Week 7 Summary

Inanimate Objects

This week saw me finish off all the tie downs and colouring as well as having drawn the backgrounds for shots 2 and 3. I’m starting to think that I wont actually need to do any compositing in After Effects, but I’ll throw it about in there anyway to see if I can make any embellishments.

Motion Graphics

I’m very confident with my progress this week. Emily and I worked very well together to match up the 3D castle in after effects. The set for my shot is complete I just need to remake the assets for the inside of the castle for the final shot. I’m also very pleased that I’ve followed the style frames made by Elizabeth. I’m hoping I can help steer the editing process in the coming week.

Film Language

This week I continued my search for a partnering clip. I ended up watching La La Land in hope that it might have the moment I was looking for. It came close with the scene in the observatory where Stone and Gosling very suddenly transition from a fairly naturalistic moment to taking flight.. But it’s not the one.

Week 6 Summary

Motion Graphics

We’ve nailed down the story and begun the story boarding process. I’ve drawn some thumbnails for my beat (beat 6) which is the swooping final shot tracking out of the castle and some additional ones for beat 4 for the trials of the girl.

Inanimate Objects

I’ve finally finished the tie downs, just need to whack on some colour. Jon gave me some brief but positive feedback over email.

Film Language

Mhari asked us last week to choose some clips to use for our essay, I’m fairly confident I’ll use the scene I analysed earlier from ‘The Wind Rises’.

Week 5 Summary

Motion Graphics

This week saw us briefed on the motion graphics project. Our group was given ‘Beauty and the Beast’ to work on an pretty well instantly decided on a simple silhouette and minimal colour style I’ve pieced together a few visual references. Next week we’re coming together to work on story ideas. I’ve watched 20 minutes of the live action Disney film and the whole of the animated Disney film. I’m hoping we wont go down such a soppy route.

Inanimate Objects

I’ve been pressing on with the tie downs on shots two and three again, progress is slow. Still need to think about my backgrounds.

Film Language

I  looked at camera movements in the animated version of beauty and the beast, trying to fit two tasks into one but got a little carried away researching the use of 3D camera in the film.

Week 4 Summary

For film language this week I looked at Giallo Films as a genre. I was looking at Slasher films but somehow slipped down the hole and found myself looking at these over dramatic Italian films about beautiful women being horrifically murdered by masked men. I never got round to watching a whole film but we’ll see how I get on.

My inanimate objects project progressed in leaps and bounds this week. I’ve now got my first shot fully tied down and coloured and my second shot tied down. I’m really pleased with how it’s looking with a full audience and background. I’ve now thrown together some sound complete with a Kevin Macleod music track which has helped people understand the plot far more than they did before.

I also had time to bash out two loops for the cinema city breif.

Week 3 Summary

For film language this week, I looked at my favourite scene in ‘The Wind Rises’ and looked at what made it such a stunning sequence. I’d never looked at it in such detail before and it was a revelation to me how many small things had gone over my head.

As for Inanimate objects, I’ve pressed on getting the rough animation down. I’ve reframed shot 3 for continuity after I put the feather on the wrong side of the hat in the animatic. I’ve moved my style research to look at ‘The Monk and the Fish’ which I think is a far more appropriate model for my animation to follow. One shot in particular inspired me to use this as reference as it demonstrated how I could put a lot less effort into the theatre backdrop.

 

Week 2 Summary

I found this video just before starting my rough animations. It proved very helpful, seeing how this stage would work in a professional environment.

This week saw me move forward with finishing the animatic and begin the rough animation. This has pushed me to really figure out how the characters will behave and perform. I’ve only really looked at the wand this week but I have nailed down his performance in the first shot, really working the idea that he’s a very dramatic and lively performer. I do need to hurry up with completing the rough animation in the next few days.

I also looked at style, making a very rough initial style frame, thinking about lighting and colour. After this, I looked at the Illusionist to look at the background art, pallet and lighting in the theatre scenes. I have always imagined it being in a very elaborate theatre to match the wand’s grand personality. To further my research, I plan on looking at other short animations made in TVPaint to see how they’ve used the software’s different brushes and abilities to create a style.

Again, I have put off doing anything related to the film language project which I need to swiftly change. Due to the lack of any urgency with the project, I’ve got a bit lazy.

Week 1 Summary

Mhari’s initial lecture on film language was a quite a roller coaster. We touched upon many devices and bits of terminology. She emphasised the importance of having a large vocabulary of film language terms to enable us to label and recognise what we see on screen.

I had a slow start to the inanimate objects brief as I struggled to grasp the brief. I came to Thursdays lecture with a rough storyboard about a hat with a feather in it’s ribbon. As soon as the session started, everything became clear and I bashed out 3 versions of my animatic, each better than the last. I came out confident with my idea and an animatic I only need to refine now. During the session, I didn’t really have any idea of how to compose my shots in relation to the characters and I ended up with a fairly flat and confusing first pass. Because of a lack of exposition and poor framing, it wasn’t clear if there was a conflict at all or what the resolution was. After Helen had talked to me, I realized I had to portray the story from the position of the hat for my particular conflict to make sense.

From here, I just need to work a little more on the wand’s performance as a whole and make the hat seem a little more stroppy then get some lighting in. Thinking about research, I still need to find a style for the whole thing so I will look at some 2D shorts, preferably animated in TVPaint.