I just finished a critical reflection, but if the last one was good and helpful, I can say that this one should be even better. Fiction Adaptation,, what a lovely but insane unit. If I had to describe it in one word, it would be stressful. I get usually stressed when editing some projects just when something is not coming up properly, but with this unit it wasn't just the fact that some things were not coming u properly, but the fact that I got so packed of work that it started to become really really hard. The main idea was to get to start in my fiction as early as I could, but the Digital News unit overtook a lot of time, specially since I was the editor. I didn't want to edit the Digitial News as a simple thing, because if there is something I am known of is experimenting new stuff and having some nice VFX in my videos. Digital News was the project that I which I was able to do a lot of effects and a proper good editing and due to all the different elements that were incorporated to that video, I started not having time, plus the fact that I still needed to attend uni. The thing I struggled the most was getting my idea straight. I went from doing a stop motion with post its to doing a 2D animation in the computer. Big step to be honest, but at this point I believe it was worth it. When I decided to make a 2D animation with characters that actually moved a little bit, which were going to tell a story, I knew that I was getting into something complicated. I had design characters for some minor things, a lot of logos and effects, but I had never had created a proper animation at all. I didn't even know if I could do it, but I really wanted to do it. It came up to a point where there was no turning back to be honest as I had started already making the characters and I was getting quite excited about it. The risk I took by doing this animation was really big, because what would have happened if I didn't have time to finish it or even worse, didn't even know how to do it. I am not a professional drawer and as a matter of fact I have never been able to properly draw with pen and paper that well. For some reason when it comes down to graphic designing and actually creating stuff on the computer, I am a bit better. It has been really hard to make all this stuff, specially working on your own and i think my critical reflection will be the one making understand everything I had to go through.

My video was basically divided by 4. I needed to create an animation, compose an original song with my poem, film the real life scenes and blog. It was almost impossible in my opinion. Since I hadn't done any of this before, the actual making of all of this took me ages. My biggest problem and factor that I had in the creation of the whole video, was the editing of the digital news. That process took me ages and a lot of effort and I sincerely just couldn't do both projects at the same time properly. It wasn't till I finished editing Digital News that I was able to sit down and work 100% on my fiction adaptation video, excluding the fact that I had to work on the essay as well. For me it was really hard because it wasn't like a normal shooting were you just prepare, do some research, make a script or shot lists, book a camera and off we go. I had to develop characters, model them, sketch, create, animate them and all that took ages since it was me on my own and never had properly done it before. Having that said, apart from that I still needed to compose the song, play the music, get a singer that will sing it as I wanted to, plus I still needed to film the real life bit which took me ages to film since my actress got very ill for over a week, plus my blog. All this literally was so overwhelming that I couldn't just sit and do it all. I believe what I learned the most in this unit is that if I am to try something new, I should try one thing at a time and not more than one unless I have some people helping me or I have the proper time for it. In order to properly create all this video I had to go through some really rough moments. Regarding my animation, at first I didn't know how to do it or anything. It was just annoying the fact that I didn't know where to start or anything. Once I was getting it done, the most annoying bit of all was to work with the animation on my mac. Due to the use of so many graphics, the rendering process to even just edit the animation on After Effects, was insane. I had to set up the quality of the preview to a quarter of the real one so I could work in general as in full or even half it would just crash or take up to a minute to load 1 frame. The main reason I took ages to do this was due to the amount of graphics I had to deal with and how my computer didn't handle them properly. I couldn't use the ones in the studios since they are either the same or worse than mine, which is what is taking me to sell my mac and hopefully buy a new one in February. As for the music, I believe that was even more stressful than the video itself. I have created songs before, but just lyrics and not proper melody or recorded anything professional. I though I could do it as I play the piano a bit and I know how to use music production softwares like Garageband and Logic Pro, that could help me get it right. I was quite wrong in a way. After trying a lot, I managed to get the poem into a song, but the whole thing went down to wether the song fitted the video or not and at the beginning the answer was no. The whole idea was to create a melody that fitted to video and then have the actual voice fit the melody and the rhythm. For that I decided to hire a singer at singerspro.com, which was going quite well as I got someone that I liked a lot and though voice would fit perfectly and he was up for it, but my problem is that after sending him everything he said he was going to have a look at it and apparently did not. My mistake was that I assumed that he was working on it and waited till thursday to call him and ask him. I contacted him wednesday before deadline and didn't reply at all and I was just assuming he had a lot of work and was working on my project. After ringing him all day Thursday, he picked up around 18:00 and told me that I had been speaking to his dad, since he is his manager, who first, happens to have the same name and second, had misinformed his son telling him that it was for thursday the week after, which it was not going to work at all. I got so angry and annoyed and stress at that moment because where about was I going to get someone to sing my song the way I wanted at 6pm who would fit and be willing to work with me for a couple hours. With stress I started calling some people I know around here and started knocking some door in halls of residence and by my luck there was someone that was willing to help me, Patricia Dixon from the first years. Although her voice didn't really fit the song, I had no option whatsoever, it was her or nothing or just keep knocking and see if someone else would help me. The issue is that she had to go out and wasn't coming till around midnight which is when I gave her the stuff and she started recording everything till 5AM. After me getting her recording and hard work, I put it with the video and I realised it didn't really work that well, but it was already to late and I had no option but submit it like that. I was so annoyed and stress because my good work was not looking as good because of my singer dropping and just ruining my song, but in the end I guess I have to live with it. As for the real life bit, as I explained in a previous post, Sophie, the girl in my movie, got really sick just around the day of filming, which was a Saturday and just couldn't do it due to being very sick and throwing up with a couple infections. It was too late for me because of the fact that I had been working on an animation with her image and it was going to be really hard about 1 or 2 weeks before deadline to find someone that looked like her or just find someone else completely and have to start over my animation which was going to take ages. I had no option but to wait till she got better which happened about a week after that Saturday and that finally just made me happy because I knew I could start putting something together on Final Cut and didn't have to worry about that anymore. As for my blog, i believe that was another really worrying bit because due to all this work plus the whole work for my digital news, i genially didn't have any time do a good blog for this unit and I admit it openly. I don't know if it was time managing or just having to much work for one person, but my time started to reduce overtime more due to having so much stuff to do.

