Animation Context Essay Development #3

This is the segment of the final product for this module that I was most excited for completing, as I enjoy graphic design and we had an opportunity to design our own magazine spread consisting of the article which we have written. Although, I was hesitant at first as I am going to be using a program which is completely foreign to me, which is 'InDesign', fortunately though, it's controls and commands are very similar to a program I am much more competent with, 'Photoshop'. 

During one of Johny's sessions, we were taught about guidelines which nearly all professional magazine abide by, which consists of three columns, accompanied by a unspecified number of rows, but typically between 5-7. In the areas that these guides provide (minus the typically 3mm margin gap), text, titles, images and negative space can be inserted, which can spread out vertically, horizontally or both to occupy connecting squares with the same content. Rarely should anything overlap into already occupied areas and text and imagery should typically fill out the spaces that they're occupying. I have found a very helpful image from google which lists a lot of possible compositions for magazine pages utilising this grid.

I really like these setups, and I wish I would have known about these margins before, as they would have saved me a lot of time because I wouldn't have to fiddle around with size and composition in order to find the ideal look as I would have the guides supplied for me, making me a much more efficient worker. Also, due to the fact that the same grids can be applied to every page within a multi-page layout, it will be easy to maintain the same style and format throughout the entire piece of work, therefore giving a sense of cohesivity. These guides are also meant to assure the pages don't become cluttered and therefore irritating and unappealing to read. I have put this to the test by looking at an example of a page from an old magazine which I used to follow monthly and an article regarding a singer I like in order to see if they too follow this system.

Page from 'Playstation Official Magazine UK'

Page from a magazine with a feature about Avril Lavigne

It comes to no shock to me that both these examples follow the grid system, both having three columns which text run down and imagery lined up when them. It's interesting to note that both these examples have one side of the double page spread consisting nearly entirely of a singular photo of the subject that they are focusing on, this may because they are the on of the central features within their respective magazines, therefore they draw out their content.

Though I knew how to layout my magazine pages, I still hadn't decided upon a style or colour scheme. As my illustration style is reminiscent of 'The Ricky Gervais Show', when designing graphical projects I typically use a colour scheme, style and font which accompanies it well and is similarly used in promotional material for 'The Ricky Gervais Show'. So as I am so used to this style, I decided to incorporate it into my magazine design, however it wasn't until I made the title, subtitle and background that I realised many problems with the design and why it wouldn't be suitable in this context.

My first draft of the front page, without the imagery

After looking at this design from afar, I realise that its not as eye catching as I intended it to be, as I feel I need to opt for a more bold typeface and colour scheme, as this is too fancy and cartoony which is fine when accompanying small pieces of text and imagery, but not for an entire essay. Due to the fact that a stylised square is used as a backdrop for the feature text, in order to ensure consistency in terms of design I would have to implement this across all text within the article, which would interfere with the grid system, and as I am still new to this program and the grid system, I don't want to get too experimental with the composition.

This was when I decided to look towards the internet for inspiration. One of the main topics covered in my essay is South Park, and it was the driving force behind making me want to select this topic, so I decided to have a look at their official website to see if I could take any inspiration in terms of design and layout.

Screenshot of the South Park Studios home page

A test title page to experiment with new style

Though I feel this page has little to be desired in terms of layout and composition, I admire the style and design, as I feel it communicates South Park perfectly, as it is bold, clear and 'in-your-face', just like the content of the show itself. It was as this point that I then decided to take this design and colour scheme, and implement it into a much more simple layout, using the examples that I shown earlier in this post. I was satisfied with this style, the only alteration I wanted to make to it was the background, as I didn't like the idea of the magazine being printed onto black, because unappealing white boarders would have inadvertently been made around the sides of each page when printing off the magazine, as I am unable to carry out professional printing methods, and I feel as though the imagery would stand out more against a white background. This meant the colour scheme had to be altered, as yellow doesn't stand out when put against white. Now that I am sorted on my design, I can now start producing the final product.

