Scripts Scripts Scripts

Today I got more feedback from my screipt idea, the problem was I had no clear resolution for the characters, I have the new emplyee, the old lady and the supervisor, the conflict is between the old lady and the Trainee- Sam, the trainees afraid of serving the old lady and  beause of all the the items he thinks she has.

INT.

Clothes Shop, Mid day

Opening shot:

Its Sam’s first day as a sales assistant and after two weeks training Sam is finally ready to behind Customer Service. Sam is being monitored by his supervisor on the opposite side of the till bank. Sam is really nervous as this is the first job he’s ever had.   

*description, a till bank, three tills with a counter a sign above , three rows of clothing rails either side a phone and few rails behind the counter. 

Cut to:

Mid shot: Sam has a large namebadge pinned to chest with his name in big capital letters; underneath his name it reads “TRAINEE”. Sam is stood tense and upright with a huge smile on his face. He takes a deep breath trying to calm his nerves, adjusts his badge.

Cut to:

Over the shoulder shot of Sam: in the distance we can see an OLD LADY struggling with a heavy bag. The shopping bag is really big, a little bigger than her, square and full of clothes.

 Cut to:

Close up: Sam looks out from behind the counter, his face lights up a little in excitement as his begins to imagine what his first customer would be like. He imagines greeting the customer with happy smile, then imagines the old lady empting the huge bag of clothes she’s carrying all over the counter to return to the shop.

The smile on Sam’s face swiftly drops.

Cut to:

Mid shot: (of Sam) Sam looks around for something to do quick so he doesn’t have to serve the OLD LADY, He turns left and calls out to his supervisor in the corner, waving his arms around to grab her attention. The Supervisor is busy marking the list of new liners (new clothes) on the opposite side of the till bank and looks at him very displeased.

He grabs a handful of returns from the clothes rail behind him (returns: clothes customers have returned) and points to the shop floor.

The supervisor shakes her head.

Cut to:

Mid shot: Sam panics he finds a “closed” sign underneath the counter and places it on his till. He turns away and picks up the phone.

Close up: again the OLD LADY appears from behind the bag; she notices the sign and gives him an evil glare

                OLD LADY

                “Hmph”

Cut to:

Mid close up: OLD LADY, as she drops her bag and reaches into its contents. She pulls out one of the items she’s returning; 4 big pairs of white wonder bra’s and throw’s it at Sam. The bras hit Sam on the head.

 Cut to:

Mid shot: Sam drops the phone whips the bra of his head. He glares back at the OLD LADY from behind the counter; this means war!.

Moment of silence as the tension builds,

We cut to a extreme close up of Sam and the OLD LADY’s eyes parallel.

Cut to:

Extreme close up: Sam has a slight twitch on his mouth; hes nervous. Sweat starts to fall from his head.

Cut to

Long shot: a ball of plastic wrap sweeps across the room.

Cut to

Extreme Close up: OLD LADY smiles, her face is full of confidence.

Cut to

 Mid shot: Sam reaches behind him without taking his eyes off the OLD LADY; he grabs a hand full of coat hangers from the returns rail and fires three shots.

The OLD LADY dives behind the bag and uses it as a barricade, the coat hangers fly over her head. She looks back at the hangers then growls at Sam.

Cut to:

Mid- Long shot: clothes & coat hangers fly past the room as the two continue to fight. Suddenly the clothes stop.

Cut to:

Close up: Sam freezes just before throwing another coat hanger, he’s completely out of breath.

Cut to:

Long shot: another breeze knocks the OLD LADYS empty bag over; the OLD LADY is out of ammo.

Cut to:

Mid shot: Sam smiles and does a leap in the air, victory!

                *loud western spitting noise*

 Sam turns to the OLD LADY

                          

       Sam

                     “What the hell….”

Cut to:

P.O.V Sam: OLD LADY has hold of her dentures; she grinds with a wicked smile, and takes one final big shot at Sam. The teeth hit the camera full pelt as a flash of stars explode from the centre of the screen.

CUT TO BLACK    

Summary

Reflection time, I'm going to use this post to reflect on the flaws and the areas I seriously need to improve upon. The major project is coming up now and I don't want to be making anymore big mistakes.


The 11 seconds club I don't feel has been a successful piece at all, the quality has turned out really bad due to problems importing and exsporting files, the animation has flaws exspecially in the pauses the character stops dead which is a big nono for animation. I needs alot more work in the timing to, I think im progressing alot but I need to concentrate more when working, renember, animation is concentration and this is something im lacking in alot.
I want to work more on this animated piece so I'm going to ask if i can re render the fil for the exspotees exabition, alot of people form the industry are coming and I want to make the best impression I can with my work.

