Star Paws

Star Paws Animation & Footage

Star Paws, is an animation I created individually, based on ideas generation from the amazing storyteller, which gave me a sentence saying, "on a leap year, a talking dog Goes to mars." Which consists as a dog being the main character and suddenly has an realisation that he can speak and then signs up for an out of space Canine mission, which will be revealed, when watching the animation. (You'll find all the footage below)

In the duration of creating this animation, I did this animation on the same week as the 1st one I created, I can't lie to you, there were many ups and downs to creating this piece. as I created this one at the near end of this week, where I started off creating imagery of a dog and a calendar and had a bit of a test piece, which looking back at what I put together originally, looked pretty poorly created, it was very pirated like created... so I felt the need to use this as a bit of a decoy guide and work to improve my creations. But the practice footage for this animation is below.

This video, as you can see... was an example of mediocre... in a sense of how the film was animated and filmed, you can see I've used photoshop for not only creating my footage but also because there are sections where I look and I can spot pixels like you'd see win a blank document on Photoshop without a coloured in backdrops and I was very shaky when I was filming this footage, I learnt from this I could create much better footage, but despite this video being a bad turn out, it was good in a sense as I was able to see and evaluate what went wrong and what I could do to rectify my mistake and improve. I felt I needed to work on how I film my footage and use premiere to film my footage and I could of even improved very much on how I create my footage in the film, in the sense of using my creations to their best use, ie- the part with the owner walking the dog, in this video I have made the dogs, head not body so it looks like the dog was floating. not walking, for a start. which doesn't exactly make sense to the concept of my movie. so I decided to have a do over.  Not only that but the dog keeps changing colours I almost think the dog changes colour too much, I mean if I was creating a test animation which in honestness this was, it works well for that, seeing what works and what doesn't. Though looking back at this practise video I feel the Target audience would  best suit either families or young children  stereotypically, because children like sensory things so they may enjoy the use of different colours being used on the video despite not understanding the concept to this video. I feel for animation there should always be wither a purpose to it or a narrative, I feel as this was an ideas and experimentation piece, therefore that was my purpose of this footage above, having the use of experimentation and seeing what I can come up with to then eventually build progress. Despite it not having a Narration it ticked the box for having a purpose, therefore this piece works for what it is essentially, not only that but it shows my learning and developmental processes as I am evaluating this piece as a monstrosity I am realising why that is and how I can improve, which yo will see further down this part of this entry. So I humbly say try to enjoy this experimental monstrosity. like I said there's a reason for this creation.

Anyway, moving swiftly on,  I then decided to go back to the drawing board and rethink about how I would create this animation. But whilst doing that, I then decided to make another test video based on some of the imagery I put together after creating the footage above. This is basically just a 2D animation test, one could say this also has a little bit of typographic animation too as you'll notice when you watch this that I make the numbers suddenly come onto screen, in a sense of sudden appearing  kind of movement. (All will be clear with this footage below)

I feel as a piece of experimentation this video  worked fairly well, the only thing I would say would look better and it's most likely most people will agree with me, is the section after we see the numbers 1-28 straight after that we see the number 29, but the really agonising thing is the fact the number 29 is on the video as a portrait setting and the image I created was landscape, the thing that bugs me just as much is the fact that the scene before the 29 appears the numbers from 1-28 on the calendar scene that part of the animation is filmed landscape. Although it was just another test clip, just that one little thing about the use of both directions landscape and portrait orientation   just hacks me off, but this again teaches me a lesson that in future pieces of moving graphics, moving image or anything relating to animation is to decide on which orientation I film my footage so I don't face that same issue as to what I have previously mentioned, I feel its horrible. it creates confusion for the viewer and just looks out of place. Almost like I've just deliberately dropped the footage into the film, just to experiment, which to be honest is exactly what I did as I was trying to decipher if I film my animation portrait or landscape so the fact that I was just creating a test piece, to see what direction I wanted to film Star Paws you could say the use of both orientations was deliberate. Even though it was deliberate, I still personally dislike the way this video was filmed. 

Imagery and characters for Star Paws

The footage below is imagery, characters and back drops I have used featuring in each of my practice videos above and in my animation: Star Paws also. 

Image of dog

This image I created of the doing, was used in my test film,  the animation I put for there target audience for children or families or even both, I drew and created this image on photoshop, as I decided to stay into my comfort blanket as in all fairness as much as I wanted to give illistrator a go I was concerned about the time I had altogether to put this animation together in the tough space of a week as well as still finishing the final edits of the honeymoon animation on top of this animation I have. been trying to put together individually.
In fairness the image does look like a dog, but I can't help but admit that the lines around the edge of the image the lines are quite pixelated as well as the fact there is a few areas not coloured in which I feel ruins the image as well and the image itself isn't rasterised meaning the resolution of the image is low seeing as photoshop works as pixels and the image its self isn't as clean and crisp as it could of been.

