AND 208 – Exercise 3: Lying

The final and last exercise for this module was to again to chose a piece of dialogue, storyboard it and animate it. However this time the audio had to show one character lying, hiding something from another.

The audio I chose was from Chicken Little (Disney – 2005), the child hiding why he shouted from their dad by lying and saying they fell out of bed. I had a few audio clips that I could use but decided to animate this one as I already had a few ideas for it.

When drawing out the storyboard, I thought on how people lie and the signs they give out. Sweating, position of the eyes and eyebrows, not looking people in the eye, blinking too much, and the way they smile.

The block for this exercise, I wanted to get the cameras shots and perpective right before going in and adding detail.

Taking what I previously learned from the other exercises and allied them to this one. The rule of three (repeating a action three times), using accents, expressions and lip syncing. The only thing that I had to change later on was the size of the head which was easily change (and something that I fell on, on the previous exercises. Not keeping the shapes the right size.)

AND 208 – Exercise 2b

The second part of exercise two was similar to the first. The difference was that a piece of dialogue had to be chosen. This had to have two people speaking (both the same gender to be identical twins), either arguing or having a disagreement. We could either use the character we already created or create new ones.

I decided to create a new set of twins due to the audio clip I chose. The clip I chose was from A Knight’s Tale. One character being excited and wants to know if she (a girl he likes) has seen him and other being sarcastic and not at all interested in his twins actions.

After looking at Toby Shelton’s storyboards I decided to experiment with the camera shots to tell the story and make it more interesting.
(There is a Toon Boom watermark on this one as it was made in the free version of Toon Boom)

This one I added expressions to the characters and move accents on the actions. I was also suggested that I draw hands on my characters to clearly show the actions of the characters and their movements.

This final edit of the exercise hasn’t changed much from the previous one. I added the mouth movements and lip sync. I also added movement to the eyebrows to show the characters thinking and their emotions more clearly.

AND 208 – Exercise 2a

This second exercise we had to create twin characters, design them, give them a backstory and personalities (that are different form one another). We had to create an scene in which these two characters would be fighting over something and show them reaction to it and each other.

First we did a little exercise to help with facial expressions. Taking picture of our selves showing different emotions and drawing our character facial expressions sheets. This helped me quite a bit as I had trouble perviously trying to understand how different expressions work.

(I had to take off my glasses because of the glare off of the computer screen)

With this one i decided to go with my witch twin characters, Toil and Trouble. Toil being the no nonsense and sensible twin while Trouble was the dramatic one. I made them fight over a potion ingredient with two possible endings with each the the twin winning the ‘fight’.

This exercise was for us to practise storyboarding, making the actions and the expressions of the characters clear in them.

Stop Motion

Stop motion or stop-frame is the animation process where an object is filmed frame by frame – where it is moved incrementally, filmed, then moved again and filmed ect. creating an illusion of fluid movement.

The brief this time was similar to pixelation as we were given the same word to base our animation on – attraction. We also had to use found and broken computer and machine parts to build the sets.

We thought of doing a love story this time but it got scraped as we over heard another group planning the same thing. It wasn’t until I mention an old lamp looked like a ray gun, that we had an idea for our animation. That an evil genius build a ray gun, something goes wrong and instead of zapping people it makes people fall in love. After tweaking the idea, we finally came up with a storyboard. Having the evil genus working in his lab and on the ray gun while he says his inner monolog. The ray gun is a shrink ray and he is going to shrink everyone for being taller than him and for bullying him when he was younger, (we are going to have a flash back of when he was bullied), and a close up of him flicking the switch. We are going to have the ray gun hit three time, the 1st on two people on a bench when hit cuddle, 2nd on a man and his dog and 3rd on a big guys who walks in to the lab (while the evil genius is having a tantrum because his ray gun didn’t go as plan) and hug the evil genius.

Building the set took a lot more time and effort than we originally though. Due to the shots that we need we build two sets, one the lab and the other a park, because of this we decided it would be more time efficient to build them both out of cardboard rather than wood. We all took part on building the sets and the props needed though, I took most of the responsibility to make sure it looked right and we had every thing we need. While one of my team members made the models.

