Best Work Essay - 2

Oh My Duck

I created this project as an assignment for my program and to enter it for the Vermont Highway Safety Alliance PSA competition about safe driving in Vermont.

Out of everything that went into this PSA, I’m most proud of all the models and the cinematography in my PSA. I created every model and animation for this video, along with the storyline and specific camera shots, by myself without any help. I spent a lot of my time deciding on what I wanted to do first, going over all my ideas, until I decided on one that was slightly brutal but enlightening about the darker side of driving. The entire process of this animation took me around a month to complete, with the development of the story, models, animation, cinematography, video editing, and sound design.

To begin this project, I started with the story development and storyboard as my animation guidelines. I used my sketchbook to write down ideas and sketches while trying to decide the best route for this animation. I wanted something that could connect to teenagers and adults, wasn’t boring, eye-catching, funny, shocking, and something that people would remember overall. After going over many ideas that I ultimately didn't like, I remembered that I had made a duck model for a game during my junior year for a different project. I then made a final idea using this duck model, writing it down in my sketchbook along with sketches of models I would need for the scene. The story I created is about a truck driver who gets distracted by their phone. While they are driving, they get distracted, run a red light, and run over a family of ducks that were crossing the street to a pond.

The next step was to start modelling for the animation. I started by re-sketching models and creating new ones in my sketchbook as a base. I decided I would need a traffic light, a small town/city scene, a road with sidewalks, trees, a terrain with hills, a pond, ducks, a phone, a duck crossing sign, a truck, a truck driver, and potentially more. Once the sketches were finished, I created 3D models of them in Blender and exported all of them to put into my scene.

Moving onto the terrain, I started setting up my scene with a plane and used the sculpting tools to add hills to my land. I then added a pond, city buildings, trees, and set up the road. Once the road was set up, I added the traffic lights and modified part of the road to add a crosswalk for the ducks. After setting those up, I put the truck on the road with its driver inside. Next, I added the ducks, one adult and 5 ducklings. Then I put a duck crossing sign on the sidewalk next to the ducks.

Starting the animation, I began by deciding on the camera shots I wanted for the animation, to prevent having to animate extra things that might not even be seen. Next, I animated the opening scene with the truck. The truck moves along the road when the driver's phone goes off. I animated the phone shaking while it vibrated, then made the driver pick it up and start getting distracted. The next scene shows the ducks crossing sign, then I changed the camera's focus point and depth of field to animate the sign going blurry, bringing the attention to the yellow light turning red. The ducks look at the red light and start crossing the road toward the pond. While the ducks are crossing, the mother duck stops and turns to look up at the truck. She then gets frightened that the truck is speeding and isn’t slowing down. I animated her wings going out and her eyes going wide, mouth agape. The next shot is around one second long, showing the truck inches in front of the duck about to hit it. The camera then quickly cuts to a front view of the truck and its driver, still on the phone, visibly being pushed up when hitting the ducks. The driver then looks back out the window and puts their hand on their head in guilt after seeing that they killed the ducks. The camera then goes blurry to conclude the animation.

Finally, after finishing the animation, I rendered the video and put it into Adobe Premiere Pro. I then went searching for free sounds for the truck, the phone, the ducks, the squash, and background noise. I found the perfect sounds on Pixabay that were free to use, and started editing and adding sound to my video. I extended the ending screen to add statistics on fatalities caused by distracted driving, adding a message to drive safely. I had to make some of the scenes shorter so the video would fit the 30-second time limit.

Once I finally finished my PSA, I put the video on YouTube for the public. I also submitted the original video file to my program's Google Classroom and the YouTube link to the public video. I then submitted it to the Vermont Highway Safety Alliance through their Google submission form. My project was officially completed!

If I were to make this again, I would add more details to the animation. I feel like I could have done better with it, but I was rushing near the end because I got sick over break and didn’t have the energy to work on it. This led to me rushing and sacrificing animation quality. I would also cut my time down on the sketches of the scenes, as I didn’t use them that much. Cutting out some of the sketches would have saved me a lot of time to work on the final project instead of the basic pre-planning.

Overall, this project was one of my longest worked on creations. I am proud of my work and dedication to this animation, despite it not being perfect. It was a great learning experience that let me practice and put my skills of cinematography, lighting, 3D modelling, animation, sound design, world design, and more into a real-world product!