The

Making Of Guard Pooch

Time to begin my third year animation piece. The story came to me when I listened to a song by a Swedish music group called Movits; blending the genres of Swing and Hip-hop. The song is called Ta Pa Dig Dansskorna, put on your dancing shoes.

HISTORY LESSON:

The name of the cartoon is Guard Pooch, a clumsy guard dog struggling to find somewhere to take a toilet break. The Dog s name is"ODI-EGWU", (pronounced OH DEE EGG WOO), a Nigerian expression meaning something Dangerous, Astounding or 'A big deal'. Its something to say when you're football team misses a goal, or the brakes on your bike malfunction at the worst time. Its ironic because, though a German shepherd, hes smaller than average in stature for a dog of his breed. His owner gives him this name, out of pride and adoration. His owner's friends mock him by calling him a "Guard Pooch", (pooch giving the impression of a harmless dog) instead of a "Guard Dog".

SHORT FILM PLOT:

After another slobbish day of drinking and monitoring ODIEGWU suddenly needs to go to the toilet as his bladder harasses his gut. He dashes through the premises frantically. A Runner beats him to the toilet seconds before he gets to the door, forcing him to look elsewhere. Odiegwu dashes outside violently, accidentally barging into a mailman who is petrified of him. As his bladder viciously upsets his bowels, ODIEGWU reaches a street corner where he sees a fire hydrant. He is filled with hope until he finds a queue of other dogs starting from around the corner. He is thrown into anxiety as he waits. Meanwhile, the security guard enters the ground floor lobby to get another drink. He slips over a little accident.

CHARACTERS:
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Main security guard (Un identified) Main dog (ODIEGWU) Mad Bladder Runner to the toilet Mailman (Un identified) Dog at the front of the que (Un identified) Dogs in the que (Un identified)

I want ODIEGWUs movements to be very sharp, fast paced with a lot of backswing. I want him to be able to look and determined when he needs to, as well as pathetic.

Care freeness: Responsibility: Recklessness/Clumsiness:

The way he is sat in the chair at the beginning. Using the human bathroom instead of waiting to be taken for a walk or firstly simply going on the premises. Running into toilet door Hurting himself in his tantrum at the toilet door Breaking the door upon his exit of the building Tackling the postman accidentally He is concerned for the postman after spearing him Use of bad language; (stars and tone during run) In the end he returns to the premises and relives himself in the lobby, returning to domestic habits Returning to the waiting area, he is positioned slobishly again

Examples of traits I want this production to contain

Good animation speed and pacing Childish humor Menacing instances Good Key poses and body language Subliminal story clues Outlandish facial expressions

Examples: Adventure time [Link] =8244107654&kw=cartoon#p/a/f/1/wXbBMJLHJt0 The Regular show [Link] Watch My Chops [Link] Invader Zim [Link] Family guy [Link]

Subjects of Informative (Not visual) Research:

A Dogs behavior and psychology A Guard dog's behavior and training Mailman and canine relationship culture Dogs digestive and bladder mechanics

Here is a PERFECT table of information I found from [Link]

A List of breeds commonly used as guard dogs

([Link]

It was discouraging learning of Africas generic guard dog, the Rhodesian ridgeback. This was because my dog is a German shepherd when his owner is of African descent. The Ridgeback would technically be more appropriate, but I have tried to justify his role through good research and backstory.
Von Stephanitz, (a prestigious German shepherd breeder) claims they were bread especially for their intelligence. This is a flawless example supporting my characters actions. He tries to use a human bathroom, then the next best thing that is a fire hydrant (for a dog anyway). Then returning to a level of pre intelligence and etiquette, which would be the floor. He starts off with the more intelligent option.

[Link] States these top ten Understand New Commands In less than 5 repetitions. They also Obey First Command: 95% of the time or better. [Link] [Link]

Dogs and Mailmen

Here is an explanation of relationship between dogs and mailmen. Makes sense for something I originally thought was trivia for cartoons and popular culture. The psychological reasons for it are a little phenomenal. Its essentially accidental training.

