This week we were given a task - animate to script. Finally!!! There were four scripts to choose from. Our decision stopped on a script about the scientists and yeti. It's a challenging script, becuse it involves many characters and yeti, who should berather big. As a result, the scale of all sets increase. The main story is about two scientists working in a lab analyzing a block of ice they have found in the mountains. When suddenly one notices a blink in the ice cube. Then the ice cube starts to crack, until it finally shatters. Two scientists start runnig towards the elevator pushing each other aside. When elevator's doors open both of the scientists run out. While runnig past the mail box one (the fat one) stops to check mail and starts to browse. Tall scientist pushes him to start runnig further towards the forest. Where they stumble in to other yetis'. When scientists' turn around they see the first yeti approaching and realise that they're cornered. Then two yetis' pull out party hats and a "Welcome home, Dave!" banner. Dave pushes scientists aside and goes to hug his friends. And they live happily ever after.
Schedule for this task: 1 week - planning, designing characters, storyboarding 2 - 3 week - start building the set and characters. We hope to get them done in two weeks 4 week - capturing ainmation 5 week - editing.
We also made a list of characters: 2 scientists (tall and short) 1 yeti (or maybe 3 more).
Sets: Mountains Underground lab Elevator Forest.
Reference:
"Monsters Inc."
Gossamer
We have decided on the size of the characters. My task for the weekends is to construct the armatures for two scientists: one tall (about 6inches) and the short one (3-4 inches) and yeti (8 inches).
This week's task was to build an armature for a puppet. I must say that this was my favourite assignment so far. On monday Ben spoke about armature constuction, explained do's and don't's. Basically, he covered pretty much everything. I've decided to make something as simple as possible.
Second step - tools! It was actually a bit hard to decide on them since I was not sure what kind of armature I'm going to build. So I only got the necessary things: wire 1,5 mm (of course), thin wire (for the hands), miliput, PVA ( I have no idea what for) and foam.
Also a superb video reference I found on youtube. I've used it as an example and started moving on from it.
Process:
Firstsly, I started to twist the wire to make the armature stable.
I've made the separate parts: hands (one long wire), torso ( a short one) and agian a long one for the legs. Then attached them together. I didn't use any glue, because the wire was perfectly holding the constuction.
Attached the head ( umm..) and cut off the unnecessary bits in its legs. Twisted in the shape of feet. I was surprised that the constuction was steady.
Now time for the hands! I didn't find the thing wire the same colour as the tick..oh well. I've started bending it in the same shape as hands.
Twisted fingers. Ouch!
Wraped the hand again with wire and attached to the armature.
For the third task we had to design and develop a character model head sculpt. Plus this design will also need to show at least 3 different expressions. Last but not the least, the heads have to be photographed from various angles (Side, Front, 3/4, Back).
Later that day Ben showed us the making of puppets for the "Coraline" animation. The amounts of replacement faces are stunnig. Adults can really bring puppets to live! I was so impressed with the movie, that I've chosen a small girl design for the sculpting process.
For my reference I've looked at fary tails with small, adorable girls. No, I'm not a maniac!!! I came across this animation by accident, it's called "Masha and the Bear" - nostalgic.
Continuing with the fairy tails: "Alice in Wonderland" and "Red Riding Hood" illiustrations.
Process:
Equipment:
Modelling Clay (air dry)
Stick
Ball
Crafting tools
Sponge (to keep the clay wet)
Sanding paper.
Next step was applying modelling clay on the ball. This way the sculpt will much lighter, all heads will be the same size and save up a lot of time.
After I started building up the facial features of my character. But I left the mouth for last.
Time to make her look like a girl! I've been changing her hair design loads of times.
In the end I've decided to cover the rest of the head with a hood. But still she was missing something - ears. It still needs time to dry, after that I'm going to use sanding paper to make the surface even and smooth.
Sculpted Replacement Heads:
Okey, my first plasticine head attempt. Looks weird. I should have tried different beeds for the eyes.
Moving on to actual sculpts. This was the first modeling clay head. It was kind of straight forward attempt.
Second sculpt. I wanted her to look rather evil, she turned out to be grinning. Children usually look harmless, but they are little devils.
The last one. Probably the least favourite as in the photos as in life. The expression I wanted her to show - sadness. When I started applying hair the expression faded and she ended up looking intimidated.
Okey. Another amazing weekly task! For this one relates to the use of pixelation and stop motion to create an experimental short. We were encouraged to use various approaches, materials and techniques for this task.
Reviewing some of the experimantal stop motion viedos in class, we got all the inspiration we needed to create our own short. Oh, this was a group task as well. The project started off quite awkwardly, it was pretty hard to keep the thoughts together, because the head was exploding and you had no idea where to start from. Mindmaping did the trick. So the theme was all about dreams and nightmares. The thing that we all agreed on was that the animation is going to a cut out.
The story is about a boy who's sleeping and there's these monsters that crawl out of the bed to scare him. But instead the kid scares them, and they all happily faint. Then the planning process started! We've decided how many monster cut out there will be, what size, plus the main character, planned the room and camera angles.
An amazing early 2D short from genius - Tim Burton. This animation triggered the idea of monsters and Bogeyman. I really like the exaggerated expressions here. Character designes are just perfect! Not only that, but they also reflect their personalities.
There were some parts of the process that went not the way we planned it to, but it turned out to be quite an interesting animation. And yeah this was our first real stop motion animation.
There were a few things that could be changed, though. First of all, there is no such thing as "flat blanket"! Second, we probably should have added more frames, so that the monsters could move more smoothly.
