10/9/2018
Animation
Bouncing ball
Speech
Today I animated something for the first time ever.
We were taught that animation and video is just several frames creating the illusion of movement and not actual movement. However unlike video, in animation we must juxtapose those frames together manually. We were also taught that for a 720p resolution, the panel must be 1280 x 720. And whilst the concept was easy to understand, it was quite hard to to make something that actually looks good. Of course the struggle of having an uncharged tablet pen only added to the difficulty. Above you can see the 2 animations I made. One is the bouncing ball animation and below is a short speech animation. I do hope that once I get used to this type of drawing more, and get the chance to use a fully working tablet, I will be able to make a great animation. Overall I felt quite frustrated throughout the whole experience, however that is mostly due to the mentioned tablet struggles. I used the program Adobe Animator. If I could do this exercise over again I would probably make sure the graphics tablet was fully charged before starting.
11/9/2018
Cinematography
Today we looked at different shots and angles used in cinema and animation. We learned to identify and use them correctly, as well as how to combine them to make certain scenes. The shots and angles are as follows:
Extreme close up: Focus on a body part or object
Big close up: Face takes up most of shot
Close up: Focus on face and shoulders
Medium close up: Head, shoulders and a bit of body
Mid shot: Shows half of body
Medium long shot: Background in focus and all of subject in shot
Long shot: Characters in full view, scales things
Over shoulder shot: Used in conversation
Point of view shot: Through the eyes ff the character
Dutch tilt: Distress, confusion or weirdness
In addition to Shots, we also have different angles that can be combined with shots to set a scene or establish a relationship etc.
High angle: Make character seem weak, viewer looks down on Character
Low angle: Make character seem powerful, viewer looks up to Character
Worms eye view: someone dead, significant object, etc.;
12/9/2018
Research
In this lesson we talked about the different types of research and the dangers of plagiarizing. Primary research is information that you gather or generate yourself. This can be through something such as a survey or even just mapping out a characters traits and personality. Secondary research is Information generated by someone else, that you refer to. Meaning that if your information comes from a book, a website or maybe even a friend's research, it is considered secondary and as such must be accompanied by a reference. If not, this will be seen as plagiarization which is a serious offence.
Quantitative research is when information is gathered numerically or in a way that is measurable. So if your information is based on percentages or other sorts of numbers, it is most likely quantitative. Qualitative research however is information that is particular and goes in to the details of a problem. This can be a persons opinion on something as well as the reason they have that opinion.
Anime research assignment
When I think of anime, usually I think of the anime itself and never even think to find out who they were made by. Researching this topic led to the amusing discovery, that some of my favourite Animes were actually made by the same companies. For example, my favourite anime, Tokyo Ghoul, was made by Studio Pierrot, who also made Naruto and Bleach. And although I have yet to watch Bleach, it was quite surprising to see that the makers of Tokyo Ghoul, made another anime I loved: Naruto. Then there's Wit Studio who made popular shows such as: Attack on Titan, Seraph of the End and the Ancient Magus' Bride. Last but not least is the ever popular Madhouse who made classics like: Death Note, Parasyte and One Punch Man. Every one of these, a must-watch Anime. Now of course it is common knowledge that these Animes are commonly loved by the public, but that of course doesn't mean that everyone has seen them, or that everyone likes them. I asked some of my classmates if they had seen all of these Animes and what their personal opinion on them was. One of them had not seen all the Animes but said about the ones he had: "I find these Animes incredibly entertaining and would recommend them to other Anime fans." another had seen most but said about a specific one: "One Punch man is a Unique Anime that uses different types of Animation to pull in its viewers." The general Opinion of these Animes is that they're well known and loved which, in my opinion, must be a tremendous compliment to the talented studios that created them. They are without a doubt incredibly talented and capable studios. If you haven't seen some of these Animes, I highly recommend you do.
Wikipedia. (2018). Wit Studio. Available: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wit_Studio. Last accessed 13th September 2018.
Wikipedia. (2018). Pierrot (company). Available: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierrot_(company). Last accessed 13th September 2018.
