Budget Animation for Freedom Dance

An animated documentary produced by Craig Herron and Steven Fischer.

Narrated by 2006 Emmy winner Mariska Hargitay

Our current production Freedom Dance is based on the story of a newlywed couple who escaped from Hungary after the 1956 revolution.  It sounds like an odd story to chose for animation but the husband Edward Hilbert was a cartoonist and he kept a cartoon journey during the trip.  Having seen the cartoon journal we thought it would make a perfect animated story.

(pictures     in  apartmenttitlepage.lpeg, soldiersonrooffinal still.lpg, protestorsstreetscene.jpg any other color jpegs you have room for)

We were able to scan the original black and white journal and the hundreds of pieces of  new art created by Edward especially for the movie.  The drawings were scanned into the computer at 300dpi  in grayscale.  This made the drawings large enough so that we could move our computer camera in very close and the resolution would hold up.

The drawings were divided into several basic groups: characters; props; scenery in the foreground, and background scenery.  All of these started life as black and white drawings made by Edward on paper with a felt pen or with brush and ink.  The drawings had a wonderful 1950s quality to them so we used that as our basic theme.  Colors were selected from American advertising at that time and also from Soviet posters.  A palette of colors was created in Photoshop and that palette replaced the main photoshop palette and was used by all of the colorists on the movie.

The backgrounds were fairly straight forward.  The sky was sometimes removed and the drawings were colored by using the paint bucket tool.

The characters were the most difficult as they had to move and act.

Usually Edward would supply us with a sort of exploded drawing of the character (along with a drawing that showed how it all went together)  The drawing would be black lines on white paper and scanned into the computer at 300 dpi.  Once in photoshop the black lines were examined for any holes and the holes were filled with the paint brush tool.  (an important step as otherwise the color sort of leaks out all over the page)  Once this step was done each part of the character was cut out with the polygon lasso tool and placed on it's own layer and labeled.  Then it was a matter of selecting the area we didn't want on each piece with the magic wand tool and deleting it.  This left us with a black and white version of the character completely cut out. 

Each layer was then colored using the paint bucket tool set for a high tolerance (50 or so) and clicking inside the area we wanted to fill.  For stubborn small areas the paint brush set to darken was used.  Usually the character was divided as follows: one or more heads, chest and neck area, abdomen, left and right upper legs, lower legs, upper arms, lower arms, hands, and shoes. 

It is very important to add some overlap to all the pieces so that when rotated a gap does not show.  A typical example of this would be to extend the neck and round off the top so that when the head is placed on top of it and rotated to various positions the neck shows underneath.

tops of legs and arms are rounded and sometimes the black lines are removed for a better look.  The idea is to make a computer puppet similar to the way it might be made by cutting out drawings on paper and overlapping the joints and putting brads through them.

Once the characters are colored and the backgrounds, props and foregrounds are done it is time for the fun of animating.  Characters should each have a photoshop file of their own with the layers labeled and placed on separate layers.  Discard layers you don't need to avoid confusion.  I would usually put the background and foregrounds that went with it into the same file on different layers (these would be cut out and colored the same as the characters.)

The photoshop files are opened in After Effects 6.5 on a Mac G5.  Depending upon the type of animation the head may be a separate file from the body.  If the animations require lip synching or complex expressions than it would be in a separate file with a head, right and left eye balls, eyebrows, eyelids, and a mouth.  Often the mouth was created in After Effects using the mask tool to make a mouth shaped mask on a red solid that could be animated.  Eyebrows were sometimes done the same way.

The backgrounds, foregrounds and characters were all brought into an After Effects project and arranged from top to bottom with the objects furthest away on the bottom.  Some of the layers (usually the characters) would be in comps of their own.  These nested comps could be opened with an option click and worked on. The characters were lined up correctly (with the head on the neck, the hands on the arms the arms on the body etc.) and a pivot point was set where the head or arm would rotate.  These pretty much correspond to the way a real human (or animal)  body works.  Arms rotate at the shoulders, elbows and wrists, legs at the hip, knee and ankle.  After Effects allows you to chain parts together so that you can move the arm at the shoulder and the lower-arm and hand with rotate with it but you can still go in and adjust the lower-arm rotation and the hand rotation.  The character is moved and a key frame set then the time is changed and another key frame set.  The computer will add the in-betweens.

Layers can also be made into 3D objects/planes and moved apart from each other.  When animated using the 3D camera the perspective will change in a very natural manner.  We used this feature numerous times in Freedom Dance.

Find out more about Freedom Dance at www.freedomdancethemovie.com