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Weekly Summary #26

This week was mostly to finish the little things, edit and wrap things up for submission.

For Collaboration, I mostly helped with some organisation, feedback and making the title animation. Some more people have finished and we have slowly started to add SFX (props to Izzy and Molly) found some good music to bind everything together and start putting the Bible together (shoutout to Alba) We just had a few more people left to finish their work and deliver their iterative process pages, and all that is needed, is to put everything together.

Research Report is also written and edited for a bit. It needed a few more reads and additional research to fact-check a few things on social media echo chambers, so now it’s done. I am pretty hopeful for this paper, to dive into territories of Animation and get more ideas on the direction I want to head in the future.

I think we are in good shape for submission- and end of Year 2! Whew, time did pass so fast...

[oykusuba2]

Weekly Summary #25

This week was a great time to wrap up projects and leave last week to polish things up.

My Collaboration sequence was finished at the beginning of this week, which surprised me quite a bit. I was only left with rather smaller details and cleanup since I made the biggest bulk over the Easter. I prepared my Experimentation and just need to help a team member who seems to struggle making the title sequence, since they still need to finish their own sequence. I talked with Millie about some team members who were not putting a lot into the team work, and discussed how we should handle it for the final cut. It is bit saddening but a lot of us struggled to do their own parts or put the final thing together because of certain team members not delivering or participating. It is a learning curve but hopefully we will be able to deliver a good chunk to the finish line.

Research Proposal is going good so far. I had a good tutorial with Lynsey on Friday, which we discussed a lot of the topics, subjects and issues I ran into. One thing she pointed out, was the Questions. She thought the first question is missing some dimension, but it was sounding fine for a Proposal, but definitely needs bit of more thought. She also explained the Potential Outcomes, which I’m rewriting at the moment. I also talked about my struggle to find one of the films I needed for my essay but came up with two backups, which might change the scope of the essay once again. Rest was bit more elaboration and pointers, like the word count, which I might be writing too much (yet again!) So my goal for next week is to finish up and edit it.

Rest of the projcts are done, written and good to go. This time, with finished extracurricular stuff, I was able to do everything in a more relaxed manner and get to finish everything on time. Now it’s only the smaller stuff that needs to be done.

Let’s do it!

[oykusuba2]

[oykusuba2]

I did simple sketch for our Project Bible’s Cover Art. I was inspired by the scene were Ponyo is running with the fish-waves for Sosuke. I decided to make it a A3, as it felt a safe size. 

I asked for some feedback from our Art Director Alba, and she suggested if the titles should be in the middle, since this is not really going to be a printed work.

The title, I wanted to put what Josie and Wil creates as our main titles, with a simple “Making-Of” or “Project Bible” on the bottom.

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Today I finished my Collaboration sequence.

I tried to keep the background fairly simple but lively. The wipe also made it possible to switch through Josie’s and Alba’s sequences. I did my cleanup and small details. All I need to do now, is to make the cover art for the Project Bible.

[oykusuba2]

Weekly Summary- Break Time

This break was way more chill than  the last time but I got to have some work done.

For Proposal, I did bit of reading and typed it up into a decent size. I still need to finish the Background and write up Potential Outcomes, as well as editing. I am free from worrying about the word count since I already hit it, so at this point, I just need to make it clear and readible.

I had a decent progress with my Collaboration piece. I need to finish up the colouring, the backgrounds and do a bit of cleanup but otherwise it could be done within next week. I am only worried about a few people handing out their work on time but hopefully we can finish it on time and make it look good.

For Personal Branding, I had a bit more feedback on my website on tiny things and I got through them pretty quickly. I already sent out the portfolio and CV to a few places so all we have left is waiting!

Let’s see what this two weeks will bring!

[oykusuba2]

Proposal Source Hunt!

The Easter has been going very relaxing- too relaxing for some. Thus I felt I needed to slowly step up and start writing the Proposal. Meanwhile, I did bits of research to enhance the Proposal and show of what gave more sparks to this research.

Marcell Jankovics

https://www.cartoonbrew.com/feature-film/marcell-jankovics-interview-feherlofia-why-would-one-imitate-reality-112926.html

This article I stumbled upon randomly, was when I first heard the director’s name. It really sparked some interest in his work and other Eastern Bloc works as well. If I can also find enough interviews like this, I can get a good picture of Jankovics’ thought-process (as I still haven’t found a point of contact to him)

https://prezi.com/h7_ex1cp6b01/marcell-jankovics/

A brief presentation that provides some good links about Jankovics.

About Hungary & Hungarian Animation

Animation: A World History by Giannalberto Bendazzi

This book is a gold mine to learn and discover new écoles of animation. I also learnt quite a bit of backstory of Hungarian Animation. Highly recommend!

János Vitéz - The Original Poem

While we still haven’t found the version of the film I can properly consume, but I found the source material! This is a long read but the translation looks decent from my quick skim. My highschool days of consuming (rather unhealthy amounts of) Turkic and Nordic epics prepared me for this.

Shamanic Elements in Hungarian Folk Tales – An Excerpt from Fairy Tale Therapy by Ildikó Boldizsár

Thought it would be useful read especially for Miraculous Hind, which seems to contain a lot of Shamanic elements from the looks of it.

Misc.

https://libguides.usc.edu/writingguide/researchproposal

A good source to give more information on how to write the Proposal parts. It’s bit more for natural sciences but hey, it helps.

https://www.awn.com/vfxworld/going-global-outsource-or-not-outsource

https://variety.com/2016/film/global/disney-sends-animation-projects-to-france-1201795423/

In the research, I kinda separate Animation Production and Content Creation, since outsourcing skews the numbers a little bit. An animation written and designed in the US yet largely outsourced in South Korea, is still a US production, since most the money and recognition stays in the US company.

