As part of Unit 1 we have been assigned a second year graduate film to work on. I was paired with Rosie, who is making a 2D animation about 2 mushrooms who ‘take’ humans and experience a psychedelic trip. I was nervous to be assigned a 2D project having become more comfortable with puppets as of late, but I was happy to see that Rosie’s style aligned with my abilities. The film will be drawn animation made in TV Paint.
When Rosie and I met to discuss my tasks she asked what I would like to do to which I said I was really keen to do some inbetweening since this is something I can see myself doing for a job. I realised this was ambitious as all of the graduate films are still in early stages of production, but I was fortunate enough to have Rosie prepare some key frames of the first scene for me. Because Rosie had to prepare this I had a late start to the work experience but I have every intention of finishing the work she has assigned to me.
I have done some inbetweening before in Photoshop so I have a little bit of experience in passing files back and forth. Rosie included everything I needed in the TV Paint document, such as movement notes, character turn arounds, colours and pen settings. Everything was very easy to find which meant I could quickly get started. Each character was colour coded with its own layer. I created new layers for my in-betweens.
The only thing I didn’t have which I was expecting was some timing charts, and there were some key frames which had large gaps between them. In these instances I used my initiative and animation knowledge that I have learned to draw frames where I felt they were right. I found that this took me a really long time. Looking back I think coming up with some of my own timing charts would have been very useful so I could avoid redoing frames. I haven’t yet finished working on this shot, and I have gotten about half way through tweening the guy on the right. Here is my assignment vs my work:
I think I have managed to get the movements right but there are definitely issues with timing. I tried to do a slow in for the jump but there are still too many frames and it looks a bit slow motion. I was trying to apply some follow through to the different body parts, which I think I achieved correctly with his head. I think I went a bit too overboard with his arms though and they need to come down much sooner on the landing. Rosie asked me to include an impact wobble when he lands which took me a while to work out but I am happy with what I did here. I got feedback from Rosie by sending her videos during different points in my work. The feedback I have so far is to speed everything up a bit.
I really enjoy inbetweening although it can be a bit frustrating at times! I have learnt a lot just by starting this project so I am really glad I got this opportunity. I am disappointed in how long the work is taking me after opening so much time on it, but hopefully the more I practice the easier it will get. I think the main thing that held me back was focussing so much on keeping my drawings consistent with Rosie’s. I have been taking a lot of time to make my lines neat and similar to the key frames when I should just roughly map out the movement first, otherwise I waste time neatening a frame I end up changing. I will try to do this when I pick this back up. I’m very thankful to Rosie for setting this shot up for me and she was really helpful along the way.