Final!

Finally finished my animation! I've learnt a lot from this project, spent quite a few nights with After Effects on one side of the screen and google on the other because I kept forgetting how to do things! In all I really enjoyed using it, and it's something I'd really like to play with more Here we go!

Testing....testing

Played around in After Effects today to get a feel for my idea, and here we are
Reaally really love the effect that the light gives it!

Building up....

Drew a few sketches of trees and sunshines and built them up along with textures created with ink and sponges and watercolour paints, and voila! 

 

Apples

Tried out a bunch of different ways of colouring these apples, I decided that red would show better on a green tree, I thought acrylic would be the best choice to give the image a similar, less-detailed aesthetic that matches the imagery I found when researching the 1950's.

Ended up picking the two watercolour pencil options, and gave them a little character.

Story board 2.0

I Can Animate!

Had a last minute session last week with Toby where he introduced us to this program we've all been hearing so much about. There's a great set up in the studio with cameras and lights and what not and he kindly provided us with some lego to play around with and use to get a feel for the program. Here's a couple of videos, a joint effort between myself and Craig, not bad!

Apple development and edible eyes

One glorious day at work we got these edible eyes in on delivery, and I bought a whole load because what a fab way to begin figuring out what my little apple will look like!

I had a little too much fun with these 

Cell hell and other animations

A few weeks ago we had a workshop where in groups of 6 we had to pick two logos to use to interact with one another in the form of a 12 second animation. Together, we had to come up with an idea that we all liked, plan who would do what and then ensure all of our parts lined up with each other. 

Here's my little story board 

So we all went away on our Easter break with 24 A3 'cells' to draw out to make up each of our 2 second clip in the group animation and now we're back it's time to put them all together and see what they all join up to make. 

Credit to Andrew for scanning in 144 sheets of paper without going on a murdering spree afterwards and putting this thing together and making it look awesome! I'm so pleased! 

We've also had quite a few support sessions lately teaching us the basics with After Effects, unfortunately I lost a couple of them somewhere along the line but still have this one, trying out the cameras, lights, texts, paths and puppet pins. 

I've also downloaded a wee app for my phone that makes stop motion easy as pie

A little more 1950's

If google is to be believed at all, then here are a bunch of examples of packaging, foods, advertisements and patterns from the 1950's. I've noticed a few common themes, everything seems to be family orientated, nothing is bad for you (not donuts, not even smoking) and there doesn't seem to be any negativity anywhere, after all we had just come out of the second world war and were getting back up on our feet and looking forward to a future of happiness and plenty. My favourite thing is the patterns, so many colours, so many shapes, I think these and the fashion (posted previously) are something to be inspired by when it comes to textures.....

(patterns)

(food packaging) 

 (adverts & packaging)

(apples)

Ventured way off the idea of the fifties, and focussed more on 'dancing'. Centred around the idea of the apple falling and bouncing at the end.

Done a little 50's research

This song reminds me of the 50's, and when I think about the 50's I think about the fashion, about elegance and class and beautifully patterned tea dresses that go down to your knees and sway about when you dance. 

Also watched A Touch of Evil a few times (I still don't understand) and a few Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn movies, which, of course only strengthened my ideas of a 1950's full of dancing and classy ladies. 

The patterns and the tones of colours is definitely something I want to include in my animation.

3 words

When listening to my track there are a number of things that come to mind. For instance: dancing, energy, the 1950's, patterns, circles, the colour red, shapes

After thinking about it for a while and categorising the words, I settled on these three:

I've got a few pages of ideas to share with you as well,

"Zero"

I found this short film today while browsing animations on youtube and I really want to tell the world about it.

First time I watched it it broke my heart, it's such a powerful story and so beautifully put together. So I had a minute, and watched it again, where I noticed a few things.

