SMOR

Finally nabbed a copy of our short for the Narrative module – it’s as dreamy and as crap as I remember it, and I still love it.

Laika – complete.

Well, after what has possibly been the most stressful week of my short little life, I have been able to declare ‘Laika’ finished enough to be inserted into the showreel for our end of year show.

I’m pleased I managed to get it finished, albeit after the deadline, and with a dropped scene, AND with embarrassingly bad music editing…  I am pleased/scarred.

Joanna Quinn on Drawing.

Interesting insight into how they work; integrating drawings into a digital piece of animation:

and 

The first five seconds of the rest of her life.

Again, the pacing doesn’t entirely satisfy my expectations, but oh, the excitement of seeing hours of work culminate in a very acceptable squidge of movement.  This will probably be one of the most complicated animating sequences of the short (along with a sneaking action and sitting down on a kerb), so I am hoping that this has set the ball rolling for me, and my work will snowball from here: gathering paper as it speeds to an explosive end!  (the ending is so not explosive)

lightbox-lightbox-lightbox!

Oh… one day I will have one of my own.

A very gracious classmate gave me the lend of his lightbox for the project, complete with full box of animation paper.  I have been spending such satisfying hours sat basking in the glow of this wondrous machine.  Pictured above is my attempt to plan out a running sequence.  As yet, I am only half way through drawing the frames, but hopefully this evening it will be finished and ready for shooting tomorrow.  I need to see if it works: if my pacing is anywhere near correct, if her movements are logical, and if it all looks fun – as much as I enjoy the drawing process, it does get rather worrying when you begin to doubt if your hours of slaving are worth anything at all.

So I have been working in pencil.  This is how pencil should show up:

It provides more freedom than the other scrawling tools, gives a softer line, and just looks more fluid overall – see Joanna Quinn for why this is good.

So, in the next two weeks I will be drawing and clicking and editing my sanity away.  The final image I am gearing toward:

Coming along.

In last week’s crit I was able to get some helpful feedback in areas like character design and setting.  Although I went in to the crit with the question, “Should I put her in an urban setting similar to that of Tekkon Kinkreet?”, I had pretty much already decided that that was what I was going to do.  In fact, the general response was that the setting really wouldn’t make much difference – but for me it would.  I know now that I have to be working on something I like, and am interested in, or I won’t work on it at all.  One of the main issues that cropped up in relation to this was the fact that if she was on the streets, she would not be so pudgy as I have drawn her – but by making her skinnier, there is the possibility of losing some cuteness or making her look older, which some people said they would find less endearing and therefore care less about the girl and what might happen to her.  Additionally, there was a worry that making her look older may make it less believable that she would have an imaginary friend.  I didn’t particularly agree with this, but it was something to think about in relation to the audience’s reaction.  When thinking about street-wise kids in a modern world, my mind was drawn to the 1994 film, Leon: The Professional, and the twelve-year-old character, Mathilda:

The costume design for the young Natalie Portman was incredibly cool.  Questionable, much too old for her, but very cool.  Half way through the film she takes to wearing these round eye sunglasses after her ‘cleaning’ mentor, Leon.  They are a great visual device for suggesting a lack of emotion, emptiness, or simply unreadable, unimaginable emotions.

From here I strolled back to the Animatrix, to Koji Morimoto‘s Beyond, to take a closer look at his character designs for the kids in his short.

I wanted to look more at how they move, rather than simply the costumes/hair/accessories they have (for stars and shiny hair bobbles can be found in many other places, no?), so I could achieve a real sense of fun fun in the opening playing sequences.  Here is the revised character, who I have decided to call Laika:

For years the name has had a strange hold on me, and recently it has been appearing more and more often, in that strange way vague notions do.  The Divine Comedy’s instrumental piece, Laika’s Theme, has had me mildly mulling for some years now as to who this Laika could be.  Then I see a dog with the very name in Le Havre about a month ago, a graphic novel bearing the label in Waterstones just last week, and today (after Googling, I’m afraid) I find it is also the name of the film company that produced Coraline.  So, who was the original?

