BA1b Part 2

The first thing I needed to do before starting the showreel was to make a logo, and decided to draw a cartoon version of my face surrounded by my name. I animated the face to wink at the audience and then everything to invert colours with a *pop*.

For animating the lettering I got help from a friend (James, thanks dude!!), -as my computer was being slow trying to render an animation- who was able to animate the letters so it looked the letters were being written onto the screen. He did this by adding the stroke effect from the effects drop down menu, and in generate. Using a pen tool he lined through the middle of the letters, made the brush thicker on the stroke effects options, then keyframed to the end to 0 at the start and then 100 at the end frame. I then put the two animations together in premiere pro, and Viola! I had a finished logo.

With the logo now finished I went to premiere pro to put all of my animation clips together along with the music which is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VF9_dCo6JT4&list=PLzCxunOM5WFLNCSF0UEHZqFJJlmdeL71S&index=6

I made sure all of the clips where timed nicely with the music and some of them fit really well with it.

After adding the clips I then added a description to each clip that I placed in the top right corner, so the viewers will be able to see what type of animation I can do.

The rest was just simply making sure everything worked well and then I exported.

Here is my finished Showreel, Enjoy!!

Mystery Box: Stop Motion

The final week has arrived!

I finished my stop motion animation fully and I was able to complete the experimentation reel, so it was very productive. Plus it was hand in week this week, so now I’m stress free, well for a while until we get our marks back, so fingers crossed everything goes smoothly.

I’m very proud of myself for being able to make not only a puppet from scratch, but then it being stable enough for me to animate with it as well.

I feel like my skills have increased a lot and I feel as if I have grown as a person as well. All in all I really enjoyed this project and cannot wait to make more stop motion animations in the future.

Showreel

Deadline was this week, which was stressful to say the least, but I was able to get my showreel done and in on time, so I am very pleased, especially when my showreel came out really well.

At the start of this project I was dreading making it, but now that I have the end results I have no idea why I was so worried. I have learnt a lot of things to do with premiere pro and after effects this week, mostly to do with the transitions and how to do the stroke effect on lettering in after effects.

I still have much to improve on when it comes to putting together a showreel, such as, using a wider variety of effects, and the incorporation of still images which I didn’t do with mine.

Mystery Box: Stop Motion

I filmed the animation this week and the process was so calming, although it did start off rocky what with me not knowing how to put up the blue screen and then my time being shortened whilst I got help with it, which took longer due to me taking down the green screen when I shouldn’t have, so this is one thing I need to improve on.

However, I got it all filmed and ready for the background, and it looks amazing and I’m so proud with the outcome! Her movement is smooth and even though the reactions could have been exaggerated, I think people will be able to tell what her emotions are.

I was nervous at the start of filming, as I wasn’t sure if the puppet would hold up, but then I got into the zone by playing some relaxing music and everything flew by.

Overall this week has been great and all that is needed is the background, which -fingers crossed- should be easy and quick.

Showreel:

I was finally able to edit in the background of my mystery box animation this week, so now it’s completed and I’m so happy with the results.

The editing in of the background was easy and I was able to do it quite quickly as well. All I had to do was use the mask in a couple of places because my arm and the pliers were in scene in a couple frames. After masking these bits out the rest was a simple process of adding in the keylight to get rid of the blue screen and make sure that none of my character had decided to disappear with it as well.

Once the blue screen was gone and I was sure my character and box were all okay, I imported in the background, dragged it into the scene and Viola! My animation was complete.

The whole animation turned out a lot better than I thought as I was imagining all the things that could go wrong (silly of me I know), but low and behold I was proved wrong again!

I’m really proud with myself and my growth in skills throughout this project.

I was also able to finish the experimentation reel in the same day, due to me finishing the stop-motion editing fast. This proved to be more of a challenge, as I’m not good at making reels, but I gave it my best shot.

The above is the experimentation reel, and it came out okay, although the start credits are really good. For the twisting polygon at the start I used a tutorial on VideoCopilot.net to help me and I really recommend these tutorials as they are life savers! It also has other great intros and effects.

