Restricting The Game

After having some trouble designing the game graphics to a level where I was happy with them I decided to experiment and add some rules for myself. I thought if I added some boundaries for myself to stay in I would be able to design something that was more simple than my previous artwork but was also much more stronger visually.  

The rules that I decided to stick too was -

• The use of only 4 colours - Black, dark grey, light grey, green
• No backgrounds

Whilst being simple things I found it a lot easier to create my artwork following these two rules, the four colours all mix together well and with the use of strokes in the artwork I think the colour scheme is actually quite strong and each of the elements has it's own colour code. For example the users weapon and controls are all coloured in light grey with a stroke of green whilst the enemy are dark grey with a stroke of black. This broke up the different parts of the game like I mentioned but also because the colours all work well together these different elements come together and do not look disjointed or out of place. 

Using no backgrounds also gave me one less thing to worry about, in my previous attempts and the game artwork or even the game ideas I found myself thinking what sort of background I need to use and how detailed it should be. The idea of no backgrounds free'd me in a way as it meant I could draw all of the other elements in the same way without thinking about how detailed the background needed to be or what perspective it needed to be in. In the end I actually think having no background works well and is not too simple or out of place, and whilst the game may have looked better with one i'm happy with the result form sticking to the two rules I had set out. 

This method of restricting myself really helped me push on with the designing of my game which I had been stuck on for some time. It is an idea I will look to use in the future if I am in a similar situation. 

Adding More Features / Slight Change of Idea

I've decided that I need to add more features to my app as i'm not confident about designing one of the games that I have suggested in a way that fits in with the rest of the visual style on the app. This is not to say that I have completely changed my idea but I feel it is needed as designing the graphics for the game is harder than I first thought. With a few other features if the game is not strong the whole project will not be a complete disaster with other features to fall back on.

After looking through the jamesons website again a taking a closer look at the contents I decided to use the sections on recipes and how they make jamesons as the extra content on my app. I already have some idea on ways that I want to use/display the information.

Idea/Proposal

My proposal for the jamesons app is too create a game based of off their existing tall tales ad campaigns. The adverts which I have covered in an earlier post show John Jameson rescuing his whiskey from a four different predicaments, this gave me the idea to recreate these situations as addictive little games that whilst will not be over complicated will hopefully draw users in. I plan to stay true the jamesons brand and use there colour scheme and a typography similar to there which I have been through in earlier posts. 

I think this app idea will work as it keeps with the brand and builds on an already successful ad campaign, which with it's popularity amongst the jamesons customer will hopefully make the app a popular with them. 

Wireframes

Before I pitch my ideas to the class I made some very basic wireframes of how I am planning some of my app screen to look at this moment in time. I think however that these are likely to change depending on how the artwork goes once I have started to make it.

These wire frames being the general idea for most of the app I have however thought more about using nav menues at the top of the page. The white on the wireframes will be a background for the menues this will be a green gradient popular in the jamesons brand. 

Colours

For the colours I decided to stick to the brand a much a possible as it keeps the theme with the brand, this would give me a nice range of colours to use and also keep the bulk of my design in the elegant green gradients that jamesons use throughout there website/brand.

Typography

After doing some research I discovered that the main font used by jamesons whiskey is actually a font called jamesons which I was unable to find. However after looking for similar fonts and others that I thought suited the brand I have decided to use 'garabond' as the main type face for my project. It has a vintage look which is similar to the jamesons font itself, this look also gives the feel that it comes from the 1700/1800's around the time jamesons was established. 

So I very much thought that it suited the brand and as well as being able to be used on it's own the type face also looks right when used on images that feature the actual company font which is a big positive as I had plans to use the bottles and barrel as part of my artwork. 

Overall I think this font will work well for headers and short amount of text, I may however look for a less stylised/retro font for some of the text on the app particularly if it is long. I'm not sure what fonts what fonts will work for this purpose yet, but again I want to find something that I think suits the brand and does not look out of place when it all comes together. 

Chosen Brand

For my brand I decided that Jameson's whiskey was the brand that I wanted to go with, I chose jameson's over the other brands for a number of reasons. The two main reasons being that they have a unique ad campaign which is very popular amongst customers and has also won awards. The live action adverts which I have covered in another post really drew me in and I think that I could use these in my ideas for the jamesons app. 

