On Going | Animation Of Trov

This is the first part of my animation which I have named “Fraser” after the character’s name and I’m actually really proud of it. It includes the first scene and the title card which I made in Animate and edited in Premiere Pro, the animation itself is very simple but I think that it it does have a macabre/drab atmosphere which I think sets the scene well for the rest of the animation.

Considering I had to use the mouse for quite a lot of this I actually think I did quite well and made a nice product.

I think I might be able to make the character himself move more and perhaps add something else when it comes up with the title card to add more life and character to the animation. I do think that the simple sound design works well though.

From this scene I will transition into the second scene with an alarm clock sound and fade into the character laying in the bed and a zoom in on the clock and sitting up in bed after having a nightmare and turning the alarm clock off.

Something I am worried about is how I will transition and if I am making the animation look too hand drawn and scratchy and if this will detract from the final animation.

However, considering the simplicity of the animation, I do think that some more editing within Premiere Pro, such as adding some more effects and more to look at will help grab the viewer's attention more so than just having an image in the middle of the screen. A worry I have is that this simple opening could bore people as there isn't much visually to actually keep their attention. The main aspect of my animation that I am relying on to keep the viewer interested is the mystery that comes with not knowing what the animation is about and hoping that this intrigue will be enough to keep them watching. March 26th 2019

This is the second scene of Fraser, which is going to lead on from the opening, I am really happy with how it turned out, considering I used the mouse again. I did have knowledge of the smoothing function on animate at this point though. Which meant that I didn't have to rely on slowly using the mouse as much as the lines were virtually drawn really cleanly for me and I just moved them into the position that I wanted.

I really think this section helps to create a drab/ unnerving atmosphere as there is not much happening in the scene except for the alarm going off, which is a common occurance in people's lives. So by animating something familliar, I am hoping to reach into that uncanny valley range which makes things seem creepy even if they are not necessarily creepy in concept.

Moreover, I think that the unnatural looking arm that reaches up to turn off the clock could make people unnerved as it is something that looks strange and like it shouldn't be there in the scene. In this part of the animation, I am using dream logic to my advantage, which is where unnatural things happen in normal places.

I further exentuate this in the moment when the water bottle falls down for no reason. This is again dream logic because strange things are just happening, hopefully this would give a feel of unease or an uncomfortable air to the animation.

Furthermore, I'm actually really proud of how I animated the water droplet falling down. I think it looks smooth and the way it slides down the table gives a nice contrast in colour in my opinion.

Problems I faced was actually making the scene seem alive, beforehand it was just the clock moving whcih I think looked quite bland so I added the outline effect that I used in the opening to the table and this effect was something that I adopted throughout the rest of my animation, which made the rest of the animation actually look alive and the unnatural movements help to create an uncomfortable atmosphere to the animation.

I do think I could make this section look better however by perhaps making it look more cinematic through editing in premiere pro, I could do this by perhaps adding a vignette effect to add dramtics to the animation or black bars at the top and bottom to just make the animation look more cinematic overall.

I also think I could add noise and grain to the animation, this could make the animation look more purposefully messy, which is the type of style that I am going for. However, this messy style may turn away some people that would've watched my animation as they may see it as me not caring about how the animation looks or they may not like the aesthetic itself but were interested by the subject matter.

However, I would rather create something that I like making and am happy doing than make something that only appeals to other people; and by making something I am happy with this will help me create a better product overall as I actually enjoyed what I was making. April 1st 2019

This is the first and second parts of “Fraser” edited together in Premiere Pro.

I’m actually really happy with it. I tried to make it look a little bit more cinematic by adding the black bars, a slight vignette and a filter to try and make it look a little bit darker to help create a somber mood I am going for.

I think the sound effects that I have chosen and the droning sound really aid in creating a sense of emptiness and an uncomfortable feeling when watching the animation.

Considering I am not the best at using Animate even though I have improved a lot in using it I think that you can see what is going on clearly and it doesn’t get too confusing.

This is good because I want the story to be slightly confusing and not told to you clearly and this will compliment the messy drawings that make up my animation.

In the editing I forgot to add grain to the video so I might do that but I don’t think it matters too much; it just makes it look a little bit nicer in my opinion. Moreover, I didn’t add posters into the background because I want to keep the majority of the animation simple and I don’t think that it was too necessary because if I added it it might have made the animation look to cluttered.

I did test this theory by adding something in the background and it did make the scene look a little bit too cluttered so I didn’t add anything in the background.

Overall I am very happy with how this is turning out so far and I hope to improve it further when I do more of the animation.

