production diary for jack sparrow 'purple shorts' project

8/17/2019 Production Diary for Jack Sparrow 'Purple Shorts' Project

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Production Diary for ‘Purple Shorts’ Animation Project

Week 1 – For this new project, I am using Captain Jack Sparrow as my character. I did consider

Disney’s Captain Hook but after attempting to redesign him, I found it too difficult to adapt an

already 2D character.

I felt it would be appropriate to use Jack Sparrow as my character, as Portsmouth is a coastal town

and would fit in well with my character. I could use the beaches and the Historic Dockyard as places

to film and integrate my animation.

In terms of storyline, as we needed to include purple shorts on the character with the University

logo, I decided to give him an old fashioned purple swimsuit to wear underneath his clothes. The

idea is that drunken Jack Sparrow spots a helpless mermaid in the distance who is being attacked in

the distance by the Kraken. He then rips off his clothes to reveal the purple swim suit and in an

attempt to save her, swims out to sea, only then to be ‘eaten’ by the Kraken, who then spits out his

swim suit which lands on shore, revealing the logo.


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Here are a couple of mood boards I made to get the ball rolling, and help me decide on a style for

the character. From the illustrations that were in Pinterest, many of the characterised versions have

bigger eyes than usual, so I feel that this should also be included in my design.


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Week 2 – Here are some quick character sketches I did on Photoshop. I feel that the only successful

part of these illustrations are the details in the hair. I find Photoshop quite challenging to use and I

feel I work better in traditional 2D methods, and that the quality of my work is better. After talking

to Meg, we concluded that I should focus more on finding an inspiring artist or piece of animation

which will help me acquire a more definitive direction. Personally, I enjoy using pen and ink, and I’m

wondering if I could use that in my animation instead of Flash and Photoshop.

Meg suggested to me that I should rotoscope some footage of Jack Sparrow walking so that I could

grasp how he walks and so there for it would be easier to animate later on. The lines of the

animation turned out to be a bit of a happy accident, as the messy line work along with his arms

flying about adds to his drunken state. So I could consider this as part of my character design.

Here is the link to the video: https://vimeo.com/156408627

https://vimeo.com/156408627https://vimeo.com/156408627https://vimeo.com/156408627https://vimeo.com/156408627


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I spent some time doing hand drawn sketches of Jack Sparrow and experimenting with different

styles. I prefer the more rounded cartoon like versions of as opposed to something super realistic.


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Here the storyboard portrays how I want my shots to look during my animation. I understand the

drawings aren’t completely clear, but I wanted to get a basic storyboard done before doing

something more in-depth.


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Week 3 – This week I went and took my own photos on the seafront and re-did the storyboard over

those images. After meeting up with Meg, it was decided that it was best not to have Jack Sparrow

strip off before running off screen, and rather just have his clothes appear at the end. Plus, it

eliminates a difficult sequence of animation.


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Week 4 – I was really struggling with coming to grips with a design for Jack Sparrow. In my head, I

wanted to have a super realistic looking character, but that would have been next to impossible to

animate. Meg instructed me to focus more on the character this week, as the story was pinned

down. I used watercolour paints to do a rough drawing of Jack Sparrow and then it struck me that

Quentin Blake’s illustration style was very similar.

I really like the rough style he adopts in his work, as I knew I wanted the lines of my drawing to be in-

consistent with a patch of colour behind them.

I considered doing the whole animation on paper, but it was advised that I stick to computer

animation and use Photoshop to customize my own watercolour brushes.


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After finally deciding my design for Jack Sparrow, I did a couple of shots with the real footage behind

the character so I could get a grasp of what the final animation will look like. I feel the aesthetics

work really well, and having a thinner line around the character looks more appealing than a heavier

one, as it adds a less harsh and more painterly feel. I turned the opacity down on the brush I used

for the colours so that it looks like a wash of colour when I went over it. Also, I like the fact that the

colours aren’t completely inside the lines as it adds to the ‘drunk/messy’ feel I want to portray.


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Week 5- I am very happy with my animatic overall. I feel the timing works better now that I was able

to extend some of the shots. Also, it has just the right amount of comedy for it to not be too over the

top. I am particularly pleased with his reaction to seeing the kraken and mermaid in distress, and I

am looking forward to animating it. Here is the link to the video: https://vimeo.com/164451259

I used Photoshop to create a model sheet of my character. I didn’t want to add too many details too

him, as I knew that my animation was slightly longer than intended and so would require more time

animating. I like the colour scheme of my character, as the colours are close to the original

character, but aren’t overly bright so in keep with the sense of dullness that his clothes have.

https://vimeo.com/164451259https://vimeo.com/164451259https://vimeo.com/164451259https://vimeo.com/164451259


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Week 6 – This week, I focused on drawing the key frames in Flash and making sure the timing was

still working properly. The bit I was finding the hardest was the section where the camera cuts to the

kraken. I feel that I won’t be able to animate the mermaid properly as she is too far away, unless I

perhaps animate her in Photoshop with smaller brushes to avoid pixelated lines in Flash.