Overall, this week has been very productive and I’m happy and relieved it’s all over, although I will use what I have learned and work on my weaknesses (character bulking, sewing, etc) in my spare time/ over the summer holidays. I’m grateful to all the people who have helped me over the course of this project.

This week we didn’t have a scheduled lesson, so I worked on the evaluation of a few effective and ineffective showreels I have chosen. Evaluating these showreels will help me in the future when I get round to creating my own one, as I will be able to avoid what the ineffective ones have/ haven’t done.

The good and effective showreels are:

Animation Showreel by Doug Hindson

https://vimeo.com/100060837

Pros:

The intro card is clearly and easy to read. There is also just enough time at the start to read the information, but not too much that it drags on for too long.

Every clip has the project name and what type of animation it is - this allows the viewers to see what creator is best at/ what job animation discipline they specialise in.

The music goes well with the clips.

The clips aren’t on for too long and change to keep you interested.

Outro card is also nice and clear.

Cons:

The only con about this showreel that it may have gone on for too long and this plus the slow paced music may make the viewer a bit bored watching it.

Animation showreel 2017: Isabell Gross

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Af03PnZTAFU

Pros:

The intro is great, although it looks boring in the first couple of seconds and then you have the character falling down into the scene, which I think it’s a fun idea. It also catches your attention.

The music is really upbeat and goes well with the animations, making it all entertaining to watch.

The clips are well put together

Outro card is clear and is on screen long enough for you to read.

Cons:

The description for each clip is a bit small, making it hard to read, so if you try and read it you may have to pause to actually read it and not miss the animation.

They way the music suddenly cuts out at the end is a bit of a jarring finish.

2D Animation Showreel (2017) by Gemma Roberts:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WNUp1ZSqUo

Pros:

The intro is nice and easy to read and stands out well against the chosen background.

The clips titles at the bottom are clear to read and don’t cover anything important, although it does cover some of the clips, but not in an overly bad way.

They include some work in progress shots but with the final animation straight afterwards, allowing us to see how they work.

Outro card is good and fades away well with the music, which is a nice touch.

Cons:

It goes on for too long, as its 2.48 minutes long which may bore the audience.

Volume of the background song and the audio of the clips seems like its at the same level. This makes it hard to focus on the audio in the actual clip. 

The bad and ineffective showreels are:

Showreel: character animation

https://vimeo.com/63730580

Pros:

The music goes well with the chosen clips

Cons:

Intro card doesn’t really capture your attention and could have been left on screen for longer than 2 seconds.

Starts off with no sound, then suddenly speaking, which is confusing.

The starting clips go on for too long.

No descriptions on what the clips are

Outro card is only up for a couple of seconds, meaning you would have to pause to see the information written on it.

Animation showreel 2013

https://vimeo.com/71648286

Pros:

Intro card is nice, although it could have done with some sound

Outro card animation was good and clear to read.

Cons:

No information at the bottom of the clips

Could have done with a song in the background to fill the awkward silence between the animations

Goes on for a bit too long, which may lose some of the audience's interest.

Polder Animation Showreel:

https://vimeo.com/41692802

Pros:

Good intro card, simple but easy to read

Music goes well with the whole showreel

Cons:

Changes between the clips were too fast, as some clips only stayed of for a couple of seconds, so the fast changes are a bit overwhelming and confusing.

No description for the animation clips seen.

No contact details on the outro card apart from website link, and doesn’t say anywhere in the showreel what they do, so you’re left guessing what they specialise in.

Today was presentation day and I was a complete nervous wreck all morning as I was going over and over my cue cards, which is a good thing as I now know them all basically by heart. The nerves didn’t lessen either as I walked into our usual lecture room and to my doom (a little exaggerated).

My group was the 5th one up, so I had to wait a while and watch the other groups go up first to give their presentations and as they all presented Cheznie (my friend that is also in group 5) and myself noticed that we may have written a bit too much to say, which then started another round of nerves to course through me, so I re-read through my cue cards trying to pick out any of the unneeded parts (which is hard when I thought everything was needed).

