Planning The Edit

Because we’re all working from the same base background of the 3D render, I’m going to create a master After Effects project that I will split into 5 compositions for each animator. This way, I can set up the 3D camera and sync the audio for everyone. Hopefully, this will also make  combining the projects easier when it comes to the edit.

For some parts of the project, assets will need to overlap from section to section. I think it’s worth saying now that I will manage the combining of the projects whether that means stitching them together in post or combining them before the final render.

Today I will show the group how to combine assets and with the render from maya to create the fake 3D effect so we can begin working properly.

 

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Fin’s Favourite Websites

Animade Studio

I’m quite a fan of Animade’s website. Despite it being for a studio rather than a personal portfolio, the structure and the way they display the work appeals to me a great deal.

Their homepage shows a blured, abstracted version of their showreel, dominating the screen with a small bit of text and a button encouraging you to browse their work. The other half of the homepage, once you scroll down, gives you an overview of the company and boasts a range of big-fish clients they’ve worked with in the past. After you’ve read that, there’s a red button begging you to reach out to them and commission a project.

Their work page shows six different videos of varied styles, disciplines and purposes, showing the full breadth of their capability as a studio. But this is just the surface of it. Along the top of the page you can select different tabs that will show you six more examples of specific work from five different areas. Again they have a button inviting you to get in touch.

A feature I particularly like is that the video thumbnails play as you hover over them. Once you click on them, you’re taken to another page where the video is playable in a large format and you can read in depth about the creative process of the project and browse the storyboards.

The rest of the site is easily navigated by a small menu bar at the top right. There’s an about page listing photos of the team and a short description of their mission and values. The notes page is more or less a blog of what they’re currently working on. Then there’s the contact page listing an email, address and phone number as well as a giant google maps plug-in showing the location of the studio.

Animade have made themselves very approachable, giving site visitors many opportunities to get in touch and displayed their work in a very clear and navigable way. It’s a very strong site that leaves you with a very good impression.

 

Ben Ommundson

This is a very strong portfolio of work presented very simply. The site is headed with a cute looping animation of a duck with a box full of stuff running. His name is fairly modestly written in bold at the top above three page links, work, about and contact.

On the work page, each project is equally presented in a square and arranged 3 in a row all the way down the page. When you click on the squares, you’re taken to a page with the vimeo player embedded and a short description. Perhaps there is too little information about some if it in comparison to Animade, but I suppose it’s enough.

The about page features a large photo of Ben in a Tuxedo smoking by a sign for the Fjord Bar. There’s a modest two paragraphs summing up his personality and his hopes for employment. It tells us more about his personality than his skills. I think this may be because he’s well established in the industry and doesn’t need to prove himself.

The contact page features one line of text and nothing else – the address to his personal email. Need he say anymore?

I’m a fan of this simplicity of the site, but I feel the website of a graduate would leave less to be inferred and make it far more obvious what their skills are. He does not appear to have a showreel on this site.

 

Jennifer Zheng

This particular site is different to the the others I’ve looked at because the homepage is just the showreel and a two sentence bio.

Her work page is very limited, only showing 4 pieces at a time. To me it feels a bit empty, but these are ‘Selected Works’. Again, you can open up a page for each of them with more of a description.

What’s interesting is she has included a drawings section where you can, somewhat confusingly, look around at her drawings. I think it might have been better to just have them all laid out on one page rather than navigate through pages of it.

Research Report

My initial idea for the research report is to explore the possibility of using VR for animated “film” and how conventional storytelling techniques and film language would translate and evolve from screen to headset.

Because the principles of the screen and the headset are so far withdrawn from each other it is likely that almost all film language would be withdrawn or re written. Perhaps this means there is room for a whole new art form/medium?

For this, I could explore:

• How composition, editing and  would translate to the format
• Composition in level design for games
• Can you cut in VR?
• The place of interactivity on film and the line between games and film
• How video-games are changing to fit the experience of VR
• Static point of view or free movement of the audience?
• A new art form/medium altogether?
• VR ‘Experiences’

Showreel V1 & Moth Internship

Here’s my first run at a showreel. I quickly put this together so I could send it off to The Moth Collective in hope of securing their summer internship. I crafted this showreel with that in mind, putting my strongest character animation first as it was a key thing they listed in their post.

