Final Post- Reflective Final Report – Suffragette Molly

This year, the final of my three years studying animation at JMC has been amazingly busy, especially working alone for most of the graduation short film, Suffragette Molly. When I started I knew I would be working on my own and this short would have spoken words, but I was quietly confident that in the end I would have a film I would be proud of.  This final blog post is looking back at the entire year of the film, the processes I went through, what I faced both positive and negative and my overall opinion of the project. 

Before I can get into detail about what happened behind the scenes, I will summarise the film first. Suffragette Molly began as a story of a young suffragette woman who after meeting a Victorian politician is transported in time to the future. My inspiration for the film came from a variety of classic movies and current television shows. Wizard of Oz and the character Mrs Banks from Mary Poppins gave me the when and who quality while Doctor Who and The Time Machine stimulated the time travelling aspects. A Canadian Police television show, Murdoch Mysteries, based at the turn of the last century has very strong female characters that helped to inspire the character of Molly.  I wanted the audience to think what it would be like to take a person from the past and place them in the future. 

Before any animation was required, pre-production was conducted from February through to June and during this time the storyline was developed and scripted. Every element was designed from these scripts be that props, characters and sets etc. I worked almost solely on my own developing a range of different ideas for the characters and props. Sean kindly suggested Toby Alderton, who came onboard with useful tips and his wonderful help greatly put a final polish to the character designs, taking my draft cartoony versions, into designs I could use to create 3D versions. His designs were perfect for the time period and were of a high quality. 

The whole process during this period was quite intense and many things needed to be considered, a lot more than what I thought. However, it was during this period I really enjoyed coming up with many ideas as I had no restrictions but I discovered while many of my designs and style although slightly rough were good for draft processes only and would not be the highest quality needed at the production stage, hence getting help from Toby to improve my character designs was a great idea. I realised that my technique in future needs to be a reasonably high standard. For this to occur I will need to practice regularly, both by hand and by tablet, and move away from the cartoony drawing style. It may take some time but I think I will be able to get to the standard required.

Another part of the animatic process is where the drawing styles don’t need to be as highly detailed, thus suiting my current drawing style. This process took some time, but was quite enjoyable as I could see what I wrote down and drew on paper coming to life. It was also during this stage I started casting, writing a number of emails and making phone calls. It was almost straight away I heard from Jess Collet, who was very keen on the project. This relationship has continued to develop, where I have learnt from her how to direct actors while being patient, providing detailed information regarding the character and storylines also learning how many takes are required. I helped Jess to understand what was required during the animation process. This relationship will continue on into the future where I hope we can continue to learn from one another.  My male lead unfortunately changed towards the end of the film as contacting the original cast member was quite difficult.

This entire pre-production was interesting and having worked on my own, I certainly learnt in this early period about what was involved as well as to trust and be patient with people while understanding that you can’t do everything yourself as the process is so large. The need to get help and share ideas with others on such a major scale was a must. While I think I handled this early process well, it paled in comparison to what would came next during the production where my patience was tested along with my own skill level as well as working with difficult people. 

The production of Suffragette Molly was quite an enjoyable process with a full range of emotions. I had always known it was going to be hard working on my own; however, when Seon came onto my team, despite my reservation on her first day as I had nothing for her to do I was very pleased in the end to have her on the team. During the break I had done massive amounts of work including the basic lounge location set and character modelling. After my character modelling were dismissed as being not as good as it should, I gave Seon all of the characters to remodel from Toby’s drawings, looking back at this now I believe it was a really good decision. 

I did lack confidence in character modelling within Maya so I used Mudbox instead and as I was on my own at the time I went ahead with a program I have more confidence in using. Looking back now, I am so pleased Seon worked on all the characters, she did such a wonderful and great job, if it wasn’t for her, I would never had this film finished as I would have spent 2 months just on the modelling the characters. Having Seon on the character modelling allowed me to focus on the sets and prop modelling. 

While Seon moved onto the next character and although I knew rigging wasn’t my strongest element I gave it a go. I knew Molly was going to be the most difficult because of her wide range of movements and I tried to reflect this within her rig. I thought I would have problems and that came true. I literally spent weeks testing and retesting. With every mistake I learnt something new, including the need for accuracy of the model, rig and correctly placed controllers. Within the script, I decided that the other characters weren’t to move as much, either they were sitting down or standing, therefore their rigs would be simple and easy to create.  

