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.

Bob & Oscar Preview

This is my final year animation im currently working on 'Bob & Oscar'. Its just a sneek preview of what ive done so far. It still needs alot of work doing to it and I need to animate some scenes but will hoepfully all be done in time and it also desperatly neesd sound. Im just comparing it to my animation I did in my secound year and I think ive improved alot since. So far the animation has taken altogether about a monthwhich includes drawing the backgrounds and deciding what sound to put on it. Its taken me abit longer as im nt used to using Flash but over the past few weeks ive been getting quicker and getting to know what all the tools etc do. Ive been keeping alittle notbook to jot down information to remind me how to do a certain thing in Flash and ive found that this helps alot incase i forget how to do somthing. So far the animation is going really well but I need to work much faster since the deadline is next week, well I have to take some screenshots of the animation for the tutors to print off so they can mount them onto boards for the final year show so it has to be completed hopefully by monday so I can get this sorted. My assesment isnt untill thursday at 9:30am but everything has to be completed preferably bu wednesday.

Improvements so far I would make is to do the backgrounds in watercolour if i had enough time i would prefer to do that, though the backgrounds arnt too bad they just seem very simple and I want the to have abit more detail to them not so much that they take your eye off the characters. Other improvements I would make is the characters themselves, as you can see they are very simple, plain and flat designs. The only reason I drew them like this is because it was easier and quicker to animate them. If I had more time with this animation I would take more time animating them though they have taken some time to animate at the moment I would like to try and hand draw each frame so it looks more like traditional animation. At the moment theyjust apear robotic to me and id prefer them to look more smooth maybe they need more frames inbetween to smooth them out more.

The next stages in the animation is where Bob goes to the checkout and takes his time there while Oscar is getting heatstroke in the car, a few close ups of the sun showing how hot its getting, Bob then coming out of the shop with his trolly pull and he looks for his keys in his pockets but struggles to find them. He opens the Car door and finds Oscar passed out from heatstroke. Then showing what to do in this situation if your dog has heatsroke, trying to kool him down slowly with some ice. Then Im thinking about putting a phrase at the end warning people about leaving thr dogs in the car on a hot day while Bob and Oscar are driving home or out it in while Bob is trying to kool down Oscar kinda leave it on a continue. Did Oscar survive the heat? has he turned into a hotdog?.

Bob & Oscar Animatic

A quick animatic of my final animation 'Bob and Oscar' that I did at the beggining of the 3rd year. It hasnt got any sound unfortunatly as I didnt decide on what sound to put with it at the time. This isnt a great animatic is was rushed as I just wanted to get into animating as soon as poss and just get the animatic out of the way. I have kept to some of the scenes in the animatic and the story is the same. I have shortened it as i wouldnt have had time to animate all the scenes. Currently Im i have animated up to where Bob is in the shop and comparing prices of products while Oscar is still in the car getting even hotter or staring to get heatstroke. I still have a few scenes to go with Bob going to the checkout but Im thinking about leaving that till the end if I have time to animate it but it isnt that essential to have it just shows Bob taking abit longer in the shop. The next step is to animate Bob opening the Car door and finding Oscar passed out on the seat and then how he helps Oscar to kool down using some ice he bought from his shopping.

Bob and Oscar 2nd Year Animation

This was my very first animation using Flash which is why it looks so bad and I do think I have improved since. I tried to capture the raltionship between Bob and Oscar. It was quickly animated took me about a week to do which is actually long considering it doesnt have much movement witht the characters but considering it was my first 2nd year project using Flash it wasnt so bad, I think the music goes well with it especially when Oscar runs to the door at Bob. Im going to link a little preview of my animation im currently working on for my final year animation and see if I have improved since I did this animation.

Bob Walk Cycle

Here it is a quick Bob walk cycle had to make all his body parts into seperate symbols which took alot of time to draw each one. Its nothing great I think his head probably bobles up and down to much and he could do with perhaps one more frame as it looks like he has a slight limp and I would have liked him to blink which doesnt take too long to just put in quickly so i may do that in the future. I did have fun animating Bob walk it was easy to do too. I used Flash to animate him and I will do the same with my dog Osacar. I also want to make a Youtube account so I can put my work up on to try and get me noticed which will take some time as I still need alot of practice with using Flash. Hopefully soon I will have some Maya images up in the future.

Dog Walk and Run Cyles

These are just a couple of walk and run cycles I found an the internet for research purposes so I can get the movement for Oscar. I didnt need to use these but it was good reference to have. I do want to do a quick walk cycle of Oscar hopefully I will have time to do a quick one before my assesment. I have done a walk cycle of Bob and have used it in my animation. If i can I will upload a preview of it in my blog it would be easier to view this way. I would also like to make a showreel with the walk cycle in it too if I have time at the end.

I would like to do a run cyle of Oscar too and try to do one of bob. Ill use Flash to animate them in.

