Virgin Ident complete! YES!

I am very pleased that - after a long night - I have now completed the Ident project. It was fun to deepen my knowledge of Flash and incorporate a lot of hand drawn Artwork to carry out my idea of bringing snooker balls to life..




There was a moment of crisis last night - the flash file kept crashing. With the help of some determination and several cups of tea I solved it. The problem was I was trying to animate massive 'png' pool balls. By converting them to jpegs it allowed my computer to cope with what I was trying to get it to do.

I have learned from this last term to adopt a new technique to time managing projects. Pretend that the deadline is 48 hours before the actual deadline. This way I may be able to add all the finishing touches that I desire instead of handing in something that I still feel could be improved.

Anyways I fully enjoyed watching everyones ident.. its amazing to see the wide range of stuff that people produced.

I am now going to fully enjoy some sleep!

Knight Rider storyboard

I like that storyboarding is an interdisciplinary skill and can be used for Live Action as well as Animation. Its an area I am definitely interested in as It seems to offer a fair bit of creative license.

Jane - The talking empty jar...

So heres my final Flash project movie..



I found myself laughing out loud whilst working on this, it was fun to
give an inanimate object such character. I think I may have been subliminally influenced by Family Guy in terms of facial animation.. I found it helped to work on the realism of the setting to increase the impact of Jane the Jar and give her a sense of place. All in all I found it to be an enjoyable project..

The Life Aquatic - Animated sea creatures..

Love these sea creatures that were thought up by Wes Anderson and animated in stop motion by Henry Selick. They are the sort of aquatic fish that dreams are made of.. I thought they were done in CG but was surprised to find out that they are stop motion.

"For creature design in The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou, director Wes Anderson had the interesting idea of taking something you know, then adding one strong new element to it: golden barracuda; sugar crabs; jaguar shark. He believed the resulting creature would be something the audience would want to believe existed (I know I wish they existed). In the case of the Crayon Pony fish, I went for a slight variation from reality in anatomical design, but–as you see in my sketch–used actual crayon colors that Wes picked for the body. In bringing the creature to life, we gave it a carefully and beautifully animated horse-like mane with some equine head motions while having it look like it was floating in water."

Henry Selick, Director of Animation

Sources :
http://www.landmarktheatres.com/mn/lifeaquatic.html
http://www.awn.com/articles/reviews/hydronicus-inverticus-interview-henry-selick

Virgin Animatic

Heres my animatic... it seems essential to do this to see how the timing works and how the whole thing looks as a whole. I'm happy with the music as well (borrowed from my mate Nathan - hopefully thats cool but better check with him soon..!)



Now all that remains is the final version......

Flash Project

Picking out the bits of audio I liked the sound of...(no pun intended)

Initial brainstorming/mind mapping...

Composition/Character development

We have a character!

Designed into Photoshop then Flash. The top one is a bit too pretentious for my liking so I will use the bottom one.

Placed in her kitchen environment

Backgrounds

Here are the backgrounds I have been working on. I enjoyed getting fully involved with these as it allowed me to release my 'inner artist' and get funky with paints and pastels etc..! I have included some of the rough thumbnail sketches that I based my final backgrounds on.

These 3 ideas were totally my imagination:

My kitchen and a Ratatouille design:

The lower 2 thumbnails were developed from a photo of Gylly beach:

I developed these thumbnails into my 1st final layout background:

Some further thumbnail ideas - The bottom one was inspired from a hardware shop I used to work at:

I developed the thumbnail idea into my 2nd final background - heres the line drawing:

and in colour - using pastels, pencils and a pen :

Some more thumbnail ideas - the first one is based on a photo I took of a creepy atmospheric corridor, the second is my room :

A drawing of inside the media centre:

Here, the first drawing is from a photo from inside a coffee shop, the 2nd is from my imagination and the third is from my memory of Brighton beach:

These three are all from photos I took whilst travelling in China and Hong Kong:

I developed the last one into my 3rd final background, here is the line drawing:

and in colour - using gouache, pastels, pencils, highlighters and pens:

Here is the photo that I used as reference:


As you can see I got really absorbed into creating these, especially the last one. It was great fun!

