Learning Adobe Animate CC

For this project I was advised that in order to combat my time keeping skills with animation (in that I am very, very slow) I should learn the software Adobe Animate CC as I was told that the program was quite suited to the way I liked to work being frame by frame with keyframes. Of course I was initially skeptical as I am a very slow learner so felt undertaking a completely knew software all together would be very time consuming and take away from the time I could spend working on the project.

Katy linked me to this video on YouTube called 'The ULTIMATE Guide to ADOBE ANIMATE CC! (AKA Flash) - Tutorial' and it proved to be incredibly useful. Jazza is incredibly informative and talks the viewer through the program like they have never used it before so he covers literally everything, from opening up a project and finding the right format to creating animations.

I'd say I am not particularly suited to learning by watching tutorials. I much prefer to learn by doing. But in this case, I found the tutorial really engaging so tried to study it as closely as possible.

Attempt 1

I began with the simple task of drawing freehand my character that'll feature in my animation. As you can see from my first attempt (Above), the drawing is fairly terrible. Her proportions are completely wrong and her head is way too big for her body.

Attempt 2

For my second attempt I decided to trace a drawing of the character I had created on paper. Drawing freehand onto the computer is something I find incredibly difficult to do, even on Photoshop of which I'd say I'm an expert with. In my animating process I would usually place roughs into Photoshop and trace over on a separate layer. I decided to treat this software with the same techniques I'd apply to Photoshop.

A big problem I was having was that of what drawing tools to use and it took a great deal of experimenting to find a brush that had the right look of lines and smoothness. This is where Draw with Jazza came in very handy. Eventually I found a look of line that I really liked, next up I needed to attempt animating and quickly learn it so I could get into the animation process.

PBS Newshour: When can police use deadly force against a fleeing suspect?

• Police officers may not shoot a fleeing person unless the officer believes that the individual poses a significant physical danger to the officer or others in the community.
• Greg Gilbertson, a police practices expert and criminal justice professor states...
• "You don't shoot fleeing felons. You apprehend them unless there are exigent circumstances or emergencies that require urgent action to safeguard the community as a whole."
• In pursuit on foot the more reasonable option might be to call for backup.
• The justice department often investigates police use of force, though not all investigations result in prosecution.

USA Today: What happens when officers use deadly force?

What happens when officers use deadly force?

• They undergo interviews and psychological evaluations
• They are placed on paid leave
• Use of police force is not regularly chronicled
• In 2001, police officers used deadly force in 3.6 out of every 10,000 calls over a two year period.
• An officer convicted of criminal wrongdoing could face federal prison for violation of civil rights.
• Last year 111 federal, state and other law officers were killed in the line of duty.
• 33 of those were shot to death during a confrontation.
• A grand jury indicted Charlotte-Mecklenburg, N.C., police officer Randall Kerrick in the shooting death of an unarmed 28 year old man.
• Kerrick shot Jonathan Ferrell ten times
• He was charged with voluntary manslaughter
• It was the first time in 30 years a Charlotte police officer had been charged in an on-duty shooting. 
• Shootings are typically judged by how the officer perceived the threat.
• Was he fearing for his life?
• Aveni, New Hampshire expert says discussing his group's research...
• 1 in 4 police shootings involve an unarmed civilian
• 2 thirds of police shootings occur in low-sight situations and they mistake something in their hand for a gun.

Extended Practice Research: Vice: When cops can legally shoot people

Vice: When cops can legally shoot people

An interview with Paul H. Robinson, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School whose an expert in criminal law and a former federal prosecutor.

What laws give cops the ability to use force, up to and including deadly force?

• If a police officer shot somebody in order to arrest them for a misdemeanour they are not authorised to use lethal force.
• If the person who they are arresting resists and threatens them with serious bodily injury, they are not limited to the force that is authorised by the law. They then have the same right to self-defence as a citizen.

• A cop can subdue somebody by grabbing them and throwing them to the ground, they cannot then shoot and kill them.
• You cannot anticipate that someone's going to attack you, you have to wait until they do.
• Before 1985, if you ran from the police they could shoot you. Now they cannot use deadly force unless there is a danger that if they are not arrested they could harm someone.
• If you make a reckless mistake that a reasonable person would have not made, you're not liable for murder, but you are for manslaughter.

Why do you think prosecutors so rarely charge cops in cases where they've killed someone?

