Making Of… ���What’s Under the Leaf?

Fantas&c  Voyage  UCA  Rochester  -­‐  Year  1  

Ruby  Newland  

The Life Cycle of a Fern Plant Dr.  Peter  Klapper  gave  us  4  different  cycles  to  choose  from  of  which  we  had  to  produce  a  2  minute  anima&on  about.  I  decided  to  choose  the  life  cycle  of  a  Fern  plant  as  that’s  the  one  that  stood  out  most  to  me.    

Initial Ideas

I  began  with  a  mind-­‐map  of  various  ideas  once  I  choose  my  subject  and  had  done  some  research  on  the  topic.  ALer  I  started  picking  out  the  strong  points  and  the  ideas  I  liked  the  most.    

Initial Ideas

Chosen Audience Originally  I  planned  for  my  anima&on  to  help  engage  KS2  children  (7-­‐11yrs)  into  science,  using  diagrams  like  what  are  used  on  the  BBC  Bite-­‐size  website.    I  showed  the  children  down  the  road  what  they  thought  of  my  anima&c,  the  younger  children  enjoyed  the  style  but  didn’t  understand  the  science.  Whereas  the  older  kids  (11-­‐12yrs)  did  and  they  also  liked  the  cartoony  style,  so  I  changed  my  audience  to  children  in  Year  7.    

Further Research From  researching  my  audience  and  how  they  learn,  I  learnt  that  children  engage  with  colours  and  cartoons  especially  around  my  chosen  age  range.  Keeping  this  in  mind  I  looked  at  a  variety  of  different  cartoons  of  which  involve  the  garden/insects  for  inspira&on  for  colour  and  character  ideas.  

Developing Ideas ALer  researching  I  produced  some  more  thumbnails,  defining  my  idea:  I  want  to  tell  the  story  of  the  Fern  Cycle  through  the  use  of  a  snail  narra&ng  it,  using  diagrams  to  explain  how  the  science  works.    

Practice My  first  prac&ce  was  the  cycle  in  pictures  on  a  set  of  leaves  with  a  snail  character  explaining  what  was  going  on  in  words.  Originally  I  didn’t  want  a  voiceover  but  this  helped  me  to  realise  a  voiceover  might  be  more  powerful.  (Video  1)      

Developing Style I  got  advised  to  try  using  the  pen  tool  in  Adobe  Illustrator  to  give  my  world  a  bit  more  character  and  style.  And  by  doing  so  helped  me  develop  a  cartoon  style  made  from  shape  and  lines.      

Artist Influence Charlie  Harper  and  Eric  Carle  helped  me  to  develop  this  blocky,  shape/line  style  of  work.  From  looking  at  their  work  I  went  ahead  and  experimented  with  pa^ern/textures  of  which  I  could  add  to  make  my  world  look  less  ordinary.    

Thumbnails I  had  a  rough  drawing  of  how  I  wanted  my  environment  and  from  this  I  blocked  out  a  rough  version  of  it  in  Maya,  which  helped  to  paint  over  to  give  me  different  camera  views.    

Developing Thumbnails

I  was  playing  around  with  colours  as  the  original  colours  seemed  boring.  

Developing Thumbnails

Developing Thumbnails

I  want  the  diagram  to  be  shown  on  the  tree  behind  the  snail,  and  these  are  the  pictures  that  are  going  to  explain  the  cycle.  I’ve  kept  them  simple  and  colourful,  which  will  keep  the  children  engaged.    

Concept Art

Concept Art

Storyboard

Storyboard

Animatic My  anima&c  basically  was  how  I  could  see  my  anima&on,  but  aLer  feedback  it  needed  some  adjustments  to  help  push  the  comedy  side  and  the  science.  (Video  2)    

Post Pitch Ideas

Script

I  wanted  my  anima&on  to  have  a  voiceover  and  aLer  changing  the  script  several  &mes  I  introduced  an  addi&onal  character,  Roger,  so  he  can  have  some  banter  with  Sammy,  without  Roger  the  script  seemed  boring.      

