Thursday, 4 September 2008
Tuesday, 15 July 2008
Fingers Crossed!
Wednesday 25th June 2008
Hello,
Just a quick post because I have a busy day ahead. Our graduation show came to an end last night and I'm feeling a bit sad about it all because its all now at an end. However there is some good news...for our private view on Friday we had quite a few industry people come down to the show to view our work. It was so nerve racking approach people and just trying to start a dialogue...I'm not much good at that but I tried my best (after a bit of alcohol of course). I was speaking to one guy called Dave who was from a studio named '12foot6' and he seemed to really like my animation and told me to come down to the studio. So I emailed him on Monday, after the weekend and he emailed straight back saying to come by on Thursday.
I'm really pleased but I don't want to get my hopes up just yet. It could just be that they want to see more of my work and nothing more, I don't know. Anyway today I'm going to have a look over my CV and see if it needs updating and try to tidy up my portfolio because I'm just not happy with it. Anyway keep your fingers crossed for me for tomorrow! I'm also popping into college to collect the rest of my stuff (It feels like I've been fired! Its so trumatic!).
I've been wondering how I'm going to make more showreels if I can't come back into college. I'm helping out on one of the animator incubator projects but I'm not needed right yet so not sure if I can still sneak in the make more copies of my reel. However, one of my friend Marco came last night to the show & he told me he could do loads more copies of my showreel on a 20 deck (I think thats what he said??) if I'm interested. I will definately take him up on that offer when he's less busy.
I've also asked another friend Chris (who also came by last night to the show) if he will do some music for me for my Polar Panic animation. Its got a bit of music on it but its so been stolen even though I've not used the whole track. However, I don't want t get in trouble and Chris is really musical so he said he'd be happy to do it for me. He got very excited and started telling me how cool it would be to work on something light hearted after working on music for a short live action film where an old man dies. He said it just made him so depressed. Chris has also got in on the Animation course for next year...guy's far too talented! :D
Hello,
Just a quick post because I have a busy day ahead. Our graduation show came to an end last night and I'm feeling a bit sad about it all because its all now at an end. However there is some good news...for our private view on Friday we had quite a few industry people come down to the show to view our work. It was so nerve racking approach people and just trying to start a dialogue...I'm not much good at that but I tried my best (after a bit of alcohol of course). I was speaking to one guy called Dave who was from a studio named '12foot6' and he seemed to really like my animation and told me to come down to the studio. So I emailed him on Monday, after the weekend and he emailed straight back saying to come by on Thursday.
I'm really pleased but I don't want to get my hopes up just yet. It could just be that they want to see more of my work and nothing more, I don't know. Anyway today I'm going to have a look over my CV and see if it needs updating and try to tidy up my portfolio because I'm just not happy with it. Anyway keep your fingers crossed for me for tomorrow! I'm also popping into college to collect the rest of my stuff (It feels like I've been fired! Its so trumatic!).
I've been wondering how I'm going to make more showreels if I can't come back into college. I'm helping out on one of the animator incubator projects but I'm not needed right yet so not sure if I can still sneak in the make more copies of my reel. However, one of my friend Marco came last night to the show & he told me he could do loads more copies of my showreel on a 20 deck (I think thats what he said??) if I'm interested. I will definately take him up on that offer when he's less busy.
I've also asked another friend Chris (who also came by last night to the show) if he will do some music for me for my Polar Panic animation. Its got a bit of music on it but its so been stolen even though I've not used the whole track. However, I don't want t get in trouble and Chris is really musical so he said he'd be happy to do it for me. He got very excited and started telling me how cool it would be to work on something light hearted after working on music for a short live action film where an old man dies. He said it just made him so depressed. Chris has also got in on the Animation course for next year...guy's far too talented! :D
The Disgruntled Animator
Sunday 22nd June
Just One Thing After Another!