 The first issue I need to address is my rendering, this is an important foundation of the Harshali showed me the basics I could use in Maya and I was able to pick up alot from working with her in a short space of time. I will be spending the next few weeks of the project learning more of the basics of Maya. I learnt its really essential for me to have an idea and stick to it, plan the poses and the timing before I touch the computer. I know alot of other animators can move straight onto the poseing, but as an individual I feel as though I'd benefit alot more from planning and being clear about my idea.

I have to stay focused on my idea at all times and try not to overthink things causing more problems than nessesary.

WIP 11 sec club character profiles

Disaster today at this weeks feedback session. My scene I've build for the Time Machine idea doesn't quite get the idea across to the audience as clear as it should, I thought perhaps the giant clock spinning in reverse may give it away, but after I'd shown the idea to Penny for the first time she had no idea what was going on. I think the biggest problem might have been that the animation was too fast, so the audience doesn't quite get the chance to absorb whats going on in the scene. I was hoping the door opening would give the idea that the two characters were in a machine, and the large clock

So I've been researching a few ideas under the theme. And came up with with two character profiles to refine the idea:

The Inventor

Name: Mrs Crawley

Age: 25

Power centre: lower abdomen

A over ambitious apprentice scientist who’s always bursting with bright colourful ideas. She loves to tinker with gadgets, build new things and be creative as she can be. Problem is her ideas are usually associated with her unusal obsession for cute animals and stuffed toys.

Personality (strienghs/weaknesses)

Mrs Crawley is a very creative, over-sensitive person. Her mood can sometimes switch from overexcited and hyper to really upset and depressed, but never angry. Most of the time she’l be jumping aaround in excitement over a new invention or talking to herself. She genuinely takes everything to heart.

Ambitions

Mrs Crawley wants to graduate from being an intern, and have the opportunity to work with her supiroior Mary, building huge sophsipicated machinery.

Rythem

 rapid, continuous but can switch to super slow, and mellow

Animal

Dog

The Professor

Name: Mary Finningan

Age: 68

Powe senter: upper chest

Experienced and over qualified Professor, Mrs Finningan has been has seen it all. She is the head of the the high tech gadgets and new robots department for the company. Even though it is her job to teach the interns, she cares little for other people and has become quite self obsessed over the years, although she does enjoy the occasional gloat.

Personality

Posh snobby and very professional. She is also well groomed, she takes pride in her appearance making sure her hair is tied up in place and all suited up.

Ambitions

To be recognised by the world for her talents and awarded by other members of staff. She aims to remind everybody who the professionals are.

Rhythm

Slow, but very intimidating and big.

Animal

Siamese Cat

Mime Critical analysis

As most animations start we began with developing ideas for the brief. As a group we were looking for a different approach to the mime piece, we knew it had to be some sort of audition, so started thinking of the different kinds of auditions there are. One section of the brief had already been decided, the mimes had to perform in order to pass the audition, but the mimes also had to have personalities, quirks, traits, which show as part of the animation. I think this was the most challenging part of the brief, and I feel as though I it helped me develop the most in coming up with ideas quickly and effectively.

So as a group we had a think about the sort of auditions the mimes the mimes could be performing for. We need a reason for the mimes to be performing, something we could include personality with which would work together. Originally I was thinking of just a mime audition for mime of the year or mime factor, like a live reality show audition, but I’m really happy we when in almost the opposite direction. I think it was Harshali who first suggested the love interest, which for me give a different outlook on the situation of the mimes. We stuck to this idea and developed it further rather than developing more ideas as I think it was quite a solid idea and we could build up the scene and the characters from this situation. The idea became three guys competing for the love interest of a girl; a more traditional approach which I think we found was different to the other group’s ideas.

We had the first pitch, which I think the response was quite positive. I think the idea had quite a clear narrative and we were already able to formulate ideas for the personalities of the character. The challenge was incorporating a mime act into the narrative without being too obscure. Some of the other groups had two to three ideas for the mime act and I think if I’d spoken out a more we could have developed two ideas, however I also think that we would eventually have decided on the same idea.

Next stage, I began suggesting characters we could design, and decided on three characters with contrasting designs.  We decided a really big mime, then a really small mime and the final mime which was just right.