Page one (spelling error on title is fixed on hand in)

Pages two and three

Pages four and five 

Page 6

There were things which I tried my best to ensure whilst design this layout, which were;
- I wanted the quotes from other sources that I found to be the most relevant and supporting of my piece to be enlarged, in order for people to gain interest to read on after reading that key bit of text.
- I wanted imagery so align up to the segments of the text where the subject matter of the image is referenced, therefore reducing the need of long captions and making it easier for the observers to be lead towards an image regarding what they have just read.
- I wanted there to be a range of different sizes of images, in order to draw attention to more important images
- The title page I wanted to be simple, consisting of only one large title, one large and one small photo and a written brief outline of what the essay is about. This was inspired by my reference material.
- As I mentioned in my second essay development post, each paragraph of my essay covers a reliant but different area of the subject matter, that's why I felt it would be beneficial to place a sub-heading in the same style as the main title when a new topic is brought up, so people looking for a specific criteria can easily locate it.
- I wanted everything to be condensed equally, with as little negative space as possible, as I feel that this would accompany the bold, condensed typeface used for the titles perfectly. This is also the reason why I selected to have text alignment set to 'justify'.
- I ensured never to stretch text across all three columns, as it is unpleasant for the viewer to read as the eyes have to be lead all the way across the page.

I feel that all these qualities were maintained which I am very happy about, however after looking over the piece, I have noticed some issues:
- The font size I started off was perhaps too large, which caused me to have to make a lot of pages as the were required in order to contain all the text. The reason as to why I didn't go back and alter the size of the text later, was because it was already aligned well with supporting imagery, therefore resizing would mean having to re-evaluate the composition which I worked hard to perfect. I wanted the text to stay at a consistent size throughout (with the exception of titles and quotes).
- Though at first being hesitant to include anything other than a white background, I now feel as though I should have added some visual addition to the background, even if it's faint. This would give the article more of a personality and identity aside from its font and format.
- I found there to be too many instances where words are hyphenated as they're cut off and followed in the following line. This irritates me when reading, but unfortunately I did not discover how to prevent this process.

Regardless of these issues, the design of the article presents the essay clearly and effectively, whilst adding more to it for the form of visuals, which is exactly what I set out to do. For a first time beginner on InDesign I am very happy with the progress I have made, and due to how easily I found composing each page later in the process, I'll definitely take these teachings further and become more competent at InDesign, in order to ensure I prevent the issues that I had with this article next time I use InDesign for a similar purpose.

Animation Context Essay Development #2

After feedback from my statement of intent from Johny, I was happy that he liked the idea, as it makes me think I made the right decision by ditching my first two initial ideas. This now meant that I could make a start on the research and start writing the essay.

Due to the fact that this is my first ever academic essay, I wanted to assure that I got Harvard referencing right, at first I relied on a website which would automatically generate references for my text, however I soon realised that this wasn't entirely accurate and kept supplying incorrect information regarding the source material, so I instead felt I needed to teach myself how to Harvard reference. This was done through using a referencing handbook PDF on blackboard. In order to quickly find information on how to reference a specific source type, I would use the Ctrl+F shortcut to search for a segment in the text which refers to a specific word, for example, when wondering how to reference a website, I would search for 'Website'. This proved to be a much more efficient manor, as not only can I control the information provided, thus assuring no mistakes are made, but it also teaches me how to do it again for a future essay, and I now feel confident that I can do so without the need of an online guide.

