Week 5: Alpha Channelling, Life Drawing and Inspiration...

I began this week by attending Monday evening’s life drawing session with Virginia at Barnabus House in Newport.

We had four long poses, the first two being the longest. Here are the drawings.





I’d forgotten how much I loved doing life drawing, though it really was tough to get into drawing the anatomy properly. Over the summer, I got into the habit of life drawing in a sketchbook with a fine liner pen in very quick strokes. I do feel though that the class could have benefited from having a few very short exercises.
I follow a number of Disney and Pixar artists on blogger. Last year I attended the guest lecture with Matt Jones, and it was probably the 2 most inspiring hours of my life! After the lecture I went back and found his blog and instantly added him to my “follow” list. I now keep up to date with his posts, and recently he has uploaded some posts that show his work from life drawing sessions at Pixar.

Here is the post from Matt Jones' blog: http://mattjonezanimation.blogspot.com/2010/11/another-skirmish-in-gesture-class.html

In his classes, they do a lot of quick poses in pen and ink; their main priority getting the ‘gesture’.
In some of his most recent drawings, they had models who would put on different outfits and who would actually ‘act’ out made-up situations which the artists could then translate in their drawings.
Another exercise they tried was to draw the pose of the model and then draw in an ‘object’ that from what the pose indicates; the model could ‘do’. For example - in one of his sketches, he has drawn the model in a normal standing pose with her arm slightly out. He then drew a hoover to go in the model’s outstretched hand to make it look like the model is hoovering.
I thought these ideas were really fantastic and creative. Perfect for artists attending life drawing classes to open their mind and really be able to be creative and have fun with their drawings.
I may suggest this to a tutor soon. As well as the fact that there should really be compulsory life drawing classes for everyone in the second year. First year life drawing was so brilliant, and everyone knows life drawing is essential for artists’ to develop and become better observers! I’ll suggest it perhaps to a course rep to bring up at a future meeting.

Moving on - This week I began to ‘alpha channel’ my scanned frames of “Fifi and the Jam Jar”. We had a workshop with Stan on Friday (week 4) telling us how to do so. I wrote notes on all the steps and was able to complete the alpha channelling in around 3 (very time-consuming!) sessions over 2 days.

Here are some of the finished alpha channel frames. (Click to enlarge)



Stan also taught us how to put our finished frames into After Effects and apply a photo background. I was able to get to this stage and here is what it currently looks like:



I still need to go back and sort out the timing. As well as go back and clean up the alpha channelling on some of the frames. (This is mostly due to the bottom half of Fifi cutting off and exposing the background at some points. I also need to apply the standing and fallen jam jar frames too, as the jam jar disappears from view at two points in the sequence.

Also this week I began to think of ideas for the next animation exercise: “Dialogue between two characters.”
I recently watched BBC’s “Sherlock” and enjoyed it tremendously. I decided to choose a quote from this to do for my dialogue sequence. I watched some clips online and have chosen a short scene where the character “Molly” in the series talks to Sherlock at the beginning of the first episode.
The clip is 9 seconds long. Though if I am able to finish the dialogue quicker than expected I can make the clip longer, as the conversation does continue longer than I have actually cut it.

Now that I have the clip I can start to plan the design of the characters, what era they may be in, where they are, what setting there is, what personalities they have etc.
I will go into this more in my next post.

Inspiration:

I have taken inspiration this week (in relation more towards my next dialogue task) in Wes Anderson’s film, “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou”.

Wes Anderson’s films are different to conventional cinema. He has a very different approach to story-telling and camera space than most American film-makers. His work is creative, innovative and perfect. He has a very unique aesthetic which is masterfully directed on screen, making his films stand out in a beautifully quirky and fresh way.

His approach to camera angles and direction convey a very 2D aesthetic ‘feel’. Anderson is known to all industry professionals as an absolute perfectionist, using “mise-en-scene” to it’s fullest advantage. Every single frame are always balanced elegantly with colour, setting, actors and props always considered for aesthetic appeal. Each frame could easily be hung on the wall as it is.