Live at Five

I quite enjoyed working on this project with Joe, Chloe and Lucy. It involved producing graphics
for the Live News program being broadcasted at five by the broadcasting studios. We were given very short deadlines (i.e. around 1 hour to do the weather maps) so we had to work well together and spread out the work evenly between us. I enjoyed my role as producer, acting as a communication point between the broadcasters and animators, trying to ensure we would meet the deadlines.


Pictured above is the weather map we produced (as you can see - a very bright and optimistic forecast.) We also produced both static and animated astons and surf/tide reports. At 5pm we went to the gallery to watch our work being put to use in the Live at Five program. It was insightful to see behind the scenes of how News programs work and rewarding to see our work put to good use. I felt we worked efficiently and well together.

Lost and Found blog link

Just came across this great blog containing a lot of the Art production behind the BAFTA Award winning Childrens Film - Lost and Found...

Check it out to see the amount of artistic preperation required to produce an animated short film. It is very inspiring and visually tastey!

http://lostandfoundartblog.squarespace.com/

How to make an Amblongus pie - My Illustrated book

Here is an Illustrated book I created in early 2009

Its based on a poem by Edward Lear called "How to make an Amblongus pie"

I rendered it out with gouache (using a couple of paint brushes and a sponge), pencils, pens, pastels, tape (to mask out the areas of white), marker pens and highlighters. It would take half the time to sketch it out then half the time to do the final Artwork. Some pages took around 30 hours to complete all together! It was a mission but I'm pleased with the outcome and would say that it was worth the effort. This shows my interests when it comes down to Animation may well be around pre-production - designing characters, concept art and storyboarding.

Take 4 pounds (say 4 1/2 pounds) of fresh Amblongusses...

And put them in a small Pipkin. Boil them for 8 hours Incessantly

Add 2 pints of new milk and boil for 4 hours

When you have ascertained that the Amblongusses are quite soft

Take them out and (flap opens: put them in a wide pan)

Grate some nutmeg over the surface, cover carefully with powdered gingerbread

(this half joins together with the last page - in book form you can open it out in a super wide format) curry-powder and a sufficient quantity of cayenne pepper

Shake the pan violently til...(flap opens: all the Amblongusses become a pale purple colour)

Then, having prepared a paste, insert the whole carefully

Adding a small pidgeon, 2 slices of beef, 4 cauliflowers and any number of oysters

Watch carefully till the crust begins to rise

Throw the whole out of the window as fast as possible (Flap opens showing a small Amblongus)

Flaps that open on pages 5, 8 and 12

Charlie Walk Cycles

Here is my 2D walk cycle:



I think its fairly smooth and looks a bit like my walk.
It took all day with a 4 hour break (so probably around 3/4 hours altogether).

Here is my 3D Walk cycle:



I used the pose to pose technique as opposed to straight ahead.
I then layered up actions simultaneously across the different poses adding in
the occasional key pose to make it less robotic.

Experimental Animation

Me and Al decided to have a go at some painting on plastic animations:

I found it to be an enjoyably process as it is hands on.. This kinda thing is great for metamorphosis.

Here is Als:



Here is mine:

Bradford Animation Festival...

I found this trip to be very inspiring and enjoyable...

Highlights for me were:

Jonas Odell's retrospective:


I really enjoyed the diversity of his Animation/Motion graphics techniques and styles.. I thought the film 'Lies' was very successful both in content and look. 'Never like the first time' was good as well. This told four different stories about peoples 'first time'. I think these worked well because they were all based on real peoples stories.

He's also done several music videos and I think it would be fun to work in this area of Animation. His primary software tools he uses is After Effects.

I talked to him at the party and found out that he used to use a sketchbook but not so much anymore and that he hasn't got a degree but just knew the right people which put him onto the right track. He also said he doesn't know anyone who can fund their own work without going into commercials.

Pritt Parn:



Very nice work.. incredibly imaginative and totally his own. It was a lot to absorb. As soon as my attention began to fade something crazy would happen and re-engage me. Loose narratives and a humorous aspect to his work... I found it both funny and upsetting when one of the characters is convinced that 'Life is Nice' - as soon as he shouts this out to someone trying to commit suicide the beak of a bird impales him...Harsh!

