End of Term! [Negociated Production Report/Animation Technologies/Pitch Project]

Today marks the end of Second Year! It's insanely scary to think that next year will be my last...

Lightbulb boy at 12fps (ignore the disgustingly pixelated thumbnail, the video doesn't look like that):



My Barista videos are still failing to upload to YouTube and Vimeo, despite me exporting them in a variety of different formats, I can't really understand why this is other than it must be something to do with the export settings from Animate. I plan to edit them all together using Premiere or After Effects when I'm next in the studio, hopefully then I'll finally be able to post them to my blog! Anyway, here's the production report:

Alice Negotiated Production Report

Animation Technologies presentations were also this week, I think I did alright, however I made notes to stop myself going off on a tangent but only remembered I had them about half way through my presentation... subsuquently I'd gone off rambling a little. Some people's presentations and essays were much more focused on the technical aspects and specifications of the technology, but mine was a on Digital Cameras and focused a little more about the effect, so I hope this was what Georg wanted... I've uploaded it here so you can have a little look if you wish:

Alice Nightingale - Animation Technologies Essay

Aaaaaaaaaand, finally, the pitch project. We had our presentations this morning and I think ours went pretty well... we even managed to keep Derek from asking any questions at the end! Our practising at Emily & Sasha's house till 11 last night paid off: Sasha and Paddy did a great job of presenting our idea to the audience while Insa and I held a screen that Emily held up cut-outs of our characters behind (think puppet show/punch and judy type thing)! Insa has the finished Design Bible, so I'm sure it'll be uploaded to her blog at some point soon, so I leave you with the teabag band The Herbals rockin' away...

Negociated Brief

As the deadline looms for the negociated brief I've been struggling to get motivated to do as much work as should for my Barista scenes. I had a very helpful a tutorial with Andy on thursday, were we got talking about the sort of thing I would like to do if I wasn't working on Barista. Barista's style is neat and orderly and the strict style that Alex wants is very different to my own... as Andy said, I've been working on it since January and he suggested that I work on the scenes I said I would complete, but instead of working on new Barista scenes, to put aside one of the days left in the run up to the deadline to work on my own animation, and see what I come up with.

Lightbox, I missed you!

So, at half past ten on friday night (after battling with my Animation Technologies essay, which is taking forever, my brain is overloaded with information about Digital Cameras... it turns out there is such as a thing as too much research...) inspiration hit me and I decided to get out my lightbox and get drawing away without any particular plan. I continued to work on it for most of saturday and currently have roughly around 250 frames (which equates to 10 seconds of animation), until I shoot it on the linetester at uni, I have no idea what it actually looks like or wether the timing will work. But it's been very liberating and really fun to just go ahead and do something spotaneous, without a plan and just improvising along the way. I really want to continue working on it, but have to finish my Barista scenes and win my battle with the Animation Technologies essay first... So, watch this space.

Major Update: Crew Assignment/Negociated/Pitch projects...

So, it has literally been forever since I updated my blog, which deserves a slap on the wrists, but I have been crazy busy. The workload has now slowed - I only have 3 projects on the go, (Pitch Project, Negociated, Animation Technologies) as opposed to six (which included Dissertation Proposals and Crew Assignments Report) and working like a mad thing with Alex in order to get Barista sorted for the 3rd Year hand-in. Which we managed. Literally, just in time (security came along to kick everyone out at studio closing time and we were literally the only ones able to walk out), and the result can be shown below:

Barista (hand in draft) from Joleaf on Vimeo.

I'm continuing working on Barista for my Negociated brief, which means I will clean-up all the shots I worked on in the video above, and then get cracking on new ones after that. The hand-in is on the 8th, so I can tell I'm going to be working like crazy again. I've been exporting videos of my works in progress, however YouTube is having trouble with them: they'll upload, but not convert... I'm not sure if this is because they're exported from Animate and YouTube doesn't like it...

The only piece of written work remaining for this term (after handing in another set of literature reviews and film review - both of which I got damn good marks for - and a dissertation proposal, complete with massive bibliography) there's only the animation technologies essay to write: we have to research a technology that is/or can be used for animation, which for me, has been a real struggle to think of anything - I was always terrible at trying to invent made-up machines and gadgets as a child - but I came up with the idea of Digital Cameras and their now cheap and high quality avaliability... So I've got to find out a bit more and write it up in a nice essay format and presentation for the rest of our year D:

On a slightly funner presentaiton note, for the pitch project I'm working with Sasha, Insa, Emily and Paddy on creating ideas for a short animated series about the residents of a kitchen cuboard, the condiments, called "The Foodal System". Emily is in charge of creating script ideas and has posted some of the ideas on her blog already, here. Paddy and I have been working on lots of character design. I have been in charge of creating the all tea-bag rockband 'The Herbals', a bunch of hippy herbal teas...