I am very happy with how I edited these scenes together and I think that the minimalist sound effects actually work well and the lack of music helps to make the animation seem more creepy than it actually is as the animation is partially silent and silence can be seen as unnerving as it makes you anticipate a sound to come which builds tension in the animation.

The hardest part of putting these scenes together was actually editing the parts together to make them link together smoothly with the sound as well. This was difficult because there was a shift in the sounds used and I had to sort of gradually change it and smooth the scenes together so the change isn't too jarring for the viewer. Alternatively, a jarring change in the context of the feeling of my video being unnerving could become an asset in itself.

A jarring change could shake the viewer and sort of make them expect the unexpected in my animation. So if I set this precedent early this could set up for more unsettling events to come. April 2nd 2019

This is an updated version of the first and second parts of Fraser that I am very confident that I have finished editing together, I’m actually really proud of it because I think it looks good and I didn’t think I’d actually be able to make something that wasn’t a complete mess. I think the sounds work well with the images to create a sort of oppressive and tense feel.

Secondly; I have added more effects to the animation, such as noise and a heavier vignette effect to create a more claustrophobic feel to the animation, I think that if I keep on going down a claustrophobic route this will help me to incorporate my chosen theme of mental corrosion/erosion as this phobia can be very debilitating to a person so if I incorporate things that can affect a person mentally I think this will be a good path to follow for my animation.

Moreover, I could have done things better at the end. I could have created a better transition to link to the next scene that I am going to show, However I think that I am just going to have a black screen with sound before I suddenly cut to a still of the next scene and then the animation starts after a couple of seconds or maybe even one second.

Another thing that I am worried about is that I am getting rid of the water dripping down the table at the end. This isn't animation breaking it's just a thing that I think is a bit annoying. This comment is mostly a nit-pick and just something I would have liked to keep in. However I do think the change to the video sort of "breaking" or "distorting" is a good choice.

This is because I want to break the fourth wall slightly and I want the ending of my animation as a whole to be fourth all breaking and hint that "Fraser" may be talking to the viewer directly. I don't know how I'm going to do this yet but this is something that I'm planning.

The animation "breaking" or "distorting" could also link into my theme of mental corrosion/erosion which is good because so far I think I have somewhat neglected showing my theme in my animation. April 23rd 2019 (After Half Term)

This is an updated version of “Fraser” that I have edited together, I have started to incorporate the limited/simple story into the animation. I am actually really happy with it because I think that it looks nicely done and fits the style I am going for and I think the sound effects lend themselves nicely to the mood I want to create.

I have also had confirmation from friends that so far the animation is quite unsettling but not scary and that is exactly the effect I want my animation to have.

I did have more added on the end, which consisted of words on the screen but I realised that this would take to long to realise fully and it also is a little bit boring with just words on the screen and nothing else to look at.

I have kept the animation itself simple but enhanced it by editing it more on Premiere Pro than I did in previous iterations.

I did this because I am more proficient at editing than I am at animating so I have edited the animation more to create an unsettling feel and zoom in on pieces of the animation to give a sort of erratic feel to the animation.

Moreover, there are a few visual errors, such as the hand being present when it shouldn't, however, I'm not sure why the hand is still there or more precisely, I'm unsure on how to remove it because I don't know what layer it is on and I've went through all of the layers and I wasn't able to rub it out, so that meant I would have to delete layers until the hand went away and I didn't want to draw many parts of the animation so I just decided on leaving the hand there. I'm aware it's not ideal but I did this out of ease of actually finishing the animation.

Furthermore at a push, the hand still being there could add to the dreamlike logic I am using in my animation but this isn't very realistic I think. April 30th 2019

This is pretty much the finished version of “Fraser” with all the parts I want to be in it incorporated how I would like. The animation is very simple but I enhanced it with the editing and I think that I succeeded in creating a tense atmosphere.

The movements are a bit out of time with the music and this is because in Animate when you are scrubbing through the audio the quality is extremely bad so when I was trying to animate to the music in the last section I was kind of guessing when to make the movements but I think that I go it close enough to create an illusion that the character is moving along to the music.

In the animation itself though I am very happy that I actually created something that I am proud of; which in turn I think helped me to create a better animation overall.

Moreover, I am happy with the effects that I put into the animation like the shadows and the blur effects that I figured out how to put in after a while of experimenting with functions in animate.

In the final animation, I ended up telling a very disjointed story instead of a clear cut story, this may leave it open to make more “Fraser” animations in the future if I so wish and eventually improve how I animate.

Furthermore, I strayed away from the theme of corruption that I was originally intending to do and went along more the lines of mental erosion as a lot of the images I show seem to be nonsensical but if I am going to create more “Fraser” animations I am going to expand the story that I have started to create.

