3D Production - Idea for 11 Second Club

For my lip sync I am choosing an old 11 second club clip, I have chosen 'Ready to Party' I liked this one the most as you can do a lot of different things with it. It is fun and I wanted to push myself with my 3D.

This is the one which won - http://www.11secondclub.com/competitions/january15/winner

I also liked:

http://www.11secondclub.com/competitions/january15/entry/q4XFU1 - it was funny and exaggerated which I like

http://www.11secondclub.com/competitions/january15/entry/uNC3xK - I like the idea of it being in an office and its like a Friday afternoon, it is relatable.


The clip is from the movie Bridesmaids

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZR7ZVF8AixY

words-
I'm excited, and I feel relaxed, and I'm ready... to party... with the best of them..." 

Reference Compilation:

For my reference I wanted to try out different things, being over the top to just sitting there. I also wanted different people to do and so I ask a group of classmates to perform for me. Each person thought of different things and it was good to see what everyone would do with it. I liked parts from many different ones and it will be hard to chose the final one.

https://vimeo.com/157425369

Critical and Contextual Issues - My Break Down of Essay

How have Women's Roles in the Animation Industry changed over the years?

Introduction -

• What the essay will be about
• What I will be comparing in my essay

Chapter 1 -

• I will look into the social norms of women's work roles in the 1930/40's - I was going to chose the 1950's but I wanted to see when women did not have many jobs. (How men didn't like them working with or for them; if they got married they would leave work; expected to look after the house and kids)

compare against

• Social norms today  (still a struggle of equal rights today in some jobs but it is a lot different from back then.)

Chapter 2 -

• Look specifically into the animation industry
• how women's roles have changed (from painted cells - animating)
• look into 1 company maybe (Disney)
• get statistics
• look at whether the social norms from chapter 1 affected this
• when did it change for women

Chapter 3 -

1. Looking at specific women:

• Bianca Majolie - first woman hired for story department for Pinocchio
• Retta Scott - first woman to animate for Disney - 'Bambi' - The dog chase scene
• Marry Blair
• Dorris Collins

to name a few I could look at

Summary -

I will summarise what I have spoken about in the rest of the essay and discuss how far the role has changed, whether it still has more to change.

Note -

I was going to discuss Lotte Reiniger but she was one of very few women who were animating wthout any trouble and where doing it themselves. For this essay I wanted to concentrate on the women sruggling in the big animation companies.

I am happy with my plan and I think it lays out clearly what I want to achieve for each section. I also think it flows nicely together and the structure is good. in the next couple of weeks I will start writing my first draft.

Creative Compsiting - Week 4 - Keylight and Travelling Matte

In this weeks lesson we took our green screen footage from the other week and took it into After Effects to practice masking and learn how to remove the chroma key. We used travelling mask as well as it meant we could get rid of anything that was left like a green light when the chroma key was removed.  

Once the mask has been done frame by frame we have to use the keylight to get rid of the green screen background. You go to effects and then keying and using the colour picker select the green background and it will then get rid of it. The mask is only useful when the chroma key does not work or look okay once the green has been removed. Sometimes only taking the chroma key out will work. The software can only work with the materials you have, so if the material are not good quality, the result wont be good quality.

Green screen work:

Green screen video 1 - https://vimeo.com/158001108

Green screen video 2 - https://vimeo.com/158001110

End result -

https://vimeo.com/158002113

For this task I used a travelling mask as without it there was a green light around Bethany I also added a feather effect to the edges of the mask to ensure it did not look weird either. I then put the background and added a lightning affect to shoot out of her hand. I found the mask to be very effective as it made sure ther was no green still and although it took a long time the quality of my work looked better.

This is a list of youtube videos i have found useful: 

Mask tracking - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ylvg5IOZrQg

Animating masks - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StCBpTIwOFE

Critical and Contextual Issues - Week 4 - Metaphorical Messages in Animation

Metaphorical message can also be seen as persuasive animation. Where the animation are made to tempt people into doing things or buying things through the use of cartoons and animations. They are also used to hide messages about political issues using cartoons which are seen as childlike to hide these messages. (Propaganda, Social Stereotypes, Subversion)

Example - The Trojan Horse - It's a metaphor and is an image with a message inside of it, which is what metaphorical animations have.

