projectchaal

[projectchaal]

Chapter 32

Compositing Beat 3

I was new to comp so I got some help from Philip and also gone through some tutorials to learn the compositing basics. I wanted to create some atmosphere in part 2 of beat 3 and came across tutorial about time blend node. 

Link to time Blend Node

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8D4DNNJ_uN8&t=900s

I did some mistakes during the initial compositing by not naming the files properly and this led to some delay.

After rendering the output. It was clear to me that i need more time to flush out the desired output that i had in mind.

Like adding shadows

Fire need some glow and flickering

I also need to add some clean animation as it was in the rough stage.

Due to some renaming issues colors didn’t get rendered for some of the animation shots.

Also need some color correction like lowering the values of white.

[projectchaal]

Chapter 31

Beat 3 Production - Concept art

As most of the animation was cleaned up. It was time to give some colors to the beat 3 animation. 

The color pallet for the first part of the beat 3 was already done so i was mainly focusing on the second part of the beat 3. I wanted to create a dark theme to part 2. The concept for the beat 2 came close to what i have imagined.

Once the colors were finalised using the concepts, I jumped into coloring all the animation for the beat 3 shots so that it can be composited. 

[projectchaal]

Chapter 30

Beat 3 Production

After cleaning some shots for Beat 1 and Beat 2. I came back to Beat 3 for clean ups.

[projectchaal]

Chapter 29

Beat 2 Production

I also managed to clean 2 shots for Beat 2.

[projectchaal]

Chapter 28

Beat 1 Production Continue

After getting some rough passes of the main shots for beat 1. I started to clean the shot one by one. These are some of the clean shots for Beat 1

[projectchaal]

Chapter 27

Beat 1 Production Continue

Based on the film analysis, i started to come up with other shots for the beat 1.

Beat 1 - Sht 2

Beat 1 Sht 3

Beat 1 sht 4

Beat 1 sht 6

Beat 1 sht 9

[projectchaal]

Chapter 26

Beat 1 Production- RnD

I was finding more and more films to understand the ways to reduce the animation. Some of the recent films that inspired me are:

In the short film “Under this luminous sky” the scene is 20 sec long but few strong golden poses are enough to hold the emotions intact. 

“Train Project” also shows some strong example of minimalistic animation. These film analyses influenced me to make some changes in my animation pipeline. The Main findings are to make strong golden poses to convey the story and emotion. I was also trying to do subtle animation in Beat 1 and thought about increasing the energy as the film progresses. 

[projectchaal]

Chapter 25

Beat 1 Production

At this stage, I was happy with the production of beat 3 but at the same time i was getting nervous for Beat 1 and Beat 2. I stopped working on beat 3 in the hopes that it would help me with new perspective. 

Beat 1 - Total 12 shots were planned. I started with the first shot. At first, I was trying to wing the animation without the character sheet. This made the character(Kunjan) off model. I went back to study the character and practiced the basic shape of the character which helped me gain back the confidence. Kunjan looks older in the first animation. The hands were also odd as I was trying to foreshorten the hand because of the perspective. 

The second draft looked much better. The plan here was to quicky come up with golden and breakdown poses. I was also trying to reduce the animation by looking into anime and similar animation where fewer keys are used to tell a story. One such film that heavily inspired me from the beginning was “The Dam keeper” from Tonko House. I studied the animation to understand the pipeline. When looked frame by frame, the animation is in 3′s and some frames lasted for over 24 frames. 

[projectchaal]

Chapter 24

Beat 3 Production - New direction - Production continues  

Part 2 of the beat 3 is to show the disruption of the daily routine of a villager by some mischievous entities. For the monsters, I was planning to use the same design, which was meant for the original idea. An advertisement from the 90′s served as the inspiration for People/Villager.The ad used to appear on the national channel(Doordarshan), but I could not find it right now. In this beat, I wanted to show the people working on the farms, which get disrupted by the entities. Scared people run to save themselves. The beat ends with Kunjan saving the people from monsters. In order to show the disruption, I created a bunch of small eyes on the ground, which pops out of the ground scaring the villagers.

