Animating the Camera and Rendering

As I have past experience with working with real cameras and understand the different types of shots and rules of film making I was looking forward to applying that knowledge to the camera in my animation.

I started off being unsure of how I wanted to going about showing off my animation to its fullest effect while also making it interesting to watch.

I decided that it would make most sense to start with an establishing shot and zoom in to the back of the bear. This would clearly show the audience what the bear was aiming for – the top of the chair.

For the second shot, I thought having a medium shot looking down at the bear from the top of the seat would be a good idea as the bear goes to jump as it will give the audience a moment to connect with the bear and see the determination that shows in the reflection of the bears eyes.

For the third shot, I decided to use was a dutch angle, which is typically used to make the audience uncomfortable, however this was not my aim. I wanted to make the climb up the chair appear more steep and this shot helps to create that illusion.

For the fourth short, while it is a short one, I feel that it’s really important to include as it gives another opportunity for the audience to see just how determined the bear is to make it up the chair.

For the fifth shot, I used a rising pan from behind the bear. The main purpose of this shot was to show off the animation, but it also helps to give another visual aid to show that the bear in progressing in getting up the chair.

For the sixth shot, I used an extreme close up and the bear pulled itself up and over the chair. This was used as another chance to have the audience to connect with the teddy bear.

For the seventh shot, I decided it would be interesting to use the holes in the chair to shoot through, while this is more of a shot used for the look of it rather than a practical use, it does change the general look of the animation for enough time to re-engage the audience.

For the eighth shot, the bear is shown from the front in a full body wide shot while turning around. This is the first time that the teddy bear’s full body is seen from the front. This shot takes a moment away from the closer shots.

For the ninth shot, I decided that as the main movement would be on the feet I would do a close up on them to better show off the movement. As the bear steps into place then collapses on it back the shot quickly pans up and above the bear. This quickly cuts into the tenth shot where you see the bear hit into the chair, quickly cutting to the eleventh shot – another angle of the bear laying on his back – to again quickly cutting to another angle of the bear laying on his back – the twelfth shot – where the camera then zooms out. It does the opposite motion to what the establishing shot does effectively telling the audience it is the end without a need to verbally say so.

For the rendering, I decided to use Arnold to render, this didn’t cause any issues with my lighting as I had made sure to use Arnold compatible lights, as while I don’t believe I have previously mention I was sure that I would end up using Arnold.

For rendering, I set up render settings. I made sure that it would render using a 16:9 ratio and 1080p. I also decided to use a resolution of 300 pixels/inch – I had tested the difference between 72 pixels/inch and 300 pixels/inch and found that the rendering times weren’t that different for me and, obviously, the 300 pixels/inch had a crisper image, so I went with that.

I chose to render in the file format .tif as I’ve found that they are a really good quality. I started by rendering from frame 0 to frame 450, however after I composited the images into a video I felt that the animation at the end cut too quick between shots. This led to me making the decision to edit the ending shots slightly and try to make them last longer.

After re-animating the camera to how I wanted it, I rendered from frame 260 till frame 560. I started rendering the second past at 260 frames because everything from the first render up till frame 260 is the as the second – this saved me some time with rendering.

As part of the rendering position I took my final frames and composited them in Adobe After Effects giving me this:

While I am very happy with the result from this I want to add more to the video so that it has more interest overall, this will be my task for next time.