Week 7 – I have started to move onto in-betweening my keys. At this point, I have reached a stand-still with the first part of the animation. I am not only meant to be doing a perspective walk, but also

a drunk walk. Combining the two together seems too difficult at the moment, and due to the short

time schedule, I need to start considering different ideas. Meg and I discussed just doing a normal

walk across the shot, but again, I think a complete walk cycle would be too hard.

Week 8 – At this point, I have mostly finished the rough animation throughout the piece, but I am

still working on the first section. To get some inspiration, I researched other animations of drunk

walks or drunken behaviour and observed those to get some ideas. I did some sketches also to help

me understand the idea that a drunk person is always trying to keep their balance. This exercise

really helped me to understand the positioning of balance, and will add to my piece massively. This

week, I also watched the first two Pirates of the Caribbean films to get more of an understanding asto how Jack Sparrow moves. From this, I concluded that if he is drunk, he tends to keep his arm out

for balance, as well as widening his eyes. However, as my character’s eyes are simply dots, I will have

to find other ways to add to his drunken behaviour, perhaps with expressions.


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Week 9 – I worked quickly but precisely on the first section of the animation to get the fluid drunk

motion I was hoping to achieve. At this point, I have completed all the animation besides the Kraken

shot. After deliberation, I decided that it would save time to take away the mermaid in distress and

use the boat crossing the sea in the shot as the target for the Kraken. Plus, by doing this, it doesn’t

necessarily take away anything from the story as Jack Sparrow hasn’t shown any love interest in her,

and it’ll be somewhat more realistic as it is combining animation with a moving element in the

footage. Here is a link to the final animation before clean up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vg2We6lMbwA

Week 10- This week was spent cleaning up the animation. I think I perhaps worked a bit too quickly

earlier on, as I spent a lot of time going over the proportions of the body and head, as they grew and

shrunk massively. Also, during the second ‘scene’ where he has collapsed against the wall, I found it

difficult to draw his hand frame by frame and keep it in the same place. I did a couple of quick hand

sketches just to help me understand the anatomy of them a bit more and so make the characters

hands more believable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vg2We6lMbwAhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vg2We6lMbwAhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vg2We6lMbwA


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Final Version of clean up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTsIGtlI1Yo&feature=youtu.be

Week 11- As the idea of my animation is ‘drunk’ I didn’t want to clean up the lines too much, as the

messy quality added to the style of the animation I was trying to achieve. So my clean up mainly

involved adding the details of the face, and making sure the proportions were right. In terms of

colouring in each individual frame, I exported my Flash file as a PNG sequence, so that when I

imported the frames into Photoshop, I had an empty background ready to work with and I could use

a simple translucent brush to create a rough watercolour design behind the black lines. Here are a

few examples of the shots:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTsIGtlI1Yo&feature=youtu.behttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTsIGtlI1Yo&feature=youtu.behttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTsIGtlI1Yo&feature=youtu.behttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTsIGtlI1Yo&feature=youtu.be


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At the beginning of the project, I wanted to add a slight shadow behind the character to make him

appear like he more in the scene, however, due to time-constraints I was unable to do this.

Although, after putting the final PNG sequence into After Effects, I don’t think the shadow is really

needed.

Week 12 – this week I focused on putting all the animation together, as well as finding the sounds on

various sound websites. The most difficult sounds to find were the ones which involved the people

on the boat screaming, as well as the background fighting noises when Jack Sparrow is out of shot.

For the crowd screaming, I used 4/5 different clips of men and women screaming and placed them

over the top of each other so that they sounded like a group. I feel that overall the sounds workreally well together to create atmosphere and make the character appear like he really is on the


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beach. Also, for the ending, to add a bit of humour to the film, I used a quick clip from the films song

‘A Pirate’s Life for Me’, to add an ironic element to the end of the film.

Overall, I am really happy with the end result of my animation. The character design is quirky and

simple, yet you can still tell who it is. Also, I feel that the colour scheme and the washiness of the

colours which jiggle around during the animation adds greatly to the drunk element. The soundeffects was a fun part to do too, as it really brought the animation alive, and allowed me to add

more character to Jack Sparrow. The brief of including the purple shorts is also effective, as we do

not expect it, as Jack Sparrow is wearing his normal clothes to start, yet they reveal his unfortunate

death by washing ashore with his red head scarf. I am really pleased that I managed to add a very

brief narrative to the piece with such a short amount of time. The only thing I would do differently

next time, is if I had more time, I would take care in adding more details to his character, such as the

rings he usually wears on his fingers and my objects around his belt.

production diary for jack sparrow 'purple shorts' project

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