Character Development S&ll  using  adobe  illustrator  I  did  some  more  experimental  drawings  using  the  pen  tool  to  give  my  snail  some  character.  I  took  some  inspira&on  from  DreamWorks's  Turbo  and  Flushed  Away.  

Character Development

Character Concept Art

Orthographic View

Maya Modeling These  are  some  screenshots  of  the  modeling  process  of  my  snail.  LeL  image  shows  the  different  views  –  line,  un-­‐textured,  textured  and  rendered.  Right  image  shows  the  orthographic  views  and  how  they  helped  model  Sammy.  

Character - Sammy This  is  a  rendered  shot  of  Sammy  the  Snail  with  textures  applied.  To  the  right  is  the  texture  map.  

Character - Roger This  is  a  rendered  shot  of  Roger  the  Snail  with  textures  applied.  To  the  right  is  the  texture  map.  Roger  was  an  addi&onal  character  to  help  make  my  script  a  bit  more  cha^y.    

Lip Syncing I  wanted  the  snails  to  actually  be  talking  so  I  looked  into  lip  syncing  them,  and  used  a  handful  of  different  mouth  shapes  to  do  so.  This  process  was  going  to  have  to  be  done  aLer  the  modeling  was  complete  as  I  wanted  it  too  look  2D.    

Practicing Lip Syncing. I  prac&ced  a  few  &mes  the  lip  syncing  using  a  voiceover  I  had  done  to  see  if  the  process  worked.    (Video  3)  

Maya Modeling I  didn’t  use  no  Produc&on  Art  to  block  out  my  scene,  I  just  went  with  a  picture  and  added/took  bits  away  where  needed.  

Maya Modeling I  added  a  simple  cartoon  colour  texture  to  the  block  out  once  done  to  see  if  this  got  the  effect  I  was  looking  for.    

Textures These  are  the  texture  maps  used  on  my  final  environment,  I  kept  some  elements  just  plain  cartoon  painted.    

Modeling Screenshots – Orthographic View I  didn’t  use  no  Produc&on  Art  for  my  environment,  but  here  are  the  side,  front  and  top  view  in  Maya.    

Modeling Screenshots Line  View   Un-­‐textured  View  

Modeling Screenshots Ligh&ng  View   Textured  View  

Rendering Screenshots When  it  came  to  rendering  my  scenes  I  rendered  a  Depth  of  Field  render  also  to  help  depth  in  my  shot.    

Editing – Audition I  cut  the  voiceover  by  Tom  Turner,  of  which  got  sent  to  me,  down  into  the  6  selected  scenes  to  make  it  easier  for  me  to  edit  in  Premiere  Pro.  Tom  had  also  done  different  versions  of  some  of  the  lines  so  it  helped  me  to  cut  and  choose  the  ones  I  liked  most.  

Editing – Premiere Pro Once  my  scenes  had  rendered  I  brought  all  my  components  into  Adobe  Premiere  Pro  and  began  lip  syncing  the  mouths  to  the  voiceover.  Bringing  in  my  sound  effects  and  background  noise.    

Editing – After Effects The  next  stage  was  expor&ng  the  video  into  Adobe  ALer  Effects  to  add  the  diagrams  onto  the  tree.  As  this  program  has  no  sound  it  was  hard  to  match  up  so  I  had  to  open  the  video  separately  in  QuickTime  to  judge  from.  

Editing – Premiere Pro Once  I  had  the  diagrams  on  the  tree  all  set  I  exported  that  file  then  imported  it  back  into  Premiere  Pro  to  add  the  final  touches.    

Final Animation –���What’s Under the Leaf?

This  is  my  final  anima&on  aLer  all  the  processes  and  hard  work  it’s  nice  to  finally  produce  my  first  2-­‐3minute  anima&on.    (Video  4)