Lauren Hannon

First Year Animation and Motion Design

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As I could not attend the Fota Island Trip, I used a much more convenient subject - my dog, Willow. I used charcoal in order to catch her very fleeting poses. I found it very difficult to draw her live and it took everything in me to not just use a video slowed down or photographs to draw from. It was a good gesture exercise regardless and it had me really study how Willow was moving and taking a mental picture of sorts. I also had to fill in blanks or wait until she made a similar movement to finish the pose.

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My finished clay head animation! It was a lot less of a scary task once I started, definitely wasn't worth putting off for so long. I enjoyed getting hands on with clay and making the head, even if its sort of ugly.

I used a video of myself slowed down to get the mouth shapes as I said hello

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Some drawings from the Lahinch trip. I had a wonderful time and am very glad I went. I found it difficult to capture peoples likeness as they were moving but it was a good exercise nonetheless. I had to try get their energy in a few quick lines. I definitely will be drawing more from life in the future.

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Research: Use of Still Moments

The erasure animation project got me thinking of the animated film Belladonna of Sadness. I decided to watch it after seeing Alice animate its movie poster for the animated film poster assignment.

Intriuged by its art style, I gave it a watch and found it very interesting - be warned its subject matter is not for the faint of heart. It was the first time I had ever seen an animated film utilise still frames in the way this film had. There is very little animation considering it is an animated film, but when there is animation, it is very shocking and effective.

As a class, we watched the film Ghost in the Shell. I did not enjoy it as much as Belladonna of Sadness but I still appreciated the art behind it - particularly its use of stillness. Though it was a budget saving technique, I found it really effective in highlighting the extremity of the action filled scenes. For example, the majority of the film was tame action and gore wise, so when the main characters arm exploded with the effort of lifting a tank door - it left us all wincing. 

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This drawing was made Traditionally and brought into Photoshop. Bit by bit, I erased the drawing and played the frames in reverse - and here is the result! Having a drawing made by markers helped as the sharp edges made it easy to select. I was done this in two hours, it consists of 237 frames and results in an 8 second animation...I still like the result!

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Today Paul continued the Adobe Animate workshop by teaching us about classic tweens, path guides and easing in and out. It will aid me in animating more efficiently in the future. I'm finding it increasingly more easy to use the program after these workshops.

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Today Yvonne worked with us on Pixilation animation. We worked as teams and delegated roles to each people.

Aine and Charlie were the directors. Alice was the photographer and edited the video together. Myself, Christian, Bronagh and Annan were actors. I felt we worked well as a team, we were quick with ideas. We compromised on ideas and as a result everyone played a part.

If I could go back and change how I did this, I would definitely add more frames. I would make it more obvious what the actors are doing - I felt like the fall was a but sudden and out of nowhere. However, we did well in the time that we were given.

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My completed Minion poster!

I thought the initial plan was too short so I added them driving back and forth past the screen to add a bit more length. Since having the refresher workshop I could finetune some of the effects (With the assistance of Paul)

I am happy with my final result. I think it looks smooth and fits the humour of the movie.

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We did a refresher workshop with Paul today on Adobe Animate. We used Photoshop, motion tweening and alpha adjustment to achieve every effect.

I am hoping to use these skills to finetune my Minions poster.

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Stop Motion Research

Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

Released in 2005 by Aardman Studios, it was directed by Steve Box and Nick Park. This was one of the first pieces of stop motion I remember seeing as a child and I remember being TERRIFIED. Now, I can appreciate the artistry behind it.

In researching the directors of the movie I also found that Nick Park was one of the animators for this music video. He animated the dancing chickens and bumper cars. The music video came second in The 100 Greatest Pop Videos in the 2005 Channel 4 TV special voted on by the public (Micheal Jacksons Thriller came first). The video contains Pixilation AND stopmotion.

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Yvonne tasked us with the challenge to use fruits and vegetables to make stopmotion videos in randomised groups. It was the first time I had been asked to do an animation based group project, and I really enjoyed it!

I was grouped with Dani and Donal, and they both jokingly suggested recreating a scene from Breaking Bad. I had never seen the show, but after watching a clip of the scene, I thought it would be very funny to recreate such a dramatic moment with apples and strawberries.

As we had the plot, storyboarding and audio sorted, it was just a case of animating. We struggled with stabilising the camera as the tripod was too high for the table. We initially had faces drawn for each character but Yvonne suggested we just use mouths so that we don't lose the fruit aspect. We decided to still stick with Walter Whites face so that he was more recogisable.

Here is also a side by side of the actual scene:

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Outdoor Sketching

We started sketching in the park across from the college. I started off using pencil but disliked how stiff it was using a mechanical pencil with lead that kept snapping. I also didn't have any fixative so my drawings kept smudging. I switched to coloured lining pens, which I am very comfortable with and like the look of.

I am out of practice of drawing people in real life so the subjects I picked to draw were fairly stationary in their poses. I did manage to string together one sort of movement based drawing of Alice near the end, though.

Then we moved on to the Cathedral. There was a lot of small details to capture in the surrounding areas. I would definitely like to return to really give myself a long time to draw it, and it had plenty of benches to allow that. I struggle to draw buildings, the geometry of them often confuses me so I decided to mostly focus on that. There were a good few older people around too, so in future I'd like to try capture their likeness as they pass.

Not sure if these drawings will be used for anything as of yet, but it was good drawing practice nonetheless!

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Animated Movie Poster Brief

I picked this poster because of having a white background. It will make it far easier to animate, especially as I get back into using Adobe Animate, a complicated and unfamiliar programme for me. I am hoping to animate the bike moving at speed into the frame, slowing down to slow motion and moving off again.

The fun nature of the characters and film allows me to use some humour also, and snappy effects.

It may be too simple to cover 2 weeks of a project, but I would still like to use it as an opportunity to refamiliarise myself to animation.

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Project Statement

I decided to look at the word Movement via Catholicism - a topic I have a general interest of outside of college. Using my knowledge on the topic, I wanted to specifically explore the movement of the young Irish population away from Catholicism.

What I noticed from this project is that despite Catholicisms decreasing power in this country, the aesthetics are still appreciated. Many of my peers expressed interest in my project and it lead to many interesting conversations on spirituality and religion in today's world.

Ultimately, this project taught me several things about religion in a modern Ireland that I wouldn't have had the chance to learn otherwise.

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General Research: Give Up Yer Aul Sins

"Give Up Yer Aul Sins is based on the Academy Award® nominated short film by Brown Bag Films. The episodes humorously re-enact original recordings of Dublin schoolrooms in the 1960s made by Peig Cunningham and subsequently rediscovered and released by EMI. In each episode, a documentary crew arrives to film the activities of the classroom. The teacher chooses children to retell, in their own imaginative way, the bible stories they have learnt."

- Brown Bag Website