Originally, I had the idea of creating a really young mime (about 10/12 years old) he’d be the youngest of the three to contrast with the other two characters, as a group, we wanted to play with this  too young for the girl and really short, contrasting with the much larger, older mime.  After researching the characters personality I came across a big problem with this character if we looked at this character from an acting perspective, we would ask the question why would he want to impress her? So with a few tweaks I redesigned him a little older, t suited the narrative a lot more effectively

In my animation I was trying to accomplish a fast beat and quick movements, like the traditional MGM cartoons of the 1960’s (in colour). I looked at Hanna Barbara, and the animation used for its stylised 1960’s animation (The Jetsons, The Flinstones, original retro cartoons) a process called “Limited animation” came from the same watching the Fred Quimby series of Tom and Jerry, we decided early on this was the style we wanted to aim for in our animation.

   

I really liked this idea, I thought we could possibly try if we had more time tried different approaches and been more creative with the brief.  The idea had a strong narrative (as I’ve said a few times) and with it, we could have perhaps added a little diversity. I noticed everybody used a male mime for the audition, I think I could of used perhaps, a female mime if we were trying to make our idea different. However I do think the idea works really well with the male characters and developing the personalities has created a nice a contrast rather than having just three individual characters.

The Team

I really enjoyed working as a team for this project, it was such an experience for me, I felt much more motivated in a group than working alone as I had the chance to bounce ideas and thoughts with other team members.

Harshali has industry experience and with working with her on a project even though it was university assignment, I felt like I actually gained experience working in the animation field. I was able to ask her about the program and learn so much in such a short time. We had the production assets (the scene, render set up) thanks to her abilities and I really hope I contributed to the team by visualising the assets and designs for the set.

I am grateful I’ve the chance to work as a group in a project and think I’m quite lucky to be paired up two individuals who already had experience in Maya.  

Strong points:

In my opinion I think the strongest point is how we have developed the characters. We have the trio, the three musketeers and the three comrades together as friends. We used the same rig and communicated with the character designs regularly which the result was three contrasting characters with a narrative happening in the scene. The narrative being the three mimes trying to compete to impress the girl and last mime being successful). The mimes also had personalities to contrast one another, Andrew the older, sweet, mime, Jake who contrasts as the younger, arrogant mime and Bob, tall, dark and handsome, the ideal mime. The highlight of this project for me was when the tutor Siobhan had a first look at our characters and said “oo, there like a family” (I’m sad I know) but for me it felt like the characters really came together.

The introduction scene and the scene with mine and Harshali’s mimes together for me work really well, I’m so glad we decided to these scenes even if we cannot use them in the end. I’ve learnt a lot about how difficult this can be, some of the issue that can go wrong: Key frames moving about the timeline, the time and process to re adjust the characters to interact for the sake of 2 seconds.  

As for my animated piece, I think some of the strong elements are the poses the character performs. I was looking to make the character do the same poses as a catwalk or runway model, along the lines of Baywatch (as the scene was a beach) so placing pauses in between poses to make the character appear to be striking a pose helped me a lot with the timing of the animation. I also tried a few of the poses in front of the mirror to see if they would work comfortably.

Watching the animation I think some elements of the fast, snappy timing came from the same watching the Fred Quimby series of Tom and Jerry have worked successfully, although the animation needs much more polishing, I think there is a fast beat to the overall tempo of the animation.

Weakness

There’s a lot of room for polishing in my animation, some of the poses are think are a little to exsaggerurated. There are still issues with the timing but I do think I’ve improved since the beginning of the course. Some the arcs, particular the arm arc when the mime is holding the piece of chocolate above his head, even though the animation is quite fast and he is meant to almost “whip it” out of his hand, the points I’ve key framed the wrist don’t make a natural movement

 My biggest weakness is some of technical errors and hiccups in the animation, areas such as the walk cycle at the beginning and “pops” in areas where the IK handle has been pulled too far. I really have become a lot tighter when in the polishing phase of the animation I make a lot of difference to the piece. I’ve started switching to FK in order to prevent some of the popping and it works really well for arm and leg arcs.

I struggled at the beginning of the project with getting to grips with Maya, but I’m really glad I’ve had the chance and the time in university to switch to Maya and work with such talented people in the field.  I feel I’ve learnt a lot about the in a short period of time.

Conclusion

I want to credit Harshali and congratulate her on her models featured in Dorothy of oz. I’ve feel like gained a lot of experience from her. I’ve feel as though improved so much even though I have a long way to go with my animation skills and is an experience I can take away with me and use in the industry.  

WIP mime reference secondary animation

Today I've been adding touches to the animation, I had to animate the quiff as it is quite a big part of the character design, and an essential element of secondary animation.