We began by looking at the banned eleven

#	Title	Year	Director	Production
1.	Hittin' the Trail for Hallelujah Land	1931	Rudolf Ising	Merrie Melodies
2.	Sunday Go to Meetin' Time	1936, 1944 (reissue)	Friz Freleng	Merrie Melodies
3.	Clean Pastures	1937	Friz Freleng	Merrie Melodies
4.	Uncle Tom's Bungalow	1937	Tex Avery	Merrie Melodies
5.	Jungle Jitters	1938	Friz Freleng	Merrie Melodies
6.	The Isle of Pingo Pongo	1938, 1944 (reissue)	Tex Avery	Merrie Melodies
7.	All This and Rabbit Stew	1941	Tex Avery	Merrie Melodies
8.	Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs	1943	Robert Clampett	Merrie Melodies
9.	Tin Pan Alley Cats	1943	Robert Clampett	Merrie Melodies
10.	Angel Puss	1944	Chuck Jones	Looney Tunes
11.	Goldilocks and the Jivin' Bears	1944, 1951 (reissue)	Friz Freleng	Merrie Melodies

The "Censored Eleven" is a group of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons that were withheld from syndication by United Artists (UA) in 1968. They decided to pull these eleven cartoons from broadcast because the use of ethnic stereotypes in the cartoons were deemed too offensive for contemporary audiences.

An example of a Propaganda film is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzH1iaKVsBM the use of the hidden meaning with a cartoon character that is well know is used to persuade and affect peoples decisions and even convey a message that would be too realistic and heavy if chosen to be shown in real life film.


We then went on to look at Animations made to persuade: Public Information, Political Context and Alternative Messages. They are used to communicate across masses of the population not just one person.


Public Information Films

Public information films used ‘deadpan imagery’ in order to talk about difficult ideas in a way that would be easier to follow. Characters were used as the ‘voice’ of the government to get messages across.

An example of a company who created Public Information films is Halas and Batchelor who worked for the British Ministry of Information on Public films. They understood that everything would changed and nothing would last forever.

'New Towns' by Halas and Batchelor where designed to convey the hopes of the future people had. They showed how relocating from the Cities would benefit the country and everyone else and it worked as 29 new towns were built.

Charley in New town - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ophEYd4A-Q

Animations were not just used to relocate people they were also used for health issues.

Modern Guide to Health - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQS3112aQjk

Charley Says was a series of episode created to teach kids about the dangers of certain things that would of been too serious if not shown in a cartoon way. This shows us how persuasive animation is used for good reasons. The use of the child makes the cartoon more watchable for the audience.

Don't talk to Strangers - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3FnCiRpdQ4

The next animation was used to show people what to do when there was a threat of nuclear war. 

Protect and Survive - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6677Eppc-sk

The next one is a new advert that does the same thing as the above animation, it is used to persuade people and give public information. This shows us how these animations are still relevant to use today. 

The Chokeables - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtbUB1XPW_o

Creative Compsiting - Tests and Sketches

This week I wanted to test the moving background and still image part of my idea. I started off by taking the photos of the church i took last week and taking it into Photoshop so i could get rid of the background and change the colour of it to black and white.

I then exported it without a background and imported it into After effects. I found a stormy videos of clouds from Youtube as i wanted to see what it would look like. The end results is:

https://vimeo.com/157577784

I feel that my test was successful and i fee confident with the next steps I need to take and when it comes to creating my final piece I will know what i need to do.

I need to think about filming my own clouds and taking a few more pictures of the church, although i like this picture I feel it is too flat I might angle it a bit more to see if that looks better.

The clouds i used was just a video of youtube and so I will need to figure out a way of doing mine, either by filming my own or compiling some in after effects.

This like i found on youtube for how to create a cloud animation using pictures in After Effects. This will be very useful for my final composite.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJZ6EIXFh58

Next week i am going to be doing green screen to see how I will incorporate my camera.


Gargoyles Sketches:

Below are some sketches of gargoyles that I am considering to use as in finally bit of animation.

 I wanted to use lighter colours as the background and rest of the composition will be dark i want the gargoyle/s to stand out.

 I wanted to try something more evil looking but i don't think it will go with the style, this is more vampire than gargoyle.

 The three above I like the style of as they are more like gargoyles and I like how they incorporate different animals.

