Evaluation

Extended has been a very contemplative module for me as I have had the opportunity to work in a variety of groups and have been able to take the time to reflect upon my collaborative efforts throughout the module.

Observing my own shortcomings has been a large part of this year as well as coming to terms with my own flaws and acknowledging that I need to improve on them and set aside my own ego for the group. Because of my own desires and aims, specifically working on areas that only interest me, (character design and character animation) I caused conflict and miscommunication within my groups. In a studio environment this would not fly. I have to start thinking of the collective and the final product rather than my own agenda.

Beside these issues in group work, I have enjoyed working with Luca Biasci and Yixing Qin, in part because they are two people I had not worked with before but also because they are 2D focused practitioners that I found myself being able to work well with once the communication issues were resolved. I was able to identify what areas I need to improve upon as I go into my gap year.

Our animation is currently incomplete; however, I am really pleased with what we were able to make especially in regards to what I was able to learn about with storytelling. I was able to notice and identify how our initial story and idea was lacking and took from my own life experiences to create a story that I feel, when fully completed, will be able to compete in festivals and cause the audience to respond and think about the animation afterwards.

When I worked with Eleanor Winch on the YCN Milk brief I took the character animation. It was 3D animation and I had not done 3D in a long time. Due to this, my 3D animation was lacklustre in comparison to past attempts at 3D. A lot of the work was taken on by Eleanor and I felt what I produced did not reflect the effort my team mate had put in, which I am sorry for, but from this I became certain of the fact I don’t want to work in 3D in the near future. This is because I still have a lot to learn in regards to how to manipulate the rigs and the graph editor to utilise what my team mate has produced.

Within my statement of intent, I wanted to work on multiple projects in order to get the most out of the year and focus on practicing and developing my skills in character design and animation. This was to be done through an independent animation, alongside my main group project and taking on the character design challenge each month. Unfortunately, due to a lack of organisation I found myself unable to meet these goals. I found it a struggle to balance multiple briefs without a fixed schedule. Although while working on the character design challenge that I did and the extensive detail that I put into it I was able to find immense enjoyment from it as such, solidifying my desire to continue developing and improving character design.

In regards to how I responded to the structure of the module I found myself struggling to balance the module alongside other modules, specifically context of practice because the two modules required so much attention. Once context of practice was finished however, I was able to balance three different briefs at one time. This was possibly because they each used a different form of animation and thus at the time kept my interest but I don’t think that was the case. Either way it is proof that I can balance projects to an extent and if I put effort into scheduling my time I will be able to work as a professional, whether that is in a studio or freelance.

Overall, throughout this year, I have found myself lacking in working with people, and I feel this is because I don’t fully comprehend the production pipeline. Learning from my mistakes and flaws I want to improve which leaves me feeling optimistic for my gap year to take the time to understand how I can fit into the industry as well as make it fit me.

Submission Animation

The artbook

Our art book was mainly put together by Luca while myself and Yixing focused on the animation, with feed back on the design elements of the book. I made the title design and we put my colour script and script in the book.
 

CDC - Finalised Design and submission

As i cleaned up the pose i flipped it and checked its silhouette to make sure he was clear.

I put a simple back ground behind it to bring the design forward since the colour had been added.

|I still need to learn more about form and digital painting but i was able to learn that this is what i need to work on from submitting this design.

CDC - outfits, Gestures and poses

I wanted the characters clothes to be baggy so they wouldn't restrict his movements as he flys around the ship. the second design i found to be the most flexible and suitable with enough details to be interesting without being distracting or being to the extent of being so baggy that the clothes would be restrictive at the other extreme.

These were the gestures and poses that i tried out with my character to get a feel for how he would move i wanted a clear silhouette that was reminiscent of the triangle theme of him as well as reflecting of his dynamic and eccentric personality. I used reference of aerial acrobatics and spider monkeys for some of the poses. I chose to refine and develop the final pose.

CDC Turn around and Expression Sheet

I was happy with this design but not the characters proportions so i tweaked it for the turn around where the body was smaller and more petite the head was a bit larger and the legs were longer.



The expression sheet

CDC - Solidifying an idea and development

While developing the anthropomorphic character design i tried a monkey and remembered the alien spider monkey from the series ben 10 and started to draw poses of a four armed monkey. so a literal spider monkey. I wanted his design to consist of triangles to reflect an erratic and frantic personality to make it appear that the character is jumping from rope to rope on the ship.

further development of the idea, figuring out how to draw the monkeys head specifically while avoiding it looking too much like the Ben 10 Spider monkey character.

Character Design Challenge (CDC) the theme and initial ideas

The character deign challenge for April was space pirate. For this brief I wanted to create work that could go into my portfolio as a character designer so I worked on developing a turn round, expression sheet, variety of poses and a final finished entry for the competition.



My first ideas were to create a shark based character or a sea creature pirate who was an alien as the brief allows for a lot of leniency. Trying to consider the personality and lifestyle of the pirate and how to reflect it in the design.

the clean up of Yixing's work

more animations

These ones use the music and reference in order to get the perfect timing.

Other scenes

piano reference videos

In order to get accurate movement with the keys and the hands we asked our musician to send us reference videos of him playing the piece. this included focus shots of his hands but also wide shots of him as he plays.

Interim crit

below is the collated animation with the music

The feedback we got was there were concerns over how we'd match up the styles of animation and there were certain elements missing in the final animation. it was decided i would do clean up on Yixing's work and she'd do clean up on mine so that we would meet in the middle with the style.

more animation

Below are the animations from the first few weeks back. the goal was to try to get as many scenes inbetweened as possible.

music delegation

While over the Easter break I gave Gus Nicholason our musician our animatic and briefed him on what tone and moos we wanted the music to convey. The music is a key part of this project. I went into detail regarding the shift in tone needed from the 1st piece of music to the 2nd piece and how we want them to be reminiscent of one another but to give off different moods and feelings; with the 1st being more sombre and melancholic and the 2nd giving off a more optimistic light and hopeful note, similar to how the colour scheme was thought out.

Animation over the easter break

Below is the animation that I did during my time home over Easter.

Animation division

We divided the animations up the same way we divided the animatic up: thus I began working on the 1st and 2nd scenes while Yixing worked on the 3rd scene and we divided up the 4th and final scene. The 1st scene had been done by Yixing so I worked on her keys

Overcoming challenges

Within our group project we had to overcome some difficulties which were caused by a miscommunication and misunderstanding related to our roles within the group.

It was initially established when choosing our roles within the group that I would be working on the key frames. I was hoping to have a chance to work on some character  animation related tasks.

There was continued misunderstandings between what each of our roles was within the group which was making it difficult to work together. In order to resolve this, we has a meeting with Mike in which we established Luca as the director. This was to give us someone who would have a final say on the decision making within our project and hopefully resolve any difficulties between myself and Yixing.

The result of this meeting was that instead of doing the key frames, we used the animatic as our key frames and moved on.

Upon reflection, I am having to come to terms with a lack of ability within some areas such as team work, controlling my own ego and  being able to properly communicate within a team. This has also been reflected in past projects where issues have arisen. I intend to continue being more conscious and aware of how my own actions can effect group work.

Animatic Production

We divided the animation production firstly into two sections, with the second section to be split at a later date. I was to be working on the first scene with the character walking into the home up to the transition of the airport scene. Yixing was to be working on the airport scene. At the stage Luca was working the backgrounds for the final animation.

Below is the scenes that I did for the animatic:

During the animatic process, we altered the scene where the grandfather appears and disappears to become a 360 turnaround shot rather than focusing on the hands. This seemed like it would be a much smoother movement and transition.

Loop de Loop - Final Colouring

After submitting the line animation in time for the deadline i went back and did the colouring for the animation for my showreel.

Loop de Loop - get it done!

So I'm running out of time.

I developed the animation in traditional hand drawn with the main body first and planned to do the hair later below are my various tests as i developed the movement.

Once i had gotten it completed and was satisfied with the movement i put it into tv paint and animated her hair. But due to the tight deadline i had to rush it and switch from ones to twos.

Loop de Loop Myth

I first explored how the term  was first used and came to be. The myth was a term used by travellers in Greece in regards to the stories that would be told by them. Since i wanted to focus on character and performance animation i looked at how i could tell a looping story and my idea led me to the idea of a dancer but i felt that the idea became too disconnected to the word of myth.

So i tried going back to general ideas with the word myth and what we generally associate with the word so after brain storming some words i settled on a prompt with the word medusa.

The initial idea for the loop was to have a solider walking into medusas cave and then being turned to stone as he screams we hear it from outside and go back to the outside of the cave again with another solider.

From there i started to design my medusa. I used reference of snakes to try and develop a serpentine design for her.

After some development i went with a slightly graphic style with her hair being reminiscent of a cobras hood rather than an array of snakes to make it easier to animate. The design was influenced by the kim possible designs.

The style and colour of the world developed as such:

The goal was to try and see how the snakes 

Below are the key poses for the main movement, as time went on i realised i wasn't going to have the time to animate the entire thing so i focused on medusa's shift from pleasant to terrifying.

YCN Project

For my YCN project i worked with Eleanor Winch on the A2 Milk Brief where the goal pf the brief was to create a campaign to sell their product on a more human and personal level. We chose to do an interview style 3D animation where a 3D modelled character would talk to the camera about their experiences with the change to A2 Milk. The division of the work was for me to do the character animation while Eleanor worked on the modelling and the rendering.

I created my own reference video to get an idea for what the character would do when she says her lines.

The animation needed to be reworked multiple times in order to be presentable as their was a lot of faults in the timing and spacing as well as pacing at times it was very scattered and all over the place, clipping issues occurred and the animation became stiff and robotic. Below are my iterations of development.

1.

2.

3.

4.

Looking back on the work i can see it is not my best and still needs a lot of development and improvement as such i have come to the conclusion that for the time being i want to avoid working on 3D animation and focus on improving what i can do as a 2D animator and then later on transfer the skills into 3D. Also because its not my best i was not able to deliver a piece that was satisfactory for my team mate as i had shown i could do better in past projects. This brought to my attention my need to improve my group skills.

Our presentation boards were made by my team mate.

Aesthetic Inspirations

The three films below were used as inspiration in regards to the storyboards and the colour script. 

A Silent Voice utilises character animation and movement to help convey the story, it uses subtle movements rather than big, expressive ones. 

Your Name and Garden of Words use both ethereal and semi-realistic lighting to create incredibly atmospheric worlds in 3D which is something I tried to replicate in the colour scripts. 

Storyboards

script refinement

After the interim crit there was some development of the script that needed to be rethought and reevaluated so i up dated it.

INT. ENTRY HALLWAY

[The living room and entry hall are lit by warm lights but are dimmed, the room has a comforting atmosphere of familiarity but is offset by the darker tones.]

YUN walks into her home with a small suitcase in one hand and a plane ticket in the other. She throws the ticket into the bin by the door and drops the suitcase so that it falls over. Absentmindedly she drifts in to the room ignoring to take her shoes off, her mind is in a daze. As she approaches the end of the hall she notices a door that had been left ajar.

[The music study is one of the largest rooms in the house. With shelves that go up to the ceiling overflowing with music sheets and books on music. Scattered across the floor are stacked and loose music sheets surrounding the variety of instruments that lined the edges of the room. On the walls opposite the door are two large windows that reached from the floor to the ceiling moonlight streams in cutting across the room reflecting off of the closed black piano in the center of the room. With the cold moonlight as the only light source the dark room feels uninviting in comparison to the dimly lit living room that feels lived in, the music study feels empty, like a void.]

She peers into the room slowly opening the door and letting the light from the living room create a path to the piano. She approaches the stool closing the door behind her and sits. She lifts up the lid to reveal ivory coloured keys that reflect the soft moonlight, they appear inviting, so she slowly begins to play a melancholic sounding piece.

[Piano music is now playing]

As her fingers skate the keys she thinks back to earlier that day.