I feel my strongest asset is my animation skills. While this may not be reflected within the film due to limited time I had, I know I have learnt a great deal of what is involved in undertaking animation for longer than 10 seconds.  During the animation process, I noticed all the problems associated with my rig, particularly with my weights of the body. Many were only discovered during this process, so it was quite often I had to go back and fix it. This was at times quite frustrating as it slowed me down. However if there were areas I couldn’t fix or had trouble with i.e. the hands, I would move the camera to hide any of these mistakes.  Despite many mistakes and the time it took to fix it, many problems still occurred and I believe this is simply because of my rigging skill level. Nevertheless I preferred to focus and concentrate on the animation as I have confidence in this area. I would rather take an object and animate it to life than rigging it. I realise my animation isn’t fantastic at the moment but the more I practice in the real world, the better I will become. 

I found the most difficult aspect of the entire project was working with some difficult people. During the second half of session two, I had difficulty with the sound guy who wanted to take control and decided everything for himself without consulting me. His main emphasis was his own assignment and wasn’t focused on mine.  This was quite a difficult period where my stress level was quite high. Making both Head Teachers aware of my difficulties I found this action actually made it worse, to a point where he get quite nasty. But after a bitter two weeks, I found someone else and our working relationship is far better. I think I handed this situation quite badly, simply because I was so focused on other aspects of the film, I failed to check in regularly with how the sounds were going, therefore leaving him to think everything was OK. 

I realise as a Director I need to check every aspect of the project and this was one area I failed to do so. I learnt a great deal during this time, but then again, I may come across people like this regularly in the future and the best thing to do is find someone who I can trust and know will do the job and not slow me down by having a big ego and preventing you from moving forward in your work. 

So, in general, how do I feel about the entire project, be that good or bad? Basically despite the occasional setback, the entire process has been thoroughly enjoyable. The idea of creating a film was frightening and enjoyable at the same time, especially undertaking almost all on my own. The idea of creating a film and going through a wide range of emotions was something I was expecting but the pressure to come up with something was enormous. I wouldn’t lie that there were many, many times I doubted myself to whether I would finish or if the final product would be any good. I was concerned about every detail and whether anyone would like the project. I also doubted whether my skills would be up to the task to create a film that would be good enough to get me work, but my biggest concern was time (funny that considering the film is about time travel) and whether everything would be completed. This primary concern was that we were a group of two whereas other groups had three or four people also my disorganisation of the entire film. 

I realise that working on three or four large tasks within the project at once wasn’t ideal and I lost control at times i.e. audio side of things. While ideally I should have been better organising tasks between the two of us and I should have had regularly contacts/meetings with others, I was far too focused on getting the animation/rigging correct. Looking back at it now, I should have asked for more exterior help that would have allowed me to focus on the directing and the thing I love the most, animation. Despite this, I estimate this film would never had been finished if it wasn’t for the great skills of Seon, who worked really hard on getting all the characters right and on time. Nevertheless with all the problems, I would still love to one day direct an animation film and this entire project hasn’t put me off. When reviewing the entire process, I completely understand the hard ache that goes people go through making an animated film.

Week 16 – Rendering continues with Post Production

This week has been quite busy, checking and rechecking every render. Unlike last week, this week has been relatively smooth and with no or little mistakes. My confidence in my rendering has grown as I can see the entire animation coming to life.

As each render has finished, like last week, I place in after effects for twicking and colour correction, then in Premiere for timing and editing. Currently, my renders are a bit over the place, but it will come together very soon.

During my renders, I was working on time and how long each one would take (as we now have an extra week, this has become just as important as it once was), and the backgrounds with animation was taking roughly 8-10 minutes for the interior scenes. However, there are many shots where the background is static, so I come to the conclusion that I should just render the static background once, and just render the animation. That way, I should be able to free up time. This of course only works with static or locked cameras, but moveable cameras, will need to be rendered as before.

As the renders continue their job, I finally recorded the male voices with a new audio engineer on Friday afternoon. With the extra few days, this has allowed me breathing space to fix up the lip syching. The recording session was excellent with Richard, the audio engineer and myself working well together, far better than the previous one. I hope to maintain this working relationship into next year.

One week to go and I hope to have all my renders completed by early in the week (around Tuesday), with the rest of the time for finalising timing/pacing, post along with the credits and start, using After Effects and Premiere.

Week 15 – The end is nigh and the rendering begins

This week has been the start of what is the final process, rendering. For the rendering to be successful, I conducted a lot of tests to make sure it looks and feels correct. Once I was happy, rendering began. (More on this later).

