Emma K Niemis

The BA1b Animation to Sound Project has been a very digital based learning process, from animating to sound to lip syncing using several different Adobe programs but mainly Adobe After Effects. I think the best ability I have gained from this project is how to use After Effects moderately well, I still have a lot to learn and figure out, but I think I ended up creating something I was proud of in the final lip sync. Other than getting my head around the software, I enjoyed bringing a piece of music or sound to life with images, and would like to play with this more in my own time to songs that spark my imagination. The hardest part of this project was getting accustomed to the After Affects controls but also analysing speech when it came to doing a lip sync. Even with Adobe Audition where we could do anything to the sound to help us figure out the phenomes, it was difficult to get right and even if it did sound like the right it may not look right when you use it with a certain lip shape. It takes a lot of careful listening and tweaking to get lip sync right, but when it’s done well it’s satisfying to see your own creation speak. 

The BA1b Research Media Industries Project has been a real in-depth look at the Animation Industry in which I am strongly considering pursuing a future career in. What I have particularly enjoyed about this project is that we’ve got to speak to people in the industry about their experience, from all walks of life and with different roles and styles in different types of animation. The most memorable speakers that we had were two of our animation tutors, who spoke of their involvement in the animation industry and the background they came from. I got especially excited when my tutor Robin said he worked on the theatrical production of Princess Mononoke, which is one of my favourite Studio Ghibli films. The most informative speaker we had was the CG modeller and texture artist Hannah Duckworth, currently working at Aardman, who had also done work at Laika. Stop Motion is the animation type that I want to get into so hearing from someone who works on stop motion films was a joy and quite useful, even though she’s not in a job role that I would want to pursue. 

In the two weeks of the BA1b Showreel Project, I learnt how to put together a showreel, made my own with my work from this year then re-edited to include some of my recent work on the Mystery Box Project that I’m proud of. This has been a very quick project that I thought was a little last minute but actually wasn’t too bad to finish on time once I caught up with my other projects work. I think the showreel demonstrated a variety of the best work I have done this year, edited together well to a soundtrack I chose as something I like and that I think fits my aesthetic. Speaking of the soundtrack, I tried to make sure it wasn’t copyrighted and that I wouldn’t have any problems, but I’m not so sure anymore, I’m going to have to have a better look after I have submitted because I can’t change it now. Even though I had that feedback that my clips were too long, I still stick to my decision to leave them that way to mimic the slow start to the song. 

In the final week of the BA1b Mystery Box Project, I took high-quality photos of my puppet Sven, finished my Character Sheets and final Mystery Box sequence with my composited background and edited together my Experimental Reel. This has been a very intense week for me, I feel like I’ve got a lot done in so little time, just from going at it a few days straight, but I’m very pleased with all of it, even though I’m exhausted. One of my favourite outcomes from this week has been the digital high-quality turnaround I did on Dragon Frame with my Puppet Sven, I think it looks professional and really shows off his looks and my hard work. I’m also so glad I found time to do the Character Sheets digitally because it looks so much better than on paper, I was also thinking of incorporating certain parts of them into a logo, that I want to work on after my deadline. The backdrop photo worked wonders with my animation creating a lot of depth by being suitable to make it into a background and a foreground. Overall things have gone very well this week, even though it was a bit of a rush, I’m delighted with the work I have done. 

For our group’s presentation into Model Makers in Stop Motion animation, I conducted my research into the Brothers Quay. When I first saw their work, I instantly wanted to know more about their incredibly rich, textural puppets made of found materials and antiques. The Quays are identical twins known for their uniquely macabre films, most well received of their films are two stop motion animations; Street of Crocodiles and In Absentia. The Quays have also worked in live action and theatre, starting from a background of illustration and graphics in Philadelphia, then moving to London at the start of their career in filmmaking. Their work has Polish and Czech influences, for example, surrealist Polish posters, and draw inspiration from classic European theatrical puppetry.

The Quays are the model makers in their films, making the table top puppets from scratch themselves, mostly made of cloth, plaster, glass eyes, various found materials, metal and wood. Using photographs and visual references, they carefully choose doll/toy parts for their puppets, that are often structured by ball & socket armatures and heads from Milliput or bolster wood. The puppets have fixed facial expressions and body forms, using softer materials to make alterations to facial expressions using exchangeable features such as the eyebrows. To find their objects for the animation, they go to London flea and antique fairs, find the object and then work the puppet around certain details. The Quays use objects that they respond to, that have a history to them, using them is a way of them honouring the maker. Whoever of twins builds the puppet, animates it, because they would have a vision of how it moves and interact with the set. The puppets are usually built after set because the set is as important or more so than the puppets to the Quays, setting the atmosphere and mood for the whole film. However, the Quays’ puppets ‘act as intermediates between the filmmakers’ tabletop world and the world they evoke onscreen, they are, as creators, embodied in their puppets’ (Buchan, 2010, pg. 104-105). When filming they put olive oil on the puppet’s real glass eyes and teeth to reflect the light, according to the Quays they do this so that the “soul of the puppet is highlighted” (Quay, 2015). They also said, “We don’t make our puppets walk, it’s a kind of naturalism we want to avoid” and “we don’t, in any way, try to emulate what’s outside” (Quay, 2015), this is a very different approach for an animator and model maker in animation, especially compared to the other freelance model makers my group have researched. The Quays find their own way of communicating with their audience, they feel that because of their puppet’s stoic appearance and mask-like face, it “puts the viewer in the position of being caught in this malaise more than he is” (McCormack, 2015).

