Weekly Log

Since this week was shorter than most (only Tuesday-Friday), I have not accomplished much. I have transferred my research on the 12 principles of animation and fine drawing from past projects into their respective subpages, however I have yet to expand upon them as intended. My main problem at the moment is that I am behind on my advertisement project, which is taking up a lot more time than intended, and so I am having to split my time between this project and that one until its deadline. Not ideal. My plan for the coming week is to continue the research as scheduled, and get as much done as I can.

Status: Behind Schedule

This log is coming a bit late, since I wanted to get as much done as possible, but I have not started work today so this is simply a recap of the past week (6/03/23 - 12/03/23). I have gotten a lot done in the past week; I have completely finished my work on colour theory and character design, including the primary research section of those areas. Unfortunately I got a little too invested in my character design subpage, and have written far more on that than intended, however hopefully it will be worth it. I have not started on my animation or music video research, as intended, however I'm hoping that in the next few days I will be able to complete those modules fully. I have changed up what I will be researching on, and now instead of doing separate research on 2D and 3D animation, which would have included both software research and techniques for each type respectively, I have decided that since the 12 principles research covers most of the techniques, I will just do one additional subpage that will go into the details of the software, and my reasoning behind using each one. This leaves only two subpages to complete over the following week, however I intend to finish my research by Thursday, so that only leaves three days to finish all of my research, and hopefully fit in some primary research as well (such as surveys and focus groups). I don't think I will have too much trouble getting these things done, though.

Status: On Schedule

I have achieved a remarkable amount this week, a lot more than I intended - however in doing so I seem to have given myself more work to do. I have written over 4500 words for my secondary research on modern animated music videos. Yet again I have switched up what my exact plan is for research; I have extended the "Animation and Music" section (which was previously just named "Animated Music Videos") to be in three parts; modern music videos, animated music history, and animatic culture. This is because I was given inspiration by my peers to write a bit more about older Disney animations, which first utilised music and mixed the two mediums together. I have also been meaning to go more in depth about animatic culture, but since my modern music videos section ended up being so long, I didn't want to shoehorn it in with all that. It made far more sense to put it as a separate subpage. I was sceptical at first about whether I could, and would be able to feasible, write as much as I wanted about animated music videos, however since that is the entire premise of my FMP, I decided it was worth it. Since I have given myself a lot more work to do, and have not yet started on my software research, I have given myself an extra three days on my production schedule to get the work done, by shortening the amount of time I will be spending on my development. As for what I have learned about myself this week, it's that I find it a lot easier to research sometime in depth if I find it personally interesting. I have had so much fun looking into the different connotations of colour and animation in popular music videos, despite it taking me a huge amount of work and concentration. My plan for the coming week is to work hard today and tomorrow to get my research completely finished, and then hopefully start on my development for next week. By my next log I should have, hopefully, chosen the song I will be animating for my final project, come up with some basic concepts, and ran a short focus group.

Status: Behind Schedule/On Updated Schedule

This week I have done as I intended; I have researched and chosen the song which I will be doing for my final production. Luckily, Devil Town was the song that I wanted to do personally, although I would have also liked to do Kingslayer. Either way, I took a full day to do individual focus groups with nine of my peers, in order to correctly pick a song for my music video, and got started on analysing the lyrics of the video. I also handed in the project which we have been doing at the same time, and so now that will not be a distraction for me anymore, and I can focus entirely on my FMP. The plan for next week is, of course, to get as much done as possible before we break up for Easter - I would like to completely finish my lyrical analasis, music theory, concept designs, and aesthetics. Hopefully I can also get started with scripting and storyboarding, and on my final day do a focus group showcasing everything I've done so far. Anything I do not manage to get done within the coming week I will have to do over the Easter break along with my research, and so in order to minimise that I will try and get as much done as possible over the next few days.

Status: Behind Schedule/On Updated Schedule

This log is coming a little late, but I have not done work between now and Thursday 30th, so it is still a recap of the week's events. I did not manage to complete a focus group, and so my feedback regarding my song will have to be the substitute focus group for the time being, although of course I plan to do some focus groups during production. In total, I managed to completely finish my focus group and song reasoning, my lyrical analysis, my initial concepting, and all three complete reference sheets for the characters shown in the music video. I also managed to get started on scripting my animation, which then took me to the end of the week. I am, overall, very happy with what I managed to accomplish, especially since I took Tuesday 28th off as a sick day, and was working from home. When it comes to development, the only things left to complete are my script and storyboards. Of course the remainder of my research needs to be finished, which is what I plan to do over the Easter Break - the total work I will do is as follows:

• Expand and complete my animation section (including subheadings on lip syncing, referencing, and storyboarding)

• Fully complete my software section

• Complete my animation history section

• Start and complete my fan animatic culture section

• Start and complete my music video primary research section

• Complete my standard primary research section

• Finish writing my music video script

• Start and complete my storyboards

This seems like a lot of work, but since the majority of these sections have already been started on, hopefully I will be able to complete them all. I have realised, as of starting my scripting, that this animated music video is a very ambitious project, and will certainly take a very long time. This means that I must finish ALL of my research and development before the week commencing Monday 17th of April, in order to hit the ground running with my production. I am realizing quickly that I cannot afford to slack off on this project, or I simply will not be able to complete it by the deadline.

