The Magpie: animation and experiments in composition

Compositing was always something I had intended to do especially right when it came to the final cut, as it has such a large effect on the general aesthetic and the audience's perception of the film. I went into After Effects with what was then the only fully animated shot of the film, and played around with masks and effects until I found a combination of tools that accurately recreated the look I was going for.

I used this lighting and filtering test, created in Photoshop, as a visual target while tinkering in After Effects.

For this film, it's important for me that the flash animation doesn't stand out too much from the backgrounds. There's always going to be a certain degree of separation as they're starkly different mediums from each other, but the animated characters have to nevertheless look like they belong to the world they've been placed over.

Also, I've been getting a fair chunk of animation done. Having concentrated on Estelle's project, Pups, lately, I've been striving to redress the balance in my workload. Shot 4 of my film, the shot where the man encounters the bird for the first time, is a long shot to animate and so I took a break from that and concentrated on a shot from later on in my production schedule, just to keep things interesting. In this next shot, shot 17, the man is sitting on the park bench and prepares to eat his lunch. However, just before taking a bite from the sandwich, paranoia suddenly sets in and he looks suspiciously around to see if that mischievous magpie's around. He's clearly still sore from the handkerchief fiasco from earlier on.

Pups: Shot 2

Here's the latest shot I animated for Pups.

The Magpie: images so far

Here's a compilation of all the visual material from this blog, from the very beginning. I figure that a definitive visual summary of all that has been posted would come in handy.

Composition Concepts

In between animating for The Magpie, I've been trying to see how the film will look once everything's been composited together. Once I've figured stuff out in this way, it'll provide a more concrete goal for us when everything's animated and it turns to post-production.

Here are the first designs.