First Walk Cycle

As the first part of the animation is a walk cycle, Amy walking towards the Teachers desk I thought I would just jump straight into animating, just for the first part and I'm going to block out the rest, I wanted to go into animating the walk cycle straight away, as I find it easier to get the correct timing on the walk. This is what I have so far, it's just the leg's animated, as I like to do bit by bit.

Posing the Characters

So I've started doing some of the initial poses for the characters, I've started with Tyler's first, which is him sitting at his desk not paying attention to his surrounding's I still need to add a some paper and a pencil for his props.

And a simple pose for the teacher because she's not really seen all that much until the end scene, so you'll occasionally see her sitting behind her desk and maybe pulling faces. So I've posed her to sit for most of the animation. Here's a quick render of the Teacher just below.

And this will be the opening shot, I've positioned the camera to do a long shot, so it introduces the environment. And in this shot we'll see the main character, Amy, walking towards the iPod dock on the Teacher's Desk.

Character Rig's

So I've chosen some rig's for my animation. I chose the eleven rig for the character of Amy and the Morpheus rig for the character of Tyler.

 And here's just some simple renders of the characters in the environment.

So that's Tyler at his desk and you can see the side of Amy. I haven't posed the characters yet.
I found these two rig's on the resource page on www.11secondclub.com

The last picture is of the rig I will be using as the Teacher, I found this rig on http://www.creativecrash.com/ and it's called the Mike and Tina Character Rig.

3D Environment

So I've been doing a bit of modelling in Autodesk Maya, So far I've got desk, chair's, blackboard and a few little objects. I am using my concept art and environment reference boards to model from. I am going to leave the texturing until I finish animating as animating will be the most time consuming process. But here's a screen grab from Maya of what I have so far.

So I've been building my 3D environment and adding in major thing's such as the Ipod and Ipod dock which the main character will be using to play the song. You can see the model in picture just below.

It's just a very basic model and I won't be adding textures until I've finished animating as that's more important since there's lots to do.









The Teachers chair.

Camera Angles

So I've been working out what camera angles I am going to use for animation. I have also noted down a rough guide of how many frames will be used in each scene. I am going to be using the standard 24 frames per second for my animation. Just below is a mock up of my camera angles.

Red Character: Amy
Blue Character: Tyler
Purple/Pink Character: The Teacher


First Scene, Amy standing in front of the teachers desk going to the iPod.

Second Scene, Close up of Amy pressing play on the iPod dock.

Third Scene, Amy dinging a triangle as the song ding's.

Fourth Scene, Amy singing and annoying Tyler while he's trying to not to notice.

Fifth Scene, Amy marching around Tyler's desk as the song play's "it's not a walk in the park".

Sixth Scene, is a side view of Amy scaring Tyler as she tries to touch his hands as the song play's 
"finger's interlock".

Seventh Scene, We see Amy singing at Tyler in front of the teachers desk as the song play's "Can't deny, can't deny, you're worth it".

Eighth Scene, We see Amy trying to touch Tyler's nose and he's trying to get away from her.

Ninth Scene, We see the Teacher's hand stopping the iPod from playing.

Tenth Scene, Then we see the teacher and she's letting Amy know that, that's enough.

Reference Video Key Poses

So I like to take screen shots of some of the poses from my reference videos, so I have the opportunity to look at my own drawings and what the actual reference pose looks like, so I can try and make my characters seem believable.

So below are some key poses I have taken and put in order on photoshop.

Key Poses Page#1

So these poses go with the first few lines of the song, which are

  "Can't count the years on one hand, That we've been together,
I need the other one to hold you,
Make..."

This second series of images from my reference videos is just a closer look at the first few lines of the song, so I can get a better feel for the poses of the two characters.








Key Poses Page#2

 And the lyric's on this page start from,

"you feel, make you feel better
It's not a walk in the park
To love each other
But when our fingers..."

Key Poses Page#3

"interlock,

Can't deny, can't deny you're worth it
'Cause after all this time"

Key Poses Page#4

And this is the last of the lyrics:

"I'm still into you"

Key Poses

So I've started drawing out some key poses for my animation, using my reference videos for inspiration. Below you can see the drawings I've done for my key poses so far.
Before the character 'Amy' actually ding's the triangle she doesn't have much movement, except taking a step towards the desk and clicking a button with her finger.

Page #1

So this is the after "Amy" has pressed play on the iPod dock. And she appear's in front of Tyler with a Triangle and hit's it to the sound of the ding at the at the start of the Paramore Song.





Page #2

 These Key Poses start from just after the ding at the start of the song. And these poses go all the way along with these lyrics "Can't count the years on one hand, that we've been together, I need the other one..."

So I just picked out the key poses from the reference videos and matched them up to the song words, so I can work out the frames before animating.




Page #3

These poses go along with these song words, "...one to hold you, make you feel better, it's not a walk in the park, to love each other..."

There's a few part's where I will have to look at in more detail such as, when she does a little march around the desk. Which I will do after I have drawn/planned out all the main key poses.

Page #4


And the lyrics for these key poses start at "...But when our fingers interlock, can't..."

for this one I am going to take print screens of the reference videos because I filmed at an angle and can't quite get the perspective right in my drawing. So I will add the film reference just below this image.





Page #5

so these key poses go with the lyric's "can't deny, can't deny, you're worth it, cause after all this time..."

I traced over these in photoshop with a graphics tablet, so I could easily transfer the poses onto a 3d rig when it comes to animating.





Page #6

And these key poses are for the very last song words in my animation, which are "I'm still into you".

Reference Videos

So before I can start animating, I like to record lots of reference so I can get a lot of different takes on how the characters might do a certain pose. So for my reference videos I asked my friends to be my actors, I explained the characters and showed them the basic storyboard and we went from there and my friends even improvised in the videos which was actually brilliant because they incorporated things which I would never have though of.

