Reflection On The Week (22): Starting Monday 24th February

Week Summary
Think my work has been more balanced this week for each of the modules.

Reflection on Practice - Now that I have done my Focus Group this week, I need to finish the transcription and then read through it again to summarize my findings to include in my paper and presentation.
Also started working out the structure of my paper and presentation, so need to flesh the bullet points out with the information and references.

Advanced Production - This week has mainly be focused on fixing the design of the dog, which needed to be right as it is the main character. I do feel this has been achieved this week and am much happier with it. Also through sorting the dog design out we have also sorted lots of the colours out.

Going Live - Started working on one of the Going Live assets, it is currently in the modelling stage.

Monday 24th Feb
Wrote out my exact Focus Group Protocol for tomorrow to use.
Booked and picked up audio recorder for tomorrow's focus group.
I also participated in someone else's Focus Group today.
Then in the evening I baked cupcakes and jammie dodgers for my focus group tomorrow :)

Tuesday 25th Feb
Focus Group day! It went well and there were some interesting answers to the questions I asked which will definitely help with my paper/presentation.
Handed in the signed consent forms to the office.
Fixed a few things on my Abstract and handed the final one into the office.
Started transcribing my focus group audio recording.
Wrote out bullets points to try and summarize the structure of my paper/presentation.

Wednesday 26th Feb
Had a meeting with Sharon in the morning to discuss my final Abstract and the structure of my paper/presentation. Also went over what will be happening next week with the practice presentations.

Supervisor meeting in the afternoon to look over designs and the 2D animatic: Click here for relevant blog post link

Typed more of Focus Group Transcript.

Thursday 27th Feb
Went along to life drawing in the morning: Click for relevant blog post link

Had a team meeting and looked over different dog breeds to decide what one would be best to base the dog design from. Also looked up the top 10 most owned dogs in the UK. Then Giorgos went and brought back a dog book from the library. Searching through everything from bull dogs, to Labradors, to Scottie Dogs, finally decided upon the Jack Russell terrier. It is short-haired. A small-medium sized dog. Has clean facial features - easy to see expression. Is originally a British dog breed.

We all sat around and sketched dogs and tried to help towards the dog design. These are some sketches I did:

As it was the Masters open day today, a group was in our studio and we showed them our animatic. It was good to see new people viewing our animatic and seeing their reactions to it - good to know they laughed at the right places!

More feathers were added to the Bird character's arms/wings. Also the tail was elongated slightly as it wasn't too noticeable before.

Friday 28th Feb

Did some more dog drawing today, trying to help figure out the dog design now that we now what breed it should be based on. These sketches here include testing out a short-haired terrier overall shape and colouring's:

Trying out different colours with the shape I was happy with, based on real dogs:

This one with added jumpers and dog coats to see what will work the best:

Got feedback from the group and, along with me, the dog with the dark blue jumper and red stripes seems to be the current favourite. Giorgos then pointed out that the colour of the Owners clothes might have to change now that the dog's colours had been sorted. So I tried out so me variations:

I then thought that a dark red cardigan might work better, so I used the original colour concept which Sheng had done to test this out quickly to see how it looked against the environment as well, with all the characters:

Sheng's original environment concept with my added dog design, and dark red cardigan.

Same again but with a dark blue scarf as Giorgos wasn't too sure about the Mustard yellow scarf. The dark blue however makes the owner and dog look too matching.

However myself and Kirti thought the Mustard scarf might work better, so I tried it in the other environment concept that Sheng had created:

Sheng's concept art with the added dark red cardigan to test out.

Weekend
Started modelling one of the Going Live assets.

Life Drawing - 27th February 2014

Went along to the life drawing class this morning. Used charcoal pencil and white conté crayon on brown paper, the poses this week used dramatic lighting, so practiced some tones, shadows and highlights:

Left = 20 mins, Middle and Right = 4 - 5 minutes each

4 - 5 minutes each

Supervisor Meeting - Wednesday 26th February 2014

Had a supervisor meeting in the afternoon to look over designs and the 2D animatic:

Dog design needs finalized - try the designs with and without the jumper to help decide. The breed of dog was discussed. Sharon suggested that maybe we pick a British dog (one that is common or associated with Britain) if we want our film to be recognizable as a British garden. Could it be a black dog? I wondered if it would be more difficult to see, but it might help with silhouette.

The pumpkins in the set design might also suggest it is an American garden...
Maybe look for things to dress the environment that have a cultural reference to Britain.

The owner could be moving a wheel-bin, maybe even stuffing leaves into it.
Maybe it would be better if the garden looked a bit sparse and barren, might help back up the reason for the bird being hungry.

One of the pieces of feedback on the animatic from a focus group was why would the bird still be hungry after already eating 2 biscuits. One answer to this is the bird is really hungry and storing up for winter. However another suggestion is to have the events happen over a few days, but we did try this originally and found that the film was much tighter when it all happened in one day.

Feedback from my focus group yesterday was it would be even more funny to have the dog actually be lifted off the ground by the bird during the tug of war.

Should the owner be wearing more suitable autumn/winter gardening footwear?

Could ask Undergraduates to help with the sound and music - what sound and music will we need? - something to consider...

Animatic is under 2 mins, and there should be some walk cycles and flight cycles that can be re-used throughout.

Overall colours need to be decided before texturing begins.

Maybe bird modelling could find someone else to start?

We all have things to work on for next time, including 3D animatic, animation practice, Character rigs started, Character modelling still underway, Dog design finalized, Shot list created, overall colours decided.

I'll be working on the 3D animatic, practicing animations with free rigs, finalizing dog designs with Sheng.