Samuel's Studio Journal

For my personal growth in animation, I am trying to specialise in 2D techniques, which traditionally involve simply drawing characters and layouts on paper. However, using these skills in other ways and techniques can help to create a more original and perhaps a more suitable way to tell a story. For instance, the MUTO animation by Blu is created by spray-painting every drawing onto buildings and taking photos of each frame, almost like a life-size stop-motion. The locations and look of the buildings also set the perfect mood for the vastly abstract imagery of the painted drawings.

The all-manner of strange creatures and beings come to life on the walls of the city. The animator hasn't worried too much about the camera being still during the film or if the odd car or person gets in shot too, which helps to create a sense of the beings co-existing with us.

The RSA’s Animate series of educational videos is also a concept which interested me in a different way- I have always been more of a visual learner, learning by seeing what is going on, and then trying it myself. This video is of a lecture given on changing education paradigms, a subject which if I’d attended the lecture would have probably not understood much of due to having no visual representation to help explain it. However, what this video does is have someone draw what the speaker is explaining as he is saying it using small illustrations, which not only helps to explain but also makes an educational topic entertaining.

This screenshot may look confusing, but the hand draws the relevant pictures as the speaker explains his points, creating an entertaining video as well as a method to increase understanding of the subject.

Going back to a more entertainment-focused work, the short film Paperman (John Kahrs, 2012) is a story about a man and a woman who meet on a train station after the wind blown by a passing train throws a piece of paper the man is holding at the woman’s face, which when rescued by the man reveals to have imprinted her lipstick in the shape of a kiss conveniently onto the signature line. She gets on the train, and the man goes to work, but sees her at a meeting in an opposite building, so starts throwing paper aeroplanes to her to get her attention, but to no avail. Eventually he is left with only the imprinted paper, which he also throws and misses, but this paper aeroplane is magic and, bringing the other paper aeroplanes to life, finds the man and woman and brings them back together at the train station. Not only is it a very well-told story using no words (which we come to expect from a studio such as Disney) but the visual style is a mix of computer-generated 3D animation and 2D traditional drawings. Bringing in both animation styles creates a unique look to film that also helps to fit the theme around paper. The entire film, except for the woman’s lipstick, only uses grey tones too, which helps emanate the pencil and paper essence and theme.

The unique look of this film comes from the evident outlines and pencil tones of the characters and scenery, a detail not found in other 3D computer-generated animations.

References used in this post:

Screenshot from MUTO, 2008 (short film), 'Blu', Buenos Aires and Baden, watched on Youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuGaqLT-gO4 (online), accessed October 4th 2013.

Screenshot from RSAnimate: Changing Education Paradigms, 2010 (short film), The RSA, Unknown location, watched on Youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U  (online), accessed October 4th 2013.

An entry-level job that I would be interested in is the Runner position. A Runner is a position in a studio that involves carrying out mainly menial tasks, such as changing lightbulbs, making sure equipment is working, and supplying the animators with fuel to keep on working. In some studios they may also run administrative duties, such as banking cheques, labelling tapes, keeping the showreel/reference library in check, etc. The main essence of the job though is to do the little jobs to keep the studio going, running errands and picking up packages. Developing specialist skills for being a Runner is hard to pinpoint, because of the general nature of the work. The Runner Role is the most basic entry-level role of any studio, and requires no degree to start. However, being bright, helpful, presentable, and basic literacy, numerical, and communication skills are a must, so keeping on top of these aspects is a very useful thing to remember.

An example of a more advanced role in a studio would be an Animation Director. The Animation Director is responsible for leading the team of animators, and may have a large say as to who those animators are. They also have to interpret the brief received from the Director and translate it onto the animators in an understandable way. The main role of the Animation Director is to make sure that the quality of the animation is kept at a high standard and that the animators are following the model sheets and the brief closely, whilst also making sure that their part of the production is delivered on time and on budget. They are often the main link between the studio and later production phases. This role requires a good eye, a good amount of animation experience, effective communication skills and the ability to handle people and project management, hence why this is more of an advanced role in the studio environment, meaning they have come from being an animator themselves previously, and probably a few other roles in the studio such as the Runner and In-Betweener roles. The Third-Year production will help a lot to develop skills for this role, due to having to lead a team of animators, which will increase confidence in being a leader and organizing the workforce. Making sure that the animators are staying on schedule and on model will be a great skill to learn too, to make sure that the production stays consistent in style as well as being able to effectively communicate constructive praise and criticism.