Toonboom

This is just a little preview or screenshot of what I drew on Toonboom. I havnt had much time to animate the rest of the dog yet since Im doing my Uni animation this was just an experiment working with Toonboom. It is an easy software to learn probably easier than Flash but since Ive been working with Flash a lot Toonboom just seems strange to use. I havnt worked out what all the tools are yet but in the future would like to do an animation using this. The drawing tools seem to be better than Flash but we will see how it goes. If i have time when Ive finished my animation ill try to do more on this. The little dog was based on the attitudes of my boyfriends dog Holly. She looks so cute when she lays on her back and her ears are all floppy on the floor with her paws in the air. I want to animate her rolling over onto her stomach just something really simple to get me started with working in Toonboom.

Models

This is just a quick small scale model of Bob and Oscar made from wire and air dry modeling clay. It isnt finished yet I have to go over it and smoothe the clay out and finish detailing it but i just wanted to try and capture the relationship between them and see what they look like using a different media. I just wanted to experiment using different techniques. I have recently downloaded a trial of Maya and Im going to experiment modeling Oscar in it to see what they would look like in 3D.i I am also experimenting with Toonboom. So this quick model is so i can draw the characters easier as I can see all around the model.

This model to the left was the first model I did of Oscar when he had spots and was really fat. I used the same materials as the other model and then i painted him using acrylics and then varnished him over. he looks a bit too shinny though. I made these models as I was debating weather to animate them using stop motion, hand drawn or just use Flash. I am happy that i chose Flash as its easy to use and quick to animate. If i did it in stop motion i would have had to build all the sets and characters. though stop motion does interest me because i enjoy the modeling stages, I want to learn more about computer generated animation like Maya. I did learn abit of Maya in the 2nd year but i needed more time learning it, which is why I decided to just use flash as I found that easier to learn.

Drawing of Bob and Oscar together. This was the first drawing i did of them so its not brilliant and since i drew this oscar has changed in colour aas you can tell from the storyboard he doesnt have any spots because they would have been a pain to animate so i left him a plain light browny colour, Bob hasnt changed well except his head is probably slightly bigger but apart from that his clothes have stayed the same colour. I have enjoyed animating these together. I based the character Bob from my Dad and the dog from my dog even though they are nothing alike in breed they are in personality with his loyalty to Bob. I cant tell you what breed Oscar is at the beginning Oscar was actually a cat, a fat lazy cat. Then i decided to make him into a dog so he still is round and fat with longish ears. I made him like this as it was easier to animate him withought all the hastle with drawing complicated fur. I have two dogs one a terrior and the other a westie. I did some observational drawings of them but still went back to the simplicity of my original cat design, abit lazy of me really as i wanted to show different styles.

Bob and Oscar Storyboard

A few example pieces taken from my storyboard just to get the idea of what the story is about. Bob goes to the shop while Oscar is left in the car with the windows closed and no water. It gets hotter in the car and Oscar is feeling de-hydrated and starts to get heatstroke. Will Bob finish his shopping quick and get to Oscar in time before its too late?

Ive used water colours on my final storyboard but not in my animation. Originally I would have done the backgrounds in water colour but they were taking too long to colour and then scan in.

Bob and Oscar

Bob and Oscar is my final year animation about a middle aged man called Bob and his dog, Oscar. In the 2nd year I came up with a simple story about a man and his dog from being influenced by 'Simons Cat' and of course ‘Family guy’. At the time I was writing my dissertation on the average family and I did a lot of research on Family guy. I liked the idea of it being simple and easy to animate, as I didn’t want anything really complicated.

My 2^nd year animation of Bob and Oscar wasn’t what I wanted it to be like. It was the first time ever that I had used Flash so the animating aspect was disappointing but the story was easily read and you can see the close relationship between Bob and Oscar which is what I wanted to achieve.

I decided to then continue with the idea of Bob and Oscar into my 3^rd year and still using Flash to animate. The story is a campaigne against dogs been left in cars on a hot sunny day while their owners go off to shop or to do whatever while the dogs are left roasting in the cars. Since I have dogs of my own and I am an animal lover and see a lot of dogs left in their cars I thought it would be a prefect story for me to do. I researched into what happens if dogs are left in cars, they can get heatstroke or even die and the owners could be prosecuted or even sent to jail for animal cruelty. One thing I saw in the newspaper was that a police officer had left his two dogs in the back of his car, forgetting about them for hours in the sun they ended up getting heatstroke and tradgedly died. I have a copy of the article so I shall try and post it on my blog.

I hope that my animation will make people more aware that it’s very serious and cruel to leave dogs in the cars. It would feel like you’re in a greenhouse the temperatures can increase massively within seconds. Even if it’s not a sunny day out it can still get hot in cars. So I shall put up some drawings of my characters and some shots of my animation so far.