Kayleigh Bather

Animation Blog

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Final production of my first year film

Sad I couldn’t finish it to the best of my ability but I found that I still can make the best out of what I can create by adding additional sounds for atmosphere.

Things that I would definitely be improving on for the next film would definitely to work on my line art skills as here it still has rough edges so I’m going to keep practising during this summer. Besides colouring my character and prop animation I would of also liked to animate the title and credits sequence by moving the text slightly and making the title sequence fizz up and off of screen like pop. The pace of the film could also be worked on since some things go too quickly and others seem like they stay there for too long. I believe this will be something I’ll get better at the more I keep creating film’s.

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Unfinished

Sadly coming up to the deadline and I didn’t plan my time well enough to get my animation finished due to certain events prior. The best I could manage was leaving the character animation uncoloured in order to edit and give it in on time. Next year I will be starting way earlier for sure with a thought through schedule.

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Scene changes:

I have decided to change a few scenes because of the original awkward perspectives I had placed my character in. This mainly has been changed due to my shots being too wide and not focused on the action in a shot so now it should be more clear what the character is doing.

This also included me adding a new shot from with inside the vending machine which would have a light foggy layer on top to represent the screen protecting what’s inside. My character (Lyle) would be walking past from the right to left then comes back to inspect what’s inside. This allows the first close-up shot of him in the animation.

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Planning out animation for each scene

Scene 1

Character walking around the corner of an ally way, then slows down once they  catch sight of the drinks within the vending machine against the wall.

Some things still being tweaked in the process of this before I start drawing in proper drawings of my character for each frame.

Scene 1 - part 3

Character looking up at vending machine.

Scene 2

Character lifting their arm then dialogue.

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Animation Assets

I decided to do simple flat colour backgrounds, then using black line for character’s and props that will be used. I also finalised the style of the can drinks that will be featuring during the animation.

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Illustration style

 Edward Hopper

Edward was an American painter and print maker who was very well known for his amazing oil paintings. His artworks featured urban and rural scenes in which rendered a vision of modern American life.

Craig Martin

Craig Martin specialises with both paint and illustration work, featuring intense colours. 

Julian Opie

Julian Opie is a visual artist apart of the New British movement. They create simplistic versions of real life figures and objects. The style consists of pop art features either as a whole piece or a section.

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Pixilation

Norman McLaren - Neighbours 1952

This short is an anti-war film that uses human figures as stop motion objects; showing pixilation. McLaren had even created the soundtrack for the film by creating scratching the edges of the film, blobs, lines and triangles which the used projector reads as sound.

OK Go

OK Go’s music video for the song “White Knuckles” from the album “Of the Blue Colour Sky” also uses pixilation but instead of stop motion the whole video is a performance of timing, using themselves, dogs and objects. The song itself follows the roots of Prince’s funk and R&B style and links with the timing of the video.

Deadline: Post-It Note stop motion

Deadline is a short film that uses post-it notes and a figure representing a scene before a deadline. Both the figure and post-it notes are stop motion animated which were timed and planned before creating the final frames. The post-it note patterns were also projected onto the wall, which helped to keep the animation in sync.

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Vending Machine - Creative Poster

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Vending Machine - Rough Animatic

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Model Animating

Group Animation

The first test I did first was a group test of my character including two other people’s characters interacting and stacking some foam cubes. I found there was a few miscommunication and we didn’t manage the time of it well. Sadly I felt my character was also far too long in length to be easily movable in the shot we had used with the other character models. I’d prefer to try this again with a longer shot.

There were also problems with one character in which one of their metal plates on one of the feet fell off so the model’s balance was off which would disturb the scene. However it was more fun working with others, seeing what they would make their character do in the scene.

Single Character Animation

I felt that Chip functioned much better on his own as he had enough space for his body to move in shot. His structure was solid and easily flexible when moving him around the table. Sadly through animating him his head is what lacked as it would slouch and wobble around a lot due to it slowly falling off of the joint that connected his head to his body. I believe this was because of the lighter foam I used for his main base of his head because it easily got dissolved away due to the wire joint moving within it all the time. 

I felt like I got his playful, goofy and pet like personality within his actions even though they end fairly quickly. His walk cycle still manages to make me laugh at how his head and body swing around happily even though the head wasn’t on purpose. The last animation test of Chip picking up the foam cube is my favourite as it shows him for how it is more naturally and timing is a bit better than the others. If I were to correct these I would add more frames for each movement so it doesn’t go as fast as this does.

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After Effects

Tutorial Exercise

First test into After Effects with a tutorial was not too hard to get into. I found it really interesting for camera movements and importing frames of an animation into the frame without no issues.

Composition Screenshot

When creating a screenshot of what appears to be from an animation I used my own to simulate it was taken from the 1 minute short. This involved me drawing both the background and character in shot on separate layers. These layers were put into Affect Effects were I then added shadows and highlights into the background and character before then blurring the background to put the character into a focused perspective.

