The Process

The first days, we watched a bunch of movies in order to spark inspiration. Then we brainstormed on what we wanted to research and make a skit about. After we decided on waste we had to come up with a story and a style of art we wanted to use.

The rest of the first week we primarily did Illustrator, and making the characters and objects that we needed to actually create the animated film. I was terrible at Illustrator, and this was mainly because of the choice I had made on the first day, which was to make all of our drawing in perspective. We chose the angle to be 140 degrees, because that was the angle that Biscous les Copains the artist who’s style we took used. Although it looked much cleaner than just a flat picture, it was much harder. Another hard part about doing it in perspective was that every scene had to have the same perspective, because even if the line was off by mere millimeters, the illustration would look off. At first we usually did not get the perspective right, and then Amro would come around and say “this is not good”. Luckily Sam really liked illustrator, so he made most of the pictures. I managed to make a couple of buildings and objects Illustrator, but I did not like it much.

    On Friday of the first week I began to do After Effects, which is where you animate the people and objects. The first scene was basically the introduction where we show how much we waste, and then he gets up and drives off to work. I had a lot of problems with this part because, it was my first one, and I could not figure out how to change opacity and other basic things like that. After Effects is really tricky in the beginning because you have to figure out which icons do what, and how to use them correctly. Also in the first days, I kept forgetting that I had to move in time, so I kept having to redo parts of a scene.

    To me After Effects was not that hard, you just had to have will to finish the scene, because there were so aspects to each scene, like walking, or fading in and out. The only place I had problems in After Effects was the restaurant scene, because I had to make the Chef throw away tomatoes and was really hard to get that throwing motion down and look realistic. Luckily I had Amro, and he helped me, but then I had to repeat that motion. My problem after that was when I added a part to the scene before the throwing, I had to retime everything.

    After Effects is mainly about timing, because if you leave a part out or add a part, its a real pain to do it over again.

I had a particular trouble with the dumpster because I wanted to make it playful looking, but also look like a dumpster. I had a dumpster that I was pleased with it, but I, unfortunately, forgot to save. I wish I could have done slightly more before the final. One thing I enjoyed was putting details into objects that I made. While the viewer might not be able to see the order that is on a notepad, I think it added something special. One thing I was really proud of was the credits which I made, albeit with a little help. It is a wonderful experience seeing all you hard work coming together.