Thursday, 11 June 2015
Friday, 5 June 2015
Feedback from the Final Major Project
Feedback
from the Final Major Project
In this report, I am going to
evaluate from the feedback I have received from my Final Major Project using
the results received from a questionnaire I designed, specifically to peel away
areas I could improve on, and note areas I am already proficient in.
I had made the questionnaire at
least nine questions long, and adding a tenth question for fun, making it
interesting. My first question I had asked was if the advert was appropriately
timed for an animation. When doing this project, I had to ask my clients at the
ITMA if it was okay to manipulate the script around to fit an advertisement.
They allowed me to do so, and after timing both takes (original and edited
scripts), I then found that one was two minutes long and one was about a minute
long. I knew I had to create an advert at least a minute long otherwise it
would lost interest in the audiences. On a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being short and
10 being long), most answered 5.
The next question I asked was if there were any jerky movements in the animation. Personally, I find it useful for someone else to look at whatever animation I make, so they can pick up on any movements that looked out of place or jerk. Thankfully, they all answered no to the question.
My next question I asked was if the characters I made in the animation looked good. Whilst making this animation, I did ask myself a few times if my characters looked good or not when producing the animation in flash, compared to the concept designs I made of them when pitching to my group. Sometimes when creating a character in flash based off of a concept design of a character, I always feel afraid to think if they look different (like if the heads are bigger or smaller than the original). When receiving the feedback, it was all-positive with most circling 7 and a few answering higher than that.
My next question was to ask if the animation looked rough or smooth. I wanted to create an animation that flowed nicely, with no flaws, and moved nicely. When making the animation, I had incorporated some principles of animation like arcs, secondary motion, follow through, squash and stretch, anticipation, eases, and appeal. My feedback I received was mostly 8, meaning that it was smooth.
I wanted to know how well my animation was paced for the advert, like if the movements were too fast or too slow, and so asked this question. When creating an animation, it is important to keep the speeds of it constant with the original, as adding in too many different types of speeds would create a mess. From the feedback, most answered just right, whereas one was answered a little bit fast.
When looking at the brief for my advert, I had trouble understanding some IT terms to do with IT marketing, but researched upon this. I relayed it into a brief storyboard and after receiving the script, I felt that there was some understanding of the story, but I wanted to know further if the IT Marketing Agency’s (ITMA) message was clear to everyone in co-operation with the animation that portrayed it. The feedback mostly circled yes; one was circled as no. The person did tell me why they put no as they didn’t know too much about IT marketing; thankfully this advert is aimed at IT marketing companies.
I had hired voice actors to do the voices in the animation and wanted feedback on their behalf mostly. Two of my voice actors both made it comical, in my opinion, whereas one was less confident in voice acting and the other was myself doing the voices for my animatic, which was then copied over to the animation. Most of the feedback circled that the voice acting was a little funny, and some commented that it was okay.
I had struggled to find soundtrack for my animation to fit in from royalty free websites. I then managed to find some hidden soundtrack from a game called “MDK” in which one of them was a slight mockery of James Bond. Listening to this, I found it to be quite comical and fitting as it had an orchestra in it, fitting in with super heroic themes. The feedback received from this all agreed that it fit in well with the animation.
Finally, question 9 asked people to give a comment on what they thought was good or bad about the animation and what could be improved for next time. Some of the feedback was very constructive from other animators as they could pick up areas for me to improve on next time, and other feedback was from non-animators talked about the soundtrack being too loud. The feedback talked about how the animation was done well and that it portrayed the message out nicely. Most commented on how the soundtrack put in the animation was too loud and that the voices were hard to hear sometimes, and that a way to improve this is to alter sounds in each area to make sure that the soundtrack can still be heard, but the voices needed to be much clearer than that. Thankfully, the animation quality that I had made was at a standard that a lot of people seemed to enjoy, both animators and non-animators.
The next question I asked was if there were any jerky movements in the animation. Personally, I find it useful for someone else to look at whatever animation I make, so they can pick up on any movements that looked out of place or jerk. Thankfully, they all answered no to the question.
