Month: October 2023

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Week 6 – Evaluation & Further feedback after presentation

Within this rotation, we learnt how to use after effects to create a self portrait sequence.

Reflection for 2D motion

Due to the fact that the past animation I’ve made involved very abstract shapes and concepts, this time I want to create something with more physical form and meaning. Thus, I created the rat. After some sketches and thinking, I believed that the rat has the most similar characteristics that defines me in some sense (such as smelling food or hoarding items) I also thought that having an establishing animal with it’s real life characteristics sets up a predetermined expectation out of the audience in some sense. I mainly used rounded shapes inspired by the character designs in “Bluey” (analysed in previous posts) and the Disney standards to evoke a softer and friendlier feeling of the rat. Also, with some inspiration from the tutor Jess’s works, I blocked out the colors for all the shapes without any strokes and created something fun and light-hearted rather than emotionally deep sequences.

Learning from the problem encountered during the stop motion rotation where I rushed the screen time by trying to fit in many elements in 5 seconds, I only picked 2 main actions for this sequence so that I can hold onto some frames longer for the audience to fully interpret before it moves on.

For what went well, I think I successfully managed to tell a convincing story with a beginning and an end – with a personally appealing art style of After Effects. It didn’t feel as cheesy as I thought it would be, but still managed to capture the emotion and feeling based on people’s feedback and ideas during the screening. I think the way I structured my production process was very time efficient and effective – as I first started animating the main positions of the characters, and then going in and adding secondary actions and details afterwards. I loved how the texture at the background doesn’t exactly distract the viewers, but added to the comic-like style of the rat. Having it boil brings out the form of the rat as well.

However, to improve upon this further I think I’d try to expand on the rat’s expressions in the beginning. I made it very interpretive to the viewers by just having it eat the cherry. I could’ve have it react to it in some way before it spins out into oblivion. I think that when it was spinning as well, I could’ve animated the arms and legs moving before I made it spin since now, it was harder to track the movements as it was spinning. Maybe next time I could also create a personal character with proper character concepts rather than just drawing a generic rat.

Feedback I Received:

The feedback I got were mostly positive, where they said the rat felt very alive and that the color scheme was overall visually appealing and that the timing has a good rhythm. I should’ve time the sounds better as there was some confusion on whether the sounds are made from the movements of the rat or the cherry. So I’ll fix it a bit before submitting it.

Overall, I really liked using after effects, despite at times it being very complicating and fiddly.

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Week 6 – Refined version with some feedback

Finished Outcome:
Finished outcome with textures and sound:
Textures I used in the background:
Boiling texture I made using procreate brushes and the “halftone” filter

I did consider maybe texturing the rat and cherry instead, but after testing it out, I felt that it distracts the audience away from the main movements. I just stuck with texturing the outlines of the shapes instead. Although I also find the version without texture appealing in itself with the simple colour scheme, the boiling background subtly added dynamic movement within the overall composition. I love how it slightly created a comic-like effect, further adding to the cartoonish movements of the rat.

In terms of the timing, I love the rhythm of how each elements of the composition is introduced.

Work in progress for the feedback given

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Week 5 – Making my self portrait

BRIEF:

Make a 5 second “self portrait” animation using after effects with 24fps, 1920×1080 px set up.

<> It needs a change of narrative rather than just a moving image. (Different beginning and ending)

<> Needs colour, texture, composition, repetition and rhythm

I decided to work on something more physical this time, rather than making something experimental like my stop motion. This is so that I have a grasp on how to make proper character animation as well. I was quite inspired by “Bluey” ‘s stylistic choices in character design, and thus my sketching process begins.

My sketches for the self portrait

So far, I wanted to keep working on the cherry that I made – since I love how I sculpted that. To go off of that, I decided to create a rat. To link this to the brief, I’d consider myself to have a rat like personality, where I sniff any food that I eat, and hoarding items that interests me. When picturing the sequence, I interpreted a lot of swirls, or (the motion of it) since at times I feel like I’m just riding on the waves of confusion and life, whilst cruising on it to guide me to where I’m supposed to go (in a way). Although I pictured making a washing machine element, depending on time restraints and timing, I would further cut down elements when I need to.

Bluey’s Character design mini analysis:
Image taken from thumbnail of the Official Bluey Youtube channel “It’s Summer Time! | Bluey”

Focusing more on the character designs, they use all three main shape languages, but forms them in a way where the characters looks blocky, but still soft and round through the rounded corners.