 I used my reference I collected from the green screen studio, (fortunately for me my hairs been growing really fast lately) and blocked out the shapes of the hair at point where Jake flips his hair back. I've adjusted the timing a little adding a full second to the flip in comparison to the reference and used a bit of exaggeration to emphasise the flip a little more. I wanted to have that old cartoony feel to it, referencing alot of the Tom and Jerry shorts of the MGM studios,  including "Salt Water Tabby". This is the style of animation the group is aiming for,       

I been referring back to my reference whilst adjusting the timing, I still think the timing doesn't feel quite right for the character and i think I've worked out why.
Quick recap, going back to the beginning when we designed the characters during the planning stage, we decided on three characters with contrasting designs. We wanted a really big mime, then a really small mime and the final character which was just right, I have the smallest mime. What I didn't realise was the difference in timing between actions by small and tall people, I'm quite tall (6ft) and Id been using myself as reference for the mimes actions such as the jump and moving across the wall. But the character is much smaller in size (I think he would be around 5ft 5?), he arms and legs are a bit shorter, so I thought I needed smaller person to do the action for me.
 Lucky for me I had Rachael who was just the right size for job, we did a reference shot of the mime actions in the glass windows of the labs.





I watched the playback of the two together and I could see a slight difference in the of the moves, for example when she's moving along the wall, her actions are little more snappy and faster. Her jumping is alot faster and has a "spring" to it, something I could add to the mime performance to make the actions more believable and less floaty.  Rachael's poses were also a little different to mine because of the physical build

WIP Clean up playblast mime

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODhfP9Nt7xI

Clean Up list

00:03: adjust the motion of the right hand – too slow/ add an arc

00:04: Jake pops into walk cycle, need a few key frames and slow down the walk slightly

00:16: right hand flips out needs closer

00:15: flips a little to fast

00:19-00:20 : left hand moves down too fast

00:20 – 00:27: shoulders are too rigid, they need more dimension in the movement, some micro anticipation

00:28:Jake's left hand/arm moves too far back, it needs bringing forward

00:02: push isn’t clear, it needs less time more impact and it looks to floaty for the character

00:40: arm vector moves around too much, it needs holding in one place.

00:39-00:41: body pops out when looking to the right, i needs a pause in between the looking over shoulder.

00:50-00:53: poses are a little obscure, need retouching to be more believable, although it does work with the timing. Right hand pose is unnatural, needs to be put into right pose.

WIP 11 seconds club

I've been working on the block sequience of the 11 seconds club dialog, I had a mix up with ideas and tried a few different poses for different actions the characters Mrs Crawley and the profession could perform.

 Outline:The Mrs Crawley is trying to invent the time machine and it seems to be working this time, so she begins really excited on high tension. She goes from happy to sad when she relises shes failed again, but this time the Professor gives up and leaves the time machine.

I wanted to make mrs Crawley looks alot smaller than the professor, so I kept her the body posture quite close together and i''ve planned to keep her timing a little snappy and  in high tension to reflect personality. I think her character will be easy to empathise as we all been in this kind of situation where you try your hardest but still don't succeed. The professor's personality is much more confident, she is a powerful character so her gestures are alot more relaxed, stood upstraight and open.

I used the reference of Rachael & Rachael's performance to plan out the staging of the animation, I think I went a little overbaord with the idea so I have to make sure the concept (the time machine) is clear to the audience but doesnt overpower the animation. To do this i picked out ideas from old classics such as "Back to the future" and "H.G wells The Time machine",  we also have the Tardis, Stargate and more recently the hot tub time machine (thanks to Rachaels post). after generating ideas I made a few sketches and i came up with these final designs for the staging of the characters and the enviroment:

The light grey shaded shapes are the two characters
Darker shades are clocks
Square blocks in the background are machinery, buttons,

Final idea:

Two characters are stood side by side with a large clock in the middle Other blocks of machinery can be seen side by side.

   

Here I'm using the clock almost as a character for the time machine. I think positioning the characters like this shows most clearly to the audience the three most important elements of the animation, Mrs Crawley (right) The Professor (left) and the clock, (middle). The clock takes up the most area so it should be static and become part of the background during the performance of the two characters.

11 second club greenscreen/ Animating to soundtrack

Early start today, as we had the green screen studio booked for 10:00am,  I really liked Harshali's idea with the Cruelella De vill/ Meryl Streep character (think of the of fierce, fabulous poses she could do for her character). But I choose the Scientist idea, a sci fi theme and something a little different to what I would do, I'm thinking doing a theme like this could be quite diverse to the other characters I've animated beforehand, Mrs Crawley is a a enthusiastic young nerdy apprentice scientist with her tutor aold wise professor of science.
 sketched out the storyboard and key poses I had in mind and actions both characters are going to perform, here are a few  I sketched out before today session:

Female Professor poses 

Mrs Crawley poses

These are the original storyboard I drew Monday for the green screen session:

My idea: Mrs Crawley is an apprentice scientist excited about her latest invention - the time machine!