We had to keep the models design simple as we had four-five characters and we did’t want them too complex as then we would not have time to film.

Editing the footage after filming was more complex than the previous animations. Some parts had to be taken out, speeded up and slow down, as well as rearranged. We were given some advice for the shots with the evil genius at his ray and the part with the victims, that you down see him look out of the window, so we were suggested to put a circle on the park footage to make the evil genius seem as if he is looking through to outside.
That was done on animate pro/toon boom, as well as the zaps and the hearts shown in the animation.

For the voice effects I did some but we asked Purple again to dot the voice over. WE gave him little instruction other that who the character was and why he was building the ray gun. So must of it was improvised. I’m glad we asked he to do the voice over again as I feel it add some comedy to the animation.

Cut Out

Cut out is an animating technique that uses flat characters, props and backgrounds cut from materials such as paper, card, stiff fabric or even photographs. Any type of material can be used to create a cut out animation.

The brief was to choose a poem, and record sound and dialogue to create an animation using the cut out method. This was the first time we used dope sheets to help work out the animating of the speech. To help use we did a practice.

This also helped us work out what was the best way of animating the speech, for use we found that instead of make a different head for each sound to keep the same head and just change the mouth.

We agreed before this project the poem we were going to use, Have a nice day by Spike Milligan. From the beginning we wanted to do a funny and humorous animation and to have fun with it.

For the storyboard we decided to follow the flow of the poem. When the disease man spoke the frame would be on him and when the drowning was speaking it would be on him. We wanted to add something at the end of the poem when the narrator speaks, and not just have his character talking. So we thought about what he says, “but apart from that, and a fire in my flat, it’s been a very nice day”. So we got thinking, why is his flat on fire? Did he burn something? Or is it on fire because the whole city is on fire? Why is the city on fire? An alien invasion?
So at the end of the poem we have the city getting burned down with ufos shooting lasers. But it still seemed as though we needed something at the end, so I suggested that the narrator gets squished by a ‘the end’ sign, and we did.

While the others were drawing and cutting out the props, characters and setting we needed, I was working out the dope sheet and how long each mouth piece had to be held for.

None of us want to voice the poem so a member of our group asked her friend Purple (its a nickname, he wishes to stay anonymous) to voice it.

The Take

The final exercise was the take, which is described as a classic cartoon device to exaggerate the surprise of a characters reaction to something that they have seen causing a extreme reaction.

The exercise was to create our own take, using our own characters that we creating and using the animation methods previously learned. The character must walk into the screen/frame, see something and react to it.

When told the brief oringnally I didn’t know that the character had to walk on, making serval ideas/ rough storyboards for the take. But once I was told the full brief I had to scrap must of my original ideas, including one of someone sitting in a chair watching TV, and falling off the chair after seeing something funny. So I came up with a new idea of a squirrel and an acorn. It took a while to create a storyboard that I was happy with, but when I did I created a turn around for the character. Then I made the line test.

While starting the line test I ran into a problem with the squirrel’s tail, I originally drew it curling into its self. However my tutor told me this would make it hard to animate and create secondary movement, so I changed it.

I added an outline and colour as well as a background using Animate Pro/Toon Boom. Sound used for it was taken from freesfx.com.

I created it in a way that it could be looped.

Final Major Project: Unnerving Animations

For my Final Major Project on the Art and Design Foundation Course is Unnerving Animations. I came across this subject as I looked back at the animations and films that I enjoyed as a child and notice that not all of them were ‘ sunshine and butterflies’, some had unnerving and scary scenes in them. I decided to focus of the visual potential of mining these images and techniques, which may involve characters, settings and atmosphere. As well as looking into the style and methods that are used in these scenes and investigating what about makes them unnerving. Was it the visual features? Or was it the sound and music?

