This is documentation on how the production of my short film (Dein na muu) has carried on till its current stage project diary
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1. Have an Idea
In creating Deinnamuu my main concept was to follow a girl on a journey. The idea started off as a reflection of my current situation of moving to a new location. During the core module presentations, I explained my previous practice and my intent for this film, the vast majority resonated with the idea of the story anchoring on a journey.
I was confused about what genre to settle on I started with comedy than tragedy.
core module presentation
2. Develop a storyline/ script.
The storyline came before the name. I aimed at telling a simple story that shows hardship through a journey. The first version of my film was named Maggie in my tea, it was based on a young girl moving into an apartment building in London. Then the location changed to Nigeria so the name reflected that. Dein na muu in my language means safe journey and it is said in burials so it was the perfect word to use to capture the struggle and reflect the culture. I firstly wrote a 20 minutes script, which was unpractical then reduced it to 5 minutes then finally settled on a 2-minute script.
Script
3. Creating mood boards for characters
I had to organize multiple mood boards because I worried I would create a character style that I can't maintain when in motion.
In the case of creating the main Flora, her mood board started off as a collection of actresses that played a similar role in the past.
4. Creating mood boards for backgrounds
When creating mood boards for my story. The first concern was what location truly fits the story I want to tell. I decided to use my hometown because I have a personal connection there so I'm able to leave easter eggs or just be more confident in drawing out some aspects.
Moodboard to influence design Mood board to influence colour
5. Build a storyboard
While creating Deinnamuu I made several storyboards because the visual outcome I wanted to be kept changing. From the angles to the positioning of the keyframes
first storyboard Final storyboard/colour script
6. Finialise Backgrounds
The design for the backgrounds consisted of a lot of experimentation starting from traditional hand painting to different variations of digital paintings. My intended outcome for the backgrounds was always going to be a watercolour look. However, it was going to be a physical set painted with a mix of water and acrylic, photographed and composed on photoshop and after-effects.
Cardboard composite for scene 1 Watercolour landscape version 2 of scene 1
Assets to composite on photoshop
The inconsistency of the painting made the renders inconsistent and slightly frustrating. In digitalising scene 1. I experimented with different concepts, the aim was to retain the paint-like appearance in traditional painting. After the different test, I decided on the middle one below.
scene 1 remakes
7. Finialise Characters
In order to finalise designs, I needed a strong grasp of the principles of animating and the general knowledge behind a character's appearance. The key principles that influenced my characters appearance were solid drawings, including secondary motion and appeal. So using line of action I made several sketches of people. I then figured how to locate hidden geometry in people and myself. This helped create beautiful shapes and believable motion.
8. Creating concept art
I created a wide range of concept art merging my background and character designs
9. ORGANIZE!
This is really important. honestly, you ideally should organize your time from day 1 of idea building.
However, I began organizing my time properly when creating the animatic. I used a Gantt chart on a google sheet to do this.
10. Animatic
Creating the animatic really helped me personally see the direction the narrative is going. Here you can finalise camera angles, organize sound and most importantly set fixed timing.
The animatic backgrounds are made black and white in order to focus on the intensities and shadows before applying hues.
11. Exporting scenes from animatic
As mentioned before the animatic serves as a guide for timing and placements. It's a rough way to see the final outcome play out. After creating the finished animatic scenes were exported individually from storyboard pro and imported into toon boom harmony.
Here a background is added on top and motion is drawn out.
In animation, motion can be created in many different ways from 2d to stop-motion to 3d. Even in these divisions, there are subdivisions like 2d has frame by frame drawing or rigging and in these subdivisions, animators have their own unique way of going about it.
The way I went about creating motion was unique to what I was reading, told and experimented.
12 a. Firstly I would act out the motion, trying to abide to the time I set on the animatic. If there are multiple people in a scene I will act the different parts
b. Use X-Sheets, I have a previous post talking about how I learnt to use these. It helped me regulate the speed while keeping the nuances in the motion.
c. Then using the Xsheets and acted out motion. I started creating rough stickmen of the motion based on the geometry present in the characters design
When creating these sketches I made sure the motion was drawn from keyframe to keyframe
then breakdown poses then inbetweens.
d. Final rendering
While rendering i realised I'm running out of time so I began making these quick colour blocks of single colours then turning it into a mask. Then I could loosely paint over and the colour still appears very solid. however, in some cases, the make was reshaped by drawing over in a new layer.
Some light motion like the one in scene 5 was still made with keyframes like in the animatic.
scene 5
Then lastly extras like humans, animals, cars, houses and trees were drawn on separate files and imported into scenes for more context.
13. Final edits.
A good final edit helps elevate the story however a bad edit could deteriorate the film. As recommended for Deinnamuu I used After effects and premiere pro for final compositions and edits. I used this software to regulate colour tones between scenes. Add transitions, reshuffle shots, arrange sounds and, add titles and credits.
14. Export from premier pro
Knowing the general information on how your file is exported helps avoid overly large files with bad quality. Below shows the settings I use for the best results.
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