If there is something I could change right now, it would be getting more people to work with me or help me at least with composing the music which took me a lot of time. I believe I could have handled the animation and my essay with not that many issues, but the music as well on top of the blog was just overwhelming. I think that what I learned the most here is that when I feel I don't have too much time or have too much work, I should't put to many tasks on myself. This unit more than anything was a properly learning unit and not just because of composing a song or doing an animation, but mainly because of all the issues I had and all the work I had to do. It was horrible. I am glad I got to make this project and the animation went right at least and managed to compose something even if it was last minute and not as good with my video, but I believe is an experience and something I wouldn't trade at all. I love the fact that tried something new and I am proud of doing it, although the outcome wasn't the expected one. I believe that the work and design of everything went fine, but the way I delivered it wasn't the best. I will take this unit as a big learning step for future units and just wait to see what happens to my grade, which I hope doesn't affect much. If you made it this far, thanks for reading my critical reflection.

Chris

Here is my final video!

Shooting was a very stressful and painful situation. I was set and ready to shoot on a Saturday having booked a camera on the previous Thursday, but Sophie happened to be very ill and couldn't do it. My biggest problem was that I had started doing the animation with her character already that it was almost too late to change it and start over again as I had put a lot of work into that. After talking with her, she said that she was happy to do it but whenever she felt a little bit better. It was coming down to the first week of December and I was still without shooting which was getting me very concerned, since if in the end I had to change the whole animation, I probably was not going to have time at all. Gladly after a lot of infections and bad days, Sophie started feeling a bit better and we filmed over a week after the day that we had planned. I had a massive relief.

