MAJOR PROJECT I - TASK II: DESIGN PROPOSITION

 MODULE PRJ 64904: Major Project I 

Tristan Vaughan Sleep - 0365120

Major Project I / Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media

Major Project I - TASK II: Animation Project - Design Proposition

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MODULE INSTRUCTIONS:

“FEB - MARCH 2025: GCD 64904 / MAJOR PROJECT I  MODULE INFORMATION BOOKLET”

Major Project: Student lead Semi-Professional Animation (Weighted 40%)

Animation Project I: This Module is to be the first part of the students’ final year project in which the students will need to apply their theoretical knowledge of design as well as their practical skills of hands-on development. This is a preparation for students to understand the process and requirements for real, industry-level projects where they must be able to utilise their foundational studies gained over the course with the understanding of practical situations + variables when difficulties are presented. Students are required to produce a comprehensive proposition on a chosen topic and apply independent learning skills in a studio environment to formulate the desired content for their project which demonstrates their skills in design works and effective project management. The class will be delivered with blended learning materials such as tutorial videos, case study web repositories and videos of expert series’. These references are to facilitate the flipped delivery complemented with face-to-face consultation sessions, which is documented and managed online.

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PARTICIPATED LECTURES:

WEEK IV & V: Technical Research & Feasibility + ADV. Character Design

Week IV: Unfortunately, this week would see minimal work done for this project as the group individually needed to focus on working on other modules, some of which also had an aspect of group work associated with it. As a result, not much was reasonably achieved within this week hence why it has been hastily included into the Week V summary + Write. While an effort was still made to lay down the foundation of our work this week. A majority of the progress would be made during Week V. Moving forward, it is recommended to have a better understanding of your expected group work as not only does this create conflicts with other projects; it can also lead you to being the one needed to salvage another group mate's work.

Week V: Due to the statement above, Week V proved to be a very eventful week which saw me needing to do a good majority of the work. While this is to be expected with the limited time remaining, this is also where the group started to run into its own issues regarding relationships and expected outcomes. For this week, I would need to complete The New Character Designs which should be inline with our references and plans, Begin designing the Storyboard (Originally only Act One.) In addition, I would need to investigate the research portion of the task, looking into the technical feasibility for the characters, environment and art styles, as well as justifying said research with existing examples and workflows.

Improved Character Designs & Rationale: Starting off the weekend (IV), the group needed to work on the feedback provided to us by the lecturers which mainly focused on the art-styles and character designs. Up until this point, a majority of our visual work consisted of works for the moodboard or our recommended art-style with a few references being the character designs themselves. As a result,  I mainly worked on completing the character designs which then would allow us to begin working on the storyboard with completed design.

For the first Character Design, I would work on the main protagonist: The Businessman or as he was now named - James Winters. When beginning his design, I thought it important to have our original sketch produced by MERHAN AHMAD next to me when working along with the original moodboard. In this, I saw that our main focus was on the man’s suit and how it made him stand out when compared to the other two characters. In designing his suit, I thought it would be interesting to start working in some shape theory to better make him stand out: this mainly appears in the forms of triangles with the character's suits having sharper edges. This mainly can be seen in the shoulder pads, collar, tail coats and other details such as his hair face shape. By designing him with sharp edges, I wanted to express triangular character theory and how it references his outward powerful demeanour (work focused, prideful, anger) and his inward private struggles (stability vs instability, impulsive, _.) This is also to further highlight his separation to the other characters in the form of mindset as everyone else has a more rounded, circular shape with them also warning him to make changes.

“Character Design I: James Winters Designed by TRISTAN V. SLEEP”

When actually designing the character, I mainly wanted to focus on some key poses and colours which should contrast with the cool, desaturated background. To achieve this, I originally made some base poses and worked to design some suits around the pose - the colour stemming from real suit pairings discovered online. The character's face was something worth discussing as we had a rough idea of what he should look like. The idea was for him to have a look that could appear both formal and unkept depending on the situation which led to more creative ideas such as the rough beard shadow. While it can be seen as something formal (reducing the beard's volume,) its shadowed appearance can also be used to show poor maintenance. Other than that, his hair style and poses were roughly based on myself as the group had joked previously that the man should look somewhat like me.

