Animatic With Voice-Over

Change In Narrative

The narrative I was working with till now was fine in terms of content. But in terms of story-telling, it completely lacked richness. It was a narration of plain facts. In order to make my voiceover sound as interesting as the visuals, I had to work of the narrative and make it quirkier than before.

I started thinking about various approaches I could use to tell a story. Something that would possible give the person speaking some character. I initially came up with two ways of doing this..

1. The Curious Kid
   The whole narrative is based on the voice-over being curious. He doesn't really know much about ants and keeps on asking himself questions. But he slowly discovers new things about ants as he keeps on observing them. By the end of it (the animation), he becomes so fascinated by ants that he wants to know about more creatures like ants, that exist around him.
2. The Know All
   This kid already know things about ants. He just happens to see a few ants in his backyard and begins observing them, and while doing so, he keeps on talking about what they are doing.

Of the two, the first one seemed much more interesting, since it would establish a connection between the curious kid, and the kid watching the animation, where both of them don't know much about ants. 

But the problem with this idea was that there a few things that you can't learn just by looking at ants and what they are doing. You need to have some kind of prior knowledge to understand what is happening.

This is when I remembered something that was discussed in one of the previous seminars. It was about how kids tend to have a role model, somebody they always look up to at a young age. And most times, this person is just a few years older than them. This is when I thought that I could blend both the ideas of - the curious kid, and the one who already knows things about ants to effectively create a narrative that takes you through the animation.

Here is the narrative, where the curious kid is the one asking most of the questions and the older kid, who has some knowledge about ants, is the one with the answers..

• “Oops!” (Drops an eaten apple to the ground)
• “Hey, don’t pick it up.”
• “But I haven’t finished eating it.”
• “That’s okay, we can go get another one.”
• “Oh, okay.. Hey look, ants! I think they are trying to eat the apple. But do ants even eat apples?”
• “Yeah, of course. Ants eat just about anything. It’s safe to say that most of them have a sweet-tooth. They love eating anything that’s sweet and sugary, just like this juicy apple.”
• “Hey, look at that one. Is it carrying an apple seed? Do they eat seeds too?”
• “Well, most ants don’t eat the whole seed. They eat the seat-coat and other nutritious food attached to it. But I wonder what happens to the rest of the seed. Hmm. Anyway, seems like the ants are heading towards their anthill. Let’s have a look at what’s going on in there. There it is, the ant colony. Home of the ants.”
• “Woah, look at that all those ants! They’re all so busy doing.. doing things?!?! What are they doing in there?”
• “Well, most times, the ants spend their time collecting food, storing it here in the anthill. They also take care of the ant eggs laid by the queen. There she is. Her majesty, the queen ant. Mother of all ants of the colony”
• “Queen ant? But if she’s the queen, why doesn’t she have a crown?”
• “She doesn’t have a crown because she doesn’t need one. She’s got wings!”
• “Hey, look! There’s the apple seed from before.”
• “Yeah, and the ant seems to be carrying it out of the anthill. Better keep an eye on that seed!”
• “What does the ant do with the seed? It looks so much heavier than the ant itself”
• “Yes it is but ants can effortlessly carry more than 20 times their own weight. As for the seeds ants eat whatever they can, and move the rest of them outside the anthill. And those seeds later grow into new plants.”
• “These tiny little ants do all of that? That’s amazing! Are there any other creatures that are as incredible as ants?”
• “Yeah, of course. There are so many, like bees, butterflies, dragonflies, earthworms and even spiders.”
• “But where do I find them?”
• “That’s simple. They’re everywhere. You can find them this park, in your backyard, your balcony and even around your neighborhood garden. All you need to do is take a closer look.”

Seminar 5 - Feedback

Feedback received from 5th seminar..

On The Animation Visuals

• The animation backgrounds, elements, characters and transitions between the scenes seem to work in general. 

• Be careful about being realistic in terms of the visuals that have been illustrated. For example, the part where the anthill is growing next to the pavement on the road is unrealistic.