The second big reason that I decided to go with jamesons is the history of the brand, the website talks a lot abut being a family brand and how John Jameson the founder and owner was one of the workers and had a personal connection with each of them e.g. through the use of a nickname for each worker. These types of stories and info on the website really bring out the family feel the brand wants that all the workers love working there and make the whiskey with passion, as well as this it really shows you how the brand want you to see john jameson as a unique boss who everyone liked. 

Overall I think the brand has a strong existing campaign and a history that I will be able to use to my advantage to make an app that really suits the brand. 

Existing Alcohol Apps

Part of the research for this project is to look into existing apps that are based on drinking to see what is out there but also for inspiration on what works and what doesn't. To start with I just searched for drinking apps which gave me loads of options so to narrow this down I looked for top 10 lists and top rated apps this gave me some good apps that are popular and mostly current. 

General Drinking Apps - 

Untappd - The first app is called untappd and is described as a free social app for beers, it has a lot of features allowing users to check and rate beers add personal taste notes as well as checking what your friends are drinking letting you 'toast' them as well as allowing you to check into the venue you drinking at. This to me is a really good concept for an app as the features really give you freedom to do what you want with the app. Also how good the app is will come from how many users are active on it,  which to me could go either way as whilst their are a lot of beer enthusiasts in the world the question is how many of these will take time to use and update the app. I really like the massive social aspect of the app but for my project I'm not sure if this is the route I wanna take.








Hello Vino - This app is rated the best app for wine shoppers and is a simple idea but very useful in the way it's done. It's a step by step question and answer process which results in a wine recommendation based on your answers. Based on a number of factors such as pairing the wine with a meal, wine for an occasion, wine based on flavours or country/region. I think this is a very useful app and the topic of wine suits this idea very well with there being many options and types. Whilst it's not really something I can use for my chosen brand it could be something that I mix in building a app that recommends different recipes or occasions to use my chosen brand. 


Mixology - This is the highest rated and most downloaded cocktail app available it is an example of the recipe style app I mentioned previously. It has over 8000 drinks and mixes these in with some useful options such as highest rated drink and searching by ingredient or even a bar finder. As an app for drinks overall this works as the options of drinks and massive but using a similar theme for my app would have to be done right as the options a much more limited. 






Branded Drinking Apps - 

Stella Artois - Stella Artois have a couple of apps out that offer different services one of them works as a bar finder called 'Le Bar Guide' It finds and highlights bars on a map it also rates these bars out of 10 gives them a feeling for the bar such as 'spirited' It also gives key words for the bars such as Crowded, busy, patio etc. Overall it's a good looking app and I can see how it would be useful on a night out it also gives it a more personal touch to stella by offering options such as rating the pour of the stella. For my project I could do a similar thing but the options of bars where the drink is available is pretty much everywhere now so adding the options which detail the style and feel of a bar which could be a useful app for users of my brand.  

The second app Stella use is a 9 step pouring ritual which is more of a entertainment app than something of use. It goes through the 9 steps of pouring to try and teach people to pour a stella properly outside of the app. The reviews i've seen for the app haven't been positive however without using it myself it's hard to judge. 

Overall the visual styles of these app suit the brand of stella artois with the colour scheme they use and the typography. As well as the elegant rich feel they create.

Jameson's Whiskey Advertising

In recent times the way Jameson's whiskey has been advertised is a very specific way and style where they have created the character John Jameson. The adverts make him out to be superhuman heroic character who saves his whiskey and protects the secrets of how it is made,  this also makes the whiskey seem to be more important than life. The adverts are clever in the way they do this more so the printed ads than the tv spot as the tag-lines used with the imagery have a comedic style to them that mix with the imagery really well.

For example this advert shows this really well as the tag line says he's 'holding on for dear life' which you assume to mean the branch but then it continues to say 'with the other hand I clutched the nearest branch.' Showing that the whiskey is worth dying for and more important than Jamesons own life.  This is the theme for this particular set of jamesons adverts that all have there own tagline which makes the whiskey seem loved and overstate it's importance in most cases, they also make Jamesons seem heroic and superhuman. The adverts all follow the same art style which is a really detailed style that depicts vintage scenes with the tagline telling the story in a short and often clever way.  The slogan 'Taste above all else' adds to this by making it clear why he is saving or defending the whiskey and why others want it or are protecting it this being the taste.

Here are a few more examples - 

For my app I could play on the theme they have set out here using a backdrop of a story where jameson rescues or defend the whiskey in someway this could work well in a game or some sort of information app where this story would be going on in the background. 