Status: Behind Schedule/On Updated Schedule

This week has been extremely productive, as has the Easter Break. I managed to accomplish all of the things I set out to do over Easter, nearly completing my research and development entirely. I have since been given some informal feedback saying that I need to expand my research on music video composition techniques, which I plan to do at some point soon, but currently I am focussing all of my attention on my production. This week, I have modelled the house in which the music video takes place, and am currently in the process of taking pictures of all the different angles I need for my backgrounds. Whilst my shots are rendering, I am taking the time to write up all of the bits of my development still left blank; explaining the intricacies of my character sheets, script, and storyboards. I am also at the same time attempting to get my chosen animation software, OpenToonz, on a USB drive so that I can get started on my 2D animation (I am unable to download it directly onto the college computer so I am downloading it onto the USB drive at home and running it from there), however so far all of my attempts have been unsuccessful. My plan for next week is going to be to finish rendering and editing in photoshop each of the backgrounds, and hopefully get started on some of my animation. This should leave plenty of time for animating, editing, and tweaking.

Status: On Schedule

This week I have managed to accomplish a lot. I completely finished shooting and editing my backgrounds, and managed to organise them in such a way that it is easy for me to find and apply them for my animation. I have finished animating the first 12 shots of the animation, including the first half of the first musical interlude. I have been switching between photoshop and OpenToonz (which I have managed to get working on my USB stick), and have been backing up as I go, however later on in the week my OpenToonz file crashed and corrupted, and I lost some of my work. Through my backups, I managed to save most of the work, however I lost about two hours worth of work. This will be easily revived, however. My plan for the coming week is to animate as much as possible, keeping records of my work, and hopefully finish the second verse and get started on the first chorus.

Status: On Schedule

This week I have done a fair amount of work, however unfortunately due to there being a bank holiday on the Monday and also my being ill, I was only in college on Tuesday and Wednesday. Still, I have worked from home, and have done the work I set out to do. Firstly, I had to rethink my plan for the intro interlude, as I made a mistake during my mental planning and did not account for the second half of the guitar solo, meaning I had made the animation too fast and needed to think of ways to correct this. I slowed down some parts, planned for the final section to be longer, and added in an extra unplanned section in the middle (which is basically just an extended version of one of my storyboards frames). The only thing left to do is to finish smoothening the final section of the animation, and then I can move on to the first verse, which will hopefully go a lot faster since it is entirely stills and slight animation. Something that I have done while I am working from home, in order to get ahead of myself, is model and rig my Klause character in blender, ready to animate when I need to do these shots. Weight painting was extremely time consuming, however I am very happy with this model, and can't wait to use it in my final music video. My plan for next week is to continue animating, and hopefully animate the entire first verse and hopefully parts, if not all, of the first chorus. I very much need to hurry up, though, as I only have three full weeks left until the deadline, and my being ill has not helped this.

Status: Behind Schedule

This week, I have achieved a lot - I did all of the work I said I would do in my previous weekly log, and I've started animating the first chorus. I am quickly realising how little time I have left, and so I have also been doing tons of work at home; I have been writing all of my production subpages, and I have completely animated my interlude ahead of time. I am very happy with how much work I have done, and am feeling myself getting back on track. There were times where I considered the possibility that I would not be able to finish the entire music video, and would only animate some of it, however I am now a lot more confident that my final 2 weeks will bring me to the end of my project, if I work hard. I am prepared to bring my work home with me, come in early, and write things on my train journey to college in order to complete the entire music video, as I think I would be very dissapointed in myself if I am not able to do what I said I would at the beginning of the project. All I have left to animate is the rest of the chorus, verses 2 and 3, and of course the last chorus. I am hoping to complete the chorus and at least one verse next week, hopefully both of them, leaving me plenty of time to animate the last chorus and write up my evaluation on the last week. I will continue writing and animating at home, so that I don't have anything left to do by the deadline.

Status: On Schedule

This penultimate week has been pretty darn productive. I managed to fully animate the first chorus, and verses 2 and 3. I have begun to animate the second chorus, meaning that all I have left to animate is that, the rest of the interlude, and then the final chorus. I have also been productive when it comes to writing, mostly keeping on top of my animation analysis, however yesterday I did a large amount of writing and finished up by page on music video theory, which was something that one of my tutors suggested I include in greater detail a few weeks ago, but I have been too busy with production to start on it. For the coming week I aim to, of course, completely finish my music video (taking things home if needs be), and write up my evaluation at the same time. I aim to hopefully finish my production by Wednesday, so that I have Thursday to fully proof all of my work, and finish writing anything that needs writing. It is going to be a challenge, as I do not have Friday free (I may have a bit of time in the morning, but other than that I should have it completely finished and submitted by Thursday evening).

Status: On Schedule