silhouette animation for opening credits "Die Goldene Gans"

[skitoba]

Here is what i did in October:



its my animation for "Die Goldene Gans" (the golden goose). It is actually a live action tv film but they wanted to have some animation for the opening credits. I only had 4 weeks to do ... everthing*! Luckily I didn´t know that beforehand. Also the briefing was quite ... brief. For each scene there was just a short discription of what should happen, so from early on I took the liberty to decide how to setup each scene, otherwise I wouldn´t have finished the task in time. I´m not satisfied with every little detail, but I really love this kind of style. It is perfect for a programm like AnimeStudio Pro.

Merry Christmas

PS: better watch it here: https://vimeo.com/82627277 and in HD


* Design, Layout, Backgrounds, Rigging, Animation

[slowtiger]

This is perfect! Good staging in each scene, nice depth with the different shades of colour. I like the movements, although some walks seem a bit off - not much, you could as well call it "personality". Combined with the titles this must be excellent.

[2ner]

Great job!
Yes, I agree AS is perfectly suited for this type of animation, and it reminds me of shadow puppetry, which would be contemporary with the apparent era being depicted. Altogether a very successful result, and as slowtiger says, I think any imperfections in animation actually add to the effect.

[Little Yamori]

Beautiful, but I agree with slowtiger on the very minor critique about some of the walking movements, it was only in a couple of scenes, but here and there the movements looked like it was animated versus other areas where it looked totally natural. Your birds were awesome. I feel I have very little standing to pick out elements that came to my eye, as I've only been animating a year, so for what it's worth, this also caught my attention; the horse was static until it moved (and the movements were great) and then it went back to being static. If that was the style you were going for, then please ignore this, but it might have worked with some subtle continual movements to look like it was "completely" alive. But your work is otherwise beautiful and appreciated. I try to broaden what I think is possible with this software with every amazing post like this.

Thanks for sharing

[3deeguy]

Fabulous

[heyvern]

Fantastic work.

There were these wonderful small moments of subtle detail of motion throughout that worked so well. When the man is holding the bird in his hand and it flies away and there is that slight movement of his hand from the bird jumping into the air. I am very familiar with that feeling, which is why I noticed that small detail. So many animators would simply "skip" that detail, from inexperience or just to save time. This is just one of those tiny details that made the whole thing feel so life like.

The characters felt very alive. Each small little scene had a clear "backstory" presented in such a short space of time was very impressive. To be able to clearly define "personalities" so quickly is a difficult task.

The other aspect just jumped out at me was the detail of the backgrounds and lighting. One scene jumped out for me specifically. On the porch with the trees in the background reminded me of places I knew as a child. The "feeling" of that dark shaded porch and the bright world beyond it. It just connected. It created a feeling that felt like I was outside. I could almost hear birds and cicadas watching some of those scenes. The details of the trees and landscape were perfectly done.

As for some of the elements mentioned that didn't feel correct I noticed those as well and I have to disagree that these areas could or should be improved. I thought possibly those imperfections were done intentionally. Like adding spice or seasoning to food. Somehow there was a mix of reality and fantasy in the movement that worked because the animation wasn't "perfect". They didn't stand out as errors.

Anyway, awesome job.

[Danimal]

This really looked outstanding. I was most taken by the duck walking. It really was convincing. Animals walks are tougher and you nailed it. Excellent!

[djwaterman]

I have to add to the acclaim given to this piece of work. There is so much good motion happening, like the cat jumping up on to the lap, the fishing rod, the acting of the characters. I think the thing that I really like is the shapes of the characters, the costumes, I mean how did you know how to do that, did you have reference pictures? It's really a quality piece and I'd love to see it with the credits in place.

[bhargavmedhi]

This is really nice. I liked the horse's reaction and the bird flying away from the hand. That little thrust on the hand before the flight. Simply fantastic. Great...Keep up the good work.

[Barry Baker]

Wonderful work, and a stunning achievement for just 4 weeks. Silhouette animation is a German speciality it seems; it reminds me of the work of Lotte Reiniger. She would also have loved to use ASP!

[skitoba]

Thank you very much for your appreciation and comments.

To response to the early comments, I am aware that some details are not as perfect executed as it should be. For example the walk cylces, but thats almost the hardest thing to do in ASP, especially if you have to deal with realistic characters. Unfortunately the locked bones function still don´t work properly in ASP. What have cost me a lot of time (Why is it so hard to code a program, that a bone does not move at all when I want it to? Doesn´t it bother you too? I hope they solve that in my lifetime!). So, for most of the walk cycles I didn´t use the locked bones function, I "animated" the feet in every single frame on the desired position. For me thats the only way to get a decent result.

@djwaterman
I had the live action film as reference. For every character I used severals film stills as references as well as for some backgrounds. The trees are taken from photographs I shot myself.
Because you mentioned the cat, it is actually one of the first characters I animated and is still one of my favourites!

Greetings from
Tobias