The newest series of South Park had a very mixed reception, meaning that it was sometimes hard to back up my claims that this format of storytelling is not beneficial for animation with sources. This meant that the essay ended up being a lot more neutral than I was expecting, but I still managed to provide an overview my thoughts successfully towards the end. However, it wasn't an issue to find sources which back up the fact that serialised shows are becoming more of a normality, as many sources suggested this. I didn't want the essay to be made up of entirely of secondary sources, so I carried out some semi-primary research myself, I did this by looking through what the most popular TV shows were in 2016, and then compared them to popular TV shows in 1997, and whilst the top 5 shows of 1997 are all episodic shows, 2016's most popular shows are almost all serialised. By carrying out this research myself, it indirectly lead me onto a topic which ended up becoming a central focus of the entire essay, which was the influence of technology and the emergence of Netflix and how that is a huge factor in the change in structure of modern TV shows. 

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to gather as many sources outside of the internet to include within my essay, this may be because I am dealing with very recent topics and therefore haven't been translated much into less modern mediums such as books. There was one book however that I found very useful, it was focused around primarily around aging in TV shows, and therefore touches up often on serialisation. The book was called 'Serializing Age' by Anita Wohlmann and Maricel Oro-Piquears.

'Serializing Age' by Anita Wohlmann and Maricel Oro-Piquears

I feel like I managed to structure the essay very well, focusing on a new but connected area each paragraph, and I managed to cover every question and area that I set out to research in my statment of intent. However, I found that a lot of content had to be cut due to the word count, as I also included a regarding how serialised shows compare to episodic shows when applied to Todorov's narrative theory, which states that all stories go through five separate stages; equilibrium, disruption of equilibrium, recognition of  disorder, attempt the restore equilibrium and finally a new equilibrium is created. I shown how not all serialised shows manage to cover all stages of this theory in a singular episode, and instead rely on covering stages in later episodes or even seasons. I cut this out in favour of the rest of the article, as it didn't add much to my argument and wasn't needed for the audience to know what serialisation is.

Overall, I am very happy with how my essay has turned out, as I have learnt a lot about a subject which I knew very little about, learnt how to Harvard reference, and think I have produced a good discussion. However, next time I have to select a topic to research, I will before proceeding with it, make sure that there is a lot of source material from a ranges of mediums to back up the information I collect, as I feel I was lacking in this compartment in this instance. The next step is to display this as a magazine cover, and as someone who has studied graphic design, I am anticipating what I can create. 

Animation Context Essay Development #1

In 'Animation Context', we have been set our brief, which is to write a 1500 word essay on any topic regarding animation, and then present it in the form of a magazine article. At first, I thought that I would continue and expand on the work that I started earlier in this module when I decided to look into 'storyboarding', as I enjoyed researching about an essential part of the process of animation, and thought I'd be able to delve deeper into how they originated and what makes the best storyboard. 

However, it was not long before I scrapped this idea for the following reasons; due to the fact that I am writing an essay, I would find it hard to talk about a process which is primarily reliant on visuals, in a written format, as a topic such as this would benefit greatly from some visual references. I realise that I could include images in the magazine design, but I don't want the essay to only make sense in that format, as it would mean having to plan the design before writing the essay itself. I am slightly disappointed I wasn't able to continue my research that I started much earlier in the module, especially considering that I am working with storyboards with other current projects, but I feel this gives me an opportunity to research into a much more obscure topic of animation. Myself and a lot of the intended audience for this article will already have a basic understanding of 'storyboarding', therefore I think it would be more interesting for myself and my audience to delve into a new topic which I have never heard of before. 

Previously in this module, we were shown a video about how Stephen Spielberg portrayed the terror of war through in his film ‘Saving Private Ryan’, and that lead me onto a video which sparked my own interest, which was regarding how my favorite director 'Edgar Wright' uses visual comedy in his work (shown below). Because of this video, I have been fascinated with this style of comedy, and had caused me to seek out movies which utilise this, such as 'Scott Pilgrim V.S The World'. Due to my current fascination with this topic, and growing inspiration to create similar work, I found it to be an ideal idea to cover it in my animation context essay. I decided to call the title of this essay, 'Visual comedy in Film and animation, regarding director Edgar Wright, 2017'. During the essay, I planned to cover such topics as why Edgar's work is so effective, the specific techniques used, audience reception, similar examples, and how these techniques could potentially be applied to animation.