Laika was the Soviet space dog.  The first animal to orbit the Earth, sent up in Sputnik 2 in 1957.  I think it is a namesake any little girl would be proud of.

Crawling upside-down before I can walk.

Instead of focusing on the walk cycles as I had intended to all along, I decided to push fun a little further into my work, and at the same time test just how plausible me making a full cel animated sequence is.  I’m really quite happy with the resulting video.  It had minimal planning – no frame breakdown or proper storyboarding – so the pace is not at all perfect, but for a first attempt at this technique I’m feeling a little pleased.

This break away from silly attempts at being technically right without having any sincere interest in what I was animating, has given my mind some breathing space for something of a breakthrough in relation to the story of my animation.  I had not truly considered how having a plot and character(s) that I care about would change how I work, but the familiarity of dealing with another sloth story showed me that this connection to your characters and enjoyment of the story is essential if you hope to enjoy your work.  So it happened that I was listening to The Divine Comedy whilst putting marker pen to tracing paper.  The story to their song, ‘My Imaginary Friend‘, has a tragic realism about it that I thought could work very well in a cartoon format.

I began to absent-mindedly scribble out some character designs for the main character, and inadvertently merged Boo from Monster’s Inc. with Mei from My Neighbour Totoro:

This is not necessarily a bad thing, as both Pixar and Studio Ghibli are somewhat renowned for having an almost perfect eye for what makes cartoon children entertaining, and although I do not plan to use the same kind of animation as Pixar, their attention to detail in their naturalistic portrayal of a playful child’s movements is – in Boo – almost perfect.

So I set about trying out different hairstyles/headgear:

To add to the character for my animation and make her more unique, I tried to cast my memory back to when I was little for ideas.  The three accessories that stick out in my mind were:

1. My bum bag.  I was very attached to my pouch.  In it I kept my coin purse, and blue dinosaur/horse/dog toy.
2. My dirty, faded star necklace.
3. My Dalmatian hat.

This influx of accessorising threw me back to Taiyo Matsumoto’s manga, Tekkon Kinkreet:

I am also very drawn to the setting of Tekkon Kinkreet – little street urchins living in their own habitat built using all the scrap of a megacity’s throwaway culture:

I think this setting could work well to conjure up more empathy with viewers, as the little girl in my story will be indelibly alone without her imaginary friend.  The incredible character designs of Tekkon Kinkreet were brought to life perfectly when Studio 4°C took it over, along with Michael Arias, to create the feature film.

I am a huge fan of Studio 4°C.  The work they produce always pushes the boundaries of the commonly accepted style of animation (especially evident in Mind Game) to make full use of this vastly operable medium.  This is the kind of work I’d love to be involved with in the future; multimedia approaches to compelling stories, using well-honed technical skills to create something that works.  For now however, I will be shying away from colour, and multiple layers, and just focusing on capturing motion with the right pacing for as long as it takes.

I have even been reminiscing on the great character designs of Nickelodeon classics like the Rugrats or Hey Arnold!, written and created respectively by Craig Bartlett.  Maybe I’ll even be able to channel the incredible a cappella soundtracks…  More than likely my animation will be silent though – I think developing a score in this timeframe may be just reaching a little farther than I am capable.  Nevertheless, how great were these shows? 

(even Inspector Gadget.)

I’d like to keep the animation fairly short – no more than a minute – in the same vein of thought as the Ani*Kuri15 project, where some of the biggest names in Japanese anime came together to produce a series of 15 one-minute shorts that were broadcast on NHK from 2007-08.  I had originally hoped to even make it as short as 15 seconds, with the intention of submitting it to the 15 Second Film Festival organised by Queen’s University in Belfast – but after making the 10second clip (above), I have come to realise just how unrealistic this would be for this particular story.  Another time, maybe…

Learning to walk.