The scene opens with flash, as two metal doors slide open (picture elevator doors) as parts of the time machine fall from the roof and the smoke clears.

Mrs Crawley and a tall old female professor are stood side by side inside the time machine , Mrs Crawley has a remote in her hand controlling the time machine. The Professor has a clipboard for marking Mrs Crawley's invention.

First and last scene

(storyboard reads zig zap down and up)

I 
 we managed to film reference for the 11 second club thanks to R&R (both Rachael's) great acting skills.   with the reference i was able to take pick up much more, including the natural motions, arcs and lil ideas I would miss without the real performance. 

We did a few takes on the idea and after watching a few, I thought the idea needed to be simpler. So I looked over my idea again and made a few changes to simply the idea.

 The scene opens with flash, as two metal doors slide open (picture elevator doors) as parts of the time machine fall from the roof and the smoke clears.

Mrs Crawley and a tall old female professor are stood side by side inside the time machine , Mrs Crawley has a remote in her hand controlling the time machine. The Professor has a clipboard for marking Mrs Crawley's invention.

Mrs Crawley is looking out of the time machine ecstatic that they have gone back to the pre historic age, but the Professor is so "snobbish" and wrapped up in herself, she hasn't realised they've gone back in time.

 The Professor looks down at her clipboard ; "Please don't think were being ungrateful Mrs Crawley,"  finds Mrs Crawley's name and puts a cross next to it "but there comes a time when things are best left to the professionals"

 Mrs Crawley is shocked "But I..."
"now I really must go" the professor  jumps off the time machine and walks off screen. Mrs Crawley tries to stop her from leaving the time machine but is afraid to jump out of the machine.
we hear the professor off screen "good day"

The camera cuts to a long shot of a pre-historic background, with Mrs Crawley alone in the time machine.

I've changed the characters thoughts and some of  Mrs Crawley's actions but not the setting. I think this idea will come across alot clearer to the audience than the original because in the orginal storyboard, Mrs Crawley goes through the transition of a high to low, excited to sad, which I think is too much for such a short animation. So instead, Mrs Crawley's character stays excited character throughout the animation to avoid confusing the audience.

We have booked another green screen studio Friday 10:00am to re-shoot my idea with these changes, hopefully it will be clearer than before.
  

Harshali had managed to find a really good Jazz piece to fit in with the animation sequence, it has a really nice slow tempo which I think matches the beat of my character perfectly. I hadn't thought very much about sound up until now, I knew I needed a few of the cartoon Hanna Barbera sound effects to match up with the actions of my character, I need the shakey head sound effect at the head turn at frame 1200 and a "aaah" male voice at frame 960, as the head is rolling back, also I need a drop sound as he drops the chocolate into his mouth. I want to sync the three walk cycles at the beginning, middle and end with the animation to this audio as Siobhan suggested in the recording session today, I think it will help alot with the timing of the piece


Today we also had a chance to use the recording studio for the first time, I'd never used a sound booth before, it was so much fun and a great opportunity to get familiar the equipment used for pre recording sounds. We did a practice run for the audio to the animation, where we watched the animated clip on the screen and read the dialogue in time with the animation. Harshali and me first acted out the female voice in turns to to get different interpenetration for the female character, here is the second draft of the script we used:

Camera Profile/script

Beach Babe Female character dialog:

Dialog/timing

Introduction

(ahh the sun is nice and warm)

(three guys over there look a little strange)

Beach Babe: “mmhmmhm (humming tune) such a nice day…”

Beach Babe: “Is he looking at me” 0:00:07 (

Beach Babe: “w wait-woaw” - 0:00:09

Harshali’s mime: Andrew

00:0014 – “What is he doing?

Reaction to Doggy action – “eww”

Hitting the glass - “ouch!”

my mime: Jake

00:00:42 “hhh he’s nice”

00:00:57 “uh oh”

00:01:07 “?”

00:01:10“that’s it?”

Alper mime: bob

Bob flexing 00:01:18 “Mmmmm”

giving the gifts 0:01:42 – undecided

Suggestions:

“AWWW so sweet”

“Yes!”

“okay

After two takes we started to come up with more and more ideas, adding more to the dialogue.I think i worked alot better this way as the character felt and sounded alot more natural when the dialogue wasn't scripted, we even came up with the idea of using two characters thanks to Siobhan, the girly talk between best friends was so much fun and I think set the scene for the enviroment of the characters.

Friday I will be shooting one more take for the Time Machine sci fi idea then continuing with the mime animation for mondays recording session with our female voice actor. I want to get the complete sequence down with inbetween at least so the actress can understand what the character is doing and react more naturally.