([Link]

Odiegwus Health issues supporting his Design

The title of the story is guard pooch; Odi has a stomach pooch; however Odi is also bloated. The term Bloat is a medical condition when the stomach becomes inflated because of gas content. This is actually a serious medical condition as far as dogs are concerned, which can be fatal. How does bloat happen? One typical scenario includes a large, deep-chested breed of dog (such as an Akita, Great Dane, German Shepherd, St. Bernard, Irish Wolfhound, Irish Setter, Sighthounds, Doberman Pinschers, Weimaraners, Bloodhounds), which is usually fed once a day, and has the habit of "inhaling" it's food, gulping air, or drinking large amounts of water right after eating. Now add any kind of physical exercise after a full meal like this, and you have the perfect recipe for gastric torsion. What can alleviate this problem? Bloat in the German Shepherd is not necessarily a dietary problem. Feeding management, however, may help cut back on many bloat related problems and, believe me, prevention is much better than treatment. Some suggestions include feeding the dogs individually in a quiet place, avoiding exercise immediately before and after feeding for an hour or more, using a elevated feeder and minimizing dietary changes. These ideas may help quiet dogs who gulp their food or feel it necessary to guard their food while eating and as a result inhale the food (and air) much faster than they would have in a safe environment. Clearly, prevention of bloat is highly preferable to having to follow through with treatment. It is a very good idea to feed two or three smaller meals daily and discourage rapid eating from your dog. Don't allow exercise for at least two hours after a meal. This information has been learned from [Link] [Link]/[Link] This information perfectly ties into his design and some of the actions taken place. Odiegwu and his owner had been (and regularly do) drinking canned Super Malt, which wouldnt be helpful for his condition. The fact that he engages in vigorous exercise, because he desperately needs to go to the toilet (thanks to MadBladder) also doesnt help such a medical condition. As joyful as the cartoon is, understand into the development of my intricate levels of trivia give it a sinister and depressing under-theme.

Concept art and character design

Here are a series of concepts for the characters. Im an artist who Usually knows, what I want my character to look like long before I have drawn it. I visualise its appearance in my mind whenever I can be mentally free; from bus journeys to in the supermarket, reducing time at the drawing board.

Initial Storyboard

A lot has changed since the initial brainstorm of our story. Scenes have been taken out, added, and updated. However the original remains a reliable backbone of the flow of the piece.

 Animatic
Initially the animatic lacked a few pieces of information. I havent included the initial animatic to save (your) evaluating time, having to play spot the difference.

Renovations From Initial Animatic

After our first animatic, our mentors gave a few suggestions and queries. The ending to the first animatic that it was anti-climatic. My response was that it was a sigh of relief from all the fast paced drama that went on throughout the video, and had been paced with the music. The security guard is only seen really at the end. His involvement was kept minimal, as he was only a side character to the video. After discussing with my group we decided to give him more involvement. He now pats the dogs belly before the video begins, is seen in the first half viewing the madness and has his fall at the end.

Recent animatic

[Link] The production is an on going process right till the end, many ideas had been included along the way and even last minute. Creating updates to the animatic every time a new suggestion was made would have been to too time consuming, we managed to progress without having to do this, especially since I am the lead animator anyway.

Beginning production and Testing

December fourteenth, production must start. Throughout development we have shared information with our tutors and changed several parts of content.

Mikes shot suggestions

Here are suggestions given to us by my tutor. We received advice on ways to make each shot more dynamic and stylistic. The intent of this was to make every shot match up to the over all theme of the animation. To put it simply, if the animation is to be trippy, then almost every shot must be distorted; building corners must be curved and colours must be visually piercing. [Link] You neednt watch the whole thing, skip forward if necessary, its about 8 minutes long. But this piece is a perfect example of well-animated surreal content.

Mikes Suggestions
Here shows changes to some of the beginning shots. An example of a fade/zoom transition from outside of the dogs stomach to the bladders theatrics inside the stomach.

Evaluation
I took several of these suggestions into consideration. They were very helpful, and I began to realize how helpful they were more and more as I was animating. There were one or two shot suggestions that I had not been able to annex due to the timing (duration) of each shot that I already planned. Most of the design had already been too set in stone for me to willingly alter. The remaining changes were equally large however more environmental.

Environmental changes
Eventually the question was raised Where exactly are they? My answer was very vague.. I realised that even I didnt know the answer, and by now into the production it was slightly shameful. The only piece of evidence I had to support the location was the Fire hydrant. This gives the impression that it is based in America somewhere; perhaps I passed the first hurdle. The second hurdle was, ok Miki... When are they? This received no answer. Originally there was slight evidence as to the time, because of the items in the control room. The technology there looked outdated, however the buildings outside and roads didnt. We were given several suggestions by out tutors Mike, Dan and the rest of our class (Greg in particular, who works with framestore). They suggested we base the story somewhere closer to home, UK, London, soho, and in a production house. Though at first we werent particular keen on switching the story at this scale, because basing it in London would completely remove the solidarity of using a Fire Hydrant. We decided to use the suggestion of replacing the hydrant with a red UK post box. To be honest, this doesnt make sense to me, but experimenting is enjoyable and we were prepared to be open-minded.

