Making The Animation: Identifying Changes From Pre-viz

 After completing the pre-viz, it is now time I begin animating the real thing. I have left myself roughly 3 weeks to do so, in order to make sure all the work is completed to the best of my ability. This leaves time for actually animating, as well as any technical difficulties which may arise during the process. Its important that I complete my job within the designated timeframe so that I do not let my team down. 

As a group we have established a workflow: Marta completes concept art/orthographs, Emily takes the drawings and make them in 3D and I (Ronnie) work on the animation of the character Moom and am in charge of bringing all of the 3D together. It is important that everyone completes their job so that we can work efficiently. 

I started by watching back the previz in order to see how well the written narrative translates to 3D. For the most part I found that it makes sense, however the animation was too basic to feel any emotion towards the character or plot. For this reason I watched back each skit and wrote down ideas of ways to animate the character to make situations look more interesting. 

Scene 1

In the original scene, Moom begins by dropping the ball which triggers the rest of the events which occur in the scene. As the audience, I feel you can understand what's going on to an extent, but their is not enough context behind the events to make the audience seem interested or care about the character. For this reason I thought of ways to introduce the character to the audience whilst also showing the narrative. 

Animation starts with an establishing shot of the house, this establishes the audiences place in the animations world, Moom's house. Moom is seen hammering a machine, on the third wind up to hit the machine, the hammer slips out of his hand. Moom only realises that the hammer has left his hand after the third and final swing, which leaves him with a puzzled expression on his face. It immediately cuts to a shot of the hammer hurdling towards a bookcase in Mooms house. The hammer hits the bookshelf, which causes the books to tumble down like dominoes, hitting the worlds bounciest ball. The audiences immediate interaction with Moom is him working on a machine, this along with how he dresses and the appearance of his house, should be enough to help the audience understand that he is a scientist. The hammer flying out of Mooms hand, not only is a funnier addition to the ball knocking over, but is also a lot more visually interesting. It ties up the problem with the character seeming uninteresting, while also telling the story of the skit. 

By adding additional scenes into the animation, it may cause the animation to exceed the 2 minuet parameter, however I feel that it is more important to produce a well thought-out, visually interesting, animation. Without a strong start, the animation wont be able to resonate as well with the audience. It is important that the audience is able to instantly identify the type of animation they are watching and the world in which the animation is taking place. If this is not done then the audience will be forced for the remainder of the animation to think hard about the events which are taking place. This is not good for a comedy animation as I want the primary thing for the audience to focus on being the comedy. 

I then went on to change Gods inclusion within the later shot in the scene. Again, I wanted to establish Gods character, so that it provides context to the situation. The audience with therefore be able to understand the punchline. In the new version God is working at his desk, observing the events of Earth through his monitor. He grabs his coffee (labelled worlds best God) and pushes himself out of frame on his office chair. The next shot shows him walking along. His head is not shown throughout the animation to reference the ambiguity of God, instead this shot focuses on his coffee cup in his hand. This should help the audience understand who he is if they still don't understand. He will then be hit by the bouncy ball and fall out of frame. 

Scene 2

Overall I feel scene 2 is quite straightforward in the pre-viz. I need to come up with a more creative way of Moom getting out of bed, such as him falling out, or simply climbing. I also what to include wide shots of the outside world so that the audience can see the changes made. 

Scene 3

Once again I am happy with the events which occur in scene 3 and feel minimal changes will be needed in the final animation in terms of what happens. Now that the animation has a stronger start, I feel by the 3rd scene the audience will have a much greater understanding of Mooms character and will be able to follow along and enjoy what is happening. 

Now that I have identified the changes needed to be made to the pre-viz, I can now begin the animation process. I will be animating alongside the final 3D models, made by Emily and will import the final models when the animation has been blocked out.