Most of the shapes within the character don’t have an outline – and the outlines outside the main figures differentiates the character out of the background in a non-distracting way using a darker value to the colour of it’s shape.

I noticed that they used around 4 colours (which has very calm changes of hues and contrasts using analogous and split complimentary colours)

I think that I would like to implement the colour palette and shape language into my work to create a visually appealing and overall connected and well put sequence. However, since I would prefer a textured outline or more blocked out shapes, I wouldn’t concern myself with outlines for now.

Work In Progress:
Making the main shapes and dissecting the body (so that the mouth can open)
Zooming out to see the rat, before it eats the cherry
Some key frames
layers
It was difficult to keep track of all the little elements
Realising that I can change when the element appears/disappears

At the first stage, I mainly focused on making the puppets and the timing of each main keyframes. Because I can go back on the frames and elements later onwards, getting the main actions done was my main priority. I tried to keep the main colour palette as simple as possible – using only 4 colours with a semi quadratic colour scheme. I chose these colours mainly since I want to evoke moody ambience, with some suspense for the rat, and also to just have the rat and the cherry pop out of the background further to be focused upon. The negative dark blue space also makes it feel like they are floating in the abyss and space.

First draft of video:
During the time of animating this, I thought that this by itself could be passable. However after a second look, the rat felt quite stiff and creepy.
Animating tiny elements of the rat:
I went in and accentuated secondary actions of the ears moving so that it gives and illusion of the rat moving into frame rather than zooming out. I also added some sniffing from the rat for them to interact with the object further.
This was me figuring out media encoder to start exporting my work:
Second draft of the video:

For now, I was quite satisfied with the motions, and look forward to Monday’s workshop on adding further texture. I’m also planning to ask my tutors about their opinions as well.

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Week 5 -Learning After Effects Basics

During the lessons, we talked about the principles of animation once again – mainly focusing on the easing and keyframes. We then tried out some simple after effects techniques such as moving and morphing shapes using keys.

To establish characters, we also looked into shape languages from Disney to further communicate personality to the audience. But personally I believe that a good mixture of these shapes would accentuate personality further.

After Effects Tests:

These are the first few test that I made in the first 2 lessons. It was interesting how just altering the movements and the speed of the ball could define the weight so easily to us. This was also simple enough to achieve for a person who has never used After effects.

Exercise: Drawing an emotion with 3 shapes
I picked sluggish and laziness – which made me picture droopy liquid that is difficult to pick up.
Experimenting with the sketched out shape:

Since I was still practicing, I just tried to get the shapes and layers as accurate to my sketch rather than figuring out a movement. But just changing the path of the shapes to make it droopy conveys the emotion quite well with just 2 keyframes.

Drawing a cherry as practice:

I was quite proud of this cherry I made, so despite it just being a side practice for the class to just delete later, I decided to keep this for the brief we’ll get from this rotation. I really liked my improvised colour scheme and the way I drew my cherry.

I’ll update on the brief in the next post:

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Week 4 – Storyboard reflection and improvements

Reflection Page

During the week, we analyzed different types of compositions and storyboards to aid us in formulating our own little story. Within the rotation, we made 2 different stories. 

Cafe dispute storyboard evaluation:

For my longer storyboard, I personally enjoyed the story concept. I drew each frame consecutively without much precise planning. Since my cafe dispute is a literal argument, it’s much better to figure out the flow of what’s gonna happen next – which worked quite well. It was quite difficult to have more abstract experimental things going on within my story without having the readers be confused. Following the brief, I stuck to very simplistic character designs with basic shape language just for the readers to differentiate who is who. That made me focus more on the compositions and camera angles than the characters themselves. 

For what went well, I think that the use of colors in monotone really helped to bring out the form of the characters from the background. It really helped to establish the bursts of colors and energy when it went into the imagination phase. I think that if I managed to animate this, I could even stick with the color palette I used within the storyboard itself. I also liked the use of arrows within my scenes just to show the flow of the camera if it’s not static. 

To improve, I think I should’ve made the frames similar to the aspect ratio I’m working with, and keep them mildly consistent – since when I tried to make an animatic out of the frames, it was really difficult to line everything up in the same position. When I was getting feedback from this storyboard, I didn’t get much feedback on improvements due to time, and the ones I got were quite positive. 

3 panel storyboard evaluation:

For the 3 panel storyboard however, I got some feedback where I should redraw the middle frame with the boy and the child, since the boy pointing made it feel like the camera pan-ed over to the boy’s perspective rather than them growing further. Overall, I think these simplistic story panels where nothing much changes makes the viewers focus more on the little changes that happen rather than the complexity of the scene.