On the actual day of shooting, the shoot itself only took around 40 mins. Since the real life bit of my video only lasts around 1 minute and a half, I knew exactly what I needed. I explained to her that the most important bit was for her to act sad or at least not happy at all or be smiling. She actually didn't quite well in my opinion. For the shooting I wanted a candle that was going to be a good element for the ending of my video. The main idea I had was to have close of on a round candle, which would darken the surroundings of it, which after blowing but was going to give about 2 seconds of pitch black that later in post I would make it as cutting to black. One thing that I needed to be checking all the time and struggled a lot with was a big mirror that she has in her room since I realised that things like the tripod or even myself were in it at some points and needed to get rid of it all the time.

Apart from all that the shooting went quite well. I didn't know where to put the tie that she picks up, as the original plan was to have it in some sort of special box, but Sophie gave a better idea that I liked even more which was having in under the pillow, which makes it much more special as well. Although it was long waiting and a bit of a stressful situation, it did work out actually pretty well. I ended up using Aimee's camera, a Canon 500D.

My characters where quite tough to create. What I wanted to create was basically like a system where I had all the clothes of my character with the facial expressions and just change it and play with it around. In order to do that I needed to design a basic skeleton for my characters which was going to work for both of them most likely. Having absolutely no hair or clothes or anything the very original drawing of my character was this:

With this base all I needed to do was basically start adding the hair and clothes and give it a little bit of shape which was going to lead slowly into the creation of my actual characters. The things I needed to work on was the hair of Sophie, which needed to match the real one, brown, a bit straight with waves and having a flick on the right side. After that it all went down to designing the clothes as well. This was a bit of the outcome of her without the facial expressions:

The idea was to have the facial expressions apart so hat I could just change them every time I was to vary instead of having to have a character with every single expression every time. I was to design just the face that then would be added to the character above. This is an example of a standard face:

With this base created, I could now just play with the character and just start creating all the different outfits and expressions that I wanted to use. 

After knowing and developing a bit my characters, I decided that it was time to start sketching and designing my locations. Before even designing them I needed to know which scenarios I was going to use. In order to do that I needed to know more or less what type of scenarios I was going to need. Here is a breakthrough of it:

Lab

The lab is to show that Sophie is a scientist and that is her place of work. It will be a a chemical lab.

Office

The office is the same case of Sophie but with Dave, it is to show that Dave is business man and with his suit it will make it a bit more clear

Coffee Shop street

A very important one is the coffee shop viewed from the street, which will help to see both characters leaving the buildings where they both work, so that they bump into each other at the Coffee Shop. 

Train Station

The train station is just to be a very simple scene where Sophie goes back home, being excited about being asked for dinner

Bathroom

Sophie's bathroom is to be used twice. The first time is just to show that she is home and happy and that is to get a shower and get ready. As for the second time is just to her changing her clothes after knowing that Dave arrived

Shop

The shop is for Dave, in order for him to buy the groceries to cook Sophie the dinner he promised he would. 

Sophie's House Street

I needed the street where Sophie leaves to show that Dave is arriving and him calling her letting her know that he is downstairs waiting for her. I also needed to create this location in night time taking into account that is dinner. 

Sophie's Bedroom

Her bedroom is to be created to show a scene where she is not ready after getting a call from Dave saying that he is downstairs. She just panics looking what to wear. 

Dave's Kitchen

This scene is to take us into Dave's house where the characters had just finished having dinner. After some nice talking, it will lead to some intimate intercourse. 

Beach

After my title with couple months after, the beach is gonna take part on having both characters exercising together 

Park

The park is most probably one of the most important places. It is going to be the place where Dave is going to propose to Sophie, where she will say yes.

Airport

The airport is also another very important beat to show that Dave is leaving for a flight with his pink tie, which Sophie then will recover after his death. 

The first thing I did after creating my story, was developing and creating my characters. I knew that I wanted two people, a guy and a girl, from which the girl was gonna be shown in real life and the animation when the guy was just to be seen in the animation. The idea was to develop the characters a little and know exactly how I wanted them to look like.

