Characer Profile/sketches updated

Updated the character profile for Jake, I've changed the hair to a more stylish design with a white quiff, to highlight the moment at the beginning of the animation sequence where he sweeps his hair back with his hands.  This is the moment that really defines his character to the audience and is one of the stronger poses of the sequence. If I have time I will add secondary animation to the quiff, just make it bounce a little after he touches it. This the more refined I'm making this character the more and more he actually really makes me shudder (ugh), but at least he is coming along nicely.

This is how I visualised Jake before I started to finalise the design of the rig, the white streak in his hair is influenced by my favourate timeless villain Cruella De Vil. I wanted to add this prop to my character as its become almost a symbolic icon of high fashion, villainous, dastardly and devilishness in animation. My character shares the same traits as Cruella, the high power centre and open gesures which suggests high status, power and authority.

 




I've summerised the character into this short profile just give the basic idea of the character.

 I like to get as much group feedback as possible too so I'll be showing this to Harshali and Alper, its nice to have someone else's opinion on your work.  

The Thinking character

Today I've been looking up a little research on the topic of the "thinking character", I shall have to start referencing sources because I keep losing them once I've read an article or page - silly me.

So "The Thinking Character" what does this mean as principle? well to describe it vaguely I'd say this is the common sense behind the character. Any day to day movement or actions we perform as humans has a thought process behind it. As humans are, we think before we act, we wouldn't do anything without a reason - unless were brain-dead, but then we'd be zombies. Our body language from the action can suggest what we are thinking. This is what gives the illusion behind animation, the character on screen is a puppet or the body, the animator has to be the mind of the character through planning the thought patterns and animation.

I found a very useful quote from Walt Disney, "In most instances, the driving forces behind the action is the mood, the personality, the attitude of the character-or all three. Therefore, the mind is the pilot. We think of things before the body does them."

This film was released recently "The Artist" a tribute to the Hollywood silent era, I've been meaning to go see for a while, I'm entregued by the whole idea of the movie.

My ideas for the scene refined

I've done a second take on the idea, I needed more mime performance so I've decided after a little more research to include a wall in the performance, am quite sure Harshalii has the same idea so perhaps we could combine the wall scene and make it exist through the animation sequence.

Beginning of the scene: Jake pushes Andrew off the set

His Action: pushing Andrew with his finger

His mime performance

Objective:

Impress the love interest with his performance

Obstacle:

His comrades

Middle of the scene: (after his performance)

His action:

To impress the love interest

I've typed up a short list of my characters actions in the performance to make it clear what he is doing performance:

Close up: pushes Andrew off screen with his finger

Long shot: Turns to face the camera

Long shot: Strokes his hair from front to back, wiping his hair back

Long shot pats the back of his head, posing

Long shot: takes a pose with his hands on his hips 

Long shot: reaches to the left for a box of chocolates

Long shot: opens the lid takes a piece of chocolate out

Close up: drops the chocolate in his mouth 

Long shot: chews the sweet then closes the lid (this is important! dont not forget to close the lid)

Long shot: walks over the camera to offer the chocolate (note his eyes are closed)

Long shot BANG! walks face first into the wall - drops the chocolates - grabs his face in agony (this happens all at once)

Long shot: using the left hand, then the right hand, Jake feels the wall

Long shot: Jake flips his wrist - "aw screw it" gesture and walks off stage

Alternate ending:

Long shot BANG! walks face first into the wall - drops the chocolates - grabs his face in agony (this happens all at once)

Long shot: Jake bounces back and falls on the floor landing on his butt

Long shot: Jake is upset and begins to cry (in mime)

Long shot: Jake gradually stands up and sulks offstage

Alternate ending two: 

Long shot BANG! walks face first into the wall - drops the chocolates - grabs his face in agony (this happens all at once)

Long shot: Jake collapses, he is out cold.

I;ve come up with three endings just to try out in the green screen Out of the three I think the first ending has the most potential to show the character miming, but the last ideas has much moer comedic value. 