My next question I asked was if the characters I made in the animation looked good. Whilst making this animation, I did ask myself a few times if my characters looked good or not when producing the animation in flash, compared to the concept designs I made of them when pitching to my group. Sometimes when creating a character in flash based off of a concept design of a character, I always feel afraid to think if they look different (like if the heads are bigger or smaller than the original). When receiving the feedback, it was all-positive with most circling 7 and a few answering higher than that.
My next question was to ask if the animation looked rough or smooth. I wanted to create an animation that flowed nicely, with no flaws, and moved nicely. When making the animation, I had incorporated some principles of animation like arcs, secondary motion, follow through, squash and stretch, anticipation, eases, and appeal. My feedback I received was mostly 8, meaning that it was smooth.
I wanted to know how well my animation was paced for the advert, like if the movements were too fast or too slow, and so asked this question. When creating an animation, it is important to keep the speeds of it constant with the original, as adding in too many different types of speeds would create a mess. From the feedback, most answered just right, whereas one was answered a little bit fast.
When looking at the brief for my advert, I had trouble understanding some IT terms to do with IT marketing, but researched upon this. I relayed it into a brief storyboard and after receiving the script, I felt that there was some understanding of the story, but I wanted to know further if the IT Marketing Agency’s (ITMA) message was clear to everyone in co-operation with the animation that portrayed it. The feedback mostly circled yes; one was circled as no. The person did tell me why they put no as they didn’t know too much about IT marketing; thankfully this advert is aimed at IT marketing companies.
I had hired voice actors to do the voices in the animation and wanted feedback on their behalf mostly. Two of my voice actors both made it comical, in my opinion, whereas one was less confident in voice acting and the other was myself doing the voices for my animatic, which was then copied over to the animation. Most of the feedback circled that the voice acting was a little funny, and some commented that it was okay.
I had struggled to find soundtrack for my animation to fit in from royalty free websites. I then managed to find some hidden soundtrack from a game called “MDK” in which one of them was a slight mockery of James Bond. Listening to this, I found it to be quite comical and fitting as it had an orchestra in it, fitting in with super heroic themes. The feedback received from this all agreed that it fit in well with the animation.
Finally, question 9 asked people to give a comment on what they thought was good or bad about the animation and what could be improved for next time. Some of the feedback was very constructive from other animators as they could pick up areas for me to improve on next time, and other feedback was from non-animators talked about the soundtrack being too loud. The feedback talked about how the animation was done well and that it portrayed the message out nicely. Most commented on how the soundtrack put in the animation was too loud and that the voices were hard to hear sometimes, and that a way to improve this is to alter sounds in each area to make sure that the soundtrack can still be heard, but the voices needed to be much clearer than that. Thankfully, the animation quality that I had made was at a standard that a lot of people seemed to enjoy, both animators and non-animators.
Final Major Project Evaluation
Final Major
Project Evaluation
In this report, I am going to
evaluate everything to do with my project, from planning to do this project at
the beginning all the way to the feedback I received. I will also self-criticise
my advert in the conclusion.
For the Final Major Project, I had
the leniency of using whatever software I wanted as long as I knew how to use
it. I decided to use Adobe Flash as I have a lot of experience animating in it;
using graphic layers, masks, tweens, eases and tools. I was then pitched with
projects that I could do. One particular idea was from a member of the IT
Marketing Agency (ITMA) who wanted an Avengers style advert to portray their
message to the IT marketing world, each having a super power that would help
clients in certain ways. I decided on doing this project because I felt that I
could make an effective advertisement for the ITMA and at the same time, enjoy
making it too.
I began thinking of concept designs to come up with for my animation of the characters I felt affected the ITMA’s message the most. The characters I chose were the Super Strength power and the Power of Flight. Personally, these powers affected the message the most as one talked about using a method called multi-channel marketing, and another was split testing marketing messages.
My concept designs of the Super Strength character involved a man with a triangular shaped body with a lot of muscles in the arms, legs, and torso. I wanted to create this first superhero from my imagination and use little to no reference from other existing superheroes. For flexibility, I created another design which incorporated Mr Incredible from Pixar’s “The Incredibles” as I felt it relevant to the project. This design had the traditional mask with no pupils look. I had found that this particular design was the best personally because of how effective it looked.