Wikipedia. (2018). Madhouse (company). Available: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madhouse_(company). Last accessed 13th September 2018.
13/9/2018
Speed Animation
(Loop to watch)
After getting the Assignment to make a short animation with the theme of speed, I immediately dove into work and finished it that afternoon. It was incredibly fun to draw in Adobe Animate, now that I had a working tablet and the experience really helped me explore the basics of the program. And although I have yet to use the more in depth functions of Adobe Animate, I am very excited to explore this program further and see my Animations get better.
17/9/2018
Stop Motion
In this lesson we looked at Stop Motion Animation. Stop motion works with the same concept as Digital Animation: By juxtaposing frames together, we create the illusion of movement. However Stop motion animation requires you to create the frames with material objects instead of drawing them. This requires much more precision. In digital animation we have the onion skin tool that allows us to see into the last frame. However in Stop motion the objects need to be put into the next position without moving them from their spot. If they are moved from their spot it's possible you may have to start the scene all over again to ensure that there are no discrepancies in the animation. There's also the possibility that you have a body part or a shadow in the frame which also causes a disturbance in the animation. This is our final result for our first stop motion animation:
We came across all three of those problems above, while filming this. The body part shots were easy to cut out, however the shadows remain in the background and are visibly moving. Our Robot character also kept falling over and falling apart, however we did not start the scenes over and the robot moves around a lot because of it. It was quite fun to film though, and whilst it may not be my preferred method of animation, it was very interesting to do. The editing stage with Adobe premiere Pro was more fun though. It was great to see the pictures come to life and because i already had some experience with video editing the program wasn't so complicated either.
17/9/2018
Flex Pen Advert
This weeks assignment, was to create a 15-30s Animated Advert as a group, with either digital or stop motion Animation. My Group, which consisted of Ella, Faz and I, chose to do Digital Animation. The first step was to divide the work between us 3. Faz took charge of the Audio, Ella took the part of Writing and I chose to do the Animation. That Afternoon I started Animating the first part of the Storyboard, which Ella had written at Lunch. I have to say that I am not particularly proud of the drawings in the first part of the Animation. It was hard to get the same result in digital Art as in Traditional and as a result my drawings look very crude and childish. But in my opinion you can see improvement throughout the Animation as I got used to the program and made less mistakes. Although we had recorded the corresponding ADR beforehand, I decided to draw the backgrounds and characters first, which I believe also made the Animation progress harder later on. Nevertheless I managed to complete the first scene that afternoon. I'm disappointed by the fact that I was so distracted by the work itself, that I completely forgot to take pictures, and I hope to do better next time.
The next day I continued where I had left off and managed to get quite a bit done. And although the very first drawing that day was still not quite satisfactory, I was able to draw some things I felt prouder of and I think I was able to save the Animation.
When I had the basics of the Animation drawn out I added in the Audio and synced it with the Animation. As mentioned this was a long process that I will not repeat in this way in the future.
Soon I had the Animation done and was able to export it, only to find out that I had missed a part of Audio. I tried adding it in with Adobe Premier Pro, but left it out after all.
All in all I am quite proud of this animation although I can definitely see points of improvement and am even more excited to start my next Animation, hopefully with better results.
*Final Product*
2/10/2018
Storyboard
We were taught about the importance of a Storyboard, as well as how to design a Storyboard, and what the most important parts of a Storyboard were. A Storyboard helps you plan out the shots, shot duration, dialog and Audio of a Animation or Film. When working on a solo project, you might not immediately see how important this step is, however when it comes to a large Scale Animation, for example, its more important than ever. Without it The different Animators wouldn't know what the Author of the Story had in mind when he envisioned that shot and would have to decide on the shots and the layout etc. themselves. This would not look good in the finished product. They also wouldn't know how long the shot is supposed to last,which is another very important thing. Storyboards can also be used to create the Animatic, which should also not be left out.
2/10/2018
Script writing
We learned to write script by writing the Actions in the Point break Chase scene in the Script style. Whilst it seemed easy at first glance, it was actually quite difficult to capture all the details and really think about everything,that would have been needed to be described,to film this scene. It was however, actually a quite fun exercise, and it was definitely good practice. I do think we should have looked at more than just the Actions, considering there are many parts to a script.
