Roughs: keyframing, blocking and inbetweening (December 2024 onwards)

Just before starting this session I created some makeshift keyframe stills to get a sense of what the main movement needs to be.

Now I am easing myself into the nitty gritty of following the later processes that Alex Grigg so ably demonstrates in his online course.

Some initial observations

I am just jotting down some thoughts while I think of them - while I haven’t done any serious frame by frame animating for seven months I have been thinking constantly about it and reflecting on how to work more carefully. Loads of the stuff I did while I was making the Listening film was pure improvisation. Often I would animate myself into a really terrible corner (something that Grigg talks about a lot with some really useful solutions). This time I have a very different, much more intentional approach.

Keyboard shortcuts - in Clip Studio Paint you have a lot of flexibility (the strength and achilles heel of the application) but after lots of experimentation and thought I have arrived at a bunch of personalised shortcut settings - some of these are adaptations of Reuben Lara’s excellent CSP animation course that I took last year.

Animation on an iPad is fantastic but without a portable keyboard and shortcuts you are a fool and will be forever clicking on menus. This is a superpower that I am already benefitting from. The keys beautifully represent a different way of thinking and forming the material and have so far saved me from some awful pitfalls and dead-ends.

Having a conveniently quiet space to think - I remember a Richard Williams lecture where he spoke of the importance of taking out earphones and focussing on the work deeply. This is true - there are certainly loads of stages (possibly the later passes where everything is locked down) that music and/or podcast material becomes possible (and maybe even necessary). For the work of figuring out timing and movement you need to give this serious thought and it is exhausting. I think that this is akin to writing a novel - so many choices and tiny details to reflect on. So I have found a store cupboard space in my house where I can shut the door and be left undisturbed (intentional or otherwise) for hours. So far this is proving a great choice. It is easy to go in there and hard to be bothered.

The tension between plans and reality - you can build something up and hide behind drafted ideas (maybe even write reflective web pages about the process!) but the reality is that in the end you just have to sit there and figure it out. So far I am finding that as I get closer to those moments it is a lot harder than I remember and it takes time. At several points I am finding myself making different decisions based on what it feels and looks like.

Music syncing is a superpower - the previous project used music later on. In this one I am doing it the other way round (mostly). Having specific cues and following the flow of pre-edited sequences I proving to be a wonderful thing. Occasionally I am finding myself asking hard questions like: would I be more free without the score? Would it be more natural? But having something to work to is a really interesting discipline and definitely forces you to be very structured.

Working through the first pass (January-March 2025)

This gif of my Vimeo storage folder probably says it all - most days I am squeezing in maybe one or two hours in the spare gaps between work where I am inching forwards with these little moments, then cycling back and then redoing it until it feels right. I upload the progress - jot down some notes and then move on. I have the general structure but I am finding each moment an interesting experience as I explore the movement. So far I am making tons of progress even if it might seem slow to the outsider.

Some general thoughts at this stage in no particular order:

• although I would not claim to be an animation expert in any sense, I am feeling much more at home with making things move and finding that sixth sense. You can talk about these things all you want but until you get into the right space and really feel it happening it isn’t happening

• the weighting of the Tamil lettering might need adjusting - thanks to my wife this issue has been raised. How to make the story with a texture and background framing without making it a barrier to entry? As I am working through and getting a feel for how the story is flowing I am trying to find ways of paring it down to the essentials that still communicate the essence.

• I managed to get an embedded pre-formed video to work within the iPad version of CSP and then use it as a guide for animating over the top. This is a huge development because now I have the capability of animating to both sound and vision. The way I have been using it is to pre-comp some animated lettering within Motion - then import that and to produce frame by frame movements that respond to what is being seen.

I am basically going to continue with this process now for maybe another month or so and then think about bringing it all together into a first-pass version that can be looked at for general flow and structure. I also hope to involve my Tamil friends at this stage to think about dual audiences and how it is being received.

Forming a final production schedule - March 2025

Lots of great development happening.

• I created an assembly (lasting approx 8 minutes) that strings together the entire piece from the various fragments I have been working on. This helped to get a feel for the pacing and general tonal shifts throughout. It helped me to relax a little let things breathe in places. I was also able to share it with a few friends who responded to the feel of what exists so far. As I approach the end of the first pass this is really crucial because this need to hold together and land well. I want this to be better than the Listening film - which (let’s face it) was mainly a successful bunch of strung-together sequences by someone who had never really animated before.

• I settled on a production schedule that hopefully leads to an early-August completion date. I am seeing three sessions each lasting approx 5 weeks - first pass completion, tidying up/compositing, final tweaks. Who knows - it might be shorter it might be waaaay longer.

As a discipline, I have focused on working in shorter bursts so I can keep things moving along - most days I will do at least an hour and then reflect on it between sessions. As you can see from the file numbers above - I am currently up to 47f - the scene where he finally receives some hospitality from the person in the forest.

Vaping

Other highlights include working really hard at figuring out how to animate vapour. I have tried to apply some of the ideas behind animating flags to this issue. Anyway here is a snapshot of my most recent piece of work:

Phase 2 begins - April 2025

I can’t stress how important this list of folders is. Starting in on the second pass versions of each of those file labels is a really big deal. Lots of hard-earned ground being covered which I can now start to smooth out and polish.

The Phase 1 master and valuable feedback

Yesterday I created a ‘Phase 1 Master’ with some rudimentary narration on it. I sent it to a few friends who have been commenting on it in all sorts of helpful ways. The key tensions for me at this stage are summarised in the following questions":

• How can I create something which does lock down the meaning too much - which creates an oasis of sorts that is inviting, curious and refreshing without being too didactic from the get-go.

• Does this need to foreground the Tamil connection? How far do I make this a necessary entry requirement or allow for the audience to acknowledge it and come back if they want to?

I think my solution thus far has been:

1. I created an initial narration which got the audience into it but was maybe too locked down.

2. I then toned this back a couple of times and have arrived at three key opening lines which then don’t need revisiting - I have ended up cutting all further voiceover.

3. I have also decided to create a parallel opening narration with a Tamil speaker that forces the dual nature of the story to follow. This will probably involve some kind of opening Tamil subtitle - just to emphasise what kind of vehicle the passengers are entering.

And just like that Phase 3 came and went - May 2025

Something quite amazing happened. I planned a production schedule that aimed for an early-August completion date and then got it all done within a month. Admittedly I was working weirdly late and early hours around my day-job but I got into a kind mesmeric flow and ended up with what I thought was the final piece.

One of the highlights for me was finding Priyadarshani Ravindran who provided an excellent introductory voiceover. She has lots of professional radio experience and made a terrific contribution to the film - something that was confirmed when I did a test showing of the film to a Tamil audience in North London.

At this point in the production I was really happy to be getting positive reviews from both animation industry insiders and grass-roots community groups.

And then, with the film 98% complete I hit a major snag. Music rights.

Initially I had set out confidently assuming that I had permission to use the music of TS Nandakumar but what I hadn’t realised was that some of the collaborative work I was using had been bought by Sony in the 1990s. This came as a bit of a weird blow so late in the process so I was left trying to think through what moves were available to me.

My good friend Dean Puckett advised me to NOT avoid this issue and to look at either getting permission or having the work rescored. I then disappeared down a rabbit hole seeking out various options.