Next, I made from imagination my concept designs of the Power of Flight which was a sleek female character that would fly around at incredible speeds. My first concept focused on super heroines in cartoons as they looked appealing to me. I had to make another concept again for flexibility, and so focused on comic super heroines from the DC universe.
After I pitched these ideas to my group, they gave feedback on what I need to improve before pitching to the ITMA. They commented that I had to change the proportions of the female character to make it look more appealing, and also fit in with her superpower. They also commented that the storyboard made no sense as they felt it didn’t link with the super hero theme. Taking their feedback on board, I had improved my character designs as it was very important that I had got everything for my pitch right, giving the clients comfort of me animating their advertisement.
A week later, I visited the ITMA at their office to pitch what I had been designing. When seeing the character designs and storyboard, they were absolutely happy with what I came up with and commented positively on the designs, saying this is what they need for their company.
After Christmas, I got back in touch with my clients asking for a script to help narrate the animatic that I had to produce within the strict time limit for the project. The original script outlined what kind of message they wanted to tell their clients but had too much information in for a story. After asking them if I could manipulate the script by shortening it down and keeping the most relevant messages, they agreed for me to do this as I expressed that I needed to keep the animation brief.
Once I had an animatic, I then pitched it to my group who gave me very positive feedback, noticing that I took on board their previous feedback. I needed to figure out what style I was going to do my animation in. I was advised to do a motion comic style due to keeping it within a strict time, and how relevant it would be. I knew that the style of motion comics were done mostly in Adobe After Effects by adding 2D layers in a 3D environment, but I had little to no knowledge of how to do that.
To start my animation, I copied over the elements of my animatic over to my animation which helped me to create my characters in Flash. This was so I could get the accuracy of my characters, keeping the successful elements I had made. To make the characters, I used the pen tool, circle tool, square tool, and line tool. This was because, personally, free drawing in Flash was going to be tricky and it wouldn’t feel as strong.
I had voices recorded for my animation from some of my friends who responded to a Facebook post asking for help. Originally I had four voice actors, but one did not provide the voice in time; which lead me to use my voice from my animatic for one of the minor characters.
Whilst producing the animation, I had taken in consideration of using some principles of animations, including arcs, squash and stretch, easing in/out, follow through, exaggeration, appeal, anticipation, and timing. These would help to make the animation look affective, even though it was a motion comic style.
Finally when I had finished my animation, I then exported the sequences, with voices, into .MOV files and imported them into Adobe Premiere, to which I then placed the soundtrack together and additional sound effects, finishing off the project. I had then produced a questionnaire for people to evaluate, getting positive feedback with areas I could improve on.
I began thinking of concept designs to come up with for my animation of the characters I felt affected the ITMA’s message the most. The characters I chose were the Super Strength power and the Power of Flight. Personally, these powers affected the message the most as one talked about using a method called multi-channel marketing, and another was split testing marketing messages.
My concept designs of the Super Strength character involved a man with a triangular shaped body with a lot of muscles in the arms, legs, and torso. I wanted to create this first superhero from my imagination and use little to no reference from other existing superheroes. For flexibility, I created another design which incorporated Mr Incredible from Pixar’s “The Incredibles” as I felt it relevant to the project. This design had the traditional mask with no pupils look. I had found that this particular design was the best personally because of how effective it looked.
Next, I made from imagination my concept designs of the Power of Flight which was a sleek female character that would fly around at incredible speeds. My first concept focused on super heroines in cartoons as they looked appealing to me. I had to make another concept again for flexibility, and so focused on comic super heroines from the DC universe.
After I pitched these ideas to my group, they gave feedback on what I need to improve before pitching to the ITMA. They commented that I had to change the proportions of the female character to make it look more appealing, and also fit in with her superpower. They also commented that the storyboard made no sense as they felt it didn’t link with the super hero theme. Taking their feedback on board, I had improved my character designs as it was very important that I had got everything for my pitch right, giving the clients comfort of me animating their advertisement.