I've been watching a few additional mime totorials as well, with a little practice infront my bedroom mirror, heres a few from last weeks leture which have helped a bit:

Heres a more interetesting clip from Tony Montanao, he talks about including personal feelings in the performance, as actors do for acting techniques and how to incorporate them into the performance. His ideas inspired me to create the last conflict where Jake walks into a wall and gets worked up over the embarrassment.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUWBLM7a32Y&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Plt1wY_t1FI&feature=related

Character development: Jake Character Sheet

Few notes on character developement from Carlos Baena, thanks to:http://www.shaunfreeman.com/animating_tips/character_development.htm

"Story: 

o Do you care about the characters?
o Is there Conflict?
Personality: 
o How does the character feel about himself?
o His/Her Strengths and Weaknesses.
o What does he/she want in life?
o Goals, desires and hopes.
History:
o Little history about him.
o What events shaped him into what he is?
Environment:
o Hostile, friendly, oppressive, country, farm, college, poor, rich…
Music:
o What style of music reflects the heart and attitude of your character?
Design:
o Character design says a lot."

I've used the notes I collected from attending the Ed hooks class during animex week and this source to create a character sheet for my character in our group Idea.  

Jake Character sheet

Name: Jake

Age: 17

Gender: male

Ethicity: white/British

Family: parents – only child

Attair: posh, trendy, mime

His Values: Himself, his profession/career, his possessions

Description: Jake is your typical 17 year old boy, he can be selfish and has an arrogant streak about him he always has his way, likes to exceed people’s expectations of him, even if it means cheating.

 Being the only child to his wealthy parents, Jake has enjoyed a comfortable life having everything given to him at his beckon call. He’s doesn’t take lightly to rejection or in fact the word “no”.

Jake is a student from the performing arts college studying the art of mime and silent performance, he takes his studies very seriously to the point where he likes to dress in character at all times. In his spare time he likes to attend ballet classes He hangs with his two comrades Andrew and <Alper’s mime> and likes to travel to new places, he enjoys performing street mimes to impress people, especially girls.

Strengths: confidence, performing skills,

Flaws: his immaturity, childish, stubborn, arrogant, uptight.

Small 5ft 3

IQ: low 60

Education: mime school/performing arts

Religion: atheist/ believes in himself

Ipod: Pop

Profession: performer mime artist

Habbits: eating

Hobbies: dance, ballet, street performance

Fears: rejection,

Attair: casual, trendy, mime

Status: rich parents, comfortable

Sexual orientation: straight

Jakes performance in the scene:

Jake begins by pushing the first character out of the way; he then adjusts himself ready to begin his mime act. He starts his mime by taking box and opening it, revealing chocolates by miming out the act of eating one.

Beginning of the scene:

His Action:

His mime performance

Objective:

Impress the love interest with his performance

Obstacle:

His comrades

Middle of the scene: (after his performance)

His action:

Moves Andrew off the stage

Objective:

Clear the area for his performance

Obstacle:

Andrew

(After rejection)

His action:

Leaving the scene gracefully after receiving no for an answer

Objective

To leave with dignity/ protect himself

Obstacle:

His comrades/the love interest

His conflict:

Competition with the other mimes

His failure to impress the love interest

Jake images

Monstre à Paris: Monster in paris

Had a trip to the local cinema to see Monsters in Paris. The film has had very positive reviews for its original storyline and, honestly, I couldn't agree more. A giant, mutated, musically gifted, singing  flea roaming the streets of Paris? and just look at the characters, so appealing,

The only flaw for me is the overuse of characters and too many plotlines happening at once. At the climax of the movie when the villain shoots the flea, I completely lost empathy because the film had all the characters overcoming obsticales all at the same time. I also thought the film was too balance in terms of importance of the characters, the film immediately opens with a protagonist (A movie projectionist) in a dream sequence, which I think describes to the audience as it did to me that this is who the film is going to be about, this is the protagonist, but 30-40 minutes into the film, we are introduced to two other characters who all have and share equivalent screen time to the which kind of makes the film feel like a television series.

first group meeting

Today we had our first group meeting to discuss ideas for mime act. I think we've decided on one particular idea rather and a senareo for the mime act, the mimes are going to attempt to perform to impress a love interest off stage an as an audition.

immediately I had this idea in mind:

Characters and senaro are different, but the staging and some of the character performances maybe just what we are looking for.

rehersals/reference shoot

Today we did the reherseals and reference shoot for the mime scene, we had the green screen booked for 10 in the morning, quite an early start.We didn't really start til around 10:30 when Harshali arrived (I was worried nobody would turn up!) but we managed to to produce quite a few takes on our idea with just the two of us.  We switched and did a few takes of each others characters and some for Alper's mime too, then later in the day joined Rachael, Rachael and Raf's group to help out and share ideas.

