AlkinoosKouts

[alkinooskouts]

Weekly Summary 11/03-17/03

This week, we had a brief on our main collaboration project. In this session, we were divided in groups of around 10 people each and we had to create something like an infographic for a movie of our choice The first thing we had to do, was assign roles for each person in the group, such as art director, editing etc. I ended up with having the role of the animator director along with another fellow animator, i also was given the role of the sound design but that might change. After we went to the library for some research on which movie we should do, we discussed and resulted in making our animation about Spirited Away. So, each person had to pick a fact or a quote regarding the behind the scenes to animate. Having that in mind, i rented a book from the library that some people of our group found, regarding Spirited Away, so we can look for facts there. After I picked my quote, which was ~I wanted this character to be Grotesque" and that he got inspiration from Alice in Wonderland. We proceeded by making a frame of how I thought our animation would look like. At that point, we also decided that the way we are going to connect all our animations was with hands, so each person had to contain hands in their part of their animation. For next week, we have to make a presentation about the Principles of Composition. Unfortunately, I can’t make the presentation because I am going to a university trip in Amsterdam and we come back the day of the presentation. Since I have finished my animated loops, I had some time to animate the first part of my animation. I am satisfied with it but there is still a lot more to animate to be able to see my errors and fix what I can. For next week I won’t be able to have anything ready since I am going to be on the trip, but I think I have managed my time in a way that I won’t be behind on my projects.

 Personal Branding

For Personal Branding, I researched a few websites of professionals and their CV. I think I am going to divide the projects because I have realized that it helps me. To specify, I am going to finish my new collaboration project first, then do the Personal Branding as well as the Research Report, so I can put more in my showreel too.

 Regarding the BBC commission, me and my friend did the most with the time that we were given, we made some animations to submit and character designs. The movie was supposed to be a kind of experimental/ mixed media type of animation which would include stop motion, live action and 2D. Unfortunately, we didn’t get the place but we are willing to try again from the next deadline in July.

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Weekly Summary 04/03-10/03

This week started with introducing our new project, "Research Proposals"

The purpose of our new project is to prepare us for the one next year which has to be 5000 words. Therefore, we are required to mention what we will write about, which type of research report we are going to choose and the topics that we are going to mention. Then, we were tasked to brainstorm and think of ideas on what we are going to write about.

This week, we also had a lecture from the BBC about a commissioning opportunity. To specify, if we want to apply, we get the opportunity to make a short film and get the chance of it being shown in the media, as well as the budget to make it. If we want to apply, we have to provide them with the script of our film, our cast, our CVs and our thought on the budget we would be given. The good part is that we can apply multiple times since there are various deadlines with the first one being the 10th of this month. me and my friend are going to apply as a team so we have a lot of work to do since we are aiming on applying for the one on the 10th.

 Personal Branding

On Personal Branding, we looked at some more job adverts and websites, analyzed their methods of branding and the reason they took certain steps, so we can implement it to our own future website. For this week, we are advised to search for 3 studios that we want to work with but we have never heard before.

 Animated Loops

I’m happy for the amount of work and the quality of the animations that I have done this week, regarding the animated loops project, since I have finished all three of them. I am satisfied with all three of them and I can see the improvement that I have made from the one to another. Now I have the time that I want to focus on the commissioning opportunity and hopefully make some extra work for it.

[alkinooskouts]

Weekly Summary 25/02-03/03

This week started by introducing our newest projects, "Personal Branding" and "Animated Loops", as well as having some lectures from some great and experienced animators who are working in the Industry.

Regarding Personal Branding, Initially, we got information on what the project is about and what we are expected to do for it. We then looked at a few job adverts and a site which we observed the choices made regarding the wording etc. Afterwards, we were advised to start putting our work together and make a showreel, as well as looking at some more job adverts. For next time, i want to have rough showreel ready but I won’t make it my final one because i am planning on making some new animations, besides the uni projects and add them to it.

 As for the lectures that we had. A lot of lecturers gave us some very useful tips on how to apply for jobs, which was a great timing for Monday’s lecture about personal branding, as well as showed us their work and the way they succeed in the industry. Another reason I came to the lecture was to ask Katie Gascoyne from Blue Zoo (an animation studio in London) regarding the summer internships. I wanted to ask if there were going to be any 2D animator internships, because they were opening a new 2D department, which it turned out that they wouldn’t be accepting any interns because the 2D department is still in development and it’s new. She also gave us some great tips on how to apply for internships which I am going to use for my summer plans regarding that.