 I have improved this storyboard with a second draft, where instead of pointing in a direction, the boy is just pulling on the mother’s shirt. I also changed the colours within the storyboard so that it’s more clear with the background through using complementary colours rather than mixing up a colour palette with similar tones from one another.

Overall, I really love the storyboarding process and hope to somehow turn my storyboard into an animation of some sort.

Feedback I noted down during the presentation
Refined Storyboard
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10 Photography Homework

10 images I took for Jane’s assignment

For this assignment, we were tasked to take 10 pictures of our surroundings that didn’t belong to us.

I decided to document pictures of the newspapers abandoned on the train. During my transports to University, I noticed how there were newspapers in the tube everywhere – despite never seeing anyone read them. It didn’t seem like it belonged to anyone, since if they were bought, they should’ve been taken with their rightful owner. I haven’t seen newspapers sold anywhere either so it was a mystery that they are even there.

As I kept capturing random encounters of these papers, I started to catch some glimpses of the headlines, and reading what generally had happened within that day – and documents history in some form or another.

During the discussion of my pictures, Jane noted that I could take this on further and make it into something more meaningful. Something that can spark either a historical or political statement.

In the moving image aspect. I envision something experimental, with the flashing headlines within the newspaper, or where the images within the paper becomes alive. Another idea that I’ve brainstormed was to actually take these newspaper, and cut them up into a DADA poem. This idea was based off of the previous discussion we had within the class with David Bowie’s song machine BBC NEWS SITE that spews out random words to turn into a song. We came across this topic when talking about Marcel Duchamp’s “Fountain” (1917)

Overall, it was quite an interesting take on an idea I can pursue later onwards in the future once I have the techniques and tools to visualize my idea.

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Week 4 – 3 panel storyboard

Life drawings in Waterloo Station:

Within the first 30 minute session drawing, I was focused on capturing the expressions and facial features of the person. I found out that just blocking out shapes and shading really helps with that. During the drawing, I was sitting a floor up, and looking down – thus only being able to see small details. It was quite helpful in helping me get the main shapes down.

When we moved onto more drawings that have potential for a “narrative”, I went into Southbank near the station, sat at a near-by cafe/office thing, and started drawing people who were dancing. It was quite a fun experience, since I got to draw natural poses and also some rapid ones too.

Figuring out the 3 panel sequence I’ll use:

I decided to go for the mother and child storyline since I came up with quite a cute storyline for them. (where we watch them grow older in just seconds). I was inspired by “UP” within their montage sequence of them growing old together – but just a condensed version of it.

Personally, I feel like I went overboard with the colours, and thus made it murky and distracting. It also makes the whole atmosphere feel more sinister rather than wholesome.

Feedback and response on this will be on the next post:
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Week 3 – Storyboard – Story board assignment

Brief:

<> Storyboard with 20-60 panels
<> Scenario should be 2 people in a cafe having a disagreement
<> Can use stickmen

My finished storyboard:
Page 1
Page 2
Page 3

<- This is extra content that I couldn’t fit into the narrative. But it was to establish more personality within them.

My first draft:
Page 1 of 3
Page 2 of 3
Page 3 of 3

I mainly drew each panel in a flow, rather than figuring out a start, middle and end – which worked quite well. I did get carried away and colored in my storyboard, but it made it a bit more better.

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Week 3 – Storyboard – Film language

For our first class in storyboarding, we mainly looked into different compositions and shots used for different moods and scenes. We also looked into shape language of the characters and the environments around them.

These are the notes I made during the presentation.

Storyboard Exercise:

We had a mini exercise where we draw a panel of one of the prompts written in the presentation, and I chose “A surprising discovery”.

I interpreted the discovery to be something pleasant, thus setting the scene with some subtle clues of where the characters are (in a birthday party) I used the worms eye view bottom view to create a visually interesting piece. Based on the feedback however, I think I could definitely improve by showing the character’s expression and energy of the “surprise” before getting to the scene that I drew. (which I kind of sketched out in the 2nd panel after that).

QUICK PANORAMA LIFE DRAWING EXERCISE:
4 panels of my classmates within the class

These are quick sketches of my point of view within the class, it was very interesting how I couldn’t exactly fit everything I see on the page or else it’ll be cramped up. In a way it felt like capturing a fragment of what I see in a viewfinder. Other than that, this exercise was quite fun and eye opening. If I had more time I would’ve definitely developed on it more.