A week later, I visited the ITMA at their office to pitch what I had been designing. When seeing the character designs and storyboard, they were absolutely happy with what I came up with and commented positively on the designs, saying this is what they need for their company.
After Christmas, I got back in touch with my clients asking for a script to help narrate the animatic that I had to produce within the strict time limit for the project. The original script outlined what kind of message they wanted to tell their clients but had too much information in for a story. After asking them if I could manipulate the script by shortening it down and keeping the most relevant messages, they agreed for me to do this as I expressed that I needed to keep the animation brief.
Once I had an animatic, I then pitched it to my group who gave me very positive feedback, noticing that I took on board their previous feedback. I needed to figure out what style I was going to do my animation in. I was advised to do a motion comic style due to keeping it within a strict time, and how relevant it would be. I knew that the style of motion comics were done mostly in Adobe After Effects by adding 2D layers in a 3D environment, but I had little to no knowledge of how to do that.
To start my animation, I copied over the elements of my animatic over to my animation which helped me to create my characters in Flash. This was so I could get the accuracy of my characters, keeping the successful elements I had made. To make the characters, I used the pen tool, circle tool, square tool, and line tool. This was because, personally, free drawing in Flash was going to be tricky and it wouldn’t feel as strong.
I had voices recorded for my animation from some of my friends who responded to a Facebook post asking for help. Originally I had four voice actors, but one did not provide the voice in time; which lead me to use my voice from my animatic for one of the minor characters.
Whilst producing the animation, I had taken in consideration of using some principles of animations, including arcs, squash and stretch, easing in/out, follow through, exaggeration, appeal, anticipation, and timing. These would help to make the animation look affective, even though it was a motion comic style.
Finally when I had finished my animation, I then exported the sequences, with voices, into .MOV files and imported them into Adobe Premiere, to which I then placed the soundtrack together and additional sound effects, finishing off the project. I had then produced a questionnaire for people to evaluate, getting positive feedback with areas I could improve on.
Whilst doing this project, I have
incorporated a lot of techniques from my previous flash animations and took in
consideration of what I could improve for the next time I produce an animation
again. I feel that I could have done this in After Effects, nailing the motion
comic style on the head. I had thoroughly enjoyed doing this project and feel
like it was a successful piece of work.
Thursday, 4 June 2015
FMP Blog post 4: Making the animation
Using my animatic I had made, I then went straight into making my advert. I made a new file and inserted a light blue background for the sky.
I had trouble making the characters in flash freely so I copied over the outlines of the characters onto the new flash file, finding that they gave me the start to making my animation.
The tools I found most useful in this part were the pen tool and the shape tool because I could create the cartoon comic style for the characters. For the ITMA Man, because he was heavily muscular, I could use at least three circle shapes, bash them into a shape of an arm or a leg, then using the erase tool, take out the lines in each shape, making the whole shape. Below are some screenshots of how it was made.
This first screen shot examples how I managed to make the arm. First I had made the circles in the shape I wanted it to look like, then layered over one another. Then once I was happy with the bashed shape, I then found the eraser tool and in the preferences area I looked for the shape with a circle and white line through it. This was to change the preference of how I wanted to erase the lines. The option to erase line is listed, and made it simple to make an arm shape. Below is a screenshot of what I needed to locate.
I had trouble making the characters in flash freely so I copied over the outlines of the characters onto the new flash file, finding that they gave me the start to making my animation.
The tools I found most useful in this part were the pen tool and the shape tool because I could create the cartoon comic style for the characters. For the ITMA Man, because he was heavily muscular, I could use at least three circle shapes, bash them into a shape of an arm or a leg, then using the erase tool, take out the lines in each shape, making the whole shape. Below are some screenshots of how it was made.
Now I could erase lines without any problems. The next screenshot shows what happens when I clicked and held on the erase tool on the lines.
A white brush paint appears over where I clicked, held and scrubbed over. When I clicked off, the only thing to be erased was the lines.
I had found this the most useful tool to use as I created shapes, bashed them together and erased the lines to make one shape.
