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Week 5- Acting for Animators workshop /w Sarah Perry

In a session on Wednesday we had a guest workshop from Sarah Perry, an acting coach who works frequently in acting workshops with animation studios. Her aim was to show us how to channel our future characters into ourselves in order to better understand movements, motivations and emotions in our characters.

We learnt about the Laban and Stanislavski methods of acting briefly, before putting them into action in group acting challenges. I got more than I would have expected to out of this session, and felt like I could transfer these skills somewhat now.

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Week 5- Character Design, Modeling

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Week 4- Dynamics, Anticipation and Follow Through

Principles recap:

Timing

Arcs

Easing in and Easing out

Squash and Stretch

Exaggeration

Walk cycles

Anticipation: Force gathered before a movement happens (Below I have included a prime example in GIF form)

Follow Through: The forces and energy required to stop a movement.

The task was to create a jump across a page whilst focusing on anticipation and follow through.

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Week 4-Character Research Lecture

The first half of the lecture focused mainly on essaystructure tips, what not to do, and what is needed to meet the learning outcomes.

We also discused mise en scene, and how looking at that can add a broader context to your essay.

In the latter half of the lecture, the focus was on what makes us scared and freaked out, and looking at the idea of ‘the uncanny’ and of the uncanny valley.

The concept behind the uncanny is that we are seeing things that we are not meant to be seeing or things that are meant to be gone/hidden. For instance seeing a childhood toy come to life as an adult would be disturbing, because it’s a part of your buried past confronting you.

The uncanny valley is when something is very close to resembling life but misses the mark in a way that puts us on edge and makes us feel confronted. Humanoid robots in their current stage of development sit firmly in that valley, with people often saying that what gets them is the combo of realistic features/expressions and a dead look behind the eye.

Questions to ask myself this week:

If your chosen character is ‘human’ do they risk (or carefully avoid) the Uncanny Valley?

If your character isn’t human, how are they ‘humanised’?

Why does this character need to be animated?

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Week 4-Character Design

Due to illness this week, I missed the first character design lecture, which I am pretty sad about. Despite this, I have done my best to catch up at home.

The task was to eventually desgin a biped character that you can animate a walk cycle for.

I printed the sheet off and went through the lecture on the VLE.

I began by drawing faces into the ink blobs around the edge of the paper.

After learning the basics about shaper theory, I drew some shape combos. Using my favourite ink blobs and some inspiration from the shape combinations I created some silhouttes.

I tried to remember the suggested rules for a good silhoutte such as negative space, curved vs straights and interesting proportions. I believe two ones are the alien lady with the long head, and the lady with the feather in her hat (the ghost is also cute but it needs to be a biped and I forgot).

I think the hat lady is most sucessful because she has areas of negative space, and a mixture of curved and straight lines.

After the silhouettes I drew my 4 favourite ones using rough constructions lines to start with, and then going over in more detail with a fineliner.

In the end I chose the hat lady (who I then named “Sarsaparilla”) to draw in more detail.

I very much enjoyed this despite not being able to go to the lecture, and I look forward to next time.

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Week 3- Character Research Weekly Summary

The villian Me-Mania fantasises about ‘owning’ Mima, Perfect Blue (1997)

Since this weeks lecture I have been thinking a lot about how the character of mima or the villian Me-Mania from the film Perfect Blue fits into a larger context. This week before the next lecture I intend to do more research to flesh out my knowledges of the (slightly dodgy) practices in the Japanese idol industry and the fans that admire it. I would also like to look into how compared to a lot of contemporary Anime films, Mima is an extremely well written and nuanced female character.

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Week 3- Dynamics Weekly Summary

I think this week has been my best in terms of progression, and I think in the walk cycle sessions I created something simple but I am very proud of it. I wish I had got another iteration of the walk cycle done this week but I don’t want to get myself behind on work and dwell too much on it.

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Week 3- Character Research Lecture

This week’s research lecture was focused on the idea of the ‘Monomyth’, what makes a hero a hero, and outlining the different archetypes.

