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.