ROA Experience

http://www.raveonair.com/

Well, our advert had a good showing at Rave On Air. Even though I didn't see it aired, I was informed that apparently was broad casted no less than six times. I am quite pleased about that. I got some nice comments about it, mostly from the third years, and it was quite nice when spliced together in the class demo reel.

I hope that this success at Rave on Air shows that together, Al and I created an entertaining advert that showcases Sony's history and gets people excited about it's future. I believe it also proves that the advert we created can stand up well to other contemporary adverts.

I am quite proud of what we have accomplished.

P.S. I have a feeling we have to be in on Monday to present to the Product Design Students again. I really hope not.

Conclusion and Reflection

Now it comes to the end.

On reflection I am pleased with how the project came about. The idea was a quirky way to represent the history and culture of Sony. The sketchy style is quite nice and I am quite proud of myself with the animation of Sony Boy. Originally the point of the advert was to remind the viewer about Sony's history and get them excited about the future. I believe our little advert has done just that. The products are recognisable and a clear timeline can be seen. The climax of the advert with the computer animated Sony Boy really gets you excited about what the future possibilities of Sony are.

I believe that it stands up as an advert. Sure it could use a bit more polish, the animation could be inked and coloured in better, a decent score could be composed, it could have been edited better and the CG Sony Boy model could have looked and moved better, but overall I think it stands as an entertaining advert that could easily stand up with such adverts as the Honda ads.

Overall, I think that we did a good job.

Back Tracking

I will be doing a little bit of backtracking in this post as it has been quite busy and I haven't been able to post recently. Currently the project is completed. Al came in at 11:00, I parented the product to Sony Boy's hand and rendered it out. We then submitted it on time. I am a bit worried about epilepsy. There are some broadcasting codes that state that a shot can't be under 7 seconds long and if your advert contains shots under seven seconds long it won't be broadcasted. There is also the dates that might prove a problem.

Our production schedule is up to date and now I just have to finish this blog.

Okay, back to the past. I ended up mostly texturing the products myself, since Al was busy with other things. I had to learn how to UV texture, which was difficult. I then rendered of the shots and took them into aftereffects. Previous to this I also edited and altered the pencil Sony Boy animation in Premiere and saved them out as AVI files.

The products had to be rescaled when they entered aftereffects but that was the least of my worries. Since some of the Sony Boy animation was slowed down in Premiere the animation of the products no longer matched up with the animation of Sony Boy. I therefore had to reanimate the products again in aftereffects.

The most difficult shots was the opening shot and the Television shot as the product had to go behind Sony Boy. I had to place a mask on the product and mask out the areas that were behind Sony Boy. It took a while but the results as you can see are below.

I also searched for some free copyright free music. You have no idea how difficult that was. Luckily I found a website called www.freeplaymusic.com and I found the sort of fifties lounge music I was looking for called Floor Sample.

Enjoy!

Panic, Reflection and Deadlines

12:00 today, the deadline is 12:00 today.

Everything is ready, all I need to do is drop in Al's scene and render. But he is not here yet and I can't get into his computer and I can't reach him on his mobile.

Sick, I think I'm going to be sick!

On the plus side, I am really pleased with the advert. It's entertaining and turned out mostly as I expected it would. The products are recognisable and I believe it reminds people of Sony's history in a fun way. It might need a bit more spic and polish here and there but overall I am pleased with the results.

Let's just hope that Al gets here.

Current Progress

Okay, the situation at the moment is that Al has nearly finished modelling Sony Boy, only the back of the head is missing. The actual Product, now called the Sony, has been textured and rendered along with the PlayStation and the TR55. Al textured the PlayStation. The Sony and the PlayStation have been com posited into the animations in aftereffects and it looks good. It looks exactly like the Oscar Mayer wiener ad. Dan says the animations were really good and to not change them a bit, which I was really chuffed about. The TR55 needs to be done tomorrow. Al says he is going to texture the Television and the Walkman so I can do them tomorrow also. If Al can get all his work done we should have the ad done for Friday.