On The Narrative & Voiceover Of The Animation

• The current narrative works for and creating the visual part of the animation. But when it comes to telling a story, it is bland.

• Need to add drama and a lot more flavor to the tone and the narrative itself. The quality of the narrative must be brought up to the level of the visuals. Think of creative ways to tell a story that has richness in it and is quirky.

On The Animation As A Whole

• Simultaneously work with visuals as well as sound to get your timing right.

• As of now, the visuals and voiceover are not in sync. Start working with audio and video together and not treat them as separate elements of the animation film.

Ant Farm

Came across this interesting video of a queen ant building her colony.

Work In Progress

Working with background scenes and characters on After Effects.

Extraordinary Ants - Storyboard

Adding Texture and Detail

The illustrations I was working with were very minimal and flat in terms of form and color. This was giving the animation a bland feel. The plain and minimal backgrounds seemed to lack depth and detail. Therefore I began adding more elements to the scenes and adding texture and detail to it.

Ant Fact!

Came across this meme quite recently. I found it quite funny since ants are capable of lifting up to 50 times their own weight.

Seminar 4 - Feedback

Feedback received from 4th seminar..

• Must show more iterations and process of final selected work (type, illustrations, sound)
• Make the character and the environment dynamic.
• The animation does not look Indian. Try to incorporating an Indian in terms of visuals.
• Complete the script and entire storyboard.
• Increase work speed.

Awesome Ants - Clip 1

Backgrounds & Environments

Soon after I finalized the characters, I began designing the background scenes or the animation. I started by not adding to many elements or too much detail as I only wanted to get an idea of the composition and movement of the main characters and elements in the animation.

Ant and Other Characters

The above ant is the one that was selected as the character to be used in the animation. This particular one was selected since it resembles an actual ant. The other two were more like the stereotypical cartoon character. Since the animation is going to be an educational one, the latter would have not been appropriate as it would not correctly demonstrate actions and movements of the ant compared to the first one.

After finalizing the final character for the ant, the other characters in the animation were illustrated using the same visual language.

Foliage Iterations

Awesome Ants - Storyboard 2

After getting feedback on the first version of my Awesome Ants storyboard, I reworked on it and made a few changes in the visual approach towards the animation by adding and removing a few things.


















A new element I intend to use throughout my animation is - a magnifying glass. My first storyboard also had one, but only at the end. In this version, I will introduce the magnifying glass in the beginning of the animation itself, which will work as a tool that zooms in to the activities of the ants.

Basically, I wish to use the magnifying glass as a tool for observing things or "looking closely" which is a part of the call to action in the animation.

This is not the whole storyboard. I plan to start making the background visuals and a few clips of the animation to get an idea of what it would actually look like. Once I'm done with that, i'll move forward by finishing the remaining storyboard.

Character Design - Digital

Character Design - Sketches

Character Moodboard

Ants - Storyboard 2

After Receiving feedback on my first storyboard, I soon started working on another one. With this one, I've aimed at making the characters more animated and more cartoon-like.

Seminar 3 - Feedback

Feedback Received From 3rd Seminar

Presentation

• Needs to be more interesting
• Needs to have design process
• Must get more involved with the project
• Needs more energy

Animation

• The writing needs to be better, funnier
• Leave some stuff for the audience to figure out
• Make the visuals different from the text
• Work on character design
• More than one 30 second animation can be done
• Information is too generic
• Stress on empathy and the character of the ant
• Create connections with the viewer and the ant
• The frames tell a story, but look at the order of the narrative
• Study more about the age group

Next Steps

• There need to be a lot more iterations
• Really need to work faster and have more to show in terms of outcome

Ants - Storyboard 1

Ant Armies & Buzzing Bees

After looking creatures that can be found easily in urban gardens and backyard, I narrowed down to two insects - the ant and the bee. After collecting facts and trivia on these insects, I analyzed the information I had collected on the things I wanted to talk about. 

An important part of the animation was to show how these species interact with the environment. Therefore I refined the first draft of the information that I had written to narrowed down to the following narrative..



