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WWF Animation 2013

Jamie Price UOP Animation 

2013-2014

Hello and welcome to the production blog for my WWF animated advert/short film. 

Today we had a meeting to discuss what organisation we were going to choose for our final project out of the below list: Angel poise Lamps, Amnesty International and WWF. I decided to chose WWF, I felt that I would have a greater connection with this subject as I have a great passion for animal life and the natural world.

My film is about poaching of the mountain gorillas in the congo jungle and how our help can effect the life of these innocent creatures. It will show the struggle of the soon to be endangered species with the human race and so you should expect the final product to be emotional and hopefully it will have an impact on all viewers making them want to take action and save this beautiful creature.

The brief overview of the story is:

In a quiet part of the congo jungle lives a family of gorillas, unfortunately a poacher finds their habitat and decides to fly to the location in his helicopter, the poacher lands with gun in hand bringing a trail of darkness and sorrow to the surrounding jungle and heads to the direction of the family, he lines his gun up and prepares to shoot….

FINAL ANIMATION FOR WWF PROJECT

Please click on the below video and choose the HD option in the video settings to watch the animation in its best quality.

As you can see there aren't as many changes as planned previously as my other project has been taking up most of my time, you can see this project by clicking on The Treehouse at the top of this page. 

The only scene that I have worked on is the final scene with the panda roar, as you will be able to see I have extended the roar and made the pandas mouth engulf the entire screen into a black out to have more of an impact.

Remember you can message me via the contact section at the top of this page, so if you have any feedback then please let me know your thoughts and opinions about my work.

VIMEO LINK

FinalWWFAnimation from Jamie Price on Vimeo.

Project Proposal 

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WWF Animation Proposal 2013

Overview:

My objectives for this particular animation are: to get the intended message across, to keep the audience captivated and entertained and to also allow the viewers to find an urge to want to protect wildlife and the environment and see what we, as humans do that effect the world.    

My aim is to produce an animation that focuses on the worlds most endangered forest/jungle species and use fine art to bring them to life on screen. The main characters that I want to use for this animation are mountain gorillas (one of the most endangered species in the world, with only 880 left in the wild) and a poacher. There are many animal welfare adverts that are shown on TV and I find them to always be very depressing and upsetting, however, they do get the message across.

I would like to take the depressing element out of the advert and make the overall animation fun but serious and get the same reactions from audiences that the current adverts get. This should hopefully allow younger audiences 3+ and adults to connect with the characters and remember the message of the topic in hand as well as the animation.

STORY:

The story is about a family of mountain gorillas thriving in the dense jungle, when out of the blue a poacher fly’s overhead in his helicopter before hovering and coming down to earth on his rope ladder, in panic the family runs away but forgets one of their infants. Like a rabbit in the headlights, cute and big eyed the infant’s emotion is shown to the audience, as it looks at the poacher a rumble can be heard in the very far distance, (just like distant thunder) slightly distracted the poacher aims his gun toward the infant to dart it, again the rumble is heard but much closer this time, rustling in the trees can also be heard until all becomes silent, and the gentle thuds of paws and hands start and various jungle creatures come out of the depths of the foliage accompanied by the jungle god. As the infant retreats back to his family, a ring of creatures surrounds the poacher and begins to enclose.

Trembling in fear the poacher raises his hands in surrender and a huge gorilla snatches the gun from his clutches. As the gorilla falls back into formation he aims the gun at the poacher and darts him. Falling to the floor passed out, bum high in the air and face in the dirt the surrounding animals place the poacher in the cage which he landed with, tie him to the helicopter’s winch and send him on his way out of the area as fast as possible into the sunset.

What I MUST include in the animation for the viewing audience:

·       WWF Logo (Clear and crisp)

·       WWF Web Address (Clear to read)

·       Statistics throughout the animation

·       Relevant Info throughout the animation

·       Strong Message

What I MUST remember to include in my animation’s pre production:

·      Character drawings, sketches and finalised drawings including turnaround drawings and proportions.

·      Character height chart (look at real life average heights)

·      Backgrounds

·      Concept Sketches and art

·      Models of animals and their character forms

·      Fully Animated walk cycles of all or main characters

Animation Guidelines:

·       Animation MUST be at least 1 minute long

·       Must be accompanied by story board and animatic

The animation will be completed using the 2D technique as I want to go into this area of animation in the near future and I also want to develop my drawing skills and gain a better understanding in producing 2D animation for industry. I also want to use 2D animation as I feel that it gives the whole animation a natural aesthetic that will suite the projects theme.

Presentation for animation:

8^th October, Initial development sketches, Timetable, breakdown of shots etc.

22^nd October, Animation Tests, character facial expressions

26^th November, Final Animation

I will be using a light box to produce the initial animation, I will then be using Illustrator to clean up the lines and make the characters a lot clearer and ready to be edited in after effects or premier pro.

I will be working on this project independently.

