Tala Khouri

For the last couple of months, I’ve been working on a short movie called broken, I dedicated my whole focus and energy on this short. I started working on this project with the mindset of a filmmaker. That’s what I would like to become in the future, so I tried to cover all parts as much as I can and I think I did a pretty good job. For me to say that I first compared my final product with all the projects I’ve previously done and tried to point out the differences. 

After doing that I noticed how much I evolved, how much I learned and how easier it was for me to find solutions for problems I had while working, That for me is a huge step forward. During my previous projects, whenever I had a problem I did not know how to fix or work around, I would go to someone I know who works in the field and try to take his or her advice. While working on Broken however I pushed myself harder and researched things related to the obstacle I’m having until I found a solution, and that was extremely satisfying and rewarding.

Another thing that helped me a lot with that was my blog, When I was first told that I will have to document every step of my work and ideas, I was extremely overwhelmed and it honestly stressed me out, It felt like a task I wish I could skip. Whenever I saw a movie or something that I liked I would usually just save it and that would be it, so it was hard for me, in the beginning, to look at other projects in a critical eye. Once I got the hang of it and started to do it on a weekly basis I loved it, it helped me grow as a creator and helped me become critical even to my own work. 

One other thing my blog helped with is self-evaluation. In the span of just 2 months, I could see the difference in my work even on the same project. So I was just lying around one day looking at old projects I did in the same year and was very impressed and proud of the progress I had made.

As for my final major project Broken, when I first started I was extremely ambitious, I planned on doing things that were way out of my league, and very challenging. I set goals I want to attain and I am very thankful I did that because now I feel like there is nothing I can’t learn to do, I’ve spent more than 10 hours daily working on this project and I reached all the goals I set to myself. I know for a fact that my movie is not the best out there and I still have a VERY long way to go, but it is definitely a stepping stone for me because I did things in it I never thought I could do. As for the different decisions I took while working on broken, there was a few I regretted and made my life harder, like the design of the environment, I did an isometric view in my pre-production phase and It is extremely detailed (compared to all the environments I have previously done) while working on it, I hated myself for it but when I see the end result now I thank god I did the extra effort and pushed my design farther. the details I added if noticed can be funny and like a cherry on top, but if not nothing would be missed from the whole story. As for the characters, I went for a very simple design because my main focus was animation, I always used to have the same comment that my character animation lacks personality so I wanted that to be my main focus. I can say with so much confidence that I got this covered in broken, the difference in my 3 character’s personalities can be obviously seen from the way I animated and the key poses I did. 

So far all the evaluation of Broken I talked about is coming from me, I wanted to see if what I felt was true so I sent my final product to different professional people in the field and took their opinions into consideration and fixed the comments they had for me, that pushed my project for the better. Plus I sent it to my former teachers to see what they had to say especially that they already know what level I was at, and their feedback was as I hoped it would be.

The last step for me was sound design, I honestly had a lot of trouble with that phase, I won’t be posting my final piece because I want to send it to festivals, and I am still not sure if They’re terms allow me to have it online. so this clip shows a glimpse of how my sound design will be like.

In this shot, things escalate, and I wanted to emphasize that, so I used a classical piece alongside all the noise of her destroying her apartment, I loved that and I think it did the job. As for the rest, it pretty much is standard, all the sounds I did are realistic, nothing cartoony because I think it translates the action better in my opinion. The voice-over of the entire characters are done by me, which is something I think I will change before sending the movie to festivals, I might hire voice actors to do this task even though I tried my best to do it by myself but I think It can still turn out a lot better.

This is the final cut of my promotional video, I wanted to keep it as simple and straight to the point as possible. I wanted to translate the way I work and show a glimpse of my working set. I wanted to explain the main idea and the target of my project without giving anything away.

As for the mood of the video, as I already mentioned in most of my previous posts, I want my movie to be light, fun and positive, so That’s what I translated in this video by using happy upbeat background music, and by the way I talk.

I usually have a hard time talking to the camera, but I tried to stay myself and focus on the message and used clips of me working or ones showing my space to minimize the number of shots where it’s just me facing the camera.

