My production animation assignment

For this assignment I will be making a 15 second animation. I will be using adobe flash as well as a number of different techniques that I have learnt previous to this assignment to make my animation. 

My idea 

My idea is to have two people playing baseball one throwing a ball and one hitting the ball with a baseball bat. The ball will go flying towards the pitcher and he will catch it. The pitcher will throw the ball a second time and once hit it will fly towards the screen. I had the idea of using sound bites of a ball being thrown as well as the sound of a bat hitting the ball. I would like to have the sound of a cheering crowd in the background when the ball is hit and when the ball goes flying. For songs I was thinking of adding this 17 second theme that is popular in american baseball and is quite well known.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vb19d08Lnec

Examples of animation 

This animation is an elaborate fight scene between two characters with punching,kicking and jumping. Although my animation wont be as grand or complicated.

Here is another example of 2d animation but this one is in the more traditional sense in that it is on a 2d plain and looks drawn almost like a doodle on a flip book.

Here is a clever animation made in flash using a stick man. My animation will be similar because my animation will also include stick characters however they will not being doing the same level of complicated things as in this animation. 

http://www.clker.com/clipart-4554.html

I got this clip art bat so I could have a bat in my animation. 9I chose clip art because I think that it will fit better in my animation than a real bat.

I went back and thought of a different idea which would be just as good but would be more benifitial to my current skill set in 2d animation. My second idea is to have a stick figure flapping his arms until he starts to fly up I will then have across the screen. I will have him dodging planes and other flying objects. For sound effects I will have wind sounds as well as the sound of a plane flying over.

My animation 

I started my animation with a stationary stick man so I could flap his arms either way. 

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I moved the stickman's arms up and down by using the onion skin tool to keep my place as well as drawing a different drawing each frame. As a result I have made both of his arms move up and then return to his original position.

By this point I have made his arms move downward and then return to their original position. I then copied and pasted the frames to make him do the actions of and over which saved me a lot of time.

I exported my stick figure into a swf file so I could have him constantly flap his arms without having to keep on drawing the arms moving up and down. After exporting it I imported it into a different a different scene. I then made a keyframe in frame 100 hundred. 

I added a cloud into my animation I plan on making it move to the right end of the screen. With the addition of the cloud I can add wind sound effects into the animation. I will have my stick man go to the other end of the stage so my stick man and cloud will go in opposite direction to each other. 

I had the problem of my stick figure disappearing on the frame after my keyframe. To solve this I had to make a new layer and paste the stick man onto that new layer then create the classic tween to get him to move across the screen. I also turned him upside down using the transform tool. 

I exported my finished animation into a .MOV file and then put it in premier pro. From there I put my titles and credits using the in program tittle maker. I went on youtube to find my wing flapping and wind sound effects. Once I had put everything into place I exported my final piece as a .AVI file. 

Feedback 

http://padlet.com/wall/mndrc7h9p0e2

My response to my animation

I like my animation, I think the simplicity adds to the overall charm of the animation. I like the idea of the man taking off like a rocket by flying whilst flapping his arms. I think that the sound effects work pretty well with giving off the idea that I wanted. I like the cloud and how it moves in the opposite direction. I think that I could have made the legs move or had the body wiggle to make it better. 

Feedback

The general feedback is that they like the overall quality of animation and the sound effects used in the animation however some more sound would have benefited the animation. The general negative is that I could have done more with the stick man to make it better, to animate different parts of his body as well as his arms. Some of the feedback mentioned that the tittle wasn't very effective as it was on a white background which made it stand out less.

How could I improve?

To improve I will make the animation a little more complex and make it a little bit more interesting to watch. I will advance my knowledge and practical skills in Adobe Flash Player so I can achieve a better quality and more impressive piece of animation with more detail. However I would like the keep the simplicity of this animation so I will not go overboard on the amount of detail and complexity. 

What will I improve for next time? 

Next time I would like to make a more complex piece and push my current abilities in flash to its limit. I would like to improve with the software to make sure that I am able to do more complex actions and have more skills available. If possible I would like to make a more complex figure next time instead of just a plain stick figure. For my next animation I think I will add music in as well as sound effects as well as a clear narrative for the viewer to enjoy. 

This animation is both similar but different at the same time. The style of art used in both animations is similar as they are both pretty simple. However the style of animation and content is quite different as different things happen and the animation in this is a lot more flexible as the lines wobble but mine is very rigid. Because of the different styles and different content this animation will receive different feedback.

As you can see the line wobbles as opposed to my animation where the stick man is very rigid and his ams never bend. This shows the two different styles of animation and ultimately separates the two animation projects. 

This animation is completely different to mine. It uses pictures instead of drawn images. He has used audio and stills from different scenes to re create them in a 2d animation format. Because these are two very different types of 2d animation the feedback will be very different. They will be commenting on the use of stills and how they are animated as well as the timing, levels and quality of audio used in the animation as there is more of a focus on a narrative.

As you can see the animation focuses on re creating its scenes. Along with the speech bubble there is some audio from the original scene. To do this well you would have to time the audio with the speech bubble.