Snoreeze Advert

Recently I got to work on an idea for a new advert for Snoreeze, a company specialising in snore relief products, nasal sprays and throat sprays. The intended audience for the advert is both genders, aged between 20-40 years of age.

The advert was only intended to be between 10-15 seconds long, so the challenge was to leave an impact in a very short space of time. I decided the best way to achieve this was to make the advert humorous, so I searched for situations in which it would be humorous or unfortunate to fall asleep.

As a result of the hype for this year's biggest film releases, such as Spectre, Jurassic World or Star Wars: The Force Awakens, I wrote a script where a young film buff falls asleep and misses an entire film on its first screening.

This is the final design for the "young film buff" who falls asleep during the movie. I recycled this design from my final BA animation, "Gopher Golf", where I had created several background characters. This character seemed to fit my idea for the Snoreeze advert best, due to his youthful, energetic and enthusiastic look and design.

As with most of my work in 2D animation, I drew the designs first, then scanned them in and coloured and perfected their designs in Photoshop. All the animation and editing for this piece was created in Photoshop, After Effects and Premiere CS6. When added up, the process of creating this advert took approximately two days.

Storyboards for 'Scream Street' Competition (CBBC)

"Scream Street" is a new stop-motion series which made its debut on CBBC in October this year. The show is made at Factory, an animation studio in Altrincham, and is owned by Coolabi.

Recently, CBBC, Factory and Coolabi launched a competition for aspiring animators in Northern England, inviting students to create a 45-second long animation featuring the show's comic relief characters, Dig the dog and Lulu the leech. Using these two characters and a selection of props (which the modelmakers at Factory have already produced), I storyboarded a short piece, imagining what these two characters would be like in a particular situation. The situation I chose was "bowling", a situation which would allow Dig to show his over-eager personality and Lulu her bossy personality.

Gopher Golf: Golfer Shoot - Part #1

The first scenes to feature the Golfer were filmed this week. The Golfer was extremely tricky to animate as, sometimes, the puppet was easy to stand up, other times it wasn't. Plasticine was often attached to the feet to help the puppet stand up correctly.

I have finished animating the scenes which feature the Golfer walking - all other scenes now will rely mostly on his facial expressions. Two versions of a golf swing also need to be animated.

The Golfer, a key for his new home, two leaflets and a golf club will be the only "live" props to be filmed in these scenes. A golf ball will be added in later with After Effects for the golf swing scenes.

The walk was very difficult to animate as it was hard to make the puppet stand up by itself some of the time, but the challenge made it all the more fun to work on.

Gopher Golf: Finishing Touches to the Golfer Puppet

The Golfer puppet was finally finished this week, after adjustments had to be made to the measurement of the arms. This was because the arms were too thin for the hands and arms to fit, so they had to be re-knitted to be made wider.

The Golfer also now has a neck made of Plasticine, covering up the joint between the head and main body.

Gopher Golf: Lip sync test #1

This video is the first lip sync test for the Golfer in 'Gopher Golf'. Here I'm testing out the idea of creating lip sync animation in Photoshop, but I feel like the styles clash here so I will likely use replacement Plasticine mouths in the final film.

Gopher Golf: Background Characters

These videos are short animations completed in Photoshop, showing the background characters for 'Gopher Golf'. These will all appear in one short clip of a crowd behind the Golfer, cheering for the winner. The characters will be in darkness as the Golfer is the scene's main focus.

Farmer

Old Man

Middle-aged woman

Young Man

Gopher Golf: Building the Golfer Puppet - Part #8

The hands and head for the Golfer were finally completed this week. The Golfer also now has a hat which, like the clothes, has been hand-knitted.

The hands were dabbed in watercolour paint and talc powder to achieve a colour similar to human skin colour. This took several attempts as it had to match the Plasticine.

The head was attached on with wires, stuck to the main body by Araldite. The joint between the head and main body will be covered by more Plasticine.

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Gopher Golf: Building the Golfer Puppet - Part #7

The final stage for my Golfer puppet is to create a head. Like the hands, it needs to be abnormally big to match the style of the film - but, at the same time, I needed to make sure the head wasn't so heavy that it would affect the body weight. The puppet still needs to be capable of standing up well on its own.

I experimented with creating heads which are, essentially, balls of Plasticine. The detail at the top of the head (the hair) wasn't too important at this time, since the Golfer will be wearing a hat.

The mouth has been left clear as I will be animating lip sync in Flash or After Effects, then tracking the mouth movements with the character's actions on screen. Eye movements and eyelids can also be animated separately.

However, the Plasticine was much too heavy on its own. The solution was to use a small piece of solid foam - a very light material - covered in a very small layer of Plasticine, only a few millimetres thick.

The feet are covered in a very light layer of Plasticine as well, which will add weight to the feet to help the puppet stand up correctly. However, I may not need to show the feet in the final film.

Gopher Golf: Final Hands

Below are pictures of the left and right hands I made from silicon and foam latex.

Both hands are made from the same mould and are almost complete - the only remaining stage is to paint them. The paint will need to be a blend of colours which will match Flesh-coloured Newplast Plasticine. The hands are abnormally big for when the Golfer needs to hold various props, such as a golf club or newspaper. It also adds to the unique style I am developing for the film.