Starting on Wednesday night, so far I have rendered all of scene 1 and almost all of scene 5. These renders aren’t final as they must go through a number of stages including correcting the levels, twicking the curves and some colour correction, all completed within After Effects, (which I will do after the renders have finished). Along with this, I added (suggestion from Sean), some brightness/contrast and blur creating a historical but contemporary feel. This was something I was unsure of on first suggestion, but upon viewing I knew it was right. I was originally going for dust and scratches, ala old film, but it was quite rightly pointed out that this would make it in Molly’s past, it needed to be her present.  With some slight modifications, this look will be continued throughout 1895.

In terms of rendering, I have made some silly mistakes, mainly to do with rendering the wrong camera stemming from the fact, I haven’t really rendered multiple cameras, and sight laziness by not checking. After this happened twice, I am making sure it is the correct camera before proceeding.

It is also during the render testing, I have discovered that render at a high detail is pointless, due to what I do in post. By setting it slightly (only slightly) lower than the highest setting (ie Production: Fine Trace to Production), it saves me a handful of minutes for one frame (it’s been on average 5-8 minutes on Fine Trace and 3-5 on Production). These small minutes will save me hours in the long term meaning I can render more over the same time frame.

Outside of render/post production, Seon has done a fine job, modeling and texturing objects within the lounge such as the light fixtures. She has done a fantastic job and this has really added character to the room. Plus her texturing has been impressive as well.

When it has come down to sound, another student has come on board. It’s very last minute and I personally don’t or can’t expect miracles being with only one week to go, but let’s see how it goes. It terms of voices, I have moved on and are using most of the male voices (not Bradford). In terms of Bradford I am trying to use one of the teachers at JMC, but time and my lack of organizational skills has been detrimental to the project. My plan is if I can do it in the last week great, but if time runs out, I will use the temp voice for the hand in and use proper recording afterwards (with a re-render of Bradford’s three shots) for the Martini awards.

If all goes well, most of the rendering should be complete by Friday/Saturday, however, if time is short, I will do quick renders for hand in and do them more correctly for the Martini awards.

Raw Renders

 

Levels, Curve, Colour Balance added

Brightness/Contrast and Blur added

Week 14 - Lighting test

This week has been interesting to say the least. Apart from the huge amounts of stress trying to get audio files, see another blog post for more details, this week has been focusing trying to get the lighting and atmosphere right for all the scenes.

One of the key aspects of lighting for Suffragette Molly is getting it to look warm especially for Bradford’s room. Originally the main lighting was going to come from the fireplace, but upon suggestion from Sean, small gas wall lighting now fills the room. Adding these lights have improved the room greatly and have added so much atmosphere, with not only its historical look and appearance, but has emphaised the woody nature of the room.

Lighting is an important part of any animation and with Suffragette Molly is no different. The last couple of days have mostly comprised of testing after testing with renders from various angles. Some have worked and some didn’t either being too dark or too bright. I had to get that balance right. This balance did take some, playing around with the light intensity and adding some lights to further emphasis the mood and atmosphere required. At the moment, I think I do have the balance right with Bradford’s room, however, slight variations may change to suit the atmosphere of the interior.

Yes, I did have some problems with Bradford’s room, however, the most difficult lighting task I have had so far is within scene 4 as Molly arrives in 2113. I bordered up the windows and placed and area light hoping I would have streams of light coming through the gaps. At the moment this has not happened, so more testing and lights will be required.

The night exterior lighting has been fun, with many up and down results. Upon suggestion, I have placed light outside (the same as the interior lights) and this has made an incredible difference. It has created a warm, touch to the exterior of the building. The hardest aspect so far has been trying to get the atmospheric lighting right for the overall scene. The scene is during thunderstorm, lighting and rain everywhere (this will likely happened in After Effects), and to get that feeling right, it needs to feel dark and scary, but still have enough light to be able to view important aspects like the house and trees. I am still working on this, but I reckon I am close.

As I draw nearer, I hope to start the proper render as soon as this week, with scenes that don’t have any lip syching. Once I can get (or I should say if), the files with all the sounds, this should take me around a day to change and then rendering can begin on this. It’s coming down to the wire, I worried I may not get all the renders done in time, with half the film rendered by the time it needs to be handed in two weeks’ time. Worry is settling in, but I must remain calm so my energies don’t run out by the end of this long marathon.