All too quickly our group was called up, and it was my go to speak. However, it wasn’t as bad and I have no idea why I was panicking so much, because when I got up there I just made sure to keep looking up from my cards and face the audience, a bit daunting but I did it. Before I knew it, it was all done and we were asked a couple of question by Helen and Peter, then let on a break before the next 6 groups were called.

I think (and hope) I did quite well on the presentation and I got all the information that was needed out. I also enjoyed researching my person who I was looking at - Mike Cachuela- and learning more about storyboarding, as it seems like a really fun job. Although I do need to work on controlling my nerves a bit more, it all went well.

I finally filmed my stop motion animation and all that is left to do is add in the background on after effects.

Filming the animation was fun and strangely calming, as I was so in the zone that time flew past and before I knew it I was done. However, it didn’t start off all to smoothly because I got there and the blue screen wasn’t up, so I was a tad confused about what I should do and how to go about changing it. I asked a couple of my friends and had finished removing all the flat head pins and metal pegs whilst I was waiting for a reply from Tracey. It turned out that I shouldn’t have removed the pins and pegs, but at least I now this for next time.

Once the blue screen was up, I put on some calming music and got to work. The whole process took me around 3 hours, but that’s due to me stopping and replaying the sequence over and over to make sure it all looked okay.

The only other bit of trouble I had was the exporting because when I exported in 12.5fps it was 16 seconds long and that’s too long. I then had to go back and play the sequence in 25fps before exporting again, but it was too quick. After fiddling around and extending the length of the frames it all looked good and I was able to export.

The above image is of my chosen background, which is a picture of some reeds that I took whilst on holiday. The original image had houses in the background, so I cropped them out and then zoomed into the plants more. I then copy and pasted the new image into another photoshop file, which I had set up to 1920x1080 and made sure it fit. All I need to do now is put both the image and the animation into after effects and hope that it works.

I’m really pleased with my final outcome and it all moves smoothly and I hope the background I have chosen works well with it, as I have chosen to use a real image instead of a digitally painted one. The one thing I would say that maybe didn’t work well was the crawling of my character, as I think at some parts it looks a bit weird. I also noticed at the end that my arm and the pliers were in the scene, but I’ll be able to edit these out in after effects.

Overall, I’m very proud of myself and the animation.

Mystery Box: Stop Motion

This week I struggled a lot with making the cape, even though I used templates, but I got there in the end with the help of my friend, Cheznie. I was also able to complete my stop-motion puppet completely, so now all I have to do is wait for my filming slot, which is one of the last due to me having to use a blue screen.

I’ve learnt a lot about making capes and the importance of templates and iteration. I did have to change my ideas a bit this week, but these changes helped me finish my character, so it was worth it and the effort. I’m glad I didn’t give up on the cave and was able to get help with it and Cheznie taught me a lot about sewing and different techniques one can use, such as ‘Darts’.

Overall I made a lot of progress this week and cannot wait to finally film the animation. I still have much to learn, for example, sewing, puppet making in general, but my skills have improved and I am very proud of myself for being able to complete this task.

Lips Sync

This week was hectic for the lip sync project, as I went all out to complete the animation, meaning all my free time was creating the character, drawing everything out digitally, etc.

I’m glad I was able to finish it, and the end result in really good in my opinion, as the digital version of the character came out really well and better than expected. The end animation took a while to complete, as I had trouble with the eyebrows going haywire and moving by themselves, but I got that sorted out relatively quickly.

The one thing I do need to improve on would be the mouth shapes, as some of them looked to be the same shape, so I need to practice draw different mouth shapes more in my spare time, as this will definitely help in the future when we are given any more lip sync projects.

Overall, I’m pleased that I was able to finish this week, as this relieves a bit of the stress and gives me more time for the other projects. The improvements I have made when doing this projects would be making a character with only a soundtrack to work with, and then being able to draw them out digitally without losing the likeness to the sketch. I’ve seen an increase in how well my characters are turning out as well, as they are starting to have more character and I now use a wider variation on how I draw them as well, which is a needed skill in the animation industry.