I suppose mental erosion could also be seen as corrosion in a way.

Either way, I don’t think that I have made my animation linked closely enough to my chosen theme and in the future I need to stick more close to my theme or pick an easier theme to realise in an animation.

However, with the ending bit of the animation, I am heavily thinking about changing it. This is because I think the ending of the animation is very disjointed from the rest of the animation and in the context of my animation this isn't necessarily a bad thing as I want the story to be quite confusing and you sort of piece together what happens to Fraser. However, I feel like this ending where Fraser moves along to the music almost has no relevance to the story.

I think I may have done this because I didn't think I could add any more and I focused too much on my inspiration of the "Hypnotic (Meme)" animation videos and I took too much for it and tried to create my own version. However, after conversing with peers and my teacher I realised that I want to do something much more original and not follow what other people have done.

So this is why I'm thinking of creating a different ending to Fraser and an ending card saying that it was made by me; sort of like a credits scene but a lot shorter. Moreover, I felt like the ending was a lot too jolly for my animation and took away from the atmosphere that I was creating the whole time so my whole animation seemed like it was a waste and that is not what I want my animation to be.

Secondly, the ending where the audio stops and it's just realistic eyes on a character is completely not an original idea. It is from the video "Hypnotic // meme (creepy)" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVm6gDK9gIQ which was created by "Lovely Lauren" on Youtube on April 30th 2018.

So this is why I want to change the ending, this is because you should be inspired by other peoples' work and change it to fit your own projects, not just use other people's ideas as if they were your own. Also that ending is a cop out and I feel it makes my animation look unfinished and that I couldn't really be bothered to create my own original ending.

May 3rd 2019

This is an improved ending of my animation. It consists of eyes opening and a light source slowly getting brighter and larger to create a sense of tension. I have done this to hopefully add more to the narrative of my animation as the story/narrative are things that I think my animation may be lacking in.

I am very happy with how I achieved this though as I think the animation in this section is quite smooth and I have been assisted in tweening movements by one of my peers; George, tweening means to gradually move an object a certain amount in a selected amount if time. Before I knew this I was going frame by frame and moving the object where I wanted it. Admittedly, this could give more accurate movements of where you actually want your object to go in a specific place however this was very time consuming.

So by learning how to tween this saved me a lot of time and this let me focus on actually making my animation look more clean. I do think that this section of my animation does look the nicest. This is because I took more time to perfect the drawings and make them look nice while still being in my chosen animation style.

What I learn from this is that I should probably have taken more time to make my animation look cleaner and nicer to look at.

I wanted my animation to be distinctive and I do think that I achieved that but this doesn't mean that I need my animation to look messy, which is what I was originally going for. I don't think it being this detracted from my animation but looking back at it; I should have taken more care in the actual drawings my animations feature while still keeping it in my animation style. I have proved that I am able to this with this eye scene, so I am just slightly annoyed that I didn't realise I should have done this earlier but this is something I know I should do for any future animations.

I was inspired by a part in “Peewee’s Big Adventure” where he is stuck in the woods and is surrounded by animals but I put my own spin on it; where you never see what Fraser is actually surrounded by to create a sense of unease and mystery. May 13th 2019

I have made more additional parts to include onto the end of Fraser. I have made this section to try and break the fourth wall, by actively speaking to the viewer through Fraser and the video literally being ripped apart. I have done this because breaking the fourth wall is something I wanted to incorporate in my animation from the beginning.

This is because breaking the fourth wall is something that someone can do to disturb the viewer that has the most impact and can leave the most lasting impression.

However, I did this in a way as to not to scare the audience but to make them think and leave them remembering the animation that they have just seen. I think this is a lot better than my previous attempts at an ending where I just do a cop out ending and make my animation into sort of a meme which is something I am very grateful for that I didn't do.

I am also very happy with how I animated this part of the animation, I think that I animated it very cleanly. However I do think that the background doesn't really need to be there. After watching it through a couple of times I do think that it may be too much visual information for the audience and if I kept the video with just the video being broken.

Alternatively, I could have made the arms more visual by coloring them in or making them a different colour entirely, and this is because it can be sort of hard to see what is actually ripping through the video. So if I made the arms more visible this kind of problem wouldn't be there in the first place.

Moreover, if the arms are supposed to be ripping through the video, I should have made it more obvious that they are essentially a separate entity to the animation. I could have done this by making them go over the other elements/objects in the animation; which would illustrate that the arms are supposed to be of something that is not part of the animation but instead ripping apart the animation and finishing it.

Overall, if I disregard the things I could have improved, I think that I animated this section of the animation quite well and have achieved a respectable ending that is much better than the original ending. May 20th 2019