Here are a number of screenshots from various Wes Anderson films which I like (though mainly from The Royal Tenenbaums):



I was specifically inspired by one of the first scenes from “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou”. The characters are in a beautifully decorated hall at the after-party of the premiere of Zissou’s newest film from his adventures at sea. I really love the setting for this, and thought it would be perfect for my next dialogue task’s setting.



Wes Anderson’s films are relevant to my interests in animation. His “perfect” style of shots and mise-en-scene are really captivating and I absolutely adore the detail he puts into every aspect of directing each of his films. I love putting little details into my own work, and his style of film-making is absolutely wonderful to watch and study. They are the type of films you can watch again and again and you will always be able to find something new to look at in the scene. It’s a lovely and innovative style to film-making, which is steadily growing in appreciation and popularity. I hope to apply his style of film-making excellence to my own films and animations in the future.

(c) All Rights Reserved Wes Anderson 'The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou', 'The Royal Tenenbaums', 'Fantastic Mr Fox'

---jkl---

Week 4: Animating Fifi and the Jam Jar + 'The Illusionist' Inspiration

In this week I began to animate the scene I’d created around the brief with my character, Fifi.

Just before I started, I asked my friend, Bry, to act out the scene from the series of thumbnail sketches (as shown in the previous post) which I would then video for reference.
I took three videos in total. Here are some screenshots taken from specific parts of the reference I used for the final animation.



I started animating on Monday. I completed around 85 frames before Thursday, which is when I took my frames in to linetest. There were a few things I needed to correct, mostly in timing.

-At the second ‘struggle’, I had to add a few more frames to lengthen it, as the action was moving too quickly.
-I changed the timing from twos to ones when Fifi jumps up in the air shaking her hand as on twos the action was too slow.

After the timing was sorted out I then went home and completed another 30 frames to ‘end’ the animation. I completed these last frames in just over 2 hours, and I believe they are the strongest part of the whole animation. (From when she grabs the jar and throws it across the table and sticks her tongue out at it. )

Here is the finished animation on my vimeo account:
http://vimeo.com/16750778

There are a few things I would like to have improved in the piece:
-smoother continuity
-less growing larger+smaller of the character - MUST keep first frame underneath frames at all times!
-a more convincing ‘fall’ and ’roll’ for the jam jar (at the end of the piece)


Inspiration from professional work:
My inspiration for this week was the film “The Illusionist” directed by Sylvain Chomet.
I saw this film a few months ago in London, as I was intrigued by the various released clips I saw online. I haven’t yet seen “The Triplets of Belleville” but I aim to very soon.

The animation in this film is absolutely breath-taking. The weight and solidity of the characters are held beautifully throughout. I adored the backgrounds, colour and character performance of this film. Everything stood out to me and I was really inspired by it.



Usually with 2D animation that is cel-coloured, I much prefer seeing the pencil-line tests, as these I feel, hold far more depth and beauty than when the frames are coloured digitally. However, in this film, I really loved the colours in both characters and background. There was no loss of depth or solidity, and everything flowed so elegantly. It was really beautiful.
This film’s colour scheme and overall “look and feel” has been likened to Disney’s Golden Age films such as “101 Dalmatians” and “The Aristocats”; two films which I absolutely adore for that very reason.



I believe being inspired by “The Illusionist” is relevant to me and my intended direction as an animator. I found myself engrossed in the animation, the spectacle of the world presented. It was so utterly beautiful, I was completely captivated by the incredible animation shown. I would only wish to someday create work which is so detailed, whimsical and beautiful. And this is why I am relating to this film as inspiration for this task.



In reference to my chosen inspirational professional work, I would have to say my animation on this task (Fifi and the Jam Jar) is very far away from the standard set-out by the animation! It is near-impossible for it to be anything near it at all! But I believe that the idea of the setting in which I decided to convey was definitely relatable (in some way) to that of “The Illusionist”, in that, the detail of the foreground and the idea of a lengthened task of opening a crude little jam jar, can relate to the film somewhat. Obviously, the animation of Fifi is nowhere near good enough, and in future tasks I shall focus more intently on keeping the continuity of the character’s design accurate.

On my next task I shall make sure I plan the scene out properly. I will make an accurate storyboard and I will record good video reference. When animating, I shall keep the first frame at the bottom of the stack of papers on the light box and make sure I am always referring to it, as well as character model sheets. All in all, I will try and keep a better outsight of what I am doing; making sure everything is done to the best of my ability.