Hello again,
Ok, I've spent a lot of time and effort on getting everything done for the graduation show. Not only my animations & showreel etc.. etc... but also promotional stuff. I took a still from my animation 'Polar Panic' about an eskimo (or Inuit if we want to politically correct) fleeing and very angry Polar Bear. I decide to use the still for everything from my dvd covers and labels to my business cards and when I get around to it even my headed paper for when I send out covering letters...la la la! Our tutor Steve said this would be a good thing to do, because it would help people to instantly recognise our work and remember what we'd done. Plus I thought this image was really strong.
I sent this design off to a company (which I shall not name as I have no wish to promote them as they are rubbish) and I ordered in good time so that I would get my cards for the private view. But would things run smoothly for me?? Huh! Yeah right! No, they messed about saying there were things wrong with it and then when they finally got around to saying my order had been approved they said 'Yes your order will be with you within EIGHT DAYS!' This was on wednesday, which was two days before the show And I know my luck...I won't be seeing those cards till some time next
week.
HOWEVER! I decided to take the bull by the horns and make my own cards....no matter how rubbish, and since my brother got a brand new shiny printer and I had randomly bought some shiny paper for no reason ages ago we got together and started printing. I just shrank the image in Photoshop and copied it so there would be about nine per page and then took it from my computer to my bro's lap top and started printing out. So maybe if it goes tits up with animation my brother and I could at least start up some online business selling dodgy business cards!
So as you can see above, thes
e were the designs I did for my business cards and the cover for my dvd cases. I'm so proud of them... It looks so professional! I suppose this is steering into Graphic Design which I have no training in but its not bad for a first attempt. I also happened to have lots of spray mount laying about from my old course (as we did lots of model making) so that came in very handy when I was putting the front and back of my cards together. I was spraying and mounting at 3am in the morning the day of the show while sitting on a big pile of books with the finished cards laying between so I could flatten them and get the glue to stick. Its so werid how random, rubbish I've bought over the years and which I'm always meaning to throw out or try and sell off to friends suddenly comes in handy when you least expect it.
Its a good thing I could sense trouble coming and had the sense to do something about it...It was good to at least have something on my desk for people to take away. It was so horrible at my degree show not having business cards because you couldn't tell if people liked your work or not! Anyway just thought I'd show you this and have a little rant before I go to bed. I've got some emails and research to do tomorrow so hopefully I will be around to tell you about the private view and last week.
Goodnight!
Hello again,
Ok, I've spent a lot of time and effort on getting everything done for the graduation show. Not only my animations & showreel etc.. etc... but also promotional stuff. I took a still from my animation 'Polar Panic' about an eskimo (or Inuit if we want to politically correct) fleeing and very angry Polar Bear. I decide to use the still for everything from my dvd covers and labels to my business cards and when I get around to it even my headed paper for when I send out covering letters...la la la! Our tutor Steve said this would be a good thing to do, because it would help people to instantly recognise our work and remember what we'd done. Plus I thought this image was really strong.
I sent this design off to a company (which I shall not name as I have no wish to promote them as they are rubbish) and I ordered in good time so that I would get my cards for the private view. But would things run smoothly for me?? Huh! Yeah right! No, they messed about saying there were things wrong with it and then when they finally got around to saying my order had been approved they said 'Yes your order will be with you within EIGHT DAYS!' This was on wednesday, which was two days before the show And I know my luck...I won't be seeing those cards till some time next
week.HOWEVER! I decided to take the bull by the horns and make my own cards....no matter how rubbish, and since my brother got a brand new shiny printer and I had randomly bought some shiny paper for no reason ages ago we got together and started printing. I just shrank the image in Photoshop and copied it so there would be about nine per page and then took it from my computer to my bro's lap top and started printing out. So maybe if it goes tits up with animation my brother and I could at least start up some online business selling dodgy business cards!
