THE CHANNEL IDENT CONCLUSION

My first sustained animation production in 3D Studio Max, a program that troubles me technically. I will sit, watch, and listen in the tutorials, which would make perfect sense, until I go away and try to implement them alone, and then the chaos and anarchy of problems would arise. To say this project ran smoothly for me would be lying, I’ve had to fight to keep things going, with many questions thrown about to peers and tutors as I try to make sense of things that for whatever reason I could not comprehend. The last week of the project, things just clicked, the crafting of the objects, the animation timeline (realising each object had its own individual timeline to enable manipulation was a major breakthrough for me).

The Idea
My idea for the channel sixty six Ident was to try and show two character “toons” showing some emotion with a classic frying pan gag thrown in for good measure. With the lettering when playing with camera angles and materials had a vision that I wanted them to resemble the lettering style of the ‘Life of Brian’ movie cover and the game ‘Brian Bloodaxe’ a style that’s distinct and I aimed to mimic. The music I felt summed up the mood of the ‘toon’ who sat on the left, in the cartoon world of over reactions and frying pans and 1 tonne weights, this music said to me a menacing cold-hearted character. If I had more aptitude with sound I would implement the sound effects of stonewalls rocking and the pan hitting the other toon, something I aim to include in future productions.

How it went
The week prior to hand in I was assaulted with problems, I was so concerned that my animation would not be completed as it was riddled with problems from IK chains not working right and models not looking how I wanted, that I planned a backup option, another animation with a strong idea that I could maybe develop with the animation models I had already crafted, fortunately with the support of my peers and tutor Andy Love I did not need to move to this secondary backup plan (although as I feel it is a strong idea I am keen to explore some new techniques I did not cover in my channel 66 Ident).

Happy ever after?
Overall I am pleased with my animation, I can see ways I can develop next time, I have learnt a lot and have gone from frustrated at my lack of technical skill, to keen to get stuck in, explore and experiment new ways to express myself in this medium.