Homework for Wednesday

As a group, bring to me the following:

• A WEEK BY WEEK, DAY BY DAY production schedule for your animation!
• A SHOT LISTING that shows the current progress of your animation content!
• Stages of Artwork:
• Sketches
• Lineart
• Cleaned Lines (Cleanup)
• Color (Flats)
• Color(final)
• Principal Animation
• SFX
• Effects?
• Compositing?
• Complete
• In the MOVIES folder, watch Little Witch Academia! =D

Video Drop Postponed Until Monday

Hello Class! While it may have been unexpected, the videos I intended to drop for you are experiencing some technical difficulties. (I'm looking for the best options for subtitling software and the like)

As such, I'll drop the videos I intended to have for you during spring break, on Monday instead!

However, your homework has been the same:
1. Revised story.
2. Revised character designs.
3. Revised environment designs.
4. Create an animatic for us to review in class!

While I said I'm happy and available for any questions and the like during spring break, I've only received questions from 2 students. So I assume that everyone is in good spots!

I look forward to seeing everyone after break!

PITCH SEASON!!!

The first major milestone within your studio is getting your first big animation production Greenlit! Greenlighting a Production means "approving your idea and allocating the necessary budget (in this case, TIME) to your film!"

To have a pitch successfully greenlit, you need to put together a presentational pitch that helps sell us, the NETWORK, on the story idea you have!  Below is a list of tips to get prepared!

ON WEDNESDAY: Have your film storyboarded with every possible design element ready to pitch!

• The best thing you can do is showcase a timed animatic with your story, YOU WILL BE PRODUCING ANIMATICS FOR SPRING BREAK’S Homework. 
• However we can get a feeling of the story's flow if you produce, clean, easy-to-understand storyboards with expressive design elements!  You can show this in addition to walking through your storyboards and characters step by step.  
• Click this link for an example of a great pitch here. 
• Click this link for an example of great storyboards!
• Click this link for a great example of storyboards and video working together!

Have all production materials complete! These include:

• Expressive Character Designs (with tentative turnarounds)
• Environment Designs
• Additional art you have created to better flesh out the story. The more you show us to sell your idea the better!

Have your pitch 100% ready! We will start at 4:35, no exceptions.

• Properly package your materials in a folder on a flash drive, or on the server so you can pitch clearly and best showcase your story for green-lighting.
• ADVICE:  Practice your pitch! I am allocating 10 minutes for each pitch.  You probably want to complete your pitch in 7 minutes, so you have 3 minutes of flexible time. (You always take longer than you realize in the actual pitch)
• Have each person in your group present a piece of your film! No exceptions!

CREATE THESE MATERIALS

• Produce a sequence of storyboards to showcase on the screen for all of us to see!
• Print out any materials you want us to see closely in the middle table while we watch your presentation! This includes character designs, environment designs, etc!
• Create a design document for drawing your characters! I.E. a "how to draw guide."  This must be turned in by everyone on wednesday, and those who have approved stories will give it to their teammates for review.

A couple reminders:

1. You are already very busy this week. This is scheduled as such so you don't spend your time producing unnecessary content! Tell the full story enough to sell us on the idea, and make sure 

2. I'll be asking these questions on Wednesday:

• How feasible is your film?
• What is the estimated runtime? (how long will your film be?)
• Do you see any big elements you will need to produce? (Audio? Special Effects? Animated characters like animals and the like you've never produced before?)
• Other questions you don't know about!

3. You all have the potential to be great artists and storytellers. Everyone has a skill to lend to the animation process. GIVE IT YOUR ALL THIS WEEK!  This is your first foray into a professional career setting for animated short production!

MIDTERMS CHECKLIST:

The following is a specific detailed explanation for how you're turning in work for midterm grading. All midterm work for pitching is due at the beginning of class, Wednesday. All solo work is due no later than 11:59 PM, Thursday night.

I.  On the Server, in the "MIDTERMS_CHECK" folder, turn in final videos for the following assignments: (Look at my folder for an example on the server. All files should be videos unless otherwise noted.)

• The weight project from the beginning of the semester.
• The lip-synch project.
• A folder with all the following elelements
• A Design_Contributions folder, with all of the contributions you’ve made to the design of the film. This includes sketches, thumbnails, etc.
• A “research_4_groupproject" folder, which includes all of the research and contributions for the animation.
• A "storyboad_contributions" folder that showcases everything YOU worked on regarding the final version of your group’s storyboard.

II. In addition to that, in the “GROUP_MIDTERMS” folder, turn in the following:

• A folder with your group’s studio as it’s title. (it’s currently marked as your individual names) Example: Shaw_Studios
• Inside the folder you need A PITCH MATERIALS FOLDER that contains:

• The FINAL storyboards for your animation you’re using for pitching on Wednesday.
• potential character designs for your film. This includes a basic model sheet with a front view, 3 quarter front view, side view, 3 quarter side view, and back view.
• potential environment designs for your film.
• A tentative schedule for completing your project! Refer to the current schedule that I’ve provided below as a tentative list for completing your film in the server folder!

For the sake of midterms, as we have not covered color theory for animation yet, I will be grading the quality of your linework, modeling, and volume over the quality of your colored images.

(each standard is 20% of each assignment)

A. Craftsmanship: Line-art quality.  Are your lines clean? Is your character the focal point of your animation, or are the rough lines the focal point?

B. Modeling: How consistent is your character between every frame of your animation?  Do limbs get too thin and then too thick?

C. Performance: Are we captivated by the actions on screen?  Is your animation about the character? Are the performances believable and relatable if we look at your animation as an actor and as the audience?

D. Clarity of storytelling:  What is the story of each animation?  Is the story coming across?

E. Technique:  Are you demonstrating the principles we've learned in class?

• Arcs - The way we add weight to how your character moves.
• Easing - speeding up and slowing down of actions over time.
• Staging and Positioning - (spacing)
• Pacing - (Timing)
• Anticipation
• Performance
• Weight and Flexibility

F: For the sound project, I’m also grading the quality of your lipsynch performance. Do your mouth flaps match the audio? is the audio clear?