We visited Team Elemonators in the third and final week of their 3-week production. The girls were going at completing their 1-minute animation by the end of the week. Erin reports.
The team Elemonators, with their two fluffy mascot bears, courtesy of Leanne.
It’s the third week and team Elemonators are speeding ahead hurriedly, close to the completion of their task!
The tools of the trade which occupy Esther’s workspace. To the right, near the NEWater bottle, is a Wacom Intuos Graphics Tablet, and a Lenovo computer.
The clock is ticking away for CHIJ St. Nicholas Girls’ School’s Elemonators as they finish up their animation, already three-quarters through.
All they had to do was to finish animating the last few scenes of their animated piece, and then render it.
When we dropped by, the team was focused on the rotoscoping segment of their animation journey.
What is rotoscoping?
It is an animation technique in which animators trace over their footage, frame by frame, for use in animation sequences.
Think Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves!
Truly heartwarming – to encourage themselves, Elemonators has put up Polaroid photos of themselves, and their friends and family, to ‘glam up’ a bland, impersonal space, and motivate themselves to work harder towards the finish line.
The team told me that they had started out animating the easier scenes first, before moving on to the more difficult ones.
At the moment, Esther was working on a scene where the Singapore flag was being gathered up and pulled away by a hand. She had yet to add in the hand, though.
The scene which Esther is currently working on – a hand pulls the Singapore flag up, up and away.
There was a rather interesting scene that the team showed us, that they were in the midst of animating.
This is my favourite scene in the animation. Can you identify the various team members based on their appearance and description in the text?
It was a scene in which four animated characters representing each of Elemonators’ team members were dancing animatedly.
Melissa was the character holding a guitar while Esther – dancing around – was instantly recognisable with her short hair.
“Finish your work… Or else!” >:(
Sabrina and Leanne could be differentiated with Leanne’s character wearing glasses, while Sabrina’s did not.
In this scene, there were small red circles representing the axis of movement of the characters, which were critical in defining the movements of the animated characters.
Naturally, these will not appear in the visuals of the final animation.
Elemonators is well on its way to the finish line. Their storyline is unique, and their concept truly heartwarming.
Esther and Sabrina’s workspace.
Tags: animation, competition, education, Elemonators, N.E.mation!, N.E.mation! 9, production, St Nicholas