Calendar:- February

I have created imagery of a calendar because part of the concept to star paws is the fun pact action rolls on the day of a leap year. usually you'd find the month February has 28 days each year other than every 4 years where we find a leap year, meaning that there is day 29 in the month of February. Anyway, the idea for this is when I was filming you'll find this more on the practice clip above of the calendar footage and maybe even on Star Paws it's self I was crossing out each day of the month from day 1 to 28 like some people do with their calenders but I have then included day 29 seeing as its a leap year this story setting falls upon, but I've then created day 29 like a number you'd typically find on a running race, in fairness that was unintentional but I wanted to emphasise the leap year feeling to my narrative. Which I feel has worked well, so I have stuck by that for my experimental video above.

Man Walking Dog

I found inspiration with this image from looking at various different imagery of a man walking his dog and after looking through those I decided to create a cartoon variation of the imagery I found inspiration from for creating imagery of a man walking his dog and now this image here is far better I feel than the image of the dog, as for one its the man walking his dog the image quality is much better seeing as I have come to discover more drawing and designing imagery using illustrator, which has made my imagery much cleaner, more crisp and no pixulation to be seen in the image. 

The rest of the imagery and characters I have used for Star Paws

the imagery above, is of planet earth with a dog's paw showing some of the counties on the planet, as well as the red planet as again following the instruction of my sentance, the dog goes to mars, so I created the planet mars, which is the generic red circle which works for what I was doing but I could have made it look more exciting maybe out a paw print on the red planet too. who knows. Anyway there was also the image of a rocket with the dog in the rocket and an image of the dog itself and finally a speech bubble saying "Da fuck... the dog spoke to me..." which because of that my target audience for my film star paws has not only extended to families for a general family 30 second film, for young children for the sensory and action pact footage I have created without the desperate need to fully understand the concept of the story, maybe for the older side of the children's audience from aged 10 and top perhaps, and now extended to teens too because of the use f*ck in the speech bubble, despite it being censored it could still effect the influence to young children though sadly the way our generation has turned, depending on how the children are bought up the use of swearing doesn't bother all parents, but ones the swearing will bother families therefore, it may put families off from watching it unless there were a sign on my film saying age trade mark either PG, (Parental Guidance) 12's and up or the 15's and up though that maybe unlikely, I would say the most likely audience for this animation would best suit a PG audiences seeing that there's only the one word that is well not what you would hear on the sort of films suited for young children aged 3-5 sort of ages. So really I guess it's based on rational opinion, upbringing and what other people may like and dislike.

If you struggle to read what my annotations say I have basically annotated  my imagery, saying the following: 

• " I designed these images on Illistrator to get the imagery at its best quality, so there's no issue with the risk of pixelation."

• The text underneath my image of the earth says: "Earth with a paw print, ie K-nine planet earth. I used a paw-print kind of a play in the narrative and image play really," In other words, I was trying to get the concept this film is to do with a canine basically.

• The text by the dog says: "The dog, a simple design concept but works you can see its a dog." I found inspiration for this image via google images looking at imagery of real life dogs, but seeing as I work best creating cartoon characters and abstract style designs I've decided to use that in my favour and created the dog in a simple abstract cartoon character style. 

• The text by the rocket says the follwoing: "Rocket, with dog in the rocket."  For this image I decided to try and make the best out of this image and thought about putting the canine's head in the rocket for when the dog takes on the mission of a lifetime.

• The text by my speech bubble says, "Speech, man says when the dog speaks to him" This is out of shock and surprise as he doesn't believe what he sees, almost like a gobsmacked kind of What the F*ck moment... As I think most people might say those words if their dog says hello to them (Not barking with an actual human voice) though the idea of using that was to try and add some kind of humour to my animation, weather it is actually funny or not I tired... anyways, this like I previously stated can open up the audience to this kind of animation, which iu won't paraphrase as I feel I have banged on and on about that on the paragraphs above. 

• Finally the last bit on annotation just says "Planet mars" which I have previously stated I feel I could have designed this a bit further making the generic circle look more excited but my intention was to just keep this shape simple as they say less is more and simple is most effective; I felt at the time if I added too much detail it may ruin the purpose of the planet besides the reason why I have just said the planet is red because Mars is also known as the red planet so that is also why the planet Mars is created in a simplistic way. 

For each image on this page I have used and discovered using the shape tools on Illustrator to help me create my imagery, 

I am happy with the fact I am expanding my comfort blanket from just using Photoshop creating imagery to using Illustrator which is, like I have previously written in my previous entries that Illustrator is best used for illustrating and Photoshop for editing photos or imagery created on Illustrator,  I am much happier knowing that I am getting to know the basic tools on the programme helping me create my characters. 

Backdrops for Star Paws

Park with trees, a bridge and a lake backdrop

For this backdrop I wanted to create a simple background of a park or some kind of out doors kind of backdrop, I can't like this was created on Photoshop, but if I didn't design this backdrop on Photoshop, I wouldn't of discovered using a tree stamp, which is how I got the tree shapes on my background, which personally I thought was pretty clever going if you ask me. 

Galaxy, outta space backdrop


This backdrop here was supposed to be a galaxy outer space backdrop but as you can see above, it looks ridiculously simplistic and well I personally felt I could of created this backdrop with some better ways of creating the galaxy look and the way I've created the stars, looks very simple but almost too simplistic, though considering it is a backdrop at the time I was filming my animation I didn't mind that too much as I didn't want an overpowering backdrop.

