anca-animation2020

[anca-animation2020]

Ax2002 - 2D stop motion paper animation

Cut out animation

Is the use of flat, characters, backgrounds, and props from materials such as paper, card, stiff fabric, photographs etc. using them as puppets layered flat usually, photographed per second to create movement.

Worlds earlist cut out animation was made in Argentina by Quirinio Cristiani. The technique is comparable to shadow play but manually or mechanical manipulation.

Can be done simple and cheap, like most children programmes for instance in Ivor the Engine. More distinguished than hand-drawn animation.

Cut out techniques were mostly used in animation flims until cel animation. However today cutout- style is used with computers with scanned images or vector graphics.

Taking the need for physically cut materials

Silhouette animation

Is when only characters are visible as black silhouettes. Done with blacklighting articulated with cardboard cut outs, or other methods. Distinct from shadow play however inspired by it, and european silhouette cutting. Nowadays silhouette professionally films are rare. And are digitally created with cgi.

Traditional silhouette animation was Invented by Reiniger, a subdivision of cutout animation. The figures are cut out of paperboard, and sometimes reinforced with thin metal sheetsand tied together at the joints with thread or wire.

Multiplane camera

It a motion picture camera that was used in traditional animation process that would move a number of pieces past the camera at different speeds and distances from each other, creating a sense of parallax or depth with the large panels of glass.

With that parts are transparent to allow other layers to be seen behind them. The movements are calculated frame by frame to achieve this.

One variation is to have the background and foreground move in opposite directions. Giving the effect of rotation.

An early multi plane camera was used by lotte reiniger in her film the adventures of prince achmed.

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Model making project

So for the model making project I initially had three animal in mind, a European Shag, Fire Salamander, and European Bison. I choose all these animals as I had seen them in person my thinking was this would help with the conceptualisation process and to add further inspiration. 

I ended up choosing the European bison as it’s physic reminded me of my father, a big bulky animal.  These animals are seen as docile Like cows however they are very active and protective of their herd. Because of this assumption that bison cannot move as well or as fast, People underestimate them until they see them in person. Therefore, this often most people have a similar opinion of my father that he’s not that physical but can still run 10k and lift weights for his age. Furthermore, I came up with the idea that since my father can’t really dance, that the bison could be his best representation/version of himself, and his dancing ability.  

Although before I got to that point I went through many different ideas before this, such as a business bison, Clown/ biker bison, bumper care bison etc..  

I wanted a 70s groovy look to the Bison, since it’s iconic with the disco era.  And has an exciting visual aesthetic that’s memorable. Furthermore, at this time the 70’s disco era people associate the people as being chill, competitive, and always thinking of their moves. Which when I came to write my series would help a lot. 

So for the series the premise for the story would be a world that was run by dance. And that in each nation they would have leaders that were the best dancers, and top tier defenders of the dance of their nation. To get celebrity status and possible overtake the top tier dancer they hold a completion Tournament So everyone can advance within their city. As well as hope to do compete against other countries. To improve and prove their worth whilst maintaining peace amongst the different dance nations.  Who have their main dance, however within the world have developed sub-cultures. They hope would be to have ballet, Ballroom, contemporary, Hip-hop, disco, Flamenco, Belly Dance, Country/Western, Bollywood and Breakdance. 

I would hope to include dance sequence’s that can be learnt each episode and then combine for battles for children to join in and help our protagonists through their journey to become the best, and to help defender their nation.   

I came up for a guide for the first season as follows:  

Episode one –A flashback to a secret plot of the past involving Bison Bill, Battling an dancer from a different country, that seems to be trying to destroy dance. Hinting to future episode plots. Back to present following some students (three) run into each other, who explore the world and come across bill asking for training. Then follows an Introduction to the world and how dance is what everyone lives by.  

Episodes two, three and four too six – Is the announcement of the year completion of the battle of dancer. This is where you can level up the ranks. Bison bill trains these beginner students in there talent, to join this years comp in hopes of becoming A level 1 ranking.  

Episode seven to thirteen– commences the tournament completion and our young stars have signed up to pass level one ranking. We following their journey to pass and get started in this world. Whilst it hinting to a possible threat gaining traction after year’s of silence. Looming over the event. 

Final episodes of the season – will be the students passing the event and celebrating.  

My target audience would be Preteens however suitable for everyone. And my unique selling point would be that it is a different type of interactive show instead of just verbally breaking the forth wall, the kids get to join in the moves and learn some dance promoting physical activity and Mental well being. 

Overall I would say that I should of spent more time developing the idea, however I could not decide what my Bison would be.

[anca-animation2020]

Group Project Ax2001 and Ax2002

So this is my final submission for the above project in which we collaborated as a team to create a story revolving around dimensions.We had an option of a door or portal, and we choose portals.

we then came up with the witch and the idea of her travelling through these to get her ingredients for a potion.