The TV and web commercials are a series based around these posters, the series is called tall tales so as you'd expect they put jameson in a unlikely story that he triumphs from to save his whiskey.  The adverts have been very successful and are very well shot and made especially to get a story across in the short time they have of 30 - 1:30. The adverts could be very useful for my project giving me story's that I could use as the base for a game or as a backdrop to an information app as I mentioned earlier. It also gives me the possibility to make a new story and tell this someway through the app. 

Overall this ad campaign has been very successful for jamesons and this gives me a chance to build on this and make an app that suits the brand and the campaign. 

The series - 

AF201/202 - The New Brief

Today we were set the brief for the new project which is titled 'Drinks Promotion: ipad/iphone app and Animated teaser' For this project I have to create an app based on an brand of alcoholic drink that offers something useful, informative or entertaining to the user based on my chosen brand. As well as this I need to make a 15 second animation which works as a trailer for my app with the aim of generating traffic for the app.

The brief also states that I must research alcohol brands and advertising as well as undertake visual research to help me develop a visual theme for my project which is suitable to the brand I choose. Fitting with the culture and values of the brand whilst bringing it to life, as well as choosing a piece of music that fits with this. 

The final outcomes for this assignment are 

• A pitch presentation of my ideas 
• A trailer for the app (.mov) 
• a dynamic visualisation of the app (walkthrough of how the app works) (.mov)
• Sketchbook 
• Blog  

Key dates - 

• Pitch - Monday 25th November 
• Crit - Monday 9th December
• Final deadline - Wednesday 11th December (By 12:00pm)

My Thoughts - 

I think this is an interesting brief which covers new ground in a way because we have to base our visual style on an existing brand and follow there values and style, which is not something we've ever really done. I think it will be a good experience to do this and hopefully I choose the right brand to do this for. My initial ideas are to base the project on brands that mean something to me in some way such as Jameson's, Magners and Guiness. As for the content i'm hoping I will get an idea from my research once I have looked into some brands.                                                                         

Evaluation

I've now finished the project and looking back on my progress I am fairly happy with work and my final product. Being the first project of my second it was difficult at first to get back into the process of designing. As well as this it seemed to be a really short project so there was no time to put it off or procrastinate as I needed to have an idea as soon as possible as there was only four weeks until pitch. At first this seemed daunting but after researching into climate change and how transport and food sectors affect this I started to get some ideas about where I wanted to go with my work. 

After deciding on an idea based around food miles I create loads of storyboards and sketches on the different scenes of the animation based on what I thought would and wouldn't work. This gave me a good basis for the pitch however I had not time to draw any basic digital artwork so just showing sketches for my ideas and my animatic during the pitch didn't really help me get across what I wanted my visual language to be. However that being said I hope that the types of animations I showed during pitch that inspired gave at least a rough idea of what I wanted mine to look like. 

So after the pitch was done the next step was to build the animation in after effects being new to the program I was concerned about making it in time for pitch. But once I was in the program and got playing with the different features it was fun to seeing what worked and what didn't. With my planning it also meant I wasn't creating the animation as I went along so this made it easier to use pre-comps to make parts that I  would need such as a walking animation.  It took a long time to build as I was new to the software but at the same time I was learning as I was going so it was a very useful process. 

So the final product, after making the changes suggested at pitch I was happy with my animation for the most part. I still feel like there are sections that could be tidier and some of the animations could be smoother. However as my first project in after effects I am happy with how it turned out and it is closer to the idea I had in my head than I thought I would achieve. 

For the sketchbook and blog I found it difficult to to get back into the process of keeping these up to date. With the sketchbook I found it really useful to plan my animation and draw out characters and how  I wanted the different elements to look. But after I got to the stage where I felt I could move onto software I didn't really know what else to use it for. For the blog I think I kept a basic update of my progress throughout but could of done more. 

Overall I am pleased with my work for this project being the first project of the second year with little time to use I think I got back into the process of designing fairly well. Also as I said it was my first time using after effects so learning this was useful but also difficult especially with the deadlines so I am happy with my final animation but I think I could of done more to go with this which is disappointing but gives me something to aim for. 

Colours

For my colours I decided I wanted to combine different parts of the animations I had researched an liked. As I though this would give a nice mix of brighter colours but also these boring browns and greys. My plan with colour is to use the darker colours on the parts of the animation that are bad such as the food being driven around. Then to use the brighter colours to show the positive side such as veg being grown. I think this will give the animation a nice balance of colour but also help get the message across and show the viewer what is good and bad in a subtle way. 

