Adobe Flash Workshops

Unit X Key Post 1: Research

As part of Unit X we were placed in groups across three different courses, Animation, Film and Photography, and were given 6 different themes to choose from. We decided to choose the theme of underworld which is related to the English National Ballet’s production of Giselle. Giselle features a girl who is betrayed by the man she loves and upon death finds herself in an underworld where she can make men dance until they die. As part of the theme we are only to use the plot of Giselle as inspiration rather than to adapt the story itself, so taking Underworld as our theme we have been encouraged to think outside of the box, with the link to the ballet coming from the inclusion of movement.

As part of the unit, we were given the chance to sign up for workshops to learn new techniques, one of the workshops I signed up for was Projection Mapping. This is where images are projected onto objects rather than onto rectangle screens, allowing for the ability to transform the object. I had originally wanted to sign up to this workshop after seeing an example on a family trip to Disney World where images are projected onto and morph Cinderella Castle, however I soon realised that this would have potential for the group project as being that we are media students, we are very used to producing screen based work, and so the projection mapping would be away for us to carry on within our practices whilst being able to try something new and to make our work look different to the usual flat screen. We were taught in the workshop with a software called Millumin which is a software on Mac to buy, however we were told the basics of the software apply to all projection mapping software, and so I was able to find a free software called VPT which works on a Windows system. Some further research has also given me ideas of how to go about different directions with the projections, as well as assuring me that much can be accomplished with a single projector.

I also attended workshops in Super 8 filmmaking which was about the type of cameras used in the 1970s and 80s for home videos at the time as they were a cheap way to film something although as it is less common now it has grown to be more expensive to buy and develop the film. I wasn’t entirely sure of how I would be able to relate this to my own project but found the workshop both interesting and entertaining. I also attended some workshops in Adobe Flash where I was able to get a feel for the software and saw how I may possibly be able to apply some techniques into making the projected image for our projection mapping.

As well as workshops,, I was given the opportunity to attend archive visits, the one I signed up for was to look around the university library’s own archives. As interesting as I found many of the things on show, I did not really find this all that useful towards my group’s project unfortunately, however I did take note that it is possible to search for further items within the archive and so I may use this to find something for the project that will be of use.

Attempting to think outside of the box, I approached the theme of underworld from more the aspect of a criminal underworld or a city’s underworld and started to think about what would be considered Manchester’s underworld. A possible direction to look into was that of secrets, as in what is going on underneath the Manchester we take at face value. We also found that Manchester has an actual underground, where all the old caverns underneath the city run as well as the old sewers. My group will be attempting further research by going to the underground exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry.

Combining these things together I had the idea to create a miniature model of Manchester and projection map buildings onto these models and then have the morph into the Manchester underworld.

Contextualising Practice Essay

How does the context in which a work is seen in alter its meaning and interpretation?

Adapting Under the Hood into an Animated Feature.

I am writing to explore how adapting the comic Batman: Under the Hood (UTH, collected as Batman: Under the Red Hood) into the animated film Batman: Under the Red Hood (B:UTRH) alters the meaning and interpretation of the story.

Robin is synonymous with the name Batman, having only debuted a year after his mentor, so when the original Robin, Dick Grayson, became Nightwing, DC introduced a replacement: Jason Todd. Unlike Dick, an optimistic acrobat who grew up in the circus, Jason was a street kid with attitude. According to Batman editor Dennis O’Neil “They did hate him.” when referring to fan reaction towards Jason (Pearson, 1991:21). This shows that the fans didn’t like changes to what had been the norm for 40+ years, Jason was the complete opposite to Grayson. Many didn’t seem to like that Todd was a replacement to Grayson’s Robin, who Batman had fired, as they didn’t see him worthy of this.

Eventually O’Neil had the idea to let fans decide whether or not Jason should die with a vote, an idea Batman writer at the time Jim Starlin jumped on, having wanted to kill off the character for some time, finding the idea of a teenage sidekick ridiculous (Best, 2003). The four part A Death in the Family, followed Todd searching for his mother, only to be kidnapped by the Joker. The second issue ended with the iconic scene of the Joker savagely beating Jason to the brink of death, before leaving him in an exploding building. The next page asked fans whether or not the character should die by voting. With a difference of 72, Robin was killed, making fans responsible for Batman’s greatest failure (Starlin, 1989). This was controversial, with many people seeing the vote as a publicity stunt centred on killing a child. Additionally numerous news outlets were stating this Robin to be Grayson, the well-loved character many of the public had grown-up with, upsetting many people (Langley, 2012).