I was assigned edited and finding of a lead voice actress. As well as producing my sequence.

The challenges faced over the project were many, and that I will elaborate on. I had tried to source voice actors through the likes given by our tutor. One to casting call club and another to the reddit page for similar resources. As initially contacting the performance arts department hadn't worked. I uploaded my job for our group project and again didn't receive anything. Maybe due to distance, money , and I was removed from the reddit page for some reason. It wasn't until my college Robbie mentioned he knew some people from the performing arts department and sent my details tp them that we got a bite.

Moreover, one thing that I'd wish I'd stuck to was the schedule I created in my planner. that totally went out the window with stress from other environmental contributing factors.

We are now at the editing process where we are compiling all the submitted video to the final dimension submission. Most people have not submitted or got an extension so to cope for the deadline tomorrow we are inserting the animatics that we're uploaded. Along with this we thought to only credit the voice actor and generally credit to 2nd year animation group 2022. And since everyone has and should have included their audio it's simply putting the video together therefore not much editing required.

I will say that everyone did very well, and although their are some that could have had finished in time I am happy with the work I contributed, And was able to find it easier then last year using a university Wacom tablet. Although that also had some adjusting to do as well. I hope to in a better computer however, since mine is not capable of running the software I have to as well as to improve my skills over the summer.

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Now in the midst of animation production I rough the scenes first with blue for an idea of the actions. And now I've started working out the actual animation.

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Group Project finalized animatic

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Group project animatic with sound

I then later developed a clearer visual. Which is now my finished animatic. Since I was only roughing out my ideas at first.

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Group project Character designs

So I adapted the witch character in the style of midnight gospel, using the same colours. I then drew up a dragon that I would imagine similar to the style whilst showing that the dragon is from a swamp. It ideally wouldn't fly since most of it's food would get stuck in the swamp, and most likely would swim. I went on to draw what the wisp would turn into as my phoenix to let my character get away. And I drew it similar to the colour's it was by the original design.

I can tell moving over to a wacom tablet with a display to draw helped massively, only I now need a glove to stop the skin touching the screen accidentally.

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group project progress

Above link is from the background artist for the style I choose for my animation in this project. To use as reference, when composing my backgrounds.

It's not exact, however I tried to capture the essence using clip art which I find has better brushes than Toon Boom.

purposely made the backgrounds extend further than 1920x1080 to have extra room to animate with.

[anca-animation2020]

Mood Boards AX2222 and research

European wood Bison

Known also as the wisent or Zubr. Is one of two species of bison, alongside the American bison. And europeslargest land mammal.

And is a near threaten population, however population is increasing through captivity programmes.

An adult male can weight 610kg, this bison is apart of the Bovinae subfamily.

Diet consists of mostly grasses, shoots and young leaves in the summer. And can consume an average of 32kg of food every day.

It became extinct in much of Europe and Asia, surviving into the 20th century only in northern –central Europe and the northern Caucasus mountains.

They have a few predators in the 19th century, reports of wolves, loins, tigers and bears. In the past, Middle ages they were killed for their hide.

The idea is to have the bison out of place in the cramped city or on holiday but can't relax because is accidently causing problems because of it's size.

Fire salamander

Amphibian, the fire salamander is a common species of salamander in Europe, identified by its black and yellow spots or stripe varieties. Sometimes nearly completely black. They live in forests of central Europe and are common in hilly areas.

Preferring deciduous forests, meaning falling of maturity in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed leaves usually in autumn and ripe fruit. So them may hide in the fallen leaves, they also need small brooks or ponds with clean water for their larvae. Whether in land or in water they are inconspicuous. Active mostly in the evenings, they only tend to be ore active during the day when it’s rainy.

Scientific name: salamandra salamandra from the family Salamandridae. An adult can weigh 19grams

It’s most common predators are grass snakes, larger reptiles, hawks. And eagles (occasionally is immune or developed an immunity).The bright colouration is highly conspicuous deterring predators by an honest signalling of it’s toxicity, aposematism.

They also have a very long lifespan, one lived for 50 years, having a diet of various insect, spiders, earthworms and slugs and occasionally eat newts and young.

The idea for the salamander is to have it be a short of traveller, that looks to either rob the farm. or is more of a hippie travellers that finds a farm and connects with the animals.

European Shag

The European shag or common shag is a species of cormorant. And is the only member of the monotypic genus Gulosus. It breeds around the rocky coasts of the western and southern Europe. Southwest Asia and north Africa, mainly wintering in the breeding ranges except for the northern most birds.