Auto Tweening
If I was doing my animation free handed (meaning not using any graphics to make auto tweens), I would control the easing myself. For this though, auto tweening an animation felt most helpful. Auto tweening means that when two keyframes are placed down on a timeline (the start and the end of that motion), I can then second click over the space between the two key frames and click "Create Classic Tween). Below is an example of the classic tween.
Also in tweening animations, I could then go into properties and change the easing either lowering or adding the value from -100 (easing in) to 100 (easing out). I felt that easing out was more appropriate for this movement when he flexes his muscles.
This type of tweening was used previously in making a motion graphics piece, making skeletons arms move in arcs. As I knew of its usefulness, I continued making more of the tweens using this method.
Free hand animation
In the story for my animation, the ITMA Man went to the top of the peak of success, but on his way he had to climb a mountain. I wanted to create a wind effect. This was incorporated from the wind seen in the game, "The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker." The gif below shows what I made.
The method of doing this was making a white line with the brush tool, but as I made the line appear, I made a new keyframe by pressing F6 on the keyboard (shortcut for Create new Keyframe) and painted until I had a swirl effect as seen above. Once I was happy, I normal erased the line as it gradually disappears creating the swirl effect. Once I was happy, I then cut the layer that the swirl was made in, pasted it into a graphic and copied that graphic and pasted multiple times in another graphic, placing them in different areas and in different times.
Using alpha colour effects
Making graphics in Flash helped me to then add special effects on, like making them appear and disappear in a dissolve action. This is called alpha. It can be set from 100% (showing the graphic) to 0% (making it completely disappear). Sometimes the graphics that have alphas on them could be used as a transparent object (like the visor for the ITMA Girl below).
Using Motion Tweens
Recently, I had learnt about using Motion tweens in Flash. This is making a path with the line tool, creating a motion path from this layer and then, with a graphic, paste it into the same layer as the guide, and add a key frame of where the line ends. Below is what the motion tween looks like.
When a line (or a pen path) is created and turned into a guide, it goes the colour of the outline corresponding to the layer (in this layer, the line is coloured green). I could still manipulate the tweens of this too.
Creating a vapor trail
Because the ITMA Girl has the power of flying, I wanted to create a vapor trail that she leaves behind, like an airplane would leave. I also wanted to make this as a motion of her flying too. I had found a way to make a graphic and animate a cartoony vapor trail. Below is what it looks like in the animation.
This is placed behind the ITMA Girl's graphic in this scene.To show its motion, I had made one keyframe with it being very large, then keyframed the end of it and made it tiny; so that it makes it look as though it disappears in the background.
Dust impact
In my scene, I made the ITMA Girl land down on the floor, and created an impact. One scene I wanted to focus on was how I made the dust swipe. A gif of the brief sequences is shown below.
I had first designed my team in this scene, then intended to make a dust cloud swipe by from the left to the right and cover the team in dust. How I made the dust was I painted a grey cloud in a graphic, then copied that same graphic and pasted it over another in a different layer, changing the scale and turning the opacity down. I then made the graphic swipe from left to right by keyframing the first frame from the left and the last to the right. I also wanted to make an easing in and out action, so I placed a keyframe in between the two and made the first section ease in and the last ease out, giving anticipation. There is a frame in which the team gets covered in the dust too. Because it blends in with the dust cloud, I didn't need to make an animation of the dust laying on the team.
Rendering animation and placing in Premiere with additional soundtrack
Originally in the files, I had speech and some background sounds to help me animate. Once I had finished animating everything for my FMP, I then exported the files as .MOVs in H264 codecs that was then imported into Adobe Premiere. There I could put the two scenes together and place soundtrack and sound effects together.
It had blended nicely in the timeline between the two files. In between, there was a jet woosh sound effect I had found on Soundtrack Pro and wanted to place it in between the two scenes as the ITMA Girl flew in on the last scene of the first file. This helped blend the two scenes together more.
Once everything was complied together, rendered and exported, I then got evaluations from a group of people, both animators and non-animators.
FMP Blog post 3: Deciding on animation and style
For this blog, I will explain why I chose to do my animation in Adobe Flash.
