Evaluation of FMP project

The final outcome of my project was a short animation that explores the title of Anxiety and the Subconscious. Originally in my Project proposal I wanted to explore more about dreams – however after I collected my research on Anxiety I was more interested in how anxiety is experienced. Although I did create several possible final animation concepts to do with dreams – I instead felt more strongly about another idea that would relate to more people than any anxiety dream that I had. Throughout my FMP I constantly tried to question why I used a certain angles, character design, colour an etc. I wanted to force my self to explore as many routes as I could.

The final animation is titled: “worrier” and plays on the idea on worrier and warrrier. People that suffer with anxiety must constanly fight their subconscious mind (and are perceived weaker than those not suffering). My animation explores the idea of using a physical object to express anxiety which is normally hidden in the subconscious mind.  I used a metaphor for anxiety which conveyed worries and fears will soon creep up on you and will force out the emotions you are trying to hide. The story is simple but powerful it was meant to convey how anxieties that start of as thoughts can suddenly tangle you into feeling the fear physically. Within the animation she hides away small balls which when she awakens reveal a large worry that cannot be stopped – It shows how anxiety can also grow larger than you ever imagined.

Throughout the FMP I used several methods to record and review how my project is progressing. They were very useful for helping me to understand what worked and what didn’t and also enabled me to keep a record of what I have looked at previously. One of these methods was a sketchbook; the sketchbook was the place where I put all my research, ideas, notes photographs and designs. This was one of the most helpful sources because I was able to carry it with me any where I needed and could easily refer back to research and notes I had made at any time.  The sketchbook let me play around with my ideas – it was a quick way of putting an idea onto a page in any form (a note or a doodle.) I used my sketchbook during the development stage alot to help me to produce an idea for my final outcome – I was able to sketch out dozens of pages full of storyboards without feeling pressured to refine.

Another method that I used was a blog. The blog was a good place where I could refine my ideas and then review what I had learnt throughout each week. It let me organise all the research or development from my sketchbook and place it on my blog so I could decided exactly where I was going next with my project. Furthermore the blog can easily be edited so I can add information or images if I feel it connects better to things that I have previously looked at. In addition I can scroll through all my posts and easily read back on the notes I made during week 3 or whatever one I need. Lastly the blog allows me to upload video clip so that I can review on moving images unlike in my sketchbook – which is vital for my animation.  I lastly used the action plan as a way to plan out what I would be doing each week. This was especially vital because it ensured I had enough time to complete all tasks including making my final animation. It was a good record that I referred back too, to ensure I was working in the right direction.

I was able to gather both primary and secondary research in my FMP research stage. I used a variety of sources such as films, books, gallery visits, online forums, articles, surveys, my own dream diary journal and written experiences of anxiety (personal.) Another target that was met was to explore different ideas and to have created a large amount of development. I spent a lot of time trying to explore the ideas that I came up with to the fullest. I also made an animatic, several storyboards, character designs and background designs so that when I came to making my animation I was ready to make my animation without any problems other than animating. Lastly I successfully completed an animation that successfully explores the title of ‘Anxiety and the Subconscious’ – which will be shown on the FE Exhibition. I used a selection of software from Photoshop to create the backgrounds, flash to animate and After effects to add sound and edit my work.

Overall my final major animation was made by an extensive amount of development. I made around 17 different stories for one concept and combined two to make my final story. Even towards the ending I was cutting down the story – to save time but also to add more effect. I used research such as surveys to help create a piece that will really connect with those that worry. A main focus in the end was the colours which conveyed anxiety and the personality of my lead character that never actually speaks When creating my character I knew there would be no dialog and so decided to design a character that could convey the amount of expression that could tell the story.

During the crits and feedback received by others I was given artists and film makers to look at – I was suggested to look at surrealism, although I didn’t really use to influence my final outcome, it was useful to explore another approach that a dream like piece of work is created. Another suggestion that I found very helpful during my development stage was to take more experiences that I had personally with my own worries and anxiety. This advice was very valuable because it helped at a point when I was stuck when coming up with ideas. It also lead me to explore another direction other than just my dream anxieties.  When talking one to one with my tutor, he helped me to select certain sounds for my piece such as running water for the dangerous tentacles – which actually connected my dream anxiety about water together. During a mid-project review of our blogs I got a lot of positive feedback but also the advice of speeding up a bit because I only had 3 weeks and still needed to create a lot more development. From this peer evaluation I decided to speed up as suggested which helped give me more time to animate.

