Final Animation

We went through a total of five versions of the script. We originally thought about doing voice over, but decided throughout the process that we wanted each character to have their own voice. We then continued to modify each characters' statement to include accessible design. We were able to turn the narrative into a verbal description of what was happening in the video without having to pause periodically to add verbal descriptors to accommodate our visually impaired audience. We also chose Youtube as the platform for publishing due to the closed caption feature.

Example: Crispus Attucks

Version 1: (Voice over) Crispus Attucks is an African American who escaped slavery and found work as a rope maker.

Version 5: (Crispus speaking) Here on the docks, the rope in my grasp breaks like the chains I broke to gain my freedom. I won’t let the British force us into their navy to fight their war.

Before we could start the storyboards, we had to decide which characters we were going to use. The characters we chose were the driving factor of the direction our script took. The premise for the animation was a card game that was in development based on the Revolutionary War. Most of the card art had been completed all ready. We chose strong characters that had interesting storylines and made sure to select characters that represented both sides of the war.

Once the script was completed and the characters chosen, the next challenge was to animate the characters from the card art that was all ready created. We chose a motion comic style of animation, and the illustrations were not set up for that. It was up to us to prepare the illustrations to be ready for animation.

Since we ended up with five characters to be distributed amongst three animators, I chose to animate one character, as well as tackle the intro and outro.

I was responsible for animating Benedict Arnold, with the illustration having been created by Joseph Mead.

This is the illustration that I was given as a photoshop document. It was well laid out and had clearly labelled layers, but those layers were not ideal for the animation I had in mind. I began by combining certain layers that either didn't need to be animated or could be animated on a single layer. Once I had the background filled in, I started adding in isolated pieces. Each layer would need to be animated on its own.

Intro

The intro was one of the last things to be completed, as we had to wait for the logo to be finished and approved.

Once the logo was finalized, it was ready to be animated. We wanted the powderkeg to explode, as one would expect. We also decided to run the explosion in reverse for the outro, so I chose to animate the explosion frame-by-frame in order to make it easier to animate backwards later.

Outro

As with the intro, I had to wait to animate the outro as well because the icons and card backs were still in process. The outro posed its own challenges as the cards had to be animated in 3D, and they were not cooperating.