Kendo can do… can I do that too?
Purposely, I forced myself not to think of a concept before arriving in Bristol. The prime reason for this was that at my home university in The Netherlands I was already working on two short movies. Secondly, I wanted to get acquainted with the accommodations first. However, one idea kept popping up in the back of my head. As I attended the first lecture and got induced to the course, I decided not to think too hard on a new idea due to the limited amount of time of three months. Thus, I presented the idea of Kendo can do ‘Magic’. I was very doubtful about this ‘slapstick comedy animation’ in the beginning, due to my Fine Art background. On second thought however, I think it was a wise decision not to involve too much of my Fine Art themes (which cover autobiography and identity) due to a tough psychological time I have been going through. Because I have been busy and focusing on identity for my essay and proposal for Visual Culture, working on my animation has been rather much of a distraction from my ‘mental issues’, which I think is good.
With this I already learned something, namely ‘knowing my limits’. The risk I had with my Fine Art work being autobiographical was that I could drown in it due to the limitlessness of this subject.
I do want to state that this doesn’t mean I have not been working hard on my animation. On the contrary, to my opinion I have done the best to my capabilities (without unhealthy devotion). In this report I shall write down the process I have been going through to realize my 1:19 minute 2D hand drawn animation, Kendo can do Magic, and give a reflection.
The character Kendo was designed when I was only 12 years old, I can’t remember any reason for me drawing a cartoon character as this wasn’t something I usually drew. Nor do I know why I called him Kendo – although the character is genderless, I will refer to him with male pronouns. The only thing I can recall is that he was inspired by the Looney Tunes character Marvin the Martian, even though I never really watched any of this series!
Under these vague circumstances I soon forgot about him, until I entered University. In my first year during Painting class we had to come up with a superhero. Coincidentally, Kendo popped up in mind again. As I noticed the positive reactions on the character, I developed the idea of wanting him to become a commercial concept. One day, during a birthday party my youngest sister suggested to make a story around Kendo.
So it became: Kendo can do…Magic.
I thought of creating the concept Kendo can do <…>, but haven’t further developed the idea on how to commercialise him yet. However, I did use the illustrations I had on Kendo can do Magic for another project on Graphics. By using silkscreen print I created an over proportioned book,- which unfortunately has been destroyed by water damage during my exchange. The story was fixed anyway and since then I thought of creating an animation of it.
This moment arrived when an idea had to be presented during the Animation course. Like I mentioned before, due to the lack of time (and personal problems) I choose to do what I have been thinking of for a long time. What rested was which technique I would use to realise my animation. Because I have never been too fond of computer animation, due to its polished look and lack of ‘physical touch’, this was out of the question. For a short moment I thought of creating 3D stop-motion by making a puppet out of Kendo, yet I have been discouraged to do so as this would be too complex for the amount of time. Thus I came to the conclusion of doing a hand drawn animation. I have once done this before, in my first year, and because that gave me a bit of a taste I decided now would be the good moment to indulge myself.
Frankly, this was much harder than I expected. I am glad I started with drawing a couple of line sketches early in the beginning, which can be found on my blog.
Fully aware of the tight schedule, I did not wish to stray too much from my idea. Unfortunately, I have been led into confusion after some feedback from John Parry. The suggestions he gave were good and fair, nevertheless I think they have been given too late in the process. This caused me to think over my idea for a week, coming up with new additions to Kendo’s story. In the end, the animation would become too long, I did not know how to end it properly anymore and adding in a background, were the reasons why I decided to stick to my original idea. I must add however, thanks to feedback in the very beginning I have edited the ending of Kendo compared to the version I created in my first year. This also can be found on my blog, under the page ‘Script’. Meaning, feedback does encourage me to think carefully about my idea and I am not scared to change anything where necessary. However this should not be done in a stage of development, which was the case with John. And as I find it a pity I haven’t been able to use his feedback to the fullest, I will bear his advice in mind for the future.