The Hero

The Herald

The Threshold Guardian

The Mentor

The Shape Shifter

The Trickster

The Shadow

The Ally

We aslo discussed representation in Animation, with a paticular focus on Queer-Coding. This is when a filmmaker gives characters traits or strerotypes associated with LGBT people without ever stating that they are LGBT or even implying that as a fact. This has been a long standing issue in animation, with these queer-coded characters often being cast in an extremely negative light and mostly appearing as villians.

This lecture was really fascinating and it has given me a lot of food for thought in terms of the character I’m writing about. I think when it comes to the Japanese idol culture depcited in Perfect Blue there is a lot to unpack in terms of representation and wider social issues.

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Week 3a- Dynamics- Walk Cycle Introduction

This monday session the task was to create a  ‘vanilla’ walk cycle, using the key frames outlined in The Animators survival kit (with the above image for reference, specifically). The animation had to be of a basic proportioned human shape. I began by drawing the key frames on F12 paper and then filming that test on the line line tester.

In the test I think that the frames looked fairly even and consistent, barring minor issues with the mass and shape of the head as well as the length of the legs. I was pretty happy with this as a first real walk cycle, and I was ready to add the inbetweens.

The additonal frames give the action fluidity, and in turn that makes the animation believable. This has been my favourite session so far and I am looking forward to using these new skills on a character soon.

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Week 2- Character Research Weekly Summary

Since the last week I have been thinking mainly about how the characters I choose could possibly fit into the different Vogler archetypes that were mentioned in this weeks lecture. I have been thinking in particular about Kirigoe Mima from Satoshi Kon’s 1997 anime film Perfect Blue. She is the protagonist of the feature, which would in convention make her the heroine of the story. However the duality in her character, coupled with our inability as the viewer to see which way is up or down in terms of her personal character arc, leaves convention to be questioned. This duality puts her both in the role of the Heroine and the Shapeshifter.

I have decided to begin to channel my research just into Perfect blue and the character, Mima. I am still considering my other choices, particualrly the Belladonna of Sadness. I am most attracted to writing about Perfect Blue because I believe it to be a film that I understand, that I can write both passionately and critically about.

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Week 2- Dynamics/Fundamentals Weekly Summary

This week I was slower than I may have liked to be in completing all the tasks within the sessions. Depsite this, I believe that by spending the little bit more time to really understand the principles behind the animations that I have completed, I have a strong grasp of what it needs to be beliveable.

I am very excited to start the walk cycles next week, and put into practice the forces and principles behind creating movement that we have learnt in the first two weeks.

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Week 2b-Dynamics

This week the task was to create a ball bounce (using the principles of squash and stretch, or just doing a hard bounce) with a secondary action. I however in the last session on Monday did not finish my Squash and stretch task, so used this time to complete that.

Above is the plan I created before drawing my frames. I was trying hard to keep the mass of the ball the same as it stretches and sqaushes. The ball should be round at the highest point in the arc, and at it’s most sqaushed as it impacts with the bottom of the frame.

In my film on the line tester, I think it can be shown that I have understood the principles. There are definitely areas that need to be improved upon, such as keeping the mass of the ball very consistent and keeping the mass of the actual lines even.

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Week 2- Character Research Lecture

Mima, Perfect Blue (1997)

This week in the character research lecture we discussed what makes a person individual as well as alike to other people. The Proust Questionaire was particularly interesting, and I love the idea of using it to flesh out my own characters.

My other main takeway from this weeks lecture was the introduction of the archetypes as defined by Christopher Volger in The Writer’s Journey. From a source on the internet I have gathered them here for my reference:

Hero: someone who is willing to sacrifice his own needs on behalf of others

Mentor: all the characters who teach and protect heroes and give them gifts

Threshold Guardian: a menacing face to the hero, but if understood, they can be overcome

Herald: a force that brings a new challenge to the hero

Shapeshifter: characters who change constantly from the hero's point of view

Shadow: character who represents the energy of the dark side

Ally: someone who travels with the hero through the journey, serving variety of functions

Trickster: embodies the energies of mischief and desire for change

I plan this week to look at how these archetypes could maybe relate to the characters I have chosen to consider for my essay.