Whilst at home, I learned of Muybridge.  Of course I had caught the clip of his horse in motion many times before, but having a name to put to an unavoidable historical breakthrough in creating motion pictures does help.  This blog gives a good overview to some of his best-known works: http://cefn.com/blog/muybridge.html .

With Muybridge on the mind, we went out snapping.

I intend to do some rotoscoping with these images, whether it be digital or more traditional use of tracing paper, simply to get the walk cycle down.  Hopefully I’ll still be able to do a victorious arm-pump in the end.

Back.

The final term has begun.  The end of my first year of VisCom is almost in sight; a onemonth of constant work, and hopefully I will be able to look back on this April-May capsule with some pride in my face.  The three-week break at home was full of experiences, but unfortunately did not produce the great mound of work that I had hopelessly hoped to achieve.  HOWEVER!  I have been consuming a good deal of visual treats, and researching as is the norm.  Here is where I recall and recount all that resonated (for these are the only things I will remember/think it relevant to mention).

My decision to make a short animation for this self-directed project may be something of a challenge, especially as my animation skills are fairly rudimentary at this point, but I need to learn.  My plans to play with AfterEffects while I was home in Belfast for the Easter break fell through due to free tutorials being less-than-infinite, but watching some online tutorials instead has helped to get a very general grasp of the layout.  The motion capturing had me especially thrilled – rotoscoping is something I want to pick up on fairly quickly, as it would be a great skill to have at my disposal.  And what joy to find when sourcing out of one of my favourite childhood cartoon shorts, Little Dutch Mill (1934), that the director and man behind the Fleischer Studios, Max Fleischer, also patented the rotoscoping technique in 1915!  The melody of this cartoon has stayed embedded in my subconscious for years:

Fleischer would be best known for producing cartoons such as Popeye, Betty Boop and the 1940s series of Superman – his rotoscoping technique allowed for the recreation of natural motion in animation, which is incredibly evident in the advanced animation of the Superman series.  Not only is the animation technically sound, it is clear that this was a creation of love: the depth of detail attended to just makes me melt.

1941!  Made over seventy years ago and how bloody crisp it still looks today!  His were also the first to sync image and music, predating Disney’s Steamboat Willie by several years – Fleischer is actually noted as having invented the quintessential “follow the bouncing ball” feature in singalong pictures.  Also notable in his animation is the integration of 2D and 3D.  Instead of using the regularly employed technique of painting a static background for an animation; Fleischer would have 3D dioramas built for his settings, and use live footage of these as the background for the cel components to interact on/with.  Fleischer’s innovative techniques had a profound effect on the world of animation, though his name hasn’t achieved the godlike status as that of Walt Disney, he deserves to be rightfully acknowledged.

And on the topic of the animations that kept my brain squishing over the break: I finally got to see Miyazaki’s Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind.  I want to see it again, and soon.  Also the Ninja Scroll feature, by Yoshiaki Kawajiri, which follows the Japanese folk hero, Yagyu Jubei Mitsuyoshi.  As cool and violent and graphic as you like – it really is much more entertaining than the few episodes of the series I have seen.  The feudal Japanese setting and dynamic style of the animation correlate wonderfully with that of his Animatrix short, Program.

As well as this, we managed to squeeze in about half of Akira the night before my departure.  It was good to be reminded of just how astounding (epic story aside) the animation quality is.  My boyfriend owns the super-deluxe-special-edition-dvd-package, and until two days ago I hadn’t realised just how much I wanted to consume all of the special features; then when it was too late.  The Katsuhiro Otomo interviews are on YouTube though, so no whining!   Especially as it led me on to these:

Ah, I couldn’t be more jealous of the 21 children from Grade 6, Class 2.

FAM Ident Development

After numerous run-ins with Final Cut Pro difficulties, I have finally managed to put this opening logo-animation together…

 

I’ll be waiting solemnly by my hotmail account to hear if it’s to the FAM company’s liking.