Ants

A for army - an army of ants! - ants are hardworking insects - they’re always digging tunnels and spreading seeds - they make sure the soil is healthy for plants to grow - so, the next time you spot a few ants marching around, would you squish them? - they’re just doing their job, taking good care of your garden.

Bees

B for buzz - a buzzing.. bee! - bees are busy insects - they make honey and store it in bee hives - they help flowers multiply by spreading their pollen grains - it’s amazing how bees can lighten up your garden - so, the next time you see  bees, would you mind them buzzing around?

Animals & Attributes

These are the creatures I had decided to work with..

B for big
B for blue whale

The blue whale is the biggest creature ever to have lived on the earth.
A blue whale's heart is as big as a small car.

C for camouflage
C for chameleon

Chameleons can camouflage themselves by changing the colour and pattern of their skin.
Their sticky tongue can be 1.5 to 2 times longer than their body which they use for catching insects.

S for slow
S for sloth

The three-toed sloth is the slowest mammal on earth with an average speed if 4.8 km/h.
It is so lazy that algae grows on its furry coat.





Unfortunately, these species have nothing to do with "backyard biodiversity". If I have to make fillers using animals and alphabets, the species have to be those that can be found in an urban environment.

The idea is to make the children understand that they don't need to visit a zoo to observe biodiversity. They can do the same by interacting with creatures in spaces that they can easily access at any time.

A For Animations, A For Alphabets

After looking at a number of age groups, I’ve narrowed down on a core concept, age group and time-frame for the final outputs of the project.

My target audience are mainly children of 5 to 7 years. I have established this as the age group to help me understand what kind of visual language and tone I can use to create the animation. Eventually, I hope that the animation films appeal to a larger audience.

The idea is to work with alphabets of the english language. The alphabets can speak of various species of plants, animals, insects, etc. Described below are a few concepts that describe this idea better..

1. This is the idea. Each alphabet will speak of a species. For example, it will start of with - A is for ant.. followed by one or two lines of a fact about the ant, like - Ants are capable of lifting up to 50 times their own weight. These will be short fillers of about 10 to 15 seconds each. Essentially, there will be 26 of these fillers. One for every alphabet. If required, a few of these can be clubbed together to form a longer animation film.

The above idea works well for 5 to 7 year old children. But I still feel that it should have one more layer to make is slightly more dynamic as an idea. Below are a few ways in which I intend to achieve this..

2. I can use spaced and geographical locations to give the species some context. The space could be a garden, a lake or a pond, a river, a dessert, etc. It could even be elements such as water, snow, land, air. This way, there would be an added layer of information which would stitch these species together.

For example - W if for whale, A is for archerfish, T is for tiger shark, E is for eel and R is for ray. What’s common between a whale, archerfish, tiger shark, eel & ray? W-A-T-E-R!

3. Another idea addresses the importance and interactions with other species in their ecosystems. This one is context and scenario driven more than geographical landscapes or spaces. The whole alphabets system may not be very relevant here since it is more about the biogeography here that matters most. But this kind of information is a little more complex for 5 to 7 year olds since topics such as symbiosis and coexistence would probably be a little difficult for them to understand.

For example - The demand for frog legs went up due to which frogs were killed. This led to an increase in insects which used to be consumed by the frogs, causing many more crops being destroyed by these insects. So the species here would be frogs, the concerned insects and the crop.

4. This idea I feel works best at this stage. It again uses the alphabets for species of animals but it also talks about qualities, attributes, traits, etc. of the species.

For example - B is for big. B is for blue whale. The blue whale is the biggest mammal to ever exist on earth.

An addition to this would be using comparisons to humans which would help the children understand the information much better.

For example - When we talk about the ant being able to lift up to 50 times it’s own weight, show a human picking up something that is 50 times his own weight. 

Visualizing Narrative

These are a few rough sketches of the visuals I had in mind for the animatic. But I chose not to go ahead with this.