As for the intro and outro, I wanted to stay consistent so I used characters from the movie and some of the colors I used in it and tried to match them with the colors of my shots and room.

I know the quality is not the best out there, it’s because I used my phone to shoot and the original audio of the video, I don’t have any professional types of equipment but tried my best to achieve the best quality possible.

After the last tutorial, I had a lot to review and go back over, the last scenes weren’t working well together, so I thought about all of if I took a bit of a pause and a step back just so I can clear my head for a bit. After doing that I thought a solution that I think works perfectly. I am so happy with it.

This cut is my final one, I color corrected each scene individually and then corrected the movie as a whole and I think the colors look really good and vibrant. What I did for the last scene is add a close up on Delilah’s face as a transition shot to the following scene that I had trouble with earlier, by adding this shot I was able to translate the same shot onto the last one to show Delilah’s excitement. I am so proud of this and happy with the final result.

As for the closing scenes and credits, I found myself very comfortable time-wise so I added two scenes. the first is where we see Delilah throwing away all the papers hung in her apartment and Dumbell down the garbage chute. the second is at the end of the movie after the credits where I bring back the neighbor Lola ( the one she was obsessing over the entire movie) and I put her in a situation that shows how high maintenance she is, how much time and effort she puts into her looks, just a way to ridicule her position as if no one can look that pretty and “perfect” on social media without putting so much effort into it. I am not saying that this is something wrong or something I am against. It is just to say that no one wakes up that way, and anyone can stage a beautiful picture.

I think this scene amplifies the comedy of it all and wraps the whole story and movie nicely.

as for the credits, Alex is a huge part in this story, she helps Delilah overcome her obsessiveness and see herself as she should so I wanted to show that after that Alex stuck around in Delilah’s life and eventually became friends.

As small as this detail is, I think it adds a lot to the story and concentrates on the message I want to send.

Overall I am very happy and proud, I know a lot of details could be better, but I am extremely happy with the end result, I really worked extremely hard on it and did everything by myself with the help of my supervisors, but I think It made me a better animator and it put me on the path of becoming an independent movie maker. 

This short is made by Yang Han and Malek Basil from Gobelins. I don’t think this will come as a surprise, most of my forefront posts are on shorts made by Gobelins, I personally LOVE their work so much. This short was released in November of last year, I don’t know if it was intentional but I think its mood extremely suits the weather and mood of that time of year.

This short talks about a man in the middle of a desert where there is no easy access to water, and to be able to get a very small amount he goes through a lot of trouble and energy. 

What I love about this is the different interpretations it has, but there are some things that can not be argued. It shows the trouble, effort, and agony our fathers go through to be able to provide for us, it shows how ignorant of that effort the children can be. And regardless of how tiring it is, if it makes the child happy and gives him/her what they want the father just goes and does what needs to be done without thinking about it twice.

In the case of this short, when the girl passes away, no matter what the father just keeps on doing the same thing over and over as if this is the only way he can keep his connection with his daughter even after she’s gone, he wanted to fulfill her vision for her, as painful and sad the story is the ending is amazing and full of hope, it just shows that all the effort had paid off and his daughter was watching over him all this time, as if the tree he was watering on earth had grown where his daughter actually is. I absolutely love that, I think this story has a lot of dimensions, and I think every person will interpret it according to what his/her personal experiences are.

What I also loved about this is the coloring, how they were able to transmit the different textures through it, the shading I think is essential in that and is done perfectly. And of course, how much character the animation has is just amazing, I absolutely love this.

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After last week’s tutorial I a couple of fixes and comments so I went ahead and did those, I added a close-up scene on Delilah’s face after she brings the mirror in, I think it added a lot, it gave the viewer a bit time with Delilah to wait and see the results on the mirror, and that way the following scenes where she starts traching the apartment would have more impact.