Choosing the program
Because this was my FMP, we were advised to use the programs we're most comfortable with using to make our projects. I had decided to use Flash because I have a lot of knowledge and experience with doing Flash animations well in it and knew what tools I would use to make the characters. Below are a list of different programs I could've used but explained why I chose not to.
Cinema 4D
I have had at least two full years of using Cinema 4D to model and only at least one year experience of animating in it. If I was to use Cinema 4D, I would need longer to make models of the ITMA characters as I have little experience in modelling, rigging and weighting characters.
Maya
I found that Maya is a great program to make animations in, but the fact that I have less than one year's experience in all areas, this would be a program that I would've had more difficulty with. The other reason not choosing this program is the same as Cinema 4D, where I would need more time to make, rig and weight the character.
Adobe After Effects
Having experience of using after effects to create animations, I felt that this program would've been a good option, but there would be no support from anyone else as no one as well as me knows an awful lot about the program. I also was drawn away from using it as the animations I have seen animators make from them would not be great.
Adobe Photoshop
One of my projects last year consisted of using Photoshop to do an animation in, but I had only managed to make a small part of a well timed animation, and it was only making a character talk. I then decided not to use this program.
The Style
I had trouble of thinking of how I'd animate this project; doing frame by frame animation or auto tweened movements. My tutor had picked up on how I made the animatic and suggested for me to do it as a motion comic style. I studied motion comics and found that this was a good style to do my animation as it would save time and incorporate with the Superhero theme. Because I didn't want to do this in After Effects, I decided to do this on Flash using alphas and tweens to help move the characters.
Choosing the program
Because this was my FMP, we were advised to use the programs we're most comfortable with using to make our projects. I had decided to use Flash because I have a lot of knowledge and experience with doing Flash animations well in it and knew what tools I would use to make the characters. Below are a list of different programs I could've used but explained why I chose not to.
Cinema 4D
I have had at least two full years of using Cinema 4D to model and only at least one year experience of animating in it. If I was to use Cinema 4D, I would need longer to make models of the ITMA characters as I have little experience in modelling, rigging and weighting characters.
Maya
I found that Maya is a great program to make animations in, but the fact that I have less than one year's experience in all areas, this would be a program that I would've had more difficulty with. The other reason not choosing this program is the same as Cinema 4D, where I would need more time to make, rig and weight the character.
Adobe After Effects
Having experience of using after effects to create animations, I felt that this program would've been a good option, but there would be no support from anyone else as no one as well as me knows an awful lot about the program. I also was drawn away from using it as the animations I have seen animators make from them would not be great.
Adobe Photoshop
One of my projects last year consisted of using Photoshop to do an animation in, but I had only managed to make a small part of a well timed animation, and it was only making a character talk. I then decided not to use this program.
The Style
I had trouble of thinking of how I'd animate this project; doing frame by frame animation or auto tweened movements. My tutor had picked up on how I made the animatic and suggested for me to do it as a motion comic style. I studied motion comics and found that this was a good style to do my animation as it would save time and incorporate with the Superhero theme. Because I didn't want to do this in After Effects, I decided to do this on Flash using alphas and tweens to help move the characters.
FMP Blog Post 2: Pitching to the clients and my group
Prior to choosing the superheroes I wanted to focus on, I then had to make concepts for pitching to my group and the ITMA in what I would think they would look like in the animation. I came up with two concepts for each superhero that the ITMA would then choose to have.
Note: These are only two of each example for both superheroes. To view the rest, please read the concepts blog.
ITMA Man Concepts
The general idea for the ITMA man was to base it off of Pixar's Mr Incredible as he wore a red suit with a black mask, black gloves, black pants and black boots. Following up with this idea I had made the first concept as seen below.
The original idea based off of the sterotypical superhero who would have the triangular body with smaller legs and massive arms. I wanted to make this concept less like that as I first felt that it would be copying off of a lot of other superhero ideas. Self evaluating this, I felt that it needed more and therefore went onto designing the next concept shown below.
The "improvement" idea I came up with next was to improve on the posture. I had considered to replicate Mr Incredible's look as it felt the most suitable. I had also missed out on the fact that I needed to incorporate the ITMA's logo into these concept designs. I had emphasized the chin as the typical super man look consisted of a square face with a big chin. Prior to this, the concept then reminded me of Butch Hartman's design of a superhero called The Crimson Chin (obviously not making the chin as big as his!).