Poster for 'Shaun of the Dead', my favorite piece of work from Edgar Wright

However, this was where I considered the limitations that would erupt whilst writing this essay would erupt. I would say a large limitation in this work is the lack of modern comedy films and animations which I have consumed, due to my preference of older comedies, therefore it may be difficult to compare these techniques from how recent comedies are animated. Another issue is that comedy is extremely subjective, therefore it may be hard to express something that I think conveys humour well with others who do not share the same view. There was also a lack of source material outside of the internet, as most books I found after looking on Amazon and the library either were regarding visual comedy in terms of slapstick and performance, not through editing, or talk about the psychology behind comedy. The only decent book I found was a book called 'comedy for animators', which may have helped me when it came to discussing how these techniques could be applied to animation, but even then its relevant to the style of comedy Edgar Wright communicates. There was also the issue which I ran into when talking about my original 'storyboarding' idea, which is that I am again talking about a topic that is highly visual, therefore would be hard to talk about what I mean in an essay.

I was gutted I had to abandon this idea, as I was really passionate about this topic. This got me thinking about what else I am passionate about in regards to animation, and at the time the 20th season of South Park was coming to a close, and being a huge fan of that show for years, I was severely disappointed with this newest season. I didn't want the essay to just be a review regarding the downfall of one of my most beloved shows though, because some people liked this newest season. I instead decided to look into the reason why I didn't like this new season, which was the format that it adopted, after some very basic research, I found out that the newest South Park season has been made into what is known as a 'serialised' show, meaning that story-lines are spread across a whole season or more of a television show, as appose to having a self contained story within a singular episode. I think this ruined this latest series for me, as instead of providing weekly satire about current events, South Park opted to focus on one singular story which never held much interest for me.

Banner for the 20th Season of South Park

Instead of focusing on South Park, although I will definitely address it within the essay as it's the driving force behind the essay, I want to instead discuss serialisation as a whole, and why it has become so much more popular in recent years' TV shows. So during my essay, I plan to cover such topics as; the origins of serialised shows, technology's impact on these shows, how audiences react and if these trends are also going to be adopted by more animated shows. I am very pleased with what I have selected as my topic, as I have a strong argument behind the piece, it relates to animation and its a topic obsure enough that I think it would garner attention. 

One thing I will have to be aware of whilst creating this essay however, is not to let my own views and opinions on the subject matter become so evident when writing, as in an essay I have learnt that you have to talk subjectively, and only really express your feelings in the conclusion towards the end, everything else has to be backed up by sources or talking about the topic generally. It may be difficult to find sources which entirely back up my points, but I feel there will be enough content out there from books and the internet to satisfy me. After settling on this idea, I wrote my statement of intent - 

Civilisations Impact on Serialisation in Film and Animation, 2017

I have decided to choose this topic, as I am fascinated by the way in which many modern television shows are shifting their format into a more serialised manor. I am aware that serialised shows are shows which follow main story arcs which span throughout television series, such as with the format of most soap operas. However, I want to investigate why television shows are deciding to go down this route and how audiences respond to this. My curiosity was first aroused by this topic after following the recent seasons of ‘South Park’, as they were once an animated show which followed a single-story path per episode such as what is seen within ‘The Simpsons’, however they have shifted to this new popular serialised style.

Works of others which may assist my research include – South Park (TV Series), The Simpsons (TV Series), Coronation Street (TV Soup Drama), Adventure Time (TV series), Inside Number 9 (TV Series), The Perils of Pauline (1914 serial), A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873 Novel), Serializing Age Aging & Old Age in TV Series (Book), Serialization in Popular Culture (Book)

I would say that my main limitation in this work is the lack of modern live action television which I have consumed, due to my preference of older shows, therefore it may be difficult to compare this format from how recent shows are shot and broadcast, however I feel as though I could still gain a wide enough understanding through research. Another limitation that could affect my research is that many of the modern TV shows that are only recently adopting this style (such as South Park) are still in an experimental phase, so it may be difficult to gather reliable information on how this has effected rating and audience reception, which is why I feel as though I will have to rely on older sources in the forms of books and novels to gain a better understanding.