Here is a list of aesthetics, which we took into consideration when renovating the stories environment. We gathered these points after going to these locations, taking pictures and making notes, familiarizing with our own central city.
Soho Trivia Red Postboxes Blue Dustbin Bags Window Washers Outdoor Cafe Large National Flags Royal Flowers In Front Windows Parking Lines Road/Direction Signs Large Victorian Doors Many Company Vans (All White And Transit)

Research protocols

Here are few images of the streets around Great Marlborough street. One, I chose this area because I did work experience at the Mill which is around there; Two the scenes where our characters are outside dont actually vary that much, so I didnt feel the need to squander time researching a haystack for a single straw.

This wasnt the end of the primary research. I had luckily been able to get Gregg to take some pictures of the environment in Framestore. The purpose of this wasnt to have something to copy, but to understand the typical aesthetics used in production houses and animation studios. To put it simply, the difference between getting youre furniture from IKEA or getting them from DFS.

Though these particular changes would be out of my production line and down to my background artist Loanne, I still have a hand in knowing whats going on and understanding my own story.

Production

Workflow Here is how I have been establishing the levels of progress within each shot amongst my team. It helps my matte painter know which files to work on first, the harder or easier shots.

Scheduling Here are screenshots of how I have set deadlines of work for my team-mates using Google calendar.

Animation Production I began with drawing all the components in photoshop. I will say (out of insecurity and some self disappointment), that I am just beginning to use a graphics tablet. I still struggle with drawing things the way I can visualize them the way that I easily can on paper. This is normal for most artists, Im not a special case, but Im pointing this out because its why I may show some disappointment with sections of the artwork/animation. Though I still see this project as more of a stepping-stone, a learning experience, than something I will use as a flagship piece of work. I quickly picked up how to fully animate in photoshop after watching a few tutorials. I later decided that even though I could animate the whole thing in photoshop, compositing in Photoshop was very annoying. For example, at times where you may turn off or relocate a frame, it would affect the entire loop, forcing you to reorder everything again, and again, and again. I decided giving each frame its own layer in after effects, and managing them there would be more convenient, and it was. Here is some footage of how I was getting on with drawing an animating in photoshop. These links include animation tests, key frame templates and practice. [Link] Animation run cycle example [Link] Run cycle test [Link] These operations can easily be classed as Animation and some Artist (within my three submission folders), and less of Technical; however the operations within after effects become very Technical with a secondary genre of Animation. I will give a couple of examples of Technical operations carried out within after effects. (During animating the bathroom scene I had the idea of adding an electric shock frame to the dog upon hitting his head against the door. I just felt like pointing that out here since it falls more into my Artistic folder.) I had decided at the beginning that I wanted the piece to be heavily mixed media and mixed animation technique. This means 2D, 2D/3D, traditional animation, puppet animation and image scaling/tracking animation.

Here is an example of 2D/3D. For the scene where the dog runs along side the post box queue, I had the idea of making the floor rotate around the corner, as the dogs in the queue pass Odiegwu. The only real problem I faced when doing this was keeping the pavement from rotating off centre, making it look unbelievable and just very bad haha. To fix this is moved its position back to a stable place, every time it would rotate out of position. The cause for this problem is still unknown to me; Loanne (My matte painter ^_^) had made a perfect circle of the pavement, so I think it may have been its position underneath the wall, which couldnt be changed. So Im glad a solution was found. I was able to complete this after Loanne had composited and animated it first, as a test to see if it would work.

Here is the video Loanne made of the rotation test. [Link]

Blurring and camera focus

Several times I used blurring in after effects to give the piece more depth of field, but not only that, but to help punch out things I wanted to be noticed easier, here are two examples.