For this week’s comments, I had a few that were bothering me personally and did not know how to fix. After animating and coloring Alex closing the door after seeing Delilah’s apartment, I had to the scene that follows from the same angle but it totally messed the scene after it. It did not make sense for the cut after she brings her own mirror in to be done this way but I couldn’t think of any other solution, this was mentioned in my tutorial as well. 

In the first draft of my storyboard, the movie ends with the scene where Delilah’s reflection morphs on Alex’s mirror, but I felt like there was something missing so I decided to dump two scenes from when she breaks stuff in her apartment and just keep my favorite three and add a shot on Delilah’s facial expression at the end to emphasize how happy she is. But I do not think this works very well. I will try to fix the problem with this scene and the one where she sees her reflection at the end.

After watching negative space I wanted to see more stop motion animated shorts, I can just imagine the level of patience these animators have. I draw everything without maneuvering anything that might break or get ruined and sometimes get so frustrated so I have huge respect for people who work with stop motion and get these amazing results. I worked once on a stop motion project so I have an idea of how hard it is to achieve this quality.

Lost and found is a short with a very simple story, two stuffed animals are in love and live together in a box, when one day the fox finds itself in danger the dinosaur tries it absolute best and risks everything to save its partner life. As simple, cliche and straight to the point the storyline, the struggle of the fox and the effort of the dino leaves the watcher on the edge of their seats rooting and waiting to see what happens. During the first scenes of this short, I thought It would be targeted for children, maybe because of the cute character design and the fact that they’re stuffed animals, but I was actually genuinely upset and moved when it was over, I can only imagine how upsetting it would be for children. But I think the portrayal of the sacrifices loved ones do for each other is on point. The fact that I was left moved and bummed at the end while rooting for a stuffed animal says a lot about the storyline and the direction of this short.

What I also noticed and loved is that as clear as it is, people can interpret it differently, especially with the ending, where the fox is trying to get the dino back together, it shows that there is always hope and maybe nothing is gone forever, and maybe if the fox works hard on it it can eventually bring the dino back to life. Another darker interpretation is denial, how some people can never accept the fact that someone they love is gone forever and eventually drowns him or herself in that effort to bring something that is lost forever. I will stick and believe the first one just for my morals!

To mention the technical sides of things a bit more, as strong as the story might seem, I think what enforced it and made it stronger is the direction and the use of camera, after looking into the making off of this short I discovered that it was done in a life-size sushi restaurant that was built from scratch just for this movie, and this allowed the existence of depth of field and wide angles, something which is found rare in the stop motion industry. 

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This week, I managed to finish a big part of my project, I still have the last part to clean and color, I might cancel a few of the scenes where she’s trashing the apartment in, as one of my classmates told me during the last show and tell I can easily substitute them with some sound effects, and I think I will do that, I want to keep a couple just to show a bit more of what I can animate, like the scene where she kicks the table and throws the laptop, I love that one and the one where she tears the papers of the wall.

As for the colored section, I might add a close up scene showing Delilah’s face to anticipate the following scene more and more (the scene where she brings the mirror in and looks at it for the last time before trashing the apartment)

Negative space is a stop motion animated short that was nominated for an oscar, when I first saw it I was stunned by the moving story of a guy who loses his father, and throughout the narration and animation, the memories of the protagonist with his father are told. 

I rewatched this short over and over because of the amazing technical standard that this short set for stop motion animated shorts, it is so on point, the folding of the clothes with all the principles respected amazed me, every time I saw it I see new details, like the underwater part, the details in it are not only appealing but I think serve the story in a very rich way. how the algae and the sea life is all made from clothes to exaggerate the impact this memory of his father had on him.

Everything for me personally was perfectly done, I was left with goosebumps and in shock, from how amazing everything was done so I researched this movie a bit more and I found the making of on Vimeo.

After that, I learned that the narration of the short was a poem written by Ron Koertge, the two french directors that worked on this movie said that they both could relate so much to the poem because they grew up with parents that travel a lot. with that being said, watching the movies again in this perspective changes a lot, the clothes are so lively and animated in a dynamic way as opposed to the interaction between the father and son, to show how much of an impact this thing had on the son. 