Meanwhile, the state of the Proposal itself...

It has come up to a healthy amount. I have my Aims, Questions and Table of Contents fully typed and largely checked, and I am no longer worried about the wordcount.  Methodology needs a small addition regarding Hungarian history, and I am still writing my Background, which is turning out to be a monster with some of the proofs and issues related to my topic. Potential Outcomes is still staring at me in displease, in note form. Bibliography at the moment is bit small, though some additions are still waiting in my computer tabs, thinking if they are worthy of addition. With some other projects largely done and ready, I feel rather confident this will be done in time with proof-read.

[oykusuba2]

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Last week I did a bit of work on this animation. Krita is definitely not the most comfortable animation programme, but at least does the job.

There’s still bit of work in this, including;

More dynamic colouring for the drop of colour

Details for the jellyfish

More work on the waves (I kinda re-did them on Wednesday, since they looked bit unnatural with how I did the sketch)

Cleanup, since I did bit of a bad job on the sides and even on the fish.

And of course, bit of animation for the background (mostly just wavy colour lines, panning down to the next scene) 

Good headstart so far! I will not be able to work this week because I’m on a trip but I will continue next week, probably do the waves, cleanup and background mainly. I might leave the jellyfish for Norwich.

[oykusuba2]

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Final Showreel

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Weekly Summary #24

This week was a wrap-up before Easter.

For Research Report, put up my initial notes and outline in, ready to get drafted. I also asked for Library to bring the films I need. I found my books in e-book format, and found subtitled versions of two of my films (Feherlofia and Miraculous Hind) but Janos Vitez seems to be challenge. I suggested to contact Hungarian Film Achieve, so we are still trying.

For Collaboration, I drafted my rough animation twice, cleaned it up and only need to colour the backgrounds, effects and jellyfish at the moment. I will start colouring on Monday in Krita, a painting software that also does fairly okay animation. Since I already done the most important chunks, and the software seems to be doing PNG sequences as well, it should be easy to just colour and export everything for post-production. I plan to start post-production by the end of holidays, or at least get close to it.

For Branding, I am currently rendering my Showreel, fully done and finished! I already made the CV and only have bits of writerly problems within the website. Other than that, I’m pretty much done!

[oykusuba2]

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Today I did a bit of colouring done before we leave. 

For the rest of the colouring (the jelly-creature, waves, dropper and background) will be done in Krita. I showed it to our lecturer Millie, and she really liked the motion- which was my goal, and I feel great that I achieved it!

So general plan now, is to get colouring done before we come back from the break and maybe do a few post-production work when we come back.

[oykusuba2]

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Today I finished up my Cleanup Animation for my part of the Collab.

We decided to swap places with Alba, so I will discuss some colours with Josie tomorrow. Over the break, I will be animating with Krita, so I will do a few style tests for the waves.

I put my colours into a legend as well, so nothing will get lost hopefully.

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Cleanup Animation

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Style Frames and Colour Scripts

Today I made some style frames for our Art Director Alba to review and get feedback on. She really liked the colours and style but the sequence still has questions in terms of motion and general feel, since it feels similar to her sequence, which is right in front of mine. We are discussing how we will go about it.

The last frames are the waves, which I wasn’t sure if I want to line it and flat-colour it, or I want to use a very organic brush. That part need some tests and trials on both TVPaint and Krita.

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On Monday we had a meeting with the team, going through the animatic together. We realised my sequence was quite similar to Alba's, so today I made a new beginning to spice things up a bit. To me, it looks bit more direct and "literal" ("Films tend to extract colours") while there's more dynamic action. I quite dig it!

[oykusuba2]

Weekly Summary #23

This week I mostly did work on Collaboration and Personal Branding.

I am pretty much done with my website and showreel, which is ready to be sent to people around. I will just polish my showreel one last time and have some more feedback on my website and it should be it.

For Collaboration, we made our Animatics and put them together in temp voice, which allowed us to see everything all together. I did my rough animation with the temp voice, so hopefully it should work good. On Monday we will meet together to further discuss transitions, possible changes and more.

I also thought more about my Research Proposal. I think I’m almost there with my question. I simplified my focus to use Animation as a medium to explore national identity and made a case study of Marcell Jankovics’ work. This will also make the gathering of resources easier. This week I want to hit the library to help me find and get some Jankovics films and maybe even some books.

[oykusuba2]

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We did our temp sound on Friday, so we got to actually see how the animations play our with our quotes! For my case, the first part of the quote (up until “We elected..” was a lot longer than I expected, so I worked on how to enlongate that part, as well as turn the animatic into a more rough animation.

I am not a big fan of the very beginning and the part where the water-droplet-creature waits for the coloured drop. I want more of a drifting feeling for the beginning and make the waiting more alive than very static. I will do another pass on Monday, while also crack on cleaning up my style frames and solidify the colours with the Art Directors.

Hopefully for Easter, I will only have cleanup and colouring left, which would be awesome, since I won’t have much access to TVPaint, which is the most convenient and natural for me in terms of interface, which makes rough animation super fast and comfy. For cleanup and colour, I found Krita’s Animation feature to be useful, especially with the variety of brushes and the interface being a mesh of TVPaint and Flash- and allows the most layers among other free programmes. Hopefully I will get to have a working tablet (mine started to get busted after 6 years, bless it) and get a good progress over the Easter (while feasting on hometown food.)