Research & Analysis
Style: We’d like to find a balance between subjective artistic narrative,
and objective interpretation of information.
Logline: A young boy who has suffered prejudice as a student grew up to
be a teacher, and he decided to contribute to society by supporting and
inspiring students with core concept of social justice in his class.
Moodboard
Initial Character Design
These was our character design of a boy, who had suffered prejudice because he was a people of color. Another one was what he looks like when he grows up to be a teacher.
Synopsis
Environment Design
Initial Storyboard
We divided this film into three parts. The first part is a teacher showing a video that describes the concept of justice to his students. The second part is the teacher’s memory that he had suffered prejudice in his student life. In the end, the teacher is committed to creating a safe, comfortable, justice and harmonious atmosphere in his class.
Script
We had an online interview with Roger, who is one of a tutor in Guildhall School. We writing the scripts based on his experience of the social injustice he suffered in music industry.
Script-Writing
Animatic
Animatic improvement
Feedback and Improvement
1. Be more attractive and dynamic.
2. The audio script is too long, the content can be shown by animation instead of the voice-over. We simplized our audio script to two sentences “We’re different, but we are equal. Everyone can be seen here.”
Character Design Development
We developed our main character Joe’s design and added a staff and Joe’s classmates’ design.
Draft Storyboard 2
Storyboard
Animatic 2
Animatic Improvement
Concept Art
Feedback
1. Be clearer and specific.
2. Clarify the concept of social justice, safe space and belong.
Improvements
1. Added some frame of the student’s imagination
2. Extended how staff could help students and what will it cause in order to clarify the whole idea
3. Adding more friendly scenes to connect with safe apace and belonging
Final Outcome
We are still in the storyboarding stage. This is our third storyboard.
Reflection
In this unit, we have improved our animation skills by learning professional software toon boom harmony and having a deeper understanding of the process of producing animation by collaborating with Guildhall School of Music & Drama. GSMD is a really helpful and meaningful project to improve our professional skills not only by developing our 2D skills as an animator, but also a chance to help us get more familiar with the communication skills of how to interact with clients as an employee.
When we were assigned the topic of justice in the GSMD project, we found that we were not very familiar with the concept of justice and injustice. To solve this problem, we researched the requirements of the clients, and search the relevant pictures of justice. I got an outline based on ‘What is social justice’ ‘How barriers are created’ and ‘What can we do to solve it’ from the workshop we took place in Guildhall school. We got the inspiration for social justice from Roger, who is one of a tutor in Guildhall school, and decided to design a character who is a person of color like him. In order to create a clearer storyboard, we need to know more details about student life and the prejudice in music school. We sent an email to Roger and told him about our project, and he agreed to help us, then we conducted an online interview afterward. In this interview, we know more about the injustice people of color suffered, and based on his experience, we created a storyboard as well as an audio script. Though we haven’t received good feedback on our storyboard and animatic, we supposed that we have learned a lot from the topic itself, the process of communicating with the clients and listening to their experience has indeed broadened our horizon of caring about social issues.
In the GSMD group project, I collaborated with Jinyan Yu (Pat) and a composer Luara Siu from Guildhall school. Pat is interested in character design, so I did the environment design. After we had an interview with Roger, we created the story together and she made the animatic. However, when we had tutorials with our tutor, we received feedback that our animatic is not that dynamic and the audio script is too long. Also, the clients need more details to show ‘how barriers are created’. Therefore, in order to find a balance between artistic and dynamic, and informative expression, we decided to recreate our storyboard. I offered to make storyboard this time because I have also noticed the problem that our visual expression is not that dynamic and vivid, so I think I can have a try. This time, we received the feedback that though the visual style and transitions are better, the content is still not that clear and specific, it’s not really relevant with justice. Though our process in this project is bumpy and full of challenges, I found my strength and weakness of mine as well as Pat’s, then realized that we need more cooperation with each other. I was interested in artistic and abstract expression when creating storyboards, there were always some symbolic expressions in my storytelling, so the content, and the story itself would not that clear sometimes. Pat is different from me, she is good at more realistic and practical narratives. I found that we need to find a balance with each other. It’s the third time to change our storyboard, but we are clearer and have direction now! Also, we supposed that we need more feedback from others and can be an open-heart rather than afraid to listen to suggestions. We have been keeping in touch with our tutor Su-Lynn by sending her emails and having tutorials online, we felt grateful for her encouragement. At this time, we simplified our storyboard, and Pat created the basic storyboards, then I can improved and stylized it. We are still in the storyboarding stage now, but we also feel more confident this time. In this project, I learned that teamwork needs to know each other first, especially the strengths and weaknesses, then improve the strengths together and avoid the weaknesses. The level of teamwork determines the effect of the final outcome.
When it comes to the 2D techniques, I think I learned a lot from our toon boom course and Friday tool kits. At first, I didn’t know how to make zoom- in and zoom-out effects in software, after the course learning I found storyboard harmony and toon boom harmony are very efficient to achieve the camera movement effect. Also, I was impressed with 2D animation tool kits. I have learned how to use AE to make 2.5D effect, which allows your background to look more three-dimensional. We plan to use this technique in our GSMD project to improve our background design if we have enough time.
In this unit, I found that I can have a more professional view of the process of producing animation. The main thing is time scheduling and communicating with teammates. What impressed me the most was the clients said that they would be happy to see that there is a clear schedule for them to know the progress and what are going to do next. As the clients from music school, may not know the process of producing an animation, the clearer schedule we provide, the more convincing our project will look to them, so they are more willing to work with us. In addition, we have a composer this time, producing music also takes a lot of time. Thus, it’s more important to have a clear timetable so that the teamwork can have better final outcomes.
In conclusion, the GSMD project is a good chance to challenge our abilities to be professional animators. We improved our 2D techniques and proficiency when producing an animation to meet the client’s requirements. Communication skills also developed when doing presentations and receiving feedback. What’s more, time management skills are also needed to be emphasized in every project.