As for the tone of the narrator and the way he reads the poem serves the story and mood very well, according to the directors, It’s almost musical. they plotted out the actions with the animatic like it was a musical rhythm.

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Yesterday I was looking through these different youtube channels that I haven’t checked in a while and found this short, I absolutely loved it and I was so happy to find it because before starting with my project I never saw anything related to self-reflection before.

this short talks about the conflicts this woman have with her looks, she compares herself to a girl in the magazine and tries to look like her, In my short, this is portrayed by Delilah’s obsession with her across the street neighbor, something else this short has in common with my short is how drowned she is in her obsession and lets it take over her life, same thing happens to Delilah, everything in her life is revolving around the complexion she has towards her body, she shuts out people and activities and focuses on her appearances. 

What I loved about this is the color palette used, it's so vibrant and expressive, especially in the bit where the mirror breaks and the entire lighting changes, it showed me how coloring can help with the narrative. What I also loved is the ending, how things built up and got us excited and curious to see what might happen. 

The most striking thing for me was the facial expressions and transitions between the one and other, I absolutely loved the exaggeration in them and felt like they helped pass along the character’s frustration a lot easier which is the whole point. 

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This part of the project consists pretty much on repeating the same thing and following the same process which is cleaning the roughs and coloring everything in. The last couple of weeks I was able to have all my roughs down and finalize the scenes. I started from the start and finalize the scene consecutively, after that I import everything on after-effects to fix the timing and add some tweaks and effects so everything looks homogenous  

This sequence is the one I showed everyone in the show and tell we had on Tuesday

I had positive feedback, I wanted to stylize the coloring of the characters, in this sequence only Delilah’s hair appears to be transparent because of the different contrasting shots, but all of the characters will have this kind of hair just so I can add a little bit of texture to the solid colors I am using for the characters, and everyone seemed to like that. 

When it comes to time, I feel really comfortable and in keep with my schedule, but in case things did not go as planned there are some scenes that I am not going to include, the last shots where Delilah starts to trash her apartment might be cut out in case I did not have much time left, but their removal won't affect the story which is perfect.

After this session, I was able to finish 3 more scenes and I love how they turned out after I added the facial expressions and textures.

The main goal I want to achieve is becoming an independent filmmaker, eventually I sure will have some people working with me on big projects, but I want to know a little of everything and maybe a lot of from the essential things to be able to create the best version of my movies as possible, so as all animators and filmmakers I started with a storyboard and a lot of things changed to the better once I started having my shots and scenes figured out. After finishing each scene and put them one after the other I started roughly editing everything to see how things are turning out.

Rough cut

Rough cuts are the first skeleton of the movie, the scenes don’t have to be in the real-time they’re gonna be in the end product, but it gives the clients or even the director a small glimpse of how things are coming together.

Timing

Timing is extremely important, it helps a lot with the storytelling and it ties everything together, it keeps the audience engaged and it helps create an easy flow for the audience eyes and tie everything together. an example of this is the fast cuts, the fast cuts are when someone wants to show a montage of various actions, the cuts should be made after an uneven number of times where one action is taking place. in my movie, I have a section where Delilah is working out, she runs on the treadmill, abs, biceps and jumps on the rope, all the cuts from one to another are done after she did the same action either 1,3,5,7 times so it creates an easy a flowy sequence.

This clip will show how the edits of these cuts were one 3 of them were cut after an even number of repetition followed by the sequence where they’re cut after an uneven number.

These details, when explained or talked about, might seem a little useless or obvious, but when all these details are taken into consideration they will make a huge difference in the end product, and I loved learning all of them while working on this project.

References:

I started this project in the mindset that I want to eventually become an independent filmmaker, in order for that to happen I have to think of all the aspects of making a functional story and tell it through camera movements and cuts. After completing the story respecting all the while its key components, I started working and camera movements and angles. when I did my storyboard I took into consideration the different rules there are to achieve flowy transitions.