 This one is more human like and i wanted to use a spray paint effect to try and make the colour look spiritual like. I think the colours will make it stand out from the rest of it.

 I like the colour of this gargoyle but I feel it looks too cute and I want something a bit more like scary one.

 I think this is my favorite gargoyle and I will be using this style in my final animation, or at least something similar if I have more of them. I want to have it similar to the colour above or somersetting a little light so it doesn't stand out too much but i will test this in the future.

3D Production - Week 4 - Recap Walk Cycles and Lip Syncs

Feedback for Letterbox - The feedback I got was to make sure I did add the expression on the face. That I should exaggerate the part where I throw my hand in the air in anger and look up, but I had improved a bit on my timing. I will carry on trying to improve my timing.

We also presented what we are planning to do this semester (what reactions we are doing and what character we are modelling).


Lesson

We started by recapping walk cycles and Lip syncs from the 1st year

Lip-syncing: is not all about mouth shapes, if the performance of the character is not good then they won’t convey what they are saying. To help with this it is useful to work from the torso out to the arms then fingers and leave the mouth until last.

This is a good link to watch to help with lip syncing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKjMvlP4CE 

Key things to remember when lip syncing to look not just at the mouth but at what everything else is doing. For instance, your head bobs when you talk and you don’t just look at the mouth most of the time is focused looking at the eyes so they have to be doing something interesting as well



Breaking the word down into phonetics will help to see what the mouth is doing.
For example ‘BECAUSE’ = ‘BEECOS’ = ‘B OS’

Walk cycle:  It is important to observe/understand what happens to the body parts as we walk

Principles that apply to walk cycles:


· The torso is the core of a walk cycle, goes up and down when the character is walking, it goes down when the legs are at their widest (contact) and at its highest when the legs are at the crossover point.



· The arm and legs are generally opposite,  though this can alter depending on the type of walk


· Arcs are important in human movement, for example the arm swings in a clear arc shape – the same happens all over the body; knees, legs feet, head turns etc.


Changing the passing position in Maya  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxGITKx8z9o



Class task

For the rest of the task we used MAX and created a walk cycle. I wanted to try and make sure the head moved and the movements were correctly done.

Side View 

https://vimeo.com/161194638

Walk 1- front

https://vimeo.com/161194641


Walk 2
https://vimeo.com/161194639

3D Development - Week 4 - My Plan for the Module

Rig I will be using:

MAX

The Character I will be modelling:

I have a choice of two characters either Molly from my Character Development Module or Another character who is a plus size dancer.

My 30 seconds will consist of:

• 11 second club (party scene) this will also be for my lip sync
• Shock reaction
• Letterbox scene
• Walk/run cycle
• Throwing a ball
• Head and eye movement (phone call)

I will use the best ones from the class task.

My 11 second club idea (lip sync) - 

Party scene

http://www.11secondclub.com/competitions/january15/winner

3D Production - Post Box Animation

Scene

For my scene I chose to do someone who is in a hurry and has forgotten where they have put the letter, so when they reach the post-box they are fumbling around looking for it. They become annoyed and when the finally find it they are relieved to just be posting it.

Reference Video:

I filmed some of them with my other class mates and found it helpful seeing what others would do, but there was not much variety and when I did them I felt like I was just doing the same thing over and over again. I felt I was stuck just doing the same thing (patting) and not getting it right. It looked again very robotic. After talking it through with Bethany I tried it a different way and felt it looked more realistic and even when I was performing it, it felt better.

https://vimeo.com/156428385

I have chosen to focus on the last two reference videos as they were the best and felt most natural.

Thumbnails:

I thought I would try using thumbnails this week and I found I did not like using them. Since i was going through the footage to see what the key poses were i found it more useful just to look at the footage then to have to draw it out. I know this is not to industry level but this is how work I spent more time worrying about drawing the stick figure correctly then actually just getting on with it. I think I think I will carry on with the way I like it because I find it easier to do.

Blocking:

When blocking out the post box I tried to keep in mind timing and work on the feedback I got from last week. I wanted to make sure I was following the reference video and working on different timings. I feel I have improved from last week already.

When I animate I start with the body and then I put the emotion on the face. When doing this task I did not have enough time to block out the face but this will be done for another time.

