Animation Topic - Session 2

Last lesson we began getting properly into the animation project, starting the day with some Flash work. I've used flash before, but i'd forgotten how to differentiate between when it is correct to use a shape tween and when I need a classic motion tween, etc. so this session was really useful catchup / memory jog, along with learning how to create a movie clip that works on it's own repetitive time-loop while still working on the main timescheme, pretty darned useful.
After we had concluded this, I got a chance to mess around with a Bamboo tablet before break, which turned out to be a disaster on my behalf. Apparently my tablet at home is far better calibrated and far less hyper-sensitive, meaning after god-knows how many years of me becoming accustomed to it's pen-to-paper-like attributes I am hilariously bad at using this one. I am considering finding the item number on my tablet, downloading the driver software to the school computer I use and bringing in my own tablet to work with, for fear I completely mess up the project with my un-calibrated mess of art I am capable of at best with those tablets.
Either way, after break we were introduced to the author of the story we are basing our animations on, Ian Burton. After some persistent questioning from Skye and some insightful responses, he moved on to discussing our ideas with us. I was a tad nervous about putting mine across, fearing perhaps that i'd interpreted it too far and taken away from the initial meaning of the short, but after a brief explanation of our idea and a whistle-stop tour of my character designs, he seemed to be pretty happy with the idea and took a shining to the Fangiyap design. I was actually really happy about this, possibly because i've worked with other people on my own ideas before in other contexts, and it's always a difficult and uncomfortable process, so I was proud to have done his story justice. (especially seeing as I enjoy the original story a lot myself.)
We managed to fit in some planning time, in which we decided upon our final section we are going to animate, the running scene. We also decided there would be a switch into hand-drawn pictures recorded shakily with a handheld camera and edited using Premiere Elements, to give the 'daydream' effect of Kow-one's fears chasing her as she flees the herd.

After lunch we had a professional animator, Sam Morrison, come in to talk to us. I was expecting tips on animation, some step-by-step walkthroughs or something of the like, but I was pleasantly surprised to find he actually had come to talk to us about different ways of angling things and using different cuts to create effect and set mood. It was a really useful talk, the movie clips were good and it helped me to think about something I had never really taken into consideration before. At the end we did a brief storyboarding task to end the day, using a specific genre and adapting a scene to fit it.

Run Cycles (Almost)

It has recently dawned on me that during this animation project, I am going to have to animate a run cycle. Given that fact that in my past endeavours into animation these were the one thing I could not do at all, and that in my recent artwork my anatomy has been pretty poor, I realised I should probably get some run-cycle practice done sometime. This is my practice run at doing a set of quick animated gifs of the cycle. The results were pretty shocking myself, but I practised making gifs out of a few frames, starting with a basic anatomical sketch (attemptedly):

Moving on to an improved sketch, with features roughly added in:

Which I drew a layer over each separate sketch layer to make a final lineart:

Which admittedly is pretty poor, so I thought, as the final product would have background and colour, perhaps fades to white or black could be used for dramatic / slowmotion effect, and if I were to use a backing track I could synchronise the music to the clip using these, so I tried making gifs with these transitions, being my final piece until I decide (if I ever want to return to these sketches) to add background and colour:

(Yes I really do need to work on this, i'm aware. Golly gee.)

Animation review

As mentioned previously, in this post I am going to be reviewing an animation. Cyriak created his video, Cycles, using after effects. It uses continuous looping mixed with other animation clips to make an unsettling yet intriguing appeal. (as do all of his other pieces.) I think it is brilliant, the surrealism that messes with your mind while watching is great. It must take a heck of a lot of intelligence and talent to be able to manipulate a simple clip to make three minutes of seamless chaos. Making all the different parts work together in the loop must have taken many months, perhaps even a year.
I would assume the target audience for this and most of his other work, would be older teens upwards, especially those with darker minds or interest in technology/abstract work.