Here’s the email exchange so far:

 

 

Demo and Animatic

Here’s the demo for tomorrow’s session. This demonstrates how we’ll combine 2D assets with the 3D model. It’s certainly not perfect but it gets the message out. I would like to have tried to comp something in behind a window but time is short.

And here’s my new animatic for the big edit I’ll be putting together tomorrow.

Initial Treatment

Style Frames

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Here’s the 3 colour frames for my section of the transcript focusing on identity.

Tick Box People

I’ve begun work visualising my section of the script. I chose the section at the end about the loss of identity Donna has felt for herself and others that have experienced poverty. This is in contrast of the section before hand that describes the free spirit and character of the migrants in Glasgow.

Highrise Glasgow

During today’s session, I came up with an idea to integrate CG into our project by having some 3D asset for us to use as a thing to base our film around. One idea I had was to use a tower block to fly round and composite 2D assets onto the balconies and walkways of it. Tower blocks are home to diverse communities that our particular clip explores in some detail, so it seems like an appropriate centre to our animation.

I decided to do some research into the tower blocks of Glasgow, mainly to get some idea of what a Glaswegian tower block might look like but came to find that they are currently quite a relevant issue. Glasgow used to have the highest density of high rise flats in the UK back in 2006 but over the last decade, a quarter of them have been demolished to make way for the commonwealth games, leaving some communities fractured. They’re a contentious subject as I found out reading this article.

Disappearing Glasgow: documenting the demolition of a city’s troubled past

The Whitevale towers fit the bill for a tower with balconies to base the model on. I will share some pictures with Em who’s in charge of making the 3D assets.

 

BBC Listening Project Transcript

Darren & Donna

I’d never come across a black man before,

We refered to shops like Chinese shops as ‘chinkys’ and ‘paki shops’ … Pakis,

We were a wee bit behind the times for political correctness,

And before I knew it I was meeting all these different guys frem all over the world

And you know what? People kept asking me

‘How can you work with asylum seekers and refugees?’ very negatively

And I was like they working wie me, they’re accepting me, you’ve got this wrong here,

You know it’s me that’s lost here,

I look at it as if I’m the repressed, I’m uncultured,

So see, when I’m with them I find a part of myself that comes right out and goes:

‘Well I’m back’, you know?

I think that’s a part of the British ‘stiff upper-lip’, isn’t it?

We’re British, we don’t really show emotion.

I’m not British for the record.

Aye, well.. It’s just the stereo-type, you know what I mean?

You get your Giro so you’re British enough for that, so…

It’s one of these things, poverty’s not spoke about,

But I’m from the east end of Glasgow.. [???]

You’re stigmatised, I mean we grew up, you come from say, the east end of Glasgow,

And people shout, ‘you’re scroungers! You’re having babies at at thirteen, fourteen,

Wie been told you’re less than,

You know, when we meet people from different cultures,

we feel ashamed,

And these people are free spirits,

They might not come have come from countries where they’ve got running water and electricity,

But they have free spirits.

Their minds are open, their hearts are open and they don’t feel supressed.

When I find that in Glasgow and a lot of the rest of society,

We’re so supressed and pushed into such a box that we don’t know who we are any more.

And we’re all just turning into the same wee tick box people,

Ne soul, ne heart and a recklessness to ourselves.

The biggest target about n’ around is welfare reform,

It just shows you how you can alienate parts of society,

And manage to have them judged by the rest.

I think it’s barbaric.

I’ve been sanctioned three times,

When power’s gone down, food’s dwindling,

That’s when the sanction’s kicking in,

BOOM, stop, and that’s you.

If my children were gonna get fed that way,

I think I would be more embarrassed to walk into a food bank,

And ask for food for three,

And I’ve never stole, I don’t believe in stealing, I’m a Christian,

But I would actually prefer to steal it than go and beg wie ma cap in hand,

Coz although people are poor, we still need hope and we still need dignity.

Well, Donna, the simple fact remains that we are in poverty,

Our minds are in poverty and you freed my mind a wee bit by telling me that.

And I could see it, I did ne understand for the five ten years beforehand,

Who I was, my addiction, my homelessness, my alcoholism,

Then I could clearly see it,

Coz I feel that the world’s really heavy on my shoulders,

And I see people looking down all the time,

Bu you see, just now and again, when I look up to the stars,

I get so inspired, and through meeting you, Donna, specifically,

I found a real friend, and now the future, I’m looking forward to it, let’s just say that.

People are starting to believe in me so I’m starting to believe in myself a wee bit.