I started with the fundamentals, the rule of thirds, this rule is generally used in photography to make the end result more appealing, and it also consists of what the eye sees and focuses on at first, to achieve the best framing possible one should divide the frame into 9 equal squares, like a grid, and the intersection between all the lines will create 4 points, when placing the object or the character on one of them instead of the far left/right, extreme top/bottom or the middle, the shot would make more sense and becomes more appealing.

After taking that into consideration, I started searching for camera movements and angle meanings and saw the rules I should respect for the entire scene to make sense. For example, in the first scene, I have two adjacent characters moving and acting at the same time, and it’s a wide shot of the entire hallway, I first exported the video and felt that something was off, This is the first export.

The eye literally can’t catch any of the movement, the scene is over and the audience couldn’t tell what’s happening, After looking into it and asking people around, I found something that talks about this exact scenario, and how to make it work. when having in a wide shot two adjacent characters where both are moving, one should create what is known by the tennis effects, Don’t start an important movement of one character when you want to notice what the other is doing, so the movements should be consecutive and not at the same time, in this case, I prolonged Delilah’s (character on the right) walk cycle, so we can notice Alex (character on the left) turning around, after that I made the wave longer so we can see Delilah's response, Delilah freaks out and goes into the apartment while Alex is still waving so the audience wouldn’t miss anything, once Delilah is out of the frame Alex reacts to her reaction. So when I took all these fixes into consideration I created the tennis effect where the audience’s eyes go back and forth with the action to not miss any important ones. And this is the final version

After having this minor hitch while I was working, I decided to go by scene by scene and see if everything is going as well in order not to confuse the audience and stand in the way of the flowyness. 

As for the rest of my project, what I took into consideration when I was working on all the shots is the 180 and 30-degree rule, as cheesy as this video is, it pretty much explains the gist of these two rules that I followed through my entire storyboard and animation process.

References:

sudhakaran, S. (2018). Camera Angles Movement: Rules of the Game, by Jean Renoir. [online] Wolfcrow.com. Available at: https://wolfcrow.com/camera-angles-movement-rules-of-the-game-by-jean-renoir/ [Accessed 4 Jul. 2019].

baker, l. (2017). Understanding (and Occasionally Ignoring) the 180-Degree Rule. [online] The Beat: A Blog by PremiumBeat. Available at: https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/180-degree-rule-in-filmmaking/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwpavpBRDQARIsAPfTwixRRkMbd-rCAhgBDVnz5GMzJgQCv4G9r2qfULZ51ExBtbmvse3aNYEaAp-YEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds [Accessed 10 Jul. 2019].

What I was working on the past couple of days was the new establishing scene I decided to add, As I took a lot of inspiration from the combination of the different concept artist I have discovered throughout doing the project I was able to picture and composite everything a lot easier than before.

I extremely love how it turned out, I used the architectural style of Gilles Beloeil, the one he used in the architectural pictures I posted in the previous blog, and I layed over each plane a texture to show it kind of washed out, and I think it added a lot, and I think I might add an effect in post-production to make this texture a little wiggly.

Here’s the final version of the environment

This version is the one I’m going to be using in my intro while working on it, a new idea popped in my head, I added a tram road and as the tram passes it will have different adds about slimming pills, meal replacements and all these things that should be banned. their addition is just to exaggerate the situation a bit more.

when I finished working on it on photoshop I felt it missed something, It has a lot of details and different planes but I still felt as if it was a bit flat, so I added a camera on after effects and layered everything on top of each other to create a cool effect. and I am absolutely very proud of how it turned out.

Gilles is a Professional concept artist/illustrator in the game industry since 2007. Before that, he worked for about 6 years in the VFX industry as a lighting TD and/or digital matte painter. I also teach at CGMA since 2015. I was looking for artists who do exterior environment designs and When I found his work I was very interested since he works with architecture as well, and that’s exactly what I need for my project.

Recently when I was finalizing my animation roughs, I decided to add an intro scene that shows a big part of the city that Delilah lives in, and in my concept page, I drew an isometric to show where everything was, and I loved how it turned out so I wanted to push it further, and that’s when my research started.