Showreel

The showreel lesson this week found us in the media lab working on premiere pro and getting use to all the controls, transitions we could use, and how to put our showreels together in the best way.

I found the lesson this week easy, as I have used premiere pro before whilst I was in college, but I still learned new things, such as, adding markers on the timeline so I can edit to the beat of a song, how to speed up and reverse video clips, and that premiere pro has a logo transition thing which is cool and could be helpful when making my own.

I also found out that I have aa lot to add to the showreel, but must make sure to pick the best and to make sure it doesn’t go over the given time, which hopefully won’t be too hard.

Overall, this week was good and I was able to come up with some ideas for my showreel, for example, my logo that I will work on. The hardest part will be trying to find royalty free music that sounds good and will go well with the whole clip, so this will be my task for the weekend.

Today’s showreel lesson was all about learning how to use premiere pro and creating a faux showreel as practice before we made our own one. I’ve used premiere pro before, but it was nice to go back over the basics and refresh my memory, I also learned something new, which was adding in transitions, finding out that premiere pro has logos slides that you can change into your own, and how to add markers onto the timeline to know when the beat changes.

The introduction to premiere pro was learning how to add in a title, and then we went about adding the markers to the beat and then adding in the footage. I played around with more of the effects, like the reversing of footage.

Tracey then let us use some of the time to do our own thing and test premiere pro out ourselves. Instead of working on premiere pro, I decided to get all my footage ready for when I create my own showreel, trying to pick which would be best and the most interesting for other people.

At the end Tracey quickly went through how to export, and told us to make sure we export our showreels in H.264 and to make sure that they work and our correct before submitting everything.

I also worked on figuring out my opening for the showreel, as I want to create a logo for myself but I’m struggling whether or not I want it a cartoon version of myself or to have one of my characters, so this is something to figure out and do before next week when I start to put everything together.  

This week was mainly dedicated to working on/ finishing my lip sync project, which I was able to do.

With my chosen audio, which was someone talking about watching a movie on the phone

I tried to come up with a character that would go well with it and this led me to drawing a few old people as cartoons because the audio sounded like a relatively old person was talking. These were my ideas:

I went for this drawing in the end as it was more suited to the chosen audio:

After choosing how my character would look I used photoshop to digitalise him and did this by using the shape tool instead of the brush tools, as this would allow me to resize my character if needed without losing the quality, as shapes on photoshop are vector and won’t pixelate when resized when compared to an image made with the brush tool, as it would then be a bitmap image made out of lots of pixels and unable to be resized.

Once the character had been drawn out digitally it was time to complete the mouth shapes, which we aren’t allowed to just take from google and edit slightly. I did this by taking pictures of my own mouth doing the shapes, and again used the shape tool to create the cartoons mouths.

I also recorded myself lip syncing to the audio so I could have a reference on how the mouth would move, this also helped me work out how I wanted the character to act whilst lip syncing.

When it came to finally animating the characters lip sync, I had to take apart my character in another photoshop, as the photoshop file that was linked to after effects required each part of the face to be on different layers. This process was quite easy and the only trouble I did have was adding the ears and glasses, as there was no attached layer for me to put them on, so I had to import them into after effects from the same photoshop as everything else and parent them to the head layer, which was a lot easier than it may sound.

I also had to do the dope sheet, as I couldn’t at home as I do not have after effects on my computer, so this process ate some of my time for animating, but I was able to get it done quickly.

As you can see from the images above I had to keep writing the frames on the other side of the paper due to not having more dope sheets, although Jon did print some more off for me, but I ended up not using them as I had nearly completed writing it all out.

Once the dope sheets were finally done I was able to animate.

I am very proud with how this turned out, especially the eyebrow animation, as that was a bit difficult to add because the eyebrows kept moving by themselves, so there are a lot of keyframes to keep them in place until the next movement.

The one part I really like is the moustache wiggle during the pause, as this was a last minute add due to me not like the emptiness of said pause and decided it would be funny if the moustache did a little wiggle.

Overall, the outcome was better than expected, but there are some places I could improve on, such as, the mouth shapes need to be a bit more exaggerated so they are easier to tell apart, especially the ‘TH’ and the ‘L’ shapes. I enjoyed this project and the process, I also really like the final animation as it’s one of my favourites that I have done this year.