Reference Video#1



This was not the first reference video I took, we did take a few before filming the whole song I'm using in my animation. As you can see my friend, Louise, has incorporated some of the poses I put in my storyboards. But she also threw in a lot of her own moves such as pushing the other actors head and leaning right across the table when she tries to grab the actors hands and the little march instead of doing a skip around the desk.

Reference Video#2



So this reference video was to focus on the part where the song goes, "Can't deny, can't deny, you're worth it" as I wanted to get a good view of the hand motions, and it works really well with the song and the character.

Reference Video#4



Ignore my laugh at the start, but the video was to get a close up view on Louise essentially flicking or touching Conor's (actor) nose. I wanted this to be the creepiest part of the animation and I think this reference makes this clear.

I have more reference videos I just need to upload them all onto my YouTube page, which I will be doing later once I've started drawing out key poses, so I can then start animating.

Reference Video#5



So this is a reference video of what the teacher will be saying at the end of the song, which is "Thanks for that......performance, Amy!" I like the first one because it show's the teachers seeing a funny side to it but still saying no don't do that again.

Reference Video#6



So this is a reference video of myself dinging a fake triangle, just so I can get the poses and think about the way you would actually hold a triangle.

Classroom Set Up

So I've been looking at pictures of american classrooms, to get an idea of what my classroom scene should look like. So below is a few images I am going to use as reference to create my classroom in Autodesk Maya, All the images were taken from Google images and are for reference only.

Classroom Object Reference Board

So I just got a few pictures of what might be in the classroom, such as desks, chairs, books, apple, pencils, the iPod dock and iPod, chalk and erasers and waste paper bins. Just to help me out with the modelling side of the animation.








Classroom Refence

So I put a board together of what I what my classroom to look like and these are some of the classrooms I really liked and thought would work well in my animation. I wan't quite a small classroom as I'm only focusing on two characters throughout my animation. So maybe 12 desk's would be the right number for my classroom.







Plan of Classroom

I drew a a plan of my classroom, it's very rough at the moment but I'm still in the planning stage.
In the top left corner is a birds eye view of my classroom. Then I sketched out a few items such as desk, chair, window, teacher's desk, apple, iPod, iPod dock and book.

Concept Art

So I've been creating a bit of concept art for my only environment in the animation. Here's what I have so far, it's still a work in progress, I need to add a few things to the scene.

Rough Story Boards

So I've created a very, very rough storyboard, just to get an idea of what my animation will be like.
As you can see below:

So the first Panel, is the establishing shot, so you can see the girl, Amy, standing facing the teachers desk about to play a song on the iPod dock. You will also be able to see the blackboard behind which will have "Show & Tell" wrote on it.

Panel 2: Is a close up of Amy's hand pressing play on the Ipod ready to play the song (Paramore-Still into You)

On this page of my storyboard, we see Amy hitting a triangle at the start of the song, as there's a very distinctive ding at the start. Then she appears behind Tyler at his desk, and start's singing over the song to him, and doing creepy things such as hugging him, singing in his ear and skipping around him. Then we see her at the bottom right of the page signing a heart to him when the song say's "To Love each other"





And on the final page we have Amy trying to touch Tyler's hands when the song say's "But when our fingers interlock"

Then we have her take a step back and have her shake her finger to "Can't deny, Can't deny" and then do a finger gun and a cheeky wink at

"You're worth it"
And then a watch action to "cause after all this time" and then she gets really up close and personal with Tyler and flicks his nose at the line "I'm still into you"

 and then we see a close up of someone's hand stopping the iPod. and then the camera zooms out to reveal the teacher stopped it, and then the teacher say's "Thanks for that......Amy" (the name was originally Louise but I changed it to Amy, as it was more fitting for the american school setting).

Intro

Hi There,

This is my informal blog about a short animation piece I'm currently working on.
I came up with the idea to make a short animation based on the song "Still Into You" by Paramore.



Every time I hear this song I always think, the song would be so much funnier if it was a crazy girl singing it to a boy she's not even dating. So that gave me the idea to make an animation of exactly that. I have set the animation in a classroom on a show & tell day, and the girl, Amy, decides her show & tell piece will be a song to her favourite boy, Tyler, but it turns out that this is just very creepy and the teacher stops it early by pressing stop on the iPod dock.

So I wrote some Character Descriptions, just to get in the mind set of them.

Let's start with the boy: Tyler

• He's Awkward.
• The girl, Amy makes him very uncomfortable.
• He's a quiet and polite boy.
• Very Smart.
• Loves science and astronomy.
• 11 years old.
• Nice to everyone he meets.
• Gets embarrassed very easily.
• Stargazes with his dad.
• Loves Animals
• Family oriented.
• Not much into sports, as he has two left feet.
• Enjoy's arts & crafts.
• Loves Big Bang Theory.

Now the Girl: Amy

• Very loud and outspoken.
• Has had a crush on Tyler since she first met him.
• Loves to be the centre of attention.
• Loves to Sing.
• Loves the female fronted music.
• Loves Dancing.
• Favourite mythical creature, Unicorn.
• Favourite singer, Ariana Grande.
• Her favourite day of school is "Talent Show Day"
• Loves Glee has watched every episode.
• Loves to take Selfies.
• Has 2 dog's named Zach & Cody.

The song lyric's that will be used in my animation, is the first 43 seconds of Paramore's Still into you song and they are:

Can't count the years on one hand
That we've been together
I need the other one to hold you
Make you feel, make you feel better

It's not a walk in the park
To love each other
But when our fingers interlock,
Can't deny, can't deny you're worth it
'Cause after all this time I'm still into you