The Girl

The girl for the video was meant to be someone young, small, skinny and with dark hair. My idea was to have someone that looked cute and sad and for some reason that was exactly what I wanted. I happened to know someone exactly like that who was willing to help and act in my film, her name Sophie Moore. She is quite what I had in mind and fitted perfectly my character and what I wanted, which is why I got quite excited when she said she was up for it. The idea in real world part is for her to be sad but exaggerated as it has been a while since he died. I don't want to see her crying like he just died, but more like remembering him in a happy way, like he is the one she will never replace. Sophie has that cute face that I needed and I believe it will work out. I decided to keep her name for the character in the video. I tried to create a character that looked as much as possible as her which was quite touch in my opinion. Here are the images of her:

The Guy

As my male character is not to be seen in real life, I could play up a bit more with his design and create him more the way I pictured him. I imagined him being handsome, taller than her, usually with a suit, in his 20's, hair color similar to hers and skinny. He is a nice and very outgoing person, falling in love first sight with Sophie, Dave is the kind of person that would try all attempts to be with her. After trying different designs, this was the final version of Dave with his suit:

After submitting a script for my fiction, which wasn't even related to my final idea, I realised that it is quite hard and tough to make a script about an animation, specially if there is no voice. After having a tutorial with teacher Helen, we agreed that a much better thing to do was to make a storyboard. In my case a storyboard itself was taking me too long and my entire project, having also the whole editing of Digital News as well, was giving me so much work that I decided to create the video in own way. For that I started with drawing and sketching the scenarios in which the characters would develop the story and with that start designing all my animation. 

In order to create and start sketching and designing all the backgrounds I needed to make sure where all my story was going to take part and for that I started to develop it. Having taken into account teacher Helen's ideas and advices, the story originally was going to be all happy and the story of a girl in love, but since the poem is a World War poem and the ending of it is quite sad, teacher Helen mentioned me that ideally I should have a sad ending and that is exactly what I worked on. I decided to keep the love story, but with a sad ending, killing all Disney clichés and giving it a different twist. The whole idea started moving around what to do with my male character, which I also needed to give a role. At first he was a doctor, then a soldier and in the end he was just a businessman. At the beginning I wasn't exactly sure of what to and I decided to go for it and just kill him. The question was now, how was he going to die in my movie?? Many ideas came at first, from getting old, disease, being shot, etc. Finally my decision was to kill him in an airplane crash. As he is a businessman and travels, the idea was that in one those trips his plane crashes, where he would die.

After setting up the most important bits for my movie, I decided to fully develop my story which was this one:

A girl would start at beginning of movie in real like, Sophie, she sad and trying to carry on with her life. Turning on a candle and with a girly room, Sophie was to grab her computer in which she will play a song that reminds her of David, the man she engaged with. The song is to be one I composed, which is the way I am to introduce it to the video. After that she will start to stare at the screen a little bit sad as she is remembering and she will start seeing the animation on her computer screen, which is not really there, she is just imagining it. The animation is going to be the story of her and David from the moment they meet till the moment he dies. She being a scientist in her lab, him being a businessman in an interview, both of them leave their respective buildings and bump into each other in front of a cafe. As they see each other they realize it is love at first sight. He apologises with her and invites her for dinner, which she ends up agreeing with. After that with see her back home in her bathroom all excited about this moment like a girl in love, as David goes to the shop to buy some food to cook her. He arrives at her place to pick her up, but she is not even ready. Panicking like a normal girl would, she rushes into getting a nice dress and goes out with him. He takes her home and in the kitchen they just realize that they are both in love with each other and do not waste anytime and that is when he just goes for it and jumps towards her. After a couple months of them going out and already together, I show a couple scenes of them doing things like running on the beach, being christmas time, just shoring that the time has been passing by. One day at the park he asks her to marry him and she says yes. After such happiness, she takes him to the airport, where he takes a plane and that is where he crashes and dies. She get the news and we see her crying in from of the police station. With her crying, we make another transition back to the real world where she is upset. Closing her computer, she reaches towards her pillow where she keeps the tie he was wearing the day of his death, which she obtains thanks to the police. She keeps it in order to remember him every day and night. She starts playing and touching it which then she takes towards her chest and smiles, showing that remembers him in a good way and the love she has for him. For the ending she stands up and blows the candle which will cut to black.