Today we had the lovely Suzie Hanna come in to talk to us about her experience in the animation industry, she also showed us some of her work that she has done, which was great and something that i’ve never seen before, as she works mainly with poetry and animates to the words which I thought was quite a unique way to animate and could be interesting to try for myself.

Suzie Hanna also gave us some tips about being an animator, she also said that to be an animator one has to be playful and experimental, yet disciplined, which I think is a very true thing to say, as animators have to have a great imagination and be able to put themselves in the right mindset, yet also be able to make the deadlines and listen to the higher ups.

At the end of the lesson Helen told us that our presentations would be next week, which instantly made me nervous, as the thought of having to talk in front of everyone is quite terrifying.

With this news I worked on making my part of the presentation, which is looking at the job of a storyboard artist and also looking at Mike Cachuela. I also had to add something to the ending as well for the future on animation slide, where we are going to talk about the changes and improvements of the animation industry that you can see through the film ‘The Incredibles’.

Once I had all my slides written out and added some animation onto the images and titles, I then started to create my cue cards, as I didn’t want to write all the information onto the slides as that would look too messy and overwhelming for the audience.

I will keep going over what I have to say for the presentation for next week to make sure I am completely ready. I’m still nervous, but hopefully that will pass once I am up there and talking about my slides.

I finally finished my character today, as all I had left was to make the cape, which was harder than I first thought. Overall, it took me two days, a lot of cape templates, some stressing, and some help from my friend, Cheznie, to finally finish it.

My first attempt had me looking through pinterest for some cape templates, until I came across one that looked relatively nice and would go well with my character.

It was a simple enough looking template that I thought would be easiest for me to do, a I’m not the best at sewing things together.

I drew out the templates on some scrap printer paper, using my character to measure how long and wide they should be,

With the templates drawn and cut out, I then placed them on my fabric and used a white wax pencil to trace around them and then cut the fabric pieces out.

After all the pieces were cut out I began with sewing the hood pieces together, and this seemed the easiest. However, the fabric didn’t like being sewed and started fraying and the stitching kept pulling out of it easily, which is not what I had expected, but I kept going and made sure to be more gentle. Finally it was sewn and to make sure it really didn’t fall apart I glued the stitches.

With the back and side pieces I tried gluing the together, as I knew sewing them wouldn’t work and once it was all glued together I was happy, but I then found out none of it fit my character, as I didn’t take her large shoulders into account, meaning the cape did not go round her neck properly. Safe to say I wasn’t the happiest.

After sulking at my failure, I then asked my friend Cheznie if she knew how to make a cape or even a template for one, she said yes and then helped me create one.

Again the process was not easy and many templates were once again created, but we got there in the end.

This first template - made on kitchen towel (Cheznies finds it easier to use) -  didn’t work, as again the shoulders got in the way, and it wasn’t long enough on my character, as I want the cape to flow down to just above the knees.

This one we didn’t even cut fabric out for, as it turned out it was too short and went weird around my characters neck when we were testing it.

By this time Cheznie is confused and slightly annoyed, and I’m glad that I wasn’t the only one finding this task harder than it should have been.

However, Cheznie soldiered on!

Then finally the right template was found! Now we just had to hope it would work when made from fabric.

Cheznie drew around the template on the fabric and cut it out. She draped the fabric around the neck to make sure of its length. Once that was checked, she then cut out triangles from either side of the neck of the cape, as she was going to sew these together to make it more fitted, these are called darts.

Believe me when I say this, Cheznie is a God at sewing, truly! She was somehow able to sew the ‘darts’ together without the fabric fraying or the stitches coming out. I was awestruck. Once the darts were done she then added on the button to the front for me as well.

The final cape is amazing and words cannot describe how happy I am with it, I really owe Cheznie for it, as she did a marvellous job and I’ve learnt a lot about sewing from her then I ever did in high school.