So as you can see above, thes
e were the designs I did for my business cards and the cover for my dvd cases. I'm so proud of them... It looks so professional! I suppose this is steering into Graphic Design which I have no training in but its not bad for a first attempt. I also happened to have lots of spray mount laying about from my old course (as we did lots of model making) so that came in very handy when I was putting the front and back of my cards together. I was spraying and mounting at 3am in the morning the day of the show while sitting on a big pile of books with the finished cards laying between so I could flatten them and get the glue to stick. Its so werid how random, rubbish I've bought over the years and which I'm always meaning to throw out or try and sell off to friends suddenly comes in handy when you least expect it.Its a good thing I could sense trouble coming and had the sense to do something about it...It was good to at least have something on my desk for people to take away. It was so horrible at my degree show not having business cards because you couldn't tell if people liked your work or not! Anyway just thought I'd show you this and have a little rant before I go to bed. I've got some emails and research to do tomorrow so hopefully I will be around to tell you about the private view and last week.
Goodnight!
Maria
Hectic Week
28 May 2008
National Gallery - Animatic Screening
I've been too busy to keep this blog up to date regularly so if I repeat stuff from before...apologies.
April 21st - April 25th:
So this week was the build up to the screening of our Animatics at the National Gallery and its been very stressful. All this week I've been working my butt off to get all my layouts finished and put my animatic together in time for the screening... So this is whats been going on...
Monday 21st:
Even though I'd drawn most of my layouts over easter I still had the layouts for the opening scenes to do. These are the shots of the streets where my Tramp is walking in the rain, but unlike the other layouts where i'd used images i'd found in books or the internet, all the images i found of streets were either american ones or really cliched ones of London (you know the really touristy ones of Picaddilly and Oxford Street, which where no good) so most of last week i had to go trecking around london just to find the perfect streets for my opening shots. luckily for me i didn't have to go too far as the photos that i did end up choosing in the end where mostly ones from around Holborn or the Strand. These are the ones i finally chose. with the top three i had to put them into photo shop as there were elements of them that i liked such as the tetlephone box, the bus stop and the front of the novelle theatre (where into the hood is currently showing, my friend is working on the show so go and see it!!)
Anyway, I printed out the photos (having to run all the way to davies street because the technicians at Southampton Row are incompetant and useless when I asked them for help. I don't know wht was up with the printer, it wouldn't print out at the size i'd set it at and i didn't have time to fiddle with it, which annoyed me. once i finally had my prints i ran back to catton street and started tracing them up on the light box. I know i could have just used the prints themselves but since I'd started drawing all my layouts i wantedto keep the style consistent, plus i think the scribbly pencil style looks really nice. I think i had about eight or seven layouts to do in all and I was a bit worried about getting them all done today, especially when Steve said that they were riddiculously detailed...i want my work to look good, leave me alone! Anyway for me the drawing was really rough and despite Steve's concerns I did managed to get them all done and still be in bed by 2am...which for me is early!
Tuesday 22nd:
Ok so today, I was in early...yes despite the late night. You'd be surprised how affective stress is at getting a girl motivated. Anyway scanned all my layouts into photo shop and started bring them into Flash so I could start doing the rough keyframes of the action scene by scene....I have about 40 scenes in all... I think . Today I tackled the most difficult scenes first, the ones with Miss lala's acrobatic act...I've been using refference from youtube for this. I wanted to upload them but i'm not sure if i can or not... so here are the youtube links instead http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zty1Lql09P0&NR=1 and this one was really good... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxM2uZmDs0E&feature=related. So I spent the afternoon studying the movements and taking notes and sketching the shpae ths acrobats were making with their bodies... still have the notes and sketches somewhere so will try and scan them at a later date.