Barista Work: Carol (Animatic)

I should be packing to go home, but I've spent the morning doing this:

[100th post!] Pre-Production Complete

Celebrating my 100th Blog post AND the completion of my Pre-Production project. It's been a mission, but it's got done :)

The Final Design Bible:
Theatre of The People Design Bible
My Production Report:
AliceNightingale_ProductionReport
My Visual Research File:
Visual Research File
All my Sketchbook work for the Project:
Alice Pre Pro Sketch Book

Barista Work: Animatic

It's been a while blog, I've been busy neglecting you and half starting and not finishing everything else...

So, here's an updated version of the Barista Animatic, the first minute and a half is by Alex and the rest is by me...


Due to techincal problems and compatability issues, only me and Alex are going to be working on the final film, we're definitley animating up to the end of the animatic and anything after that will be a bonus! No more animatic we're heading straight into animating next!

Tomorrow, with the aide of Alex's girlfriend and armed with P2 cameras, we're roadtripping to some fancy coffee place Alex has got in contact with to shoot some refererence footage for the opening coffee-making sequence, so I'll be uploading some pictures of that soon :)

I'm currently working on pre-production like a boss, after my fairly successful pitch (I feel it went well... considering I didn't have a practice and Derek & Kathy hadn't heard anything about my change of idea...) things are coming together fairly quickly and easily.

Also going to be doing our second shoot for Cinematography tonight (our first was fairly successful, but there are a couple we need to reshoot). I'm also going to take my "monkey" camera and take pictures and do some interviews for our "behind the scenes" kind-of-thing we have to do to accompany it, as well as perform my role as shot keeper (or as Frankie says, 'shop keeper'), so that'll be up on here soon too.

Barista Work: Transitions

A week or two ago I mentioned an idea I had to Alex about involving coffee beans in the cheesy screen wipes he wanted to put in, he liked the idea and thought we could use real coffee beans in stop motion to do this (inspired by Emily's Experimental bead project), so he asked me to design a few:

Life Drawing 27.01.11

Getting back into the swing of things, I really am much happier to sit and draw in my sketchbook than stand at an easel:


Aaand pratting about with paint (I like my negative space one best):


As an animation student we tend to practise drawing a sequence of actions:


My favourites:

Pre-Production Inspiration/Research

Somehow, when Kathy told us to research Character Design, I don't think she would've expected this to pop up in what the website it's from calls "100 inspiring character designs".

However I did find an awesome blog that interviews different character/pre-production designers and showcases their work: http://characterdesign.blogspot.com/
It has quite a variety of different artists/animators on there, and the videos/pictures are really interesting, especially when you come across something you know and love. I especially enjoyed stumbling on the interview with Carlos Grangel who talked about his methods and designs for characters in The Corpse Bride (YAY BURTON!):



I recommend people check it out, it's a really cool website.

Workwise for this project so far I have been doing lots of research, mainly gathering images of wartime Berlin, watercolour artists, German wartime artists, concept art, clothing studies aaaand lots of doodles/mindmapping/scribbles.


I'm still a little hesitant to put things up on my blog at the moment, because things really are still in the rough stage, perhaps when I have more solid ideas and style I'll be a little braver.

Back in the Saddle.

So, after what was, due to lots of personal reasons, a fantastically crap Christmas break, I'm back at Uni, not feeling very refreshed, but keen to get on with anything.

This term we have to help the 3rd Years with their projects, I'm working on Alex Jolliffe's project, Barista.

My job is to animate a pigeon flying through the opening shot of a city which Alex has already been working on (and I helped cut out a few of the buildings!):

Untitled from Joleaf on Vimeo.

Just a little bird-y test to get back into things:


Alex thought I'd be good at the pigeon after seeing my experimental video :) when I've finished the opening scene I'll then move on and help with the character animation. To do this I'll be using Animate (once I learn a bit more about how it all works of course...) I downloaded my own copy since it's a better version of Flash, which I've enjoyed using for previous projects, despite its limitations (and crash count...!). I love the 2D vector style it can produce.

Also for this term I've decided to do the Pre-Production Project, although I still really want to learn how to Composite (not compost...) so I'm still going to try and attend as many Post lectures as possible.

I feel like the Pre-Production project will be a lot more interesting for me personally thanks to the cards I picked (in our seminar, Derek got us to pick 4 cards, one for setting/character/type of show/style). Originally the four I ended up with completely clashed with each other:

Setting: World War II Berlin
Character: Astral Body
Style: Hokusai (which I had no idea what it was!)
Show: Pre-School Children's Show.