I aim to have this project completed by December 14^th ready to be handed in on 7^st Jan 2014

End

Jamie Price                               University of Portsmouth                             BA (HONS) Animation

WWF Research Portfolio 2013

To develop my idea, (which can be found in the project proposal sheet) and broaden my knowledge about WWF, I thought that the best place to begin my research would be looking at the WWF website itself (www.wwf.org.uk) as on here there is a variety of information about certain species of animal and what people can do to help each animal.

One way in particular that the WWF can help fund each of its charities is via the help of the general public. Donations can be given ranging from £10-£50+, there is then information about what each donation does to help each cause. Another key element to the website is its catchy headings, which are both thought provoking and meaningful, one of their main headings is:

“For A Future Where People And Nature Thrive”

It is clear to me that in my animation I really need to think about what message I will be sending out to both receive the right reaction from audiences and allow the advert to have continuity.

From the adverts that are already used on the WWF website it seems to me that the audience may get tired of the familiar advertising structure that is currently used and therefore be unreceptive to the appeal that is being made by the WWF.  I feel that the adverts are not visually captivating and whilst showing real-life scenes have an almost tedious structure to them.  The ads are quite slow and are usually just footage of the animals in their natural habitat accompanied by classical/chilled music. In the current day and age this type of promotion may not appeal to the mass market, as there may not be the required connection between the viewer and the advert to facilitate the need to ring or visit the WWF’s web page to make a donation.

Development of my initial thoughts

From looking at the website, one animal in particular that caught my interest was the mountain gorilla. Living in central Africa this species of ape is currently under major threat of extinction. With only 880 left in the wild this creature will soon be wiped off the planet earth all because of inhumane and unnecessary human actions and will become a creature for us to tell our future generations about rather than something they can witness for themselves for many, many years to come.

My initial story can be found in the project proposal sheet, this explains in detail what I wish to include in my animation as well as a brief story outline.

The first aspect of my animation that I needed to complete was the creation of the characters that would feature in my short film. As my main characters are mountain gorillas and a poacher I thought I had better begin by looking at footage and images of the apes in the wild. I will also be paying close attention to the environment that the creatures live in so that I can produce some realistic backgrounds that will captivate the audience.

I will also have a look at some existing animations that use jungle foliage to get an understanding on what aspects stand out and what techniques are used to give certain effects.

I will include a list of websites, video, and image links at the end of this document as well as a variety of thumbnails of my own photography.

Looking through all of the various images and relevant sites on the Internet really sparked my creativity and my idea was slowly becoming clearer in my mind. From the images, I could see that the colour schemes for my environments would be mostly made up of greens, yellows, blues and browns, these colours are all very earthy and natural which will hopefully give my animation the same feel. I will need to pay close attention to the specific colours when producing my own backgrounds/sets.

Background Design

To gain a better understanding on how animators produce quality backgrounds that compliment their characters, I decided to have a look at some of Disney’s existing backgrounds for such films as Tarzan and Lilo and Stitch. I found out that their traditional backgrounds were produced using watercolours to give a washed out natural aesthetic. By having a softer background the characters were able to stand out a lot easier due to them being mostly coloured using ink or paint allowing the two different mediums to work well together and allow the characters to be the main focus while on screen. Below is an example of a Disney Background from Tarzan.

Swamp/Lake Background from Disney’s Tarzan

Bamboo background with characters in foreground

As you can see from the above images the effect that the technique has on the overall image gives a really soft natural aesthetic. Once the characters are placed into the scene the background gives a real depth to the overall picture and allows the audience to feel submerged in the fantasy world.

From looking at the characters it has also been evident that the less colours each character has the more appealing the character becomes as it prevents the animation from becoming over crowded with colour and also allows the audience to quickly identify each character’s form. With Tarzan in the previous image, he is purely made up of 3-4 colours 1.Peach/skin tone, 2.Brown, 3.Blue for eyes and 4.Black for darker areas.

This is a key element that I will have to consider with my animation, as I want my characters to be seen clearly. It will be fairly easy for me to accomplish this aim with the mountain gorillas as they are made up of deep greys, silvers and browns, however I will need to research more examples to decide how my poacher will look and what colours I should use to give the desired effect I want.

Another animation that I watched to give me some inspiration with natural backgrounds and foregrounds was Hayao Miyazaki’s, Princess Mononoke. This has a very different style to Tarzan and I feel that the characters are coloured so that they “fit in” with the backgrounds, where as Disney’s approach is to make the characters stand out as much as possible.

I really like the style of this particular animation as the whole movie feels natural and the characters seem more human-like. Below is an image of a forest scene from the Japanese film.

Notice how the character seems to be more immersed in the environment in which she has been placed due to similar colour schemes for both background and character.

