Love Hate - Animatic

So, apologies for the lack of blog updates, but the past week has been dedicated to finishing (and starting) the animatic for Love Hate.

Today we had to present our animatics in front of our year, tutors and an industry professional (Morgan Francis - not Freeman as I accidently typed before - Co-Director at Spider Eye). After this the number of final projects going forth to production will be cut down to around 10 from the 16 that got through the pitching stage.



The animatic was made alone by yours truly and I'm pretty pleased with how it's turned out. I wasn't particularly keen on the first 'doorknob' section, but after a few people have each said this was their favourite bit, I've had my faith reassured in it. Not bad for six days of solid work. Even if it meant I didn't leave the house for a couple of days in a row. I swear when/if I get a job in inudstry I may forget what sunlight looks like!

Quite alot of people used Storyboard Pro to create their animatics, but since I have never used it and get easily distracted when I attempt to work in the studio... (it appears solitary confinement is the best way for me to get stuff done), I created it using a mash of all my program knowledge: Flash, Animate, After Effects and Premiere. A wise choice since these will be the programs I use to make the actual thing (if it gets picked...).


So, we shall find out by the end of the week which films are going through. If mine isn't picked I have my eye on a couple of other projects I'd love to help out on. But we shall see.

Alas, this doesn't mean the workload is over. Far from it. We have a deadline on friday for the pre-production deadline where we have to produce a bible of nearly all the pre-production work we have so far. Currently mine is about 55 pages (mainly because I've had to include the 30 pages of storyboards! To be honest I think I'll have to separate it into lots of separate parts to get the file size to fit the upload limit!).


Aaand, to finish up, here's a new and improved taster of the music, since I changed the soundtrack the visuals play to, I couldn't use this version since it wouldn't match up! Pretty pleased with how it's gone though:

[Insert witty Pre-Production joke/pun here]

So, there's been quite alot of changes since I last updated, and it feels like time is fast slipping away, as it always does when a deadline is rapidly approaching and my timetables are looking more and more scarier...

After realising quite early on I wouldn't be able to accomplish everything I want to do for the piece on time, I asked Hugh Herbert to be my co-director. Hugh has helped to give the project a bit more of a boost to the (and I use the term loosely here...) 'narrative' of the piece, helping to come up with new sequences, something I was struggling with when sat on my own with the original ten page transcript of quotes.

After constructive feedback from my tutors, the structure of the project has also changed somewhat, instead of having the whole piece just continaully morph from one thing to the next, it's going to be more segmented - kind of like a little sketch show - with different scenarios in each bit. This should make for much more interesting viewing, giving me the oppurtunity play around with the pacing and timing as well. Hugh has also suggested tweaking the style slighty for each segment, so that the piece has the same kind of style throughout, but different variations and themes for individual love/hates, hopefully this too will make the piece more interesting than just "I love A, I hate B, etc...".

The frustrating thing about working with a soundlead piece is that it feels like I'm working backwards, normally you have the narrative idea, then storyboard/animatic from that and worry about the sound last. However, I'm having to figure out the order the soundclips are going in, which clip flows into which, can I use both the love/hate they say in the clip or just the one, how will it morph to the next one - if it does at all, and so on and so forth. Only once that's all sorted can storyboarding any visuals begin. This is why Hugh has been so helpful, just having someone to bounce ideas with makes the whole process much quicker and the visuals come along more naturally.

Trying to put voiceclips into a logical order:

Another problem that has arisen by working on a soundbased project is what to actually put into the animatic. I still want to go out and record more people so I can get the largest possible source of material to work with for the final film, which means there's no final narrative or soundtrack to work to yet. This poses a problem for my friend Rob, the music man, as I can't give him anything definitvie to work with. However, since we need to hand in a scratchtrack with our Animatics, to give a sense of what the final thing will be like, I put together a 3 & a half minute set of clips for him to work with, which is working well so far:



This again has affected what I am able to do for the animatic: after speaking to Derek and showing him the animatic script; he asked if it was going to be the same for the final film; after I said no, he suggested just making an animatic just for the clips I would like to use in the final film. This has made it much easier to figure out which clips I need to properly storyboard and work on (more schedules!.


I've started mocking up some parts of the animatic with my storyboards...



And have have also done one bit of the real animatic so far:


(Virtual cookies for you if you can tell which famous horror film that shot pays homage to...)

I'll post another update sometime later on this week focused more on the design-y side of things.

Tomorrow is Judgement Day...

Well, the last week has been a pretty eventful one and been super busy all in the run up to the pitch on friday.

Since my last blog post I've created a whole load more of concept art and some test animations...

Kathy suggested I put together a visual research file of the things that had inspired me to create the concept art, some are more relevant now than others, but in the process of trying to get the look for my project, they all inspired me in some way.
Style Inspiration Bible


One of my own loves (which I'm told by my housemates is very weird...):


"I love watching the sun rise" Sequence:




Newer version of Birds (as it would be animated):


"I hate fish":


Sea animation test done in After Effects:



The fish I hand animated... It was super frustrating, because it took me two hours to scan in, only to discover that it didn't work... it's not great: the tail flops around all over the place, but I feel my timing has vastly improved since last year.



I think now, (well, all depending if my project is picked...) that any rough animation I do will be done in Flash or ToonBoom Animate and then, when I know the timing is correct, I'll draw the animation in graphite or whatever other medium I'm using for that section.