2/10/2018
Walk-Cycle
We were given a walk-cycle reference, and got the task to create a walk cycle with 8 or 12 parts. This was actually quite a hard and time consuming task, that definitely takes practice. I am excited to practice and better my walk-cycle in the future.
25/9/2018
Original Animation Project
(Breakfast)
Our next assignment was to create an animation inspired by a soundtrack we were provided. I was teamed up with Vwede and our soundtrack was called 出現ロイミュード. Its a very dramatic soundtrack that we decided to use contrapuntally, as to make our job of animating easier. This way we didn't have to animate any dramatic fight scenes or other very detailed scenes, which would have fitted the soundtrack best. Instead we decided to do a comedy short about a breakfast massacre. We were very invested in this theme and our ideas came very quickly. Soon we had the story all mapped out, and our script was finished just the second day. Because we were so invested in this animation it was quite easy for us to work on character designs and storyboards outside of class, and we moved through the planning phase quite quickly.
27/9/2018
We wrote down all the Foley and ADR today and have realized that our animation idea will require us to record a lot of sounds. We also wrote down how we will achieve these noises and who will have to record them.
3/10/2018
By now, I have finished animating 2 shots and we're beginning to realize that this will take longer than we thought. We're probably going to have to cut some scenes, but until then, we'll just work as hard and fast as we can.
I have started on the third shot and am planning to get one more done by the end of the week. I'm hoping that if I work hard enough I may even be able to exceed that goal . Vwede is still working on digitalizing the main character design, but I hope he will begin Animating soon, as he has planned to finish 4 shots by tomorrow.
4/10/2018
Our task for today was to compile our Storyboard into an Animatic. An animatic is kind of like a slideshow of your storyboard, which can be used to plan out the correct timing and order of the shots. Animatics are also useful for when you are working on a big animation project but with little time, as you can always just replace any missing shots with the animatic. Obviously this is not a proper solution for a professional production, but for a student assignment its quite useful. Since we didn't draw out our storyboard digitally, I had to take a picture of each shot before being able to make the animatic. Then I put them into proper order
11/10/2018
We worked on the Post-production stage today, and although we are both quite proud of what we have so far, we are also very disappointed that we will not be able to finish it completely. We've already cut some shots and still think that there will probably be some animatic shots left in the end. We are however, still committed to working as hard as we can to get as much as possible done.
15/10/2018
*Final Product*
OwO
Final Project Evaluation
We were tasked to create an Animation to a track we were given, that included a head turn, a walk cycle and 5 different shots. After hearing this i was very eager to get to work and didn't realize how difficult it would actually be until later.
Upon hearing our track, we knew there would be only two things we could do for it: Something incredibly dramatic, or a contrapuntal comedy. For the parallel idea, we thought of someone falling off or fighting on a cliff or some other really high place. But in the end we were much more excited for our contrapuntal idea: Breakfast.
The basic idea was the same from the start, however we did of course adjust some of the story line so that we would realistically be able to animate it.
Although I of course struggled with time, to me that wasn't really the biggest problem. Much worse was the fact that I was often very tired when working which severely slowed down the process. I also struggled with the program sometimes, not because it was acting up, or particularly complicated, but just because I sometimes forgot to add a new key-frame, or layer. We did however have to cut most of our foley and ADR so that we would have enough time to animate it all.
The key-frame issue took place less and less as I used the program more and got used to it. However the tiredness and time issues were hard to fix without cancelling each other out.
I feel like, not only has my understanding of the program improved, but I am also able to achieve better results with more ease. I've improved din general with my use of a graphics tablet, and have been able to p[practice certain simple animations. For example: In this Animation I had to Animate a Hand-grabbing Animation many times. Because of this I feel like I was able to do it a lot quicker by the last one.
Since the theme was breakfast, and both of us were pretty skilled breakfast eaters,not a lot of research was required. It as helpful to look up references for some of the foods, but in the end that only really influenced the design, and not the actual story. The time management research was not much help in this animation, other than utilizing the animatic. Since we were only 2 people and don't work in a big production company, things such as call sheets etc, were not needed.