[projectchaal]

Chapter 23

Beat 3 Production - New direction - Production continues

Last chapter covered the part 1 of the beat 3. The next step is to cover the part 2 of beat 3 but before that we need to discuss the transition. How Kunjan will travel from the first layer to the next layer.

[projectchaal]

Chapter 22

Beat 3 Production - New direction - Production continues

Last line for the first part of beat 3 brought some extra challenges in terms of animation.

Second line - “Whether it's night, or a hot sunny day, or a flood. I will be right here.” This line represents the painstaking task Kunjan, and theyyam had to go through to protect the village. I created a night version of the concept art. For flood I made a wave which will come in a wave hitting Kunjan. I also needed an animation of the consequences of the wave crash on Kunjan.

Night environment. I created a new concept which is an exact match of the morning concept. Only difference will be the color difference, also I had to follow the “Kalamezuthu” tribal arts limited color pallet of 5 colors.

For the flood sequence, I animated Kunjan to portray his shock when he sees the flood off-screen, to spark the audience's curiosity.

For the flood, I made three concepts which will used to animate in after effects. 

Three flood sections are:The start of the wave,The mid section is a continuous loop of wave and the last one is the tail end of the wave.

[projectchaal]

Chapter 21

Beat 3 Production - New direction - Production continues.

In this chapter, we will continue with the voice over breakdown. 

Second line- “I am the protector of this village. Before me, it was my father. Before him was my grandfather. For centuries, we are the one protecting this village.”

I wanted to show different theyyam played his role in the past over the time. I wanted a minimum of 4 Theyyam wall cycle animation. I wanted the design to range from big shapes to small shapes among different theyyams. It was important for me to create these designs which fit well with kunajns designs. I was struggling with deadline also at this stage, so i made some quick roughs keeping my guidelines and moodboard in my mind.

These designs helped me to complete the design to this.

Once the design was finalised, i decided to animate them. I started by taking out the main shapes to do these rough animations. 

[projectchaal]

Chapter 20

Beat 3 Production - New direction - Production art

In this chapter, i will show the production art for the first part of the beat 3. We will go line by line.

“I am the protector of this village“ -- I wanted to create a fun little bouncy walk cycle for Kunjan dressed as theyyam. I also wanted to show some cloud movements and mountains in the background to show the passing of time.

This animation was already made for the original idea. Even though the perspective was from a top-down angle, it still looked good to use as a rough to show the intention for this line. The animation of Kunjan is an 8 step walk cycle. I simplified the design of Kunjan to make him look cute. I also added some bounce in the walk cycle with squash and stretch. 

For the environment, I made some clouds, wind and mountains. Animated clouds, wind and mountains in a circular path to create a parallax effect. 

The resulting output is below. 

[projectchaal]

Chapter 19

Beat 3 Production - New direction - Continue

My lecturers and classmate liked my rough idea. I continued working on this concept by breaking down the voice over.

So for the first line.

“I am the protector of this village“ -- I wanted to create a fun little bouncy walk cycle for Kunjan dressed as theyyam. I also wanted to show some cloud movements and mountains in the background to show the passing of time. 

Second line

“Before me, it was my father. Before him was my grandfather. For centuries, we are the one protecting this village.“ -- I wanted to show different theyyam played his role in the past over the time. I wanted a minimum of 4 Theyyam wall cycle animation. This needed some brainstorming in terms of designs.

Third line

“Whether it's night, or a hot sunny day, or a flood. I will be right here.“ -- This line represents the painstaking task Kunjan, and theyyam had to go through to protect the village. I created a night version of the concept art. For flood I made a wave which will come in a wave hitting Kunjan. I also needed an animation of the consequences of the wave crash on Kunjan.

These three lines will create the entire first of the beat 3. We will see the production work and art in the next chapter.

