PPRD Essay

Looking back over the year, I’ve seen my approach to work and techniques develop further than I had imagined, considering 10 months ago I didn’t know how to use  any of the programmes, that I feel more confident on today. From my understanding of the course before we began in September 2009, options within and from the course were ‘open’ and there was always going to be a wide range of skills that I could learn, and consequently help me create opportunities for myself through project placements over the course and choose a career path at the end of the course. This year was all about exploring my abilities and character, progressing into a digital path through my blog (Appendix 1) and making the most of the opportunities put before me, such as my role as one  of the Student Representatives and becoming involved in extra courses, such as the  60 hour, ABC Maya course.

The Viral video was our first project of the year, and working as a group gently brought us together and developed our experience with working in groups. We were criticized early on for having a large group, which hindered our final mark but the efforts of each group member was shown through our planning via blog entries, but overall, every member did put in their full efforts and I think we justified having such a large group.

Obviously by having a large group, we often had disagreements, which saw us change our idea several times but the final concept of using a Riot shield in everyday situations satisfied every member as much for the group to function. I like the style in which we shot the sequences and I thought they captured the crucial elements of the shots and emphasized the comical elements. Our aim was to jokingly suggest how really annoying things and scenarios in everyday life can all by solved by a simple appliance of a Riot Shield (Appendix 2).

The 2D project was the first of the year outside my comfort zone. Obviously I was more than familiar with working by myself, but it was my first time using programmes, such as After Effects and due to my lack of knowledge or comfort with the programme, I basically ended up changing my approach to the unit ten days before the deadline. My original drawings matched my description from our preliminary assessment and I had originally intended to create a stop-motion animation, simply using drawings but it just didn’t look how I imagined it!

I was more than happy with the drawings and everything as I feel they proved my character and mind to our group but they just looked too static at their joints and I didn’t feel it was effective as it could’ve and should’ve been. From this, I decided to re-import the whole project into After Effects, after pre-production in Photoshop. Looking over how I managed my time, it wasn’t the best idea changing my approach a week or so before the deadline but I feel I’ve got a greater result that I would’ve using stop motion. I would’ve like to make my characters more flexible and maybe concentrate more on solo features and detail to really make the composition stand out, again using additional lighting and camera angles, but I’m pleased with how effective the single camera angle and natural composition of the drawing came into effect, but I would’ve liked to have created something similar using a 3D perspective, which will be my aim within After Effects over the next year (Appendix 3).

Ever since we began, I have had an eye for 3D and immediately became interested in the skill and ability within the category, leading to my participation in the ABC Maya course. Over the course of the year, I feel that my 3D projects have shown the most of my character and progression of the topics, despite necessary skills I still need to develop. I still find the majority of aspects within 3D animation challenging, such as the animation, but I feel that my strong point for the topic so far is my modeling. For my first 3D unit, I decided to create five monsters and have them yell, “Alan”, following my humor of the “Walk On The Wild side” series. Having  learnt the basics, my modeling and texture was fairly simple and although I was happy with the final production for the shear fact that it made me laugh, it had numerous errors that I could now correct and consequently make a better version.

After the first three units, I feel I began to find my place amongst the group and my skills within Digital Media. Due to my limited skills, the appearance of my work at this time was admittably simple and amateur, with textures being nothing than simple lambert layers. Considering I hadn’t used any of this software three months prior to our first animation deadline and before this course, I really had now idea, specifically, what I wanted to do, I’m very please with how I’ve progressed my technique, found new areas of interest, but I was most proud of how I had developed as a character, regarding my work and communicating with other people, which I feel can only develop through my role as Student Representative (Appendix 4). As Student Representative, I feel that I’ve been able to interact with course members and leaders alike and become more acquitted with the course. I’ve found the experience as a Representative beneficial as I get to let my voice be head within the course and I feel it has given me my course-mates’ trust and brought the group together whenever we meet and discuss sections of the course, before and after meetings.

The ABC Maya courser really helped when creating these creatures, especially in terms of adding shadow, using effective modeling and putting the creatures into onto a plane in a live environment, and I really do feel that the creatures look real within the environment, which shows to me that I have progressed  in my 3D technique and method, which was my initial purpose. I have no criticism of any aspect of the course, as I found every moment beneficial, as I consequently progressed my ability to produce 3D animations.

With regards to the Post Production project, for me, I wanted to improve my 3D modeling more than anything as that’s a path I would like to take and develop over the next couple of years. Admittably, I put more time creating my creatures and modeling more than my attempts to make the “Post-Production” effects but bringing my creatures into a ‘live-environment’ and adding their shadows and realism, through the ‘beauty’, ‘occlusion’ and ’shadow’ layers in Maya contributes to aspects of Post-Production.