All Rights Reserved © The Illusionist 2010 Sylvain Chomet

---jkl---

Week 3: Re-designing Fifi + 3D session

I have chosen to use my character from last year; Fifi, again for this year’s first animation task.

Matt has asked, if we are to re-use our characters from last year, to try and redesign them slightly.

I decided to age Fifi by a few years. In my designs last year, I made her around the age of 11-13. This year, she is now around 16 years old.

I have also re-designed her head slightly. Last year, her head was an ‘oval’ turned on it’s side (resembling a rugby ball shape) I looked over some of these designs, and the head wasn’t matching coherently with the rest of the body-style. So now, I have designed her face to be a “portrait” ‘oval’ to compliment the body nicely.

I have also changed her hair slightly for a different “style”. It is still a ’bob’ haircut, but the hair can now have more “expression” and “flexibility” so it can be animated better to suit her new face-shape and style.

I also wanted to try drawing Fifi in different clothes too. I had a lot of fun designing outfits for Fifi to wear last year, and my main inspiration for outfits this year is from the blog “The Sartorialist”.

Here is the link to the blog:

http://thesartorialist.blogspot.com/

The fashion blog is updated constantly with photos of completely random people on the streets of big cities around the world. The people that are photographed are chosen based on their style and outfits. It showcases an incredible variety of people and their outfits and personal style as well as their personalities and is a very influential blog that covers “current” styles and outfits around the world. The photos are fantastic, and I adore the outfits and people shown.

On a page of designs for Fifi, I started to draw her with outfits shown on the blog. I found several posts where I particularly liked the outfit shown, and I the drew Fifi in it.



It’s a great source of reference for me when designing characters. I think it’s because I love trying to figure out what the people photographed are like. Where do they work? What do they sound like? What are their personalities? What are their backgrounds? The photographs always capture the essence of the person, and I love to study these photos and create them as characters on paper as well as in my head. They inspire me. I believe this source of inspiration is relevant to my intended direction in my course of animation, not only because I love drawing the outfits, but because I love to develop characters, and this blog is a great resource for me to fuel my inspiration for that.

I also started planning ideas for the first animation exercise.

The brief: “Animate your character trying to open something that refuses to open”

The first ideas - Fifi struggling to open
-a door (of some sort)
-a box of sweets/biscuits
-her chest of drawers/wardrobe
-a package of some kind
…etc…

I then decided to create a scene…I began to doodle some ideas for what she could be wearing. I drew her in a dressing-gown and pajamas. I then had an idea of creating a scene where she’d just come downstairs to have her breakfast (toast and jam) and having her struggling to open the jam jar. I decided to choose this idea, as I immediately stage it on paper with the kitchen work-surface being present with all her “ingredients” in the scene around her. I then drew some quicker sketches of little ‘reactions’ she could do when trying to open the jam jar.



I then went on to planning out the entire sequence roughly on paper.
I began by writing (down the left-hand side of the paper), the main “actions” at each stage of the sequence. I then went on to draw little rough thumbnails of the actions. These slightly differ to those written to the left-hand side of the page, as I was then “visualising” the sequence as I was drawing, and new ideas came into my head overriding the old ones. I also drew little arrows to identify specific actions and arcs I should be aware of when starting to animate. I will keep this page with me when animating to refer back to and make sure I keep on track and to make sure I’m pacing the actions correctly.



Next week I will begin animating the scene.

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3D: Stop motion session- Week 3

I attended the Stopmotion session again this week with Austin Charlesworth.

In this week’s session, her gave everyone a piece of plasticine that we were asked to mould into a character. He then asked everyone to animate their character “lifting a heavy object”. As I am only an observer to these sessions, I made sure I didn’t hinder anyone having a turn to animate before myself. Unfortunately, this meant I couldn’t animate anything again this week, though I will try and do something in a few weeks time perhaps. We have been told that a model-maker from Aardman Studios will be coming in soon to give some model-making tips which I will definitely attend.

