Test GIF for animating frame by frame

This is my first test animation, which i made as a gif in Photoshop. I don't know if I will make the whole video frame by frame, so I thought I would test with a sketch animation.

Character designs

These are some of the characters that I am planning to make appear in my animation. They are humanoid, and I went with this character design for ease of drawing and to make the world they live in to seem like more of a fantasy world.

This is the main character I have designed. I have designed her to cover herself up with her hair/clothing a lot to make me come across as somebody who doesn't have confidence in their ideas, and keep everything to them self.

Other characters are mainly there to show the variety, and how the main character compares to the other. The other characters are all colourful, whilst the main character is a light grey, devoid of colour, more of a blank canvas.

Area where video is set

I have created an image of the two islands where the video is set. The one which is considered the 'goal' island is represented as being a nicer place to be than the other, which has dark clouds surrounding it etc. The islands represent the start and end of something, with the start being a struggle and the end being a feeling of relief.

A guide for animating characters in After Effects

http://provideocoalition.com/ryoung/story/animate_a_character_in_after_effects
This website provides several different ways of animating characters in After Effects.

The tutorials show how to import iamges from illustrator, showing how to layer the images so they can be animated, and how to change things like the anchor points on the characters so the limbs can move. I have found these videos helpful in thinking of how I am going to animate my final piece, as I am still undecided whether I should do it frame-by-frame or by separately animating pieces of the characters.

These are also tutorials for animating 3D models in After Effects, but I don't think I will be using 3D space in my animations.

Making my idea less literal

For my video, I was to make a story that could be more visually appealing than just someone trying to come up with an idea. I want to convey the message through a metaphor. My first thoughts are to make the video a metaphor for thinking up ideas, including the struggle to think them up and then the journey to getting to the finished product.

Taking the quote and forming a proposal

I have chosen to look at the quote by Susan Sontag.
“Do stuff. be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration's shove or society's kiss on your forehead. Pay attention. It's all about paying attention. attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. stay eager.”
From what I can gather from this quote, it is saying that we you just do what went, block out all distractions, pay full attention to what we are doing. When paying full attention to what we are doing, we can do whatever we set our minds to. So we should keeping doing stuff, do not wait for other people’s input, keep going ,and pay full attention to what we are doing. Pay attention and stay eager.

For my design, I am proposing to create a video, which would be fully animated. Taking the quote into consideration, the video could be about the struggles of coming up with ideas, and turning them into their own creations. A person, metaphorically, having inner struggles with their own ideas, constantly being distracted by their own thoughts and worries. The person eventually tries to clear their minds of these, and pays full attention to what they are trying to create, and eventually creates their best piece of work yet. The video could start with them scrapping many failed ideas, with many thoughts piling up in their head as they are throwing away the ideas. They eventually get a single idea, and put their full concentration on this idea, focusing and putting their fully attention on it, blocking out all thoughts. Whilst building up said idea, the background and overall artstyle of the video could go from dark, monochrome colours to eventually becoming and colourful, symbolising the “vitality” and “eager”ness of focusing on this idea and making it work. The animation does necessarily have to be about a person thinking of an idea, the video could merely be about the idea of focusing on something to get it done to a great standard.

The video itself will be animated in either Flash or After Effects, and I will be drawing all assets for this piece. As mentioned previously, the start of the video could use a dull colour palette which eventually changes to be vibrant and colourful to fit the mood of the video. I have chosen to use animation rather than video as animation allows for exaggerated expressions on characters

Looking at existing animations

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OumHY4gVgTg
This video is called 'Windmills' uses a mixure of 3D animation and detailed backgrounds, which look like they have been painted.

The detailed imagery used in the video is inpiring as I could create a similar effect using Photoshop brushes and textures.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URNlAFP1KPY
'A World of Thing' uses a much different art style, which would be more suitable for using Illustrator for creating the images. It uses a lot of shapes and 2D animation, which would be a simpler approach than drawing everything in a handpainted style.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMZQauWPzUU
 This video is similar to what I am creating, as it is an animation that seems to be based off of a quote. It is also created by an animation student, which gives me a kind of goal to reach with my own animation.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACHVwA1D8fE
Tarboy uses 2D animation, and mainly uses silhouettes during the animation. To contrast with the simple art style, there are also some realistic lighting effects used to make it look more dynamic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfkMLf05Ip4
 Taxi is an animation that was solely created in After Effects, and the animation style seems to be using assets created in other programs, and then creating the movement when editing in After Effects. For my video, I could pull off this style as I have some experience with it from past projects.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaLDyrun_Cc
http://webneel.com/video/seedling-beautiful-2d-animated-short-film
http://webneel.com/2d-animation-best

Independant Project Brief

"Students are asked to choose one of the quotes as a starting point, or to do an independent project totally of their own choice, and formulate a brief, indicating possible avenues they may wish to explore.

This is registered with the Course Leader and constitutes ‘Part One – Proposal’ form (300+ words + reading list), which must include a reading list submitted by you.

‘Part Two – Project Review’ (500 words) is submitted by the students at the end of the module. This review document is self-evaluative in nature and is intended as a tool for you to review the final projects’ intentions and conclusions, alongside all research work and the final project execution.

Both forms are included in the assessment criteria for this module."

From the beginning quotes, I have chosen:
“Do stuff. be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration's shove or society's kiss on your forehead. Pay attention. It's all about paying attention. attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. stay eager.” 
Susan Sontag