For the second character design, the process was somewhat the same, the only difference being that it was based on a different design and needed to convey a different personality type.  One instant detail which appears to be different between the original sketch and the final design is the homeless man (Now Hector Sangeres) is his facial design. While I was originally going to make it in the same style as James, I ultimately decided to make it look more ‘cartoonish’ as some of the feedback given to us was to play with the art-style more to make it more unique. In doing this, it also makes his style different between the two characters and may make the homeless man more sympathetic due to his almost comedic design. The large eyebrows and heavy mustache are to be animated in such a way to show his emotions strongly and in a way that appears light-hearted which is then contrasting the character's end. As for his concept appearance, it was a little difficult to get a design for him as a majority of the references always depict a brownish grey colour palette with some mix of jackets or missing articles of clothing. 

“Character Design I: Hector Sangeres Designed by TRISTAN V. SLEEP”

Storyboarding & ACTS: With the completion of the final character designs which have been approved by the other members in the group, I continued forward with the plan of starting the Storyboarding for the project. In group discussions about the Storyboard, it was eventually agreed upon that the group would divide it into the three separate acts (with me originally doing the first) which would be based on the screenplay I had originally written during the first task. The idea would also be that we’d follow the designs and allow each other a little bit of creative freedom to make the piece feel more inspired.

For the first act, I wanted to set up some establishing shots and visually explain some important story points immediately which had the ability to be expanded upon later. In the opening shots, I wanted to fully show off the city’s design with the protagonist's apartment in the distance as well as show the approaching storm which is what ultimately kills the homeless man at the end of the second act. Furthermore, I wanted to convey how close the homeless man was to surviving with the homeless centre being next to the businessman’s work office. This also shows that the homeless man basically ended up dying because he unfortunately stopped to meet the businessman who redirects him away from the centre and ensures that he is someone to rely on. There are also some other shots expected of conversation scenes with the two characters being presented together or examples of over-the-shoulder shots, solo shots to add more dynamism to the scene to make it feel less boring. The idea would also be for the characters to bring actions relating to it being cold to get that thought across to the audience but it also helps from the characters feeling stationary. The act then comes to an end with the two making the promise and then showing how easy it is for the businessman to sink into the crowd while the homeless man sticks out - showing that he is truly on his own and somewhat dependent on the only person willing to step into the empty space to offer help.

With the first act step up and ready for a cut to black, I’ve hopefully set up the next scene for my groupmates to continue. The inclusion of the cut to black was not meant to be confirmed but served more as a way to allow my group mates to have an easy point of pick-up when they adapt their part - I wanted to make following afterwards feel simple.

“Storyboards: ACT I Designed by TRISTAN V. SLEEP”

Technical Research: For the final requirements of Task II, the group would be expected to develop a reasonable document which demonstrates their technical understanding of what it takes to produce an animation such as this. Students are expected to approach this by looking at existing examples of animation techniques and styles (preferably at top industry standards) to show that their original vision is possible. I would ultimately be the one to look into this task as I’d previously discussed the potential animation requirements when talking about the art-style in the previous task. In addition, I would like to consider myself knowledgeable in this space: I do look into technical things just as a way to expand my interest in this hobby (hopefully turned into a career.)

To start out the research, I mainly tried to almost work backwards in the process: I’d found some existing examples at a near high industry standard and had seen what they’d done which was similar to ours and then would write up about it. A good example would be the example of the film Klaus or Arcane: in both instances, I’d previously discovered how their animations were done and expressed how it was achieved. This would then be adapted into technical possibility slides where I demonstrated which softwares would be capable of creating the expected outcome. I found this method to be better logically as I believe it to be better to have a reference (per the requirements) and then talk about its feasibility rather than proposing an idea which then requires you to find something similar.