In the session, we watched an episode of “Fireman Sam” which Austin had worked on. We had to watch it carefully and consider who the characters ‘interacted with objects’. From a character picking up a piece of paper, to a character holding a water-hose, we had to study the way weight was displayed successfully to help us in the task set.

Austin then talked to us about different materials, what they were called and how they were used in stop motion animation etc.

As we were on the subject of materials, Austin then started to talk about the differences stop motion had to the other mediums used in animation. He said that, above all the mediums, with all their advantages and disadvantages, stop motion animation can never be beaten in the display of ‘texture’. In that, no other form could texture really be shown in all it’s glory.
However good CGI is, it can never compare with real puppets and real materials in a real setting. There is something that is altogether more genuine and wholesome about stop motion that can never be artificially re-created in other mediums.

I totally understood and agreed with this statement, and I think it is this very point which most interests me with the stop motion form. I love to study the sets and environments in stop motion animated films. I love to see all the little tiny props lovingly and carefully made for the films, the characters included. It is an art form that goes so very unappreciated in modern society that it is almost cruel! The people who work, create and make these sets, these props and these characters are truly amazing! I think it is this point that is so important in my own thoughts and ideas for future work. If I am able to incorporate real texture and depth into any pieces of animation I create in my lifetime, I’ll consider myself lucky!

---jkl---

Week 2: 3D Stop-motion with Austin Charlesworth + 2D Option/Workshop

I have decided to attend the 3D stopmotion sessions every Tuesday for the rest of the term. Our tutor for stopmotion; Austin Charlesworth, is an experienced stop-motion animator who has worked on a number of TV programmes during his career including "Bill and Ben", "Fireman Sam" and "Igam Ogam".

I decided to research his name and try and find links to work he's done. I was able to find his youtube channel, "The Cheezinator", which shows his most recent showreel:



At the beginning of the session, he began by introducing himself and saying a little about the state of the stopmotion industry in the UK. Conclusion: Not Good!
He named a few studio/companies he had worked for and that had now closed down. One name I recognised from this list was "Cosgrove Hall", which I was very surprised to hear had shut down, as it was a relatively big studio.

I quickly did some internet research (namely; wikipedia) to see what programmes and films Cosgrove Hall had done.
Here are a few examples of their work which are familiar to myself:
-Engie Benjy
-Postman Pat
-Oakie Doke
-The Wind In The Willows
-Thomas and Friends
...and many more.
Here is the link to the wikipedia page on Cosgrove Hall : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosgrove_Hall_Films

One title from the list stood out for me. I remember as a child at Primary School, one day we watched an stopmotion animated short film of "Cinderella". To this day I still remember it, a few images still prominent in my mind. When I looked at this list and saw the title I had to have a look! And there it was! The very same one!
It's still so beautiful!
There was a link to it in youtube and I just had to watch! So here is the first part of a Cosgrove Hall 1981 stopmotion animated version of "Cinderella":



Getting back to the session, Austin Charlesworth then made us all watch an episode of a recent children's TV programme called "Igam Ogam", which he had worked on. I've watched an episode recently on TV prior to this session, so it was great to actually watch it with one of the animators actually there!
It's a brilliant little series. I really love the design of it and the characters are fantastically sweet and whimsical.



At the end of the episode, Austin paused the DVD on the last part of the "credits" where all the companies logos and names are presented. There were at least 7 or more companies there, which Austin said was a very bad thing. It means that there isn't enough money being put into a series on its own. This affects the outcome of the programme, as the more people there are investing, the more voices are having to be heard. So potentially there were about 7 companies/investors all asking for different things, ie: how the characters looked, what the scripts were, what colours the set had to be (etc). This makes it increasingly frustrating not only for the animators, but for everybody else who is involved as well.

Here are some more points I was able to note down from Austin from his work on "Igam Ogam":
-There were 26 episodes, all completed in 10 months.
-There were 5 animators at the start, which increased to 7 as the series progressed. -One animator has a designated "set" and works on around 5 episodes at a time.
-The characters all had replacement heads, with around 10 mouth shapes for each character. (The hair, in the case of the character 'Igam Ogam', was always kept the same)
-The heads were quite heavy at the start of filming, and would consequently fall over.

