Paddington Process

Behind the scenes images from The Adventures of Paddington Bear for reference.

Week 4 Animation notes. Checking against the halfway notes in Proof. Additional notes by Animation Director Adi Gupta.

Script read through and thumbnails on Jamboard

Story ideas and thumbs for an Episode of Paddington using Google Jamboard. Great for multiple people to draw at the same time. This was usually how the directors and the Story Supervisor work through a script.

Thumbnails for the Storyboard artist.

There was less need to prepare such a comprehensive launch pack for each episode due to the Process above. It was usually pretty thorough and ironed out any large issues. Thumbnails from me were only for something new or unscripted. Or something that was still giving us a hard time.

Storyboard and Animatic

We review the board (drawn in Panelforge) at a very early blocking pass in edit. No real posing just the staging inplace and the briefest of acting ideas. We work on the animatic until its right. We review in Proof. When its finalised we Launch it to Design and Modelling to identify any thing new or changes. And Layout.

Panelforge has a 3d stage and a drawing Timeline. You set up your shot in 3D then draw the board up over the top. The cameras, set, models and the drawing get output as a Maya file. for Layout to Swap out proxy models and finesse the shot.

Design and Modelling

While board and animatic are going on we are pushing ahead with designing and modelling anything new.

Checking a new set with Head of Modelling and sets Art Director etc. Making sure its going to work for the shots its needed.

Calendar and Trello

As a side note. Days were scheduled via Google calendar and Trello. Calendar for meetings and Trello for notes. This was often a problem as what was on trello wasn’t in the calendar. You’d be sent a message through Google Chat that there was something new in Trello for you. I did get this changed so everything in Trello was on the calendar. Animation notes could take 6+ hours and if it wasn’t in the calendar you’d be pulling in long hours which were not sustainable.

Google calendar with time dropped in for notes.

Layout

The board leaves Panelforge and goes to layout where everything get clarified and finessed. Proxy models are swapped out and composition and staging is tweaked. There’s often some back and fourths between layout and Animation if things need moving around. After the layout is approved we Launch the episode to the Animation director and team. Usually a long meeting. Identifying intent of the characters, story points, acting etc etc. We’re often still using scratch dialogue at this point so its doubly important to put across what our characters are thinking and feeling.

Animation.

Animation notes are given at each stage through Proof. After that we have a review with the animation Director and anim team. Through Zoom and Screen sharing Proof. They will usually pick certain notes that are unclear. You can search proof for a particular note number and the timeline will jump to that note and any drawovers you may have.

FX

Fx and some of the animation was done by Paris studio SuperProd

Lighting and Comp

We usually get lighting keys to approve before we go and comp the whole show. Theres usually a lot of back and forth fixing weird textures or intersections or lighting continuity. A lot of it is hard to pick up so we have multiple passes. Very often Intersections can’t be fixed in Comp so go back to animation.

Again comp notes are done in Proof, with reviews with the whole team after this.

Mr Birds knee here is intersecting her skirt here and cant be painted out. So it has to go back to animation. — Mr Birds knee here is intersecting her skirt and cant be painted out. So it has to go back to animation.

Mr Currys collar here can be painted out in comp.

Finally

There lots of other stages like Music etc etc. But I’ll park it here for now. And remember it doesn’t alway go to plan.