Friday 25th:
Today was nerve racking... I've never felt so nervous...ok well maybe I'm lying, there are more nerve racking situations but this one came pretty close. Its always so stressful when you're doing something creative and then you have to show it to other people who are going to judge and critise it... or rather just having to sit there wondering... will they like it? Is the story good enough, will the animatic make sense? What if I have to change the enitre thing?? I felt fairly confident about the story which i'm really happy with and I'd worked damn hard on the layouts and the animatic to make sure they were in no doubt about what i wanted to create for my final project. but I was really worried about the time...steve said to keep the animatics to about a mintue and mine was 2mins 29secs.... not good!! but there are a lot of still images which just set the scene and don't actually have any animation in them...so maybe it will be ok??The fed back for my animatic wasn't as bad as I'd expected...in fact it was better. my tutors and the National Gallery people really liked my animatic and even though i was worried about the length and having to take scenes out i was surprised when steve said 'don't change a thing, its lovely'. i was a bit confused though when he said that watching it was like going on an emotional rollercoaster...i guess its harder to look at it that way when its your work... i was too busy thinking about the technical details and how to effectively use my time to get it all done. Steve just said to get it done in time for the deadline and Lee from the Natioonal Gallery suggested maybe taking out the burp... my tramp burps when he's sitting in the auditorium and she didn't think was was necessary...which now i look back at it i suppose is true as it breaks the atmosphere and tension thats built up until then. so i think i will replace that with him wiping his mouth on his sleeve or hiccuping. Also i can't remember who but either Kevin or Steve also said that my tramp was too good looking and didn't look like a tramp.... so i will have to make him look more scuffy, haggard and filthy....but this is all easily changed and I'm so glad with the fed back... so glad this week is OVER!!will add more later...have to go animate!
Maria
National Gallery - Animatic Screening
I've been too busy to keep this blog up to date regularly so if I repeat stuff from before...apologies.
April 21st - April 25th:
So this week was the build up to the screening of our Animatics at the National Gallery and its been very stressful. All this week I've been working my butt off to get all my layouts finished and put my animatic together in time for the screening... So this is whats been going on...
Monday 21st:
Even though I'd drawn most of my layouts over easter I still had the layouts for the opening scenes to do. These are the shots of the streets where my Tramp is walking in the rain, but unlike the other layouts where i'd used images i'd found in books or the internet, all the images i found of streets were either american ones or really cliched ones of London (you know the really touristy ones of Picaddilly and Oxford Street, which where no good) so most of last week i had to go trecking around london just to find the perfect streets for my opening shots. luckily for me i didn't have to go too far as the photos that i did end up choosing in the end where mostly ones from around Holborn or the Strand. These are the ones i finally chose. with the top three i had to put them into photo shop as there were elements of them that i liked such as the tetlephone box, the bus stop and the front of the novelle theatre (where into the hood is currently showing, my friend is working on the show so go and see it!!)
Anyway, I printed out the photos (having to run all the way to davies street because the technicians at Southampton Row are incompetant and useless when I asked them for help. I don't know wht was up with the printer, it wouldn't print out at the size i'd set it at and i didn't have time to fiddle with it, which annoyed me. once i finally had my prints i ran back to catton street and started tracing them up on the light box. I know i could have just used the prints themselves but since I'd started drawing all my layouts i wantedto keep the style consistent, plus i think the scribbly pencil style looks really nice. I think i had about eight or seven layouts to do in all and I was a bit worried about getting them all done today, especially when Steve said that they were riddiculously detailed...i want my work to look good, leave me alone! Anyway for me the drawing was really rough and despite Steve's concerns I did managed to get them all done and still be in bed by 2am...which for me is early!
Tuesday 22nd:
Ok so today, I was in early...yes despite the late night. You'd be surprised how affective stress is at getting a girl motivated. Anyway scanned all my layouts into photo shop and started bring them into Flash so I could start doing the rough keyframes of the action scene by scene....I have about 40 scenes in all... I think . Today I tackled the most difficult scenes first, the ones with Miss lala's acrobatic act...I've been using refference from youtube for this. I wanted to upload them but i'm not sure if i can or not... so here are the youtube links instead http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zty1Lql09P0&NR=1 and this one was really good... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxM2uZmDs0E&feature=related. So I spent the afternoon studying the movements and taking notes and sketching the shpae ths acrobats were making with their bodies... still have the notes and sketches somewhere so will try and scan them at a later date.