 For our second new project, Animated Loops, we have to create 3 or more looping animated stickers on Aftereffects or a mix of it with other media, such as 2d hand drawn animation, Cg and stop motion. To be more specific, all the loops are required to start and end with a given peg bar at the given position (middle), which is a black dot between two horizontal black lines. Also, we were shown some tips and examples. After the briefing, I decided to start on my first one and make it on Tvpaint, because I am planning on building a more specific portfolio, since Katie Gascoyne advised to have a portfolio with a certain style instead of showing our general skills on various platforms, like cg etc. For next week I would like to have at least two of the animated loops ready so I can also have some time on the projects to come, and my own self-motivated ones.

[alkinooskouts]

This is for my motion graphics project for my part. I had forgotten to add text but now that I did, I'm all done.

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Film language class

For today’s lecture we had to choose a good film, a bad film and an unknown film.

Good film: The hateful eight

Trailer https://youtu.be/j93t3WWJhf8

Dinner scene https://youtu.be/w1l5xZeQrKw

[alkinooskouts]

Film language class For today’s lecture we had to choose a good film, a bad film and an unknown film. Good film: The hateful eight Trailer https://youtu.be/j93t3WWJhf8 Dinner scene https://youtu.be/w1l5xZeQrKw

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This is my lip sync animation. I think it went well but it was really complicated due to some technical difficulties which reminded me to be more organized.

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This is my animation showreel.

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After the first class, we were assigned to create a character, choose one of the three different recordings, create a variety of mouths corresponding to certain letters and animate the character on aftereffects. 

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This was done in my first lip sync class. We just had a given character and we were assigned to fit the mouths with the words of the recording

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This is my second and final filming of the mystery box project. I dealt with a lot of problems while filming it, since i had accidentally booked for a different studio and not the one with the magnets, which was already booked. Thus i had to finish the film in one and a half hour instead of six, which was the initial plan. Therefore, i didn’t have enough time to sculpt my character as i intended to. The biggest problems i dealt with was removing the rig from the video, since i am not experienced with aftereffects and the rig was always on the stage. The hardest part was to remove the rig when it was in front of the box, since i had to mask every single frame and replace it with a cleaner version of the box (which had different lighting). Due to the rig being, in some parts, in front of the character, I had to erase and replace those parts with the character’s skin. Despite all those problems i faced, i am pleased with the final animation, considering that it was done in one and a half hour 

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This is a test i did while i was waiting for my filming so i don’t film unprepared. This helped me a lot since it made me realize that my character needed some massive changes in order to stand on his feet. so i attached magnets to various parts of his body, as i have previously mentioned. 

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While making the sculpture of my character i made some poses that he’ll take during the filming.I used those poses since they were perfect for the making of my storyboard. 

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Those are my slides for my aniation industry roles presentation. As a group, we decided to do our presentation about freelancing since its something that we are all interested in. I chose to talk about Michael Dudok de Wit. We were assigned to email them, so we can gather information and share it in the presentation with the class. Unfortunatelly, my chosen freelancer didn’t have the time to answer my questions ,as he said, “ these questions invite reflection and complex answers and i would need quite some tie to answer your questions with sincerity.

[alkinooskouts]

I tried to make a test shot to see if the armature worked or if i had to make some changes. It turned out that it was really dificult for the armature to stand on the pegleg on the walking circle. Thus, i went to the 3D workshop in the university and drilled a hole inside the pegleg. The reasone is that i glued two magnets one on the inside of the peg leg and another one under the actuall leg so they can be attached mor easily. Furthermore, i glued a thin metalic plate at the bottom of the pegleg so i can prevent the armature from falling, taking into conscideration that i would be filming the stop motion in the studio with the metalic table which would favor the way my armature works. The reason I didnt just glue the peg leg to the actuall leg is because i would need the wooden leg to be pulled out and used in the animation.

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After finishing the armature I had to make the accesories, meaning the pegeg. I found it a bit difficult since the cutting knife i used was a bit too big for the parts at the end that needed to be handled by being more cautious and gentle. The problem is that i wasnt prepaired with the propper tools to make the leg ecactly how I imagined it.

[alkinooskouts]

While making the armature i decided to give it a test to see if im satisfie with the movements of the pupets. I positioned the puppet in a variety of poses that my character is going to have to take in order for my animation to be filmed as planned. I proceeded with creating the head so it coud be put in the oven. I didnt add the eyes, the jaw and the mouth, since i decided that i was going to use sculpty in order for some certain parts to be movable, as i was advised by proffesional Barry leith, who was a mentor and helped us in the making of our armature.