Karndean Opus Animation

One thing that was key with the research for this animation, was the starting point for the space itself. It needed to not be too corporate but be clean enough to allow for us to make the adaptions to it and flex the use-case for the atrium we chose.

The other side was it needed to not feel like a UK based school, so we couldn’t draw on our own school experiences to envisage what an appropriate space should look like. After digging through many stock images and thinking back to the “typical high schools” portrayed in film from across the pond (yes we talked about the Breakfast Club and Stranger Things!), we found a space that was both representative and flexible enough for the concept.

Working with Richard Kean who we chose for the illustration itself, it was then down to how we could technically achieve this.

The organic feel to the sketches needed to be considered, simple masks and wipes wouldn’t get what we needed. So we developed a technique using ipad sketching that we hadn’t seen anywhere else. Screen recording organic strokes of different configurations from fine pencil lines to large paint brush washes, giving us the variety of reveal methods for the illustrations to keep a level of complexity to the animation.

Timing all these together was also complex, a lot of testing of time offsets and speeds was needed to get an animation which felt right for drawing but didnt linger.

With some subtle position and colour switches later the animation was finished.

However we weren’t done.

It wasn’t part of the brief but we wanted to add a little extra to the front of the piece. To this end we filmed some material of a sketchbook to give us a canvas to start the animation. A trip to the local art shop and some careful camera zooming later, we had the opening plate.

Right, now it was finished