Friday 25th:
Today was nerve racking... I've never felt so nervous...ok well maybe I'm lying, there are more nerve racking situations but this one came pretty close. Its always so stressful when you're doing something creative and then you have to show it to other people who are going to judge and critise it... or rather just having to sit there wondering... will they like it? Is the story good enough, will the animatic make sense? What if I have to change the enitre thing?? I felt fairly confident about the story which i'm really happy with and I'd worked damn hard on the layouts and the animatic to make sure they were in no doubt about what i wanted to create for my final project. but I was really worried about the time...steve said to keep the animatics to about a mintue and mine was 2mins 29secs.... not good!! but there are a lot of still images which just set the scene and don't actually have any animation in them...so maybe it will be ok??The fed back for my animatic wasn't as bad as I'd expected...in fact it was better. my tutors and the National Gallery people really liked my animatic and even though i was worried about the length and having to take scenes out i was surprised when steve said 'don't change a thing, its lovely'. i was a bit confused though when he said that watching it was like going on an emotional rollercoaster...i guess its harder to look at it that way when its your work... i was too busy thinking about the technical details and how to effectively use my time to get it all done. Steve just said to get it done in time for the deadline and Lee from the Natioonal Gallery suggested maybe taking out the burp... my tramp burps when he's sitting in the auditorium and she didn't think was was necessary...which now i look back at it i suppose is true as it breaks the atmosphere and tension thats built up until then. so i think i will replace that with him wiping his mouth on his sleeve or hiccuping. Also i can't remember who but either Kevin or Steve also said that my tramp was too good looking and didn't look like a tramp.... so i will have to make him look more scuffy, haggard and filthy....but this is all easily changed and I'm so glad with the fed back... so glad this week is OVER!!will add more later...have to go animate!
Maria
Animating with Anger
30 May 2008
Hate Technolobgy, Hate Tramps, Hating Animation!!!
I think I've abused my computer into submission...its slowing down and refusing to do anything. if I try to do anything in Flash at the moment it takes a thousand years to complete the simpliest task....and I'm STILL on scene 06 (thats the one where the tramp comes to the alley where he stops in the door way). This weekend just gone I was on fire, animating AND inbetweening three whole scenes...but now its taking a century to do anything and I'm so tired and just can't be bothered.
I think I've actually lost the will to animate...I'm F*****D!!Well at least what I've done so far looks good, but the rest of my animation is going to be rough animation which needs redoing in places , keyframes and part of the animatic. I think the pressure of trying to get this done in two to three weeks has finally destroyed me. I hate my tramp, he has to move slow because he's all depressed which means bitch loads of inbetweening for me. Why do you have to move so slow huh??? you b*****d!! I hate you!!! I actually hate you....Ok, this is just a small rant, a small glimpse of the hatred I'm feeling right now towards my character and my computer in particular (useless piece of junk).
Anyway whatever.... I have more stuff to put up on this thing...which I'm also starting to hate....but I will put it up when I'm in a better mood and not so tired and annoyed. why am I annoyed?? Youtube is to blame...try setting up and account with that thing and uploading animations, I tried to upload three animations and not only did they take ages to do, but my dolphin animation the one that I'm most proud of (as its actually finished) won't load. Why do we have to depend so much on technology?? Why do I have to do this stupid blog, huh??? Ok enough.....I'm going to go attack this scene...I'm all fired up now. Later!
Maria >:)
Hate Technolobgy, Hate Tramps, Hating Animation!!!