Crit

So the crit was on monday and I showed my work so far which was a near finished version of my animation. That being said I got some very useful feedback during the process, on stuff I could change or add to help imrove the animation. 

The suggestions - 

• Change speed of truck at city scene to make them fit in with plane landing. 
• Fix speed issue with final truck at city scene to stop it flying off.
• Add colour to grass with vegetable patch to help show it's positive. 
• Edit final text so it makes sense. 
• Add grainy textures to backgrounds to add retro feel 

Since the crit I have begun making these changes starting with fixing the speed of the trucks so they fit in with the airplane landing. Which now looks better and I much prefer it this way. Hopefully the other changes will be similar when I make them and really improve my work. 

Pre-Comping

One of the techniques that was suggested to me was pre-comping which I found very useful and used it a lot through out my animation it's a really good way of creating walking or driving animations for example and then adding them to the main composition.  

Also the time-stretch and remapping options helps to speed up a pre comp of loop it for example I used both of these options on my walking pre-comp to loop it so the guy keeps walking but a lot time-stretch to speed him up so he goes with the speed of the animation. 

Drawing the Backgrounds

As I decided on a specific style for the artwork sticking to this was key so I spent a while creating the backgrounds I decide that there need to be a decent amount of texture to each one. But not loads as it might look as if it's meant to be realistic. I decided to use a texture as for the main background and blended this in with my colour choices seen in previous post. Other than this I added in the different elements such as the building and clouds at and coloured this sticking to my scheme. I did this for the first few backgrounds whilst also drawing the main elements such as the plane at the same time to make sure they looked ok when put together. 

This one is the first scene of my animation and is meant to be an airport with the control tower, hangers etc. 

This is just a transition scene for flowing between the airport and the warehouse which I think will work well in the animation.

Finally this scene is the edge of the warehouse where the trucks will come out with the city in the background.

Chosen Text

Linking back to my previous post I have decided on the text that I will use in the animation - 

"Food miles cause 19 million tonnes of emissions per year so..."

"Grow your own veg" 

"Buy local food" 

"Together we can reduce Food Miles' 

This is the order they will appear in the animation and I think it will make the message clear as well as help the animation have a kind of story it follows. 

Text over Voice over

After getting half way through designing my animation I decided to add in some text to further the message. As I was not sure it was clear and watching it back I released there was a good opportunity to add some text in a certain scenes. I'm not planning on writing paragraphs or anything like that though just a few lines at certain points to clarify and help the message be conveyed. 

I also decided on text over a voice over as I didn't want to break up the music and getting a flowing voice over to work with the animation could be hard. Time issues also played a part here. 

1960's Animation - UPA

As a follow up to my retro cartoons I think I found a more focused theme to follow. Whilst researching animation I was really drawn in by the style of the 1960's animation particularly the work of UPA (united productions of america) at this time. The style really appealed to me for example the background used were simple coloured backgrounds for the most part with a little bit of texture to add depth often the way these were drawn gave them a illustrative feel. The characters are as I described in my other post but I think focusing on the work of UPA during this period this gives me a stronger visual style as UPA released a lot of different animations around this period (such as Magoo)

and the all had the same structure and style so the company obviously had there style and it one that I want to follow in my work. Hopefully finishing my animation with it looking like it could be from this time. 

Retro Cartoons

As a style for my animation the style of retro cartoons from around the 1950's is a style that really like. The key elements I think would work really well for this project these elements being the use of shading and simplicity, it is also a semi realistic animation style.  I decided to look at these further by searching for examples. To look at the visual style further as well as the way they are animated which should hopefully give me a clearer idea of what I wanted to do. 

Looking through a number of example

s I really like the way the characters are drawn it's a really fun style. They all have these massive noses that helps shape the face and then these tiny legs and often arms and then a simple shape for the body which has added detail for clothes. Which sounds like it shouldn't work but when you see it together it just does. As I said I think this is a really fun style and it will stop my animation from looking too serious considering the subject. Also with the ideas I have so far for my animation I think I could make a unique main character for it which would add a story element. 

As for backgrounds these are kept simple often they are not that defined and there is just textures with blocks of colour and the other elements of the background would be added in by lines. This style works and backgrounds and flat coloured characters go together really well. So far for my ideas I have a variety of backgrounds so I think this style would stop me spending too much time on these elements but also differentiate between the backgrounds well. 

