames, so I put them closer to the center.

The main painting

The main painting was the only one I created for the movie. I didn’t have anything in my old paintings, and I didn’t want to ruin a painting that wasn’t mine. So, I took time to create the painting. The goal of the painting was to have a calm a serene scene. As I’m not the best with landscape so I took inspiration from landscape that I thought were very calming.

Especially from Ghibli studio an animation studio whose landscapes involve bright colors, colorful flower, soft skies, and comfy looking cottages.

the sevret garden in Howls moving castle,2004

The creation of this painting took around 6 hours and I have some in the work photos.

The Paint supplies.

Finally, all the paint supplies and easel were mine that I used regularly. A prop that I would have wanted a better replacement would have been the paint palette. A classical palate would have been better in a lot of different ways. For recording because it would have stayed flat and the paints would have shown better in the film. It would also have been a good characterization as it shows that she is serious about painting

In the end, I used the props that I could get, some weren’t ideal and weren’t what I pictured. Some added extra details that I didn't meant to but i welcomed. Its all about using to your advantage the available resources  you have. 

Fundamentals of animation put into action

After learning about the fundamentals of animations and about the program I am going to be using it was time to dive into practicing animating.

for my first animation I decided to do something simple and that I was familiar with. So, I drew a girl that
was inspired by an artist called pidgin dolls which consequently is inspired by fashions of the 1920s. Her Black and white color palette was simpler to continuously draw and not worry about changing colors. I didn't want to pay attention to it as my focus was on the animation itself. I thought it would be simpler if instead of a whole body it was just the features of the face that I would animate. This first test was great because I figured out a lot about the app while doing something simple.

For example, for a while I first moved a frame individually but while working on the eyes, I had separated the eyes and the eyebrows into two animation layers and moving them was really tiring. in the app it doesn't say if there is any alternative on how to move multiple frames together at the same time, so I went through the tiring process throughout animating. Until I decided that it was taking too long and that there should be a better way to move the frames. So, I started looking into it. And lo and behold there was a way to do it by grouping the frames together. I'm so happy I figured this out while doing a simpler animation compared to others.

My next animation practice is closer to the concept of my film. I wanted to put the style i had thought of in my head onto paper. This animation is more expressive and has a lot of movement. Creating this one was difficult, I had problems figuring out the timing of the reaction. It first felt like it was too fast at the beginning and the big explosion moment wasn't exaggerated enough. It was an issue that it was missing the slow in and slow out concept. When I figured that out I added more frames to the beginning making the reaction more believable.

These practices helped me think about how the fundamentals worked. I am now less worried about the animation section of my film. There were a lot of bumps while working and it took me very long to do it. I'm new to the medium and I still haven't found good process to follow. But It has started my journey

Procreate Dreams

 

To animate I decided to use Procreate Dreams, an iPad app which is based on Procreate a drawing app but instead, it focuses on animation. I have used Procreate for 5 years so my point of reference for this app will be Procreate.  Procreate Dream is created for fans of normal Procreate and people who want a simpler animation app.

When it comes to drawing, its interface is very similar to procreate. Like its sister app on the top right, there is a color picker, layer selector, eraser, and blending icons. Tapping them opens several settings with different brush sections.

Procreate sample animation timeline, made by Seoro Oh

Unlike Procreate the bottom half is new which is the animation section, there is a timeline where video, audio, and 2d animation can be added with frames. Its process of adding frames and timeline is simple as it's done by just drawing on top of the selected area.

Procreate no clipping mask layer

Clipping mask Layer

Alpha lock layer

This app is more approachable than Adobe animates, with its one-time payment of 20 dollars and its simplicity making it easier for anyone to pick it up. That is one of the reasons why I chose procreate dreams, it was the most affordable option that was also good and simple. I already had the necessary hardware for it as it's made for iPad and Apple pencil combinations.

Its simplicity has drawbacks for example there is a limit in clip length which can be constricting, when it comes to this project it won't be a hassle but if I had to long term fully animate something that was two minutes, it would be a big inconvenience. The simplicity also makes options limited for example there are no alpha lock layers. This feature allows for anything drawn on the layer to be locked into space. A way to get around this feature not being here is by using a clip mask, but it adds a layer, and it doesn’t lock the layer it just makes that whatever is drawn on the top layer will only show up where the bottom layer is drawn on, but the drawing is still there.

Procreate Dream is not a perfect program, but it fulfills the needs of my film, that’s what matters, I wished that something would be better, and it would cause me to change my strategy on how I will animate on my film but it won't stop me. I just must be adaptable.

Fundamentals of animation

My film is a mix of live-action and 2d animation, something I have never done. I'm aware of the basics of animation as its an interest of mine but I have never really done anything that I have taken seriously. So for the first serious animation, I decided to learn more about the medium, and record the information here to have one place to come back to when I needed to and put some of the knowledge into actual tests.

The 12 principles of animation

The book cover of The illusion of life Disney animation,1981

In animation one of the best companies is  Disney and their history with the medium is deeply respected. In the 80s Two Disney animators Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas created a book that explained Disney's philosophy when it came to animation. This was deemed the twelve principles of animations which is now used throughout the industry. These principles are building blocks of animation and understanding them allows for more fluid movements. These are simple explanations of the principles so I can remember them.

Squash and Stretch: a figure is stretched and squashed to an extreme level to add fluidity. But the volume of the object doesn’t change.

Anticipation: When an audience expects something based on the actions beforehand

Staging: Similar in Mise en scene  where things are staged to make it clear and bring the audience's attention to the important part

Straight-ahead action and pose-to-pose:  different ways of animating. Pose to pose means drawing key frames and then filling the in-betweens after. This is good for dramatic scenes. Straight-ahead action scenes are frame by frame which are more fluid and dynamic.

Follow through and overlapping action: Follow through is the concept that a character action should continue after a, movement only stopped by being pulled back for the next action. Overlapping action is when parts of the animation move at different rates. These two create more realistic movements that follow physics

Slow in and slow out: Animation needs time to accelerate and slow down How this is done is by drawing more frames in the beginning and in the end of an action.

Arc: Animation should follow implied arcs with its fluid movements, without them the animation is robotic. A way to check this is by drawing arcs into the animation as a sketch.

Secondary action: The main actions need an added action that gives more expression to the animation.

Timing: The number of frames in an action which means the speed of the action. Timing is important as it makes the action look natural.

Exaggeration: Imitation to the real world does not transfer well to animation. Making the movements more extreme brings life into the animation. Yet too exaggerated can be a fault as it muddles the movement.

Solid drawing: Remember that whatever is being drawn is in a three-dimensional space even if its 2d. Remembering the volume, weight and size of them compared to their environment makes it more realistic

Appeal: The character can be appealing without being good or evil. Cuter characters are more appealing.

Learning these were very helpful, before hand I knew when an animation looked wrong but I didn't know how or why. There was just something off about the movements .I knew that exaggeration was a part that was needed in animation but I didn't think about how the objects physical aspects like volume would affect it. Now its time to use these concepts in my knowledge.