Jared suggested to solve our confusion problem, by just having the name of the product come up. That way it doesn't mess up the timing, we already figured out.

Well, all engines go!!!

How to do a Tagline and Mascot Adverts Research

Here is some research I have done to help me decide what to do about this confusion problem.

Honda Cog advert
This is something on the lines of what we need, description wise. It provides a bit of explanation but not too much that it makes the advert pointless. Don't know if it should be voicover or text.

Underroos
I just like this advert.


Funny Fruit
This would be a typical fifties advert.

The Flintstones Commercial
Just because!

Home Stretch, Panic Sets in

We are on the home stretch no. I have completed all my tasks. I'm just waiting on Al now. When he finishes, we can render, composite and edit. Right now I am having doubts about the project. I am worried it might be a bit confusing. Maybe we should have some explanation in the advert. However, I don't think we want to much explanation, because too much might make the animation pointless. I remember the teacher of the product design students suggested we should put a little explanation as to who Sony Boy is. Should this be in just text, or should it be in voice over. If we are going to do voice over, we will have get that set up quickly. I just don't know. I will have to go away and think about it.

Product animation

Above are some of the close-ups of Sony Boy's hands, for the close-ups of the products. They are in photoshop on layers, so I can just slip a picture of the desired product in. Also above, is a Sony Boy cone. Jared suggested creating a cone and coloured in the same colours as Sony Boy. A bend handle was put in. The cone was rotated, moved and bent and rendered out using a 3D motion blur software.

Below is a movie of some product animations I did today. They need to be textured by Al. I looked at each drawing of my 2D animations and I tried to match the pose with the product in Maya. I have done two scenes and have got three left to do. Back off to work I go.

Images from the Animation

Here are some images from the animations. As you can see we went for a 101 Dalmatians, Rhubarb and Custard feel. I think it works quite well. Don't you. The sketchy style gives a nice hand drawn contrast to the computer animation that should follow. I believe it could stand up as a professional advertisement.

Coloured Tests

Just an update. Al has been very busy and says he has nearly finished the Sony Boy model. I hope that I can see it soon. After scanning the pictures into photoshop, I applied a threshold and altered the Brightness and Contrast to darkened the outlines and get rid of the lighter lines. Some construction lines re-main and it gives it a sketchy 101 Dalmatians look. After that I exported the scenes out as filmstrips via aftereffects, took them back into photoshop and coloured each frame in individually. That was so tiring and frustrating. I have done three scenes already and have only two scenes to go. The coloured filmstrips were then taken back into aftereffects, turned in tiff sequences, and then taken into premiere and exported out as avi files. I am hopefully gonna get all the scenes done by Friday so I can help Al with the computer animating of Sony Boy and the models.

Progress

Hi,

I have just finished the animation entirely. I have spent the entire day yesterday scanning all the animations into photoshop. I am now worried because they all have to be cleaned-up and edited. No real computer work has been done yet and the music tracks haven't been decided. Oh, and the deadline has been moved up.

Reflection on project so far

I feel the project has gone quite well actually. We developed a good idea at the start and we are seeing it through. Pencil animation is being produced at a rate quicker to what we thought. Al has a lot of other commitments but he insures me he is working hard on it. We still have a lot of work left to do. Sony Boy needs to be finished, rigged and textured and then needs to be animated. The products need to be textured and animated too. The pencil animation needs to be cleaned up and re shot. That will take some time. I kinda of panicking now, there is only three weeks left.

I was worried about the animation itself, but I was surprised by it. It looks much better than what I thought it would look. Sure their are some minor tweaks here and there, but overall both Al and I are pleased in how it turned out. If we get this finished, I believe it could stand up as a professional advertisement.

Back to work now.

New Sony Boy Pencil Animations

Well, here are the next three scenes of rough Sony Boy animation. I hope you enjoy them. They need to be cleaned up and then have the objects superimposed in. They need to be finished to. Too much work.










I decided to put the unfinished television scene up. I like it, but I think it needs to be slowed down.

