Fault vs. Responsibility - Visual Essay
This visual essay of Will Smith's Instagram story was created in the style of The New Yorker.
The Task
This project was a case study of how revisiting a project with new skills and fresh eyes can change the outcome. The project selected was the Will Smith's Fault vs. Responsibility Visual Essay. A project that I had designed but hadn't animated yet. Revisiting with Nora Gaffney, we decided that I would to take one particular scene, The Teddy Bear Scene, and solidify the style, adjust composition for better storytelling, and animate with more expression and performance.
The Deliverables
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Fully animated scene with audio ~:10 seconds in length in 1920x1080 format
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The board-o-matic with the updated scene included with audio
The Board-o-matic
The Original Design
The Redesign
The Research
Then the adventure began of creating reference videos for the animation. One Saturday afternoon, a few water balloons, boxes, a few stuffed animals and a cellphone. Here are a few of the sweetest fruits of the exploration labors for your enjoyment. Please pardon the mess. We had recently cleared out the storage unit and hadn't quite made room for everything yet, but you got to do what you got to do.
First Pass
After my fun afternoon of gathering reference videos, the next task was compiling them and start creating the animatic. At the this meeting the art director, Ed Cheetham, and myself discussed using softer whites to create emphasis and guide the eye in the composition.
Second Pass
For this pass, we discussed that the splatter needed less movement so it didn't distract from the bear and hands. As well as the light from the door was missing the "raging" energy.
I also had another director, Morgan Williams, who specializes in character animation take a look at this animatic. He gave me some great direction for giving the door and the hand more "punch" in their animations.
FinalPass
After adjusting the animatic for timing and animation, it was just hammering it out. The challenge rose up that filling with the chalk brush made that animation messy. In stead I filled with solid white/black and added the chalk texture in post.