Blackmamba-Jack Animations

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Showreel Contact Detail Sheet

This is the contact detail sheet I will have at the end of my showreel. I wanted something simple because you’ll only see it for a few seconds (about 3 or 4 seconds, enough for people to read) I decided to add the drawing I made for my CV, because I like the drawing, and i though it would ad a little bit of atmosphere to the page. Also, it kind of emphasise the idea that i want to be a character animator, by having a character on the side of the sheet.

I will add the right information in in  the final version, I just wanted to show the display of the template so far.

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Live Action Shot

This is my second attempt at recording, This time I recorded earlier in the day, and moved the camera a little closer. The lighting I feel is much better, but the lighting from the window leaves a little bit glare. I am hoping to be able to edit the lighting on After effects, making it a little darker.

The quality of this video look a lot better, because last time I recorded I forgot to record in 1080p, that is probably why it was so dark.

I did a few recordings, and this one I think was the best one, because in a lot of them I did no really move my left  hand that much, it just stayed in the same spot on the laptop the whole time. Also i like my facial expression on this one as well, They not to different really, but I did feel like this one had a bit more of a “giving up” attitude towards the situation. (or maybe more like surrendering)

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Live Action Test Recording

This a test recording I did for the my movie. I wanted to see how things would look. I wanted to record earlier in the day, but I had a few issues and was only able to record at about 8pm. The footage is not to bad, but the lighting from the artificial lighting in the room gives to much of an orange tinge.

at the very end of the clip I am suppose to grab a title card to drag down (which i was going to animate on top) but do to having very little time, I may just make the title card pop up instead.

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Dermot O’Connor Showreel

Since I have to create my own Showreel, I though i’d look into other animators showreels to see how I should do my. I found one by Dermot O’Connor, who I watched a few Animation Tutorials on Lynda.com. I really like the music he uses, its very calming, making it easy to watch. And the music sounds and feels very wavy, witch suits O'Connor's wavy and fluid animation.

It was interesting that O’Connor showed clips on how he animated certain animations. I can assume this would give a higher chance of getting a job, because an employer can see how they animate their stuff. I would like to try this, but I dont really have any guides on how I made anything.

[blackmamba-jackanimations]

Film Update

My tutor Pete offered to get some one to compose music for my film. I made an edit for him with all my up to date film, and asked for music similar to the style of “Road Runner”. They decided to go Electronic with the music, I didn't feel like the style suited my film that much since I think instrumental feels more  appropriate, because I feel like that would create a more tamed feel to my film, that can easily be disrupted.

I was asked for more direction, but I decided to have any music for my film, since I only had a few days left to finish my film. 

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3 Minute Film Research, Explosions: Tom and Jerry

I decided to research more into animated Explosions, and found a clip compilation of Tom and Jerry Explosions. My film is all in black and white, but I like hoe they use the idea of flashing colours on the screen to emphasize the explosions, so I may actually have some colour in my film just to emphasize the feeling of the explosion.

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3 Minute Film Explosion Research: Fallout 4 S.P.E.C.I.A.L

I am reaching a point in my film where there will be an explosion. Since I have never animated an explosion before I though I would look at some animated explosions. This is one I found at the beginning of the Fallout 4 S.P.E.C.I.A.L Animated Shorts. I like how they create flashes at the beginning, leading to a white screen, then the dust starts to clear, that may work for my film, but having a white screen on for a few seconds may not have a great effect on my film, since most of the film is just a white screen. But I do like he idea of the dust clearing a way, so I may try and do something like that in my own film.

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3 Minute Poster 2nd and Final Design

I made some changes to my poster, from my original. I removed the shadow of the Cintiq pen, Which I feels removes quite a bit of noise from the poster, distracting less from the main character and cintiq pen itself.

I also change my films tag line. Originally it was “A film by an under ambitious animator”, but when some said to me “If there is one movie you see this year... you need to get out more”. I found this funnier and decided to change it to that.

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3 Minute Film Poster Design 1

this is one of the outcomes for my poster I made. which I based off the sketch i liked. I added a cream background, which helps make the character stand out, with him being a lighter colour.

I drew in some shadows to give the poster a bit more depth. I think it works really well on the character, but the shadow of the Cintiq pen stands out to much, and is a bit distracting, standing out a more then the character and the pen itself. So I may remove that.

