Update on my 'Making of' project #2

For this making of project, I am paired with another student on my course, Chelsea. We have very different styles in terms of drawings and animation, which may cause some issues, but also could make some very interesting outcomes if we use our different abilities together effectively. This may also push the both of us into areas that are out of our comfort zone, allowing us to experiment with new techniques and mediums.

Chelsea's notes

These are the notes that the two of use produced after our first discussion. We decided that we definitely wanted to produce a 2D animation, but we wanted to make an animation for an excising audio product which lacks any visuals of any sort, which is the same as what I did with my previous making of project, therefore hopefully improving upon the skills that I established within that project, and with the introduction of Chelsea's skillset, hopefully develop some new skills. We both set off after this discussion to find an audio file to animate over. These are the suggestions that I came up with.

https://youtu.be/j8PNuc6heyw

Being a fan of the BBC TV series 'The League of Gentlemen', this is the one that I was very keen on doing, however I understand how it's not everyone's sense of humour, so I wanted to make sure Chelsea enjoyed it. I thought that we could animate a character each, therefore utilising both of our styles and skills, I think our contrasting styles would work well together, and her style fits the dark undertone to the piece.

https://youtu.be/8xoG0Xv3vs0

I just like this song. We could shorten the audio and create a music video for this or another song, I just thought we could do a lot with this one in terms of narrative and style.

https://youtu.be/qeKvJenyKeo

This is a voiceacting showreel for a YouTuber I like. I think we could have a lot of freedom with this one in terms of character design.

https://youtu.be/kxnwHn0OhVQ

This is made by the same people who made the audio for my original making of project, therefore it would save us a lot of time in terms of character design and that, but I wanted Chelsea to have more of a part in the planning stage, and as the character designs and styles were already made, I will probably leave this one as I was considering doing this one in my own time anyway.

In the end we both decided upon my first suggestion, League of Gentlemen - Missed Your Train Mate? 

We both thought it was funny, which I am glad about as I really had my heart set on that particular piece. Inspired by a recent Simpsons couch gag, where Homer Simpson, a digital 2D character, interacts with paper-cutout, stop motion characters resembling the South Park characters, we thought our two vastly different styles could work well together if we both animated a character each. The Simpsons clip is linked bellow.

For context, 'The League of Gentlemen' is a BBC comedy which started out as a radio series, where three actors, Steve Pemberton, Reece Shearsmith and Mark Gatiss portray every barmy character in a fictional town known as 'Royston Vaysey' (formally Spent).

The League of Gentlemen

Chelsea thought my cleaner style would be better suited towards the uni graduate character, and her more creepy style would be more suited towards the murderer, so I got to work designing that character, along with a 3D turnaround. As many of the characters from the radio broadcast version of 'The League of Gentlemen' are also portrayed in the later released TV adaption, the character I was going to animate from this audio clip was also a character in the TV series, he was known as 'Benjamin', so I based my design on him.

Benjamin, as he appeared in 'The League of Gentlemen', portrayed by Reece Shearsmith

'Benjamin' 3D turnaround

After another discussion of Chelsea, we decided to scrap the idea of having us both animate a character each, as due to the feedback from others who were told our idea, we thought that the two contrasting styles would be too distracting for the audience, especially during the aspects of the piece where the two characters had to physically interact with eachother. We instead decided that I would animate both characters, and Chelsea would instead spend her focus on designing the settings and backgrounds, due to her liking of background design. During this meeting, Chelsea also managed to get a rough story board done, so that I could start animating from them.

Page one of rough storyboards

Page two of rough storyboards

I then got to work animating the other character. Unlike Benjamin, this character didn't appear in the TV adaption, therefore I had no material to base the design on. This gave me a lot of freedom which I was pleased with, however I still decided to base it off the actor that portrayed him, 'Mark Gatiss', but stylise him in a way which suits his character in this short sketch.

Mark Gatiss, one of the three 'League of Gentlemen'

'Nutcase' 3D turnaround

Chelsea has since sent me her rough sketches of most of the backgrounds required for the animation, which will help me greatly when positioning and framing the characters for the animation.

I think our project is going well so far, and I am anticipating how our final product will look.