Some parts were a bit too silent because of the Foley cuts. The backgrounds were also a bit too simplified and some of the animations were a bit basic and didn't look very good.
I am actually very proud of this animation. It may not exactly be on a professional level, but its the first animation I have done where I actually like mots of the drawings and that correctly portrayed what it was supposed to. So I do consider it to be a success. Our original vision didn't really change throughout the production process, however it isn't quite as funny as intended. It was well received at the Presentation however, and we got a laugh at the intended point from both students and teachers. I think they all liked it and therefore I definitely believe it was a a success.
9/10/2018
Sketchbook
Shading
Proportions
Human Eye drawing
Independent work
Today I animated something for the first time ever.
We were taught that animation and video is just several frames creating the illusion of movement and not actual movement. However unlike video, in animation we must juxtapose those frames together manually. We were also taught that for a 720p resolution, the panel must be 1280 x 720. And whilst the concept was easy to understand, it was quite hard to to make something that actually looks good. Of course the struggle of having an uncharged tablet pen only added to the difficulty. Above you can see the 2 animations I made. One is the bouncing ball animation and below is a short speech animation. I do hope that once I get used to this type of drawing more, and get the chance to use a fully working tablet, I will be able to make a great animation. Overall I felt quite frustrated throughout the whole experience, however that is mostly due to the mentioned tablet struggles. I used the program Adobe Animator. If I could do this exercise over again I would probably make sure the graphics tablet was fully charged before starting.
11/9/2018
Cinematography
Today we looked at different shots and angles used in cinema and animation. We learned to identify and use them correctly, as well as how to combine them to make certain scenes. The shots and angles are as follows:
Big close up: Face takes up most of shot
In addition to Shots, we also have different angles that can be combined with shots to set a scene or establish a relationship etc.
12/9/2018
Research
In this lesson we talked about the different types of research and the dangers of plagiarizing. Primary research is information that you gather or generate yourself. This can be through something such as a survey or even just mapping out a characters traits and personality. Secondary research is Information generated by someone else, that you refer to. Meaning that if your information comes from a book, a website or maybe even a friend's research, it is considered secondary and as such must be accompanied by a reference. If not, this will be seen as plagiarization which is a serious offence.
Quantitative research is when information is gathered numerically or in a way that is measurable. So if your information is based on percentages or other sorts of numbers, it is most likely quantitative. Qualitative research however is information that is particular and goes in to the details of a problem. This can be a persons opinion on something as well as the reason they have that opinion.
Anime research assignment
When I think of anime, usually I think of the anime itself and never even think to find out who they were made by. Researching this topic led to the amusing discovery, that some of my favourite Animes were actually made by the same companies. For example, my favourite anime, Tokyo Ghoul, was made by Studio Pierrot, who also made Naruto and Bleach. And although I have yet to watch Bleach, it was quite surprising to see that the makers of Tokyo Ghoul, made another anime I loved: Naruto. Then there's Wit Studio who made popular shows such as: Attack on Titan, Seraph of the End and the Ancient Magus' Bride. Last but not least is the ever popular Madhouse who made classics like: Death Note, Parasyte and One Punch Man. Every one of these, a must-watch Anime. Now of course it is common knowledge that these Animes are commonly loved by the public, but that of course doesn't mean that everyone has seen them, or that everyone likes them. I asked some of my classmates if they had seen all of these Animes and what their personal opinion on them was. One of them had not seen all the Animes but said about the ones he had: "I find these Animes incredibly entertaining and would recommend them to other Anime fans." another had seen most but said about a specific one: "One Punch man is a Unique Anime that uses different types of Animation to pull in its viewers." The general Opinion of these Animes is that they're well known and loved which, in my opinion, must be a tremendous compliment to the talented studios that created them. They are without a doubt incredibly talented and capable studios. If you haven't seen some of these Animes, I highly recommend you do.
Wikipedia. (2018). Wit Studio. Available: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wit_Studio. Last accessed 13th September 2018.