I think I've abused my computer into submission...its slowing down and refusing to do anything. if I try to do anything in Flash at the moment it takes a thousand years to complete the simpliest task....and I'm STILL on scene 06 (thats the one where the tramp comes to the alley where he stops in the door way). This weekend just gone I was on fire, animating AND inbetweening three whole scenes...but now its taking a century to do anything and I'm so tired and just can't be bothered.
I think I've actually lost the will to animate...I'm F*****D!!Well at least what I've done so far looks good, but the rest of my animation is going to be rough animation which needs redoing in places , keyframes and part of the animatic. I think the pressure of trying to get this done in two to three weeks has finally destroyed me. I hate my tramp, he has to move slow because he's all depressed which means bitch loads of inbetweening for me. Why do you have to move so slow huh??? you b*****d!! I hate you!!! I actually hate you....Ok, this is just a small rant, a small glimpse of the hatred I'm feeling right now towards my character and my computer in particular (useless piece of junk).
Anyway whatever.... I have more stuff to put up on this thing...which I'm also starting to hate....but I will put it up when I'm in a better mood and not so tired and annoyed. why am I annoyed?? Youtube is to blame...try setting up and account with that thing and uploading animations, I tried to upload three animations and not only did they take ages to do, but my dolphin animation the one that I'm most proud of (as its actually finished) won't load. Why do we have to depend so much on technology?? Why do I have to do this stupid blog, huh??? Ok enough.....I'm going to go attack this scene...I'm all fired up now. Later!
Maria >:)
Luuvie Daarling!
Acting Lessons at National Gallery
25th April 2008
Hello all, this is another later entry, so many apologies!I've been making some progress with this final project without letting the scale of the task I've set myself get too over welming. So far I've managed to keyframe out about 9 or so scenes which is really good but this is just the rough guide of the animation so far. I'm trying to at least get the animation done in time for the deadline on the 13th June or at least keyframe out all of the scenes so there will be some idea of the movement and pace... I decided to try and tackle the easier scenes first those being the first scenes with the tramp walking through the rain and the closeup shots of my main character...I thought this was going to be easy when I first sat down to storyboard it all...I was soooo wrong! O_oIt turns out that the walking scenes are going to be the hardest ones to deal with. This is because I've chosen to have the Tramp walking towards and away from the camera in perspective and even though we've tackled walk cycles, we've only animated them in profile, not face on. Damn! Why do I always do this and cause myself such pain and frustration?? There's a word for people like that, I'm starting think I might be one of them. Anyway I'm trying not to let this bother me. What I've done to tackle the problem is to try out several different approaches....First I've decided to create a library of animated cycles, which Steve suggested to all of us... this I think is a good idea because if I do anything that I think is good but can't use in the Final Project I can still hang on to it just incase I can use it at another time somewhere else...so that way all my hard work won't be wasted and I can just readjust it if I want to use it again like I did with the eskimo run cycles in the Task project. I've been trying to find animated footage of walk cycles straight on. There are some good run cycles in Spirited Away but nothing of characters who are closer to my Tramp's age...they all seem to be too young. I've also been reading the Richard Williams book 'The Animators Survival Guide' and it had some walk cycles from the front and back which I decide to try and recreate in Flash and experiement with. My original idea was to have my Tramp running down the streets in the opening shots to get away from the storm.I took the walk cycle break down from pages 146 - 147 and page 179 of the Richard Williams book and tried to recreate them in my Flash Library file just so I could make sure they were all working....I don't think it helps that I haven't yet decided what sort of animation style I want to go for...if I want really cartoony or more realistic....I think a more realistic, or stylised style of animation would suit my Final Project but I'm still experimenting at the moment. Any I made some animated walk cycle symbols in the Library File and when I had got it moving the right way I took it into one of the Flash Files containing the layouts for the first shots and started to re-adjust the symbol where it was needed. This was really tricky as I not only had to get the character template to walk towards the camera and appear to getting bigger as he came towards the camera but also as I wanted my character to run I had to re draw the position of the legs too... Good thing I had youtube so that i could hunt down any videos of runners