Hi every one, we have finally put together our first episode .This is our first production.
its a product of 2 anime animators and a script writer a story board artist and a few actor and actresses (small budget).
its not the final render but just something to show case\preview.
the animation was done intirely in anime studio, image refining in Photoshop and VFX in After Effects.
Thanks to all the anime studio technician on this forum like Selgin, Mikdog, Heyvern, inspiration from DK and lot more
we are now working on Episode 2
would love know what you think about it, dont hold back .
I only have one suggestion, in order to make feel like there is impending danger, you might want to consider adding some atmosphere( it looks too clean and sterile) the colors are a bit cheerful.
I hit "stop" about a third of the way through. If a clip is slow-paced, it has to have atmosphere -- this clip just moved along too slowly, without building any atmosphere first...
You *did* say don't hold back.
You can't have everything. Where would you put it?
A few things.
1. The sound effects really need to be adjusted. The squeaking wheels of the cart, and the occasional mechanical "beeps" are too high pitched and too loud. They over dominate the scenes and hurt the ears. I suggest softening their volume and lowering the pitch a bit.
2. There are some visual errors. In the conversation with the king about his daughter, the character talking to him has "snot," coming out of his left nostril, which then simply disappears in the next frame.
The General has one blue eye and one brown eye, but they keep switching from one side to the other. Visual consistency is very important.
3. Some of the dialogue is impossible to understand because it is spoken a bit too quickly. Especially when names are spoken. The actors need to enunciate the consonants clearer and slow down a bit. The mosquito/fly creature in particular is very hard to understand what he is saying.
The fight scene when the prisoner helps the princess has some timing and continuity issues. The scientist/doctor writes a note, but to whom? Why does she just sit to the side after blowing up the duct? What is she doing while the prisoner goes into another area to retrieve his fork? If the fork was closer to him, he would simply cross the room to get it, which would make it more believable.
The backgrounds are beautiful, with really nice colors. The character movement is not jerky, and the action is steady throughout, the story moves along, and the ending makes the viewer want to see what happens next.
A very nice effort, overall!
~M
Change is inevitable, growth is optional.
Life is short, enjoy the adventure!
Interesting Characters and props here, however, I do agree that much of the action in this episode moves at too much of a slow pace. As i said the characters are interesting and unique but need to be brought alive in the animation. Good start!
Thanks alot guys, it looks like we still have alot to do. May any one explain to me what atmosphere mean, is it about the backgrounds or the story telling it self?
Impeccable analysis Mozbo thank you.
about the general eye, whele I was just too lazy I only flip charecter when need to. all the charecters have besically 3 poses back 45 and side.
about the Fly i have to apologise for not puting sub titles thats the local languege in my country. Sory
thanks for pulling me out of the box.
I have taken note of all your points very grateful. i feel like i need to go to film school or something or does any one have some notes or guide that i can use as i can use.
its hard but not imposible keep trying and never give up.
There is a lot of impressive work here! I think the most important thing to work on is clarifying the story and revealing the information in an interesting way. I am unclear on all the background of the story, including why the princess is kidnapped. I know that they talked about it several times, but it was difficult to follow. You have lots of good animation in this project. I look forward to seeing more! :)
jx wrote:May any one explain to me what atmosphere mean, is it about the backgrounds or the story telling it self?
I guess, for me, one interpretation is "suspense". At its most basic, any action usually has a reason, and that action has to take place in a timely way. For example, if King Arthur's sword appears in a woman's hand emerging from the lake, then we'd expect that to happen slowly. Someone swapping bullet clips in a shoot-out, we'd expect to be fast. But everything I saw (before I hit 'stop'!) was happening slowly. There were no changes of pace. The drawing and the animation were good, but you need more than that to hold people's attention.
You can't have everything. Where would you put it?
Wow. That's a big piece of work, and quite good, especially for a first production. The animation is fluent and effective, it doesn't have all those beginner's mistakes, it even is emotional.