• Most jurors are aware that police officers are out in sometimes dangerous circumstances and have empathy for their situation.
• There are cases where a prosecutor knows that he's not going to get a conviction but there is public demand that the case be publicly investigated so it at least needs to go to trial.
• Very few cases actually get convictions.

How helpful are videos in building cases against cops for police shootings?

• It's a mistake to think videos that capture shootings tell you everything. 
• You don't see the judgement of the cop.
• It won't tell you what the perpetrator did before.
• It's ridiculous to think they give all the answers.

(This is very helpful knowledge for me to know because in my animation, how Lucy finds out that her father shot an unarmed man was by reading it in a newspaper and then having it proved to her by watching the shooting caught on tape on the internet. Before I read this I had assumed being caught on camera was the most reliable thing that could happen but now I realise that camera footage cannot always be entirely trusted, there is often more underneath the surface. That being said, while it doesn't entirely prove that the Cop being caught on tape shooting the unarmed man makes him entirely guilty, in her head it does.)

Extended Practice Research: The Washington Post: Thousands dead, few Prosecuted

The Washington Post: Thousands dead, few Prosecuted

• Among thousands of fatal shootings by police officers since 2005, only 54 have been charged.
• An overwhelming majority of cases where an officer was charged, the person killed was unarmed.
• When prosecutors pressed charges, there were typically factors that made the case exceptional including...
• Victim was shot in the back
• Incident was recorded on video
• Incriminating testimony from other officers
• Allegations of a cover-up
• Phillip M. Stinson, a criminologist at Bowling Green who studies arrests of police:
• "To charge an officer in a fatal shooting it takes something so egregious, so over the top that it cannot be explained in any rational way."
• "Has to be a case that prosecutors are willing to hang their reputation on." 

• Most officers whose cases have been resolved have not been convicted.
• When officers have been convicted or plead guilty, they are often given little time behind bars.
• Jurors are very reluctant to punish police officers, they view them as guardians of order.
• The FBI maintains a national database of fatal shootings by officers but does not require police departments to keep it updated.

Case Study: Jay Morningstar

• In April 2005, Detroit police were called to a bar after Eric Williams, a homeless man known to them became aggressive.
• Jay Morningstar noticed Williams and stopped.
• Morningstar got out of his vehicle, Williams approached.
• Detroit prosecutor's office, believing he was not in fear of his life at the moment he fired the shot, charged Morningstar with second-degree murder and manslaughter.
• After a six week trial, Morningstar was acquitted on all charges.
• Morningstar returned to active duty within the Michigan State Police immediately after the trial and remains in its service.

Tawana Williams: Sister of Eric Williams

• "When you get a phone call from 911 that a homeless man's in the middle of the street with his pants down, I don't feel you have to approach that situation and put your hands on a pistol, that is a hostile situation."
• "You open his hand and all my brother had was a rolled up one dollar bill in his hand. My brother did not deserve to lose his life to state police."
• "And at the end of the day, we have to respect the law, that's what it's there for."

Jay Morningstar: Michigan State Trooper

• "I saw the man stand there and he was I'd describe fronting like he had a weapon. There was a man on the ground, he had his hand up, and he was standing over him. And his hand was inside, his other hand was out."
• "As soon as I fired that shot I knew the threat was stopped and I saw him stagger and I holstered my weapon and I just grabbed his arm, his shoulder was facing me still and I pushed him down on the hood of the petrol car. And I immediately reached in there and grabbed his hand and ripped it out.  And I'll never forget this, in his hand was a dollar bill, it was crumpled over, just there. And that was the first conscious thought that I can recall thinking that why am I not pulling out a weapon, you know, what's going on?"
• "You know, my greatest fear as a human being has always been to be incarcerated. As I was driving home, I couldn't help all these other things I'd seen in the back of my mind and I was thinking to myself you know what if they don't believe me? Sure enough the next day, the media had grabbed onto this and these comments were being made, it was just incredible what was happening."
• "If I could have known he didn't have a weapon absolutely, but otherwise all you can do if you don't know is you can just stand there and let it happen. And that's contrary to all the training you receive."
• "I don't feel good about this shooting. It's transformed my life, and as strong as I am I still suffer from effects of it you know. And that can't relate to a lot of people that I work with you know. And I do help people and can use my experience in a beneficial way yes, but in the same token I can't go back to where I was." 