Second term is all about stop motion animation. And the first week has started with a quite interesting task or rather two. Stickfas animation: personal and group. For the personal taske we needed to record a Stickfas walk cycle. The second task included work in groups where we had to produce an animation of our choise with the same models. We each were given a set of figure parts that had to be assembled. It took me about 3 sets and a bit of blood to build a Stickfas model. It awfully resembles Spider Man!!!
The next day started with mindmaping our ideas and sketching a storyboarding. The idea we all agreed on, was 3run and tricking. After that was REASERCH. We each picked a couple of tricks a broke them down, considered the use of a ramp.
This video is a great reference to anyone who decides to animate motion. We have decided that our animation will begin with a backflip + our character will preform couple of tricks or breakdance moves.
But as the time passed we had only three days to capture group animation and still our own. When the Stickfas animation process started we crossed everything out and left just the backflip.
This was THE reference to our stop motion animation. Slow motion is the best thing ever! There was no need in breaking down movements. Although we actually faced many difficulties on the path. The Stickfas parts were breaking and falling apart. But the most annoying thing was securing a wire in one place with the character. This thing was falling all the time and misplacing. After hours of placing the figure and starting over again we managed to get the animation done.
The biggest mistake that has been made was placing the stickfas too close to the wall. Apart from that, maybe a bit more frames would have made the trick spectacular.
I've also tried to remove the wire but i was rather unsuccessful attempt.
As for the personal animation I've produced a qiuck walk cycle. Because I've rushed it, animation turned out quite akward and the figure looks like a maniac.
Things to improve: deffinately the arm movement ( add more motion to them) also couple of frames would do the trick.
For this critical studies task we're required to choose an animation based on it's style, genre, studio or auteur. I guess my choise is going to be based on a style.
I've always been a big fan of comic books and manga and used to rip out the pages where they had sketchy drawings. Because in my opinion they are more dynamic and realistic. When Linkin Park's "Breaking the habit video" aired it was something out of this world! I have never seen a comic book come to life before! Even up until now this animation still remains one of my favourite pieces.
This animation was made by "Studio 4°C". This studio has produced numerous feature films, OVAs and shorts. Their work is various and has a unique and also peculiar style: from being totally reckless and weird to very detailed. As you have guessed, I'm going to focus on the animation style. So the person I've chosen as my style guru is Shinji Hashimoto.
It was extremely hard to find the owner of this "sketchy style" because there's not much information on this artist on the Internet. And I'm still not sure if it's right. At first I was convinced that the person who provided the key animation and directed it was the owner of this style. Also while looking at other pieces of animations that utilise the same style, Kazuto Nakazawa was usually part of the animatiors crew. While browsing through Wikipedia an other sourses I didn't find any additional information regarding style and just went on believing that Kazuto Nakazawa was the hand behind it.
But while I was reading the interview with him i found an interseting thing: "The Sketchy style of the Kill Bill anime and the music video for Linkin Park (the guy who asked this question incorrectly credited him for doing Kid's Story in the amatrix) was not his invention, but instead the invention of another animator, Shinji Hashimoto, who first used the style in Isao Takahata's film My Neighbours the Yamadas". This part part put me in the right direction.
The main reason why I have put Shinji Hashimoto's work in the center of my attention is that it has a particular drawing style that I would like to master. I'm not even sure how to name it. It's rather sketchy but almost realistic enough to believe that the chracters are human. The way he makes emphasis on character's eyes is beyond me. When he was asked where did he get the idea to use a scratchier style he replied: "Basically I don't like drawings that are drawn very clear-cut. I prefer sketchier pictures that have more atmosphere to them. I have used this sketchy-type thechnique on two other productions. The first time was on the titles for earlier project, and the second time I used the sketchy style from beginning to end was on a film for Studio Ghibli".
Shinji Hashimoto provided key animations for the Animatrix's " Kids Story". The Animatrix is a 2003 direct-to-video anthology film based on the Matrix trilogy. The film is a complication of nine animated shorts.
"Somebody tell me
why it feels more real when I dream than when I am awake.
How can I know if my senses are lying?"
"There is some fiction in your truth, and some truth in your fiction.
Brothers Quay are two of the most remarkable filmmakers of our time. Working in collaboration since at least 1969, when they first moved to London from the United States, their stop - action films have introduced a generation of viewers to a lyrical darkness not often associated with animation. Influenced heavily by Central European writers and artists their work reflects the dark psychology resulting form a century of industrial warfare, surrealist art and dialectical politics. For example they especially been inspired by figures like Polish killed by a German Nazi officer Bruno Schultz , on whose story "Street of Crocodiles" is based. As well as German Dada painter Max Ernst, but also the influential multimedia Czech filmmaker and puppeteer Jan Svankmajer. The latter it is noteworthy has also influenced other famous noted individuals such as film director Tim Burton and the American-born British screenwriter, director and actor Terry Gillam, who is also a member of the Monty Python troupe. Stephen and Timothy Quay would in fact be such great admirers of Svankmajer that they dedicate on of their short films to him, entitled "The Cabinet of Jan Svankmajer" (1984).
This was probably the most mysterious and bizarre animations I have ever seen, in a good way. After watching I felt rather confused and had all these questions running through my head (like: why the action was happening in that particular evironment? why did they use all the machinery? what's the purpose of it?) The puppets were something from the horror movies, had different body parts attached, and sometimes missing those. In my opinion, this animation had one huge flaw - music. The sounds were so annoying that I had to turn off the animation just to rest my ears and then get back to it afterwards. I have to say that they have approached the world of stop-motion in different way.
Puppets, toys and dolls with missing limbs, misplaced parts, an metal armatures showing through their torn and frayed clothing that's how mainly Brothers Quay characters look like.
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