I decided to reorder some parts of my storyboard.
Following the feedback I'd got from the mid-term assessment and from talking to my tutors I've decided to cut the ending of my sequence, and finish the video after Trayvon gets shot. This would give me more time to work on the rest of my frames. I didn't think my ending was a very solid idea anyway.
Instead I will create a longer introduction. Paul suggested that I should show the young version of Trayvon at the beginning. This would make the audience aware of his character initially and so they will recognise him when he appears again in the second half of the video. I sketched out (roughly) what I'd like this scene to look like below:
I also decided to add a shot of Trayvon and his love interest as they go on a date. This is so it doesn't look random when they appear to be married. I will show Trayvon giving his wife a rose and then the pair will sit down at a restaurant. Shown very roughly below:
Also, I want to alter the image I used in the mid-term assessment of Trayvon graduating so that there is more movement. I will add some more characters to create more of a communal celebratory atmosphere. I decided to change this because thought that Trayvon and the girl looked too isolated in the scene. Sketch below:
I tried to follow the tutorial that was given in 'The Animator's Survival Kit' by Richard Williams.
I used illustrator to position the characters legs in a similar way to each of the frames shown in the image.
I think the effect looked quite weird when put together, so I'll have to improve this.
Development screenshots:
The character appeared to be really pixelated against the background. I think I will correct the PSD image so that the file size is larger and sharper.
I used three different layers here so that I could create depth of field. This will emphasise Trayvon's fear as he will only be focused on the gun pointing at him.
Adding Textures:
Mary suggested that I add textures to settings to make them look more impressive. In the image above I used an old paper texture, however I don't think it looks very good. Instead it just makes the scene look dirty.
Here I used a wall texture which I think works much better as it isn't so obvious.
I experimented with using on of my old images to make it look like it was night time.
Making Characters blink
I've began making my characters blink so they don't look like such flat images. I don't think the effect looks very good, as you can see the transition between the opacity
The screenshots above show how I edited one of the songs I wanted to use in order to fit the timing of my animation. I copied part of the end sequence where it goes quieter, in order to create more of a dramatic impact.
I put together a draft animatic sequence in order to organise the images and animations I've already created. I used two different songs and edited to their beat. This is useful in my subsequent decisions regarding my narrative structure.
There are many gaps in my timeline so far, so there's still quite a bit more work to be done!
During the beginning 5 seconds I would like to add some titles or a basic introduction to my video.
At 0:12-0:20 I would like to add some more images that relate to Trayvon's life as a young adult. I could possibly show his love interest after he graduates from university.
There are many parts of the sequence that I still need to animate, however I will only be including small movements.
At 55 seconds I will rewind all of the previous shots in a flashback style. This will need to be done after I've finished animating everything.
At 1:08 I would like to include a shot of Trayvon walking down the street, however I've been informed that walk cycles are quite difficult to animate. Therefore I need to look into what would be the best way of doing this.
I have taken inspiration from the album To Pimp A Butterfly by rapper Kendrick Lamar. This album is specifically relevant to my topic and Lamar speaks out against racial injustice, even mentioning Trayvon Martin in his song The Blacker the Berry.
I wanted to find a song with a similar beat to the song Complexion (A Zulu Love) as it has a chilled out, old-school hip-hop style that would fit the tone of my narrative.
I found an artist on Youtube who offers copyright free hip hop instrumentals, similar to Kendrick Lamar's style. His name is Yuki Asemota and is known on social media as Chuki HipHop.
https://soundcloud.com/yuki-asemota
For the beginning half of my animation I would like to use a song that's quite uplifting to match the happy memories of Trayvon's life. These are some of my choices:
This features a pleasant piano rhythm.
I think this piece might fit the visuals a bit more since it sounds a bit happier and more upbeat.
I like this of this however I think it's a bit too slow, therefore I would increase the speed if I use it.
For the second half of the piece I want a song that has more of a sombre tone, as I will be displaying the moment when Trayvon is murdered.
I think that this song is useful in creating a sad tone. I could try decreasing the pitch slightly to create an eerie mood.
I continued to draw out the images for my animation. I think I would need to re-colour the image about as it came out in low quality when exporting from Illustrator to a Psd file. I wanted to do this so that I could animate this arm.
I created a wave effect here, however it's in quite low quality.
Here I created some backgrounds for the scenes. I added a focus blur to the second image in order to create depth of field in relation to the characters.
In most shots there isn't much movement. The majority of the image is static whilst the character blinks or moves their mouth. I think I will use a similar technique in my animation since it's not too complicated.
"It seems that everyone but Darren Wilson is responsible for the death of Michael Brown. It’s Michael Brown’s fault, black-on-black violence is at fault, it’s a culture of disrespect and lawbreaking that’s at fault, take your pick. Perhaps the best spew of logic came from Rudy Giuliani, who essentially said, if you black people didn’t kill yourselves so much we wouldn’t have to send so many white cops down there to kill you as well."
The video above is very relevant to my topic as Michael Brown's killing was highly profiled in the Black Lives Matter campaign and led to numerous protests in Ferguson, Missouri. Fiore uses humour to question the issues of police brutality and racism.
This video is also relevant to my topic as it deals with issues of race and injustice, but in a more obscure manner. By using aliens as a comparison, it breaks down the issue into simple points. But furthermore the issue is made to sound surprising and absurd, thus emphasising the absurdity of the racial injustice that occurs in real life.
