Notes

As we created the character of Edgar and his little menagerie of crows, we fleshed out his character far beyond what you will see in the film. In his studio he has a little pet squid, as well as a loving portrait of his mother and father.
We entertained the thought at one point of putting in Edgars girlfriend - a similar bird character called Lenore. We established that she did the opposite job to Edgar. Whilst he represented death, she would be life. Lenore's job was to take down the heart stars that had gone out, rekindling them herself and then sending her flock of doves to implant the new hearts in young babies. Thus the cycle continued!
This was too much to put into the film, but we enjoyed having more of a story around Edgar and his world, and it allowed us to really leap into the animation.

Edgar, and his girlfriend Lenore.

Post-Production

In post production I took on the role of Lead Editor. Luckily our film did not require much complicated edits or changes, so most sequences were easy enough to put together. However there were a number of layers for certain shots that needed to be comped together in After Effects, as well as pans, zooms and moving backdrops.
We created the project, named Lullaby (this was eventually the title we decided upon, as we had grown attached to it during the project) and began to import all of our animation files. Each sequence would be its own comp, as well as some of the more complicated shots having their own comp window, as shown below.

On the more simple shots, it was simply a matter of sequencing the animation (command+a >animation > keyframe > sequence layers)  and then going in, frame by frame, to check everything was working. With this scene we had a few 'white flashes' that we had to manually crop out using command+ctrl+d.

This shot was comped seperately, as it required the background to move and then stop, matching the animation. It took a lot of tweaking, and I realised that there was not enough animation to cover the full length of the background. Luckily we didn't need the shot to be that long, and I was not precious about missing a lot of the artwork so long as the action worked properly.
After finding the right speed to match the walk cycle, I eased in the animation so it stopped gradually, the same way the girl does.

I manually keyed the opacity for this scene. The sharp cut was not working for the melancholy of the scene, so a gentle, barely noticeable fade made it much softer and easier on the eye. It was simply a matter of overlaying them both and then animating the opacity.

The final shot was the most important. It would be the one that left a lasting impression, and as such needed to be edited well enough. At first I was unsure as to whether I would be able to accomplish it, but once all the separate elements of the shot were imported and arranged, the shot began to come together. The slow zoom reveals the hearts, and I eased the zoom so it slows to show the entire scene. All in all I was fairly proud of it.

The final touches was to arrange every completed shot into a final composition, and add the music/sound fx track created for us by Danielle Crooks, a student from Audio Production. A final few checks and we rendered it out as a .mov file, (H264) as well as in blu-ray for the degree show.

Animation - Sequence 3

 In sequence 3 I animated the first shot of the crows meeting up and placing their hearts in Poe's (the round crow) jar. This was a brilliant opportunity to try and get across some of their personalities whilst beside one another.
Eric flies in, and lands, hopping over to the jar - not entirely sure where he needs to be - as Poe watches. Eric is my favourite to animate, I'll admit, thanks to his body shape having some excellent squash and stretch, and the tail that flickers and twitches as he moves.
I animated the flight by first tracking the body, head and tail, with no wings - in order to get a smooth descent and keep the volumes in check. It was a simple technique that I believed helped me a great deal in understanding the flight animation. Below is a quick test that demonstrates how I did this. The orange overlay is a shot guide, as this shot also pans down later on.

I repeated this technique with Allen, the harsher crow, and made sure his flight was more sharp and precise - he pauses for the others to move so he can alight. He is proud and a little bit egotistical, and I think I got this across fairly well in his posture and his actions.

Animation - Sequence 2

This particular sequence gave me the most trouble, considering it only consisted of crows and a walk cycle.
I began by animating the child and her mother, who would be edited over a moving background later on. The child's walk was easy enough - I emphasised her down and up in order to create a bouncing, childlike toddle, but her Mother was trickier. High heels convolute a regular walk cycle and the ups and downs of the cycle are no longer clear. To try and counter this, I put on a pair of my own and turned my long mirror on its side, so I could see the way my feet and knees in particular would move. I noticed there was no real 'down' when in heels - you do not generally bend at the knee. Animating this was still a challenge, and I did several passes before I was satisfied with the outcome.

This is the first pass, incomplete. The walk was lacking, so when I refined it I added more frames to pad it out, and make it easier for the eye to follow.

This is the polished pass, which will be on a transparent background so it can be layered in After Effects.

The crows in this scene are fairly passive. This time, it is the elegant, businesslike crow (named Allen) who takes the heart. His flight is much sharper and harder than Eric's, and even his tail flicks are more controlled. 

Animation - Sequence 1

I was in charge of secondary character animation - so I began at the beginning, and started with the jumper scene. Animating in Photoshop allowed me a large amount of artistic freedom and control over each frame, perfect for fine tuning my drawings. Though it lacks some of the ease of Flash, there was no real contest between the two - Flash would be too cartoon and blocky for the style of the film, as well as unable to create fine detail.

When beginning with the Jumper, I wanted him to visibly heave a sigh, gazing to the heavens before accepting his fate. So the piece of animation required a lot of boiling - a technique that meant a still frame is actually composed of three separately drawn frames that, when repeated, create a soft shake to the animation. The emphasised pause works well for his moment of decision.

(The shot was so long so in After Effects we can pan down slowly to reveal our jumper. After animating, I noticed there was not long enough of a boil before and after his sigh to allow for the pan down. I added this in afterwards.)