Good stuff:
- the voices. Really good choice of voice actors.
- Details. You really spent some time in creating all those backgrounds and props.
- Story. At least you have one, although I must admit I didn't understood it.
- Cutting. No shot is too long.
- Sound FX. At least you try and put lots of sound everywhere (but not enough).
- Some textures in the BGs.
So I can see a lot of work went into this. The animation looked a bit choppy, but that may be yfrog's fault. What is your initial fps rate?
Now the things which could be improved ... not in this episode, because that would be too much trouble!
Colours. You use a lot of bright, saturated colours. That's not advisable because it makes the audience's eyes tired. Try this: take some stills from that episode, and in Photoshop reduce saturation by 50%. Then add some small (!) spots of bright colours back, but only for important parts, like eyes, jewels, blinking lights etc.
Colours 2: flatness. I've noticed that quite often you use shadows on characters, but nearly all background stuff is coloured flatly. This doesn't fit. Plan your scenes with an idea of where the light comes from, and which kind of light. Use this to add shadows in the BG. Examples:
- the king's shack. There's bright daylight outside, his face is completely dark with a bright rim on his head, but yet the inside wall of the hut is lighter than his face. Doesn't fit. The wall should be really dark, and his face a bit lighter than that. All furniture needs to have the same rim of light as he has.
- the laboratory. Here the light should emerge from a main source from the ceiling, and maybe some light added from teh monitors (so it gives a shine on the faces). Also note that the hoovering robot entering the door needs a shadow when he stands in the light.
Basically it's a good idea for all interiour settings to be much darker on top of the walls than on the bottom. This also adds drama to the scenes. Again try in Photoshop: just increase contrast and use some black gradient on top of the screenshots.
You could also ease this job by going out and photograph rooms like that, then just grab the colours from the pics - I do that all the time.
Voice acting: as others already mentioned, the voices lack dynamics. Everything is said in the same speed, at the same level and pitch. This can easily be improved next time.
Pacing: the same goes for the overall pacing of actions. Try to be more dynamic. Plan your sequences so they have some arc: starting slowly, then getting faster, and have a real highlight. Try to have (not too long) pauses sometimes, before an outbreak.
Sound FX: You get points for trying, however, it needs to be balanced a bit. Maybe you should design one overall sound atmoshere for each set: outside, the shack, the laboratory, and so on. Especially the laboratory has no sound at all (or it's too low). Think of humming ventilators, some clinking of metal, and of course keyboard typing even when you don't see the fingers.
Also each set has its own acoustics. If you have access to a program like Logic, use it to process the voices with the "space designer". It has a lot of presets which are good enough to add that certain amount of delay and reverb to dialogue to indicate room size. Maybe find someone who's good in doing this.
Music: It feels odd that the music sneaks in much later in the episode. Usually there's a good intro music, then some cues where needed. Personal note: I don't like rock music at all in films.
General improvements:
As others said, try to improve your story writing and your dialogue. For the most time I didn't understand what was going on. Be more specific. Show instead of talk, if possible. Cut down overall amount of talk a bit.
The same goes with editing and pacing. This is basic filmmaker's knowledge, you will get the hang of it with time.
I have some problems with the cultural setting. I appreciate that you don't use realistic characters - that's always good, and it helps to make animation much easier. I also spotted some "african" references - the first appearance of the "king" swirling his stick was so good! But then I was disappointed that everything else was a bit like pieces from other movies - having a princess, a laboratory, etc. That's the moment I've lost interest in the story.
Additionally I was a bit disappointed that you use a graphical language which is entirely USA-TV-cartoon. Is there no own tradition od imaging in your place? At least the sets should reflect a bit more of your real life surrounding - right now they're pretty much generic.
Wow, that was a lot. Please don't forget that these are tips for a pro, and you're going to be a pro. That's the deal: if your very first episode already is that good, people expect so much more from your for the second ...
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