Seminar 2 - Feedback

A seminar is a short meeting between my project advisors and my peers. At this meeting, I make a presentation of the current status of my project and I receive feedback and guidance on whether I'm on the right track.

This is the feedback I received after my second presentation..

- Research needs to be done on T.V timings & requirements for commercials
- What do 10 to 12 year old boys and girls like to watch?
- Consider changing your target audience to 6 year olds
- Give the ant an older & more personality since children always look up to older kids
- Do 10 ideas in total of which one 30 second film is complete
- Start sketching and creating the animation

Species - Ants

After doing some focused research, the first species of insect I decided to use in the animation was an ant. The above image shows the various qualities of an ant and aspects of the ant which I can use in the animation.

Design Thinking Tools - System Map

WHAT IS BIODIVERSITY? BIODIVERSITY
- This is you.
- This is your home.
- This is where you live.
- Let’s call this an ecosystem.
- These are all the other plants, animals & insects you share the land, air & water with.
- All of this, together, form a biodiversity.
- Our planet is made up many ecosystems like these with all kinds of plants & animals..

DECLINE OF BIODIVERSITY LOSS & EXTINCTION
- But many of these are dying.
- Most people don’t like having them around cause they think of them as a nuisance.

IMPORTANCE OF BIODIVERSITY HARMONY & SYNERGY
- They are not foes, but friends.
- Examples of co-existance.

FOSTERING BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION
- You can help nurture nature.
- Build your own habitats, tell your friends.
- Just let them be.

Design Thinking Tools - Six Thinking Hats

Field Visits - Observation & Analysis

After analyzing the data & information I collected from the field visits, I figured that these places can be divided into two categories - public spaces and private spaces. Of these, I decided to take forward the idea of working around private spaces, more specifically spaces in and around homes.

Field Visits - Hebbal Lake, Cubbon Park & SFS Colony

Third week into the project, I visited a few places where I could observe the biodiversity in their respective spaces. I visited Hebbal Lake, Cubbon Park & SFS Colony.

After collecting research and analyzing the data I'd collected, I began looking at these spaces as two main categories - public spaces (parks, lakes, gardens, etc.) and private spaces (mainly homes). Thus I got the idea of backyard biodiversity, where your own home and the area around it can be observed and studied to understand biodiversity.

A fisherman at Hebbal Lake.

A crow at Cubbon Park.

A rat hole in the backyard of a home in SFS Colony.

A small garden outside a house in SFS.

Seminar 1 - Feedback

A seminar is a short meeting between my project advisors and my peers. At this meeting, I make a presentation of the current status of my project and I receive feedback and guidance on whether I'm on the right track.

This is the feedback I received after my first presentation..

- I could diversify the animation and use short but high-impact animation films. The challenge would be to keep the audience interested.

- The concept of being able to relate with a familiar character is a promising approach. Make a quick point in all your animations and end them on a similar note.

- To think about the genre of the animation. Will it have a serious tone or a humorous one?

- Biodiversity is a vast subject. I need to to start focusing my research.

- I need to rework my time-line. I've kept too much time for research.

- I also need to consider the age of my target audience.

Initial Research & Mind Mapping

I started working on this project by looking at the various aspects of biodiversity I could explore. I used basic who, how, when, where & why kind of questions to broaden my understanding of the scope of the project and the project itself. This helped me discover various spaces within the subject which I could henceforth work upon.

First mind map and rough time-line I drew for the project.

Introduction - Communicating Biodiversity

Biodiversity is a wealth so valuable that it cannot be measured in simple terms. In the final analysis, the very survival of the human race is dependent on the conservation of biodiversity. And yet, it is evident that this invaluable heritage is being destroyed at an alarming rate due to several reasons.

The objective of this project is to educate the young Indian audience about the significance of the environment and try to get them involved with activities that compliment conserving biodiversity.

The outcome of this project will be an animation film or a series of short animation films that educate the youth about biodiversity.


This project is a client project with the National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) and is managed by the LED Lab housed at the Srishti School of Art, Design & Technology.