This case study was incredibly insightful and useful for me with developing the characters I am trying to portray. Morningstar's actions in the line of duty were perhaps wrong, he in my opinion acted wrongfully, yet I feel he is not a bad person. He evidently feels guilt for his actions and I believe that when the incident occurred he did not intend to kill anyone, I feel he acted with his reflexes and gut instinct but in this case his gut instinct was wrong. The character of Cop in my animation I do not want to portray as a villain. 

The real world is not that black and white. Similar to Morningstar's case, the fictional cop in my animation shoots dead someone who is unarmed, he perhaps (and in the narrative of my animation, most likely) did it wrongfully. Similar to this real case my character is terrified of being incarcerated and does get found out yet is let off. My Cop is not a bad person but has done a bad thing yet I wanted to portray him as as real as possible so he has to experience feelings of guilt and the event has to haunt him in some way. 

That is why in my animation, following the shooting Cop drinks alcoholically and ends up getting rid of his guns after having a very close attachment to them. I feel that in order for my animation to successfully portray realistic characters, I need to research people like Morningstar who have had similar events happen to them in their lives.

Extended Practice: Developing the other Final Character Designs

Creating the final designs of Cop was more complicated having already developed Lucy's final character designs. They needed to of course look like they're related but also have notable differences in their physical characteristics to symbolise the differences in the characters personalities as they grow older. Lucy wears quite bright clothing and Cop wears darker duller clothing. I did not want the reasons for this to be as cliched as Lucy wears bright colours which means she's good, he wears dark colours, that means he's bad. I more wanted it to mean that as an audience we are more drawn to the brighter colours as she is the most important character, it's basically told through her eyes so it's her story. 

I based Cop's look off of actor Shawn Hatosy's character from the American drama series Southland. This is slightly a cop out (pardon the pun) as I'm not even referencing a real cop, I'm referencing an already fictional character. But the reason why I wanted to reference this particular person was because I knew that tons of reference material of him already existed on the Internet so it meant I could focus on making this character's physicality as realistic as possible and not spend loads of time trying to figure out a character design. This way I could play to my strengths by saving time and making sure i can move onto the animation process as soon as possible.

 

I based the look of the Nan off one of my own Nans, she is a similar age and has a similar look to what I imagined the nan in this animation to look like.

I also felt that due to the fact that I actually know her makes her easier to reference than if I were referencing someone I found through secondary research and didn't already know. In terms of her colour palette, of course I wanted the colours she wears to resemble what someone of her age might wear but i also wanted her to serve as an almost middle ground to the two other characters. So the colours she wears are light like what Lucy wears but are also quite dulled to look more like Cop's colour palette. 

Extended Practice: Modelling the Final House Designs

Creating Flat Image Planes

At this point I had found the two houses I wanted to use to reference for my final designs of the Cops' house and the Nan's house. So with the use of Google Street view I was able to access photography of both houses shot from the front and side to use to reference for creating my flat image planes for Maya.

I had used Maya previously for modelling characters in the Character and Narrative brief in first year. Modelling was the part of using Maya that I had most enjoyed and where my skills in the software lied the most. As I was cautious about time management I knew I needed to play everything to my skills so I wanted to limit my usage of Maya to just the modelling process.

Once I had my reference images I drew the plans of the houses. At this stage of the working process, I had forgotten my Wacom tablet as I was working in Brighton away from it. This actually was beneficial to my work process as it meant I was limited to a mouse so could only create straight lines. I felt that this would benefit me in the Maya modelling process as there is nothing more complicated than curves. 

I had used Maya previous in the collaborative brief Character and Narrative in second year. But that was now more than a year ago and I have a terrible memory, especially with anything technical. Starting was quite difficult, it took me a while to remember what all the controls were and where certain tools were located on the workspace. Luckily I had Maya extraordinaire Dan at my beckoning call who was more than happy to assist with any problem I ran into. 

I did have to restart the modelling of my house multiple times. But, once I had gotten to grips with the modelling process the actual making of the house was incredibly quick and I was thankful that I had provided myself such a simple design to work with. I was also thankful that I had modelled Nan's house first as being a bungalow it was 

Extended Practice: Creating Final House Designs

Even though the characters in my animation are animated and cartoon-like. I really wanted their surroundings to be as realistic as possible. This way the viewer can believe that the story is set in a real place, the story of my animation although fictional is one that very well could happen in real life. Since i wanted the surroundings to be as realistic as possible and in a way follow the laws of physics, I felt like in the case of this particular animation it would be irresponsible and a rash move to jump into drawing the background designs immediately onto paper.

