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!

Storyboard, sequence 4 and Night Out Mindmap + Pitch

The Final sequence is pretty much a still image. The protagonist sat still on a toilet, his face without life, sucked out so to speak, with a monster claw as his right arm and a bottle of whiskey in his left, but the only motion present is his guts hanging out in two places. The edges of the guts slowly move with bright colours. This represents the short and long-term effects that alcohol can have on people, bringing Pardee’s artwork of human death into my animation.

 

The storyboard highlights the different influences and ideas behind each part and connotation within the animation. I’m caught between how to make this animation. I think ‘aftereffects’ could be a good programme to use but I also like the idea of doing a stop motion animation, creating my own flip book from my own artwork and using Premiere Elements to create a stop-motion.

 

Storyboard – Night Out, Sequence 3

Within the next four sequences, the animation expresses the full extent of what alcohol can do to you, and where the main part of the narrative takes part.

The dancing between the monster and girl intensifies! Not in a perverted and ‘stripped’ manner as my still-image may have suggested, but the monster has got closer, with his arms around her. The girls face becomes more drowned with her hair, rather than become horrific, like the protagonists face. This represents her personality and dignity fading, as the vice is aiming to show the protagonist her can’t ever touch this girl, in anyway, but keeps the temptation to his face.

Again, i’d like to switch between the sequence above and the sequence below. Similar to before, it’s to show how the reaction of seeing this girl, chances the protagonists’ personality and every time the shot moves between the girl dancing and the protagonist, the amount of alcohol spilt, empty glass and his facial composition deter and get worse! his head occasionally moves to look at the girl before the sequence switches.

After drinking (too much), the storyboard moves onto the concept of ‘bromance’! The protagonists meet again and dance after having way to much drink…. wwwwwhhhhhhhiiiiissssssskkkkkkkeeeeeeeyyyyyyyyyy! and after dancing, another monster, representing a new vice becomes active and moves behind them…

…Like so! This represents how too much alcohol makes you merry, which can be good, but is not ideal in drowning your sorrows. From this, the monsters’ presence makes the protagonists faces deteriorate even more… and after this, the new few frames appear blank!

Storyboard – Night Out, Sequence 2

Having Focused on the dance silhouettes for numerous frames, the silhouettes will begin to part. The silhouettes themselves will be two colours; the males, white and the females, red. These colours represent passion, which is what I’m trying to express to the audience through the ‘hoped’ relationship of the protagonist and ‘girl’. Nevertheless, as the silhouettes part, a fully coloured figure moves forward and becomes a bigger focus within the frames composition, this is ‘the girl’, presented in an angel form. The monsters remain stationary as she comes forward, viewing her as a predator does as he eyes-up his prey! Obviously different connotations, but a similar principle of the vices.

Monsters stare in amazement. They go to show how you can’t have everything you ant, or what alcohol can do to you when you want to talk to someone you want to more than ever.

‘The Girl’ shows many dance moves, which connote as a temptation, leading the protagonist to drink.

In the next sequence, the monster from the dancing sequence walks to the girl and begins to dance with and around her. The girl is ‘intoxicated’ again showing what alcohol can do to people…..

…This leads onto he next sequence where the protagonist is starring at this girl, his face slowly turns more monster like, representing him drowning his soul within liquor.  Stunned upon his reaction, as his face changes, so does his personality. The storyboard switches between this scene and the girl dancing with the monster, every time, the girls face disappears under her hair whilst his face becomes more intoxicated and monsters-like.

Sequence 1 – Night-Out project

In this scene, I intend to have a varied range of angles. The characters are moving right whilst the background is moving left to represent motion. The background shall appear dark in comparison to the character composition, in otherwise, the protagonists outfits will be bright and colourful, representational  of people’s ‘bright’ persona before a night out or any incidents involved in the night out. The characters are close, with synced walking, (yes, an early sign of ‘bromance’), which can indicate fear and awareness, but nevertheless, the characters slowly provide a small depth to the persona before any incidents.

The next sequence is the protagonists walking into the club, and this is where the monsters are introduced! In a side alley, as shown in the storyboard, monsters appear in shadows and presence, and you see them walk up to the edge of the of the alley, but not actually enter the club, representing a surreal aspect. The shadows are the key here as they provide the audience with a ‘horror’ factor, and the initial representation and ideology that monsters are evil.

The third sequence is where the monsters introduce themselves as the vice, within the narrative. The monsters taps them on the shoulders, or is about but the protagonists are unaware of their presence, since they’re simply a vice, acting as the alcohol’s effects. This ultimately leads to the dance-floor sequence, then consequently, the main part of the narrative, ‘the girl’ sequence. The colours begin to get brighter by this point, especially within the monsters composition.

The dance-floor sequence will be created with silhouettes. Three sets of them will be moving in synchronised patterns but the monsters are to appear in different sequences, one by one. I’m aiming to have four of them in the background, then one moves on to be the actual monster that dances with the girl.