Overall I am very please with the outcome of my animation because it conveyed the message I was trying to answer from my FMP (Anxiety and the subconscious). However if I had to redo this project I would have tried to improve my time management because I was unable to explore all areas I would have liked too. Furthermore I would have also spent longer animating because two weeks was still not long enough. The animation process took longer than liked. The skills that I have gained from this FMP has been using After Effects which I have always never been that good at – but from using it to add sound, I know have a better understanding of the way it works. I will be able to use this in my future animations that I do over summer and next year for my course. Another skill that will help me next year in my course is character design and background – I would really like to explore background further as it (for me) brings the animation together. Next year I will be doing a degree in 3D animation and will be learning this software. Hopefully I will be able to apply the new skills learnt to create a short piece of animation.

Finished Animation

Above is my finished animation. I am very pleased with the finished result as  was able to create a short animation that was full coloured with a background and sound. I feel that the outcome is even better than I originally would have imagined. Although I had cut down the beginning and the end of my animation i am still with the end result. The original story would have just added to the set up (rise of action and falling of action) however I like that this plot is bit more straight to the point. I have successfully used a variety of software to produce this finish result: Adobe Flash, to animate, Photoshop to create the backgrounds and After effects to add the sound. When choosing the sound I spoke to a tutor, one to one. We discussed possible sounds that could work - because I previously have looked at water. My tutor suggested that I could use this as the sound of the tentacles of anxiety. After putting this on I felt it was perfect - because it connected to my own personal anxiety dreams that I often have about water. Furthermore I also researched into how anxiety can feel like drowning. The problems that arose when creating this piece (i have outlined in the 'making my animation' post below) Mostly it was the time issue which meant I had to cut down the story. I didn't plan for the animation to be so time consuming - but i did create this all through digitally drawn frames - other than than the draws. Overall I am very pleased with the animation.

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Making of the Animation - FLASH

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Above are two GIFS for two separate times during the making of the scene above. In this scene my character has destroyed one of the round objects of anxiety, but when she looks up, all the hidden balls around the room suddenly start to open up before her. I began this process of making by first looking at my storyboard and animatic. I then had an idea of the length of time I had to show this expression. I made a really rough animation which would serve as a guide. This helped me because it let me put the idea onto the screen to see what expressions worked and what didn't. What I liked about this particular clip is the change from a happy character (the first time you see this) to a very frightened and surprised one. Referring back to my character designs and expression sheets I noted I wanted the eyes to express a lot of the emotion as there is no dialogue. I feel I have achieved this and created a character with a lot of movement and translation. The bottom one shows my finished clip. You can see my use of colour that I have explored previously,the browns work really well in displaying the security and passiveness of my character.

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Above, you can see my evidence of using Adobe Flash to create my animation. My first problem that I faced when using this program was setting up the right document size, I accidentally selected a default size that was way too small. Thankfully I realized this, before I had committed to a finished outline and it was only a rough guide I tested. To overcome this I created a new document and converted the animation I had done before into a symbol which I could easily enlarge and draw over. Below is another set of images this time displaying the process of how I created each scene. I began by outlined a rough animation (which you cannot see) the guide was used to make sure that everything looked ok without spending to much time on it. I then applied a final outline(with another layer) so I could keep referring back and forth to the previous drawings. This is the longest process as I had to keep tailoring to ensure it looked fluent and realistic. If I got this stage wrong it could easily ruin the look of the animation. Furthermore full bodies are most difficult however when I carried out life drawing I was able to study movement easier. The next stage was to create the hair, I wanted specifically to add a lot of movement to the hair so I created it on another layer to spend a lot of time on it. I did this so that the movement of the character could be captured even when the frame was zoomed into the face only. After this I applied the colours from my development stage. After that, I put in the background, produced from my development stage. This was simple but it added a lot of effect which fueled the world of my animation. Lastly I animated the tentacles- This took longer than I thought because I had to create something that was constantly moving and attacking her. I decided at this stage how the tentacles moved because when planning I couldn't see what the tentacles would act as living things. It was only when I animated that I could see what looked good.