The shag is generally a pursuit-diving seabird that feeds predominately in the benthic habitats. The European shag, or Aristotelis northwesternEurope. Is one of the deepest divers using depth gauges, shown to dive 45meters.

For this one I was think an Olympic swimmer, gymnast or dart thrower would be an interesting concept.

[anca-animation2020]

Ax2001 Group Project

The 24th of January we had another class discussion for the group project from the ideas we brought together the previous week. Which where concept designs of the witch, wisp, portal, location, plot, and style. We discussed each individual 20secs animation for the project. As well as the roles which we would be assigned to ensuring that just because one person is assigned to the role doesn't mean their doing their work for you. I will be an editor on the project as I am keen to learn more in this area.

We also discussed the order of the sequences and the direction of the portals etc. And then finally discussing that we need the scripts due by the end of the week and story boards for our sequence. Implying it should be handed in earlier before the date.

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PRE - PRODUCTION AX2002

Pre-production of our short two minute film has now finished and we will be moving to the production and finalising stage this semester.

I decided to stick to my art side by had drawing most of the production and painting it. This is because I did not want to lose touch with my art skills which I found since focusing on my digital software on the course.

For me this will be a visual guidance and will probably redo the background and insert it in to combine with digital drawing is the hope. And will be looking forward to talking this over with my course leader for further opinions and assistance.

Overall learning the importance of time management as I did procrastinate a little to much to focus on other projects.

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The importance of world building

Resource used for Background design research.

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Dimensions the beginning of the end by mad Oranje studios

We’ve set set sail together as a group with our intial concept which we managed to agree on, that the simply the better to express ourselves. And have established the beginning schedule of preproduction.

We hope going for that roles will be assinged and that we can work together as a team to met deadlines.

I personally am really excited for this project however will keep expectations humble in order to work cohesively and execute an outcome.

We are to work on for new week some character designs, and portal, as well as a style, location, item and familiar.

Which I plan to do some research first behind the idea as I would like to incorporate that into the idea. Since our main character is a witch.

Anyway wish us luck!

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Ax2001 Poem Adaption

This project was great fun for me for it included my love of literature, and in way abstract art or expressionism. I knew I could really make it my own, and go back to my roots a little. As I have found the course to be a bit daunting, as I am used to being more artistic rather than working with software.

I would have preferred to do it on charcoal on a sheet like William Kentridge one of my inspirations for the project and why I decided to mimic this style with my poem dreams by langston hughs.

In choosing this peom I felt I could make strong visuals as well as to play around with different ideas and nothing to concrete. Or to allow the audience to make their own opinions from the visuals and the wording of the poem. As the visuals are mostly my interpretation.

During production I found doing the animatic was a great way to cut visuals that where not strong enough to portray my interpretation as well as to shorten out over complicated ideas. Furthermore, the storyboarding process was easy to work through simply putting my thoughts with the lines together, however drawn.

In comparison to animating however, I misjudged by myself thought it would be a-lot easier than anticipated to draw each frame digitally. Before fully deciding on the digital pathway I did try charcoal and paper like William kentridge as well as experimented with photoshop, and harmony and other digital resources to ensure the best way for me to animate my vision.

I had issues last minute with editing, as my computer had lagging issues and I had to put the animation together in the library computers of uclan. And then the sound had issues when outputing the entire video. I did finally manage to put it all together in the end, however was very stressful. I would hope to re-evaluate this for projects going forward.

Overall, I had great fun on this project and felt I could really make it my own. And I had been missing that from the first year of this course, as I felt lost. This has given me new inspiration. That I should stick to being myself going forward and not to put myself down. But also not to be afraid to try new things.

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Testing At Home Charcoal animation

Firstly I knew before starting this test that I wouldn't be able to recreate the same environment that William Kentridge did for his animations.

So I just wanted to do some experiments, which taught me that you really need the correct equipment and a lot of patience and a good eye for the adding and taking away of the charcoal. I still love how expressive it is, as charcoal is one of my favourite mediums.

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AX2001 William Kentridge

An South African artist known for prints, drawings and his animated films with charcoal.

Was a big inspiration for my project, as I wanted to emulate this into my work. Unfortunately I was not able to do this on the scale done by him, however I would be looking to try it out myself later on.

http://t3.gstatic.com/licensed-image?q=tbn:ANd9GcS6RDgTZ1uNkkwFPfz9EOEWXJSTZDVnNa9buoRkAgJtVT30j25vv2qEyXKu_HH7

When he animates he gives each change to the drawing a quarter of a second to two seconds' screen time. One drawing will be altered and filmed this way until he finishes the scene. In order to do this he he's mostly charcoal and erases or add charcoal.

I personally love charcoal and think it's a great medium to show expression, especially in animation s this will up it another level.

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Background design in animation: Contextual studies Resources used

Simply attached the resources I used for my research.