With the cape done my character is now completed and I just have to wait for the 3rd of May for my mystery box filming slot. I have a 4 and a half hour slot, which should be enough time to film and fix any mistakes. My main concern about the filming is how my character will hold up, I don’t want her to break mid filming.

I’m really proud with my work and how my character looks! I hope she won’t break and that the animation comes out good, so fingers crossed!

Mystery Box: Stop Motion

This week I came even closer to the finishing line, which has taken a great weight off my shoulders as I know I’m on track and will be finished way before I have to film.

I was able to get the feet, arms and leg paint, Box, and most of the head finished! When painting the box I learnt different ways to create a wooden box effect just by seeing which way looked better, although I really should have saved time by looking at a reference picture (silly of me I know!), but it was fun just playing around with the paint and testing my own ways.

I’m also glad with how the head is turning out, although I did make some changes at last minute to her design, such as the whites of her eye which I didn’t know how to do, as the paint would have just darkened and been absorbed by the felt, so that wasn’t a choice. The other idea I had for the eyes was to stick on some paper, but I didn’t feel like it would look good, so I left the whites of the eyes out. This is another thing I need to work on, and should plan in advance, or look online/ ask someone for help on how to do it, which I will do in the future if I come across this problem again. In all honesty I should have asked Barry Leith, as he definitely would have helped, but I was in a state of mind where I wanted to try to do something by myself (again it was silly of me).

I still have lots to learn, and will be trying in my free time to look for more information and tips about how to create good stop-motion puppets to help me in the future. Overall, I’m really enjoying this project, and it may even be something I do as a profession in the future, when I get better at it though.

Showreel

This week we were given a new project which is to make a showreel of all our work. I’m not super excited for this, as I’m not the best at making showreels, but I will do my best, plus the tips we were given will help a lot as well, as when we went through what to include in it, I noticed that most of the things I hadn’t put in my old showreel for college, which is why it probably didn’t turn out so well. With these tips in mind I will aim to use all of them to get the best result as possible.

The task of looking for effective and ineffective showreels helped me to, as I now knew what to do and not to do from looking at examples and picking out the pros and cons of each myself.

Overall, this week was really informative and I hope I can make an effective showreel. There’s not much to write on improvements so far as we have only just started, but next week we’re working in the media lab so I’ll be able to see my strengths and weaknesses then.

Lip Sync

I wasn’t really as excited, as some, when I heard we had a lip sync project to complete, as I’ve had experience with lip syncing in the past when I was at college and found the whole process a bit boring and difficult. However as the lesson went on I actually really enjoyed the whole process and found it relatively calming. This may be due to me already knowing what was expected and had to be done.

The process of each task we did was easy and simple enough to follow along with, and I got the tasks surprisingly quick, but once I started animating everything I knew from college came rushing back to the forefront of my memories, which helped.

I found the lip syncing easier as well, due to having the time remap on the mouth shapes which helped a considerable amount! I also find myself looking forward to next lesson, and have already chosen one of the three audio clips, as well as what my character will look like.

One thing I would say I should improve on is my knowledge of the shortcuts for tools, because if I knew them all off by heart then I would be able to do the animations a lot faster.

Overall the lip sync session was better than I was expecting and I’m really looking forward to this project after all.

A new day, a new project brief (although our last one to be given to us this year), as we start lip sync today. As with all other projects we were briefed at the start of what this project entails, and what should be handed in at the deadline.

In this project we will be creating a lip sync to a sound clip that we ourselves choose out of the three given to us. We are to make our own mouth charts (no stealing them from google), which we can make by using a video ourselves lip syncing along to the clip as reference.

The character is a head in a glass jar, like those from Futurama, but have to include facial expressions to communicate the characters feelings.

With the briefing done we moved to looking at Adobe after effects and getting use to the controls with the help of four colour boxes.

The tasks were different for each box, as the first one was to simply move from one edge of the screen to the next, which I did by setting the scrubber at the start of the timeline, pressing the shortcut for position (P) when on the correct box layer, and pressing the stopwatch to create a keyframe. I then moved the scrubber to the end of the timeline and moved the coloured box across the screen - no need to repress the stop watch as it keyframes automatically - and that was the first box done!