After this, Austin showed us some student work. The puppets he showed us were "below par" standard-wise for animating professionally.
He then showed us a puppet from Aardman which was an example of a better puppet to work with. (although this particular one was quite old and had "decomposed" to an extent) I made a quick sketch of what it looked like:



Here are some notes of advice from Austin in the session:
-Software for animating in stopmotion in the industry is "DPS Reality". A cheaper version is called "Dragon".
-Students should use balsar wood and polystyrene as materials for puppets as these materials are far cheaper than plasticine.
-(We, students) should start watching some Claymotion videos on the internet and start asking these questions: "Why is it good?" and "Why is it not good?" to start analysing stopmotion in depth.
-We should experiment with plasticine first
-If we were to make a mould, for example; arms, then we should make sure the mould is a 'natural' position so that there is a slight bend. This makes sure the mould doesn't break/snap, and makes it more user-friendly by the animators.
-When animated puppets have fabric clothes around them, they should be very tightly wrapped so that no 'boiling' animation can occur.
-Twisted wire lasts longer than a single strand of wire (for armature of puppet)
-Fimo can be used to bulk out legs - note: make sure you put the fimo only in places where it won't bend!
-Everything in stopmotion has a lifespan, even the lighting and the cameras, so everything has to be made as durable as possible for consistent results.

After this, Austin asked us to animate the "bouncing ball" exercise with plasticine. As I was only an observer, I decided not to participate in this exercise, as there were quite a few people there and as this was not my chosen option, I felt it best to let others do the task instead.

I quickly sketched my friends' Bry and Zara as people were animating and as Austin was talking... We were sitting on the floor, as there weren't enough seats.



Overall, it was a very interesting session. I loved hearing about the industry and all the information "on-set" etc. This is definitely the right option for me to attend as a second choice.

---

Later on in the week we finally had our 2D option intro with Matthew Gravelle.
We were all given our "lesson plans" for the sesmester.
As my first option choice is 2D hand-drawn, I was really excited to get this lesson plan and see what the course had on offer for us for this term. I was not disappointed!
Out of the character performance tasks outlined, I must say I am really excited for the "dialogue" exercise. I really enjoyed the lip synching task last year. It was extremely difficult, but I remember absolutely loving trying to match the words to the body movements. It's all acting! It was really helpful in conveying emotions too, which I was eager to get. This year, the dialogue task will be between two characters, which I'm sure will be a bit of a challenge, but one I am really motivated to do!

The first exercise we have been given for completion by Week 4 is as such:

"Animate your character trying to open something that refuses to open"

I decided that I would bring back my character, Fifi, back for this task. We were either encouraged to create an entirely new character different from our one from last year, or, to at least re-design him/her. Skecthes and notes on her will be uploaded in the next post.

After the introduction we had a little workshop with Stan on scanning our animations in Photoshop and the "actions" panel. This is in preparation for Week 4's workshop where we'll be applying an alpha channel to our animations and adding a photo background. I made notes, so I'll hopefully be able to complete this successfully for Week 4.

---jkl---

Week 1: Introduction +Taster Sessions

Project Title: Specialist Option
Duration: 12 weeks
Deadline: 02/02/2011

An Introduction - (Week 1)

The first week consisted of a few lectures/overview sessions given to us by our tutors. They told us what to expect from our course this year. Handbooks and readers were given out to get everyone prepared for the work ahead.

In this blog/work log, I will be presenting my work over the "specialist option" module set in our first semester here on my second-year Animation course.

Specialist Option:
We have been asked this year to choose an "option" to follow for the rest of our degree course.
So we had to choose one out of these three options:
-CG (Maya-based work)
-3D Stop-motion
-2D Hand-drawn

As we have already done a lot of 2D hand-drawn animation last year, our tutors thought it best if we were given taster sessions in only CG and 3D Stopmotion.

Option 1: CG-Maya Taster Session!

The first session was with James Manning on Monday 18th October.
We were first introduced to the main functions and tools in Maya; a huge piece of software used extensively in the animation industry; from "Pixar" to "The Moving Picture Company" (cartoon/stylised to photo-realism), the software is massively versatile for each area of film which makes it invaluable to modern-day practises in animation, both commercial and experimental.