In 2005 writer Judd Winick decided on following up this story with UTH, which would see Batman exploring the mystery of a new criminal in Gotham by the name of Red Hood. It is eventually revealed to be Todd, back from the dead, and out for Joker’s blood (Winick, 2011).  This was controversial for bringing him back after fans had voted on the death (JayToddz for the masses, 2010), as well as the means by which he was resurrected, a retcon tied into the then current companywide crossover event Infinite Crisis. Despite this, the story is important within the larger Batman mythos for bringing back such an iconic character, and the story itself, is generally well liked by fans. Judd Winick himself had originally said that he was more focused on the story between Batman, Bruce Wayne, and Jason Todd than the how, what and why of his return (Newasrama, 2005).

The DC Universe Animated Original Movies line were being used to adapt popular comic book stories into animation. Writer Judd Winick approached producers Bruce Timm and Alan Burnett with his story and within a 45 minute pitch over the phone (Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, 2013) Winick had addressed how to fix all the problems with the story that had Timm had thought of such as addressing the length and the context.

As with most comic storylines, UTH was tied to many other storylines going on in the comics at the time, like Infinite Crisis, as well as directly following on from the Batman Family crossover War Games that set up the Black Mask as Gotham’s crime overlord as well as explained the absence of characters such as Robin and Batgirl. In film however, the status quo at the beginning of the story is to be considered the norm, as such these characters weren’t referenced to help streamline the universe. Additionally, the comic relies on readers to know about the Batman mythos, they were expected to know that the Joker had killed Todd, although it happened 17 years prior (Starlin, 1988). When translating into a film however, the medium relies on a tight, self-contained story due to it reaching a larger audience unfamiliar with the source material, as well as not being a continuous ongoing story. To fill the viewer’s in on what’s necessary to the plot, the film would have to also adapt A Death in the Family. This was done briefly in the opening of the film, removing Jason’s mother from the scenes, focusing solely on the information importnant to UTH.

Furthermore, the original story was two separate arcs spanning more than a year with other stories in between (Winnick, 2005), whereas the film treats the story as a whole. This meant that the film would have to skip this gap as it isn’t relevant to the story of Jason’s return affecting Batman. This fact is what led to the disappearance of Nightwing halfway through the film, after originally only being in the first comic arc. This was due to him dealing with the destruction of his city Bludhaven in the comics, an event which was felt within UTH, but was again cut from the film due to both its ties to Infinite Crisis and irrelevancy to the actual plot. In the comics Dick was busy in New York City having re-evaluated his role of Nightwing after the War Games story (Grayson, 2006a&b), whereas in the film, he was explained away with a leg injury after the first battle with Jason. To try and make up for this, Nightwing does receive a cameo in the films closing montage showing us that he’s back in action. Additionally Nightwing’s opening scene features a criminal explaining that he was the original Robin, both to his partner and the viewer, to help explain his place within the story.

Although Winick has said that the particulars of the resurrection weren’t what he was interested in, the means by which Jason Todd was returned to life would be an integral change to the film. Rather than being explained within the story itself, Todd’s resurrection is recounted in an epilogue featured in Batman Annual #25. Here, it is explained that due to Superboy Prime punching the barrier between realities, ripples are sent through time which leads to Jason coming back to life six months after his death. This is the main tie in to the event Infinite Crisis as Superboy Prime is initially seen doing this in another tie in (Wolfman, 2006). After Jason digs his way out of his coffin, he goes into a coma for a year as a John Doe patient, upon awaking he escapes and lives on the streets for a year, with no memories, before being found by Talia al Ghul. After caring for Jason for yet another year, she decides to throw him in the rejuvenating Lazarus Pit of her father’s to restore the boys mind and memory. The movie however opts to go the much simpler route by having the Lazarus Pit be what actually brings Jason back to life, avoiding any ties to Infinite Crisis. Additionally, rather than Talia being the one to help Jason, she is replaced by her father Ra’s, and demoted to a cameo in the Lazarus Pit sequence. Again this helps streamline the story by reducing the film’s character count as well as not having to spend time introducing viewers to a character they may not know. This is an integral change to the film as Batman goes straight to Ra’s when searching for answers to Jason’s return, who recounts this story in flashback. This is far more straightforward than the comic where Batman travels the country, speaking to resurrected heroes, looking for answers. Batman goes to Ra’s in the film due to his ties with Jason’s death, he had been the one the dynamic duo were going after when the Joker kidnapped Todd, rather than searching for Todd’s mother.