For the second box we looked at adding an ease in at the end, which we could either do by right clicking on the last keyframe, pressing keyframe assistant and then clicking ease in, OR, use the shortcut F9 when the keyframe is selected. Viola! You have a moving box with an ease in at the end, which makes the movement look a tad bit smoother.

The third box needed ease in and out with an added 2x rotation, which was simpler than it sounds. We were told to do the same as we had for the first two, but add in an ease out on the first keyframe (shortcut for ease out - ctrl shift F9). To add the rotation we selected the first keyframe and press R (rotation shortcut), when it popped up under the layer we hanged the first lot of zeroes so it said 2, which is the amount of rotation the box will do whilst travelling across the screen.

Finally the last boxes travel includes the ease in and out, but with anticipation and a slight rotation before it slides across the screen. Again we started it off the same with the keyframes and eases, but this time aat frame 10 we moved the box further back, as this will add the anticipation. Once it moved back a slight rotation was added at frame 10, so it appeared the box was rearing backwards to get ready to set off, adding more effect to the already added anticipation frame. With mine I also added a little bounce to make the drop down of the box more realistic.

I enjoyed this task and found it quite simple to do, as I’ve used after effects before when I was at college and when we had a quick tutorial a couple weeks back.

After this quick task we then went on to looking at lip syncing, and how to use a dope sheet, which is where you write down what words are used and the phonics, placing them at the correct frame time.

The above image is of my dope sheet that I used to create the lip sync we did in lesson. As some of the mouth shapes were missing, such as TH and H, I had to use some of the other mouth shapes that would work well in their place.

Before we could get started on the animating, we had to first parent the eyebrows and pupils to the head, and the head to the neck, which was done by using the drop down menu next to the layers under where it said parent. This was done to ensure that when animating the head the pupils and eyebrows weren’t left behind, floating in the jar by themselves.

Parenting done, it was time to animate the lips to the soundtrack. This was really simple, as the mouth shapes were on a time remap, meaning when you selected the mouth layer and pressed U the time remap came up, where you can change the timing and the mouth shape would change as well. The mouth shapes were different on every 10 seconds, for example, when you changed the number to 10 the shape would be U, 20 was O, 30 was EEE, etc.

I wrote down all the mouth shapes and their timing so I didn’t have to keep going from one tab to another on after effects, and was able to complete the task relatively quickly.

Both tasks I enjoyed and had a nice time re-learning how to use after effects and cannot wait to see how my own lip sync will turn out. At the end of the lesson we were given three soundtracks to choose from for our lip sync, and the task of coming up with a character to go with it. This character we are supposed to have drawn out on photoshop ready to animate, as well as having the dope sheet filled out, so we can get started straight away next lesson. I already know which of the three audio files I will be choosing and how the character should kind of look like.

Our first lesson back after the Easter break started off with a guest speaker talking to us. The speaker was, Stephen Ong, an NUA Alumni who graduated in 2010.

Stephen Ong came to talk to us about his work, and how he found work after graduation, just like Millie Woodcock.

He showed us some of his work after uni, and some of the stuff he has done at Make it move, a company that he is co-founder of.

His websites are:

https://stephenong.co.uk/

http://makeitmove.co.uk/

After going through his work, he then gave us some tips for us to think about and use during University and after graduation. Stephen told us to learn to say no, such as when given work that is not possible, or has been asked for you to do for free, try to keep in touch with people, especially with people in University, as the may contact you one day with work and give you job opportunities. Try to make friends and contacts, which may seem difficult, but is worthwhile, and always try to self promote, as you never know who will see your work, or what jobs you may gain from it.

When his presentation had ended, Peter Martin came up to talk to us about our presentations that we will be giving soon. Peter told us not to be nervous, as we are presenting in front of friends and that it may be tempting to do, but try not to hide behind cue cards and the computer.

This kind of helped me, as I felt nervous at first about giving a presentation in front of the whole class, but then again everyone will be, so hopefully everyone will be nice when people are presenting.

