#unitba2a

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Sequence 2:

This is my second sequence with sound! I debated quite a lot with this one for the sound design, because I didn’t know whether to add in more or leave it how it was originally (without the drag noises). But I decided to keep in the dragging noises, because it had a better feel to it, and it kind of takes it away that there’s no footstep sounds. I actually really like how these sequences are turning out with everything else added in - but for this one, you can see the slightest blue outline around Tamaa, and a little bit of blue shadow on the trees behind him - I played with colour balance a little on After Effects, but I couldn’t get it to fade in too greatly without it completely changing Tamaa into a luminous green and the mannequin bright orange. But overall I like it!

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Some references for the lip sync project, that I though would be cool to look at fro my reaction character, especially the 2nd to last row, as my character is frustrated most of the animation

high quality expression references with varied facial types

[amaranormananimations]

This is my walk cycle, but I tested out adding the light on Tamaa’s head in 2D. It comes in just in the middle, and slowly fades out as he turns his head to carry on his walk. I quite like it like this, I think I might make the light a little bigger, but I like it so far. I’m going to try and add it onto the rest of my animations, but also try and put some sound onto it as well as the background. 

[amaranormananimations]

Few photos showing the progress of my puppet over the last two weeks! I’ve begun sticking on the latex onto my model, but it’s proving to be a little troublesome. It’s not very stretchy, and it’s quite hard to grip and move around with the design of model. I think it would have been easier to have made a plasticine model of the body first, and then applied the latex so the body shape was already there for me, rather than making big sheets and then cutting them up. It’s going okay so far, and it’s a little bit patchy, but I reckon I could get it finished by my filming date - and Barry says not to worry it’ll work out!

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After going back on my previous research on sea mythologies, I went back onto my obsession with the angler fish. I just really like the idea, of having a dark character, using something so pretty like the ‘light bulb’ like flesh, luring something else in. So, still sticking to a water theme, I thought about having a water nymph-like character, with angler fish qualities. I think this idea might be a little better to animate, as it is a solid character, with legs, which would be better to animate in stop motion. 

I did some rough sketches of an angler fish, and then at the bottom, how the character could look with those kind of features. 

[amaranormananimations]

Narrative Strategies Notes

04/12/17

Fun facts!

Prostitution wasn’t legal, but it was rife.. 80,000 prostitues estimated in London

Heroin was given to children to keep them quiet, this resulted in severe illness/death

Victorians were a nation of drug takers

The average life expectancy was 38

In 1861 there were found to be 640 charities in London alone, mostly run by well-meaning middle class women

Victorians were able to enjoy a basic form of animation through parlour toys such as the Zoetrope

As we have seen: 

Victorian England was a place of strict religious morals

The social repression of ‘unacceptable’ desires didn’t eradicate those desires

Violation of the moral code could lead to social ruin

Women face an extra difficulty: the visible evidence of their wrongdoing

Re-cap of chapter 1: Story of the Door:

We meet Gabriel Utterson, a lawyer (non-judgmental by nature)

He’s out walking with a distant cousin, Mr Enfield, when they pass a shabby looking door

Enfield tells Utterson a story. On a black winter morning he saw a strange man run headlong into a little girl, knocking her to the ground and trampling over her body. 

As Enfield tels it, he grabbed hold of Hyde. The doctor arrived.

Even the women as wild as harpies wanted to kill Hyde.

Sawbones - slang term for a surgeon or physician

Since they couldn’t kill Hyde, they threatened instead to ruin his reputation.

Hyde entered the shabby door - and returned with some cash and a cheque signed by a respectable gentleman

Enfield didn’t trust him, so next day, after spending the night in Enfield’s chambers and breakfast together. They set off to the bank where the cheque proved to be genuine

Having heard this story, Utterson wonders if Enfield ever asked the respectable gentleman about the place with the door.

But the respectable gentleman is temporarily protected by moral delicacy

The chapter ends with a chastened Enfield: ‘I am ashamed of my long tongue’ (1999, p.34)

[amaranormananimations]

I did a few doodles of how I would like/think my character would look like for the lip sync. I tried to go for a sassy, high-string, middle aged woman, who knows what she’s about. Funnily enough, it all seems to be around the 1920s!? I’m still figuring out movement, and setting, I’m currently working on a small animated test of the character now, but this is what I have so far, in terms of design!

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Looking into colours and textures. I think greens are a good colour to go with. I wanted a kind of scaly/warts like skin texture, so I played around with different brush tools on photoshop. Again, don’t think these are the final colours, just something to have a little play with. But I do quite like this design. 

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Okay - so this animation only lasts 3 seconds, I managed to shorten it a little, thinking about my timing in for the official motion graphic itself. Here, I managed to get the whole image to shatter, rather than just a section of it. Unfortunately, some parts of the glass is left on the screen in the corners, but I am working on how to fix that! 

I think it’s progress from the last though! I used the asset I would be using in the official motion graphic, just to get a feel of how it would look, and I’m pretty proud of it for a after effects beginner! :)

I still need to work on slowing down the shatter of the glass, just so it flows nicer, and goes well with my audio.

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Our final animatic! This is our animatic of our adaptation on Snow White. It has our final recording on there, but it does run a little late in some places. But we think it goes really well so far.

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Looking at the stepmother’s design when she turns into an evil bird/vulture/crow like figure - thought I could get some inspiration from Howl’s Moving Castle. Howl is a wizard, that shape-shifts into this giant bird, and since the step mum does the same I thought it would be quite cool to look at the design and get some general ideas on how to form the stepmother! We agreed as a group we’d like to keep a hunchback kind of character, with long spindly fingers - since Howl’s posses all of those, he was a great example to look at! I like how he still has some human features to him (head, hands) rather than fully becoming a bird. 

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Did a little concept art last night for the bestiary project. I thought about the placement of my character, and thought it would lurking about in dark settings/woods/swamps, following it’s next victim. The set isn’t very swampy colours, but I really liked the dark misty contrast with the green of my character. I really need to think of a name for it!

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Lip sync reel

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Bestiary project reel!

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Some helpful tips on how to write Unreliable Narrators! This was super helpful understanding the Unreliable Narrators trope, and how I could improve my story on these simple 8 tips!

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EXAMPLES OF THE UNRELIABLE NARRATOR

UNINTETIONABLE 

The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger

To Kill a Mockingbird  - Harper Lee

INTENTIONABLE

 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

 The Tell-Tale Heart -  Edgar Allan Poe

The Girl on the Train - Paula Hawkins

We Were Liars - Emily Jenkins

These are a few examples of books that use the Unreliable Narrator trope! It was cool to see some examples of books that used the trope in their writing, it was helpful to look at writing styles and why the author’s chose to write this way.