ITMA Girl concepts
Thinking more of the concepts for the ITMA girl, I had thought of DC's Super Girl and Batgirl to help me make designs for the ITMA girl.
This first design was based off of my imagination of what the ITMA girl would look like. Supposedly, I had thought about Super Girl's concept for the figure and the head based off of Dexter's Mom from Dexter's Laboratory as at the time, I felt that she could be a Mom character, looking after not only her family but also the IT marketing world's problems with care. Even though I felt that this design was good, I felt that I needed to make a second and get people's feedback.
This second design was completely based off of DC's Batgirl. I admired how the costume looked on her in the cartoons and wanted to incorporate it into this design, making small adjustments to areas. Because the ITMA Girl's power is flying, I designed the helmet that replicated Iron Man's armour plates and the wings on the helmet to look similar to Batgirl's cowl. The gloves were still kept the same length as the first design's and a skirt was added in. I had felt on the first design that the boots were too long and therfore settled with knee high's that looked similar to Wonder Woman's.
Storyboard
I had then come up with a storyboard to help portray the general story. After seeing the ITMA's own advertisement, I had a general idea of what I was going to produce. The first part would have the ITMA Man answer his communicator (supplied by the ITMA) to a call from a client in need of help. He would then activate his multi channel powers to then climb a mountain that would become a sales graph.
The second part would then show the ITMA girl zoom in and recieve a mission. Because I felt that the design made her look part of a superhero team (much like Marvel's Avengers) and be given a mission briefing for the assignment to be carried out. To prove that she can fly fast, she would fly from Bedford area (where the ITMA is based) towards the destination that is quite far up north (Manchester or Newcastle length). The final screen would then show the ITMA characters and conclude.
Feedback from ITMA
I had successfully pitched these ideas to the ITMA and the following illustrated their thoughts.
They loved the idea of the characters with one resembling Mr Incredible and the other being female to equalize the gender. I had negotiated with making the advert be as little as a minute to as long as one and a half minutes and also for them to come up with a script for narrating the animatic and the animation.
Feedback from my group
I had done two feedback sessions with my group, one before showing my pitch to the ITMA and one before beginning production of the animation.
The first concept pitch and storyboard felt that it wasn't going to be a good pitch to do. The comments were that the ITMA Man's first concept looked sinister and less like a Superhero and that the ITMA girl's proportions didn't fit the description of her power. To this I felt that this pitch was unsuccessful but I had received feedback from my group for what to do before pitching to the ITMA a week later.
The second pitch, including the redesigned characters and the animatic of the animation was very successful. They had enjoyed what I was going to be producing and were grateful that I took their advice to redesign the characters on board. They could see that the animatic coupled with the script definitely helped to illustrate the story.
Note: These are only two of each example for both superheroes. To view the rest, please read the concepts blog.
ITMA Man Concepts
The general idea for the ITMA man was to base it off of Pixar's Mr Incredible as he wore a red suit with a black mask, black gloves, black pants and black boots. Following up with this idea I had made the first concept as seen below.
The "improvement" idea I came up with next was to improve on the posture. I had considered to replicate Mr Incredible's look as it felt the most suitable. I had also missed out on the fact that I needed to incorporate the ITMA's logo into these concept designs. I had emphasized the chin as the typical super man look consisted of a square face with a big chin. Prior to this, the concept then reminded me of Butch Hartman's design of a superhero called The Crimson Chin (obviously not making the chin as big as his!).ITMA Girl concepts
Thinking more of the concepts for the ITMA girl, I had thought of DC's Super Girl and Batgirl to help me make designs for the ITMA girl.
This first design was based off of my imagination of what the ITMA girl would look like. Supposedly, I had thought about Super Girl's concept for the figure and the head based off of Dexter's Mom from Dexter's Laboratory as at the time, I felt that she could be a Mom character, looking after not only her family but also the IT marketing world's problems with care. Even though I felt that this design was good, I felt that I needed to make a second and get people's feedback.