[projectchaal]

Chapter 18

Beat 3 Production - New direction

I started by creating a voice over for this beat. The voice over will act as a place holder to map out the pieces required for the beat. To finish this version, I had to go through a couple of revisions.

Final Darft-

English Draft

I am the protector of this village. Before me, it was my father. Before him was my grandfather. For centuries, we are the one protecting this village. Whether it's night, or a hot sunny day, or a flood. I will be right here.

Every Monsoon month, some uninvited entities travel to our village.They come in different forms and shape and create ruckus in our peaceful village. But I am not scared of them. With the aid of the chants, my ancestors taught me. I send them back from where they come from.

Malayalam Version (Kerala Language )

ഞാൻ ആണ് ഈ നാടിന്റെ കാവൽക്കാരൻ!! എനക്ക് മുന്നേ ഇന്റ അച്ഛൻ..  ഓര്ക്ക് മുന്നേ അച്ചന്റെ അച്ഛൻ.. അങ്ങനെയങ്ങനെ കാലങ്ങളായി ഞങ്ങളാണ് ഇബിടെ കാവല്.  ഓരോ കർക്കിടകത്തിലും ആരും വിളിക്കാതെയും പറയാതെയും തന്നെ കുറച്ചു ആളോള്ടെ പോക്കുവരവുണ്ടാവലുണ്ട്. ഓര് പല രൂപത്തിലും വേഷത്തിലും വന്നിട്ടു മ്മളെ മക്കാറാക്കും. നാട്ടുകാരുടെ കാര്യം കഷ്ടത്തിലാവും. പക്ഷേങ്കില് എനക്കിവറ്റോളെ തരി��്പും പേടിയില്ലട്ടൊ. നാടായ നാടൊക്കെ ചുറ്റി..വീടായ വീടൊക്കെ കയറി.. ചൊല്ലി പഠിച്ച മന്ത്രങ്ങൾ ഉരുവിട്ട് എല്ലാറ്റിനേയും ഈ നാട്ടീന്ന് പായിക്കും.. മ്മള്.

I began picturing the animation that would be required for this piece based on the voiceover. For this concept, I recycled some animation that I had already created for the original idea. With the aid of aftereffects, I soon came up with a rough.

[projectchaal]

Chapter 17

Beat 3 Production -Turning point - Continue

New concepts created for the Beat 3 helped to think the beat 3 in a new light. I began to perceive these circles as a globe, and their motion as a clock's. I found this perfect image for this blog to show my thoughts at that moment. The clockwise movement similar to a clocks mechanism will help the passing time. I presented it to my professors, and they encouraged me to carry it through.

I divided this concept into two parts, The first layer/ circle will tell the story of Kunjan and his ancestors and the importance of Theyyam in his village. 

The second layer will introduce the monsters and demons. This will also show the magical power of the kunjan.

[projectchaal]

Chapter 16

Beat 3 Production -Turning point

Beat 3's production was progressing well, and I felt reasonably optimistic about the first output(Please see chapter 13 for the output). In a one-on-one meeting with my instructors, I presented these advancements. In the meeting, Sharon Campbel(DJCAD Senior lecturer), pointed out the need and purpose of an rpg style as well as the question of whether it will contrast with the other beats. Sean and Susan asked me to think of any art forms that represent the tribal people of Kerala and culture.

This made me to look into some of the tribal arts and stumbled upon a folk art “KALAMEZUTHU”.

https://www.thehindu.com/entertainment/art/the-tribal-temple-art-of-kalamezhuthu/article27157679.ece

https://www.keralatourism.org/artforms/kalamezhuthu-ritual-art/11

These links will help to understand more about the art form. In short, natural products are used to make these art forms. The main 5 colors used in this art are Black, White, Red (Saffron), Yellow and Green. 

The above pic is the mood board created to understand more about the art form. This helped me to create an abstract narration and came up with a rough concept.