The film reshuffles many events from the comics around as it is now one whole story, for instance in the comic Black Mask hires Mr Freeze to serve as a distraction to the Red Hood near the start of the story, whereas the film has Mask break the Joker out of Arkham Asylum towards the end of the film. From here, the Joker is then kidnapped by Todd who proceeds to beat him with a crow bar, reversing the situation form years earlier, putting the Joker in place for the final confrontation between the Red Hood and Batman. The Source Material shows Todd having the Joker tied up throughout most of the story, with the crowbar scene taking place much earlier before the finale. Similarly, rather than hiring the Secret Society of Super Villains to actually take down the Red Hood, an original group of assassins, The Fearsome Hand of Four, are sent, this helps keep down the running time of the film by having them simply be assassins, rather than established supervillains unknown to the audience. The team’s inclusion in the original was also a further tie in to Infinite Crisis.

Due to the set up with the death of Jason at the start of the film, much of the mystery of who the Red Hood is disappears, replaced with suspense, as such, the film doesn’t need to wait for the reveal to Batman that Jason is alive to explore their relationship together. This allows for the flashbacks to be more evenly spaced throughout the film than in the comic.

The film comes to a dramatic conclusion with a scene between Batman, the Red Hood and the Joker, which in parts is adapted word for word from the comic. In the scene, Jason asks Bruce why the Joker is still alive after he took Jason away from him. This is a rather important theme the story explores as the Joker has been accountable for hundreds of deaths since his debut in 1940 across ranges of different media (Langley, 2012), had the Joker been killed many years ago, these Deaths could have been prevented. Batman’s response in this story is that ‘if I allow myself to go down into that place… I’ll never come back.’(Winnick, 2011:308) even though Jason argues that he doesn’t have to kill any other villain just the man who killed his son. Batman’s argument here is that after allowing himself to kill the Joker, he doesn’t feel like he would be able to stop killing criminals as he is already in a  dark place and cannot afford to get any darker. Not long before killing Todd, the Joker had been responsible for paralysing Barbara Gordon and using graphic pictures of her to attempt to turn her father Commissioner Gordon insane (Moore, 2008), so after these attacks on Batman’s allies, Batman is seen to go after the Joker with intent to kill, failing only because someone seemingly got there first, allowing the Joker to escape death and Batman’s clutches once again (Starlin, 1989). It is interesting to note that upon hearing that Tim Drake, the third Robin, is dead, Nightwing beats the Joker to death and is happy he’s gone. The Joker is quickly resuscitated by Batman (Dixon, 2002a) and Dick is left feeling guilty and questions his role as a hero, however he does not start killing other villains, and is able to stop at the Joker (Dixon, 2002b). It could be argued that since Dick was trained by Batman, his reaction to killing the Joker could also be applied to Bruce, however Dick is a much lighter character, and although he was pushed over the line, it would be easier for him to come back from that line once coming to terms with what he did.

 The comic ends with the building the characters are in exploding and it is left ambiguous whether or  not there are any survivors, all three of course survive and are featured in later comics but this is not revealed within the story itself, whereas the film shows Batman finding the Joker in the rubble with Jason having disappeared. Bruce then returns to the Batcave where Alfred asks whether they should take down the memorial to Jason, to which Bruce responds ‘This doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t change anything at all.’ (Winick, 2011:173) a scene which ended the story’s first part in the comics. Placing this at the very end of the story, and then following it with a scene of Jason putting on the Robin costume for the first time signify that the emotional backbone of the film lies in the relationship between Bruce and Jason.

