Assesment

So I had my assesment for my final year animation 'HOTDOG' last week on thursday 27th May. I was realy nearvous to begin with I supose that i was nervous that they wouldnt like my animation. In the end they liked my animation, the ending was very effective but the sound needs work. So I am currently working on improving the sound to hand in on Tuesday so that they can put it on the showreel. The sound needs some sound effects of Oscar breathin gor panting in the car and there needs to be some background sounds in the supermarket. I have the checkout sound ready but I am having problems with recording with Audacity. I hope this will be all completed in time. Overall I was very pleased with the assesment. I am also currently working on another animation I have to make a script yet but its basically about a Brown Cat so lets see what happens with it. I will upload a picture of him soon.

Research

I did a lot of research on the internet about different dog campaigns. I try and link some of the websites but most of them are google research or on youtube. I actually found a video of Simon Cowell about his views on cruelty to animals specificaly dogs. I have to admit it was a plesamt video as it had horrible clips of dogs been neglected and much worse. If I can fin it again I may link it on here since it was part of my research. Another was looking at Joanna Quinn of the dog in that animation. Simons cat i looked at, with its humor. Family guy with the simple animation and of course Brian the dog an Peter Griffin his (owner).

• youtube (Simon cowell talks about leaving dogs in cars in warm weather)

• youtube (Brilliant video, a must watch. Simon Cowell talking about dogs and you shouldcare for them)

• youtube ( Another one with Simon cowell being very pasionate about animals, sponsored by the RSPCA.

I also found a newspaper article awhile back while I was sitting in a coffe shop and saw that a police officer had left his dogs in the car and forgot about them while he was in his home. The two dogs that were left in the car died due to the hot temperatures. I still have the article so I will try and put it up on my blog.

I tired to upload the picture but it seems it wouldnt upload properly so hears a link of the PC who left his dogs in the car.

• Daily Mail

Final Animation 'HOTDOG'

Well here it is my final year animation Bob and Oscars 'HOTDOG'. All done in Flash CS3, taken altogether round about 2 months to complete it. Overall I am happy with the story and ending and the sound isnt too bad but I could have edited it better with the animation as some of the sad music goes into the happy music, its barely noticable but since its my animation I can notice it. Improvements I would make would be to move the characters around more like Oscar moves around in the car trying to escape. I then thought about well it would be realy hot in the car so he wouldnt be racing round in the car he would be too tierd because of the heat. thats why i just ended up with some simple screen shots of him staying in one spot, panting and trying to cool down. The music was the hardest out of the animation, animating was the easiest and the fun part. It was hard trying to get the timing exact which is why some of the music isnt sinked to how I would have liked it to have been, but i feel that I have tried my hardest to sink it as well as I can. I hope that everyone will like and enjoy it and especially be aware this summer or when its hot out, to be aware about your pets been left in the car while you go shopping or do whatever. This is my main goal i hope I would have achieved. since having too dogs of my own I am well aware of what would happen if I left my dog/dogs in the car.

If i could go back and do this project again which i could still do in the future. I would consider hand drawing the backgrounds and use water colours. Some examples of water coloured backgrounds are in my sketchbook but I will try to upload some if I have time. The characters Bob and Oscar I dont think are too bad but I would like to have drawn them better in Flash. i think overall I no I could have done better with the animation, but since Im not a proffessional in flash id say it isnt bad for my 2nd major animation.

Why did I choose to continue Bob and Oscar into my 3rd year? Well at the time I had all the characters done and a relationship between them so I thought it would be a great idea to carry it on. I had different ideas on what story to do such as, 'A day in the park'. It would have been a troublesome day for poor Bob. Oscar was going to run wild in the park and chasing birds. Another one was 'Abandoned', somthing like a dog takes a lot to look after they need alot of attention or a dog isnt for christmas, that type of story. I am glad that I ended up doing a public awarness about dogs being trapped in cars.

The title 'HOTDOG' came from my tutor Marisse. All I had to begin with was 'shopping trip' because I couldnt decide what to call my film. Im grateful she came up with that because it was a great ending too 'HOTDOG. Only takes minutes to cook.' When I thought of this I was actualy researching on the internet on animal, specificly dog campaigns. One that cought my eye was a picture of a dog inside an oven done by 'MyDogIsCool.com' campaign about dogs left in hot cars. I thought its realy effective and how can minebe as effective which is how I came up with my ending.

Show reel

I put together just a quick show reel of my work so far on flash. I would like to do more Flash animations in the future so I can add more to the show reel. I dont think at the moment my work is good enough to be sent out to any companies instead I will send a CV which I am currently working on. There is a mixture of my final animation and some rough animations just to see how I would fit them all together on a reel. It isnt perfect it only took me a few minutes to put together and I havnt edited the sound. I would certainly make the soundtrack sink if I was to send the reel off to any companies. I have also put this on youtube to see if i can get any feedback off anyone so they can give me pointers on how to make a show reel.

Flash Animation

This quick animation is of Oscars perspective looking up the stairs because he hears Bob coming down the stairs. At first I wanted to do my animation in Oscars perspective but I realised that it would take longer to animate it like this. I got the idea off Joanna Quinn's 'Family Ties' when the dog has the camera on his back.

Another perspective of Oscar getting up off the sofa and Bob coming down the stairs to greet Oscar and then going into the Kitchen though you cant see the kitchen, he is going to make some food for Oscar.

Kitty Walk

This is just a very roughly drawn, quick, little animation I did just to get me back into using Flash. Nothing amazing needs alot of work to it, just a cat walking and has missing frames. Done at the begginging of the year.

Photoshop Car

This is a quick design of the car in my film, I did this awhile ago and its done in photoshop. I dont no why I chose red but the colour now of the car in my animation is a duller colour so it wont take the attention away from the characters which is what happened. The car is just simple and the seats the back have changed, the front seat is no one long seat going across from the drivers side to the passengers side. I just thought id put up a few examples of images ive done which where ideas that didnt work well in the animation. I drew the final car in Flash and coloured it as it was easier to do it this way at the time but I would have prefered hand drawing it then use watercolour and then scanning it in and ptting it into Flash, but unfortunatly this process would have taken longer to do and with the time I had it wouldnt have been finished.