WIP update mime

After a long weekend I've managed to restore my work form the hardrive, so here is a recent play blast of the scene so far:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fqrOJwEjoM&feature=youtu.be

I've added arcs in the arms up to frame 1100, the sequence is 500 - 1600 I've also adjusted the poses and in-betweens of the mid section where he flips his head back. Originally he was facing striaght at the camera (or the girl) but when i played back my reference i noticed i was facing the side. I don't think facing the camera would work because of his personality, he doesn't engage the viewer purposely until his performance (presenting the chocolates) so this had to be changed. I slightly exsaggurated the anicipation of the head.

frame 800-900 need to move the hands over to the right where the head is

frame 500 and the rest of the walk cycle the hands are compelety off sync

first half of the animation needs tidying up before further polishing/ second half needs inbetweens, arcs, overlapping action

need to complete Facial exspressions

Inspiration

Had done a little researching today, I thought this would be a good time to mention one of my most inspirational animators, James Baxster. He is a british animator and has worked on a number of Disney productions such as the Little Mermaid, (he animated : Ariel and King Triton) Lion King (Belle) and more recently Kung Fu Panda (he directed the dream sequence). He's worked for two major 3D animation companies Walt Disney Studios and Dreamworks.

I also found some really useful notes on acting for animators from the Flooby Nooby blog
http://floobynooby.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/james-baxter-notes-on-acting-for.html

Heres a short clip of his work from the prince of Egypt of Moses,  such powerful animation:
http://vimeo.com/31234436

11 second club idea

Today we proposed ideas for the 11 second club soundtrack, I had a few ideas but i wanted to come with something i hadn' tried before, so I've gone for a more sci fi, fiction senario

 the idea of over qualified undergraduate scientist applying to be on the board with professionally scientists. An over the shoulder view of the conversation, switching between the two.
  However I don't think the idea came across to well in the session today at uni. My colleagues had some great ideas of their own,  but my idea seem a little over complicated and needed to be much simpler in order to get the idea across with such a short sound clip, we made some really fun suggestions for scenarios for my characters and after gathering up ideas I came up with this one:


Two scientist stood next to each other, one is a tall skinny old lady dressed in a white lab coat with a clipboard, the other a young female intern wearing blue lab gloves and holding two test tubes.
gathered a few source image from H.G Wells The Time Machine and back to the future.

WIP mime breakdowns

Past few days I've been working from step mode to spline to check the animation, I think I have a lot of technical problems with the piece, some of which keep reoccuring. The hand on hips is quite working in spline mode as it does in step mode, due to the linear keys the computer sets up. I have to find a solution to this problem before next weeks session at least due to the amound of time we have left, there's also not alot of spacing inbetween key poses, giving the animation a constant follow through. 

In terms of the camera and setting of the scene, we have been working in as a group to decide on the positioning of the camera. Working as a group on computer animation is something I havn't had much exsperience with, so this is a big learning curve for me. One of the big difficulties we are having at the moment is the Staging, to begin with, we have to decide as a group where the camera has to be, if one of us decides to move the camera then we start to have continuity errors in the animation sequence and it will look like the girl is moving around the shot. Me and Harshali have a few seconds with both our characters in the scene which we will have to concider. 

From the feedback session, one of the main problems with the animation Siobhan pointed out that the camera is far to far away, this was a very good point, unfortunately my group couldn't make it to the feedback session so I made a note of this and passed it on, I have to try to get my animation into spline mode before next weeks session to keep up

Cut out animation refections

Looking for a little inspiration on storytelling, I found this nice cut out animation from the BBC film network. This piece is called "reflections", it was a col-aberration of the award winning computer effects and animation studio Framestore and the advertising UK based company Inflammerable directed by Sharon Lock and written by Diarmid Scrimshaw.






Analysis

What I really like about this piece and i think is quite interesting is how the mood in cut out animation can contribute alot to the animation itself. Cut out animation I think can be very abstract without purposely doing so, the look of the cut out characters in this piece visually communicate the man by marking out the features of his face and showing a clear silhouette of the character reflecting on his past, a simple, clean and clear design. The scenes, camera, position of the character and the shots (long shot mid shot etc) are all staged like a real film, but the characters are 2D.  I think this shows how the silhouette of character be it, 2D 3D or live action can tell the audience what is happening in the scene and who the character is.
 The 2D transitions in the piece give a strong, surreal, dreamlike atmosphere, such as the section where the man is walking down the street then splits in two too reveal his younger self, (perhaps metaphorically his inner child?) and even though the animation is limited to cut out animation, I think Lock and Scrimshaw have explored the 2D techniques so articulately and used transitions which have meaning to the concept of reflecting on the past.
 I think the piece demonstrates alot of creativity, the transitions are beautifully executed, I really like the simplicity of the umbrella shadows in the background and the cut out houses.