Problems that arose

1. Time management
The first problem that I faced was time management. I had not planned for the creative making week and therefore I had t cut down my development weeks to two weeks. Which meant I had less time to come up with a story etc. So when it came to making I lost time finalizing specific areas that were important for making. I overcame this by cutting off some of my animation (see below).

2. Changing the idea
The next problem was influenced by the time management (issue above) and also because I did not realise how consuming some of the aspects of my animation would be. Therefore I had to make the desicion of editing the start and the ending( cutting down scenes). What I changed was: I no longer had the interaction between the friend and her, or her running home. I decided to have the animation exclusively within the bedroom. This I had originally thought about because I wanted to see the character within her comfort zone (her home). I actually preferred this becuase it cut straight into the action and worked better within the time frame. I had to unfortunately get rid of the ending and leave it as a cliff hanger; at the time I wasn't sure about about this, however when I came up with the story I had trouble with making a powerful ending. I like leaving the ending to the imagination of the audience.

3. Can't draw
Finally I struggled when drawing the animation at points as some of the action movements were difficult to visualize. To overcome this I used myself or a model to recreate the actions. So I could rethink how to present them in my animation.

What was successful

1. Colour 
Colour. Colour is important! Infact in my eyes it brings the animation together and emphasises the symbolism of Anxiety on the subconscious mind. I spent a lot of time choosing appropriate colours that work the best. Not only displaying the symbolic meanings (Browns=Comfort/security/strength) but also what would look good within the Flash medium because flash does not look that appealing to the eyes. I decided on using brown outline instead of black as it is softer. One of my influences of colour palette was the Egyptian tablets I saw at the British Museum, I really loved the tones together. The second influence was looking at "Petit Trois Points" a French animation that looks at post traumatic disorder that looks a lot at dark vs light tones to express the anxiety vs healing.

2. Expressions 
As previously stated the next successful thing in my animation is the expression of the character. It was vital that the expression conveyed the emotion to allow audiences to clearly identify the story.

3. Different angles
Different angles is another really important aspect in creating interesting story. From my research stage I watched lots of different films that tackled the issue of Anxiety and the subconscious. These films helped me to explore different angles to show action. Firstly "Hitchcock" because of his inventive use of angles and portraying serious plots(thriller). Secondly Vanilla Sky uses quick montages to express the confusion which people do not usually understand with the subconscious. Lastly The Fantastic Fear of Everything which uses the angles and slow motion to convey a comic genre that also scares the audience to believe the irrational fears.

Background and style

Below are the first designs that I made in my sketchbook for the bedroom/background of my animation. The background layout isn't really as important as the characters in this particular story - However it still needed to be used to help create a style that would aid the overall animation. Infact, there is one scene which will use the entire bedroom to see all the hidden rounded objects - where we will look all around the room. Below is a simple sketch of a bedroom - I also made different angle and perceptive of the bedroom so that I could understand the angles better. From these sketches I have generated the digital versions of this particular design - mainly to get a better picture of the colours I could use. At first I want a dark room (but not using black or greys) instead I selected this maroon colour which worked well in darkening the room but giving the art more colour - This colour for me reminds me of being 'alert' and it could serve as a warning as soon as we see her entering the room filled with these round objects. Below is a really rough version of this room that I had designed to use in the background of a short animation clip - however I felt it didn't work because the colours were too busy with the orange hair. I then thought back to the animatic that I had created which used only tones of blues - It actually looked really nice because it gave the animatic this washed out look. I then decided to go down this route of using one tone for the background - therefore it would be easier to create and would not look as busy as the experiment below. 