My original aim for the project as my blog, was to have “The Painter” to write in the light streaks before “The Sidekick” burps but with the tutorial I found on www.videocopilot.net, there wasn’t a specific part of the tutorial which instructed me on how to track the streaks with “The Painter’s” wond and it was too late to create anything dramatic, so my main disappointment with the piece is that I couldn’t get the wond to track with the streaks. Units such as the Post Production Unit I felt really progressed student characters and developed how they thought and approached a unit (Appendix 5).

My main criticism and disappointment of the year would have to come through the short form video unit. I enjoyed working on the piece, developing my technique with a camera and working as a group, but it’s the effect that it had on the class as a group. via the divisions caused by the diversity and narrowness of the project and individual ideas dampens the final product. I know the course expects and meets certain criteria but since the considerations of earlier units had been changed for varied reasons, I feel that the same approach could’ve been taken to ensure more student participation and motivation, having seen early protest to the unit from more than half the group.

Having said that, people did eventually come together and have produced some exceptional work from well-structured tutorials, but I feel that the process of the unit could’ve flowed easier (Appendix 6). The unit did offer each individual to show their potential, which i feel our group made the most of. I was responsible with the organization, preparation and filming of the project, producing storyboards to a higher quality than before and positioning myself into a more pre-production. From this year, I’ve become more asserted to seeing my work progress from the pre-productive period and seeing the idea progress.

After the practical units of the year, it becomes clear how a more mature approach should be taken in projects, both communicating and understanding the concepts of the unit. Although I’m happy with the final outcomes of the projects and what I’ve learnt through the more challenging experiences, I still know that I need to change my approach to units, or in a more specific way, manage by time better between planning and production. I can only hope to progress with my knowledge and technique through my work placement as the final unit to the year. I’m hoping to work within a 3D environment, where I can pick up techniques in how to create more realistic environments, textures and models to improve on my future projects. So Far I’ve looked at such Institutions as Framestore and FastFinger productions in London, from which I’d like to see how the amateur skills I have at the moment are transferred into a professional environment and profession.

Appendix 1 – http://samdubery.wordpress.com

Appendix 2 – http://samdubery.wordpress.com/category/viral-video

Appendix 3 – http://samdubery.wordpress.com/category/computer-graphics

Appendix 4 – http://samdubery.wordpress.com/category/3d-animation-and-film

Appendix 5 – http://samdubery.wordpress.com/category/post-production

Appendix 6 – http://samdubery.wordpress.com/category/short-form-video

Final Animation for “Nightout” Project… sound, pictures, the works

And here we are, the final thing!

“Nightout” – Animation with no soundtrack

Here’s the first version of my animation. I obviously intend to include a soundtrack, made in ‘Garageband’ and a few video transitions, such as ‘Dissolve’ and ‘cross-fade’ etc but I wanted to see how it worked on it’s own. I had to edit with several frame rates and speeds, often increasing to 300% to create a flowing composition. I think the monsters’ and human motion work better at this rate.

Nightout Project – Analysis, Evaluation and Conclusion of my Animation

Well, Where to start? I basically had to change my approach to the unit ten days ago. My original drawings match my description within my last ‘crit’ and I intended to create a stop-motion animation, simply using photographs of each sequence in each position and importing them into Photoshop, but after completing several sequences, it just didn’t look how I imagined it! I was more than happy with the drawings and everything but they just looked too static at their joints and i didn’t feel it was effective as it could’ve and should’ve been. From this, I decided to bring the whole project into After Effects, so into Photoshop they went, I arranged each sequence, adding every layer in Photoshop and imported them into After-Effects!

Drawing and composing the human and monster characters had to be my favourite part of the project. As I said in my brief, I wanted t use the concept behind Alex Pardee’s artwork within my own, and yes it’s a work in progress but I’m glad I managed to create the monsters using Pardee’s composition and the drawing techniques of Andrew Bell, a similar artist to Pardee, but uses a more definitive line and comedic approach on his monsters, all attributes I love within artwork. I would’ve liked to use and create a more ‘surreal’ l=appearance of both my characters and backgrounds, so in other words, a bit more Pardee-like, surprisingly but I think my own drawings add a slightly more comedic undertone to my work, such as the green monster at the end kind of reminds me of an Alien from the film, “Men In Black” and despite the fact he’s meant to be subtle and a tad scary, he looks really happy when he comes up and dances with my protagonists, almost as if it’s smiling!

I feel I have to clear up this next point as well! When people have looked at my animation, whether it’s drawings, early stages of my animation or the final think, I have been told that they have a phallic appearance!….. Which is true! For this, there are two reasons! First;  adding one of the subtle comedic undertones onto my work! First, the pink monster design was meant to be based on Pardee’s work and one of my favourite illustrations by him. Reason two; Whilst drawing these monsters, or with any drawing or work, I like to have a film or music on in the background, and when I was working on these, it so happened that I was watching “Superbad”! From that, if you’ve seen the film, anyone could guess what scene I ‘enhanced’ my idea from! the main character in the film has a flashback sequence and it’s revealed, for one reason or another, he had an obsession with drawing dicks as a child, and I thought it’d be funny to incorporate that idea into my composition!