For my research I looked at a range of animations, film, short animations and artists whos work that an unnerving element to it. This included scenes from Dumbo’s Pink Elephants on Parade and Fantasia’s Night on Bald Mountain and The Socerer’s Apprentice both produced by Disney. The music element, visual and multiplying been key with in these clips. Short animations films such as Fear(s) of the Dark, Brian Andrews’ Hominid, Jan Svankmajer’s Alice a darker stop motion animation based on the book, A Short Vision created by Peter and Joan Folds, Robert Morgan’s The Cat With Hands and Raymond Briggs’ When the Wind Blows. I also looked into Japanese animation (Anime) and the Anime movie Akira, the reason for this is Anime is much more darker to our cartoons mostly because the characters, plot and added elements of politics, religion, humanity ect is so close to the real world and resulting in being much darker. I looked at the artists Fiona Rae and Takashi Murakami who’s work is cute, bright and fun but does have dark element to it such as adding third eyes, sharp teeth and repeating images until it gets too much. I also investigate the relation between sound and animation. From previous projects I have realised that audio helps the animation, for example a scary movie would not have the same effects without the sound and dramatic music. i research the sound and audio methods and tricks that horror and thriller movies take. From sound I looked at Janet Cardiff’s The Forty Part Motet which i saw at The Baltic Centre of Contemporary Art and was blowed away by it, how the sound surround you.

I collected existing animation clip that had unnerving elements to them and analysed them and mimed their style into drawings. I drew some hand drawn images, to help me get back into drawing as the animation that I want to make will be hand drawn.

From this I took a closer look at Disney’s Pink Elephants on Parade and decide to create a short animation based on the elephants heads with them changing expresses and colours as it goes on. I painted them on to acetates with acrylic paint because I wanted to try and recreate that dream-like quality of the animation and so that i could put the acetates onto black paper and take photographs of them. however this was problematic as the glare off of the acetates and the lighting stop me taking decent enough pictures. So in the end I scan them in, and added a black background in by using photoshop.
I aslo decide to create my own pink animals and similar to the elephants have a body part change into an instrument. i created a series of animations and hand drawn stills.

I continued to experiment with different ways of creating animations from ‘melting’ one images to another and repeating it, and Being inspired by Blu and William Kentridge using charcoal and paper, drawing a frame taking a photograph then rubbing it out before drawing the next frame.

I decided to look back at my artists and try and mime Murakami’ style. I took classic Disney characters such as TinkerBell, Winnie the Pooh ann Snow White and re drew them in Murakami style. I also redrew Woody Woodpecker and The Powerpuff Girls and create characters of my own. I really enjoyed this and I wished I could continue to draw and redraw classic characters. This inspired me to do more detailed traditional hand drawn animation using pencil and paper.

For my Final work I planed to create an animation inspired by Dumbo’s Pink Elephants on Parade scene, that it will start off slowly and gently and calm before getting more intense, colourful and hectic as it goes on before slowing down and starting all over again. My animation was made using a combination of my own animations that i made during development and existing footage. Layering them on top of another, multiplying clip, and filters on Final Cut. Using what I found from my images about bright colours, repeating and sound. It is just under 4 minutes long and has a separate sound track.

For the Final Exhibition it will be presented in a dark and dramatic (and specially created) viewing space. This space helps to dramatise the intensity of the animation which deliberately becomes too hard to watch.

NOTE: I WILL POST MY FINAL ANIMATION AT A LATER DATE, DUE TO NOT WANTING TO SHOW IT UNTIL THE SHOW THAT WILL BE NEXT WEEK. AS I WANT IT TO BE A SURPRISE FOR THE AUDIENCE.

Gameplay…

For this project Gameplay, I struggled to find a direction in this project. I wasn’t sure until I discussed it with one of the tutors that I decided to explore the paper game, Exquisite Corpses. I found it interesting how each time you get a different combination of body parts; I found it was like creating a character. I decided to create more exquisites corpses myself. I drew heads on five different pieces of paper then folded them over before mixing them up and asking a friend to pick one and draw the body. I did this finished these are the results:

I realised that creating characters I something all of us have done mostly as children. Playing pretend and becoming a new person. Thought not only children do this, adults do as well, putting on a ’mask’ acting like a different person around someone, online games when people create online Avatars. Actors, as well who play parts within movies.