The fish and sea combined look a little something like this:




Ah, I'd almost forgotten to add this, a video of the rough soundtrack that my good friend Rob Allen has been working on for me, which I was contemplating playing it at the pitch, but I have collected many more voiceclips since sending him the (very) rough edit I put together for him to play around with. This is only a rough version done in Midi, put gives an inkling as to what the final thing could sound like, however I think I need to spread the soundclips out a bit more, it's really rather quick at the moment.



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So, this is something I forgot to write on here earlier, but a couple of weeks ago I emailed six local primary schools asking if I would be allowed to come to the school and ask the children (and staff) the love/hate questions. I had two responses, one yes and one no.

Paula Ross, the deputy Head Marlborough School, was kind enough to invite me to the school on Thursday to record the students. The students were forewarned of my arrival in asssembly and many had already thought of things to say when I turned up at lunchtime. Paula's class separated into two groups and sat in a circle as I recorded them one by one, which worked really well, although the children who couldn't think of anything quite often said similar things (it turns out, alot of boys hate the colour purple...), Paula then led me around the rest of the school to interview smaller groups of children which provided a much larger range of responses and some absolute gems which I'm certain will go into the final film (if it gets picked). After interviewing the children, who ranged from 4-11, I asked the staff the same questions. The school was so helpful and accomdating, the whole thing was much easier to pull off than I expected thanks to Paula's organising. If the film gets put into Production, I'm going to keep in contact with the school and send them updates as progess (hopefully) continues, however it may not go anywhere, it's beyond my control now!

Which leads onto the deciding power...

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The PITCH. Both Kathy and Derek said that I should create some more concept art to show at the pitch, which made me think, why can't I explain my idea through concept art? So, to explain the process behind lovehate, I decided to do just that, have a corresponding picture to what I was saying.
My actual pitch was really quite short, my idea was very simple to explain, so it really didn't need long. I thought I'd try and keep it short and punchy, and the corrseponding pictures helped to do just that and even got a few laughs which was great (and intended I might add).
I was second to last in the pitching order, which made me mildly annoyed (I really wanted to just get the thing over with - I tend to get more nervous the longer that I have to wait to do something), it was probably better, as the rest of the third years relaxed around me, I felt alot calmer when it finally was my turn...
Lovehate Pitch

The presentation probably needs some explanation, so here's a small summary essentially of what I said:
- Everyone in this room has at least one thing they really love and one thing they really hate: it might be something completely unique to you, or something that you share with others. My current hate is standing in front of a room full of people and trying to explain my idea, something the other third years will share with me. I want to make these individual love and hates come to life on the screen. So the idea behind lovehate is quite simple:
- I will take a number of peolpe of different ages,
- Stick a microphone in front of their face,
- Ask them to tell me one thing they love,
- Ask them to tell me one thing they hate,
- Record their reply.
- Think about their reply.
- Visualise their idea.
- Storyboard the idea.
- Animate the idea, taking the last frame and morphing it...
- ...So that it becomes the first frame of the next sequence.
And then I showed the concept art of previous answers.

The panel (made up of 4 industry professionals), complimented me on my pitch and (I think) overall were fairly positive and quite liked the idea. I feel I got away quite lightly, quite a few people got some grilling from them and struggled to answer some of the trickier questions. I feel I did quite well, but I guess we shall see tomorrow when we discover which projects are going through to production. If my project hasn't been chosen, there's a multitude of other ideas I would love to be able to help out on. But then, if mine is chosen, that's a whole new fear altogether!

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).

Experimental beginnings and (slow) 11 Second progress...

So, after my panicking at the weekend and the 2D session we had yesterday I'm feeling far more positive about the 11 second club project.
Andy liked the flow of action in my (very short) hand-drawn attempt, which led him to talk to us about practicing timing by mapping out the sequence with really really rough drawings. Trying to do as many drawings in sequence as possible, while resisting the urge to play it through until you have done a large number. As you can see below, my first attempt isn't great, I got to about 60 frames, it's very quick so the angel looks like he's buzzing around on speed:

I'd say my second attempt is better, but I still have a long way to go before I'll pick up the animator's "instinct" for timing.


One the other hand, my experimental project is starting to come along nicely. Following my plan I had mapped out using two incarnations of dopesheets...
And a surprising amount of maths involved when it came to working out how many photographs I would need to take...
(and that's only one of the 3 times I did that).

I now have a fully formed plan/schedule to follow, with the exact number of photographs needed for each bit of my animation, all mapped out (hopefully) to the music I've selected from our choices (which I now hear in my head rather alot, so thanks Derek...).


Using my (excellent) plan I have now completed taking all the photographs with live human hands, with help from my very patient friend Liz, who agreed to be my lovely assistant for the evening and my nice housemates for letting me commandeer the kitchen table. Here's a frame from what will be a part of the final animation:

I'm now using my lightbox to animate my transformations and drawing the shapes of what will become my cutouts to create shadows. I'm going to use the spare time I have when I got back home this weekend to cut them all out so I can get shooting quickly after I get back.

So currently I've been drawing lots of rabbits, which I'm finding fun (I'm not quite so looking forward to drawing lots of birds) and surprisingly easy. I think it's because I have four of them at home who I always sit and spend a bit of time with while using them for drawing practise. So I'm looking forward to seeing their lovely fluffy faces this weekend. And they're too cute not to share pictures of, especially since it's on topic anyway ;) (L-R:) Molly, Chilly, Arthur & Mim.

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...