I think the drawings work well within the animation! I like how I’ve kept the hand-drawn rather than digitally created effect within the composition and I feel it fits in with my original brief and ideas, according to my mind maps and reference’s to Alex Pardee’s drawing technique. The way in which they are drawn, I feel, helps bring my composition together but there are significant downfalls. Since there are multiple thick black lines within the composition, the magnetic lasso tool into Photoshop  often stuck to the in and out of the border line which consequently meant half of the drawings have an ‘uneven’ border line which is evident within my animation. Furthermore, since I drew them to look static at the joints, despite using the puppet tool in After-Effects, some of the joints on my humans and monsters look too ‘curvy’ at the joints and their size differs slightly as they move within the animation.

Within After-Effects itself, I kept the composition of my animation fairly simple, keeping a single camera as I intended to do when I wanted to do the animation as a stop-motion animation, and I feel this approach worked and still works in my composition, but something to consider in future animations would be to use alternate camera angles and additional lights within my animation. I think I could’ve created a better effect with different camera angles and thinking about it, my dance sequences could’ve looked alot better if I’d faded them, added additional lighting and created shadows, consequently giving the illusion of a greater crowd or a more cluttered crowd within the ‘club’ in my animation.

Just to finish of and to clarify, I’m pleased with how my animation turned out. Looking over it and how I managed my time, it wasn’t the best idea changing my approach a week or so before the deadline but I feel I’ve got a greater result that I would’ve using stop motion. I would’ve like to make my characters more flexible and defined within my artwork, and maybe concentrate more on solo features and detail to really make the composition stand out, again using additional lighting and camera angles, but I’m pleased with how effective the single camera angle and natural composition of the drawing came into effect. I’d like to think of it as simple and hopefully effective!

Nightout Sequence – Photoshop images 2

The last five compositions look quite good, i’ve tried to added more to the compositions, such as the glasses and motion within the background, the only thing i’m not sure to do is put cameras and lighting into the animation.

Nightout Sequences – Photoshop Images 1

Before I could start my animation in ”After-effects”, I put all my characters into Photoshop to create the different layers for the different sequences…easy peasy! and they look fine in the early stages of piecing together my sequences in After-effect but they were originally drawn for stop motion, so some of the joints curve too much in comparison to a real human composition… but I think they could turn out quite interesting!

Female Character

The Girl was the last and hardest drawing I had to do, mainly because I rarely draw female characters! I don’t know why that is, it’s just the way the cookie crumbles!

The girl is an essential part of the narrative as she is a key part in the protagonists’ fall within the animation. My friend, of whom the protagonist is based on, views this girl as a form of angel. He admires everything about her and views her as a deep beauty, but is too shy to say anything.

The clothes and character of the female is based upon the actual girl and i’ve tried to construct my imagery to match the dancing i’ve seen her do, without causing too much offense!

The idea behind the girl is for her to act as a temptation, or a reminder of something that the protagonist can’t touch, no matter how much he wants to. This represents a typical scenario of boy meets girl, girl meets boy and one is always shy to admit their feelings or make a move, but the monster (pink) who is acting as a vice towards the protagonist is enjoying every minute he can, dancing with the girl as she becomes more intoxicated but the protagonist cannot step in, as it’s none of his business, which leads to his drinking spree, and the climax of the animation.

Male Characters

The male characters were also quite simple to create. Since i based the pink monsters clothing upon a old school tradition of ‘waistcoat wednesday’, I simply based the characters on what myself and a friend wore on our first ‘waistcoat wednesday’ in Bournemouth. Yes, one character is not wearing a waistcoat but he got very drunk and lost it before we went out after pre-drinks so I thought i’d base this experience upon that, rather than trying to make up something extravagent.

Once I’d drawn out my basics, I simply put them into their different positions, ready for the animation.

Green Monsters – All Drawings and Scenes

The green monster was a fairly simple design. He was based upon the same Alex Pardee illustration as the pink monsters, except I’ve used my own colour palette, and added my own style of facial features. One of my favourite t-shirts has a monster of a similar design but he has an eye at the top of his body (Note: no head) and I like how it brought this monsters composition together so I decided to add this feature to my monster to make him more ‘friendly’ looking, so to speak.

Pink Monsters – All scenes and Drawings

The monster designs are based upon the illustrations of Alex Pardee. As I’ve said, I’ve always admired the work of Alex Pardee and I love how his drawings have awful and horrific connotations but have, well often have a comic or cute appearance. The monsters these are based on, represent demons and childhood nightmares where you can’t escape, but the monsters themselves are smiling and happy, connoting a brave face and appearance. From that though, I have created positive looking monsters, despite the vice and taunts they provide throughout my animation.

The monster with the bow tie will be in the majority of sequences. He is the monster who taunts the protagonist about the girl, whilst the rest act as his ‘minions’who dance throughout the club with the crowd and head towards the girl, representing their vices throughout the animation.