This week I began putting my animation together, and since Imovie is the only editing programme I know how to use, so I knew this would be a challenge, nut one I was willing to take on. After matching up my storyboard with my animated sequences I began experimenting and editing. I had thought a lot about sound design and the sound effects I would use along with my visuals. I delved into the world of symbolic thinking: I had recorded around 50 audio files on the London overground and Underground and began piecing the most effective ones together. I used the rhythmic sound of a train clattering over its tracks for the heart heart of London, I used the sound of a train screeching along the tracks to a halt when London experiences a stroke, and I used the sound of a London Underground train starting up to create tension and a build up (that would eventually lead to a stroke). I also came up with a name for my animation - ‘strøke’. this word allows stroke and strike to merge together as the O’ appears to have an I striking through it. It also looks like a brain with a slash in it - a damaged brain. After a lot of editing and fiddling around with green screens my film was finally complete. I’m very happy with the outcome although I’m very surprised about how dark my animation ended up. I must have underestimated the horror of a stroke, because the outcome is pretty terrifying. In the future of my projects however I think I should invest in better editing software and screen displays. I have noticed imperfections in my sequences because my screen couldn’t go bright enough. All in all though I’m very happy with the outcome I think the visuals as well as the sound design is great.

This week was yet again packed full of animating. I’m struggling to say anymore on the matter other than its hard work and extremely time consuming. I began animating the tube (London Underground) parts of my animation. I used a mix of techniques to accomplish this: rotoscopy as well building a small plasticine model of a train so that I had a reference to draw a train carriage from multiple angles. I thought i would delve in to the technical side of my animations as this week I have been doing lots of technical stuff. After I scan my hand drawn sequences I put all the frames into seperate folders and load them into a stack of layers on photoshop (file > scripts > load files into stack). After this I open up the animation window and make frames out of all the layers. I add filters/adjustments and remove any mistakes/errors I have made with my pen using the clone stamp tool, and i make errors quite a lot so this part always takes a while. If I am planning on layering one video on top of another I remove the background and replace it with a green screen. Imovie gives me the option to stack one video on top of another using the green screen tool. After this I render my frames into an MP4 file and save it to my desktop. This is probably an extremely long way of doing things, but it works for me and I’m happy fdoing it. However, I should definitely learn how to use other editing softwares such as Final Cut Pro as I feel like I can extremely limited with what I can do using Imovie. In the future I should definitely teach myself more complex more capable editing softwares so that I can create a better outcome. For now, I comfortable with using Imovie but let down by how rubbish it is. I am nearly finished with all my frames, next it is down to editing and sound design.

This week was packed full of animating and rotoscopy work. I began taking the first steps of anthropomorphising London. I decided that my dad would be the perfect person for this role, (old and wise looking) so I began filming him acting out scenes in my storyboard to help me with my rotoscopy work. However, little did I know until this point; my dad is the worst actor in history. His movements just weren’t how I wanted them to look at all. When he moved he was stiff and awkward looking. It took me ages to get a take worthy enough of rotoscopy. He was only required to appear in 3 animated sequences, yet it took me almost an hour to get the right shots. I wanted a clean and flowing movement and eventually we got there. After capturing the shots of my dad, I separated the video file into frames using photoshop and began rotoscoping (hand drawn). After working for days on certain sequences my soul started to feel like it was being destroyed; it can get extremely boring. The level of detail I was drawing each frame at made this process extremely time consuming and dull. However its all worth it for the final outcome, even if it is only 3 seconds long. I had decided that I would have London die of a stroke at the end of the animation. This would mean that I would have to get my dad to act out having a stroke and dying. However, my dad seemed to be very uncomfortable with acting this out, and he refused the first few times I asked him. Having a family history of strokes in the family probably made him very worried, and even if he did re-enact having a stroke it would probably be the worst acting imaginable. I managed to get my dad to do two takes, but I scrapped both of them as they were too appalling and I simply couldn’t work with them. I think I am going to have to find a more creative ending. Despite my dads reluctance to be filmed and his jerky awkward, hilariously bad movements I made the best out of the situation and managed to capture some pretty good shots. I’m happy with the outcome and cant wait until it all comes together. Next week I need to created animated sequences of the London underground, to link to the human body.

This week was packed full of planning and preparation for the creation of my animation. After I’d created a storyboard I realised that I finally had some structure in my project and I felt like I finally knew what I was doing. My animation has a brief yet effective narrative. First I will show how the inner workings of the human body are similar to the workings of the London Underground. Then, London (Anthropomorphised) will have a stroke and all the blood will stop circulating around his body, just like how the trains of the London Underground would be immobilised during a tube strike. I will have a sequence representing the chaos, confusion and dizziness London will experience during his stroke until the screen fades to black. I’m not sure what happens to London after this. While I feel like leaving London’s fate inconclusive would be effective, I definitely feel like I should explore different outcomes. After another crit I feel a lot more confident in my project, People seemed to like my idea and thought that my idea was better and more radical and unique. than the last. I began creating an animated rotoscope sequence in which I would ignore every part of the train except the hand rails. I ended up drawing 230 frames using oil pastels and immediately found out they weren’t the most practical medium to use for animating. Since all my frames were hand drawn, they were smudging against each other and turning my work space in to an utter chaotic mess. After two days of slaving away at drawing these hand rails I had finally finished. But little did I know the trouble that was headed my way when it came to scanning them all. Oil pastels smudge extremely easily, so I should have seen it coming that scanning them would be an utter nightmare. The oil pastels were getting all over my scanner. Every time I scanned a frame I had to clean the scanner and remove all the excess oil pastel that was stuck on the printer from the previous drawing. After 5 hole hours, working from eight to one o’clock in the morning I was finished, and I couldn’t have been more happy with the outcome. I felt like the smudges gave this sequence a rough, gritty, energetic feel and I really liked it. After this, I experimented with digital animation. I rotoscoped from the same video, but this time I would ignore everything except the people. I thought it would be cool to layer them over my oil pastel sequence. After around 2 hours I had finished, but I didn’t find the outcome very rewarding. To me it didn’t look like anything special, and I didn’t really enjoy making it. I think I will definitely focus more on hand drawn animation. After finishing both sequences I layered them on top of eachother and after playing around with the colours I had made something that I really liked. Above is my outcome. In conclusion, although using oil pastels is a massive hassle, I think that it pays off. In the future of this project i will use oil pastels more and experiment with other materials.