Feedback March 30th

Met today with the guys to discuss a few things. First, we cleared up the issue with the scenery Penny brought up before break, and changed the brick wall for a plain, much less distracting wall.

Second, we showed where we were up to in our animation.

My feedback points are:

1) UP VECTORS - as mentioned before, these need fixing

2) Box consistency - Rossini's box seems to get smaller, just a matter of moving some IK joints to fix.

3) Static hips - in the middel of the piece, there is a reduced level of hip movement, they need a little more life in them.

Today I attempted to crack on in linear mode, to not much success. IN all honesty, I'm a little scared right now, I've been sitting here a good 3 or 4 hours, and all i've managed to do is loose a lot of the detail I established in stepped mode. maybe I need to define a little more in stepped. I am really concerned about falling behind at this stage though... I want to be solidly in linear by tomorrow evening, I think I'll email some tutors for advice. See you all tomorrow.

March 30th Progress

Okay! So I think I'm just about done with stepped, here's what we have so far...

I think I'm happy with the timing, the end needs work, mainly where Rossini walks off, and I think the part where he dusts off his arms needs work. I do like how he picks up his box however.

So, next we jump to linear, the result? Well uh, judge for yourself...

Elbows. Elbows everywhere. I'm pretty sure I can fix them by wrangling with the Up Vectors a bit. I was constantly hopping between IK and FK on his arms whilst animating them, so I guess some bizarre vector behaviour is to be expected. Welp, I know what I'm doing tomorrow, see you all then.

Keith Lango checklist

http://www.keithlango.com/tutorials/old/popThru/polish.html I found a fantastic checklist from Keith Lango, covering everything from lines of action, to polishing those function curves, basically, don't call your animation finished, until you've checked everything off this list! And to sum up... "One simple discipline that I have found always helps me is this: About the time you think you're done with your shot, make a preview of your animation. Then, while it plays repeatedly, step away from the keyboard and grab a pencil & some note paper. Let the preview play over and over, until you start to see every frame. Start taking notes of what needs to be fixed. Find EVERY single glitch, hitch and problem you can find and write it down to be fixed. Don't stop writing these things down until you've noted every issue you've spotted. Spend at least 5 minutes watching this shot loop over and over. Then, when you can't possibly find anything else to pick, go back to your file and fix everything on your check list. So many times we think we're done before we're really done with a shot. This simple exercise will force you to stop and see the animation for what it is. By noting every problem, you're ensuring that you won't forget something. Then, when you've fixed every problem on your list, repeat the process again. Trust me, you WILL find more problems, stuff you didn't see before. It usually takes me about 3 or 4 times of doing this last pass-last gasp effort to really put the piece over the top."

Gorillaz - Do Ya Thing music video

Oh how far they have come. Above is the latest Gorillaz music video fro the mind of cartoonist Jamie Hewlett, and produced by London's Passion Pictures. Now I don't usually like it when established 2D cartoon characters are thrown into the realms of 3D, but I think it works with these guys, sup rising considering how stylised Hewlett's designs for the group are.

Dreamworks - Rise of the Guardians

The first trailer for Dreamworks' upcoming 'Rise of the Guardians'. I have to say it looks different, even for a Dreamworks movie, who seem to flit from style to style with every new franchise. Still, i'm sold from this trailer, Russian Santa with his Yeti workforce won it for me, and with Guillermo Del Toro as an executive producer, I'll definitely give it a watch.

Mime Task - Animation Progress.

Okay, remember when I said I'd been busy fighting for my job? Well I lost it. Company went in to administration, and thousands of workers were struck off. Ah well, nothing to distract me from animating now. Right. First off, the initial blocking blast I showed before spring break. I know, I should have uploaded it ages ago, but at least it's here now. Very bare bones, just to pin down the timing with the dialogue really. One great issue Harshali brought up, when Rossini brushes dust off the top of his 'box', it's not instantly clear. So next time around, I'll work that gesture in. Started adding breakdowns here, as well as adding in a few little gestures, like Harshali's suggestion above, and a little glare at the criticising director. Rossini does not take criticism well. And then we come to today's efforts. I've worked a little more on exaggerating Rossini's first step to the side, just before he defines his 'box', as well as chipping away at adding more breakdown poses before jumping into spline and linear. I'm trying to be extra thorough this time round, defining as much of the animation as I can in stepped before moving into linear. Hopefully I'll get a nice, grounded feel to the piece, and avoid more of the floatyness that occurs when jumping tangents. Hopefully it'll streamline the polishing phase. I'll check back tomorrow with hopefully most of the stepped blocking done. Hopefully.

Mime Lessons

I came across this guy on YouTube, he gives mime lessons! I LOVE how he uses his fingers to emphasis surfaces, I'll definitely be using that one... This is another good one. The way he always has one hand in contact with the box, and uses his other hand to explore the other surfaces, really does add the extra bit of believability, that extra dimension, to the performance. I think I'll have to add a little bit more of these hand gestures into my scene, after all, Rossini is meant to be flamboyant, he would use gestures like these.

Jennifer Yuh Nelson

Whilst we're on the subject of women in animation, I came across the great read from Brenda Chapman's twitter feed and blog. http://www.brenda-chapman.com/blog/animation/celebrating-jennifer-yuh-nelson-the-most-successful-female-director-in-hollywood/ A great Q and A with Hollywoods most successful female director. Jenifer Yuh Nelson Rose to fame as the director of Dreamworks Kung Fu Panda 2, and work in story development on the first Kung Fu Panda. The full article can be found here. http://www.awardsdaily.com/2012/02/the-most-successful-female-director-in-hollywood-history/ She talks about the process of create a feature at Dreamworks, about artistic choices in the film, and about KFP2 in general, I particularly like how she describes the use of 2D animation in the film as a 'language' for Po, it's a completely. Ew way of looking at those fantastic 2D segments in my eyes, but amazingly true. Good stuff.

