#year1projects

I was not sure what to use for music in my showreel, and tried scouting out royalty free music websites. However, most of the ones I came across were subscription based and I had to have an account to use. 

I then went to incomptech.com, which I knew from other videos I’ve made has free to use music so long as you credit the source. I was initially against using music from incomptech because I have used it a lot before and wanted something new for this.

For the first try at the showreel, I chose to use a shortened down version of ‘Juniper’. I wasn’t too satisfied with this, as it felt a bit too slow for the kineticness of the animation involved. It also didn’t have a beat and nothing really to edit to.

I decided to look at Kevin Macleod’s newer music to find something that I hadn’t heard before, and I found this piece called ‘Exit the Premises’

Experimentation Reel

Here is the experimentation reel of the CGI project, showing the key stages to making the final animation.

1. The initial storyboard and idea

2. The reference footage with poses and lines of actions drawn and thought out

3. Test walk cycle to see how the desired personality of the character would look

4. Retextured model turnaround

5. Stepped animation from an early variant

Final Mystery Box Sequence Render

Final Turntable Render of the Tape Measure 

Here is the final and clear non-playblast turnabout of the tape measure. I think it looks nice now that it is lit and rendered properly. I also found that bits that I felt didn’t work too well have turned out looking better than I expected with the addition of the light, such as the little alcove indentation where the table measure switch it.

RENDER CURRENT FRAME PREVIEW: clear white clapperboard

RENDER IMAGE SEQUENCE: clapperboard with blue cog 

- Make sure you chose the right extension and that you render all frames that you need (name.#.ext is the best bet, .png for the extension)

- Set the location for the images to be sent to to a place where you can find them

- Pick thr right camera to render from and bin the rest of them unless necessary

- Image Size: HD 1080p

- Quality Settings: Production Quality - Highest Quality

Batch Render, then compiled the images as an Image Sequence in After Effects/Premiere

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As a test before rendering the final animations of both the tape measure and the mystery box sequence, I rendered some of the early character performances I animated to see what thee process was like. While these aren’t part of the submissions, they will be used in my showreel, and it is nice to have a clean, non-playblast version of them.

Stefan David Warren - Flash and 2D Animation Reel (2013)

I feel it doesn’t start with the strongest work, as the work currently at the start is weaker than that in the middle and towards the end.

The music is quite loud and in your face, and also a bit repetitive. 

No contact details at the start or the end, meaning it would be hard to contract the person who animated the scenes.

Aspect ratio change at 1:45 reels a bit odd and jarring next to the otherwise consistently sized clips that surround it.

No credits for what they worked on in each specific scene, or indeed what the animation is of. While they are mentioned in the description of the video, the video can often be linked without that context (as seen here). Some titles on each clip would have helped make it clear which production he was working on and what he had animated.

This article shows the behind the scenes going-ons for The Boxtrolls production, and also has some nice quotes from members of the staff.

“Laika is one of the last bastions of tool-using animators all crammed into one place. There are computers, but there are also woodshops and metalshops manned by artists who love the idea of creating sets and props that could only be fabricated by materials Boxtrolls could get their hands on.” -  Anthony Stacchi

As you walk through the studio, you’ll see a century’s worth of filmmaking technologies and processes, including techniques that predate cinema to new high-tech items like laser cutters and 3D printers. As Knight puts it, “It’s that fusion, the gumbo of craft and technology that makes this group so unique.”

Pretty much every shot ends up in the film. It’s made one frame at a time. You don’t make any extra frames.

“It’s a physically demanding medium. But it’s also mentally taxing. People don’t often realize that. You have to keep all this information in your head. You have the movement of all these body parts. You have to hit all these marks and make the characters seem to be alive, not mechanical robots.” - Travis Knight

Though each animator’s process is different, they all work from storyboards. They get a brief from the directors, who give them the emotional beats of the scene. Then they do a block, or rehearsal, doing a rough shoot to get the staging right. Then they go through and shoot for real. They end up going through each shot at least twice. Everything is scheduled down to the hour according to the film’s detailed storyboards.

“Andy from Toy Story, the kid who’s nice to his toys, gets along with his mother, he went off to CalArts and then went to work at Pixar. Sid...who tore his toys apart and built creepy things out of them... he grew up, moved to Portland... and came to work at Laika. It’s like off season at Burning Man here. Everyone is a welder.” Anthony Stacchi (rather humourous comparison between company ethos)

“For me, every day was like, ‘What’s today’s crisis going to be?’ It’s constant problem solving.” -  Graham Annable

“All animation is an incredibly meticulous process, but stop-motion has its own odd place.”  -  Graham Annable

http://www.awn.com/animationworld/on-set-laikas-boxtrolls

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Below is a rather nice view into something beyond the usual scope of stop motion and computer generated visual wizardry which is employed on films at Laika. This is a pencil test for the credits of The Boxtrolls, which was traditionally animated.

Alexandre Vasilchenko’s Animation Showreel (2011-2012)

Positives

The showreel shows off the animator’s strength in CGI animation, the action and motions are clear and show versatile in character shapes, sizes and designs.

Negatives

Music is quite intrusive, focus feels divided between the music, the character animation and the background colour, the yellow backdrop does start to become annoying to the eye after a while.

Quite long, the focus stays on certain character animations a bit too much, could have been trimmed down a little bit more