My final animation of the Snake Charmer went better than I had originally thought. Looking at the various elements of what went well and what didn't will help me to develop for any future animations. Firstly, the opening shot from 0:00-0:04 clearly identifies the character and the theme of the animation with a smooth transition camera movement that eases into the shot. We can then see the main character in the background which further sets up the scene.
The wave at the six second mark helps to create the opening emotion of the character before his descent into anger. He plays the flute and there is appeal in the character as he blinks repeatedly at the audience. The audience can see what is going on as the scene unfolds. The movement of the fingers on the flute show nicely that the character is meant to be playing it. The snake then pops it's head up and is able to move just enough for the audience to shift attention to it, see it's squashing action and shift back to the main character before the anger sets in. He immediately drops his arm to the side which I think is nicely timed, this is followed by a reasonably well weighted foot stomp before leading on to what I believe to be the weakest part of the animation.
The part where the character throws the flute to the ground suffered from the fact that I didn't block as many poses as I should have before doing straight ahead animation and so had to animate every keyframe to fix the timing here. There are clear issues but I managed to make it much better than it was by fixing the arc of the arm and constraining the flute to the character's hand before it hits the ground. When the flute hits the ground at 13 second, there is not as much of an impact as I had wanted but I tried to look at how it would work in real life and incorporated a reverberation into the impact which causes the flute to bounce slightly.
All the way through this, the camera is transitioning through the action fairly smoothly, guiding the eye to where the audience should be looking.
Next we come to the jump. This took a lot of manipulation of the pole vectors and it is clear that technical animation is the main problem here and moving into the walk at 17 seconds which has a slight pause in it. This pause is down to the foot roll that I had on the animation in order to make the movement more realistic. This works in the rest of the walk and the straight arm march that I created really highlights the anger/frustration that the character is feeling.
We see this as well when the character picks up the basket, shakes and kicks it. The character's motivation and emotion is clear throughout the animation and we can see the slight triumph and relief in his character following the kicking of the basket. Looking at the kick itself, I exaggerated the character in order to add anticipation to the kick.
When the snake appears behind the character, there is a subtlety as the character looks back before the snake launches at the camera to finish the animation. The snake is well timed and the audience can see the build up in the scene before it strikes. I think that the timing is better on this because the character had a much simpler rig than that of the lion and this reduced animation complexity.
Looking at the characterisation overall, I think that a lot of emotion and thought can be seen in the characters. The story is clear as is the movement but the timing and execution of these movements needs work. Going forward, I know what I need to improve and fix for the future as stated above. The Render and the background is nice as we can see clearly the scene and the setting of the character. When it comes to music, I tried to recreate a circus theme and at the end added a hiss for dramatic effect.
In conclusion, there are good and bad qualities to this animation. Most of the good qualities stem from the character animation which is powerful and clear. Most of the bad qualities stem from the timing issues that can be seen and the technical aspect. I plan to continue working on this and learn from my mistakes. This has been an enjoyable project and it has helped me to develop as an animator.
References
I DO NOT OWN THE MUSIC IN THIS VIDEO. IT WAS FOUND HERE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjedLeVGcfE, CIRCUS MUSIC, SuperJessTheMess, Uploaded 1/11/09 and Snake Hiss, https://www.freesoundeffects.com/free-track/snakehiss2-466277/, "Partners in Rhyme"
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