It form this idea that I decided to explore this be filming four peers and asking them questions about their childhood. What was their favourite game as a child, favourite cartoon, favourite superhero and great fear, and do a pose while answering relating to their answer. I then took stills of the footage and made them draw on them. This was interesting as I got an insight to them as some took their time drawing while others just drew little.

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I made a video exquisite corpse just to see how it would look, it was hard to make but looked good at the end.

I wanted to explore the idea of becoming the characters we see and create so again I took the footage I filmed and created an animation using Photoshop to paint over the clips. I happy how they came out, and I learned a valuable lesson on how much time has to be dedicated to animation.

From this I wanted to try and capture people with out them knowing so that I capture there hidden traits that they show no one. The comment that I received from this footage made me change my idea of my final work. I was told that it looked similar to CCTV footage so i decided to take that route.

I filmed more footage making sure it looked like CCTV footage of the studio space in the National
Glass Centre. Then I took small parts of all the footage and and added fun little short animations with in it. The idea was to have the audience watch this and see these short animations and having to watch the whole animation to have a second look at what they saw.
The original final work was 10 minutes long but I have shortened it so i could up load it as the file was so big.

I am not overall happy with this project as I feel as if i lost my way with it. But I am happy with my final work as it does what I wanted it to do.

The artist and research that i looked at for this project includes Jake and Dino Chapman, Carl Jung and Sigmund Frued ‘s theory on alter egos, Is Tropical The Greeks and the Coca Cola CCTV Advert.

My final work had a chance to be included in the Informer Exhibition that took place outside our studio spaces. The exhibition included a number of students form our Art and Design Foundation Course and their final outcomes for Gameplay.

Bauhaus…

The title of your next project Bauhaus was given the week after your study trip to Berlin.
I was inspired by the a Wassily Kandinsky questionnaire online that ask you to match the colours blue, red and yellow to the shapes, a triangle, a circle and a square and to see if what you chose matched Kandinsky’s colour theory. His answers were yellow for the triangle because it is a sharp colour, blue circle because it is a spiritual colour and shape, and a red square because both are earthbound.

My answers were different as well as my thoughts behind them. I chose red for the triangle because red remind me of fore and the triangle is the Alchemy symbol of fire, yellow for the circle because it is a happy and cheerful colour with no shape edges, and blue for the square because it was the only colour left.
I experimented using the idea that people may associated the colours with different shapes so I swapped them around and experimented with layout and negative space.

Inspired by Paul Bush’s Furniture Poetry I decided to further this idea and make a fun animation based on these three shapes and colours. I wanted to explore with stop motion animation and wanted to see how far I could take it.

I made several trials each using the same methods of animation and shapes but the shapes were doing different things in each animation. I also explored with layering the clips on top of one another, inverting the colours and experimenting with sound. I Used story boards to help me plan my animation and keep it on track.

I really enjoyed this project, my simple idea of shapes and colours relationship with them. This allowed my to further the research into looking at how colour relates to sound and how colours and shapes can create different sounds. My final work was created similar to my trials however the content of the animation id different and as well as the sound and filters I added.

This project allowed me to explore more with stop motion animation and to have fun with it.

My inspiration for this project includes my study trip to Bauhaus in Berlin, Paul Bush, Wassily Kandinsky colour theory on how colour relates to sound, Len Lye, Norman McLaren, and Daphne Orams Oramics.

Digital Skills

Here are some images that I created while experimenting and learning how to use various programs and tools.

Created using photoshop and using a tablet (first time using one). It was hard at first but after a while I got use to it.

Created using the program Illustrator, using the select tool copying different size squares of a photograph and rearranging them on a blank page.

Created using Illustrator, using only the shape tool to create an image, inspired by my Bauhaus project.