For our final VisCom session, we were asked to bring in some interesting personal objects to draw, and we would be drawing them for the entire session in whatever medium we pleased.

This is the composition of the objects that I brought in. The objects include a mannequin, my glasses case, my old Nintendo DS, a pair of 3D glasses, a ream of arcade tickets, and a jelly bean dispenser shaped as a fruit machine. I chose these objects because I thought they would be interesting to draw and each has meaning or a memory to me: the Mannequin represents my practice of drawing characters in my own time, the glasses case represents my need of glasses to see properly, the Nintendo DS was my first DS console and reminds me of the joy of receiving it as a gift, the 3D glasses represents my liking of going to the cinema, and the ream of tickets and the fruit machine dispenser indicate my love of older video games.

Shots I worked on

Shot: 01 Waking Up

Involvement in this shot: Keyframing, Inbetweening, Cleaning Up, Base Colours for character, Rendering, Drawing and Colouring Layout.

Positive points: Colours work nicely, animation is convincing and quite smooth and doesn't shake too much.

Negative points: Layout was not drawn on a separate layer so was treated as an animation frame when it was not supposed to be, therefore making the layout shake quite a lot. 

Shot: 02 Rock Jump

Involvement in this shot: Keyframing, Inbetweening, Cleaning Up, Base Colours for character.

Positive points: Good sense of weight in the movement of the character, convincing running and jumping actions.

Negative points: Body shape changes somewhat noticeably through the shot, especially towards the end, showing a lack of understanding of the character references given to me.

Shot: 03 Cave Run

Involvement in this shot: Keyframing, Inbetweening, Cleaning Up, Base Colours for character, Rendering, Drawing and Colouring Layout.

Positive points: Animation is smooth, colours work together well enough, moving background was tricky to animate but has come out well.

Negative points: Character seems to run slowly at first, and then noticeably speeds up towards the end, character seems to be fast-walking rather than running due to slow start speed and lack of vertical body movement.

Shot: 04 Side Run

Involvement in this shot: Keyframing, Inbetweening, Cleaning Up, Base Colours for character, Rendering, Colouring Layout.

Positive points: Facial expressions show character's thoughts convincingly, vertical body movement shows that he is running.

Negative points: Layout has no lines to show the character's running speed, vertical body movement could be increased to amplify the sense of running.

Shot: 05 Cave Exit

Involvement in this shot: Keyframing, Inbetweening, Cleaning Up, Base Colours for character, Rendering, Drawing and Colouring Layout. 

Positive Points: A nice and simple shot that helps link the shots before and after it together, almost no shake in the animation and any shake is not visible due to the scene constantly moving.

Negative points: Outside white colour does not match outside scenery of following shot.

Shot: 06 Cliff Run

Involvement in this shot: Keyframing, Inbetweening, Cleaning Up, Base Colours for character, Drawing some of the Layout.

Positive points: Simplicity of the animation works effectively, shows the viewer the scale of the character against his upcoming leap.

Negative points: Animation is a little bit too long, so drags a tiny bit.

Shot: 07 On The Floor

Involvement in this shot: Keyframing, Inbetweening, Cleaning Up, Base Colours for character, Rendering, Colouring Layout. 

Positive points: Weight of the character is evident when he pushes himself up, angle was hard to draw but works well.

Negative points: Direction of head/face seems out-of-place later in the shot, head moves away from body too much, a lot of editing was needed on some frames which took valuable time.

Shot: 08 Getting Up

Involvement in this shot: Keyframing, Inbetweening, Cleaning Up, Base Colours for character, Rendering, Colouring Layout.

Positive points: Good sense of weight in the character as he rolls, anticipation used before he leans forward is effective in showing his reaction time.

Negative points: A lot of editing was needed on some frames which took valuable time, quite a lot of shake in some areas of the animation, layout should have some more details to it.

Shot: 09 The Shock 

Involvement in this shot: Keyframing, Inbetweening, Cleaning Up, Base Colours for character, Rendering, Colouring Layout.

Positive points: Facial expressions are very effective in showing the character's emotion even without the audience knowing what he's shocked at yet, subtle body movement assists with showing the emotions.

Negative points: Shot could be a bit longer so that the event of realisation doesn't go past so quickly, letting the audience take in his emotions better.

Shot: 10 Perspective Running

Involvement in this shot: Keyframing, Inbetweening, Base Colours for character, Speed Lines.

