The last shot I need to complete for this week is shot 9, which technically confronts me with more issues than before. Due to the fact that this will be the most ‘skilful’ performance I will be animating, I had many thoughts and considerations about how I would display this.
Shot 9
A key part of this shot again was the limbs detaching in the air and re-attaching upon landing. I also had to plan exactly what dance inspiration I wanted for the rest of the shot, as it had to display the most technical skill narratively. Looking further into ballet dance, I thought that a key associative dance move was the pirouette.
Watching the reference video below, I tried to recreate this with my character, however, came across several difficulties. The main issue I had was getting the timing of the spin correct which also coincided with my stylised animated method. The second issue was that It did not allow for dynamic staging, and I struggled to plan the motion around and ‘trapdoor’. This leads me to consider things similar to ballet that demonstrate associations with flexibility and skill, and I began researching gymnastics.
In order to get this look of flexibility, I decided that for staging and comedic purposes, I thought it would be good to make the character do the splits over the trapdoor, and fall in, allowing time for anticipation and comedic initial defiance of gravity (much like in looney tunes). Looking at the image below, I noticed that gymnastics athletes fall into this position with very gracefully and well-controlled steps, so translating this onto my animation I tried to exaggerate the finger-pointing and chin lift to demonstrate that he is proud of his technical ability. However, Trying to keep the comedic element to the piece, I tried to include the earlier ‘Saturday night fever’ reference.
Below showcases my finalised animation for this shot in which I really tried to push for frame rate experimentation, as I animated on 1s to accentuate character fluidity, which is why this shot is my most ‘polished’ piece of animation. I used the same technique at the end to disassemble his body as I had previously in shot 8, however, had a more preconceived understanding of how it would work, which I believe made the process a lot fast and smoother. While technically I can pinpoint several issues with the animation itself, such as
Credit Song
Since I really wish to emanate an animated television show with my film, I decided to compose an end-credit song to coincide with the opening music. Since the film is over, I wanted to add a calmer toned-down piece, which is why the number of musical instruments is stripped. I used the same key and musical theme that has been present throughout the entire film, but slowed the tempo and added a glockenspiel, to give it a nursery rhyme association that is remensient of children’s bedtime stories, bidding the viewer fairwell.
Editing
During the stages of editing, I wanted to add extra text that references the fine print at the bottom of film trailers in the present day, but parody this by adding text such as ‘the skeleton men present’ to almost making fun of the format due to the obvious lack of studio presence in my work.
Initial Edit
Below indicated my first initial edit for the film (excluding the title card and end credits) and indicated several areas of improvement going forward. First is that I need to find a way to apply the black and white film filter options as previously explored, to the whole feature while retaining as much of the render quality and contrast as possible. I intend to do this but upping the temperature and tint, as it will bring forward the colours and contrast, making them more apparent with the black and white filter. Secondarily, I need to complete the start and end credits and add them alongside the film itself. I intend to make two copies of the film, one if black and white and one in colour so that the render quality can be retained in one and visual technologically contextual settings can be played with in the other.