Graduation and other things

My last post was in May, 2 days before the deadline, so there's a lot of catching up to do! The Secret Circus was finished (completely!) on time. I did however have a new score written by a new composer, David Munoyerro-Sesmero;

http://davidmunoyerrosesmero.com/

Some final shots of The Secret Circus;

Since leaving Falmouth, I was super lucky in getting a job at Spider-Eye Animation Studios in St Just, Cornwall. I worked for a month as a CelAction Animator on an up-coming feature film, which was super exciting. I then graduated on September the 9th;

Needless to say, I'm missing Falmouth loads!
I now have a snazzy new website, you can find more of my work here at;

 http://www.i-m.co/LauraNormans/LauraNormans/

The Secret Circus - Tilly jumps into the Circus

One of the most important shots for The Secret Circus is when Tilly jumps into the circus. This scene needs to be magical and really engaging to the audience. My initial idea was to make the circus spin along with sparkling at the same time. However due to time, I decided not to make the circus spin, instead, I made the circus sparkle, both by using preset animations in After Effects and creating my own sparkles in CelAction (I re-used the previous sparkles from Tilly leaving the circus scene) Although I am quite dissapointed I couldn't make the circus spin, I felt the sparkles were much better and worked with the storyline instead, especially as Tilly leaves the circus in a cloud of glitter. Here are the WIPs and development shots of Tilly's bedroom scene;


First scene;

This scene involves Tilly jumping, a first development shot without the darkness of the bedroom. As well the stars I rendered in After Effects were red at this point, which I ended up changing through to yellow.



The second take on, this time now with the night-time background. However the stars remained the same in this one. This was to show how the night-time background would work.

With crit from Derek, Kathy & Niki, this scene then developed further. I changed the stars to white at this point, as well this part is critical, the jump needed to be slower and the whole point of Tilly jumping into the circus needed to be emphasised. Kathy, Derek and Niki suggested a close-up and a pan to aid the viewer when watching the film. As this is aimed at young children making sure they understand what is going on is crucial. Adding in the close-up has really emphasised the scene and made it much clearer to the viewer of what's going on. I also added some stars around Tilly too which I feel completes the atmosphere and makes a really interesting and magical setting.





To show the WIP;




This scene was animated by Alice Holmes.

Scene 1 - Tilly gets ready for bed.

Began animating today! Scene 1 of The Secret Circus. Tilly is ready for bed, until her Mother shouts up and asks if she's brushed her teeth. Tilly lies and says she has, although the narrator makes it very clear she hasn't. This scene is still a work in progress, and requires a lot of editing especially with the narration.