Wikipedia. (2018). Pierrot (company). Available: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierrot_(company). Last accessed 13th September 2018.
Wikipedia. (2018). Madhouse (company). Available: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madhouse_(company). Last accessed 13th September 2018.
13/9/2018
Speed Animation
After getting the Assignment to make a short animation with the theme of speed, I immediately dove into work and finished it that afternoon. It was incredibly fun to draw in Adobe Animate, now that I had a working tablet and the experience really helped me explore the basics of the program. And although I have yet to use the more in depth functions of Adobe Animate, I am very excited to explore this program further and see my Animations get better.
17/9/2018
Stop Motion
In this lesson we looked at Stop Motion Animation. Stop motion works with the same concept as Digital Animation: By juxtaposing frames together, we create the illusion of movement. However Stop motion animation requires you to create the frames with material objects instead of drawing them. This requires much more precision. In digital animation we have the onion skin tool that allows us to see into the last frame. However in Stop motion the objects need to be put into the next position without moving them from their spot. If they are moved from their spot it's possible you may have to start the scene all over again to ensure that there are no discrepancies in the animation. There's also the possibility that you have a body part or a shadow in the frame which also causes a disturbance in the animation. This is our final result for our first stop motion animation:
We came across all three of those problems above, while filming this. The body part shots were easy to cut out, however the shadows remain in the background and are visibly moving. Our Robot character also kept falling over and falling apart, however we did not start the scenes over and the robot moves around a lot because of it. It was quite fun to film though, and whilst it may not be my preferred method of animation, it was very interesting to do. The editing stage with Adobe premiere Pro was more fun though. It was great to see the pictures come to life and because i already had some experience with video editing the program wasn't so complicated either.
17/9/2018
Flex Pen Advert
This weeks assignment, was to create a 15-30s Animated Advert as a group, with either digital or stop motion Animation. My Group, which consisted of Ella, Faz and I, chose to do Digital Animation. The first step was to divide the work between us 3. Faz took charge of the Audio, Ella took the part of Writing and I chose to do the Animation. That Afternoon I started Animating the first part of the Storyboard, which Ella had written at Lunch. I have to say that I am not particularly proud of the drawings in the first part of the Animation. It was hard to get the same result in digital Art as in Traditional and as a result my drawings look very crude and childish. But in my opinion you can see improvement throughout the Animation as I got used to the program and made less mistakes. Although we had recorded the corresponding ADR beforehand, I decided to draw the backgrounds and characters first, which I believe also made the Animation progress harder later on. Nevertheless I managed to complete the first scene that afternoon. I'm disappointed by the fact that I was so distracted by the work itself, that I completely forgot to take pictures, and I hope to do better next time.
The next day I continued where I had left off and managed to get quite a bit done. And although the very first drawing that day was still not quite satisfactory, I was able to draw some things I felt prouder of and I think I was able to save the Animation.
When I had the basics of the Animation drawn out I added in the Audio and synced it with the Animation. As mentioned this was a long process that I will not repeat in this way in the future.
Soon I had the Animation done and was able to export it, only to find out that I had missed a part of Audio. I tried adding it in with Adobe Premier Pro, but left it out after all.
All in all I am quite proud of this animation although I can definitely see points of improvement and am even more excited to start my next Animation, hopefully with better results.
2/10/2018
Storyboard
We were taught about the importance of a Storyboard, as well as how to design a Storyboard, and what the most important parts of a Storyboard were. A Storyboard helps you plan out the shots, shot duration, dialog and Audio of a Animation or Film. When working on a solo project, you might not immediately see how important this step is, however when it comes to a large Scale Animation, for example, its more important than ever. Without it The different Animators wouldn't know what the Author of the Story had in mind when he envisioned that shot and would have to decide on the shots and the layout etc. themselves. This would not look good in the finished product. They also wouldn't know how long the shot is supposed to last,which is another very important thing. Storyboards can also be used to create the Animatic, which should also not be left out.