I am drawn to this style and feel that this may be a great approach for my own short film as I feel that it enhances the natural elements of animation. As I have trained for most of my school life in fine art I feel that I will be able to put my skills to positive use when producing my own backgrounds and I would personally use several painting techniques to get my desired effect such as watercolour and sponge painting. Using these forms of paining technique I would have similar backgrounds to the four images above.

Character Design

When designing my characters I need to ensure that they have a likeability factor or a certain presence that will allow them to have a connection with the viewing audience. I had a look at some techniques that enable an animator to create a successful character using the Animator’s Survival Kit written by Richard Williams. There was one section in particular that I found very interesting which indicated that a key to designing a successful character is to ensure that its negative space still enables the viewer to easily recognise it. Below is an example of a character’s negative space:

This image is clearly a silhouette of the Simpson family, as the characters are so iconic it allows you as a viewer to clearly and quickly identify who the subjects are. This is an excellent example of how successful characters can be recognised in their most basic of forms.

When producing my initial designs I need to ensure that my characters are easily recognisable and I will complete a variety of these silhouettes to experiment with my ideas.

I also found a website that went into some further details about character design and the first major topic that comes up is, the construction and functionality of a character.

(http://johnkstuff.blogspot.co.uk/2007/08/character-design-primer.html)

It states that having a design that is made up of an easily understandable form will mean that the final character may be more successful than an oddly proportioned character. This is why the Simpsons, Mickey Mouse etc. are so successful as their forms are made of very few circles and lines. As well as these features there are a variety of other elements suggested on the website which should all be taken into consideration, but one in particular, personality, I believe will be essential for the characters in my animation as I want them to have individual personalities that allows the viewer to have an emotional reaction to the overall animation. Various other topics can be seen on the website linked above.

Research Of Mountain Gorillas and Environments In The Congo

As the Internet has such a vast array of images at our disposal I thought that I would have a look at some unedited images of the Congo Rainforest. The reason I looked at some unedited images was to see the real colours of the jungle. To get my drawn/painted backgrounds to look as realistic as possible I had to get the senses of the forest in my images, from the images these where the words that I felt best described what I was looking at. (Below are some images as well as the emotions, scents etc. that I got from looking at the images).

This image from National Geographic’s photography competition caught my eye as it makes me feel a variety of things, one in particular is the eeriness of the figures seeming lifeless but protective of the forest, accompanied by the deep green of the leaves the people stand out and can clearly be seen but their clothing seems to work in harmony with their surroundings. This colour scheme could be taken into consideration with the human characters in my animation.

Scents and feelings of this image:

Lush, Dense, Green, Enclosed, Mysterious, Wild, Dangerous, Unforgiving, Damp, Ancient, Humid, Warm, Abundant, Crisp, Unexplored, Secretive.

With theses words in mind I need to ensure that I can produce a background image that enables the audience to experience the same feelings from my animation.

Facts about mountain gorillas and why they are becoming extinct:

Humans kill mountain gorillas for their fur and body parts. Their fur is used to make handbags; coats etc. and their limbs are chopped off so they can be used for trophies and Chinese medicine. As well as poaching the main cause for the reduction in gorilla numbers is the devastating effects of deforestation, this is probably the most damaging cause of animal extinction because not only do the primates loose their habitats, all other creatures in the area do as well.

In my animation I could include a few animals that live in the same habitat as the gorillas to bring more life to the short film as well as raising some more awareness for the smaller creatures in life.

The key feature about these gorillas is that they share 98% of human genetics, which makes this animal one of the closest descendants of humans; they are also the largest of all primate species and share the same love and affection for their young as humans do. As previously mentioned, I want to get the emotion of the creatures across to the audience and by portraying love and affection, I feel would allow they viewer to be emotionally affected by the animation.

Whilst looking at the WWF webpage I came cross a section about plant life in the Congo, and discovered that this rainforest has the highest amount of plant species per square meter than anywhere else in the world. Below is a list of plants that I will use in my backgrounds to ensure that I produce real to life sets for my characters to be placed in.

Flowers and Foliage of the Congo rainforest:

Albizia                                   Lianas                                 Lobelia                            Nauclea

                                      

Epiphytes

One website I researched has a large variety of citrus plants and their corresponding names, to enable people to identify them. I will use a variety of plant species from this site in my own animation.

All of these images have been sourced using Google

The image that stood out the most to me and I had an immediate reaction to, was a photograph of Buttress Roots.

From these images I gained a new understanding about the foliage of the forest and I need to ensure I apply this into my own work.

From the research I have completed in this document I feel that I have a greater understanding and knowledge surrounding the topic I will be working on and how I can produce my final animation. I want it to stand out amongst other similar short films whilst having an impact on the viewers’ memory so that my work will be remembered and in doing so, I hope that in some small way I can make a lasting impact on the way people think and view the natural world and how by being proactive and donating to a worthy cause that change can be made.

Jamie Nathaniel Price                                University of Portsmouth                               BA HONS Animation

Animation Year 3 2013-2014