I understood the concept of numbers a little more. It seemed that the number 1's were the lowest you could get while still being respected, they swept the floors and kept their world in order in exchange for not being treated like the zeros. The number 6's were nurses, the 7's were guards and policemen, the 9's were just horrible. I also noticed that the 9's were 'wrapped' perfectly, not a string out of place and as the numbers lowered in denomination, the scrappier they looked. I wondered if this was a lesson about life an social class, are people who grow up to be doctors, nurses or just rich prats that way because they were born with that way of life already determined for them? Of course it seems that way, if you look at poor families who grow up to be the number 1's and 2's. Is this also a lesson about racism? Is the fact that the 0's are a different colour significant?

Anyway, the people who made this uploaded a lot of other interesting videos showing how they made this short, the commentary being the most interesting:

To think that this was once an idea in someone's head and now it's on my screen feels like magic. It took a team of about 43 people and two years to produce this 12 and a half minute movie. It took an additional 6 months for the team to come up with a solid idea, create a story board, and begin development ready for creating the movie. A task that I have been given about 4 weeks to achieve. It's on the second, third and fourth watch that you realise how much work went into this, how many dolls there are that were all hand made, the sets, the finest details like the newspapers and even the language they created for the characters.

The majority of this film was stop animated, but there was quite a lot of finer details that were added in 3D software, such as glittering water, the mouths on the characters, and the backgrounds used.

Claymation magic

It wasn't until I started watching videos like this that it made me appreciate just how tricky it can be to animate certain features, like running water! 

Pencilmation

I've been scouring the web lately for some good sources of inspiration, and since most of my ideas circle around, well, circles, I found these two particularly interesting. 'Pencilmation' is a series of short animations by this guy that involve a relationship between the character and the narrator who draws him into situations.

He's done quite a few of these pencilmations and although the thin line on the white paper is endearing, I found the ones with textures and colours were the more exciting ones. Still, it's an idea I'll bear in mind!

The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics

I seem to be stuck with this idea of dancing dots, but a tutor steered me in the direction of the unusual and how we represent dance or jazz or something like that,footprints instead of dots? I still feel like this idea is too obvious, but it's nice to watch this old video to see how a story can be told about shapes. 

I made so many cups of tea today.

69 photos, 12 frames per second

First thing I did with my new (i)phone? Download iMotion HD and started playing.

It's so much fun! (But I need practice)exporting it is tricky business too....

Johnny Kelly

The only other bit of animation knowledge I had was this guy. He spoke at the Curated...By thing back in January (blog) 

And what I admire about him is this graduate piece he did, there are so many different types of media involved it's like a dream! 

PES

 

We watched a few of these in seminars last week, and I realised I'd seen them long ago on tumblr by chance. Now I've got a bit of insight, I realised how impressive these films actually are!

I noticed that pretty much all of these animations focus around food, either using food to animate with, or using an abstract object to represent food.

It's really interesting to see the connections he's made here, foil as oil, wool as spaghetti, bubblewrap as water?! I suppose when it comes down to it they're easier to animate that way, but at the same time, they make it look so exciting!

Thinking

When faced with a 'motion graphics' project I thought about the type of animation I already know about. First there was Disney, and the umpteen programs I've seen about how cell animation is made, and stop animation, mostly of the clay variety like old Wallace and Gromit.

Through the seminars we had in our first week, my eyes were opened to all of the different ways you can animate a story. There's rotascoping, zoetrope and digital just to start but so many things you can do with each one. For now I'm looking into different animation techniques to get to grips with what is available out there, I'd love to create a more mixed media design, just in case my plans get too ambitious and my digital skills aren't up to scratch.

First (few) listens

So I've listened to my track a few times, and I'll share with you my initial thoughts:

I think I'll give it a rest for now, watch the film it's from and perhaps research the 1950's a bit, because I feel like this track is screaming it at me. For now, the 'three words' I'd consider using would be patterns, dancing and 1950's, but we'll see how that develops.