Live-Action Reference Drawings

Here are the live-action reference sketches I drew to help me figure out the animation. They helped a lot.
TR55




Television





Walkman



Playstation



New Product

Sony Boy Lives!!!!

Sony Boy Lives!!!

This is my first scene of completed Sony Boy animation.
I am really quite pleased with it.

Now for more animation.

Modelling for Al and Rough Live-Action Reference

Here are some reference drawings I did from the live-action reference film I shot of myself to help me draw the poses of Sony Boy. This live-action film will have to be studied to help me figure out the animation.



Here are some rough models of Sony Products I did yesterday for Al. I was doing key frames for the Sony Boy animation but I ran out of paper, so I did these instead.

Colour across the ages research

Al and I have decided to emphasise the change over the decades in the advert, Sony Boy himself should change in colour gradually before making the massive leap to three dimensions. So I have researched some adverts to give an idea of what colour Sony Boy is going to take. This first one is the start, the fifties' Oscar Meyer Wiener ad.
This is the 1965 colour version. The colours are a bit saturated at this point.
This is a 1979 Eureka Vacuum Cleaner advert. The colours are brighter but still retain a faded drawn like quality.
This is from a Cadbury's Caramel advert from the late eighties/early nineties. Full blown, vivid colours, ink and paint.
This is from the Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker. When Sony Boy turns CGI, we thought a cel-shaded look was the way to go. We toyed with the idea of doing full-blown Pixar like effects, but we realised it would be impossible for use to do that. Rather than having a poor Pixar facsimile, we decided to do decent cel shading.

Here are the commercials these pictures are originally from.

Advert Storyboards

These are the actual storyboards, drawn up neat, used to create the animatic you saw in the previous post. I think they come of quite well. However, I know realise that this project is going to be a lot of work. For approximately 30 seconds of animation, I am going to have to draw about 750 drawings. That will take weeks, not to mention working on the showreel for Dan. Then there is inking and colouring in the drawings. Then there is also the Maya animation and the rendering. I hope we get it done in time.

Advert Animatic and Live-Action Reference

Well, I scanned some rough storyboards I did with Al in college and have complied them in a mock advert. I had to be careful of the timing as the advert can only be 30 seconds. It was tough but I think I managed.

I also shot some live-action reference of myself acting through the advert. I compiled this also into a mock advert. This was mostly to help me figure out the timing, but I shall examine it thoroughly to have so reference for the actual animation production. I hope to start that soon.

Enjoy!

List of Sony Products

The list of Sony Products we want to include in our advert.

TR-55 Sony's first transitor radio 1956
Sony Trinitron Television Set 1968
Sony Walkman 1979
Sony Playsation 1994

Sony Boy Model Sheet

A Sony Boy Model Sheet I did for Al, so he can start modelling.

What Mike Said

I wrote a e-mail back to Mike Smith asking him why. He said that he felt the chosen pitches were slightly better and deserved to be green lit.

Sony Boy actual items

http://www.flickr.com/photos/transistor_radios/page7/

Actual Sony Boy items from the 1950's. Found on Flicker.

Nick Results

I know now if I was chosen for the Nickelodeon Contest. Here is Mike's E-mail

As promised I have assessed all the 15 pitches presented on Friday morning. Can I just say how impressed I was by the level of commitment and dedication put into all the pitches. Clearly this competition and project has encouraged some very creative thinking. Likewise the pitching process itself was a fun and helpful way to guide you all towards understanding the importance of your presentational skills.



However, we were only able to choose 10 pitches to be presented to Nickelodeon and although I felt your pitch showed great potential it was not successful at this time.



Thanks,



Mike

Sony Boy Storyboards

Hi, these are the storyboards Al and I are going to pitch tomorrow. I hope the product designs students like them.
Idea 1
In this idea the product becomes a fairy the transports Sony Boy to the three-dimensional future.

Idea 2

This was Al's little idea about showing the transition from 2D to 3D in a twirl.

Idea 3
This idea came from cheese adverts.

Idea 4

This advert was my first idea about Sony Boy finding the product whilst searching through the Sony loft.