Positive points: Characters look like they are running forwards despite moving backwards in the shot, speed lines and first-person view create a good sense of speed.

Negative points: Characters could have some vertical movement to create a better sense of running in the first-person character.

Shot: 11 Evolution

[Image to be added]

Involvement in this shot: Base Colours for the characters.

Positive points: Colours differentiate the characters well, animation is a nice parody of the Evolution of Humans piece.

Negative points: Some of the animation could be smoother, I had to add some lines to the drawings whilst colouring because some areas had not been fully finished.

Summarisation

During the production of Boost, I worked both closely with the director and away from his advice in my own time. I wanted to make sure that I knew what I was doing with the shots that I had been given to animate and that the director was satisfied with them once they were finished at each stage, however I did not want to rely on the director shadowing my every move so I had to take the initiative to come into the studio and work in my own time, even if he was not there.

The main challenges that I faced on the production were working to a faster pace than I was used to and working in the same style as the director's vision. To overcome the new faster pace of working was more of a mind challenge, having to tell myself that finishing the film was the most important aspect, not making the film look absolutely perfect (although it did have to look good). This helped me to loosen up how I drew the frames, although this newfound drawing speed did affect my other challenge to keep to the references given to me by the director. I often found that I drew the character a little bit differently to the model sheet, meaning that when it came to putting the shots I had created into the edited film it was a bit too noticeable as to which shots I had contributed to compared to the shots of other team members.

This has taught me the importance of practicing drawing the character before animating them, especially if the character is not of your own creation.This is a point I will take into account next year when second years have to work on my film, making sure that they have practiced drawing my characters before getting to animate them.

In terms of collaboration on shots, most of the time this consisted of me drawing out the animation and another team member producing the background. To make this work most effectively, I had to produce a basic layout involving the objects that the character has to interact with in the scene, for instance in the Rock Jump shot I drew the rocks that the character hops across, but the person who coloured the layout also added the cliffs in the background - these were not necessary for me to draw because the character does not interact with them. I think this collaboration worked effectively because it allowed me to animate accurately whilst giving the layout artist a little less to do and without him having to worry about his drawing not matching up to my animation. 

Overall, I think the final film has turned out pretty good. The preproduction planning was sufficient and the idea was very well thought-out, which led to a solid animation process and an ease of understanding of what needed to be done. However, on multiple occasions early on in the production of animated shots I noticed that team members got distracted easily, probably due to the mindset that they had plenty of time to do everything, but in the end this meant that the clean-up and colouring processes had to be rushed somewhat, leading to a slight drop in quality that could have been avoided. To avoid this next year, I will try and make sure that my team members realise the importance of working hard and at good pace from the offset, cracking down on those who get distracted in the studio.

I also found that because our entire team regularly came into the studio to work instead of doing the work at home, it was much easier to follow what each other had done and to discuss the next course of action, which is probably a big factor in why the film has come together as well as it has despite the rush towards the end. This will be another factor that I must keep on top of next year, making sure that my co-workers are coming in to the studio regularly and preferably to do all of the animation, so that I can advise them in the right direction.

The animation technique used in the film was a rather simple one, of us just drawing the character, finelining the frames, and filling the blocks of colour on ToonBoom. Given the time restraints, this was the fastest method, however it was not overly creative and even seems a bit boring to look at. Hopefully for my film I will be able to play around with the art style and try and come up with a more interesting aesthetic, whilst making sure that it is a technique that can still be animated at good pace and one that isn't too difficult for the second years to adapt to.

The narrative for the film this year was a very solid one and easily understandable as well, and because the film is based on a real-world company there are a lot of relevant pointers in the film to their product and values. Because my current plan for my film is not based on a real-world company, my narrative will be harder to drive effectively and relevantly, so I will have to make sure that the narrative I do come up with is relatable to the audience and easily understandable to those who cannot relate so easily. 

Altogether, the film has been almost fully completed due to good planning and a strong storyline, with clever references to the target audience, however the ease of being distracted and the misunderstanding of the amount of time it takes to complete each stage of the animating process have been the biggest factors as to why the film is not 100% fully completed. It is complete enough however to be released to a viewing audience, and hopefully it can be tweaked and improved to maximum standard for the degree show. Also, I am pleased with the film because I feel like my contribution is significant to it's completion and my parts do compliment the look, feel, and storyline, even if some of my drawing was not quite to the reference sheet as previously mentioned.

This is the inbetweened version of the Rock Jump shot, depicting the character skilfully leaping over some rocks in his training run.