The story of Under the (Red) Hood explores how the return of Jason effects Batman personally. The way in which the story is told to fit within the medium however, can alter the meaning and interpretation, the removal of scenes and characters allowed for a tighter story that’s emotional backbone was of Bruce and Jason’s relationship, rather than that being a part of the larger story, as in the comic. Placing the context of Jason’s death however at the beginning of the film takes away the mystery of the original story, leaving only suspense behind.

Word count: 2185

Resource List

Film

Batman: Under The Red Hood, (2010) Directed by B. Vietti, [DVD] Burbank: Warner Home Video.

Comics

Dixon, C. (w) Randall, R. (p.i) 2002a. “You Only Laugh Twice.” Joker: Last Laugh v1 #6. DC Comics.

Dixon, C. (w) McCarthy, T. (p) Kesel, K. (i) 2002b. “Red, Fright.” Nightwing v2 #63. DC Comics.

Grayson, D. (w) Hester, P. Chang, C. (p) Parks, A. (i), 2006a. Nightwing: Mobbed Up. Nightwing v2 #107-111. DC Comics.

Grayson, D. (w) Hester, P and Chang, C. Alves, W. Marz, M. Walker, B. (p) Parks, A. Wagner, E. Ramos, R. (i), 2006b. Nightwing: Renegade. Nightwing v2 #112-117. DC Comics.

Moore, A. (w)  Bolland, B. (p.i) 2008. Batman: The Killing Joke, Deluxe Edition. Deluxe Edition. DC Comics.

Starlin, J. (w) Aparo, J. (p) Decarlo, M. (i) A Death in The Family. Batman v1 #426-429 (Dec. 1988- Jan.1989). DC Comics.

Winick, J. Starlin, J. Loeb, J. (w) Mahnke, D. Lee, P. Davis, S. Battle, E. Aparo, J. Lee, J.(p) Nguyen, T. Smith, C. Ramos, R. Faucher, W. Stucker, L. Morales, M. Decarlo, M. Williams, S. (i), 2011. Batman: Under the Red Hood. Batman v1 #617-618, 635-641, 645-650 Batman v1 Annual 25. DC Comics.

Wolfman, M. (w) Jurgens, D. (p) Ordway, J. Smith, C. Thibert, A. (i). 2006. “Heaven.” Infinite Crisis Secret Files and Origins #1. DC Comics

Books

Langley, T. 2012. Batman and Psychology: A Dark and Stormy Knight. 1st Edition. John Wiley & Sons.

Edited By Pearson, R. and Uricchio, R., 1991. The Many Lives of the Batman: Critical Approaches to a Superhero and His Media. Routledge. London.

White, M. D. 2008. Why Doesn’t Batman Kill The Joker?’ In White, M. D. and Arp, R. (eds.) Batman and Philosophy: The Dark Knight of the Soul. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, pp. 5-16.

Websites

JayToddz for the masses. 2010.  Robin's Requiem: The tale of Jason Todd. [ONLINE] Available at:http://fuckyeahjasontodd.tumblr.com/post/898206718/robins-requiem-the-tale-of-jason-todd. [Accessed 20 March 2016].

NEWSARAMA. 2005. Spoiler Sport: Hello Again. [ONLINE] Available at:https://web.archive.org/web/20070415164406/http://www.newsarama.com/DC/Countdown_more/Batman_Hello.htm. [Accessed 21 March 2016]

Best, D. 2003. JIM STARLIN [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.adelaidecomicsandbooks.com/starlin.html. [Accessed 22 March 2016].

Online Videos

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment. (2013). Batman: Under the Red Hood - First Look. [Online Video]. 05 February. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CplIfJVAy_0. [Accessed: 29 February 2016].

Images

No Author, (no date), Jason’s confronting Two-Face. [ONLINE]. Available at: http://the-artifice.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Robin_Jason_Todd_004-300x516.jpg [Accessed 27 March 16].