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Further Background Designs

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Group Research

Erica Russell

Erica was born in New Zealand, 1951 then later emigrated with her parents to South Africa in 1953, spending her childhood there gathering inspiration in the local’s traditions especially the African music and dance. When moving to London early 1970s she joined Richard Williams’ animation studio as a paint-and-tracer. This led her to gain experience assisting the veteran Disney animator Art Babbitt. Throughout the 70s-80s she worked for numerous animation companies before leading to her near-abstract exploration of colour and rhythm shown through fleeting impressions of dancers bodies. ‘Feet of Song’ set her reputation as a natural successor to her compatriot Len Lyle. Her animations show rapturous conversion of movement, music and colour.

She uses stencils and air brush techniques to replicate the bodies of her dancers on paper; each frame being a different position for her figures. Her tribal influences show in her animations as figures can be seen wearing tribal marks or consisting of tribal colour pallets.

Joanna Quinn

Joanna Quinn is an English film director and prize winning animator who was born in Birmingham, England in 1962 and grew up in North London. She studied a foundation art course at Goldsmiths College, University of London then moved on to study BA in Graphic Design at Middlesex University. Her first film is called ‘Girls Night Out’ published in 1987 in which won three awards. This film focuses on a lonely house wife who gets together with her friends for a ‘girls night out’ leading to proactive scenes.

In a video she explains how she animates with her own lit projector. She even explains that working quick and exaggerated helps create the movement and is easier not to get caught up with mistakes in which can easily be corrected. Explaining further she also likes using a mirror which  she keeps beside her to give a different perspective of her drawing, “a fresh pair of eyes” she states. This helps her to see if proportions are correction and if not then she can fix them.

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Techniques of film animation

Oliver Harrison - Apocalypse Rhythm

This film focuses on typography as it’s imagery, linking words with song. It is an unusual but satisfying piece as you can become entranced by the movement of the typography creating the imagery. It is a great example of using something completely different to create a film instead of the usual figure on screen, we see words combing, twisting and  moving around screen.

“Poem, animation and soundtrack by Oliver Harrison. Commissioned by Animate Projects in conjunction with Lupus Films for Channel 4's Random Acts.”

Len Lyle

Len Lyle was arguably known as one of the twentieth century’s most original artists; creating a movement spanning several countries and multiple media up until today. Lyle mapped his unique course through modernism. He was into the experimental film and kinetic sculpture and his practise including painting and poetry, amongst many more media.

LIAF creative skill set is an animation industry event in which cover topics from a wide range of different areas. Lyle had entered in this to show his interesting title sequences, using shapes and music. The shapes would signify movement within the music playing in the background in which gave an interesting sensation from watching. 

He further developed this technique  by creating camera less film’s which involved rubber stamping onto film strips. This was one huge movement in which Len Lyle created films with successfully. The visuals of simple shapes and patterns moving to music was even more challenging to this scale, however made amazing films this way.

Lotte Reiniger

Lotte Reiniger was a German film director and the pioneer of silhouette animation. Silhoulette animation is where an animation is produced using black cut out paper puppets in which would be animated upon numerous layers, most likely using glass layers and a projector below with a camera on top. Lotte Reiniger’s films were all creating by her own invention creating her best known films such as, “The Adventures of Prince Achmed’ 1926 and Walt Disney’s feature-length ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ 1937.

Her silhouette animations are very smoothly animated and detailed with numerous layers and extensions towards the characters features. The character appear real within the world as each animation shows depth and all straight 2D interactions. It is a perfect technique for story telling with as it leaves exploration of character’s detail for expression and general detail; a successful step up from reading a book on its own.

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Manchester Animation Festival - Tuesday 14th November 2017

Student Films 1

Watching the student’s films gave me both pride and amazement over the animation community. The different creations and stories shown gave me more inspiration and determination for my own direction within this career.

A Song For The Whales

Director: Lorenzo Fresta Country: United States Year: 2017 Length: 00:05:00 Technique: Digital 2D Language: Gaelic

“In a cold northern village, whose identity can only be found in a history of violence and blood, a young princess tries to help her brother to find his own way.“

This animation’s style of both characters and background design were simply beautiful and fit perfectly combined. The use of smoothly painted backgrounds with the contrast of thin lined characters were visually appealing with the mystical story. The story itself was engaging and heart felt as the older brother of the two main characters has to make a tough decision between his tribe and his younger brother’s wishes.

Liv

Original Title: Liv Director: Sunniva Fluge Hole Country: United Kingdom Year: 2017 Length: 00:03:58 Technique: Digital 2D Language: Norwegian

“Instead of sitting around waiting for death, Liv goes back to her roots to live out the rest of her days in the wild.”

Mainly what I can say about this animation is the great representation of a decent to death. The old woman in the film is a strong, independent figure who makes her own send off a peaceful one. Her pet dog within the film also respectfully sticks by her until the very end. This animation is another great example of combining smooth washed backgrounds with the use of lined characters, it adds more to this film with the use of colour pallet creating a feel for the hills and wilder land of the UK.

Cops & Robbers

Original Title: Räuber & Gendarm Director: Florian Maubach Country: Germany Year:2017 Length: 00:08:15 Technique: Digital 2D Language: German

“Daniel is playing 'Cops and Robbers' with his friends. Carla is there too. She brought Christian. Daniel wishes to be alone with her. He watches her, hidden on the playground. The sun goes down.”

