Unblocking The Main Thread Solving ANRs and Frozen Frames
Ha2 productionlogdiary
1. WEEK COMENCING 4th
November 2013:
During the first week I began looking at existing EStings and getting
more of an understanding of the channel E4 online. I produced a
short PowerPoint presenting my findings.
WEEK COMENCING 11th
November 2013:
Due to my own fault and my inability to keep track of time I
uploaded my PowerPoint a week later than I should of. During the
duration of this week I began the ‘ideas generation’ task. I
developed a mood board filled with drawings of all my initial ideas before coming to a conclusion on
which one I wanted to do. I uploaded the moodboard to my blog on
time. If I had worked harder I probably could of elaborated on my ideas
more.
WEEK COMENCING 18th
November 2013:
The planning part of the assignment took me a lot longer than I
expected. I started devising my storyboards mid-way through the weeks,
however after handing them in I realised I had done them wrong and
had to re-start them.
WEEK COMENCING 25th
November 2013:
The planning process continued into the second week; it was four weeks into the assignment before
I managed to scan and upload the storyboards and all the relevant paperwork. Whilst I was a week
behind on the planning process, I did manage to start the production stage.
The first thing I needed to do was convert all the files of
my drawings to jpegs.
I wanted all my drawing to look hand drawn and have a
cartoon feel to them so I decided early on that I would
be using my own images for my Esting and drawing them
in Adobe Illustrator and using After Effects to edit the
Esting together.
Creating the drawings was quite a simple task, however
it was very time consuming. During this week I created
the first set of drawings for scene 1 of my ESting.
I simply scanned in the first ‘shot’ of my storyboard into Adobe illustrator onto a single layer and
then place another layer on top. Using the pen tool I was the able to trace my drawing, before using
the eyedropper, paintbrush and stroke and fill tool to colour it. During the first scene my trees were
going to move, so I had to ensure I traced them on a third layer to allow me to do so.
It took me the entire week to complete the full drawing.
2. WEEK COMMENCING 2nd
December 2013:
The first thing I did during this week was edit
the first shot of my ESting on After Effects
which I had drawn the previous week. I
wanted to be working on both at the same
time so I didn’t fall behind.
Editing it was something I struggled with
quite immensely at first- I had quite a bit of
assistance of my teacher before I was able to
get the hang of it. I dragged and dropped each layer of my drawing into After Effect, before changing
the scale and opacity on the trees to ensure they came in at the right time.
Once I had completed this I moved on to beginning the
second ‘shot’ of my storyboard by following the same
process in Adobe Illustrator. Tracing this next layer took a
little longer since there was more detail in the drawings- I
also discovered that I could change the width of the pen tool
line which helped me greatly.
Since both the cats would be moving and I would be adding a
laser effect to the ‘warning’ lights I require three layer; one for the background and vault, one for
the two cats, and one for the lights.
WEEK COMENCING 9th
December 2013:
This should have been my last week working on the Esting, however I was very behind.
At the beginning of the week I started working on editing
my second shot in After Effects. I followed the exact same
process as the previous week- in inserted each layer in
order and then scaled and positioned the cats so they
zoomed in on time and in the right spot, then changed
the opacity of all the layers.
I wanted to add laser effects to the ‘warning’ light so they
flashed, however I was not sure how to do so. I spent a
while looking at You Tube tutorials before discovering that I simply had to draw a transparent circle
on top of the light and insert the ‘strobe’ effect. I was then able to position the lighting as I wished so
it flashed how I wanted it too.
Later on in the week I began working on ‘shot’ number
three in Adobe Illustrator. There was going to be a lot of
movement in this layer so I required a total of 7 layers-
one for the background, one for the cow, one for the
3. lolly, one for the E4 logo, one for a set of balloons and two more for the other balloons.
Once I got started it didn’t take me as long as I expected to complete the drawings and import them
into After Effects for editing. I was now becoming more used to the software and a lot more
confident using Adobe Illustrator.
Once I Had placed the layers in the right order I simply
had too scale, rotate and position the images before
changing the opacity so that they fade out ready for the
next scene. The pogo hoping cow took me a little longer
than the other images to position since I wanted him to
actually be pogo hopping were as the balloons were
simply moving in an upward motion.
WEEK COMENCING 16th
December 2013:
I was now a week behind schedule, so I spent the
majority of this week focussed solely on my Esting.
I still had two more ‘shots’ to draw, however I
managed to find an easy way of doing it. I drew out the
first set of drawing using four layers- one for each of
the space ships, one for the background and one for
the roof of the building.
Once I had completed them, I imported the into After
Effects and edited this part of the sequence together
by rotating and positioning the space ships and the
changing the opacity of the roof so is fades out and
disappears.
I wanted to give the impression that the spaceships
were flying away with the E4 logo, so the ships and
background were going to stay the same. All I had to do
was go back to Adobe Illustrator, remove the roof
layer, draw earth on the same layer and then import it
into Adobe After Effects.
I then repositioned the spaceships to give the impression of them flying away. This save a lot of
hassle for me since it met I didn’t have to do doubles of each drawing.
I then simply changed the opacity on the image and faded everything out other than the E4 logo. As
the images faded out I re-sized the logo so it filled the screen. My Esting then completely faded out.
4. By Friday afternoon I had completed, rendered and uploaded my Esting to my You Tube and blogger
page one week late.
WEEK COMENCING 27th
January 2014:
I completed my review as soon as I got back from half term; however I forgot to upload it to my blog.
So it was over a moth late before I remembered and had time to upload it.