2/10/2018
Script writing
2/10/2018
Walk-Cycle
25/9/2018
Original Animation Project
(Breakfast)
Our next assignment was to create an animation inspired by a soundtrack we were provided. I was teamed up with Vwede and our soundtrack was called 出現ロイミュード. Its a very dramatic soundtrack that we decided to use contrapuntally, as to make our job of animating easier. This way we didn't have to animate any dramatic fight scenes or other very detailed scenes, which would have fitted the soundtrack best. Instead we decided to do a comedy short about a breakfast massacre. We were very invested in this theme and our ideas came very quickly. Soon we had the story all mapped out, and our script was finished just the second day. Because we were so invested in this animation it was quite easy for us to work on character designs and storyboards outside of class, and we moved through the planning phase quite quickly.
27/9/2018
We wrote down all the Foley and ADR today and have realized that our animation idea will require us to record a lot of sounds. We also wrote down how we will achieve these noises and who will have to record them.
3/10/2018
By now, I have finished animating 2 shots and we're beginning to realize that this will take longer than we thought. We're probably going to have to cut some scenes, but until then, we'll just work as hard and fast as we can.
4/10/2018
Our task for today was to compile our Storyboard into an Animatic. An animatic is kind of like a slideshow of your storyboard, which can be used to plan out the correct timing and order of the shots. Animatics are also useful for when you are working on a big animation project but with little time, as you can always just replace any missing shots with the animatic. Obviously this is not a proper solution for a professional production, but for a student assignment its quite useful. Since we didn't draw out our storyboard digitally, I had to take a picture of each shot before being able to make the animatic. Then I put them into proper order
11/10/2018
We worked on the Post-production stage today, and although we are both quite proud of what we have so far, we are also very disappointed that we will not be able to finish it completely. We've already cut some shots and still think that there will probably be some animatic shots left in the end. We are however, still committed to working as hard as we can to get as much as possible done.
15/10/2018
OwO
Final Project Evaluation
We were tasked to create an Animation to a track we were given, that included a head turn, a walk cycle and 5 different shots. After hearing this i was very eager to get to work and didn't realize how difficult it would actually be until later.
Upon hearing our track, we knew there would be only two things we could do for it: Something incredibly dramatic, or a contrapuntal comedy. For the parallel idea, we thought of someone falling off or fighting on a cliff or some other really high place. But in the end we were much more excited for our contrapuntal idea: Breakfast.
The basic idea was the same from the start, however we did of course adjust some of the story line so that we would realistically be able to animate it.
Although I of course struggled with time, to me that wasn't really the biggest problem. Much worse was the fact that I was often very tired when working which severely slowed down the process. I also struggled with the program sometimes, not because it was acting up, or particularly complicated, but just because I sometimes forgot to add a new key-frame, or layer. We did however have to cut most of our foley and ADR so that we would have enough time to animate it all.
The key-frame issue took place less and less as I used the program more and got used to it. However the tiredness and time issues were hard to fix without cancelling each other out.
I feel like, not only has my understanding of the program improved, but I am also able to achieve better results with more ease. I've improved din general with my use of a graphics tablet, and have been able to p[practice certain simple animations. For example: In this Animation I had to Animate a Hand-grabbing Animation many times. Because of this I feel like I was able to do it a lot quicker by the last one.
Since the theme was breakfast, and both of us were pretty skilled breakfast eaters,not a lot of research was required. It as helpful to look up references for some of the foods, but in the end that only really influenced the design, and not the actual story. The time management research was not much help in this animation, other than utilizing the animatic. Since we were only 2 people and don't work in a big production company, things such as call sheets etc, were not needed.
Some parts were a bit too silent because of the Foley cuts. The backgrounds were also a bit too simplified and some of the animations were a bit basic and didn't look very good.
I am actually very proud of this animation. It may not exactly be on a professional level, but its the first animation I have done where I actually like mots of the drawings and that correctly portrayed what it was supposed to. So I do consider it to be a success. Our original vision didn't really change throughout the production process, however it isn't quite as funny as intended. It was well received at the Presentation however, and we got a laugh at the intended point from both students and teachers. I think they all liked it and therefore I definitely believe it was a a success.
9/10/2018
Sketchbook
Shading
Proportions
Human Eye drawing
Independent work
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