I also found some of his character designs very fun like the walking carrot.. completly random but entertaining nonetheless.

The talk

I did a couple of workshops :

Character design workshop:

with Curtis Jobling who drew Bob the Builder.. He mainly told us his life story and how he got to where he is. After completing a HND in Illustration he managed to get unpaid work experience at Aardman this soon led to getting paid work on commercials with them. He was extremely pro-active, always drawing, visiting publishers and broadcasters consistently, keeping ongoing correspondence and making the connections. He was inspired by 'the Sandman' and illustrated a couple of his own childrens books - 'Frankensteins cat' before working on Bob the Builder. After his lecture he asked us to draw a few caricatures of eachother.

I took down the following notes :

Networking - being pro-active

Being at the right place at the right time

If designing a show/book avoid being Brit Centric i.e. using British roadsigns etc... because your work may need to be marketed internationally

Greetings Cards - Good way of networking

Develop different ideas simultaneously

When designing a set of Characters keep something consistent in all of them

Keep characters timeless don't set them in a particular time period as they may get old fashioned... (i.e. Poochie in The Simpsons)

Its your portfolio/showreel that matters

Have 100% belief if your idea

Keep doing life drawing (good for knowledge of anatomy)

Caricatures (good way to approach Character)



Sketchbooks are vital for:

Good practice & Discipline

Stockpiling ideas

Working through different Characters

Get constructive and helpful criticism from a trustworthy friend

Good to bounce ideas off other people and work collaboratively

Curtis saw some of my own work and was impressed with my illustrated book 'How to make an Amblonguss Pie' He said that it was excellent, well designed and that it's unique - he's never seen anything like it before.. I will post my Amblonguss Pie book up soon...

Scriptwriting workshop:

No one actually showed up for the Friday session so I ended up just having a 1:1 chat with him. He gave me a lot of advice on writing and pitching and told me what its like working as a writer. I asked him about 'Pinky and Perky' and he told me that it wasn't so successful due to physical gaps in production - ie. he writes the script in one country, it gets produced in another etc...

Shows must be a lot more cohesive when everyone working on them is in the same building (I'm not sure if this happens so much anymore with the internet.) He also told me that the reasons why The Simpsons is so successful is that they spend 9 months writing each episode. Writing then re-writing then writing again with everyone involved... Crazy!

He instructed that to be successful at pitching you must have energy, enthusiasm and good presentation. If you're presenting a TV series just show a 1/2 minute Pilot.. A lot of films start off with an early complication that the rest of the film has to go on (i.e. UP - Starts off with the tragedy of the Old Character losing his wife.) He also said how making films is a lot like making music.. He said how important characters roles are in films and you can pitch your idea through the characters perspectives - (ie. imagine you are this person.....)

My favourite films:

Professional: The Cat Piano, Liver Good Life
Student: Operatatatata, Bruce, Project: Alpha, Leitmotif
Commercials: Journey to the East, OXFAM: Face the music
Music Videos: Les grands chevaux
Tv series: Masha and the Bear "How they met"
Shorts shorts: Iran: a Nation of Bloggers, At Death's Door, The life of Death
Features: Fantastic Mr Fox, Coraline, UP (didn't see Mary and Max - noooooo!)
Panoramas: Txt island, Sapmi, Wolves, Photograph of Jesus, Little Puppet Boy
Lies, The Cable Car

Focusing on the favourites of my favourites:

Journey to the East:

Love the artwork behind this, the music and the animation. Amazin'!


At Death's door:

Good characterisation ... very short and very funny.


Fantastic Mr Fox:

Didn't see it at Bradford but in Falmouth... Thought it was really good and lived up to the legendary work of Roald Dahl. Good characters. The whole film worked together nicely and was consistantly entertaining. The Animation and sets were imaginatively created and executed. Liked the implicit meaning that 'Meditation is good.'


The Cable Car:

Looked visually appealing and was pretty funny. Admired his ability to cope in a high stress situation..