Section 1 - Complete!

Finally, the light at the end of the tunnel! After many hours of work, my section is now complete and ready to put in the final piece.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voQNszMpANg&list=UL

This project has been a big learning curve for me, and a very enjoyable one at that! I've learned new software, created and learned from mistakes, made new friends, and created my first actual animation! Of course there were problems along the way, such as poor attendance from one person in our group, bad time management and general lack of experience - but I'm glad to say that as a group we overcame these problems and created something to be proud of!

Walk Cycles

The most challenging aspect of this project I've found so far is getting 'Sol' to walk. I still don't know the proper way of doing a walk cycle - but the way I did it was by watching youtube clips of people walking, and pausing them to draw very simplified versions using Toon Boom Studio (another piece of software I'd never used before). 

Here are some test cycles:

Front view:

Side view:

Diagonal view:

Using these as a guide, I copied the shapes of the legs and drew Sol's legs accordingly. It took a very long time to get them right, but I'm glad with the outcome.

Another method I used to make the walk more realistic was through using shadow - I drew the shadows in photoshop, turned down the opacity levels and transferred the layers into After Effects. In some shots, I'd use keyframing to make the shadow stay under the character. In others, I'd draw the shadows in with the walk cycle according to where Sol's feet were placed - which ended up looking far more effective! I also had to change opacity levels for some of the shadow layers in After Effects, as some turned out darker than others.

First Attempt!

This is my 'draft' of the finished piece:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0TTe0rlXSY&list=UL 

Although it got the point across, it wasn't perfect. The walk cycles needed to be edited and redone, and it was in desperate need of some depth! However I liked the overall look, and I thought that the timing was fitting for the song. I made an effort for the animation to respond to the music - for example, when the piano goes up a key and begins to trill, I thought I'd show the clip with the pigeons. The notes in the music reminded me of the fluttering of wings, and they're positioned far above 'Sol'.

Post Production

When Fran and I were filming, we came across a few problems. It was very windy, so continuity was an issue - we had to film each shot a number of times because the leaves and rubbish kept blowing out of place! Also, camera shake proved to be an issue as we were filming too close to the ground to use a tripod. These problems were all solved, however, by the power of editing!

 I used Adobe After Effects for the majority of my editing; although it was my first proper time using the software, it proved to be brilliant for editing film. For each clip I had to use Warp Stabilizer to stop camera shake - to make it even more smooth, I used Time Stretch to slow down the video, and therefore motion. Also, so I could make the film connect to our colour scheme, I desaturated the colours of each clip by -40%. Although the colours were more appropriate, it had a washed out feel, so for every clip I turned up the contrast by 15%. I told Adam and Fran these figures so that our sections would largely look the same and we wouldn't have any random splashes of colour!

 For animating my section, I used Adobe Photoshop to draw each frame, then loaded the layers into After Effects to create the motion. This took lots of patience! Key-framing proved to be extremely useful - I utitilised it for both scale and position.

Development & Drawings

My drawings of Sol's body:

I had lots of fun trying to make him extra fluffy using a number of different brushes. This character design was largely the same as our old one, except for being less stringy and having the same sized eyes (with pupils).

I also enjoyed drawing these two simple 'pigeons in love':

Around about the same time, I started playing with the film footage to sort out the timing of my section. I cut the clips and selected the most interesting camera angles and shots, arranging them in order of the narrative. Although it was just a basic guideline for what I was going to do, you could easily imagine the little creature walking around in its environment.

Link for the full clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0V4AcDr8APw&feature=plcp
Most of the shots in the video went through an editing process, explained in the next post.

Location Filming

After a long search, Fran and I eventually found our location and started filming.

  We thought this place would be appropriate due to it's general length and space. Also there were plenty of leaves, rubbish and general clutter to make it look more interesting.

Although we did have to move the rubbish around to create the perfect setting... which was pretty disgusting!

  The colours were lovely and autumnal, although we knew we'd have to edit it afterwards to appear more grey and washed out.

 Fran filming with her DSLR after we'd put the rubbish in and cleared away excess leaves.

 A test clip I uploaded to youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiPxcWFO8K8&feature=plcp It was a windy day which proved to make things even more difficult for us!

Location Photography

At this point in the project we still hadn't found a location for our little creature. I took these photos around Greenwich, near Cutty Sark - sat on the pavement and confusing passers by!

 I later went out with Fran to take photos around the North Greenwich area, near the O2.

 

Animatic

My final animatic! (For better quality: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-D4fkOAr7A&feature=plcp)

Essentially, it's just my storyboard played to music, but I hope it brings out the tone of the piece. I tried to edit it so it actually looked like it was responding to the music, with the shots cutting in time to the various changes in the song.

This is the animatic containing all three sections:

 https://vimeo.com/52454445

 I think Adam and Fran did a great job, and I look forward to getting started on the final piece! In the mean time we have to work harder on getting our character to look exactly the same, so as not to confuse anyone! We also decided to give our piece a proper title - Sol. Which comes from the Spanish, meaning 'alone' or 'lonely'.

Storyboard

 My storyboard for the first section of our piece.

At this stage we hadn't filmed our background yet, so I had to draw in a made-up background. I decided to emphasise the grey colour scheme, and chose the backdrop of a pavement in accordance to the look we were going for. In hindsight, the camera angles & shots look somewhat uninteresting but we were able to experiment more when we actually knew what the background looked like!

