Client: London Bus Network
Agency: Straightforward Communications Ltd
Direction: Eugene Constable
Animation and Design: Eugene Constable
Editing and Sound: Eugene Constable

TFL and London Bus Network needed a series of five animated films to train their staff around best practises to be supportive of their customers. These were shown at bus depot staff areas and on social media.

CASE STUDY - London Buses Animation series

01. Storyboard

Working from an inital brief outline document for the films from the client, the first step is to sketch out rough thumbnails to describe each scene into a draft storyboard. Here we can work out the range of characters, environments and camera angles that best tell the story for each film.

02. Animation Look: Character and Environment Development

With the rough storyboard approved, we then develop the look for the animations. Starting with the characters, we needed show a wide range of ages and diversity, whilst also keeping a consistent design style. The characters were also designed in a way that allows them to be rigged for animation later in the process.

03. Illustrated Storyboard and Animatic

Once we have our characters and environments designed, it’s time to finalise the illustration work for all the scenes in the storyboard, ready for animation. I’ll then import them into Premiere pro to create a basic edit or ‘animatic’ (sequence of stills) with a guide voice over. Here I can get the scene timings right and place in some music and sound effects, to get a sense of how its working overall. This can be shared with the client before going into animation.

04: Animation

For animation, the characters are carefully designed in Adobe Illustrator, ensuring a seamless connection between the body, head and each of the limbs. These layered files are then imported in to After Effects and bought to life. For the walk cycles I used an AE plugin called DUIK, which is amazing for all kinds of character movement. Though takes a bit of learning!

All the backgrounds are designed in Adobe Illustrator as vectors, this way the artwork stays smooth and sharp, even when we zoom in close.

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