Side view
https://vimeo.com/156428426

Opposite side view
https://vimeo.com/156428424

Front view
https://vimeo.com/156428425

Critical and Contextual Issues - Essay Introduction Draft

In this essay I want to look and discuss how women were treated and how their roles and jobs have changed over the years. Looking at why this change has happened.

How have women’s roles in the animation industry changed over the years?

This essay will discuss the animation industry and how women’s roles have changed over the years in the industry. I want to explore how the change in times and how society’s view of women back then has affected what roles and jobs women were given in the industry. This will look at comparing how their roles have evolved then and now, such as the contrast between back then, where they could only paint and outline cells, to now where it could be argued that they are seen as equals. It will also include whether or not the social norms of the time and idealisms had an impact on the roles women could have. I will discuss the differences in times and if it has changed significantly or only slightly and why this is. 

I tried to say everything I want to write about in the essay without going into too much detail about it. Going further I want to carry on collecting research and narrowing what I want to talk about down making sure I have enough research to back it all up with.

Creative Compositing - Week 3 - Casting Shadows and Masking

In today's lesson we looked at masking and casting shadows, to show us Isiah made a composit which he then explained and talked the process through with us. 

For masking you use as many masks as you need on a single layer and gthey are used to go round ojects that you either want to keep or remove, They can also keyframed so thsat througha video you can mask the same thing even if the shape of it changes. 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzAkb7Cw0uM

The above video shows the basics of what we learnt in the lesson.

The example Isiah showed use was how to create a shadow for a 3D object.
To start you must import you picture background into Maya and align a grid on the oject that you wish to cast a shaow on. You next have to creat a box that is the exact shape of the object (table top), it must not be flat otherwise the shadows cannot be intergrated.
You then must make a similar grid for the floor but you do not need a box this time as the floor is flat. Something you must know is how big the plane will be so you can work out how big the shadow will be.
You then need to make shaped for the rest of the object is they are going to cast shadows (legs of a table)
Now you must chose a position for the light so you know which way the shadow will go. You must make sure when rendering out that only the shadows are renders out and no the shapes.
Next you need to take it into After Effects so then you can add the shadows to the origional picture.

Doing shadows for 3D objects like a table is best done in Maya and shadows for a person is easier in After effects.

PLANNING !!! is the most important part.
 Knowing what layers your are going to have and then working from the background to the forground is best.


I have learnt from this lesson that planning and working with layers is very important so that each part of the composition can be correct and look real once they are put together.


Useful videos:

Adding shadows in Maya - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQ8xQaI7GsM

Adding shadows in After effects - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bouyux5UYSw

Creative Compositing - Research Into My Idea

Churches:

Below is a collage of churches that are creepy and the kind of angles I would like to use in my compositing. I don't think using an image with the full church on it will be a good idea as then the animation part will be small. But if I start with an image of the full church and then when the audience looks through the camera it is zoomed into the spire so you can see the gargouilles moving around.

The images below are the ones I like the best and are styled in a creepy way which is what i am going for:

 I especially like the clouds in this picture and this is what i would like the clouds to be in my composition, although i would like them moving.

Gargoyles or Gargouilles:

Gargoyles are carved grotesque (carved stone figure) with a spout designed to lead water away from the building so that it did not erode the mortar.

Gargouille was a dragon and legendary creature from France that also spouted water.

Below is collage of gargoyles that are found on buildings and the different animals and creatures they are.

The below pictures are also of gargoyles but specifically from churches.

I prefer the whole body ones and the the gargoyles that have wings and are creepy looking as they will best go with the creepy atmosphere and style i want.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame:

Gargoyle scene
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mG89QDFADk

I like how they look like rock to begin with and when they come to life they look like an animation. I also am looking at this film for research for the way they move and whether i want them as a rock or to move normally.

I next need to start sketching out the exact style I want and testing the animation.

Testing:

The images below are of St Peter's church in Wolverhampton which is the church i will be using in my final piece. These images are to test different angles I could use and to see what time of day I would take the shot for the best lighting.

 This angle is good as it doesn't have any trees in the way of the spire but the scaffolding ruins the shot.

 I like the close up of the spire from angles but the trees get in the way.

I think this will be similar to the final shot as it does not have any trees directly in the way. It shows the spire off properly so the gargoyles climbing from around will be easier to draw and move around.