The animation style is also not as complicated as more modern styles which suite the art style and the backgrounds as well. Also it will help me as it's my first project on After Effects. 

It is also (at this point) a wide theme to follow so it gives me freedom to experiment and play around with the visual style a little bit sticking to the overall style of a vintage cartoon. 

Music

After having a long search I finally found a piece of music that I want to use for my animation. It has the vintage rock feel that I was after and I think it will help my animation stand out. The track is called 'Gold on the ceiling' by The Black Keys the first 28 seconds or so are instrumental intro this is the part of the song I will be using. I fairly confident the track will work with the animation i'm also hopeful as I  don't have many other ideas on the music.

The track can be heard here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yCIDkFI7ew

Sound Effects

I found a very good site for getting sound effects http://www.grsites.com/archive/sounds/ which pretty much has most of the sounds I would need. However I haven't decided yet whether I will use sound effects because I have a lot of parts where a sound effect could be applied mixed with the music it might get a bit too much and sound messy. Saying that though if I watch my animation back with just the music a decided it needs sound effects I will look back on the issue. 

The Pitch

So the pitch was on monday and overall I think it went well although my animatic didn't really show up on the projector I think I still got the idea and message across well enough. I got some positive feedbacks on my ideas and style and also some useful ideas from the group on music and how to improve certain parts of the animation. 

Music was useful as I was stuck but the suggestions gave me a new place to go with that, which hopefully works out.  

Now I have a clear idea of what I want to do and the style I want it to be in so hopefully it works out. 

The 12 Principles Of Animation

For this project the brief asked us to research into the principles of animation as I did not know what these were I thought researching these first would be a good way to start the project. After some initial research I found that there are 12 basic principles of animation that cover all the different aspects of animating.

The principles are -

1. Squash and Stretch
2. Anticipation
3. Staging
4. Straight Ahead and Pose-to-pose
5. Follow through and overlapping action
6. Slow in and slow out
7. Arcs
8. Secondary Action
9. Timing
10. Exaggeration
11. Solid Drawing 
12. Appeal

Typography

For my animation I decided to go for the retro style that I had researched and liked, such as the 1950's Looney Toons or the Skin you alive animation. So with my style being decided I needed a font that suited this style as well. Although I have little typography in my animation it is important that my typography fits in with the overall feel and theme, so I decided to go look for fonts that had retro, vintage feel to them. I narrowed my choice down to a few but finally decided that to go with Bellerose I decided to choose font for a number of reasons, first off I love the simplicity to the font. It is not big or flashy like some of other fonts I looked at and I think this will really work for the style I want to achieve.  As well as this it is readable and has a nice vintage feel to it. 

Visual Style - Lluis Fuzzhound

Whilst researching retro style animation I came across an animation which had a very unique style which was based around the 60's and you can see this from the similarities between this animation and the work of Chuck Jones for example. The animation had some style elements that I really liked and wanted to try out in my own work. 

The artists name is Lluis Fuzzhound also known as Lluis Sanchez, the animation is a music video for the song 'Skin you alive' and can be seen at http://vimeo.com/48997795. The elements I really liked from the animation is the drawing style, use of colours and textures. The drawing style is an illustrative style particularly for the background which just really works and also brings out the main elements such as the characters and objects from the animation.  These main elements have flat colours and this combines really well with the illustrative style textured backgrounds. 

The use of colours is also really good as even though it is done in a black and grey scheme it still looks pleasing and everything is coloured in a way that makes the parts stand out and get your attention. This is also helped by the black outlines around the characters and objects that might not even be noticed but really help the elements stand out.

Food Miles

After researching into possible topics for my animation I decided to base it on food miles for a number of reasons.

What are food miles - 

• Food miles (or food kilometres) describe the distance that food is transported as it travels from producer to consumer.
• In the UK, our food travels an amazing 30 billion kilometres each year. This includes imports by boat and air and transport by lorries and cars
• Food transport is responsible for the UK adding nearly 19 million tonnes of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere each year. Over 2 million tonnes of this is produced simply by cars travelling to and from shops.

Why I am basing my project on food miles - 

As I said there were a number of reasons I wanted to use food miles for the theme of my project. First off I initially liked the idea of using food as the theme but I had very little ideas around this, and ways I could make an interesting animation on this. After researching however food miles seemed like the right idea as it has an element of transport which I thought gave me more freedom to come up with ideas. 