Jim Aparo, (1988), The Joker beats Jason to death. [ONLINE]. Available at: http://images-cdn.moviepilot.com/images/c_limit,h_555,w_640/t_mp_quality/htt4spybv1riqquxhluv/why-the-joker-isn-t-jason-todd-debunking-the-batman-vs-superman-theory-the-joker-beats-595626.jpg [Accessed 27 March 2016].

Jim Aparo, (1988), Batman carrying dead Jason from Batman #428 [ONLINE]. Available at: http://images-cdn.moviepilot.com/images/c_fill,h_450,w_700/t_mp_quality/xk5saekhhft7qrhelrti/will-jared-leto-s-joker-recreate-batman-a-death-in-the-family-in-the-suicide-squad-ro-380493.jpg [Accessed 27 March 16].

Warner Bros. Animation, (2010), Batman carrying dead Jason from B:UTRH [ONLINE]. Available at:http://www.worldsfinestonline.com/WF/dcuam/redhood/media/24.jpg [Accessed 27 March 16].

Warner Bros. Animation, (2010), Nightwing crouching on a ledge in B:UTRH (28417350) [ONLINE]. Available at:http://wallpapercave.com/wp/vvTCHd6.jpg [Accessed 27 March 16].

Davis, S., (2006), Jason's mind restored from the Lazarus Pit [ONLINE]. Available at:http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/batman/images/5/53/Lp.PNG/revision/latest?cb=20111021020413[Accessed 27 March 2016].

Warner Bros. Animation, (2010), Jason resurrected from the Lazarus Pit [ONLINE]. Available at:http://41.media.tumblr.com/3e0a6c9b7ce6a5eb203071a63f4ea374/tumblr_nchqz0ABnR1tncgpvo6_1280.jpg[Accessed 27 March 2016]

Mahnke, D., (2006), Secret Society of Supervillains attack Red Hood [ONLINE]. Available at: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/ac/10/74/ac10749ff199c5540e3a8a5222fe3879.jpg [Accessed 27 March 2016].

Warner Bros. Animation, (2010), The Fearsome Hand of Four [ONLINE]. Available at:http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/dcmovies/images/d/df/Fearsome_Hand_of_Four.png/revision/latest?cb=20150403233005 [Accessed 27 March 2016].

Battle, E, (2006), Jason with a gun to the Joker's Head [ONLINE]. Available at:http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NRAKOdVLCR4/Vt_3MQ8mKSI/AAAAAAAAMoY/OFFyXUe6MMw/s16000-Ic42/RCO019.jpg [Accessed 27 March 2016].

Warner Bros. Animation, (2010), Jason with a gun to the Joker's Head [ONLINE]. Available at:https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGP5-9OkT06S6tCGli0_nj83_aSZ4DPpHMfDLl7Mz0ykYKrNe8iDSSjtruQ_pytuWamfxJlIOBlJMBpL8WR9Q4bY5cNHCt0swK1f2_muMXDWbqE0yOkbXSlNiy7lxIwzcDNi2wxEq_NPg/s1600/Batman-Under-the-Red-Hood-dc-comics-28417108-1280-720.jpg [Accessed 27 March 2016].

Warner Bros. Animation, (2010), Jason’s first time as Robin [ONLINE]. Available at:http://images5.fanpop.com/image/photos/28400000/Batman-Under-the-Red-Hood-dc-comics-28417538-1280-720.jpg [Accessed 27 March 2016].

Bibliography

Article

Salem, R. 2010. The Dark Knight just gets darker Batman: Under The Red Hood, Toronto Ont.

Websites

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 2016. Batman: Under the Hood - [ONLINE] Available at:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman:_Under_the_Hood. [Accessed 29 February2016].

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 2016. Batman: Under the Red Hood - [ONLINE] Available at:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman:_Under_the_Red_Hood. [Accessed 29 February 2016].

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 2016. DC Universe Animated Original Movies [ONLINE] Available at:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DC_Universe_Animated_Original_Movies. [Accessed 29 February 2016].

Jett. 2010.  Writer Judd Winick Talks "BATMAN: UNDER THE RED HOOD" [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.batman-on-film.com/dccomics-on-film_BATMAN-UNDER-THE-RED-HOOD_Winick-interview_6-11-10.html. [Accessed 20 March 2016].