The Animation

This animation below is the footage I've filmed and put together again using the app I-motion, I used the manual setting to film this animation because it didn't make sense for this film to be created using the Time-lapse mode. 

This is what I put together before I decided to edit my footage using Premiere.

This here was in desperate need to edit this animation because some of the animation was filmed in a different order as to how the film was supposed to work, meaning the part on the very end was supposed to be near the beginning of the film weirdly. For some reason this happened because my phone died during filming meaning it messed the order of my film footage, luckily it saved that footage, which is something I was relieved by as it could have deleted the footage, that I am god didn't happen. 

Anyway, moving swiftly on, this video above is basically the footage I hope to edit and put together to create StarPaws, featuring below.

(This video below is the final cut of Star Paws.)

If you wonder what this animation is all about it is basically about a talking dog, who decides to take on the Canine mission to Mars. To be the first canine to reach mars, which coincidently happens in the day of a leap year.  I wish I could have added another concept to this piece suggesting it was just a dream, seeing as it occurs as a leap year and wakes up on the 1st of march coming too conclusion it was all just a dream. But like I have previously said, that would make the story go on too long and maybe belittle the interesting. Meaning it may bore people having more into the story I like the idea of seeing the dog land on mars and then lead to like a cliff hanger kind of feel to the animation which I like more as you can use your imagination to create what the dog does on mars and anything that happens beyond that point, you never know it will leave in a curios trap and you can almost rewrite the rest of the story. 

Admittedly I could have filmed the video in a much better way so you are just seeing the video itself but, I will just take that into consideration for what I can do better for my future animations. Besides that issue, I feel this video isn't bad, I feel there is a good story concept to this animation, its enabled me to have multiple types of audiences to address this animation to. Which I have already addressed. Alongside that, the edits I have added to the filming premiere have added the icing onto of the cake, in rhe sense that it has made the animation look visually interesting.

Anyways, I feel the edits have made the film look much more eye captivating to viewers in a sense of adding some excitement to my visuals.

 I also like how I have used scrabble pieces to create my lettering, I feel this was quite a clever approach to my movie, it kind of brings on the moving type concept into my animation and it just adds a unique feel to my piece. 

I also really liked how I have used some gifs, to help me add some graphic visuals I found on google images, to help me with creating some extra visuals such as the number 29 part, which I found works well with the movie itself. 

My favourite section from this animation is where the dog is about to go to space and watching the rocket fly round earth and goes to mars, I love the use of visuals and how outta space it. I feel that part has the best use of motion graphics and looks generally exciting, in a visual concept.

I also liked how I have used a variety of animation techniques within my creation, such as, Stop Motion, Typographic animation, 2D animation and Traditional Animation, despite me not drawing the footage by pencil and pen, I use Illustrator instead. and finally 3D Animation, with the use of the scrabble tiles. 

I also like my use of audio, where I have created some footage of my own, using different voices in my animation. Though again I have used Zap Splat for some one my FX audio also.

(I tried to include these in the blog but unfortunately I couldn't download them for some reason.)

I feel this animation went much better than the first animation purely because there is an understandable storyline to my animation, the visuals are much better and the use of FX have worked better. Like I said the only things I would like to improve is the way I filmed the video for this blog and to change my screen to a 16:9 ratio, (Wide screen) Though this is all a learning curve at the end of the day and I feel refilling my footage from what I had to begin with this piece above is a vast improvement and I have come to the conclusion that its sometimes mistakes that do you the most favours as it teaches you more in a sense that it makes you think and observe more so I will admit there is nothing wrong with the odd mistake or a happy accident because sometimes they do favours and help us create better footage for the future, all I can do is learn from that and include that setting in the rest of my animations I create in the duration of this project. All in all I didn't think Star Paws was a bad creation.

Feedback

This below is feedback received from a peer and my tutor, and addressing how I have responded to their feedback. 

"I don't understand why you've used the scrabble pieces. But I like the visuals Though, saying that I like what you've done with the word K- Nine, as the scrabble score for that work is 9 points. that is clever." Friend and class mate Noah.

Which is interesting, as my tutor- Paul says during one of my tutorial sessions that "I like the use of the scrabble tiles" - Paul (AKA Tutor) 

But Noah's point is fair enough. I can understand what he's saying but the reason for using the scrabble pieces was to create a unique and creative approach to my animation. As well as that I wanted to experiment and make my work mostly address different techniques too create some interesting visuals, by experimenting in different ways, I tried Han writing my footage on the other animation which I liked but felt the need to try another approach. Which this tactic also addresses the use of 3d and typographic animation also.

So I can agree more with Paul's feedback about the use of the scrabble tiles, but I will address the constructive feedback Noah mentions too. I get what he's saying as it isn't an obvious relevance to the film in which I feel this is what he was trying to address, so I find that reasonable and I can agree with that, but its like I've previously stated I used the scrabble pieces as a use of experimentation and thinking outside the box more.