The other reasons I decided on food miles as I had little knowledge on the topic and it was not something I had really considered. So I thought it would be a good topic to bring to peoples attention. 

Research Climate Change - Transport

I also researched into how transport affects climate change I looked at a number of topics such as airmiles and the idea of using eco-driving. For the animation I started to think of ways I could use these topics for my project. 

Airmiles - With airmiles causing a massive carbon footprint I could base my animation on ways to reduce this and cut down on airmiles in general. I could promote local holidays or possibly less holidays  but this may be a hard topic to promote and encourage.

Cars - Cars are a massive cause of co2 emissions and there are many ways I could promote to cut down on this. One possible route would be to promote walking and cycling where possible to reduce the amount of unnecessary car journeys. I could also promote using public transport where it might be cheaper or easier than driving. Finally I could make my animation about electric cars, using biofuel or the idea of eco-driving all of which would help reduce the co2 emissions that come from the use of cars.

Research Climate Change - Food

One of the themes that stood out from the brief was food and the way this effects climate change, I decided to research further into this and found some topics which would work for my animation. 

I used two main sites for my research - 

Environmental protection agency - http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/impacts-adaptation/agriculture.html

Sustain web - http://www.sustainweb.org//foodandclimatechange

The main topics I found whilst researching were - 

Food Miles - This is the term given to the emissions involved with transporting food, this includes the importation by boats and planes and the transportation by lorries and cars. Food miles cause massive CO2 emissions and food in the UK alone travels 30 billion kilometres a year. Reducing food miles could have a dramatic effect on reducing CO2 emissions and the impact the food sector has on climate change. The solutions to this include buying locally and in season as the food does not have to travel as far as well as growing your own fruit and vegetables.  

Impact on crops - The impact that climate change has on crops is another topic I could cover these effects include and increased CO2 concentration in a large amount of crops.  Higher temperatures can prevent the crops from growing as can droughts. For my animation I could highlight these impacts but I would also need to show a solution. 

Impact on livestock - The animals are affected by the heat waves caused by climate change as well as the droughts. Climate change may also increase the chance that the livestock will suffer from parasites and diseases. Similar to the impact on crops I could highlight these issues in my animation. 

Impact on fisheries - The fish are also affected by climate change as the oceans become warmer and more acidic. This threatens the structures of sensitive eco systems in the oceans as well as directly harming the fish such as shellfish. The temperature change in the Oceans could also affect the timing of reproduction and migration which could have an impact on the sustainability of certain fish. 

Food waste is also a massive factor in global warming however I think this has been covered and highlighted as an issue enough so I decided not to focus on this. 

Year 2 - The New Brief

Today I started my second year of the FDA course and received a new brief to start the year off, the brief is a project on Animation where I will have to create a 20 to 30 second long animation. The subject for the animation is climate change awareness and the brief lays out a clear message that the animation has to convey based on a few different themes. 

These themes are -  

• The General Message 
• Food 
• Transport
• Consumption/Lifestyle

The brief also gives and guide for how the tone of the animation should have basically saying it should positive rather than negative. Also the animation must feature a mixture of music, sound effects and a voice over. 

Like previous projects I will need to follow a design process including research the brief gives two pieces of research that must be done to start with these are the principles of animation and examples of existing animations that persuade and inform.  This is a good place to start and I think a strong understanding of animation will help me to generate ideas for that answer the brief. 

As well as this across the blog and sketchbook I must also show my idea generation, sketches, storyboards, mock-ups, scripts/music and an animatic. The Animation must be made in After Effects the artwork can be created in photoshop and illustrator.  

The pitch is on Monday 14th October 

The crit is on Monday 4th November

Final deadline Wenesday 6th November 

Initial Thoughts - 

Overall I like the new brief as I am looking forward to doing animation work and learning more about it as well as gaining some skills in after effects.  As far as initial ideas go nothing really jumped out as a theme I would like to cover in my animation, I think I will need to do some research into the themes and then make a decision. I want to find a subject that I find interesting and a clear message to convey. 

For animations styles I've had a brief look at 1940s-50s retro cartoons that I like the style of I think the artwork looks good and is a style I would be able to achieve. I also think the style would suit a public information video and would suit the tone as it's easy to be positive and comical in this style. However I will look at a few more styles before making a final choice on this.