#mb ws

[valentin-ba1]

week 27 summary

This week I had my second official filming to add to my two separate test shoots and one partially failed filming. I had to book a separate slot to reshoot my sequence, because the first time around the insufficient time slot negatively impacted my process and I wasn’t able to produce a work up to my intended standard. Prior to the shoot I independently fixed my puppet’s feet, according to how we were taught to make them.

This time around, I was able to use a free double slot and within a total shooting time of three hours produced a somewhat smoother result with a more accentuated movement. During the shooting, however, I realised why it is that productions spend one day animating a four-second sequence to produce believable and smooth movement and that I should appropriate my standards within the time and resources that are available. I find the process of stop-motion both excruciating and enjoyable. I also finished my character design sheet and model sheet, which despite not needing for the shooting I wish I’d created earlier to inform my process better. In the future, I will strive to keep a logical schedule within pre-production and production. I will also aim to produce designs that push my creative limits. After shooting I have taken to After Effects to edit out the green screen and mask out unnecessary objects. Afterward, I applied my background which I created by referencing my researched environment materials. 

[valentin-ba1]

Week 26 weekly summary

This week I had my official filming slot on Tuesday after our individual research tutorials with Helen Schroeder. Since mine was the first booked slot after bank holiday I faced the unfortunate timing disadvantage of having to set up everything from scratch, which sadly took a lot of time off my filming slot. This is something I could have hardly prepared for, since working with the pins is very fiddly. When I started my filming I was trying to closely reference both my animatic for reference as well as a video tutorial on how to animate the poses of a walk cycle. Because I was focusing on many things at once, along with paying attention to details such as arches in the hands and feet, I have failed to account for the most important timing of the steps, which have originally been planned to be very slow and expressive. I think the most important reason for this was the time pressure which came with the long setting up time and realisation of how slow the animation process is. Being also pressed by having to clear out in time for the next person, I have rushed my animation, which resulted in a smaller amount of frames than expected and the overalI action's ending was thought up on the spot after my foot broke during the filming, so I exaggerated the planned reaction to the box even further to add a sense of follow through. I am happy I could swiftly and effectively react to such circumstances under pressure, however I am not pleased with the outcome of my sequence and I will strive to remake it to my standard if I get a chance to book another slot. I will also have to fix my puppet and seek advice on how to set up the green screen with white boards so that it's easily editable in post production.

[valentin-ba1]

week 25 summary

On Monday we met up in SG54 to put finishing touches to our puppets and to discuss our first pass films with Helen Schroeder. She offered useful feedback and helped me with the planning of my movement, as I was unsure the first pass’ movement/action worked in the angle and setting, but she suggested what to try and change in another test before the final shooting. I took notes of this and also received feedback on the puppet itself, which was positive. On Friday I went into SG54 to finish the details on the puppet such as the hood and painted the face and hands and feet. Once they dried I animated another test, a second pass focused only on the angle of the character and the arm movement. I shot it on fours initially, to create something of a 3D animatic. I ascertained which angles work to plan my sequence better and tried a new idea for how to end the animated movement. During the weekend I took to completing my updated animatic in Photoshop, referencing both my initial sketches and the latest test pass, which helped me greatly to record the appropriate proportions. After I completed that I remade my storyboard using the main frames. Overall this week I have cleared a lot of the tasks I’ve set for myself which I’m pleased with and I am ready for my official filming slot next week.

[valentin-ba1]

week 24 summary

This week I did my test shoot in the Animation production. I couldn’t fully finish my puppet prior to the test filming because as it was the last week before a long Easter break and the trip to Prague from which I would go home to Slovakia, I had to juggle priorities of other responsibilities. The filming itself didn’t go as well as I hoped for, mostly because of the lack of a stable animatic which would show me what action and movement would work. Instead, I used this test shot to try and figure that out. Starting with a simple character-charged walk cycle to communicate the bearing worked well, however, once the arm movement came into the action I was displeased to see the angle along with the costume being all black complicated the communication of movement and ‘tangled’ it up. Since I could see the setting wasn’t working well, the remainder of the shoot I didn’t pay attention to smooth animation, and I rather tried pushing poses and estimate a timing. I will need to create a proper animatic, also make the design sheet where I might come up with ways to improve the character design and once that is done, I will be ready to finish the puppet and then carry out my official filming, which I’ve booked for the 2nd May to make sure I will have enough time for post-production.

