Time
4 months
Software
Adobe Premiere Pro, Rough Animator
Roles
Storyboard artist, animator
Context
‘take a st. and’ is a poem written by Rita Wong that sheds light on the hidden and covered up salmon streams in the St. George neighborhood. My group at I, for a school project, filmed and animated a video poem inspired by the poem. We planned shots based on an audio recording by Rita Wong reading the poem. We combined video footage and 2D animation to create our final video poem.
Close-up of salmon eye
Bird resting on fence with painted salmon
The tone of our video is both serious and optimistic; it aims to give people hope on what the St. George neighborhood could look like if the streams broke free from being hidden under the pavements. The storyboards I drew reflect that by incorporating animals, such as salmon, struggling without the streams, as well as waters flowing from the grounds.
Salmon struggling without the streams
Water flowing out from the ground
Final shot of salmon
Near the beginning of the video, a salmon is flopping helplessly beside a manhole cover; it has no source of water due to the pavement covering it up.
Sketch of salmon over the background
Usage of oval as guidelines
I started by sketching out the salmon on the background. I used an oval to determine where the fish could move, as well as establish the extremes of how the fish would bend at its highest and lowest points.
Example of ease in and out
Something I always try to keep in mind are the principles of animation, such as ease in and ease out, squash and stretch, etc. This helps make the animation look more alive, realistic, and engaging. In this shot, I used ease in and ease out, which means using more frames at the beginning and end of a motion to exaggerate the slow and fast movements of the salmon flopping.
Animation workstation on the program Rough Animator
Rough Animator is my animation program of choice because of its low cost and simple features. This project also doesn’t demand any technically complicated animation work.
Lineart and colour layers
I then reduced the opacity of the sketch layer and drew the lineart, then coloured under that lineart layer. This was done on each frame. To help with not bending my wrists too much, I rotated the canvas and zoomed in so I could draw and colour quickly and accurately.
Animation cycles on Rough Animator
Lastly, I used Rough animator to create cycles of my animation. this saves me time from redrawing the same drawings in the same spots.
Final shot of eagle
In this shot, an eagle flies across the screen in a grandiose and elegant way.
Eagle animation over guidelines and eagle references
I have never tried to draw an eagle before, so I needed references. I found some images of eagles flying overhead, as well as some video clips to see the timing of the flying. I also drew a rough curve to determine the flying path I wanted.
Eagle “skeleton”
During my animation process, I drew a “skeleton” of the bird which consisted of the body and wing shape before adding the extra wing details. This is so that I could focus on the movement and timing of the eagle, rather than how the eagle itself looked.
Eagle animation
Again, I used animation principles to animate the eagle. However, I went the opposite direction of my salmon - I quickened the movements at the beginning and end, and slowed the animation in the middle. I was going for a different look, one where you could really take in the massive, grand eagle flying overhead.
Lineart over sketch
Lineart over sketch
Like the salmon shot, I created the lineart layer after I was satisfied with how the sketch looked. This sketch, espeically the wings, were very rough; it was a challenge to simplify the shapes while still maintaining its character. The red drawings are the previous lineart drawings, while the lower opacity, rougher drawings are the sketches.
Animation is about learning the physics and nuanced movements of things you've never thought about before. I had to consider how a fish's fins and tail moved while flopping and gasping for air. I had to learn how eagles fly and how their wings and body anatomy are built for this flight. There was also the struggle of figuring out the timing of the animations. For each animation, I drew over a pre-existing clip, so the timing of my animations, especially of the eagle flying, were very important. Overall, I learned about how to maintain consistancy in all of my drawings through creating rough but accurate sketches, and howw to time quick movements to fit a specific timeframe and look engaging at the same time.