The World's Finest. 2016. DC Universe - Batman: Under the Red Hood  - Backstage. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.worldsfinestonline.com/WF/dcuam/redhood/backstage/. [Accessed 20 March 2016].

Online Videos

NerdSync. (2015). How did JASON TODD Come Back to Life? || Comic Misconceptions || NerdSync. [Online Video]. 18 March 2015. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=af9Qa9MBHwI. [Accessed: 10 March 2016].

NerdSync. (2016). Should Batman KILL Joker?? || Comic Misconceptions || NerdSync. [Online Video]. 17 March 2016. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgopovyODHU&nohtml5=False. [Accessed: 17 March 2016].

Visual Narrative Evaluation

Evaluation

Having been given a script, I was given the task of designing characters and the world that they inhabit. We were asked to use storytelling devices to put together a storyboard, animatic and a blocked out 3D previsualisation.

To start with, I had decided that I wanted to interpret this script, which was very broad, and mould it into an idea that I would be interested in, and so I interpreted the script to be set in a modern day metropolis, placed inside a superhero genre. As such, my castle was made to be a modern day castle, also known as a skyscraper. When reading the script, I got the sense that most of the characters featured were sinister in some nature and so I decided that they would all be Super Villains and their evil henchmen, due to this, I chose to interpret the castle exterior as a Super Villain Lair. For my designs, I decided that my lair/ throne room would have a somewhat clean, minimalist design as I felt this was modern and was able to help make the room look high tech with the metallic walls and the addition of some simple television screens. I added a touch of colour with a Red Carpet sprawled across the floor that led all the way up to the throne as I felt this felt like a luxurious/ vain touch that a Super Villain would have, also it went with the red theme of the Red Baron. Finally, I had designed a logo for the Red Baron, which I plastered on the wall and on the screens, another vain touch for a Super Villain.

When it came to designing my characters, I felt like the script had not given me enough information to design them so I decided to set myself a brief. I had pictured the script we were given as the opening segment to an episode script from a TV series, and so to start, I decided to write a plot synopsis for my show, The Defenders of Magick, with the name being a play on the city in the script being called Magickville. Based off the high tech/ modern lair that I had designed for the Baron and the Magic theme from the script, I chose to centre the show around Magic Vs Technology. I wrote a backstory for the town of Magickville, going back 500 years, and then I wrote a character description for each character in the script, as well as for the shows main character, the superhero that would go up against the likes of the nefarious Red Baron and Dr. Bones. I found that these descriptions made it easier to visualise the characters as they were now more fully fleshed out. To help me in my designs I used basics shapes to convey certain things about characters, for instance, as most of my characters were villains, there are a lot of triangles in the designs as triangles come across as sinister, where as a square comes off as strong, and circles, friendly. When designing characters I like to break them down into shapes, which I then use as guidelines when I redraw the characters in new poses, something that I later found useful when it came to drawing the storyboard.

Before creating the storyboard, I made a rough draft or Thumbnails in Adobe Photoshop as this would be a quick and easy way for me to rearrange panels by keeping everything on separate layers. To do this I literally sat down with the script and just drew what I saw in my head as I read it, with some thought put into the camera angles, making sure to only use the angles where I had designed the backgrounds. I have learnt that this is done to keep costs down in television animation, so as to save designing backgrounds from new angles.

I created the storyboard and animatic in Toon Boom Storyboard Pro, which was a software that was new to me, however due to the similarities to Toon Boom Harmony, the animation software and its simple layout, I was able to pick it up quite quickly. I enjoyed the way I could add camera movements and move layers across the screen to create my animatic as I went along, whilst drawing the storyboard. For my storyboard, I basically followed my thumbnails but took my time with staging things a little neater, thinking more about my composition, such as moving a very left screen aligned character slightly more central to balance the panel out more, and taking on board the notes from my tutors.