After having found out on how to create a walking cycle, with a little help from the book “The Animator’s Survival Kit”, I surely started on the real animation. Unconventionally, I worked mostly straight on the paper without any preparatory line sketches, apart from scene 3 (bunny zoom + Kendo’s fight scene). This way of working seemed pretty fast to me, I have managed to draw 450 drawings in approximately 6 days, allowing me to be to be perfectly on schedule. The downside I suffered from however was the field size, which I sometimes in a hurry forgot to place under my drawings. Unaware of its importance at first, I know realise how badly you should stick to that guide. In my animation you can spot a couple of camera shifts, which are due to my laxity in using the field size. On the other side, one learns most through practice and I have definitely learned my lesson.
After I realised the conventional way of processing the drawings was scanning by computer, I wanted to do it differently. As I mentioned before, I have made a 2D hand drawn animation before and processing those drawings I did in a way similar to the line sketch process. I decided to give it a shot to capture the drawings via Stopmotion Pro by using my own reflex camera. Mary Murphy has been of great help to me and thus I was able to shoot my animation in one and a half day.
I shot my animation in sepia tones, as I thought this had a similar feeling of atmosphere to my one-sheet, for this I once again reference to my blog.
With my animation finished, the dreaded part arrived: Sound Effects.
However much Chris Napier has made me enthusiastic about Foley, I could not help but get lost in the limitless space of recreating sound. To keep up the motivation, I made an appointment with Amy Ashton to work on the Foley together. Unfortunately, we both got frustrated about the endless sources that can regenerate sound. In the end, I recorded three sounds simply to get the taste of it. It had a bitter aftertaste though, for I was not able to import the sounds into Adobe Premiere properly. Thus I had to gather Sound Effects on the wide world called: the internet.
Unlike the Internet Sound Search Experience I had during my animatic, which was horrible, I now found a couple of good websites providing me with proper free sound clips. I wanted to use the music of Dukas’ “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” (inspired by Disney’s Fantasia, with Mickey Mouse as the Apprentice), which I came up with after finding sound only sounded so empty - which could maybe find its reason in my inexperience with using sound-effects. Nonetheless, I found some similarities between Mickey Mouse and Kendo which made me decide to push through this idea. I enjoyed the similarities of both Mickey Mouse and Kendo wanting to be something more than they actually are. They perform an act, which fails, but in the end gives them a certain cuteness factor.
Now I have had introduced myself to Foley, even though in failure, I decided I could as well introduce myself to another medium I haven’t worked with before: Adobe After Effects.
For the ending credits I actually had a cute idea in mind; a little continuation on the story. I wished to show Kendo being caught in the hat, where the only thing visible would be his two yellow eyes. Kendo walks around, bumping his head a couple of times in the process, while in the meantime the credits appear and fade.
On first thought, a not too complicated idea, especially if I would work on it digitally. Nevertheless, time limit and setting priorities made me give up on this idea. I was able to make Kendo move around, but couldn’t make him close his eyes the way I wanted to. So I left it only with the text. I have had a taste of After Effects now as well.
Another thing I made myself acquainted with was the tablet. I used this to write ‘KENDO’ in the introduction, as I could not find any font suited enough. Much aware as I am of the sketchiness of this, it is the closest I could get to what I had in mind.
Also, the introduction was what made me change my mind about the colour for the animation. Whereas I started in sepia, I ended with clean black and white. Inspired by the Dutch/Belgian animation “Musti” I wanted to colour Kendo in mainly primary and secondary colours. I now came to decision whether I would create the introduction like how I wanted the animation to be: If I would be working on the colouring in my free time, or whether I would adjust it so it would fit the sepia tones. I choose for the first, since I already had an image on how to visualise that introduction. This also gives me extra motivation to work further on Kendo can do Magic, to actually colour it! Frankly, this is one of the things I am frustrated with most: that I have not been able to entirely do the work I wanted. As I’m aware that taking concessions is part of the job, I always need to have something to compensate. I have not been able to colour, thus I hoped to have been able to work out the credits. At both I failed, which is why I cannot be entirely content about my work. Consequently, I will be working on this animation even after the official hand-in. Hopefully I am able to create a piece of work I could be proud of this way.
Nonetheless, it is not only the work that counts, even though that’s the thing I’ll be graded for, but the experience I’ve had from working on it. On this I would like to note that I’ve had the greatest learning experience ever. Though I did not only gain technical skills I also developed social skills as well for taking initiative. For this very reason I would not dare saying that this course gained me nothing. On the contrary, I’ve had a big taste of Animation and I cannot wait to sink my teeth into it even more…