To animate the scarf I drew a long (non-uniform) curved line, and used it as a guideline to mimic the movement of the wind. The technique worked well. I repeated it for the next few shots.

This is a text render of the animation for the second shot, which when looking at it, was a little quick. I added more frames to ease in and out the lift of his hand, as well as more carefully inbetweening the movements of the scarf. The guideline failed me here so I referenced a number of scarves in the wind whilst doing so.

In the storyboard and the animatic, we had shown the Jumper physically leaping off the side of the building. While reviewing it, I realised this looked almost comedic - and it took away from the moment. Instead I keyed a few scenes to show that transition in a more subtle way.
The step above shows the redesign of the Jumpers feet. His step is slow and reluctant, and the boil makes him appear to tremble. I used a lot of slow overlap to show how his foot peels off the edge, easing out into mid air as the tip of his long shoe drags behind. Any faster than this and it would have been a nonchalant movement. For such a simple animation the foot required a lot of tweaking to get the emotion of the reluctant and yet determined jumper across - even if it is just through his feet!
The next shot was more challenging - showing him slowly letting himself fall into oblivion. Whilst short, it posed a challenge for me as I had to redraw a layout as well as get across emotion in a blank, silhouetted face.

As he falls, I elected to use a simple gradient backdrop - a fully detailed layout moving at high speed would distract the view from the action. The flapping of his hair and scarf would be enough to show the motion as he fell, as well as the sound effects that will be later applied.
I referenced a number of flags in high wind when animating the scarf, as well as the first animation I completed in order to keep a similar style to the way it moved - in order for it to resemble the same scarf and material.

The second part of Sequence 1 - Shots 7 & 8,  takes place on the ground with the crow who fetches his heart. Animating the crows was undoubtedly my favourite part of animating. As an avid birdwatcher I was curious to see if I could recreate the distinctive hop of a crow.

Each of our crows has his own distinct personality. This one, which we nicknamed 'Eric' was slightly stupid and happy all of the time, enjoying his work and being bouncy whilst he does it. I think he is pretty cute, and so it breaks up the intense morbidity of the moment. 

This was the first test shot, which shows my guidelines and the shot grid - showing where the camera will pan to when edited together.

Next, Eric has his close up and he pulls the first of the tiny orange hearts from the fallen man's chest. It was important for this to not be gory or sombre, so I made sure to keep Eric's bouncy nature at the forefront. I animated him as I would a bouncing ball, adding the flick of his tail and beak to reinforce his personality. The drag on his tail was particularly tricky to animate in such small quarters as this close-up shot.

For the pulling of the heart, I focused on three sections - searching to find the string, tugging it to loosen, and then finally pulling it free. Each one was marked by a different movement and I watched blackbirds for this in particular, as they root around searching for worms in a similar manner.

Jumper Design

 After struggling with the design for the Jumper (as he was named) we finally settled on one of my designs and I roughed out a reference sheet for animation. Since he would be static for most of his shots, it was important for him to have an interesting and yet simple silhouette.

He has a distinctive profile, as he would be mostly shown from such an angle, and I chose to keep him in a long scarf, giving moment to his dejected form. His slouch is one of a defeated man, which is what we wanted to get across in the animation as well as the design.

On the far left is the original sketch - I blocked in with a thick, square brush to get a sense of shape language as well as a readable silhouette. Then I sketched in some of his more detailed features in the centre image, before blacking it all for the final design. It should be noted that I realised the feet were not particularly inkeeping with his overall design - so in the film he retails long, thin, triangular feet like dress shoes - fitting with his sharp angled head and 'businessman' storyline.

Final Layouts

For the layouts of the first half of the film, it was important to keep a blue/grey wash as the main overriding colour scheme. Colour, as well as hope and life, is gone from this world. The low saturation not only gave the layouts a feeling of melancholy, but allowed the stark black silhouettes of the crows and the characters to stand out, and the bright orange hearts to catch the eye.

The layouts of the simple skyline remained almost detail free - in order for the eye to be drawn to the Man who will be standing upon the ledge.

As soon as we are back down at ground level, everything is much more detailed and I used crosshatching as well as the colour to shade the doorways and ground. It gives it a grimy, tactile appearance.

The full vertical layout of the hospital roof begins simple in order for the crow action to be clear, but again, as we reach our point of focus - the window - more detail and harsher shading is used to draw the eye inward.

Inside the hospital, we have a similarly dull, toneless environment, throwing into contrast the black of the moniter screen and the white wires and tubes which will be strapped to the old man in his bed.

In sharp contrast to the first half of the film, we finally reach Edgars Studio, and see it is brightly saturated with oranges and yellows - even the shadows are purple as opposed to grey. Here in this particular layout, we have the transition between the outside world and Edgars. The greying, darkening sky is outside the window, only beginning to be dotted with pale stars. It is the opposite to Edgars lively, misshapen house with its bright and warm lights. I added the unusual array of bottles and jars to further emphasise how weird and wonderful his little workshop is; much different to the straight lines and sensible props of the first half of the movie.

Since Edgar was so important to the story, I added a few little bits and pieces to flesh out his personality - like a portrait of his family, books, and a map of the word.

Once outside his studio, I wanted to show that the night sky had become much richer than the sky before. The glow of the orange sunset is reflected in the stars.