Extended Practice: Texting & Driving Scenes 3 & 4

After animating the first two scenes where the protagonist gets into his car and the phone buzzes, I wanted to cut back to the first scene where he picks the phone up to reply to the message. This scene is important because it shows that he is engaging with the texts, and will continue to do so throughout the rest of the advert.

I used the same components from before and kept the same rigged character which was very useful. I animated his arms this time as opposed to his legs and key framed them as they reach for the phone in the cup holder just off screen. I noticed afterwards that although I like the actual animation of this scene, I found that overall, it was just too slow almost as if it is in slow motion, so I knew I had to change it.

And here is the sped up version which is a lot smoother and less delayed.

The next scene cuts back to a close up of the phone but with a different background this time, where the audience can see what is on the protagonists screen. For this sequence, I wanted to make the phone realistic where you have to slide the lock screen sideways and then carry on texting, but I wanted to do the screen animation in a separate composition and import it later on. Therefore I did the hand movements first to get an idea of the timing. I was happy with the motions but I felt like the other fingers (other than the thumb) didn't look natural not moving, so later I went ahead and rigged them too as I only did the thumb to start with.

And this is how I did the screen animation. I ended up creating an entire new composition for it, and then rendering it as a .mov, imported it back into the original composition and then drew a path around the phone so that only that part would be seen. This was quicker and easier for me to do as I already had a lot of layers in my original composition so felt like it would be more organised to do it this way. 

And here is what the scene looks like all cleaned up and imported completely. I really like how it looks and I think the timing is good. Once I add sound I think the effect with be amplified further and people will feel more immersed in the advert.

Here are the scenes created so far put together.