In order to get this piece completed by the deadline, I will have to gather all of my major resources within the next couple of weeks, allowing me to get all the information and notes required, and make a mock up before the Easter holiday. This will allow me to write the final piece over the holidays and present it in the required format when we arrive back.

The Making of Project #3 (Part 2)

Our team arranged to meet up so we could all combine our individual footage together and form the making of video. I was very satisfied with the diversity seen in the other members' work, as we all seemed to go in different directions in what visual input we decided to put to our audio, which I think will make the making of video be a lot more entertaining as it shows show each of us tackle tasks differently, and how we have used that to our advantage. One of the concerns that I had with my addition to our project, was that I wasn't able to get the humour which I tend to incorporate into most my works, so I was very satisfied when I saw Rowena's clip had a lot of humorous visuals implemented over the clip of us explaining how everything went wrong. Dale's 3D animation was a very essential addition as it offers a huge variance in what me and Rowena had to offer.

Us editing the making of video on After Effects

The main goal of this session was to see how well our animations linked together, and make what we can of the making of, making note of any additional work which needed to carried out for the final product. Because of the fact that we went off to do our own thing for the project, we thought it was important to contribute to the making of video together, so that it is a reflection of all our work, not just one of us assessing, ordering and presenting the other members' work. I am very happy that I was able to do so this time, as due to communication issues in my previous project, I feel as though I wasn't able to fully gather my other team member's thoughts and opinions on how to make the making of video, therefore making the video not get the full story in terms of the thought processes and production methods of both members. After a while of editing, we made a basic outline of how we wished the video to play out, however this was when we noticed the issue, which was the camera cutting out when we got to the part of the video, where we discuss what each of us regards as an outsider.

We couldn't afford to loose this part of the discussion, as it was an essential part of the brief and caused us a lot of issues so it was without a doubt needed to be addressed in the making of. As the audio was still in tact, I opted to add another visual addition to the piece to occupy the place where the video would have gone. From the previous exercise in this project, I realised how much enjoyment I got out of producing caricatures, so I decided to draw each of the team members as whatever the perceive an outsider to be.

My illustration for my definition of an outsider

I started off with mine. An outsider means to me someone who has views and experiences different from my own. I chose to represent this through me staring curiously at someone from a third-world country, who is also staring curiously back at me. I drew this because I would have had a completely different life than a subject such as this, and observers will be able to gather this by nothing more than the designs of the characters.

My illustration for Rowena's definition of an outsider

For Rowena's definition, she thought of an outsider as someone who is simply an outcast. For this one, I took into deep consideration lighting and the effect it would have on the piece. Whereas on my initial illustration, very vibrant colours were used as I intended it to be light-hearted, in this instance I made use of darkened shadows and shading to emphasize the loneliness of the Rowena in the foreground, with the light originating from the silhouettes of the people in the background, thus representing that they're on the lighter side. Not only did I draw Rowena excluded from the group to show her definition of an outsider, but I also altered  her posture so that it is more of a closed expression by having her grip her arm, thus showing that her definition of an outsider would typically be shy and reserved.

My illustration for Dale's definition of an outsider

As Dale lacked a speaking role in the section that I animated, a caricature of him wasn't created, therefore I had to draw one specifically for this drawing, which as I stated earlier, I enjoy doing. Dale thought of an outsider as someone who is not directly connected to the story, so for his drawing, I drew him reading out loud from a look, therefore he is simply retelling an already established story. I included a reference to his initial idea on the front of the book that he is reading.