For the animatic, as I said earlier, I animated the storyboard as I went along to save myself the time later. I found the camera movements to be useful as it helped me have a sense of depth, which I knew would be useful to me when animating my previs in 3D, they also helped me achieve a whip pan, something I may have struggled to show without the actual movement itself. I was also able to move about different layers in a scene which was useful to give my characters a sense of direction as opposed to putting arrows all over the storyboard. So that I would be able to accurately time the animatic, I recorded voices to add to the soundtrack, when it came to importing the sound into storyboard however, I ran into some errors. For some reason, even though it let me import sound into the project, it would not play said sound and so I was unable to edit it in Storyboard Pro. As a work around, I did all of my sound editing in Adobe Premier Pro using still panels from my storyboard as a visual aid. I then went back, placing the correct timings into storyboard pro to convert into an animatic, which I then added the sound to in Premiere Pro. Although this was not ideal it was still quite an efficient way to get the job done.

For my previsualisation, I was able to quickly model my characters and set in Autodesk Maya as I knew that for previs, the simpler the better, as it is just an early stage to block out the animation and get a sense of the staging of what’s going on in the scene. Most of my characters were just made up of basic shapes already so it was simple as following my drawing guidelines but with the basic Maya polygons, to create a basic character which was then grouped into limbs, head and torso, so to achieve a limited sense of animation. As I had just recently been taught rigging, I was eager to put my knowledge into practice and rig and animate my characters, since this was only a previs however I decided to rig just one. I chose the main character of the red baron to rig as he not only has the most screen time, but also is sat in a chair for the bulk of the first scene and so I felt like the rigging would come in handy with his character.

I found the animating segment somewhat trying at times as I had to keep searching for where I put my key frames, and where each model is within the outliner, however I managed to come to grips with it and the process ran quite smoothly I found. To get the most of my animation done as I could, I was rendering each shot as I went, which although was useful, I found frustrating as I had to stop animating whilst waiting for the render to complete and I could sometimes slip out of the flow that I had previuoslty been in. Initially I had ran into problems with the rendering in mental ray as it would not always work on certain computers and would not batch render, as well as it initially rendering too dark, which I was able to fix by applying the Gamma output transformer to the renderer, but eventually Maya started working and everything went smoothly. I quickly realised that on certain shots where my characters were speaking, I was rendering numerous frames of still images, as my basic models did not have faces or mouths, and then soon realised that for shots like this, I could render a single frame and simply make them the duration of the scene, rather than rendering a whole image sequence of the same frame. I then put the final previs together in Premiere Pro by placing my rendered 3D scenes on top of my animatic, allowing for my 2D animatic to fill in any of the gaps in my previs from the scenes that I wasn’t able to animate and render out in time. In Premiere I also placed on my credits and made some adjustments such as putting a filter on the Night scene where I upped the blues and blacks to make it darker. For my credits I went with a comic book style using a comic book font and bright coloured backgrounds.

If I were to do this project again, I would like to have started my animating in Maya earlier so as to have gotten the entire project completed in time, as even though I do like the effect of a work in progress previs, I would have like to have completed the previs itself. I would have also liked to have added music and sound effects to my soundtrack to help further enhance the story, however I felt that the dialogue is useful enough in getting across the story and that it was necessary for me to get my timings right, whereas music and sound effects would have been placed on top after I had locked in all of my timings. I had originally intended to add these in but was unable to find some music in my brief search, that I thought would have fit with the piece, and I wasn’t able to find the time to record my sound effects. Additionally I would have liked to have added a splash of colour to my animatic/ storyboard as I feel that my work would have possibly come alive a little more, however I am satisfied with the line drawings as this is what most storyboards I have seen look like anyway, furthermore my previs was made in colour to mainly help differentiate between the very blocky characters, however I feel that the characters colour schemes has been showcased within my work. I had also originally planned to have a title card of some sort, which would have been in the vain of a comic book cover and would have featured my original character of the hero the Red Baron and Dr. Bones face.

Overall I am very happy with my outcomes and feel that I have met the brief to effectively tell a story using the techniques available to me.

Animatic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbV4yip7Byo&index=19&list=PLOr0uDukkOO31YcQcs8WuepRYpXeRjoTn

Previsualisation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npXu75BeU1Q&index=19&list=PLOr0uDukkOO1UDt4cWFckSeoTu2cuYQA_

Texture Sources:

http://jcautorepairstl.com/parts.html

Pre Visualization

Character Model Sheets

Animatic

Storyboard