I am not to sure of my sub title yet; “A film by an under ambitious Animator”. Its a tag line that appears in my film, but I am not to sure if it works here, So I may edit that as well.  I feel like the yellow around the tagline works, because it makes it stand out, but it doesnt feel to blinding to look at, so I may still keep that.

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3 Minute Film Poster Sketches

These are some quick sketches I made for some poster designs. I want to try and make a poster that has both the main character and the Citiq Pen on it, since they are both the main focus of the film. I was thinking of having them back to back, to have a bit of a cheesy buddy sort of feeling towards it, but that did not feel right since they both do not actually get along in the film.

I though of making one that was little bit more dramatic, with a close up of the character, with the Cintiq Pen in the back. It did not seem that interesting look at, and did not make much sense with the cintiq pen in the back, because It is rather hard to tell what it is.

I based the last sketch off an old sketch I made a while back, with the character looking scared of the pen. I feel like this one suits the style of my film a lot, showing that the Pen and The character do not get along, but also show the pen having power over the character.

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Poster Research: Deadpool

For my own poster, I want to make something that focuses of just the main character of the film, that shows off his personality. For inspiration, I though that looking at the Deadpool Posters would be the most helpful, since they just focus on dead, but still helps the audience get the idea of what the films are about. Showing that Deadpool is a cheeky character, with his poses, but very vialant with the weapons he is holding. 

Also, with how is looking at audience gives a strong sense that he acknowledges he is in a movie (like hes being very cheeky towards the viewer)

also with the white backgrounds, it helps focus that it is just about him, which will work well for my film since I have no backgrounds.

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3 Minute Film Research: Tom and Jerry

i have gotten to the point in my film where the character gets waked over the head with a cintiq pen, I have been struggling to animate it since it doesn't feel very humorous to watch. So I found this video of different clips of Tom getting hurt, and each one is very amusing and creates a personality for Tom. The most helpful one I found was when Tom gets hit on the head by a telephone pole (36 seconds in) he seems to flex with the pole hitting him, then becomes stiff to give a sense of pain. All the wacks also seems to have this effect where a flash comes out on impact, giving the pain a more physical feeling.

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3 Minute Film Damage

I have gotten to the part of my film where my character get waked against the head. I want to exaggerate the characters body parts to show the amount of pain he is going through, and also exaggerate to make it appear humorous. I though looking at people getting hit in the face would inspire me, seeing how the body  morphs with the impact of an object.

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3 Minute Film Red Lines

To help me, I decided to draw some red curved line guide me to create more arch like movements for y character. It also help me figure out what body parts I should be moving to make the animation look as visually interesting as possible.

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Feedback From Kevin Spruce (11/04/19)

I was given 10 minutes with Kevin Spruce, to show him my work and to gain some feedback. The talk was quite helpful ince he was giving me some ideas to make my film more visually interesting, like in shot 7 where there is close up my character drawing a mouth, he said to make it so the hand goes off the screen and make the movement quicker. There is also a shot where my character turns around holding a pencil ( shot 6) He told me to delay the movement of the hand from the body to make it feel more natural.

He made many comments which have made see more of thee flas in my film. I will do my best to take these comments and improve my film as I move along. I especially need to make the timing a more quicker (snappier) since Spruce, and many other people have said they feel that the film needs to be more like that. 

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3 Minute Film Keyframing 

To create more smoother animations, I decided to start keyframing my animation a lot more. So instead of copying and pasting the shapes I already had and then manipulation the position of my character, I started off by sketching the poses i wanted my character to be in to get to his final pose. Then I tidy up the the drawings and made sure they were the right size and spaces them out so I could then draw the n between.It took a while to complete, but for my first time trying out hand drawn animation properly, I am rather happy with. I made need to slow him down a little because he seems he going a bit to fast, but I am very happy with his foot positioning.

I will try to do more hand drawn and keyframing my animation since it does look better then what i was doing before.

[blackmamba-jackanimations]

WISDOM TEETH  by Don Hertszfeldt

I found this strange short film by Don Hertzfeldt. The characters don’t do much but stand in the same spot, but the timing of this short is really well done, because it takes a bit of the situation being awkward to its advantage, making it quite funny.  Also the sound effects used at one point when the animation is looping made the scene funny as well, instead of it being a repetitive visual boring, showing that sound effects can do a lot of difference to a film.

What I mostly want to take from this is the brilliant timing, as a said, a lot of nothing happens, but I was constantly engaged because of the great timing. Since my own film is a comedy, timing is everything to make it funny, so I do need to time my self with the punch lines.