Even though I was the lead animator, parts of the animations were still carried out by Loanne. She animated the security guard within Photoshop, and then I took the files to composite them with the rest of the show. There is an instance where I provided a key frame guide for the security guard as he slips at the end. Here is the footage from it. [Link]

There were many other techniques used in the animation process here, and things that I have learnt which have helped me to drastically speed up my workflow. I have been fortunate enough to have other jobs come my way with similar demands. I have worked on other animations during the making of Guard Pooch, which have taught me things in after effects along side my final year film. An example here, from an animation piece I had worked on for a progressing band. I animated the boy walking from one side to the other, using the puppet pins for his joints and remembering the principles of animation. To accommodate for his other leg, I simply duplicated the initial, and moved the layer till the legs were in their opposite positions. I slight moved the position of each key frame to give it some variation so it wouldnt look so robotic.

I also learnt about using markers in after effects, but even getting them to work conveniently involved some altering of the program itself. I used the markers to pinpoint the timings of each hit within the music, this is what I timed the boys footsteps to, syncing the scene. Originally, the shortcut for setting a maker was a number, but it only works on a numerical key pad which you dont have on a macbook pro. So I had to find the programs text file containing the preferences and shortcuts. I changed the short cut Cmd+M from adding to render queue to add marker. Without this convenient shortcut, it meant that I had to ram preview the scene, and pause it on an assigned point, then place his foot on that position, and repeat the process. This takes times because each time I have to ram preview the scene again just to find the next point. With this technique at times I can find all the points in a single attempt.

Another technique Ive made use of is the keryframe interpolation options and keyframe assistant. These control the behavior of each key frame. This can include velocity, angle and smoothness.

The keyframe assistant is a very big help for slowing down or speeding up the ends or beginnings of movement without having to change the amount of frames. The Keryframe interpolation helps to decide if the object moves in a straight line, from key frame to key frame, or in an arc, curve, etc, you can decide.

Now to be honest, I would have classed this as basic ettiquete, but colour coding each layer is very helpful for finding what you want, fast. This helps to add up all the seconds of looking time into minutes. I have taken full advantage in maximizing my workflow.

Here is another example of where I have used the 3D layers to add a 3D element. I used the 3D layer to keep the boys hat rotating according to his head position.

 And of course one again the amazing puppet tool, here is an example of where I have simply used it to add a fraction of overlap and minimal movement, to the hair of the girl as she slowly gets up. Disclaimer. Now, I would have liked to have video footage of these pieces of animation, examples of final works with them, however, the band have yet to release the video, song and even album. Therefore I have been requested to keep these examples to a minimum. These techniques in after effects have been used throughout the production of guardpooch, I have just used varied examples for their demonstration.

Another example of where I have been putting these skills into practice is where I created a short animation for a RedBull animation competition. Firstly, here is a short video I put together showing examples of key framing, coloring, shading and creating the key frames for the lip-syncing. [Link] And now here was the actual final video. [Link]

Evaluation
I am happy to say that overall, Im pleased with the outcome of the work. I still remember the first sketch I made during my second year, of a random concept for last years group work, which wasnt chosen.

Though at times I may have claimed that it this wasnt my ideal story, but its still been a good way of exploring my art and animation styles. There are of course parts of the video that I havent been 100% satisfied with and could be improved, but these are things I will be better prepared for next time. As I look over the video in the last moments with analytical eyes, I see all my flaws and bloopers; missing shadow, lack of tone, animation shortcuts that were too obvious and puppet pins that were slightly off the proper bone/joint location. This learning experience has been rewarding and very influential. I have learnt more on the values of good planning and workflow and the importance of a healthy relationship with teammates. Sometimes it may be difficult to inspire teammates, or even be inspired, especially if you are different as people, or have different priorities and levels of interest/skill in different areas. I always prefer to be my own boss and work alone. This is because I prefer working at my own pace, being bossy to myself, and generally satisfying my antisocialism when it comes to work. I have an "ENTJ" personality; teamwork can be a struggle for me on a personal/subconscious level.

 I like to believe I have helped to maintain one of the healthiest team relationships and communication diets. Our production has showed talent, culture, imagination and pazazz. The experience has lightened my views on teamwork, though at the same time I have been fortunate enough to work with people I am even at least remotely familiar with, I hope I will be lucky in the industry, though I am confident enough to break the ice regardless. I have been able to come even closer to finding/perfecting my animation style. I have learnt that with more practice, I can become good enough to create animations within after effects that are accepted and favored. I know that there is still a lot to learn, tricks to speed up workflow and skills to improve visual attractiveness. You might have seen that in several of my videos I continuously retry bad drawing strokes (which almost looks unnecessary, I could have just used the pen tool.) I want to reach the point of natural precision, so I can create animations quicker.