Train folk

Character designs for the Train skecth for Strat Etquette, the large leaning man.




This is a research piece of the underground and commuters, just to get an idea of what it is like.

Change of plans, it seems...

Ok so I got back from my group tutorial with Ann, which went well. She suggested sevreal books for me to look at for my dissertation topic, which I have decided upon. The working title at the moment is 'the representation of women in western mainstream animation'.
When I arrived back in the studio, I was told that I am no longer working on 'the card tricks' as my team members had decided without me that it was too much work and joined another team already. Great. Back to square one for me, so I am now working on a different sketch with Nat and Ceri.

'Talking Dog'

So Charlotte, Holly and Myself are going to be working on the playing cards project and as there are three skecthes we hvae chosen one each to the the pre production on. We then plan to show each other the work that we have come up with and come to an agreement on the design style we should work with. I am working on the operating theatre.

Let's get organised!

So I have taken Anne's advice and got myself a reasonable sized diary, Written in all of the workshops and the timetable for the rest of the year. I plan to make a schedule to keep myself on track with the work load.

Dissertation Research.
I am kind of excited at the prospect of getting on with our dissertaion but I am, at the moment, struggling with deciding on a topic to look into, as its is a year of my life I will be spending on it. I think I may have a better idea of what to do, after I complete the reading week task.

Editing Workshop
This morning we had our first workshop on editing, for which we are expected to produce a 'Mash Up', which is two kinds of film trailers, of differetn genres, to create a new film trailer. I think I am going to use Baambi and Dracula. I am looking forwrad to getting started, and plan tocome in tomorrow morning to begin working on it.

Scripting and Programming
AlthoughI was quite hesitant to learn how to do this, I feel I have taken in what we have been taught today, the very basics! But I am strggling to understand how I will actually use it by myself. I sure it will become clear as the weeks go on.

Storyboards
I collected my sketchbook for the project today, having seen my mark last night, 60%. The feedback that I was givenm suggested that if I put in some more work and added a lots more frame, of the same standard of work the grade could be higher, so that is what I will do.

Not so good...

I feel that I did really badly with the Character Animation Project. My character Bob, started out as a fairly amiable looking fellow, and I somehow managed to make him look horrible and unloveable. My Florist design was let down by the fact that I ran out of time to fully animate the dying flowers. The only thing I think I did well with was the lip sync, but during the screenings that didnt seem to get a mention so I've not idea what anyone else thought, kinda wish I had done a tash or a shadowed character. :(

1. The birds fly in. 2. Land. 3. Text bubble starts to appear. 4. continues

I am not happy with this at all, but I have been focusing a bit too much of my attention on the storyboarding project. I am disappointed in myself, that I didnt try harder with this animation. I might try to re work it in my free time.

back to lip synching

today I am lip synching for the character animation project. I'm finding my dope sheet really useful to get the timing of the piece right and it seems to be running a lot smoother than previous attempts. I 'll load up my final anaimtion once it is complete.

story board art work

Storyboarding

So another project that is on the go at the moment is to produce a professional quality storyboard of how I would animate to a set of narrative lyrics.
The song I have chosen is 'Put your records on' by Corrine Bailey Rae, which isn't strictly speaking telling a story but it does have a lot of visual references, which I intend to use. So far have done a little reseach and some sketching, which I will upload tomorrow. We were told to think about how we use colour in our storyboards carefully.Its quite an uplifting set of lyrics so I want it to be quite cheery in its olour palette but I am aware that too many colours can seem messy.

Character animation

We have been set the task of animating to a sound clip from the Kung Fu Panda film. The quote is 'ahh.. maybe I shoudl just quit and go back to making noodles.'
My character is Bill, He is entirely based on a little plastercine character I made last term. I photographed the model and put him into photoshop and played about with they way he looked a little.
Started off by making him into a cutout style using a filter, then set about removing the shadows of the background so that I could move him about easily.
After working on Bill I then set about coming up with a background for him to move around in. My idea was that Bill is a failing florist, who accidentally allows all of his flowers to die. Upon realising wht he has allowed to happen to them he then says his line. I wanted the Florist shop to reflect the simplicity of Bill's design but still be a little more colourful so that you can register the change when the flowers do wilt and die.

Waltz with Bashir

Charlotte and myself went along to the Poly to see the film 'Waltz with Bashir'. We werent really sure what to expect apart from we knew it was about war.
The film really shocked me as I had no clue about the first Lebanon war, or the dreadful things that happened. I thought the film was really sucessful in exposing these things in a new way.
The people in the film were real people that fought in 1982, trying to recount their experiences and understand why it all happened.

It showed a darker side to what can be achieved with 2D animation. The opening scene of a pack of dogs running wild through a town had a huge variety of camera shots and was, i think, terrifying.

And the dream scene in which three soldiers float towards a beach has an amazing use of light and dark.


It was definately worth the watch.