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Above, is a selection of my finished backgrounds that I will be using the background of my animation - as you can see its a lot more simple than the first version I created. One of the reasons for this is because I had to change the background around after all - the bedroom of my first sketch design was actually to small for the 'worrier' character to trip over. Therefore we are instead presented with a larger more 'empty' room (which will have more ball all around hidden.) I'm really happy with the outcome as it isn't as busy as the first and has its very own character about it. The bedroom of anyone, but mainly of the 'worrier' is to be an extension of the character - this bedroom is simple and uses light tones of brown just as she is wearing, this shows that she feels secure within this colour. When the rounded objects releases hundreds of 'blue' tentacles in ruins this security that she feels with brown. Furthermore I feel that brown (and in particular, these shades) are a passive colour. Anxious people to be passive rather than aggressive people as they don't like conflict therefore I've used these colour to emphasise this personality strait.

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To the right you can see a palette of the only 7 colours that I will be using in my animation. The reason for this is because the style of my animation is going to use similar tones and colours too make a 'secure' environment for the 'worrier's' bedroom. The first colour (Top) will be the most used colour, it is the colour of the outlines for the character - it also will be used for the background, different shades being used for the colour. The second and third block are the colours of her clothes (again a brown colour to emphasis her security she finds in just this one colour). The fourth and fifth colour are the colour of her skin and nose. The sixth the hair which is a contrasting colour too the bluey grey underneath (that is used for the tentacles of the anxiety round objects.) I decided to pick this colour blue after doing a survey where the average colour that people felt described anxiety was a bluey grey.

Brown

Brown is a strong colour. It is a colour that is masculine but yet feminine because of its warmth. I choose such as strong colour because it expresses how people with anxiety are constantly 'fighting' there anxiety just as the 'worrier' is in this animation. Furthermore as I've previously mentioned it is also a warm colour which is homely - the colour has to express how her clothes and the colour of her bedroom are all choices that she can make for herself. Its her own place of security, warmth and comfort. Outside she may feel anxious but within this haven she is able to be in a calm environment. Furthermore brown is one of the plainer colours, I did this because it shows how anxiety can keep a person in their comfort zones without trying new things. Brown is a passive colour that emphasises her passive nature for being a person with anxiety.

Character design

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Author's own

When developing my character the first thing I knew I wanted was a female lead. I have done this for two reasons, first, when researching about anxiety, statistics showed that women are more likely to develop anxiety than men. This intrigued me because why is this the case? Are women more sensitive or emotional - hence over worrying. Nevertheless this is why I choose a female lead. The second reason for this choice was that I am a female and this animation has been gathered partly through personal experiences that I have had. I wanted my character to express traits that I feel I have from anxiety. Okay, so now i know i want a women and the natural next step for me was to design the hair style. After doodling in my sketchbook dozens of times for potential looks that would work well for her character and to animate I reached the idea of creating a 'bubble' style (as I call it.) Which I actually created from previous experimental drawings of raindrops (above.) I looked at creating really messy hair - but felt that this would make the character look to out of order - when the purpose of the animation is to keep the anxiety a 'secret' until the end when the round objects open. Furthermore this messy hair would also be time consuming and I only have two weeks to create a 50 - 60 second animation. I looked at hairstyles that an introverted character may have as well such as hair over the eyes and long hair but felt again it was to obvious and difficult to draw. Therefore I experimented with shorter hair styles that could still have an equal amount of movement. I went for a shorter bob like cut that still had the round bubble effect - this way I could move a chunk of hair rather than add movement to each strand of hair.  Above is a GIF I have made to play with how this hair could move in an action shot - I was happy with the way it moved and so selected this to be the desired look. I actually really like the orange hair colour (may pick this colour for final design.) 

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Author's own

After the hair I decided to play around with all different face styles until I arrived at one that I felt was right. I did this by making different round shapes on the page and then adding facial expressions that suited the shape the best.  I also did this when trying out different body shapes best suited for an 'anxious' worrier. Although when it came down to it I felt that any person can develop anxiety and therefore no one stereotype could fill the void for my character. Therefore I just experimented with lots of shapes and designs. This stage was very important and helpful as it let me put down on the ideas and visuals in my head on to paper so that I could see what looked okay and what didn't.

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Above are my final sketches for the chosen character design. I have chosen to use round eyes that will stretch in order to give my character alot of expression - because she is the only one within the animation i need her expressions to express everything that she is feeling. There will be no dialog or narrating therefore it is important that I can clearly show what she is feeling (especially important in this subject matter also - anxiety is often hidden within a person's subconscious. ) Above I have circled the expression that I like the most - it is the surprised look, which I feel captures the emotion very well and I really want to use this for when she first sees the round object open up. In addition I really want her expressions to be really over the top - large and change from one to the other, this way we will see exactly what it is shes feeling and give her some personality. In the end, I chose a long thin body with a casual outfit on as I don't want her clothes to be more important than her expressions she conveys. I also wanted something simple to show a modest -  passive character rather than an aggressive one.

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So this is the finished character design which shows the colours that I wish to use in my final animation. I am using the brown (#986727) to create the outline of her, instead of black. This is because I feel that black can look very harsh and doesn't look that great on flash. In addition the brown's are the colour I will use mainly in my animation. I have used brown because it is a colour that displays strength however at the same time is a sad colour. Brown also conveys warmth and security, just like with anxiety people often remain within in their comfort zone if they feel anxious - therefore I used this colour for her clothes. I liked the orange hair because it breaks the brown up well and appears to be another metaphor and 'constant' reminder of how anxiety is always in the subconscious. This sheet I will refer back to often when creating my animation and as it is a guide to what my character is supposed to look like - her hair style and the exact colour which I can quickly select through this image. In this image we see a very serious looking expression that of a troubled person (which turns out to suit my character well) - although originally I planned to make her more comic, and clumsy; if I can I still would like her to have some moments that show her happier side as much as her frantic one which is displayed heavily within this work.

Chosen Final Idea

After a long process of trying to develop an idea that would answer the title Anxiety and the Subconscious mind i at last came to an idea that i combined from two of my storyboards i made (during the idea development.) I actually had quite a bit of trouble throughout this time trying to create a story that would express anxiety and the subconscious mind well enough - One thing that I was positive on however was that I wanted to use a physical metaphor to express the anxiety (which would explain to the audience how the hidden anxiety controls the subconscious mind.) At the start of the week I looked into water (based on my dreams that I often have about water flooding -or the presence of water being threatening and dangerous. This immediately made me think of how anxiety can make you feel. However after exploring this idea I felt that animating the water may have been very difficult for my short time length and I also wanted to look into some other ideas.

The final idea

The animation shall begin with the main (lets call her 'worrier') who is highly anxious, she worries about 'what if' scenarios so much that she begins to generally feel fear over theses thoughts in her head. The animation starts with the 'worrier' talking to a friend about a particular worry. As she is explaining and becoming more and more anxious - we suddenly hear a 'ping' sound that only the 'worrier' hears. When she looks in her bag, she discovers the source of the sound which is a small round object. As soon as she sees it she closes her bag, holds it tight against her body and runs off home. We then see her enter her bedroom - where she slams the door shut (locking her self from the rest of the world) and walks over to her chest-draws. She puts the round object into one of the draws, at the same time we can see a group of similar looking balls inside of the draw as well. She then shuts the draw and stares down, thinking about the unknown object inside of the draw before turning and walking away. We see her slowly escalate into a fearful state as she sees hundreds of balls all stuffed or hidden all over her room. However because she is so distracted by this army of unknown objects she trips over one hidden under her rug. She turns around to see what she feel over,  and as she pays attention on it, the round object begins to open and long tentacles like arms begins attacking her. The 'worrier' frantically tries to escape, but instead feels she must try to defend herself and so pulls the tentacles out from the floor. Although her small peace of mind is crushed when she looks up to see the whole room worth of round objects open up and hundreds of tentacles all aiming for her are set free. She is unable to fight them of before they all tangle around her and she is left damaged and in shock on the floor.