What I have taken away from this research is that you can be successful from using more traditional theatrical puppetry methods in animation, such as using found materials. This is great news for me because I really enjoy this method of working. I generally love objects that have a history to them, that are worn and have an unknown backstory, it almost has a life of its own that I think can really compliment a puppet’s character and give it a soul.

Bibliography

Buchan, S., (1996) Shifting Realities: The Brothers Quay--Between Live Action and Animation. Animation World Network. Available from: http://www.awn.com/mag/issue1.3/articles/buchan1.3.html [Accessed 29th March 2017]

Buchan, S. (2010) The Quay Brothers: into a metaphysical playroom. Minneapolis, Minn.; Bristol: University of Minnesota Press; University Presses Marketing [distributor].

Dayal, G., (2012) Puppets, Oddities, Animated Films: Inside the Surreal World of the Quay Brothers. Wired. Available from: https://www.wired.com/2012/08/quay-brothers-moma/ [Accessed 29th March 2017]

 Douglas, E., (2015) Interview with Stop Motion Animation Pioneers, The Brothers Quay, Comingsoon.net. Available from: http://www.comingsoon.net/movies/features/474489-interview-with-stop-motion-animation-pioneers-the-brothers-quay [Accessed 29th March 2017]

European Graduate School Video Lectures, (2007) Quay Brothers. The Concept of Film and Animation. 2006. [YouTube Video] Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iLklzo9gAA&t=1s (Accessed 29th March 2017]

McCormack, J. W., (2015) Talking Metaphysics, Subversion and Puppets with Legendary Twin Filmmakers the Quay Brothers, Vice. Available from: https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/twin-animatorfilmmakers-the-quay-brothers-get-the-35mm-treatment-0824 [Accessed 29th March 2017]

 Puppet Place, (2016) An Interview with the Quay Brothers at BFP15. [Vimeo Video] Available from: https://vimeo.com/138457978 [Accessed 29th March 2017]

Quay. (2015) Directed by Christopher Nolan. London: Syncopy [DVD]

This is a music video I saw recently which I thought I’d share on my blog because it's a very good example of animation to sound. First off I love the style of animation, it reminds me of a graphic novel or comic book and I think the use love black, white and red is very striking and suits the style well. Come to think of it, it reminds me of the film and comic book Sin City (2005) directed by Frank Miller who has a similar way of drawing and use of colour. 

I think this is a perfect example of animation to sound because the visuals are in perfect timing with the song’s beat, also repeats in audio are complimented with repeats in visuals, for example just after the chorus when we enter into the victim's mind. I also love the flow of the animation, with clever cuts and a fluidity to the characters which works with the fast pace movements of the animation content. When the Wolf turns into more of a monster it reminded me instantly of the Boar Demon from Princess Mononoke (1997) by Studio Ghibli, both creatures just as menacing with their determined movements and a sense of crazed power that surrounds them.

In this penultimate week of the Animation to Sound project, I finished my Lip Sync with my own Lip shapes drawn in Photoshop, to the audio of Vincent Price. I was pretty happy with how the final animation came out, I feel like I’ve got a lot better at using Adobe After Effects from this project, animating on it isn’t half bad. I also think I definitely did what I planned to do with this animation, working out more natural, in terms of facial movements, than my previous lip sync animation because I really thought of what I would do when saying this line of audio. When I first heard about this project I was a bit apprehensive because it sounded like a lengthy and difficult process, but after my research and actually doing it myself I didn’t think it was so bad. I also look forward to incorporating it into my animations in the second year, seeing how to do it in stop motion for example.

In this penultimate week of the Research Media Industries project, our group finished our presentation on Model Makers in Stop Motion animation, ready to present next week. After picking out the relevant information and noting it down from the library books I rented, we came together and finished our individual slides showcasing our research into our respective Industry people. The library books were very helpful in finding out much more about the Quays’ model making process, as I struggled to find much information the puppets online. I think the presentation looks good, it’s clear and to the point with a lot of relevant information backed up by a variety of reliable research. The only worry I have is whether it’s visually interesting enough, because of the 10-minute time limit we reigned ourselves in a lot, making it quite concise, but I’m thinking now that it may be too little. I will voice my concerns to the group and see what they think but hopefully, it will go down well.