[valentin-ba1]

Week 23 summary

This week I have finished the body of my puppet, as we had a full week packed with optional workshops in SG54 and I attended every day. Once the base of the skeleton was ready to be used, for the remainder of the week I have strived to shape the whole body out of freely accessible foam straps and other materials to challenge myself and try to make my puppet on no-budget. I have put great effort into shaping the foam into a smooth finish so that the anatomical structures which my design accentuates would be prominent, such as the ribcage, hip bones and a shaped back. I have also devised a technique to make the limbs out of rolled on strips of foam for a stiff finish. I have sculpted the head and had it baked over the weekend. Barry helped me with making my feet, by connecting the cut up feet with wires to add flexibility. We also used the 3D workshop to sand the surface to be flat. On Thursday we had an After Effects Inductions with Sam Barnes in the media labs, to teach us how to operate the software when editing out green screen, which we will need to do after we finish our mystery box shots. This induction was extremely useful and well-taught and we used pre-made compositions to get the full experience of how the process works. I am looking forward to further learning how to utilise Adobe After Effects in different areas of animation and editing as well.

[valentin-ba1]

Week 21 summary

This week we greatly benefited from having another Sarah Perry acting workshop to help us with the character performance, which we pre-planned in a storyboard and brought into the lecture. It was a very interactive and collaborative session and I really like that we’re having these workshops because it feels like it adds a lot of added value to the coursework and helps us greatly as animators by giving us a fresh perspective on how to approach character animation from a more in-depth point of view, to achieve a higher standard of work in the future. 

We all had our group-mates act out our storyboard, choosing one who performed the most according to our imagination of the action. We recorded the best character performance as reference on camera to use when animating later. I was chosen to be recorded twice by my group-mates and also acted out my own storyboard because I knew exactly what I wanted to achieve, but prior to that I have directed my group-mates to the action I was aiming at, to test out my directorial abilities, which I really enjoyed due to my natural leader skills and communicative attitude. 

We also had an induction to animatics with Helen, and I have found creating my own animatic quite challenging due to me being displeased with how I’d drawn the poses and I didn’t feel like my work was up to a high standard, so I will try to practice their creation more in the future. We used Photoshop for this, which I found was more difficult than using TV Paint, because we needed to customize the file and work with layer-animation, which even though I’ve used before, I still found slightly complicated. Also, I am not yet sure which action I will go for in the stop-motion, which made it hard to create an animatic. I have paid attention to posing and line of action though and I will make sure to do so when I remake it as well.  I will need to remake the animatic anew to tie down the drawing style and push the poses to be able to tell a story. I will also need to reconsider how well I can communicate the initially intended action and perhaps change it.

[valentin-ba1]

Week 20 summary

In the first week of this project, we brought our character designs to create a maquette of them, using a wire-based skeleton and super sculpey, which was luckily provided for us which I really appreciated, because I thought we would have to financially cover the whole stop-motion puppet process ourselves. I brought a character I designed in the first term for our character design class as part of the three iterations and I didn’t end up using him for that project, but I really wanted to take the design further and even though he was originally intended for 2D digital, I decided to take on the challenge on making him into a puppet. 

I brought a rough character design sheet with a turnaround and created a more tie-down sketch in the lesson, which I then used for the proportions of the maquette. I enjoyed this crafty task, even though it felt like it took me to long a time to achieve what seemed like an easy design compared to other classmates’ work. Despite that, the proportions I created and the attention to the body being slim and attractive is what posed the biggest challenge, so I had to carefully craft the surface to be smooth and seamless. The first time I winged the hands, so I had to come back prior to them being baked, to fix them. This is the first version and underneath it is the delivery baked maquette: 

This workshop was meant to help us with our future work in that we can use it as a 3D turnaround reference when modelling the animation puppets, which I think is very useful. It also brought us closer to the character design because we had to translate our 2D sketches into a 3D space and communicate the character through their body and stance. I really enjoyed this task and am looking forward to creating the actual puppets, though I am worried it will be really difficult.