In Gilles portfolio there are several styles and techniques he used, I loved a bunch of them that I think will work as an amazing inspiration for me.

This scene will become my establishing shot, It will appear two times throughout my animation, and the second time has the purpose to show the time pass, So what I loved of this one picture is the mood and the foggy mood it has. I am not really sure if it will 100 percent be translated into my style but I’m going to work on it.

As for the second picture which was my main inspiration and what caught my eye is the several works he did on different landmarks. 

I loved the details in these and the combination of all the colors, I think I will be using this style, the very detailed, clean and outlined work.

The last one is extremely far fetched, but I love the texture it has and how messy it looks, I think I will be combining both styles in the same design, but It will be leaning towards the clean style for sure.

Other than the messy style I love about this I also love the mood and lighting it has, I think the second time this shot will be used in my animation will have the same effect as this one.

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As I already said in my previous posts during these past couples of weeks, the main focus is facial expressions, I managed to start with it and I am actually really happy with how it turned out, What I did is first, create the key facial expressions I want to use, and then redrew the entire face over and over on each frame even if the facial expression did not change, that way things will appear a lot smoother and as if the character is really alive. I animated two scenes with the facial expressions finalized and focused on finishing the roughs of my animation. In the first scene in the clip, I wanted to show the traits of the two characters and try my best to show the differences in their attitudes and social comportment. 

Alex is confident, friendly and fun, so I wanted to show excitement in her movements and the way she says hello to Delilah, so I started with a very happy and friendly smile with an excited wave while Delilah lets her insecurities get the best of her and barely waves back, I started her walk cycle slow as if she doesn’t want Alex to notice that she came home, and the moment she saw her and waved back she ran to her apartment as fast as she could. as for facial expressions, I am really happy with this clip but I still need to work on the timing of the keyframes better so the entire movement is more understood.

As for the second clip, it is near the end of the animation and it is when Alex hears Delilah having a break down in her apartment and wonders what’s happening, I think this turned out really well and I love it. It added the cartoony effect I wanted to my animation style.

PS: the quality of the video is very bad, I had a problem while exporting it so some frames might glitch.

Cursed is an animated short by Studio AFK, it talks about a villainess who enjoys being evil. But after a hero catches her eye she goes through a drastic change, tries her best to get his attention, the pursuit and result are very funny and treated nicely. Besides the animation looking well animated, The one thing that grabbed my instant attention are the facial expressions.

What I noticed in the face in this animation is the amazing use of each animation principle in it. I know this might sound very obvious, but I never worked with facial expressions following this way, after going through this short frame by frame I noticed that squash and stretch and anticipation are very used.

In these screenshots, those two animation principles are very easily noticed.

In this one the anticipation I think is more flagrant than all the other ones, the way she kind of looks down with different angles of her smiles before taking the final form of the facial expression with a more exaggerated head tilt and smile. this should help me a lot.

couldn’t ignore this because I never realized how much squash and stretch for the face alone can add to the entire piece, it not only exaggerates the movement but it also gives the audience the feeling that this person is thinking and making an effort to feel or do a certain thing, which alone makes the character more relatable.

What also struck me is this piece is the comedy in it, having a villain trapping a princess is extremely cliche, but I never before have seen the villain falls in love with the hero and have the hero in such a “bad boy” vibe, I personally love how the story is treated and the little added details to make the audience giggle is something I am going to try to implement in my own work. Finally, the overall feel of the entire animation is amazing, I think it works really well as a facial expression reference, it pretty much guides the audience to know on what and for how long to pay attention, the staging and the camera movements help emphasize that as well. for example, when the villain is very happy, the camera is zoomed in so that we can see all the details in her face and expression, as the white sparkle in her eyes that show how in love with the hero she is.

I’ve been worried about this stage a lot, but after this somehow research and knowledge on what to look for in animated pieces had made me more confident to take on this facial expression journey.

References:

Kaufman, L. (2019). Cursed - BetweenTheFrames - Medium. [online] Medium. Available at: https://medium.com/betweentheframes/cursed-8789144c136d [Accessed 1 Jul. 2019].