Character Design

The finalised character design in preparation for the animatic and the formative, drawn on a wacom tablet. We thought as a group that this design was appropriate for a lonely character; he looks a bit weird, scruffy and awkward...! I was apprehensive about animating limbs, not having the first clue about walk cycles, however I was ready for the challenge!

Sketchbook Work

This was my initial story idea. The final storyline we decided on was largely the same, except for a few details such as changing the puddle for a mirror.

  
Some examples of character design. Having never animated before, I wanted to keep him very simple; preferably without limbs! At the same time I wanted the little creature to be expressive, so I thought that big eyes would be a must. In hindsight, I feel that these designs were almost too simple and clichéd.

Initial storyboarding...

At this point, the storyline had still not been decided, so I developed some ideas for the rest of the piece.

Moodboard

After compiling all my research, visual links & references, I decided to make a moodboard, which will hopefully inspire the over all look of the project. I've made sure to incorporate lots of grey, rain, and urban environments, with the occasional make-believe character for good measure!

Even More Visual References

Some interesting examples of 2D drawing over photography and real backgrounds....

Ernest Zacharevic

M/M Paris

Tim Winn

More Visual References...

 Adam showed us a music video - 'Float' by Flogging Molly - which proved to be a great visual reference! It centres on a lonely, weird creature exploring and interacting with his surroundings, much like our lonely, weird creature! The video itself is executed brilliantly so it's worth watching even past the urban section, which was a great source of inspiration to us.

I was searching online for related content to 'Slinkachu' (see post below!) and I came across some fantastic work by Isaac Cordal. He's been doing a project called 'Cement Eclipses' since 2006 whereby he makes tiny human figurines out of cement (which stand at only about 25cm tall) and places them in interesting, urban environments.

Cordal's work then lead me on to even more tiny model art, this time from Christopher Boffoli. He's been working on his project since 2003, incorporating mini-figurines with food - he calls it 'Big Appetites'! His work seems a lot more delicate than either Slinkachu's or Isaac Cordal's, and has a more fine-art quality to it. Despite the fact that it's photography and not filmography, I would definitely like to use similar tones and hues; but perhaps make them even more desaturated.

Visual References

Since Adam's pitch I took some time finding some visual references which we could take elements from as a source of inspiration, which would also help develop our ideas. Before even looking online, I instantly thought of two separate artists whose work was very similar to our ideas.

During A-Levels I studied and made some visual responses to the work of a Swedish artist called 'Johan Thörnqvist'. He takes stunning photographs of (mostly) urban environments and then draws on top of them creating alternate universes, combining fiction and reality in a really beautiful way.

 

'Slinkachu' is another artist I discovered a couple of years ago, who much like Thörnqvist, creates different worlds through the use of mixed media. However, instead of illustration he uses tiny model human beings taken from train sets, which don't reach more than 1cm tall. Because of their minute size, the photography is largely close-up which provides a huge amount of detail - an element we could easily add to our project.

Groups

During one of our Time Based Narrative seminars, some of us were pitching ideas and pieces of music - I was most interested by Adam's choice of song and narrative. He chose 'Emily's Theme 2' which was particularly melancholy yet had some nice variation and what seems to be different sections within the song (perfect for a group project)!

His idea for a storyline was two characters who meet and fall in love, but are somehow separated in the end; essentially, a tragic love story. What I liked most about Adam's pitch was his stylistic choice - he wanted to have a live-action background, with animation over the top. Also, he was siding towards an urban environment which I thought would be both appropriate and interesting to work with. Fran was also interested in Adam's pitch, so we decided to be a group of three - which works perfectly as the piece of music has three sections.

Adam also showed us some great visual references which also included the mixed-media style of film and animation.

http://vimeo.com/34082328 < I especially enjoy the mood of this piece, and I think that the camera shake definitely adds to the animation, making the creatures really come alive. The doodle-style of the creatures is spot on for the kind of characters I want to create.

http://vimeo.com/30302943 < Another good example with a great colour scheme, but the creatures are just a little too polished for the style we're going for.

Music

I think an excellent example of animation responding to music would be the music video for Olafur Arnalds' 'Ljosio'. Regardless of the lack of narrative, it's visually stunning.

(Despite the low quality thanks to youtube!)

Obviously I will not be able to produce anything of this standard, but I thought it would be an appropriate visual reference. 

           We'd been asked to look for pieces of music that sound as if they're going on a journey. The piece of music I chose was by one of my favourite artists, The Cinematic Orchestra, called 'Arrival of the Birds'. Aside from anything, it's a very moving piece of music, but in accordance to a 'journey' it has many rises and falls, with many variations in the music as it moves along.

Introduction...

For our Time Based Narrative project, we have to produce an animation in groups that responds to sound and/or music. The work must also show a strong narrative. As someone with no previous experience in animation other than stop-motion, this project is bound to be a challenge!

The project started 5 weeks ago - but as I've only recently got internet, blogging my process has been difficult to say the least. Better late than never!

The Assessment Criteria:

• Evidence of generation and exploration of a number of narrative ideas.
• The degree to which the project work meets specified formats and conventions of storytelling and narrative.
• An ability to visualise a story effectively through the use of storyboards.
• The effective use of filmic language and conventions demonstrated in the storyboard.
• Their ability to create movement effectively through the recording of static images.
• The effectiveness of the project work in articulating the idea.

During the first seminar, we were given some visual references. For example, 'Partitura 001' by Abstract Birds and Quayola, is a sound visualisation which uses geometric shapes and music to represent different timbres, rhythms and pitch within the piece of music: