A finished shot, which Nat edited. The guinea pig works fantastically in his CG environment.
Bron
Thursday, 8 May 2008
Last Little Niggly Bits
Not that I'm cutting it a bit tight or anything...
Above are the Gantt charts that I used to record what I planned to do and have done over the course of the year. I do, however, prefer to take work at my own pace and change order if need be. What with other commitments like dissertation and a job outside of the course, I've juggled schedules a bit, but managed to finish areas for the most part where I wanted to finish them.
Above are my CV and business card. I wanted something hand drawn for my card, with the raw essence that I specialise more in.
... is it over...?
Bron
Above are the Gantt charts that I used to record what I planned to do and have done over the course of the year. I do, however, prefer to take work at my own pace and change order if need be. What with other commitments like dissertation and a job outside of the course, I've juggled schedules a bit, but managed to finish areas for the most part where I wanted to finish them.
The segments in green were when I planned to start and finish tasks, and the segments in red show the time it actually took.
Above are my CV and business card. I wanted something hand drawn for my card, with the raw essence that I specialise more in.
... is it over...?
Bron
Tuesday, 6 May 2008
Proper Music!
My younger brother, a very talented guitarist, agreed to write a subtle, bluesy soundtrack for my film. He sent me a wma of the basic melody, then came to Lincoln to record the actual soundtrack to the film. Above is the final version of the music.
Bron
Saturday, 3 May 2008
Work What Nat Did
Natasha Adiletta did 20 hours on my film, doing the following roles:
Scripting: Nat offered her services as a script writer, and considering her flare for writing, I took up the offer. I was not disappointed, she wrote out the treatment and scripts fantastically. The images of the scripts feature earlier in the blog.
Assistant Editor:
Nat offered her services as an assistant editor, which I was more than happy for her to do. I trusted Nat with a number of shots that did not involve a lot of masking or drum interaction. She was able to work independently, but was conscious of my opinions and instructions.
Nat's help in editing meant that I was able to spend more time on more difficult shots, so her assistance was much appreciated. She had a brilliant sense of timing, both natural and comedic, and a good sense of spacing and scale.
Above is one of the more complex scenes Nat had to cope with.
Friday, 2 May 2008
Work What I Did
The following describes the hours I spent on various films:
Claire Burn - Pest Control
Sound Design - During recording sessions, Jo and I assisted Claire by helping to create sound effects such as pigeons pecking at grain and pigeons walking on gravel. This was done by poking piles of fish tank pebbles with chopsticks, and rolling the balls of our hands in a tray of fish tank pebbles. The desired effect was achieved successfully, and works really well with the final film. (5 hours.)
Pre Production Assisting - Before Claire started filming, she asked me to design a walk and a swoop for the pigeons and seagull. I designed the walk by looking at the movements of pigeons and thumbnailing findings and feelings. Due to the quick movements of pigeons naturally, to mimic their moves precisely would not translate well in animation, nor work with her models. Therefore I designed the walk in a way which would compliment the models, but add interest to the characters.
The Seagull, we decided, would not need thumbnails of the swoop, as the model was in a position too difficult to animate. (1 hour)
Poster Design/Title Screen I was asked to produce a title shot for Claire's film, which showed the title and the robot from the protagonist's point of view (which from the point of view of a pigeon, is a low angle shot.) However, after this commission, it become clear that Kat, who was meant to have produced Claire's poster, was not going to complete it for the deadline that Claire had specified. So the title image was then designed to double up as poster to Claire's film as well. This was successfully produced with Claire able to make regular comments so that appropriate preferences and changes could be made. To produce the poster, I used Photoshop and a Wacom tablet. (3 hours)
Credits The credits I produced for Claire's film were done using Photoshop and After Effects. This was done with Claire's supervision so timing and effects could be produced to her specifications. The credits were initially thought of as a quick job that wouldn't take long, but I was proven wrong, as is the usual with such tasks! Thankfully it didn't take more than an hour, and the results were pleasing. (1 hour)
TOTAL FOR CLAIRE: 10 hours
Natasha Adiletta and Kat Downes - Sarafina's Bubble
Animation: Early on, I was offered the chance to animate a particular shot from Sarafina's Bubble. The shot involved a run cycle from a low angle, which would have been time consuming and difficult to animate.
During the week allocated to animate on the piece, I had most contact with Nat, as the director and producer of the film, and as the character Sarafina's animator. She was always willing to give opinions and was confident about what she wanted. Likewise, Kat was open for discussing movement and changes.
I spent the first couple of hours getting acquainted with Sarafina, drawing thumbnails of runs for her while getting used to drawing her. The construction sheets and turnarounds were very clear, making Sarafina and easy and pleasant character to get to grips with.
After drawing out thumbnails, I began to animate Sarafina's run cycle, so that it could be repeated indefinitely and copy and pasted using Shake, as requested by Nat. I worked from the legs, body and head, to the arms. The arms I did several experiments with to find the perfect movement for the character.
With the arms, we settled with Sarafina's arms being stretched out behind her. This suited her character best, and so these arms were used for the final clip.
The head took a number of corrections to get a movement both subtle but noticeable. This was also the case with the drag on the hair and skirt. Eventually, the right effect was achieved, and the frames were shot in for Nat to invert and cycle.
However, due to timing and edits, the run sequence had to be removed from the final Sarafina's Bubble. When this was discussed with Nat, I understood why this was done; the cuts before and following the run cycle ran considerably smoother without it. While the scene is not in the final film, I have been credited with special thanks, and the run appears in Nat's blog.
TOTAL FOR NAT AND KAT: 19 hours
Joanna Staniforth - Door
Preproduction Assistant: During storyboarding, I spent about an hour with Jo discussing changes that could be made to her storyboards. There was little to change, mostly angles of shots, though Jo found the time useful. (1 hour)
Sound Design: Jo's film did not require sound effects, due to its setting. Atmospheric music was, however, a must. The style of music Jo desired was based on meditation, new age CDs, which for the musical geniuses that Claire and I were, was simple to recreate! We used Cubase SX and a variety of synth sound effects to design a piece suited to Jo's film. (3 hours)
Rigging Assistant: While animating Jo's stop motion shot, Claire ran into a number of difficulties with the model; the magnets on his feet constantly attached to the table when they weren't meant to, and because of his small feet, could not balance as well. This was purely due to design, as the original character in 2D had small feet, which wasn't a problem animating traditionally.
So I volunteered to hold the wires behind the model's neck, so that he would stay balanced. I also made sure that when the model was on one foot during mid step he didn't over balance. (5 hours)
BEFORE COLOUR
AFTER COLOUR
Claire Burn - Pest Control
Sound Design - During recording sessions, Jo and I assisted Claire by helping to create sound effects such as pigeons pecking at grain and pigeons walking on gravel. This was done by poking piles of fish tank pebbles with chopsticks, and rolling the balls of our hands in a tray of fish tank pebbles. The desired effect was achieved successfully, and works really well with the final film. (5 hours.)
Pre Production Assisting - Before Claire started filming, she asked me to design a walk and a swoop for the pigeons and seagull. I designed the walk by looking at the movements of pigeons and thumbnailing findings and feelings. Due to the quick movements of pigeons naturally, to mimic their moves precisely would not translate well in animation, nor work with her models. Therefore I designed the walk in a way which would compliment the models, but add interest to the characters.
The Seagull, we decided, would not need thumbnails of the swoop, as the model was in a position too difficult to animate. (1 hour)
Poster Design/Title Screen I was asked to produce a title shot for Claire's film, which showed the title and the robot from the protagonist's point of view (which from the point of view of a pigeon, is a low angle shot.) However, after this commission, it become clear that Kat, who was meant to have produced Claire's poster, was not going to complete it for the deadline that Claire had specified. So the title image was then designed to double up as poster to Claire's film as well. This was successfully produced with Claire able to make regular comments so that appropriate preferences and changes could be made. To produce the poster, I used Photoshop and a Wacom tablet. (3 hours)
Credits The credits I produced for Claire's film were done using Photoshop and After Effects. This was done with Claire's supervision so timing and effects could be produced to her specifications. The credits were initially thought of as a quick job that wouldn't take long, but I was proven wrong, as is the usual with such tasks! Thankfully it didn't take more than an hour, and the results were pleasing. (1 hour)
TOTAL FOR CLAIRE: 10 hours
Natasha Adiletta and Kat Downes - Sarafina's Bubble
Animation: Early on, I was offered the chance to animate a particular shot from Sarafina's Bubble. The shot involved a run cycle from a low angle, which would have been time consuming and difficult to animate.
During the week allocated to animate on the piece, I had most contact with Nat, as the director and producer of the film, and as the character Sarafina's animator. She was always willing to give opinions and was confident about what she wanted. Likewise, Kat was open for discussing movement and changes.
I spent the first couple of hours getting acquainted with Sarafina, drawing thumbnails of runs for her while getting used to drawing her. The construction sheets and turnarounds were very clear, making Sarafina and easy and pleasant character to get to grips with.
After drawing out thumbnails, I began to animate Sarafina's run cycle, so that it could be repeated indefinitely and copy and pasted using Shake, as requested by Nat. I worked from the legs, body and head, to the arms. The arms I did several experiments with to find the perfect movement for the character.
With the arms, we settled with Sarafina's arms being stretched out behind her. This suited her character best, and so these arms were used for the final clip.
The head took a number of corrections to get a movement both subtle but noticeable. This was also the case with the drag on the hair and skirt. Eventually, the right effect was achieved, and the frames were shot in for Nat to invert and cycle.
However, due to timing and edits, the run sequence had to be removed from the final Sarafina's Bubble. When this was discussed with Nat, I understood why this was done; the cuts before and following the run cycle ran considerably smoother without it. While the scene is not in the final film, I have been credited with special thanks, and the run appears in Nat's blog.
TOTAL FOR NAT AND KAT: 19 hours
Joanna Staniforth - Door
Preproduction Assistant: During storyboarding, I spent about an hour with Jo discussing changes that could be made to her storyboards. There was little to change, mostly angles of shots, though Jo found the time useful. (1 hour)
Sound Design: Jo's film did not require sound effects, due to its setting. Atmospheric music was, however, a must. The style of music Jo desired was based on meditation, new age CDs, which for the musical geniuses that Claire and I were, was simple to recreate! We used Cubase SX and a variety of synth sound effects to design a piece suited to Jo's film. (3 hours)
Rigging Assistant: While animating Jo's stop motion shot, Claire ran into a number of difficulties with the model; the magnets on his feet constantly attached to the table when they weren't meant to, and because of his small feet, could not balance as well. This was purely due to design, as the original character in 2D had small feet, which wasn't a problem animating traditionally.
So I volunteered to hold the wires behind the model's neck, so that he would stay balanced. I also made sure that when the model was on one foot during mid step he didn't over balance. (5 hours)
BEFORE COLOUR
AFTER COLOUR
Colour: After Jo's frames had been through Shake, I took the batches of frames to colour. This was done in Photoshop, using the paint bucket tool. To achieve the desired colours, Jo gave me a list of the RGB values of the colours, so I was able to make new swatches to select.
The character was coloured in purple, with the door orange and yellow. During the colouring process, the character's eyes had to be coloured green, due to the additional Shake process the frames would undergo. This final process involved alpha channels being made, meaning that any white would be keyed out to alpha, making it invisible. By colouring the eyes green, they could be colour replaced so that the eyes would remain white. (9 hours)
TOTAL FOR JO: 17 hours
Richard Butler and Laurie Priest - Close
EARLY ANIMATION OF THE GAP SCENE, GAGING SPEED
DEVELOPMENT, ROTATION STARTING TO BE ADDED
RED CHARACTER FINISHED
BLUE CHARACTER TRANSFORMATIONS
BLUE CHARACTER WITH ROTATIONS AND UP AND DOWN TRANSFORMATIONS
THE SHOT REDONE AND FINAL
SECOND SHOT - BLUE CHARACTER TRANSFORMATION
EARLY TEST, CLOSE UP. STILL STRUGGLING TO USE RIG
ANOTHER CLOSE UP, AFTER MAYA CLICKED. ANIMATING GETS EASIER AND IMPROVES
SHOT COMPLETE AT CORRECT CAMERA DISTANCE
Animation: After I finished animating my Maya drum kit, I offered my services to Rich and Laurie. As I was still very new to Maya, and had had no experience using a fully rigged character, basic shots were to be my speciality!
Rich and Laurie gave me a long shot of the two characters running towards each other (featured before the camera zooms in to reveal that the two characters are far apart.) The scene itself was already prepared with camera moves and background cells keyed and laid out. The characters were also set up to animate.
The two models I used for the characters were static models, with no moveable limbs. The illusion of the movement would, therefore, need to be created using rotation and change in weight shift.
There were a couple of problems I needed to overcome, which Rich and Laurie also faced. The first being the size of the scene, as there were around 30 cells used to create the back and foregrounds. This meant instant playback wasn't an option, as it ran too slow. To watch back any animation that had been done, the scene needed to be playblasted, which was a time consuming process. The second problem was that the characters didn't have contact with the cells they were moving on, so they were animated running in thin air, which wasn't noticable unless the camera was close up.
The other obvious problem was that I had only learnt how to use Maya a few weeks ago!
None the less, the scene was fine to animate. As the models were static, there was little to worry about with regards to individual limbs, so the entire animating process for the characters was done using full body rotate and translate tools. I was able to easily make adjustments using the Graph Editor.
To start, I animated the red character, first adjusting the translations so that a good speed could be gaged, and once that was approved by Laurie and Rich, I added hip rotations. The same process was done for the blue character, though I also added up and down translations to give the illusion of him hopping. The complete animation took 13 hours.
A few days after I completed the scene, I was asked to return to it so that the red character could be reanimated, due to a change of background. I repeated the above process, and after animating the character, I was asked to add additional canopy to the scene. The reanimation and assistance on the scene setting took 5 hours.
After finishing the scene, I was approached for a second commission. The task involved animating a character in the background (the character in the foreground had already been animated.) While it was still a long shot of the blue character, it was considerably closer than the previous scene, and involved using the main, rigged model.
Admittedly, I struggled to get to grips with the model, and had to start again from scratch several times. Laurie and Rich were incredibly patient and helpful, giving me advise and showing me the best way to animate. By setting the time line to stepped, I was able to create the key frames, and space out these frames for timing. Once that had been done, I could change the timeline back to linear, so that the movements become fluid.
While it took a long time to learn how to use the rig and animate using a rig, once I had got to grips with it, I was able to complete the animation much quicker.
I really enjoyed the Maya work I did with Laurie and Rich, and feel that I have achieved a number of new skills thanks to working on their project. The final scene took an additional 18 hours.
TOTAL FOR LAURIE AND RICH: 36
OVERALL HOURS: 82
The character was coloured in purple, with the door orange and yellow. During the colouring process, the character's eyes had to be coloured green, due to the additional Shake process the frames would undergo. This final process involved alpha channels being made, meaning that any white would be keyed out to alpha, making it invisible. By colouring the eyes green, they could be colour replaced so that the eyes would remain white. (9 hours)
TOTAL FOR JO: 17 hours
Richard Butler and Laurie Priest - Close
EARLY ANIMATION OF THE GAP SCENE, GAGING SPEED
DEVELOPMENT, ROTATION STARTING TO BE ADDED
RED CHARACTER FINISHED
BLUE CHARACTER TRANSFORMATIONS
BLUE CHARACTER WITH ROTATIONS AND UP AND DOWN TRANSFORMATIONS
THE SHOT REDONE AND FINAL
SECOND SHOT - BLUE CHARACTER TRANSFORMATION
EARLY TEST, CLOSE UP. STILL STRUGGLING TO USE RIG
ANOTHER CLOSE UP, AFTER MAYA CLICKED. ANIMATING GETS EASIER AND IMPROVES
SHOT COMPLETE AT CORRECT CAMERA DISTANCE
Animation: After I finished animating my Maya drum kit, I offered my services to Rich and Laurie. As I was still very new to Maya, and had had no experience using a fully rigged character, basic shots were to be my speciality!
Rich and Laurie gave me a long shot of the two characters running towards each other (featured before the camera zooms in to reveal that the two characters are far apart.) The scene itself was already prepared with camera moves and background cells keyed and laid out. The characters were also set up to animate.
The two models I used for the characters were static models, with no moveable limbs. The illusion of the movement would, therefore, need to be created using rotation and change in weight shift.
There were a couple of problems I needed to overcome, which Rich and Laurie also faced. The first being the size of the scene, as there were around 30 cells used to create the back and foregrounds. This meant instant playback wasn't an option, as it ran too slow. To watch back any animation that had been done, the scene needed to be playblasted, which was a time consuming process. The second problem was that the characters didn't have contact with the cells they were moving on, so they were animated running in thin air, which wasn't noticable unless the camera was close up.
The other obvious problem was that I had only learnt how to use Maya a few weeks ago!
None the less, the scene was fine to animate. As the models were static, there was little to worry about with regards to individual limbs, so the entire animating process for the characters was done using full body rotate and translate tools. I was able to easily make adjustments using the Graph Editor.
To start, I animated the red character, first adjusting the translations so that a good speed could be gaged, and once that was approved by Laurie and Rich, I added hip rotations. The same process was done for the blue character, though I also added up and down translations to give the illusion of him hopping. The complete animation took 13 hours.
A few days after I completed the scene, I was asked to return to it so that the red character could be reanimated, due to a change of background. I repeated the above process, and after animating the character, I was asked to add additional canopy to the scene. The reanimation and assistance on the scene setting took 5 hours.
After finishing the scene, I was approached for a second commission. The task involved animating a character in the background (the character in the foreground had already been animated.) While it was still a long shot of the blue character, it was considerably closer than the previous scene, and involved using the main, rigged model.
Admittedly, I struggled to get to grips with the model, and had to start again from scratch several times. Laurie and Rich were incredibly patient and helpful, giving me advise and showing me the best way to animate. By setting the time line to stepped, I was able to create the key frames, and space out these frames for timing. Once that had been done, I could change the timeline back to linear, so that the movements become fluid.
While it took a long time to learn how to use the rig and animate using a rig, once I had got to grips with it, I was able to complete the animation much quicker.
I really enjoyed the Maya work I did with Laurie and Rich, and feel that I have achieved a number of new skills thanks to working on their project. The final scene took an additional 18 hours.
TOTAL FOR LAURIE AND RICH: 36
OVERALL HOURS: 82
Tuesday, 29 April 2008
Stuff What Moles Did
Needing the assistance, I recruited the help of Chris Moles in the first year to produce titles and to design posters for the introduction of my film. This also counts towards his own work.
Above are the two shots he produced (one of mine goes between them) and the two posters he designed, which will be animated together in After Effects using fade effects and masks
Monday, 28 April 2008
Work What Jo Did
Joanna Staniforth used 74 hours on my film, and worked on the following areas of my film:
Colour: Jo offered early in the process to colour my frames. No easy task, as my character originally had 6 main colours plus four additional colours for less common parts, such as the drumsticks. This was cut to a total of five, mostly to ease her pressure. On top of that, my character is incredibly fiddley, especially in long shots where he is quite small.
Pre Production Assistant: As already stated, Jo Staniforth was essential in editing the original animatic, shaving over a minute of footage off, which was urgently needed if I was to complete the film. Her opinions and suggestions were also put to use to give my guinea pig more character. Jo's support during the pre production process was greatly appreciated and much needed.
Sound Design: Claire and Jo assisted me in producing sound effects for my film. Specifically, Jo helped with the creation of the drum kit falling. She discovered various items that could be used for the desired effect, such as chairs, and suggested different ways in which sounds could be collected.
Colour: Jo offered early in the process to colour my frames. No easy task, as my character originally had 6 main colours plus four additional colours for less common parts, such as the drumsticks. This was cut to a total of five, mostly to ease her pressure. On top of that, my character is incredibly fiddley, especially in long shots where he is quite small.Despite this, she did a brilliant job of the colouring, and I am extremely grateful for the work she did in that department. Above is an example of the final out come of the frames she coloured.
Additional Shaking and Shooting: During the post production process, while I was still working on Maya for my own film and Laurie and Rich's film, Jo offered her assistance by shooting in the inked frames and Shaking them. This, again, was a real help.
Bron
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