Essay tip slides for my reference:

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Week 2- Fundamentals- 2D Ball Bounce

This session we were taught about the priniciples of time and spacing, and of squash and stretch. The task was to animate these fundamentals by creating a 2D hard ball bounce to practice the concept of time and spacing, and a soft ball bounce to demonstrate the idea of squash and stretch.

To do the first task I had to begin by thinking about the arcs I had learnt about the week before to plan my first bounce. I found this fairly challenging to get right at first because of thinking about how it would slow down and how wide/high the arc is for each bounce. When planning the frames for the hard ball bounce I tried to remember the concepts from last week of something being slower on the way up and slower on the way down in an arc.

In this first test I think that my arcs are too tall and too wonky; it doesn’t follow a clear, logical or believable path. As I have been working at quicker pace than I did on my first pendulum swing, I managed immediately see the errors once I had filmed a test and began a new one.

In this second test I believe I planned the frames better, giving it a better sense of time and spacing. I did this by making lines and grids on the paper and planning increments for the arcs and where each frame would be.

This one is overall a better try and I was happy that I had challenged myself to really think critically about what i was animating and how it should act. After filming the above test on the line tester I was ready to draw out my frames on F12 and film the final hard ball bounce. The video below is my final video, and I am pleased with the outcome. I personally find it believable and clean looking. I would like to have had/given myself more time to complete the second task but I have drawn out the frames and they are ready to test.

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Week 1 Summary- Fundamentals

 This first week has been a lot of information to take in as someone who has gone from being an illustrator (not working with any kind of digital format for years) to learning new programs such as Dragonframe and filming my own animations. I have enjoyed making something come to life, even if it is just a penny on a string. It was been extremely interesting learning about even basic fundamentals, and I am excited to continue making my animation more believable in the coming weeks as well as doing more iterations.

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Week 1 Summary- Character Research

This first lecture, the focus was on introducing us to a more in depth concept of character, and the reasons why research and critical thought are so important when it comes to analysing or creating a character. I also learnt for the first time the basic character archetypes, which I am intrigued to hear more about in the next lecture and read up about independantly.

I am also to start thinking of animated characters that interest me and that I could write about in the 1000 word essay project we were set. My first ideas for films and characters are Me-Mania or Mima (Perfect Blue), Bobby Hill (King of the Hill), Maggie (The Simpsons) or the Belladonna of Sadness.

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Week 1-Fundamentals-Pendulum Swing

After animating our pendulum swings earlier in the week in our groups, I was happy to have the opportunity to film my own.

Using a coin on a string to draw around on F12 and a peg bar, I created my plan. First plotting out the extremes and the passing point, and then adding my inbetweens. In this test that I filmed on the line tester, I ended up using ten inbetweens (five on each side of the passing point of the arc).

In my opinion, this test is missing the sense of weight needed to be fully believable. In my next interation I would like to make more loose plans and tests.

We were also tasked with creating a pendulum swing with a secondary force acting upon it, but as this is all very new to me I took a fair amount of time more than I should need to in the future on the first task. I will need to catch up in my own time and be creative about how to make myself work quicker.

-Terms to Remember-

Frame Rate:

The number of frames in one second of animation, which dictates how fast or slow each movement seems to a viewer.

Shooting in ‘Twos’:

Taking the same shot and holding it (sequencing it) for two frames. Standard for most animation.

Extreme, Inbetweens, Passing Position:

The different positions the swing passes through in an animation. The extremes being the two highs of the arc on its up-swing and the passing postion the lowest in the arc. The inbtweens are the frames that make up the swing between the crucial 3 points in the arc

Easing In and Easing Out:

The inbetweens added, and how little or many are added will make the action of an arc believable.