Update!

Woah, long time no update. Things have been a little bit crazy here, what with family commitments, Other university commitments, and of course, fighting to keep my job from the looming threat of insolvency (eep). That said, I've been plodding on with work and research, and just need to start updating again. I have a run of 5 days off work coming up, so prepare to be bombarded by many, many, dizzying updates. Here's how things are looking as of tonight (March 23rd). Mime animation - after receiving feedback in class before spring break, I needed to add in a couple of small gestures, just to make the on screen action that little bit clearer. I have done so, and am adding more and more breakdowns, heading towards moving to spline by the end of next week. Life Drawing - I've got plenty of life drawing waiting to be scanned, expect lots of weekly updates. Research - At the moment, I'm looking for examples of mimes performing the classic "box" routine, as my animation segment is pretty much built around it. In other news, I held a guest lecture at Teesside Uni's annual "Girls and Gadgets" conference, along with final year, and ex Disney placement student, Ty Davis, on our journey into the games/animation industry thus far. The aim was to try and drum up interest within the female student community, as only 10% of all people who work within the computing sector are women. The talk was very well received, we even managed to convert one would be law student into a would be animator! To give the talk a little bit of extra clout, and a cracker to end on, I took a stab in the dark and tweeted Animation Director Brenda Chapman, of Prince of Egypt and Brave fame. I asked if she had any words of encouragement for any young, female students, thinking about a career in animation. The next morning, there was a reply waiting for me, from Brenda, she wrote... "there's no genitalia requirement to be great artists/filmmakers, despite what anyone may say to the contrary!" It was a great note to end on. So thank you Brenda Chapman, for taking the time to respond, and for inspiring more young animators! See you all next time.

Skype Session 8th march

Defining Character- Revised Clips.

So after digging a little deeper in my research efforts, I decided to change clips. I wasn't satisfied that the two clips I picked adequately represented moments in which a character's personality is defined. So here aremy new choices. Live Action - The Lord of the Rings - Gandalf Arrives. First of all, I love The Lord of the Rings, was a great fan of the books, and thought the movies did them great justice. Gandalf's arrival in The Shire has always stood out in my memory, as I think it perfectly portrays his character as a lively, gentle, yet wise old wizard. Animated - Up - Carl Wakes Up I love how Pixar can say so much with their characters without dialogue. In this scene, the audience are brought up to speed with where Carl is now, alone after losing his wife. It shows the transformation from a retiring, loving husband, to a lonely, bitter old man.

EDIT:
View the presentation here

52 Top Tips from Ed Hooks.

So I was looking into how a characters environment affects their personality, and came across this gem of a list, compiled by Carlos Baena. http://www.carlosbaena.com/resource/anim_EdHooks.html Great stuff fro the great Ed hooks!

Keith Lango - Power Centres

An excellent sum up of power centres by Keith Lango. With a read. http://www.keithlango.com/tutorials/old/powerCenter/powerCenter.htm

Presentation Planning

For Tuesdays presentation, i was given the topic of Defining Character.

I've laid out some bullet points to start me on my way.

• What is Character? Defining? Why is that important?

• Live action clip – Lord of the rings, Gandalf confronts Bilbo.

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5yTB__AYHc&feature=fvsr

  - Gandalfs Rhythm, two halves, caring friend, powerful wizard.

  - Power centre, camera angle, lighting, etc.

  - What do we learn about Gandalf in this clip?

• Animated Clip – Beauty and the beast. Beast scares belle

  - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qPFLcpkKZs

  - Beasts rhythm. Two halves, monster, unsure child.

  - Power centre, camera angle, lighting, etc.

  - What do we learn about Beast in this clip.

• Defining moments

  “Actions Define characters” - Ed hooks

  Carlos Baena on power centres

  Relationship between power centres and rhythm – Ed Hooks

• Comparisons between the clips.

  - Rhythm accelerations, rising power centres, then sudden drops.

  - similar scene composition

Difference between Live action and Animation? Both similar scenes, therefore approached very much in the same way. Animation has slightly more over gesturing, but it's in context. I.e, beast vs Gandalf, Monster vs old man.

Reference Shoot with Voice Actor

Voice Actor and comedian James Harris joined our reference shoot today, we got some great stuff! Having to react to James' orders and insults really added that extra edge of believability to our performances. It was like being in a real audition! James gave a great performance, really got into character. We will be using the audio from this session to animate to, until we record a final master version. I'm currently working on a final animatic, drawing on key poses from the footage. More to come soon.

Gary Resvick - Director

Kristian was charged with creating the director's character profile.

http://pose-to-pose.blogspot.com/2012/02/character-profile-director.html

Gary Resvick is a little bit egotistical, and we figured he'd have a sort of, 'wall of fame' of photos, newspaper articles, past production posters, lining the walls of his theatre. Kristian worked on the posters, and I worked on Resvick's photo and newspaper clippings.

Feb 24th Reference shoot.

A little late posting this, but it's valid none the less.

This was our first reference shoot for the mime assignment. It was more of a practice run than anything else, a chance for us to really get in the minds of our characters, and learn a little bit more about them, try different approaches. It was also a chance to se what worked in each scene, and what didn't, we were able to 'trim the fat' as it were, to drop any superfluous actions that just added dead weight to the scene, or took up too much screen time. From this session, came to realise the main character wasn't any of the mime artists, but the director. From here, the group fleshed out the director's personality, and added to the mimes accordingly. We wanted everything the mime characters do on stage to be a reaction of something the director says to them, be it following an order, reacting to an insult, or even ignoring the director completely. It's in these reactions, most of the pieces comedy lies.