I mean really, teaching pre-schoolers about WW2 Berlin with crazy spirits in an ancient Japanese art story style? I can't see myself being able to achieve that. Hats off to anyone else who can.

I swapped Hokusai (which I would epically fail at attempting) and got Watercolour, and swapped Pre-School to Music show. Again a little bit incensitive WW2 Berlin/Astral Body to music, but far more managable.
I'm also alot more excited about this project because A. I've actually visited Berlin when I was on my foundation course, so it feels a bit more personal and I can relate to it more, and B. The Second World War interested me already, so I feel I know a bit about it already and won't mind putting in the time it's going to take to do the research and C. I get to splash paint around (that last one was a joke - I suck at watercolours but at least I feel I'll actually be able to achieve the style).

Despite this picture suggesting otherwise, Berlin is in fact a very interesting place:









(gosh my hair was short).

11 Second Club, Concept/Storyboard/Reference

Voice One: "You stole it! I..."
Voice Two: "I thought you put it there!"
Voice One: "Why would I put it there?!?"
Voice Two: "Kindness?"
Voice One: "Kindness?! You stole it! He stole it!!"

My initial idea was to have two squirrels arguing over a nut, pretty basic, but also pretty obvious so I'm glad I didn't use that idea (also I'd've had to try and animate squirrels, despite watching lots of Disney films throughout my youth, I doubt I'd probably fail epically). This idea arrived almost instantaneously after listening to the voice clip, (a transcript can be found above), which was a minor miracle as this was early Monday morning.


My second idea appeared not long after while we were in the 2D session breaking down the soundclip to begin the start of our dopesheets: An Angel and a Devil (like the two little guys who you always see in films acting as the characters conscience) arguing over a stolen "feeling", the ending, where the Devil would shout "He stole it!" would've panned out to reveal the character who was having a battle with their conscience, and the Angel and Devil had been sat/floating by their shoulders.



After speaking with Derek he raised some problems with my idea (he's good at doing that), in that it wasn't obvious what my characters were arguing over, whereas with the squirrel idea it was too obvious, this wan't obvious at all. He also suggested changing the Devil to the one who says "kindness?" to make it more ironic and add a bit of comedy to it. So, my revised idea is still having an Angel and a Devil arguing, but this time, the Angel is the angry one, because the Devil has stolen his Halo and got it stuck over his horns.




Now having finished the storyboard, I have recorded some reference material (with horrendous acting once again) in order to make a quick animatic this week. I still need to use After Effects to composite the two clips (since I couldn't act for the Angel & Devil at once), but I have the cut that I want to use to emphasise the "kindness" line. Also note my amazing props. Yeeeah.


Aaaand finally (this has been a mammoth update) this is a quick drawing I did in Photoshop to give a (very) rough idea of what the final thing will kind of look like:


(The background picture is from ForsakeWolf at Deviant Art who put this up as a Stock photo so that others can use it for free).

There are Blind People with no fingers that are better at shadow puppets than me...

Using an appropriate Humdrum quote there.

So instead of going to Life Drawing tonight I've been experimenting for the Experimental project. Doing a mock up and some tests before I launch in to the real thing sometime soon.


A glass frame, covered in Grease-proof paper (do you realise how expensive Tracing Paper is? Seriously, it's like £5 for a book of A4), currently supported by some shoe-boxes to stop it falling over and smashing, my bedside light and the tripod box to rest my camera on (because the tri-pod would be to big for the frame on the floor...)



Of course I realise now that my bedroom floor isn't the best place to sit and try and get your hands in the middle of the frame. One sheet of grease-proof wasn't enough to stop the lighting hot-spot, so I added a second one:



It's also better to actually have an idea of how to do any kind of shadow puppet before you start filming... Luckily the research I did in my sketchbook paid off and I am able to present to you, a tremendously crap dog:



My favourite bit is where I move the wrong fingers and forget about the ears... I'm so going to get someone who is actually somewhat decent at making shadow puppets to film for the real thing...

Second Year Madness...

So I start back this week, as a scary second year *gasp*, we had our introduction session yesterday and have ADVANCED MAYA SKILLS tonight.

That probably would have terrified me a year ago, but this year, I'm actually quite looking forward to it. It's optional, but I plan to go to as many as I can before my mind becomes over-saturated with polygonal crazies.

I'm also going to attempt to model this:

It's my Dad's 1970 Karmann Ghia (called Audrey). I must be a masochist. Hopefully I'll have modelled it by his birthday (July 10th... giving me a pretty lengthy ammount of time, and most likely sanity, to try and achieve it).

I'm putting my "Summer" animation on the back burner for now, I really would like to finish it, but my Uni work is going to come first (plus I've temporarily run out of ideas... hopefully christmas will bring some more inspiration for it).