Animation topic 1

Today we began our new topic, animation. We were welcomed back to school by a brief discussion about the different types of animation (stop motion, CGI, flick-book, etc.) and how to define it. The definition we eventually settled on was ‘playing still images at a high speed to create the illusion of movement.’ – Which is a pretty accurate definition if you think about it.
After setting out the different types of animation, the obvious next step was to watch some for ourselves. We looked at a clip from a surrealist film in stop motion/clay animation, which was an interesting combination of live action frames crossing over with clay versions of the scene. I found it quite terrifying, actually, but it was useful and perhaps inspiring to see. Secondly we watched some stop-motion pez work to contrast. I’m a fan of their work, and find the quirky retro feel adds to the amazing talent that the animation clearly portrays. After that we watched some of Cyriak’s work, which I enjoyed, me being a fan of his dark-humoured, disturbing brilliance. I will elaborate on my opinions on it in my next post, but to say the least he has huge amounts of technological intelligence and talent in what he does. Finally we watched a clip of drawn-frame animation, an old quirky children’s show involving a cat. I found the way they managed to get the story across without huge amounts of movement and quite a few loops / stills was very impressive.
After this we were finally introduced to our project brief. This term we are going to be animating a piece inspired/based on a story from the anthology ‘Bristol short story prize’: The Bovine Histories.
I was at first sceptic of the story, as if the initial impression of the plotline is misspelt bovine creatures who talk and sing did not appeal to me in the slightest, but as the story progresses I find it is actually rather well written and the thoughts behind it show to be good, and it provoked an idea for the animation that I deemed to be suitable for bringing forward.
The story follows a day of Kow-one, a cow who remembers. It portrays the building of the friendship between her and the leader of the herd, the oldest, wisest, and keeper of the Kow Histories. It plays with the idea of ignorant bliss and hidden darkness. I found it to be very well done.
My idea for an animated interpretation of this story is what first came to mind after reading it.
I thought that animating singing, talking cows would be a little too Disney, cliché, ridiculous. It works as literature but as genuine imagery I don’t think I could do it justice without looking ridiculous. So, as a resolve, I decided to personify the characters.
My vision of this is that it is set in a post-apocalyptic-esque world, in which resources are scarce and humans are few. The cows are in captivation ruled by the stickman, but are not aware of their fate thanks to the fact that they were born after they could have possibly been told that their way life could be different, they live in blissful ignorance with hints of Stockholm syndrome. This is background information that will be subtly portrayed by the derelict scenes, the barbed wire fences, the bare brick walls, the grey skies for pathetic fallacy. The cows are a group of females, all wearing the same outfit of black trousers and a shirt with their number on. All of them have a number except Hathor. (she will either have a question mark or simply no design.) The stickman is an anonymous figure, wearing a trench-coat and holding a whip/cane type thing, his ‘stick’. The Fangiyap was never said to be a dog, so I re-designed it to be a fanged hybrid creature, with tiny pupils in small sunken eyes, and row after row of razor sharp teeth. It looks like a sort of hybrid between a dog, a cat and a hyena. Kow-one will have short hair and a young face, whereas Hathor will have long hair and a calm, wise, mysterious appeal. We are yet to decide on the section of the story we want to animate, but I think the best ideas yet are either the scene in which Kow-one runs away, and the scene where Hathor explains how the stickman kills and eats their kind.

Editing session 2

(Technically this is editing session 3, but last lesson I had no new footage to work with, so I spent it refining clips and finishing documents, so I didn't feel the need for a new blog post.)

This lesson we began with a group discussion, in which Sir claimed that some nostalgic pieces of media are the best in their field, and I suppose the point was that despite him thinking, in his words, the film is 'nostalgic but clearly shit', he managed to put across his point using persuasive language. It was pretty entertaining to hear my peer's responses to this, but the point still got through, and that led us into creating the press pack.

After writing a good 200 or so words on Censored, we moved on to analysing a movie poster, then (you guessed it) we created / completed our own. I have made two posters, one using my graphic art piece, the other using images from the film. This is the latter:

I was quite pleased with this, as it incorporated screen-shots in a very stylised and edited way, rather than simply screenshotting, captioning and then being finished.

After break, we got stuck in to finishing our films. I had recorded the rest of the clips I needed, along-side some new ideas I could include in the film. We were using a new technique of work management, in which we  are set targets, either by ourselves, our peers or Mr Gove. My targets over the lesson were as follows:

Target for rest of lesson:

-          Finish difficult editing piece.

Mr Gove’s Target:

-          Adjust volume levels – focus on voiceover

Target until end of day:

-          Complete ending for film

-          Finish posters 

So following these I completed my film. We all exported our films, and after lunch we had a screening / feedback session. The general opinion was that my film is good, but that the ending needed work. I took on board the constructive criticism, and edited the end. This is my final version, posted as unlisted for the moment:

Editing session 1

Today we began editing our films. This was my first time using Adobe Premiere Elements, so for the first half hour or so it was merely me playing around and getting to grips with the software, but once I had worked it out I  found it to be really useful software. I managed to edit the opening sequence perfectly in sync with what I had pictured in my mind on the first conception of the idea for my film, which I was very happy with, and following this I managed to edit 34 seconds of complete film, the only thing I need to add in to that 34s is the voiceover, which I can record at home then edit into my film later. Once I have made this and filmed two / three more scenes, I will have everything I need to finish my film.

I will be booking a camera tonight, so I can finally complete my footage, log my clips and finish the film.

I exported my film to an avi file, so I could share it on the school network to show the class, and to upload my draft to youtube. I added annotations on the video to give an idea of when the voiceover lines will be, and what they will say.

Today, I also learned that using the original HD camera files does not work with these computers, due to file encoding issues and problems with the school network, so before I could edit I had to change the video format to avi.

This is my film as of yet, with some things that need modification, no voiceover and a general (justified) sense that it is incomplete, but despite this, here it is:

Presenting ideas to class

Last lesson we spent most of our time creating our presentations, and then in the last two lessons we presented them to the class. I wrote a script and created a powerpoint presentation, putting more emphasis on the oral side and keeping the powerpoint as support and background for my speech. I did not put any text on the powerpoint, as I find it rather tedious to read straight from it, when those watching could just as easily read it themselves.

My powerpoint was this:

Censored

View more PowerPoint from marlandk