After the process of creating an animatic I made several changes from what my original storyboard was. My initial thoughts were to have my main character grow up through three stages of life. Then I thought that the main character should knock on the door three times. I thought the threes were a good consistent number to use through out my animation. Since the door knocking seemed to take up a great deal of time, so I decided not to include the middle life stage.
This was the awkward teenage stage that everyone has. I thought it was less vital, but then after creating the animatic it seemed as though the door knocking seemed to be the wrong focus. I then decided to create the teenage character and reduce the length of the door knocking scene. I tried to stick with the reds, pinks and blacks to unify the characters, so that it was clear that it was one person. Plus I knew that my teenage-self needed to being wearing a lot of eyeliner, lipstick and have bright coloured highlights. I didn’t always look like that, but I think it was a good representation of my “rebellious” stage.
Next came the door scene. I initially was unsure if I should create actual props for my animation. I decided that I would try. I created a door, sign, letter and envelope so that the characters could completely interact with them. I created the door out of cardboard and drew the wood grain on a piece of paper to show make it seem like a large castle door. The real props brought with them some struggles in lighting. I’m pretty sure I used every single light in my flat. I think that the use of real props enhanced the real feel of animation.
The last final change was that I initially had the main character walk down the hill in the rain. I thought if I did something quirkier it would increase interest in the video. I decided it would be funny for the character to roll down the hill. After getting some much needed input I thought that the character falling towards the camera would add to the humour I’m attempting to evoke.
I was saving the rolling till the end, because I was nervous to ruin the figure I had created. I thought that the best thing to do was to create a small version of my figure and make that do the rolling scenes. My figure was much smaller and without wires, so that the body was more bendable. It was obviously less detailed and less attractive. The decision proved useful and the rolling was much easier.
Just a little sKATterbrained. 