Planning

For years I've had a love-hate relationship with these things. Yeah, they seem like a good idea at the time "I'm going to do *this* on this week and *that* the week after" but somehow it never worked. I never stuck to them. But I've learnt since being at uni that it's probably because I've always worked backwards. Been so eager to come up with an idea I go all the way down Route A and then when I've finished I go back and fill in the blanks. Pam taught us not so long ago NOT to do that, and well, I listened, and now I'm loving this whole ideas generation and development and experimenting thing, so I'll give the old Gantt chart another shot!

(although list-making is more my thing)

Print to Pixel

Say good-bye, Skills Workshop.

With SW over with and put to rest, and the first half of Contextual Studies handed in, I'm a little bit excited to be starting this new module!

Quick summary: I've been given this audio clip called Orson Around which is a bit jazz-y. I have to study it (and study it and study it) and come up with an original idea for an animation that lasts around 30 seconds.
Apparently this tune is from an old film, so I know where I'm starting!

voilà

I am done!

I have just unstuck two of my fingers because I am a noob with superglue! 

It's not 100% what I imagined, if I had more time I'd put feet on the front of it, condense the collage a bit and properly tweak the laser to up the power on the perforrated cards. But let's not focus on that.

Spent a lot of time playing with the laser cutter to get this to happen: 

So pleased that it turned out the way I wanted it to, although the laser could have done with being more powerful...

(this is what it looks like in my head)

Final final final mock up!

This time with the patterns! (sneak peak)

Cllage

The plan for the inside of my box is to have a collage already in there, with numbered white squares that correspond to a tabbed image of an object that the you are invited to 'pop' out of an accompanying card (it will be perforated on the laser cutter) and stick on, giving it a 3D effect.

First, I had to plan the collage itself....

Next comes sticking objects on to simulate the 3D collage...

Step three was to mark where all of the tabs sit and then scan it so I can reproduce the image again to then print as a card and put in the tray.

Edit: the plan was to reproduce the image in photoshop and place the squares on after, but I found that I liked the effect of the scanned image too much, so I'm going to make the collage again, but neater........

Prototype

Before proceeding to design the collage and the pop out in my box I had to test that the net I had drawn up and altered would actually fit together like it does in my mind. The outcome was successful, turns out the little ledge on the bottom is a great support for the drawer and it works a lot lot better than the last prototype I mead (where the drawer fell off).

Laser cutting

I finally got to find out what's what with the laser cutter today, because I have big plans that you will see SOON. (Unfortunately, he didn't go through the circles thing with me so I don't have that fancy 3d thing everyone else has to show for a morning spent lasering, but I do have a piece of paper that we tested etching, cutting and perforating on)

Now I've pretty much got everything sorted, just need to test it, print it, laser it and voila!

Testing pop ups (again)

Jen suggested I researched materials a little more in my assessment last week, when I realised that I'd gone with 'route a' for making the pop up. I've acted like folding card is the only way to make a 3D collage! So I thought I'd explore a few other methods before I reach my final. 

Obviously, these aren't practical for a final design. The G keeps falling off the toothpick and it's secured with blu tak; the straw is secured with sellotape. But they were things I had laying around my flat, and they do make the letters stand up, and it gets the ideas out of my head. 

New Pop Up

The next thing I tried was this traditional pop up method. Thought it would be a lot more stable than the slithers of card I had used before. 

To test this idea I gathered up some spare boxes, (2 match boxes and a cigarette box - it wasn't mine, honest!) to put more quick letter collages in. The first was two very, very long pop ups stuck inside an old cigarette box (covered it in the test run of my brown paper pattern. 2 birds, 1 stone) to see if it would pop up when you take the lid off. 

Didn't work as well as I hoped, the springs weren't particularly strong, and flopped over, but they did pop out when the lid came off! (Now I can't decide whether I like brown or white more...). Next step from here would be to try again, with smaller springs.

After constructing this, with a separate spring for each image I thought about having just one platform with all of the imagery on which would pop up.

 

Could this be the way I make my pop up?