There are many shots in my animation inside and outside of the main two houses, they are often at different angles so when developing the storyboard, making sure I knew where certain rooms should be and how furniture should be laid out was very important to me.

As I learnt from when the visiting professional Fraser Maclean came in to talk with us, staging and layout is just as important in Animation as Live Action, rules like the 180 degree rule need to be followed so the viewing experience is not jarring. That is why planning out my environments was going to take time.

Taking Inspiration from The Simpsons

I own the book 'The Simpsons Handbook' which has served incredibly useful in informing and inspiring me on how to develop backgrounds. They state in the book 'Observational details are key elements of every Simpsons background drawing. In these kitchen views, notice even though the lines are simplified to work well with the style of the characters, they still give the impression of being real spaces. The perspectives aren't skewed, and the elements aren't drawn in a "cartoony" way. It's all based on real objects and real architecture.'

Even though the Simpsons are cartoon characters they still have to follow certain rules in how they exist and interact with objects and locations in their world. It has to make sense. I need to make sure when designing backgrounds for the characters in my animation that it all makes sense with how they interact with how they interact with their surroundings.

Taking Inspiration From Ethel and Ernest

When we saw the panel on the making of the animated film Ethel and Ernest, the creators of the film described how they created the backgrounds. They stated that their technique was to model the buildings in Maya and then trace over the 3D models digitally. This way they were able to easily get any camera shot they wanted just by moving the camera without having to worry about making sure the perspective is absolutely correct.

While yes modelling a house on Maya does take a certain amount of time before you can even think about drawing it, but once you've actually modelled the house, any shot thereafter is instantly effortlessly easy to stage. This inspired me to use this technique when modelling the main set pieces from my animation; the Nan's house, the cop's house and Lucy's classroom. While I feel I do have a skill for perspective drawing, it would still take me a lengthy process to draw each background from scratch by hand as evidenced when creating the backgrounds for my Processes and production animation in first year, see below...

That is why I felt like this would be a good method to use. I have struggled with using Maya in the past but the main thing is that I have previously used it to create an animation. Here i am confident as I am only doing modelling, I am not doing any of the things I truly struggled with such as rigging a character, UV mapping or even animating using the software.

Groening, M., Morrison, B. and Newman, K.M. (2007) The Simpsons handbook: Secret tips from the pros. London: HarperCollins Entertainment.

Ethel and Ernest (2016) Directed by Roger Mainwood, UK

Extended Practice: Designing Houses

I wanted to set my animation in Los Angeles. Therefore the look of the environments in my animation needed to resemble a suburban neighbourhood in Los Angeles. I didn't want the protagonists to be wealthy or poor, but somewhere in the middle, they needed to live a place that a ten year old child can walk back and forth to school everyday, yet still have crime and gun crime.

The three major set pieces in the animation are the Cop's house, Nan's house, and Lucy's school classroom. But since I don't live in Los Angeles I begun by conducting secondary research into houses in LA through the use of Google Images and Google Maps. I did like the look of some of the houses but they didn't quite have the right fit. Eleanor pointed me to a suburban area of Palo Alto in California where she had previously visited. I instantly preferred the houses in this area.

Designing the Cop's House

The way I went about designing a house was quite literally by house hunting on Google Street view. Below is the house I found that I felt would be ideal to model the Cop's house after...

Had I had more time I would have liked to design a house from scratch. I feel like this approach is quite lazy but I would argue that it's not like I'm copying the house exactly as it appears in real life. I wouldn't be able to do this even if I wanted to due to much of the house being covered by fencing and trees. That way it leaves much of the design work up to my imagination as I fill in the gaps of what i cannot see. Furthermore, background design has never been one of my strengths and since playing to my strengths is an integral part of this project, I must make sure I manage my time on anything else as effectively as possible.

These are my concept drawings of the above house..

INSERT PEN DRAWING

Designing the Nan's House

The house I found to reference the Nan's house after was literally right around the corner from the Cop's house on Google maps.

I felt like this house would be perfect to reference. My own nan lives in a bungalow which gave me the inspiration that the fictionalised Nan character should too. Below is a concept sketch I drew of the above house...