Storyboard
Feedback from ITMA
I had successfully pitched these ideas to the ITMA and the following illustrated their thoughts.
They loved the idea of the characters with one resembling Mr Incredible and the other being female to equalize the gender. I had negotiated with making the advert be as little as a minute to as long as one and a half minutes and also for them to come up with a script for narrating the animatic and the animation.
Feedback from my group
I had done two feedback sessions with my group, one before showing my pitch to the ITMA and one before beginning production of the animation.
The first concept pitch and storyboard felt that it wasn't going to be a good pitch to do. The comments were that the ITMA Man's first concept looked sinister and less like a Superhero and that the ITMA girl's proportions didn't fit the description of her power. To this I felt that this pitch was unsuccessful but I had received feedback from my group for what to do before pitching to the ITMA a week later.
The second pitch, including the redesigned characters and the animatic of the animation was very successful. They had enjoyed what I was going to be producing and were grateful that I took their advice to redesign the characters on board. They could see that the animatic coupled with the script definitely helped to illustrate the story.
FMP Blog post 1: The project
For my Final Major Project (FMP), I had chosen to do a project for a IT company called the IT Marketing Agency (ITMA) which was to do an advertisement based on superheroes. It was dubbed as The Superheroes of Marketing.
The idea
The company wanted an advertisement for their company to help them get their name out across the UK. This was to include five superhero powers that would affect the IT marketing world in helping to boost individual IT companies.
I had co-operated with one of their members to ask if it was fine to focus on two of the superpowers as, most importantly, it would concentrate more on the concept designs and the actual production.
Out of the five, I chose to do Super Strength and Power of Flight as I felt that these two represented the ITMA the most.
Below are what the ITMA had described the superpowers and defined as to what they do for the IT marketing world.
Super Strength
"Focus on the power of content marketing through a mutli channel approach and also work in how we work with companies to focus on ensuring sales and marketing alignment to create the strength to overcome the challenges."
My definition of this was that it was a super strong man called the ITMA Man would have the strength to help out IT marketing companies in sales and marketing by creating the strength to overcome all the challenges that they would face without their help. The ITMA Man would activate something called the channel powers which include the use of social media (like Facebook and Twitter), tablets, phones, computers and posters, meaning a multitude of ways to contact other IT marketing companies.
Power of Flight
"This will focus on how to execute brilliantly with social and outbound marketing included tips to split test and ensure the marketing message reaches the destination without hindrance."
My definition was to create a slender woman called the ITMA Girl who would fly around at lightning fast speeds to help make sure the marketing message reaches those who need it without any problems at all. She would also carry split tests for the companies in helping choose the right tactic for that company to use in helping them.
The idea
The company wanted an advertisement for their company to help them get their name out across the UK. This was to include five superhero powers that would affect the IT marketing world in helping to boost individual IT companies.
I had co-operated with one of their members to ask if it was fine to focus on two of the superpowers as, most importantly, it would concentrate more on the concept designs and the actual production.
Out of the five, I chose to do Super Strength and Power of Flight as I felt that these two represented the ITMA the most.
Below are what the ITMA had described the superpowers and defined as to what they do for the IT marketing world.
Super Strength
"Focus on the power of content marketing through a mutli channel approach and also work in how we work with companies to focus on ensuring sales and marketing alignment to create the strength to overcome the challenges."
My definition of this was that it was a super strong man called the ITMA Man would have the strength to help out IT marketing companies in sales and marketing by creating the strength to overcome all the challenges that they would face without their help. The ITMA Man would activate something called the channel powers which include the use of social media (like Facebook and Twitter), tablets, phones, computers and posters, meaning a multitude of ways to contact other IT marketing companies.
Power of Flight
"This will focus on how to execute brilliantly with social and outbound marketing included tips to split test and ensure the marketing message reaches the destination without hindrance."
My definition was to create a slender woman called the ITMA Girl who would fly around at lightning fast speeds to help make sure the marketing message reaches those who need it without any problems at all. She would also carry split tests for the companies in helping choose the right tactic for that company to use in helping them.
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