INT. TERMINAL, [Piano music continues]

[The terminal is a cold behemoth, filled with glass and steel, even the seats look hard and unfeeling. The huge windows let in bright white sunlight causing the terminal to further look desaturated of colour.]

As she runs through the terminal she is panting to get to the gate. However the air hostess can’t let her pass. Devastated, pacing her way back to the waiting area frantic and panicked she pulls out her phone to call her grandmother as she struggles to stand still.

YUN

[Panicked] Hey! It’s me. I’m sorry I’ve missed my flight how’s Grandpa doing?

[Both she and the music goes quiet]

We cut away to see her silhouette from a distance. She collapses, defeated to the floor and squats down to make herself as small as possible.

INT.STUDY

She stops her playing having cut off the music. She looks up from the piano and looks forlornly around the the room. The door clicks open.

[The lighting in the room shifts to an ethereal day time with the shot change as warm light brightens the room from outside filling the air]

In walks a child. Yun whips her head round and stares at the child as the child looks back up at her inquisitively she shuffles along the stool so that the child can get onto the stool with her. We cut away to see the child sitting next to not Yun but her grandfather as he shows her how to place her fingers on the keys. The two of them begin to play a simpler and happier piece that gives the room a nostalgic feel.

[Piano begins again]

As they run their hands along the keys the grandpa looks over to indicate to the child that she is doing a good job with a smile. We cut to where the child is sitting to see Yun sitting in her place. Yun gives a still slightly solemn smile back at her grandpa, happy that she is playing the piano with him again. We start to focus our shots and attention on Yun as she plays gradually making the grandpa less and less visible as the piece is played. We focus on the grandpas hands on the keys as they begin to fade out. We cut to YUN’S hands as they continue to move along the keys. We cut back to the grandpas hands again as he lifts them of the keys ending his part of the song. The music changes from a duet into a solo as we focus on YUN playing.

[She is immersed in her own world and the atmosphere and air around her continues to be war and comforting as she plays the notes.]

We cut to see her play her final note of the piece, lit by the warm light coming from outside. [Piano ends]. Its now dawn.

[Orange light begins to stream in pushing away the blue from before as she is snapped out of her fantasy and back into reality.]

She closes the lid of the piano and slides her hand slowly off of the cover. She turns to look out the window realising that she's been up all night playing the piano. Her face stays out of shot so we can’t see whether her expression is sad, happy, etc. She gets up from the stool and proceeds to the door of the room. She hesitates as she opens it before proceeding through. The final shot is of the piano on its own in the dawn light.

Interim Crit

Colour script

 Using the previously drawn scenes, I put them into Photoshop and started to develop a colour script , palettes and themes. This was in order to give a sense of tone and atmosphere to the story. In the first hallway scene, although the lighting is warm, the overall colour palette is dreary browns which does not give a feeling of optimism.

 As our character moves into the piano room, we shift from browns to blues. The blues are representative of the sorrow and sad feelings and emotions. Being in the room with the piano brings up sombre feelings for her. The lighting is much colder and is stark moonlight which is very muted. The air is filled with dust particles, almost as if she is underwater, being swamped or suffocated.

 Within the airport, everything is desaturated because she has no emotional connection to this area and she is almost not even acknowledging it. Everything is black and white and the light is stark and strong, casting long shadows. In this scene, she has only one goal in mind, to get on that plane, which is why the environment does not matter to her.

She returns to the music room which are in the same blue, dark colours as before, however once the child enters, she brings forward a warmer, cheerier atmosphere which is represented by the yellow and light that shines into the piano room. The character turns to the airport again, with the same desaturated colour scheme. Even after the flashback she is still in an environment she has no connection to so the same colour scheme remains. 

When she returns to the piano room again, as she is beginning to play the piano once more, the room is now filled with her own light. While this is not as bright and cheerful as the optimistic yellow, it is still warm and inviting as she is away from reality and is able to escape for a few moments whilst playing her grandfather's piano. In the final two shots, we return to the blue room, but this time there are streaks of the orange light we saw previously, she is now able to see some warmth and hope of the new day. While the cold blue light remains, the orange light shows she can still look forward with some optimism. 

below is the collated colour script.