Monday 29 August 2011

Lifecycle of a Mushroom: Animatic 1

This is the first stab seeing how I can fit the scientific information into the boundaries that the music has set for me . Issues have arisen and horrendous graphics aside, it feels good to finally see how this animation might work in time based media.

All text, font and animation is placeholder. So if there are mistakes (like where it says basiodispores - urgh!!), don't worry. I'll triple, quadruple, quadriple check all my spelling and facts when the time comes. Basically this is mostly an exercise for myself to see how the animation breaks down, nothing is set in stone.

When text appears in the final animation it will be integrated into the scene. The transition to a new scene will be much more seamless, rather than the hard cuts here.



First things I notice straight away:

Intro text lingers for too long,

The karyogamy and meiosis scene goes on for much too long. This is the biggest problem with the whole animation. It will be relieved slightly when I add start adding some dynamic animationa, camera moves and editing. But wont be fixed completely. Need to work on a solution for this.

I feel like the pace is working well and the amount of information feels suitably meaty. When I start integrating the text it'll open up plenty of scope for including lots of scientific goodies. Heavy on content when all is said and done.

2 comments:

  1. Hey Tom,

    Great to see thing and in broad terms it's working charmingly; I love the nods to early animation with the repeated movement cycles and 'bounce, bounce, bounce' - and similarly, some of the prolonged sequences just feel part of this tradition and I'm confident anyway that you'll find suitable and engaging ways by which to keep your audience from drifting. Obviously, in terms of the rules of the pastiche, that front-on style is perfect, but it just seemed to me when you told the audience about the 'rings of mushrooms' that somehow this scene could show the ring itself - maybe as an ariel view of the bouncing mushrooms or, maybe even with a nod to the routines of celebrated choreographer Busby Berkeley? Indeed, 'a touch of Busby' maybe what you need to enliven some of those reproduction scenes - a sense of bringing 'patterns' out of the organic and also showing the scale of the process?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIO9y1xMPIA
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akET7aP01_8&feature=related
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1B3z2ImFH4&feature=related
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNW-AzZdBRU&feature=related

    Disney pastiched Berkeley's style in the wonderful 'Be Our Guest' number from Beauty & The Beast - wherein it segues nicely from three-dimensional animation to 2d graphical style:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_h3Cvs1caeA

    You might want to look at the big musical sequences from swimming superstar Esther Williams too - though I've struggled to find anything that's not a lame fanboy tribute...

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riJPHfQJ6r0&feature=related

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  2. Hi Tom,

    I just had a look at your pitch and.... at first I thought that combining your jazz-theme with the growth of a mushroom - this cannot possibly work. No way!!! but then I watched your animatic, I was very surprised to find that it DOES work. It shouldn't, but it does. I agree that the karyogamy and meiosis scenes are far too long (in meiosis you only have two divisions, which produces 4 cells), however, the text scenes are far too short. Maybe you can adjust the timing and then you have a fantastic animation. One thing you might wan to experiment with (and I don't know, whether this is technically possible) is to make the animation look 'old', with some specs and a bit more flickering in it. At the moment, you have a beautiful 'old' style of scenery, which matches perfectly the soundtrack. But the film looks too modern. I am not sure, if I can express myself correctly here, but when you look at the haunted house it indeed looks like an 'old' film.
    Whatever you did with this project - it just works (and it shouldn't), so great job. Show me more!!!!!!!!!

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