Production// Animation START!

I started animating the project at the begining of April. I originally planned on begining half way into February but had to hold it off because of a bit of a negative patch I was going through. SO as I began work I was aware I was behind schedule by a few weeks. I began before cutting down the animatic, making it shorter without losing too much to the project because of time limitations.

The previous two years I've been in a work relationship with Photoshop on my laptop and so decided to continue using the software to animate this project. Previously I've been using Photoshop timeline, separated into different grouped layers to animate a scene. 

And here are the words. Layer order: Animated character, objects in room, background. For an actual example here's a scene I animated with loads of layers involved...

Layers used for a two second scene

Background texture used for backgrounds wallpaper

When I first started animating with Photoshop I didn't struggle with the 'layer' problem that seems to confuse many - as i've noticed when teaching others after photoshop in the past. I had already worked traditionally with animation, using acetate sheets of different characters, colours, shadows and backgrounds. So using layers in photoshop (to animate) was just the same as what I'd already been doing, but digitally.

For a scene later on in the animation I rendered out each 'step' of the animation progress to finish off the shot. The scene involved two characters interacting at a bus stop. The narrative was freshly recorded that morning and because of this is very quiet. So please, headphones are advised.

Here's another progress reel of a shot. I wanted to include this shot because it's an example of how I used layers to my advantage when animating. When the character enters the room, the layer he's animating on is behind the doors layer. However into the animation, he's then animated on a layer above the doors layer - to give the character the illusion of entering the environment. I used this 'trick' a lot in this project, particularly with characters in their surroundings or sat on things.