. I wanted to try out a few of the ideas I had for my character, the actions for the first part are the same: walk - pose - box of chocolates - munch munch- walk forward - bang into wall, but the second section I wanted to try out two reactions to the wall. First was a bounce back, where Jake (my character) would bounce off the wall then acknowledge the "obstacle" which is the wall in mime.

The second Jake was to take a tumble onto the ground from the rebound, get back up then touch the wall, just add that slapstick-comedy factor I thought it would be best to take advantage of the green screen session to experiment with these ideas and see which could work and which wont. I think watching back the footage that both ideas could possibly work, but I need to exaggerate the facial expressions more in my acting, I think my scene will work better after watching the feedback if I show a transition from confident & happy to embarrassed and sad, I'll have to try this in the next session.



This was the sequence I used for reference of slapstick comedy for the section of the animation, of course the tricky part was the fact that my wall wasn't real so we had to improvise aha.

Mime research

Researching mime acts for more ideas on my characters performance, i found this great little number from the Cirque su soliel show Quidam form the Royal Albert Hall.
 The performer kind of reminds me alot of the orginal Charlie Chaplin film, hmm perhaps hes taken his influences from him?,

Problems with the hands

Deadline this Friday and the pressures on, am not sure whats happened but I seem to have broken the rig somehow when animating the hands.  I've been using the CCA rig for two of my assignments and the rig's facial controls and hand controls have stopped working, basically the face and hands are locked in one shape/position and won’t move with the controls no more. They slightly click if I move the corresponding sliders to the highest values and the mouth still opens and closes but the eyes are locked shut and the hands are locked in a fist.

I've uploaded a pass of the animation sequence just after moving from stepped mode into spline mode as you can see from the render the hands have completely locked. I hadn't realised this problem until face face started suddenly too so kept on animating with realising the situation, not good. Here's the a screen print of the problem I've been having:

My solution and options:

I've emailed one of my previous tutors form last year who created the rig to see if he could help me at all but with the deadline so close I think my options are pretty limited to loading one of the previous versions and re animating the hands. I being thinking of a few other choices I could have to solving my problem too and  another possible choice is to merge two files together and copy the animation from one rig to a previous saved rig. I never tried this before so I'm not sure if it will work, I think this technique might work, fingers crossed.


Not the best situation to be in so close to the deadline but I shall look at it as a learning curve.

The cook: taken out of splines

I've decided to take the whole sequence out of splines just to see if the animation plays as it should and if theres any keyframes I need to include for spacing and adjustment of the timing. I think my poses work well, its just the timeing spaceing and some of the arcs which are slightly out of place. I have to be more controlling of my animations to get the timing right, I ususally work in multiples of 5 from pose to pose as a safety net for an even flow, but recently I've started to add keyframes i extra areas to smooth out the animation and adjust the timing. I'm glad at least I think im starting to get better at animating, but the deadlines coming up fast so I have to get a move on with the polishing.

Feedback session & improvements

I want to improve my animation skills as the year goes by therefore I want to get into the habit of making the list of the improvements I could make to the animation, pritoriting the major improvements at the top of the list. This list is a combination of faults I’ve found when plating rhe animation and some important feedback from my peers

Song and dance – Lady is a Tramp

Shorten the length the character bends forward frame 200 – looks like she’s in pain

Have the arc of the right arm facing the screen to strengthen the animation. 300 315

Add the shoulder shimmy back to frame 340 425

Presenter – the Cook

Animate the lower left leg at frame 240 (leaning pose) to make the character more real

Adjust the lip sync and pronunciation of the phonemes

Make sure the lips are still in sync and continued the lips sync to the end frame 600 -700

Include more emphasis on the arm stretch of frame 200 using squash and stretch to exaggerate the form

Head drifts frame 600 plus make him look at the blender

Lip Sync – Believe me

Stop the character from looking away at the last frame

Major improvements:

Have more control over the character, key more frames and watch out for drifts