This process would also be useful as the methods used would normally also mention if any special software was being used which I could explain how we would be able to use it. If the software mentioned was more of an in-house thing we would not have access to, I would still be able to figure out any alternatives especially if they’re like blender in the sense that Open-source programs can have plugins made to mimic said in-house software. This is also one of my priorities - having the ability to present an alternate idea or software in-case we are unable to use it or have difficulties with it. By presenting possible issues now, we can prepare for later outcomes.

“Week V:Technical Research”

To close out this week's write-up, we were also asked to find existing examples of an industry-leading animation studio and how they approach making animations. It was recommended that we find case-studies or any officially published information to better form our final approach to making the animation.

WEEK VI & VII: Storyboard & Animatic production + Final Compilation

Week VI: With this being one of our last weeks to make some decent progress and being able to present this to the lecturers, we wanted to get a majority of the visual content done for this week and work together to continue and compile the research later. In order to begin making last-minute corrections per the lecturers requirements, we would need to fix the errors or listen to the recommendations given to us by the lecturers.

The main point of discussion between us and the lecturer was about the visual appearance of some of the characters designs as well as the appearance of the storyboard. As mentioned in the previous week’s write-up, the initial idea for the Storyboard would be for each of us to work separately on each act (with me being responsible for the first act.) For the team, this became a point of conflict as one of the members did not complete their act (Act III) and the other member had difficulty designing theirs (in-consistent art-style, short in length despite longest act, was not made using the script which made it difficult to follow up with.) While these issues were mainly internal, they became more prevalent when presenting to the lecturers who informed us we would need to redo the Storyboard. Unfortunately for me, I was chosen by the lecturer to design it as my act appeared to be well made and wanted the best depiction of the story.

Redesigning the Storyboard: This new task was something I’d not originally planned for this week and required me to go back to an older stage of the project which I was un-enthused about. Furthermore, I was unhappy with being chosen to do the storyboard as up until this point, I feel that I’ve mainly managed this project by myself with some support from my group members. Regardless, I worked to redesign the storyboard using the original script to make the story and its themes more consistent. While new material had to be made, I still wanted to recycle some of the ideas posed by my other group mates' designs as some of their creative choices such as change in perspectives or unique transitions made the piece feel less flat or uninspired. This also posed a unique design challenge where I had to incorporate these changes to fit with the story which I feel I was able to do relatively well.

“Week V:Finalised Storyboard”

Compiling Resources: It should be important to note that over the past 7 weeks, a majority of the written work has been produced on a google slides document which I mainly manage. From here, the research can be selectively moved from slides over to Canva where we’ve been able to present easier and with more stylisations. When it came to this final task of compilation, the team mainly worked to transfer over the google slides to a new Canva document where sections would be altered to fit a more fitting design flow rather than ‘what were the requirements of the task.’ In essence, all slides about characters would be grouped and condensed, research would be grouped etc. where previously they were split by task requirements.

However in mentioning this, I would like to also bring up my main concerns with this project, looking at the work that has been achieved. I’ve found that working with my friends in this project has left me to do a good portion of the work, proportional to the amount of people within the group (to which we were two individuals shorter than recommended.) While I had made efforts to communicate with my group, it appeared that they were not always able to complete the agreed upon assigned tasks or they would work on it very close to our presentations with the lecturers or close to the submission. Furthermore, they would agree to do some aspects of the project and would either choose to put in a limited amount of effort or would not complete it, hence where I felt I picked up the slack. 

“Week V:My slideshow of information (mainly my work unless mentioned elsewhere)”

In addition, I also tried to make up for some of the groups’ shortcomings; the other two had discussed how writing and research wasn’t their strongest which meant that I would mainly cover these sections. I would also try to do these sections as I’ve been passionate about animation for a while and have some prior research which I’ve been able to recall for this project which made research easier for me. In terms of designs, I don’t believe myself to be that talented and only really stepped in when needed however I was still eager to help as this project mainly cares about the visuals. With all of this, I would like to express my discomfort of working with my group thus far and hope that we can make the adequate changes come the second half of the major project.

“Week V:Final Compilation document of the first seven weeks of Major Project I”