which may help me.I found a really good one of a 3D animated runner which I used for reference, as it had the chracter running from all angles which was very helpful to see how to draw the legs. In the end I managed to animated my tramp running towards the camera and turning a corner...which was bloodly hard for a first attempt...so you can imagine how annoyed I got when someone in my class took one look at my hours of hard work and said 'oh it looks like he's jogging' dismissively... I wanted to strangle that person, believe me! Anyway it was only a first attempt and I was pretty pleased with it until we had the acting lessons at the National Gallery.this was on 25th April, we had this theatre director (I think his name was Tom??) came in to help us with our animations. he got us to do some acting excercises and think about what was going on in the character head as their state of mind would affect their whole attitude, body movements and posture. for example he got us all to imagine we were walking down a road in London like we normally do and when we did it most of us were rushing around our bodies tense and alert, but when he said to imagine ourselves walking along a beach we all instantly relaxed our bodys and our walking as much slower and more 'Califonian' as he put it. I thought this class was really good as not only did he make us start to think more about the character's thoughts...something I find hard to do when I'm sitting in front of a computer with adeadline looming, but he also took a look at all of our animatics.With mine (which he seemd quite impressive with :D) he pointed out that if my character was a tramp he would be used to the weather or as least resigned to the fact that he had nowhere to go and so may just trudge along at a slow miserable pace in the pouring rain. He also suggested making him stumble about if he was drunk and even having the tramp stumble through the door of the theatre, literally making a surpirse discovery. I had to admit that i thought this was good and that his suggestions made perfect sense, so even though it took me ages to do those run cycles i think it would make much more sense to have my character walking at a slower pace...its all good practise anyway, but who knew that animating a Tramp would be so difficult?? O_o
Maria
25th April 2008
Hello all, this is another later entry, so many apologies!I've been making some progress with this final project without letting the scale of the task I've set myself get too over welming. So far I've managed to keyframe out about 9 or so scenes which is really good but this is just the rough guide of the animation so far. I'm trying to at least get the animation done in time for the deadline on the 13th June or at least keyframe out all of the scenes so there will be some idea of the movement and pace... I decided to try and tackle the easier scenes first those being the first scenes with the tramp walking through the rain and the closeup shots of my main character...I thought this was going to be easy when I first sat down to storyboard it all...I was soooo wrong! O_oIt turns out that the walking scenes are going to be the hardest ones to deal with. This is because I've chosen to have the Tramp walking towards and away from the camera in perspective and even though we've tackled walk cycles, we've only animated them in profile, not face on. Damn! Why do I always do this and cause myself such pain and frustration?? There's a word for people like that, I'm starting think I might be one of them. Anyway I'm trying not to let this bother me. What I've done to tackle the problem is to try out several different approaches....First I've decided to create a library of animated cycles, which Steve suggested to all of us... this I think is a good idea because if I do anything that I think is good but can't use in the Final Project I can still hang on to it just incase I can use it at another time somewhere else...so that way all my hard work won't be wasted and I can just readjust it if I want to use it again like I did with the eskimo run cycles in the Task project. I've been trying to find animated footage of walk cycles straight on. There are some good run cycles in Spirited Away but nothing of characters who are closer to my Tramp's age...they all seem to be too young. I've also been reading the Richard Williams book 'The Animators Survival Guide' and it had some walk cycles from the front and back which I decide to try and recreate in Flash and experiement with. My original idea was to have my Tramp running down the streets in the opening shots to get away from the storm.I took the walk cycle break down from pages 146 - 147 and page 179 of the Richard Williams book and tried to recreate them in my Flash Library file just so I could make sure they were all working....I don't think it helps that I haven't yet decided what sort of animation style I want to go for...if I want really cartoony or more realistic....I think a more realistic, or stylised style of animation would suit my Final Project but I'm still experimenting at the moment. Any I made some animated walk cycle symbols in the Library File and when I had got it moving the right way I took it