[Animation] Redbull

This is a animation for the Red bull Canimation competition, the competition is held between the 3 October 2011 until midnight on 15 November 2011. The animation must be between 2 minutes of length and feature a redbull can as the main theme. There are three main categories; Stop Motion, CGI, and Drawn/Flash, I have chosen the Drawn/Flash category as I am most familiar with Flash and will be able to submit a decent animation in the time space using it. Below is the animation: 

This animation took a total of 8 hours to complete, it is so far one of my favourite animations I have created. It is the first time I used key frames instead of motion tweens, although there are a few scenes that are still tweened, such as the screen moving the the left and the rabbit hovering away. Originally it was going to end when the rabbit floated away, ending with the same text as the current ending, but I thought the Redbull can didn't make much of an appearance, so I added a little bit extra to the end to show the can at the end. I tried something that I haven't done before in Flash and that is draw without the pencil lines, if you notice in the animation there aren't any pencil lines, did this as I wanted to try a new drawing style which makes a shell shaded style of animation. I think this has worked really well and works well for the backgrounds, in the forest and outside the forest too.

I found this project easy to do as I have a good amount of knowledge in Flash about me, I jotted down very rough notes about what I wanted to do in the animation, and then following the noted did it from that right away after University. I like how simple the animation is and how effective it is because it is so simple, it hasn't got a massive amount of movement in it as the characters mostly move by hoping up and down, because of this I found it easy and quick to animate. I am disappointed that I couldn't a get a voice over for the end, I think the animation would be better if when the writing appears on screen it also said what was written down. By doing this, if the animation receives the opportunity to becomes an advert it'll be alot more clearer what it says. There isn't much sound really, mostly sound effects, no music what so ever. This works as it helps towards to Royalty Free problem I was facing (Which has also been solved after remembering the name of a site which lets you download royalty free audio for free; Freeplaymusic.com). Although because of this, it is a quiet animation, whereas most Redbull adverts are full of energy and over the top, this one is quiet and normal. Another thing that worries me about the animation id the whole story line, people could argue that the story line may offend the creators of Redbull, showing that Redbull is represented as urine after the rabbit drank it and then grew wings, personally I think that it is nonsense and as a cartoon animation it is humerus to see an inanimate object take a wee.

If I had to do the animation again, I would probably add more music or make the animation a little more upbeat and over the top, although I do enjoy the animation as it is. I would also consider tweeking the story as so nobody would be offended if they think that I tried to make it out as Redbull being urine, instead I would have the redbull tip over and pour some on the floor, although this would not have the same humerus effect as it does now and would totally destroy the current joke.