Term 4 has come to an end at Vancouver Film School and I wanted to post an animation we have been working on during this last term. The goal was to have a character walk on screen, react to something, and then run off.
My take on it was a guy trying to catch a lightning bug, or as everyone else I’ve talked to that’s not from Kentucky, knows it as a fire fly.
First, we shot reference of each other and did multiple takes to see what was working and what was not. It helped to have my classmates there, thanks guys, to give me feedback and even try to act out my scene for me the way they would do it.
Next, I thumbnailed out the basic poses very rough to see lines of action and see my keys. Then I exaggerated those thumbnails in some more rough sketches.
Then I took it into Maya, using my reference to get my key poses blocked in, and timed out roughly. Then another pass to get the ‘extremes,’ and then yet another pass to get the breakdowns, which is more about timing. Then the final couple of passes were for polishing.
My reference footage cut next to my keys.
I added an entire section at the beginning when I was adding the breakdowns where he misses the bug and gets angry. It was fun to diverge from the reference and make the animation work better than what I shot of myself doing in the reference.
For next term I’ll begin animating my short film, which has undergone countless changes. I think I’m working on animatic number 7 or 8 this week, I’ve lost count. We’ll also be doing a lip sync assignment as well.