into one of the Flash Files containing the layouts for the first shots and started to re-adjust the symbol where it was needed. This was really tricky as I not only had to get the character template to walk towards the camera and appear to getting bigger as he came towards the camera but also as I wanted my character to run I had to re draw the position of the legs too... Good thing I had youtube so that i could hunt down any videos of runners which may help me.I found a really good one of a 3D animated runner which I used for reference, as it had the chracter running from all angles which was very helpful to see how to draw the legs. In the end I managed to animated my tramp running towards the camera and turning a corner...which was bloodly hard for a first attempt...so you can imagine how annoyed I got when someone in my class took one look at my hours of hard work and said 'oh it looks like he's jogging' dismissively... I wanted to strangle that person, believe me! Anyway it was only a first attempt and I was pretty pleased with it until we had the acting lessons at the National Gallery.this was on 25th April, we had this theatre director (I think his name was Tom??) came in to help us with our animations. he got us to do some acting excercises and think about what was going on in the character head as their state of mind would affect their whole attitude, body movements and posture. for example he got us all to imagine we were walking down a road in London like we normally do and when we did it most of us were rushing around our bodies tense and alert, but when he said to imagine ourselves walking along a beach we all instantly relaxed our bodys and our walking as much slower and more 'Califonian' as he put it. I thought this class was really good as not only did he make us start to think more about the character's thoughts...something I find hard to do when I'm sitting in front of a computer with adeadline looming, but he also took a look at all of our animatics.With mine (which he seemd quite impressive with :D) he pointed out that if my character was a tramp he would be used to the weather or as least resigned to the fact that he had nowhere to go and so may just trudge along at a slow miserable pace in the pouring rain. He also suggested making him stumble about if he was drunk and even having the tramp stumble through the door of the theatre, literally making a surpirse discovery. I had to admit that i thought this was good and that his suggestions made perfect sense, so even though it took me ages to do those run cycles i think it would make much more sense to have my character walking at a slower pace...its all good practise anyway, but who knew that animating a Tramp would be so difficult?? O_o
Maria
Artwork etc....
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04th June 2008
Hello again!
I have to admit I'm doing this Blog a bit strangely by adding late entries as well as putting the 
more recent ones side by side...but this one happened yesterday. Steve has reminded us that we need to have some Preproduction work to give to the National Gallery people to put on their website along with our film. He also told me that the films will be going up in september on their website so I had the whole summer to get my Final Project finished...I think once the pressure of college is out of the way I will be more motivated to do it.
The same thing happened with my Task Project, during the term I was stuck and just couldn't do it but once the Easter Break came around it was like I couldn't stop myself from animating....which is really werid. I think I work better under my own steam rather than having tutors breathing down my neck...plus I am getting really bored now of studying :( Anyway this week I've been going back over all my sketches and doodles of my first ideas and early storyboards and I've selected a few images that I think would look good on the website.
However, most of them are really rough scribbles and notes as I had to work so quickly over the Easter break to get my ideas churned out in time for the start of the new term, so I've been scanning them into Photoshop and tidying them up. I've also been setting up a Youtube account http://uk.youtube.com/MariaKyoto7 and finding some finshed animation to put up onto it as well as designing some new business cards. I didn't realise how many of my animations were unfinished or need to be a bit longer in the case of the animated cycles and some could benefit with a little sound too. Such as my dolphin animation... it would be nice if I could find some ocean sounds or dolphin calls to put on it. Anyway here are the pieces of work that I'm thinking of handing in to the National Gallery people as the preproduction for my Final Project.
Some of the images are from my storyboard while others are layouts, concept art or rough scribbles I did while trying to figure out key franes for the animation. I selected a few and cleaned them up to make them more presentable for the National Gallery website with the help of Photoshop....My god what the hell did I do before that programme came along I'll never know!
All the best!
Maria.
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