The lesson ended relatively early, as we had group tutorials with Helen Piercy to see how well the presentations are coming along. I think our group is working really well together, as in the meeting with Helen we all seemed to have the information we needed, and some of us had already contacted the person we are going to talk about. We all seem to be on top of our work which is a good sign, so now I feel more relaxed about when we have to present. Helen also gave us some ideas about what to put into our presentation, for example, we should talk about the CGI differences in both ‘The Incredibles’ movies.

Like at the start of any other project, we started this one off the same and we were briefed on what we are expected to do for the deadline. What we have to hand in includes:

A showreel of this years work - has to be around 75-90 seconds, any longer and it will be boring an ineffective as a showreel.

An analysis/ evaluation of three or more showreels, including both effective and ineffective ones. This is to be uploaded on our research portfolios.

A research portfolio that includes all our work.

A reflective journal, with a 250+ conclusion.

After going through the briefing we then looked at passed animation students showreels and what to include in our own, such as, intro and outro cards, which should include our name, contact details (e.g: email and blog link), title cards for each animation (should be in the top right corner in a readable font), a logo (optional), and how suitable music (has to be credited unless own music).

A tip Helen gave us was to put one of our best pieces of work at the beginning, as this will immediately draw the audience's attention, also we should remember that it’s quality over quantity, meaning too much work will make it boring and drag on for to long.

The showreels we will create for ourselves can include:

Life drawing

Concept art

Character design

Storyboards

As well as our animations, but the still images also have to be eye catching.

The last part of the session was used to get into our groups and find one effective showreel and an ineffective one that we will be presenting and discussing in front of the class of why we think they work/ don’t work.

This task was to get us ready for when we have to evaluate and analyse three or more showreels for our blog, but also so we could get an idea of what we should include/ exclude in our own showreels.

I had fun analysing the different showreels, as it has giving me ideas for what I should do when it comes to creating my own and I hope my showreel will be effective in the end.

16th:

In today’s lesson I focused on getting holes drilled in the feet and then covered, which was all a surprisingly lengthy process, as wrapping the feet in felt was a fiddly thing to do because the toes are so tiny.

I got there in the end though and I was able to cover them all nice and neatly, ready for me to paint green later. I was also able to cover up the neck with felt and the area around the neck, although I forgot to take a picture of this whilst I was doing it.

When I got home I started painting the legs and arms, I only painted up to the knees and the elbows, as my character is only partially green.

I like the effect of the green paint on the legs, as it looks likes grass or even moss, with tiny white flowers.

17th:

As I finished lessons early this day, I was able to work longer on painting the box, which took longer than I expected, as I had to wait for the coats of brown paint to dry before adding in the details, such as the moss and knots of wood.

I’m really proud with how the box turned out and will also be adding more detail on it with Milliput, as I want to add flowers and grass that clings to the side. I can’t wait to see how it will look when it is completely finished and ready for the animation.

19th:

Today I focused on getting the head covered with the brown felt. For this I used gorilla wood glue to attach it because the impact glue melts the dense blue foam, so I wasn’t able to attach it sooner due to not having the glue at home. Whilst waiting for all of it to dry before heading home, I quickly made some ears for my puppet, and some small vines, leaves and flowers for my box.

Once I had the felt around the face I went home early to work on adding on the hair with impact glue.  

I started off by cutting lengths of yarn ready to glue down and laying them side by side, as this made it easier to pick up individual pieces because they liked to attach themselves together if they were in a bunch. With a good amount of yarn cut and ready, I made a line with the impact glue near the base of the head and stuck on the first hair line.

I got to three lines of yarn done ten had to recut more, as I had sorely misjudged the amount I would need (which I kept doing during this whole process).

Half way through the gluing session, I realised I need to glue on the ears, so I would have a clear guide for the hairline.

Once all the yarn was stuck on and dry I was then able to cut it to the required length that I needed for my character, which I was able to do rather quickly. To add more volume to the hair I used the offcuts to glue more layers on top, and the different lengths added some nice layers into her hair. When this was all done I used some tweezers and impact glue to stick on her eyes which I had made ages ago out of Milliput and coloured in with black permanent marker.