Well, there you have it

With those edits in place, more sound effects put in where they need to be and deadline just around the corner.
I believe that is all I am going to manage thus far.
Overall I am pleased, yet when I look back there is a lot more I could have done, but alas time has ran out.
For instance, I would have gone back and re-rigged Axl again, this time not making the mistake of turbo smoothing the mesh before skinning.
That proved rather troublesome.

So sitting down and watching this film the numerous amounts of times that I have, my focus will always fall on the little errors that I can see I have made; each little mesh fold, slight lapse in animation, the terrible timing, that to first time viewers may not be noticeable, but will continue annoy me.
If I had the time I would go back in and edit them as best as I can.
I have edited out the majority that grated on me, such as Axl’s hand passing through the can when passing it to the egg.
As a wise man once said, “There is no such thing as finished art; there is always room for improvement”, such a wise man.
However, another man once said, “Perfection rules out the possibility for creativity”, another wise man.

Animating this film has been interesting at times, frustrating and brilliant.
It has been a lot of fun going through this project, tackling ideas and finding out useful techniques which have been invaluable.
I am pleased about how well I managed to balance university, a part time job as well as maintaining a social life.
This year has taught me quite a hefty amount on time management and I feel my animation skills have improved vastly.
If I could restart the course again, starting from the first year with my skills as they are, I would.
I would like to see how well I would manage it all over again and how much further I would improve, that’s how enlightening I have found this whole experience.

So here it is, as I submitted it:

Nearly There!

Again, it's been a while, deadline is fast approaching, but I believe I am pretty much there.
Here's an update of of everything since March:

In terms of animation, everything has been fully animated, rendered out and comped up. All inserted into a fresh premier file with soundtrack added.

I managed to get a day arranged with Niall, the media manager of AFC Bournemouth, to come down to the stadium and get my footage and soundbites for the film. He introduced me to Tony Allen, the sports commentator for Radio Bedside, who happily recorded some commentary lines I had written up. Many thanks goes out to Niall and Tony for their help.

Soundtrack wise, I took a little visit into the library and had a browse of their sound effects/sound bites section after hearing of it some time ago. A long overdue trip that would've made life alot easier if it had been done earlier. I managed to accumulate a selection of cd's with sounds I could use. After listening through them for suitability, I whittled down the selection to three cds; "BBC Sound Effects Library", "BBC SFX Football and Rugby Crowds" and "Carlin 143 Solo Piano Popular Styles". A little time spent on cutting and sorting out the soundtrack, it is now complete and I'm pretty happy with it.

Now to the animation. Having animated the majority of the film by the time Easter came round, left me the task of going through and tidying up the general sloppiness that was present. I updated the set with a couple of AFC Bournemouth posters, added books on the shelves and photos of my favourite Bournemouth players; little touches to add a football fan feel.
I also added the football footage I had into the scenes where the tv could be seen. I scoured through the matches I had obtained, matches of Bournemouth against Barnet and Notts County respectively, for sections which matched what was happening in the actual film itself as best as possible. So all the Bournemouth related things have been added.

Rendering was very time consuming, as I finished a set of scenes, I set them in backburner and left them to render as I worked on the others. I rendered foregrounds, backgrounds and depth maps. It took me a little time to remember how to do depth passes, but worked it out in the end (set everything to black, add fog and adjust the camera environmental range, render and viola! A depth pass ).

Imported the relevant files into After Effects and then began comping. Setting out the compostions was relatively quick and easy, adding an adujustment layer with either lens blur if I had a depth pass and gassiuan blur if I had foreground and back ground seperate, thus giving the scenes areas of focus. A noticeable problem with the animation before is that everything in the scene was the same shade of colour due to the cell shaded nature. Adding the blur in seperates the background or points that aren't overly important into the distance, bring the main focus to the action happening on screen. It has also solved the problem of depth of field, how detail on things further off in the distance deteriorates the further you go back.

Credits was a simple task to tackle after this. So now it has been rendered, here is the latest version!



Only thing I want to change is the opening title screen, it's very messy and sloppy as it was the animatic version, so some work needs to go into that. I'm going to have one final check through for things that need changing, eg. Axl's hand passes through the can when he passes it to the egg. Also going to add a few more sound effects in to emphasise certain moments, for instance, when Axl lands on the floor and when the egg bounces off his head.
Not long to go now. Scary times.

Latest Animatic!

Here's how it stands at the moment. Most the film is now animated, all that's need over the next few days is to go in and tidy up the animation and change things I'm not happy with.
No sound still; due to timing changes the music doesn't match up.
Will get that sorted by rushes!
So here it is:



Should have it nice and tidy over the next few days. Here's hoping anyway...

March. Make or Break.

Ah, it's been a while since the last post, but don't worry, I have been working; been busy animatoring away :)

Here's a progression of schedules to show the work flow and how I've managed trying to stick to schedule. *Cue drumroll*

1st March:

14th March:

So far I'm keeping up to schedule, I've got nearly all the animation keyed out and majority of it tweened. Only a couple of short scenes left to do which I should be able to get done by the end of today (here's hoping anyway). Then all that's left to do is to tween and tidy up all the animation over the next week (most of it is done already, just a tidy up required) and have everything ready for rushes on Weds 24th.

Latest animatic due soon!

Eddie Howe's Barmy Army!

Here's the latest news on obtaining footage from the mighty Cherries! Again, copy and pasted from my Hotmail:

>>Will,

I should be able to provide you with some game footage from this
season, obviously it will be of professional quality so will save you
having to come and film anything. These pieces of footage will not
feature any commentary.

I'm still working on the commentary issue but there are obviously
licensing and copywrite laws that we must abide by, leave that part
with me.

Niall

>>Will,

I hope you are well and apologies for the delay in replying.

I have obtained match footage for you - I have the full ninety minutes
from both the Notts County and Barnet games. Is there someone I can
leave the discs with in the media school for you to collect them from?

Having spoken to the BBC Solent commentator Paul Scott, he would be
more than happy to provide you with some lines. The best way to action
this is for you to come to the ground early one match day with a
Dictaphone and some script for Paul and he will record you some lines,
I'll get you a date for this in due course.

Thanks,
Niall

Score! So there it is. The two games where we just happened to win :P
Better get script writing for Mr. Scott. Btown vs Morecombe on the 6th, hopefully get everything recorded then, and another victory! Promotion this year is on the cards!!

Latest update!

Well, I've been pretty ill of late. Damn immune system. >.< Fear not! As I have been doing some work, been animating scenes. So far I've almost got the first minute animated, though it needs some tidying up, but the bulk of it is done. Building up momentum now, so should be able to get it all done in about 2weeks? Leaving me a week to tidy up and tweak, a week for some brutal critism and another week to fix said crit. Here's what I have so far in CG:



Apologies for the poor quality; I rendered out in draft quality for speed purposes to see how everything ran in real time. The music is messed up in this due to me editting, getting rid of shots that weren't need/were on screen too long etc. Music will be fixed once everything is animated.

THE PLAN! MARK II

New Schedule with more time put aside for animating as the comping won't take very long.
Better laid out this one is, plus I have a few days spare at the end in case of screw ups :)
So 7 weeks of animating and a week for a once over to make sure everything is goooooood. 2 weeks of comping. Doesn't look as hectic with it all planned out like this, here's hoping it all goes to plan! Chances are, they won't, but let's go for it ;P