 

The Pirates! in an Adventure with Scientists

Little break today, I went to see Aardman's Pirates! on an adventure with scientists! based on Gideon Defore's series "The pirates" series. (2004: Pirates! on an adventure with scientists!) here's the taster of the



The studio is well known for its use of the traditional methods of stop motion or clay animation, a technique of using a pre-modelled plasticine figurine characters in a hand crafted environment. The models are moved into poses, much like the "pose to pose" technique of 3D animation except rather than blocking out the key poses then the in-betweens, the full sequence is shot together and the character is moved by hand, taking photos of each pose and in between.


My review

I think the character designs have definitely stayed true to the craft, even updated onto a 3D computer animated platform but Aardman proved this before with the release of Flushed away. The one problem I had with this was that there were so many lovable characters each I think had the Wallace and Grommet unique quality and so articulate in design.

However I wanted to know a little about the captains crew,  the cross-dresser? the drunk? even the fish dressed as a pirate had so much appeal, we are introduced to these characters at the very beginning and these characters for me they didn't appear as one-dimensional, simple characters; they have layers to them, which could have been unravelled more as the story progressed. Instead I think we are not given the full opportunity to "get to know them".
 I don't think there would have been much empathy for the crew because of the little background but then, as an animator, the thought of the animation team squeezing another 10/20 minutes of animation  for a little back story would make me feel more than enough sympathy to compensate.

Spoiler: The monkey I think had to be my favourite character and the flash cards gag worked so perfectly, I think the reason it worked so well was because of how the cards were presented in each of the scenes (the staging),  how one particular shot, the Captain, Charles Darwin and Monkey all fall from the tower and the cards fall as a secondary action, spelling out the monkey's sentence. Has to be one of Peter Lord's classic visual gags.

For animation, I think the locomotion of the characters and visual effects reflect the physical limitations and movements of the clay animation Aardman are most famous for. The arms and legs move just like the original Wallace and Gromet plasticine models with the bendy metal wires inside and the 3D models reflect the Plasticine material. This must have so difficult to animate as the animation team ain't just animating characters, they have to simulate the plasticine material of the characters as well.

The entire film is elegantly pieced together in such a bizarre fashion (almost daft, but in a good way) and has that charming British timeless touch Aardman brings to all their films. A must see I say.

Research - Timing

Interesting post thanks to Penny,  previous web banners from animation mentor, they have priceless information on animation tips for timing, an area I need to work on quite alot.

I picked up a few notes and screenshots from the webanner for future reference:

MY NOTES

Timing – how long it takes something to happen or not happen

Spaceing frame by frame displacements of moving elements within a certain time

24 frames = 1 sec

Basic timing

More frames = more slower movements

Less frames = faster movements

Basic spacing

Different spacing dependants the speed of the object – fast in slow out

Slow in slow out

Think of a car – start at 5mph, accelerate to 20mph to 50mph

More breakdowns are located at the beginning of the animation and the end with spacing in-between. 

Anticipation – robots movie, strong poses determine strong antipation – hold a pose for at least a second to achieve strong anticipation – remember this when working on mime poses, especially the introduction

Overshoot – after effects of the sudden stop

when a character or parts of him pass the final pose then settle back into it.

Overshoot in the graph editor: first a line up, over the key poses key frame , then back down to the key frame.  Put a key before the key pose and lift it higher than the keypose.

Consider materials. Toy story: Woody’s head is plastic but the body is cloth so there is overshoot in the head.

Weight: through time and space you can determine how light or heavy something is.

Bouncing ball:

Add more inbetweens makes a ball appear lighter and less frames to make a ball appear heavier. Use the tangents on the graph editor and lengthen for more air time and make them shorter for less.

Feeling

By varying you timing and spacing you can create feeling & mood

Ball bouncing: By varying one of the arcs of the ball, making it higher than the rest, creates an unexspected move, makes it feel playful.

Second ball the keys are tighter, timing is close together making the ball feel like it is in a rush no time to play around mess about.

Spacing the keys

Spacing the keys at the end gives the feeling of anger, he slams his hand down but before that he there are more keys in the arc.

http://www.animationmentor.com/webinar/timing-and-spacing-webinar/

All the principles covered are show in  this final animation.  We have the playful bounce over the box, the anticipation before the last box, the timeing switches to a faster paced with few keys in the spacing giving the feeling of the personality change in the ball, this ones serious. Then the ball collides with the wall, pausing on that one key pose for just under a second and drops with one frame, indicating its dead, or knocked out. Renember Ed Hooks: when something is dead, it doesn’t move at all we are alive because we move, act react.

