Rotoscoping Evaluation

This has been my favourite project to date; I have enjoyed every second of it! I have become a lot more confident with my ideas and ideas development that I have spent the right amount of time focusing on the end result rather than sat drawing in my sketchbook until I run out of time. I have enjoyed the response from my fellow class mates, tutors and professionals from my portfolio visits about my ink rotoscoping and I think it will be used somewhere within my final major. The only think that I would take more care about is making sure the frames are the same size to avoid the jump across the screen. This time around I have edited the frames in after effects to make it appear smoother however towards the end of the animation some were to far over that they couldn’t be edited.

The only negatives about this project were the cost of acetate and trying to get the library staff to sell me the acetate. I overcame this problem by asking the rest of the class to go down in shifts to buy 20 sheets each.

Rotoscoping Test - Drawing with ink

After testing with biro directly onto image I decided to draw with ink using a stick onto acetate tracing the photo underneath. I love the effect it has created as each image is so different i even realised i forgot to draw the head on some of the images but i think this adds to the personality of the piece. However i do need to add colour asap because my piece cannot be black and white it needs to be colourful, bright and more visually stimulating but i do like the use of ink and stick to create the characters in my animation.

Inspiration for aesthetic style - Quentin Blake

I have always been interested in Quentin Blake's illustration style, I love the use of sketchy black outlines and pale water coloured fill. As I am using ink to rotoscope for my 'Feel Good' brief I feel like this particular style will influence the style of my aesthetics, obviously I won't mimic the style but something similar.

Rotoscoping Test - Drawing directly onto the image

This is the first quick test I have made using the rotoscope technique, here I filmed myself putting on a jacket, edited it in after effects then exported as an image sequence at 12 fps to make my job less difficult, created contact sheets in photoshop, printed them out and drew in black biro directly onto the images. I do like this technique but it isn't right for the mise-en-scene of the advert, it is very dark and the lines are very thick i want something a little more intricate and hand crafted than this. Also i don't want the background to be seen as i want it to be all hand drawn so filming the final rotoscoping footage i think should be done by using acetate or tracing paper so i only pick out the figures movements and then i can create the surroundings.

Ink and Watercolour Animations

As I have an idea of what I want to include in my advert and the method I want to use to show it I needed to pick an aesthetic style that would go with the feel of the company and what it stands for. I want to rotoscope my final piece but I needed to find a way of adding colour in a way that relates to the product so in a group discussion we came up with the idea of using ink to show a liquid type effect which will connote that the product is a liquid similar to the look of the juice in water for the Robinsons advert. So I thought of using ink on acetate to achieve this effect. Looking at existing pieces of animation that use ink I have noticed that a lot of them appear within Chinese culture so I thought I would investigate further into this and use this as a starting point.


This is the type of effect I mean however this was created in 2003 in Maya in the 'style' of a Chinese ink painting.

Previous Adverts

I wasn't going to look at the existing adverts for Heinz Salad Cream and Feel Good Drinks incase i became attached to their success and subconsciously create something very similar. However while talking to Chris she suggested that it would be a good idea just to gain a visual understanding of the companies personality and mise-en-scene.

I could only find one professional advert for the Feel Good Drinks Company as the rest seem to be competition entries as i found that they nearly always have a brief for YCN.

This advert shows the bottle within nature when at its best connoting that their drink is healthy and good for you. I love the use of bringing the bottle to life but i feel this may be a very obvious option so i don't mimic this ad i would like to create visually something totally different yet with the same mise-en-scene. The ad has been animated and not shot in live action which is something to consider, the use of animation here helps to create things that don't exist and wouldn't normally have life added that little bit of excitement to engage the audience. So is some sort of animation the best way forward?

Heinz Salad Cream has had a number of adverts as it has been around for a long time so i thought i would have a look at a few of them to get a feel of what they want to portray.

All of these adverts are shot in live action and have an upbeat vibe with a comical twist. They all also have a tagline at the end of them that will rhyme with 'Salad Cream' for example 'Any food tastes supreme with Heinz salad cream' i think this helps the audience to take something away from the advert to remember because ever since watching these adverts it is one of the first things i remember. In relation to my ideas then the use of comedy is needed to keep that positive persona and something shot in live action so it portrays reality and its something that is accessible to all.

Finding a Brief

After looking through all the competition briefs the two that interested me the most were both YCN - Heinz Salad Cream and Feel Good Drinks Company. The reason I was interested in these were because they were very upbeat and fairly open and after the boat animation i feel more comfortable almost writing my own brief. Where as last year i would of really struggle but now i have become more confident with myself and my ability to manage time and create a more successful body of work. The reason i have chosen a brief that is fun, cheeky and exciting is because i have never apart from my Sega brief thought about creating a quirky piece so too add something with a different vibe into my showreel i thought would be great.

My over all understanding of the briefs:

Heinz Salad Cream - The aim of this brief is to give life back into the product and get an audience aged between 18-29 to eat salad cream again or for the first time. One thing that stood out to me in the brief was the quote

'Get the young eating Heinz Salad Cream again!'

This automatically embedded itself into my brain which made me think that possibly a bit of nostalgia needs to be included and with this in mind i will look into the history of salad cream.

Feel Good Drinks Company - There were two briefs to choose from but i have chosen the first and one word that is prominently used within the brief is

'Awareness'

So the brief is asking for is a creative idea to make the public more aware of the Feel Good Drinks Company, their products and how it is a more healthy drinks option when on the go. The target audience is 16-34 which ranges from college and uni students all the way through to professionals. This is a fairly large audience to capture so the final piece must be appropriate to suit all areas which may be difficult but i think i like that kind of challenge. Compared to Salad Cream the Feel Good Drinks Company hasn't been around for as long so something needs to be created to make this audience notice and fully understand the product.

SO i will develop ideas for both of these briefs then hopefully find one that i can peruse to a final piece.

.