A very relatable and sympathetic story of a boy with a crush on a girl, in which has its own obstacles. The first person view of the story immerses you in their perspective making his situation tenser for the audience. I found the whole film very interesting and very well paced in terms of its writing and direction. The art style of the film had its own 2D style but gave more personality to the individual characters within the story line. I highly enjoyed this film.

NUEVA VIDA

Director: Jonathan Seligson Country: United States Year: 2017 Length: 00:06:58 Technique: Digital 2D Language: English

“A ball, some brains, and a lot of fluids. A cautionary true tale on the dangers of playing soccer from my dear brother, Kenny.”

An amazing story from a man who’s had a wild adventure of himself and the journey he was having. The style of the film really appealed to my own and the use of black and white pallet gave the sense of a past story coming to life through the man’s words. This also shown through great and direct imagery on screen. It made the environment both tense and worried for this character whilst we were pulled into his traumatic story.

Student Films 2

Grandpa Walrus

Original Title: Pépé le morse Director: Lucrèce Andreae Country: France Year: 2017 Length: 00:14:45 Technique: Digital 2D Language: French

“On the windy and cloudy beach, Granny is praying, Mum is shouting, the sisters don’t care, Lucas is alone. Grandpa was a weird guy, now he’s dead.”

A story of a family accepting death of a beloved family member, ‘Grandpa Walrus’. The film shows the individual character’s dealing with the death in there own ways as they visit Grandpa’s death bed with his ashes. The Grandma attempting and succeeding in releasing his ashes on this sandy shore to make peace with the rest of the family hitting a wall of realisation that their Grandpa is actually gone. The style of the visuals and story in this short reminds me of the quality of Studio Ghibli’s work in which amazed me. Such an excellent and I give much props to the student.

After All

Director: Michael Cusack Country: Australia Year: 2016 Length: 00:13:22 Technique: Stop Motion Language: English

“After all is said and done... all that is left are memories. A man cleans out his childhood home remembering past conversations.”

This story is very strong and filled with emotion. A man dwelling in memories of his lost mother, conversing through each step leading towards her death. Throughout the poor man is tortured through what was said and done in the past but once everything was contoured he get’s relief and sweeter thoughts over his mother’s passing. The detail within the characters were so well done and mirrored real life with expression and interaction. I admire the use of the same environment set in different ways to create each memory and scenes through props.

Creating Worlds At Aardman

From the depths of the Pirate Captain’s cabin, to the rolling hills of Mossy Bottom Farm, to the lush forest valley of Nick Park’s latest film Early Man, the crew at Aardman are responsible for creating some incredible worlds in miniature. These authentic environments give the character’s depth and act as an impressive environment for the animators to inhabit. Animator and Director Will Becher offers an insight into Aardman’s creative process, and looks at how the sets, puppets and performance help create some of the studio’s most iconic characters and shorts.

Viewing the amount of effort and design put into the different world’s created by Aardman shows why the film’s are so successful. They really immerse you into the character’s world and everything within it, even with subtle hints with props. The attention towards the characters also goes a long way as each moment of an expression is separately moulding, same with other aspects like different outfits, hands etc.

I was very grateful to see exclusive content of the upcoming film ‘Early Man’ including main figures in the film.

The World of Tomorrow Double Bill

Director: Don Hertzfeldt Country: USA Year: 2015 & 2017 Language: English Approx. Run time: 50 mins Certification:15

The highly anticipated follow-up to Don Hertzfeldt’s World of Tomorrow finds Emily Prime swept inside the brain of an incomplete back-up clone of her future self, who’s on a mission to reboot her broken mind. Continuing the tradition of the first film, World of Tomorrow Episode Two was written entirely around candid audio recordings of Hertzfeldt’s five-year-old niece.

Director Don Hertzfeldt is a two-time Academy Award nominee whose animated films include It’s Such a Beautiful Day, World of Tomorrow, The Meaning of Life, and Rejected. His work has played around the world, receiving over 250 awards, and made a special guest appearance on The Simpsons in 2014. Seven of his films have screened in competition at the Sundance Film Festival, where he is the only filmmaker to have won the overall Grand Jury Prize for Short Film twice.

Indiewire called World of Tomorrow “one of the best films of 2015,” while The Dissolve named it “one of the finest achievements in sci-fi in recent memory.” The A.V. Club described the film as “visionary” and “possibly the best film of 2015.” Rolling Stone ranked World of Tomorrow #10 on its list of the “Greatest Animated Movies Ever.”

This two part film was absolutely amazing, I loved the mix between a harsh reality and humour. The simplicity of design allowed focus on the story and writing in which was about this twisted future reality of an adult clone version of a young girl called Emily, without her caring she follows the clone on a adventure of discovery and perception. This film makes you think and wonder for the characters involved, it is intriguing with its content.

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Model Phase 3

I have now connected all of his body parts together using glue and started to paint him grey due to limited colours i have avaliable.

Final coloured both with teeth and eyes in white. Awaiting for him to dry and run tests on his figure.