Life drawing: babies

I took an hour out today and past two days to do a few observational sketches for the summer project this year, I had a few ideas in mind but I think I want the main character to be a baby or child-like character. I was inspired by Ed hooks, he made a very interesting point in the recent acting for animators newsletter and throughout the Animex workshop about babies, how little experience and knowledge they have. A baby has one goal when born which is to survive, learning becomes the action babies (or young children) act upon to meet this objective. I think we empathise with this objective as we've all exsperienced this situation before, we've all been young, helpless and I think it would be an interesting challenge to animate a child-like character.

The Sketches are from a few baby photo advertisements of babies using charcoal and graphite, looking into the proportions and "cute" poses for ideas for design ideas.

This sketch id from a baby model off youtube form Lon Harverly "you can draw" series, he talks a little about head proportions in the first part but more about drawing technique.

You can find more of Sketches from TV series "You Can Draw!" by Lon Haverly
www.lonhaverly.net

Life Drawing session

Today we had another life drawing session at 6 in the Athena building, I'm aiming to improve my drawing skills and the increase my ability to produce full figure drawing in a short space of time, practice makes perfect and i think i'm improving a little. I struggle alot with the 30 second sketches where I should be just drawing the gesture of the pose I sometimes will start to draw little details and run out of time.

"Gestures - 2 min poses"

I like to draw curvey lines, a technique I've been using alot when i produce drawing or sketches from life. I have to practice my shading a more to show form in the figure and reduce the amount of pencil strokes on a sketch, the more i practice the less lines i make and the better I capture the form. 

Intro reference/sketches - eating ice cream

Working on the introduction today with the group we talked about a few of the actions our characters are doing for the introduction scene. Harshali character is the leading character who whistles at the lady starting off our animation. So I went searching and found quite a few differnet gestures people use to eat iceream, I was looking over my refence clip (for reference) and found myself doing the same action over and over, people just dont eat ice cream this way. So I started observing a few youtube clips of commercials and people generally eating ice cream.

I've combined these with my own refence shot to come up with a few poses for the introduction scene, my character is stood further in the back as we planned out in the animatic. I sketched up a few gestures he could make in the introduction scene, I need more practice with maya so I've blocked out the poses using the norman rig, just a little practice.



 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yk8_CuHkO9Y&feature=youtu.be

Camera Script

Today we sat and discussed more about the female character in the scene. We wanted the ideas clear on the girl before the reference shoot tomorrow, we discussed her phases, reaction to the characters and gestures she would make, even though she's off camera we needed to plan out exactly what the character was thinking, her actions would affect the camera movements and reactions of the mimes.

We needed someone to read the script as the character for the reference shoot tomorrow, this would help us act out the reactions of the character. We also have to be aware of timing as in our previous reference shoots we've gone over the 30 mark for each mime. During the meeting typed up a script of her dialogue, actions and reactions to the mimes as guidance:

Camera Profile/script

Beach Babe Female character dialog:

Dialog/timing                              Reaction to                         Action

Beach Babe: “UGH”                               reaction to whistle

Harshali’s mime: Andrew

00:0014 – “What are you doing?                                              Surprised/unwanted (wtf)

“ouch!”                                         Hitting the glass

00:00:25 “ugh, NOOO”                           Reaction to the flower                 Disgust

my mime:  Jake

00:00:42 “Are you kidding?”                            strokes his hair back  

00:00:57 “uh oh”                               bang against glass/hands on face                    

00:01:07 “what was that?”/”seriously?”                  Jake walking off set

Alper mime: bob

       

00:01:18 “Mmmmm”                            Bob flexing                             Impressed

0:01:42 – undecided                            giving the gifts                        Totally impressed

Suggestions:

“AWWW so sweet”

“Yes!”

“okay"

We have officially tagged the girl as "beach babe" for the time being,  we've also decided to change some of the ideas around for the characters as this would work better for the scene. Originally my character, the vain cool type,  would after presenting his gift bang into the wall humiliating himself in front of the girl, but we decided that possibly Harshali''s character should perform the action to establish the wall at the beginning of the scene. We didnt want to use the same gag twice in the scene, my character would not be aware of the wall but the audience is so it wouldn't work for my character to bang into he wall too. 

Instead my character could stop and react to the wall with a suggestion James made last week (James the actor from the green screen session last week) to move across the wall, this would add a comedic factor to my character, who is quite obviously full of himself. We emailed Siobhan regarding this idea so we shall see how the session goes tomorrow.