After getting used to the main controls and commands in Maya, we then started to attempt the "bouncing ball" exercise in the programme. We were looking at function graphs, and how to command them in different ways. However, by this time I was utterly lost! I'm not a 'computer whizz', I never have been. I like to take my time when given something new to decipher. And so as the exercise picked up the pace, I became utterly lost and couldn't keep up with the rest of the class.

It's slightly disappointing, as I was eager to start learning it, seeing as the animation industry as we know it is currently all but obsessed with the form...but I really don't think it the right choice for me.

I still completely respect and admire (probably even more so, now!) the work created in Maya. It really is amazing, and I am absolutely intrigued by the work produced. But I am not excited by it. Excitement in anything fuels interest and passion, and I do not feel this for CG at this stage.

I believe I will try Maya again in the future, definitely. But for now, I'd much rather spend time getting used to the Adobe software prgrammes and with more traditional methods of art and animation, and trying to see where these will take me in my development of style and finding my "voice".

Option 2: 3D - Stopmotion!

We were introduced to the 3D Stop-motion option by our tutor, Leonie Sharrock.
After a brief introduction from Leonie, we were split into two groups to go and do separate tasks. The first group (which I was part of) were asked to go outside and try and make our own stopmotion film with anything we could find around the uni campus. I had brought my digital camera, so myself, Claire and Bry went outside and started to think what we could do.

We decided to use ourselves as the characters, so we played around with trying to find a good effect that would work in "pixelation" form.

Our first idea was to try and show Bry doing a 'cartwheel' in stop-motion form. Bry lay on the floor and I stood on a bench so I could get the impression of a "bird's-eye view". Here are a few stills we captured:



After this we had the idea of a sort of "car-chase" between Claire and Bry. The sat down on the ground in an "imaginary" car. We did a 360 degrees rotational sequence (mimicking many racing game/films) and then I filmed them racing against each other. The final look was fun and quite successful, though I still need to properly put it together into a short film. For now, I will post some stills to give you an idea of what it looks like:





We then did some shadow-play 'pixelation' as well. Trying to act out a scene where Claire and Bry are fighting. It reminded me of shadow puppetry often told with foreign fables and tales. The elongated shadowns were quite dynamic, though the final film didn't work as well as it could have. Here again, I will post some stills:



After this task we returned to E4 (the animation room) where Leonie had another task set for us to do. We were split into pairs and then had to choose a random (inanimate) object from a bag (without looking!). Claire chose a square piece of transparent pink plastic and I chose a piece of tring whch had several wooden beads attached. We then had to pick an "emotion" for our objects to portray. The piece of plastic had to be "nonchalent", the beads on string had to be "happy" and then the scenario given to us was "attraction". We were then asked to go away to the linetesters and animate our objects to the chosen emotions and scenarios.

After everyone had completed them, we had a mini-screening of everyone's animations. Leonie didn't seem much impressed by myself and Claire's final piece, deeming it "too obvious". Though to be honest, we weren't much into the task, so that was bound to happen.

The taster was a bit of a disappointment to be fair. I understand and respect the principles that Leonie was trying to encourage, but I was expecting it to be a bit more interactive in the "model-making" aspect. I can see the benefit of the tasks though, definitely.

Despite it being something I wasn't quite anticipating, I still want to continue attending the 3D Stop-motion lectures/sessions throughout the year. I'm particularly interested in the model-making side of production for stop-motion, having always loved and appreciated the details always shown in many films/TV programmes (etc).

Overall:
I have decided not to attend the CG - Maya sessions. I believe I can not apply myself to the discipline, and I have no passion to drive myself into learning it at this time. Therefore, I will be attending the 3D Stopmotion sessions instead. I will be writing about both stopmotion and 2D hand-drawn in this work log. Though, as the weeks go on, I may only have time to do my fully chosen subject, which is, primarily, 2D hand-drawn.

I believe I am most passionate about 2D hand-drawn animation. I thoroughly enjoyed the tasks set last year, especially in the 'character performance' module, and I want to develop my practise in character performance this year too. I believe that also attending 3D stopmotion sessions is the right choice for me too; as a lover of all the more "tradional" methods and exploration in animation and art. This I feel, will be the best path to take in developing and finding my true voice and style in animation.

---jkl---