The idea is trying to symbolise that anxiety shouldn't be kept as a secret, in addition it shouldn't be ignored because before you know it all these worries and fears will soon creep up on you and pour all the emotions hidden on you at once. Below is the first rough storyboard that I made for this idea. It was originally two separate storyboards, but i photocopied them and cut them out and rearranged into one. They actually worked really well as one idea. I want to think about the different opening to the animation as I don't want this to take up to much of my time as its only a set up to the main event. (I don't want to waste lots of my time animating a scene unnecessarily.)

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Above is an animatic that i created to learn more about the pace of this animation.

Exploring other ideas

Previously I have focused on the water concept; It was based from the many dreams I've had. Water often appears as a dangerous threat, and would flood or possess a feeling of unease (to what could be lurking within.) I have already made several ideas on this already - however I needed to explore other ideas before committing to this particular concept. Therefore I decided on creating quick six frame storyboards (Exposition, rising action, conflict, climax, falling action and resolution), so that I could first put down some ideas I was thinking and just to let my mind wonder - a bit like free association. I made several pages of these all holding different concepts completely different from the previous set. After doing this idea generating I selected three of my favourite stories which I then expanded onto a page of my sketchbook each - I continued to develop and change this idea until I felt it had reached a point where the story worked the best (ultimately leading to my final idea.) These pages are surrounding the page know - and you can see the amount of ideas I tried to develop.

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Idea 1: 
The first idea that I developed further was a story based in a fantasy world. A girl is walking on water as is a couple of people around. As we see her walking she becomes rather nervous. When someone on the other side of the water falls through into the water she because overly nervous - and she tries to walk faster to escape the situation. We then see her look down at her hand where we see a scale that is going up and down depending on how anxious she becomes. She pulls down her sleeve to hide this truth. However before not to long the water softens below her feet and she falls through. This idea was another one that slightly involved water - the idea of the unknown and the threat of water I really liked and so I made this story which was based over the fear of being taking under. Although this is a physical danger within the story it actually is the process of anxiety within the subconscious mind. The story is meant to tackle the idea of the progression of anxiety - i wanted to used close up and speedy shots to ads tension which would make the audience nervous about the potential threat of falling under - which in the story is the 'death' - but actually means being consumed by anxiety.

Idea 2
The second idea was selected from several stories that I made from previous personal experiences of my own worrying. Personally I do worry - and some of the stories that I looked at showed how I often escalate from the 'what if' scenario so much that I need to find out (a bit like OCD.) This story starts with the lead female walking home quite late home (which she normally doesn't do.) From a distant alleyway we hear loud and intimidating sounds and shadows. We then get to listen to the possible and irrational fears that this girl creates to what could be lurking in the alleyway. When she finally walks past the alleyway a cat jumps out of the alleyway, which explains to her where the sounds came from. This idea also was influenced by 'The fantastic fear of everything' and the voice over narrative which is used as a comic device. I imagined this story to be quite light hearted and less serious to others that I have looked at. The narrative would also be used to express her thoughts and so I wouldn't need to voice syncing. Although I liked this idea - I unfortunately felt it lacked the many concept of Anxiety and the Subconscious. 

Idea 3
The last idea that I selected was a story about a girl that is sitting in her room alone. She starts to think about her anxiety and the 'what if' scenarios, suddenly hundreds of round objects fall from nowhere to the ground like rain. She is scared but decides to touch the object - but as she does this the balls release several 'deadly' tentacles that begin to wrap themselves around her and tangle her until she is completely covered in these tentacles. This story is very simple but I feel its also quite powerful and visually could look very beautiful. Also I like the idea of designing the rounded objects or even small creatures that look innocent from the outside. Without realizing I've created a piece that reminds me of the creative sculpture that we made for the 'fear of anxiety. Perhaps the object could open in this way? This concept was meant to explore the metaphor of anxiety slowly tangling its way around your thoughts before silently attacking you without you realising. The balls that fall like rain are meant to represent the odd thoughts we get when thinking about worries. When she decides to touch one of the balls (thoughts) her anxiety is awaken as she discovers she doesn't like these thoughts but before its too late as they have planted them self physically all around her in the form of tentacle like arms. Overall this was one of my favourite ideas and I developed this idea over ten times with different beginning and ideas similar to this (below are some of the alternative ideas that I made).

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