I never thought I would have said this, but I am happy that part of the video was cut off, because if it hadn't, I think that we would have been satisfied with leaving the video of us talking to run through this entire segment, thus resulting in a much less inspired making of video, plus I got the opportunity to practice more with caricatures. Rowena also added a segment of typography animation of us all stressing after realising the video stopped recording, providing yet another alternative to the video footage.

After all the work necessary was completed, the video was then finalised and rendered, the result of which was be viewed below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YlUQx3YJZ8&feature=youtu.be

I aren't pleased with the fact that we were unable to produce a product which would stand alone outside of the making of video, as in the past two projects in this 'making of' module, I have produced outcomes which can be enjoyed without the need of understanding the context and watching it in a making of video. Due to the non-scripted audio, I feel that at time we all don't manage to clearly communicate out point as effectively, so although some improvisational dialogue may be effective when showing ideas being generated, sometimes a scripted explanation will communicate better to the audience. 

Saying this however, it was very refreshing to make a 'making of' video in a different style than what was utilised in my previous two, as I already feel that due to the feedback on my initial video, the following, second making of video communicated very effectively the process of designing and manufacturing the product, so learning a new way to communicate this process would be a beneficial experience. This links me back to the 'map making' tasks at the start of the module, as there we explored alternative ways of communicating a journey, just like what I have done in this most recent making of. The video itself, I feel is a lot more interesting than the previous two making ofs, despite it being less informative, which is most likely due to it's experimental and playful nature, which forms what I find to be a very entertaining five minutes. Contrary to what I thought, all our different styles worked together well, and opened an insight into our styles for the audience, but it's just a shame all our animations (which turned out brilliantly) cannot be enjoyed outside of this context of 'making of', but at least it has helped us develop our skills. I feel like my team have very effectively worked around our initial issue of not understanding the brief, which I am very happy about. 

Overall, I am satisfied with the film that my team managed to make, and think we have all worked equally and fairly on it, with easy communication to one another making discussion a lot more effective. Despite all the negatives I have mentioned, this has been an experience in following a specific brief, problem solving, teamwork and of course animation. Next time, I will ensure to read the brief carefully before selecting it, and try and make a product which can be universally enjoyed.

Final Update on 'Ongoing Project'

The reason as to why I haven't been continuously updating my blog about the ongoing project is because I was unfortunately unable to keep to my plan of producing a caricature a day in the style of the Simpsons, due to the time that each drawing takes me. I am devastated that I didn't pick a more manageable daily task, therefore resulting in a larger scale, though most likely less polished end piece. This process has taught me to think through a project such as this to see if it would have been manageable along with all the other work I have been set.

Though I am pleased to report that this isn't to only learning that I have taken during this topic, as comparing my first attempts at Simpsons caricatures to my latest shows clear progression, and I have learnt a lot about the design behind the Simpsons characters, a lot of which has been gained through criticism on my 'Simpsons Celebrity Caricatures' page on Facebook, which has also grown exponentially in scale and popularity thanks to this project.

Below is an example of an early attempt compared to a much more recent attempt. I picked these two as they have a similar violent premise. The one on the left includes Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson from the BBC comedy 'Bottom', and the one on the left is Basil Fawlty and Manuel from another BBC comedy, 'Fawlty Towers'. The accuracy of the body postures has clearly improved, as the body on Rik especially seems very wavy and inaccurate, which isn't what 'The Simpsons' drawings aim for, whereas the more recent drawing shows a much more representational though still cartoony design. Speaking of cartoony, the expressions are also now more reminiscent of the cartoony expressive designs of the Simpsons. The expression on Ade in the left picture was simply traced over an already excising Simpsons screenshot, therefore limiting the ability for others to recognise who the caricature is, whereas on the more recent drawing, I have simply adopted certain quirks of Simpson expressions and combined them with a much more recognisable and appealing caricature. Other things I have noted on improving are use of shading and body proportions.

(Left) Old drawing of Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson (Right) Recent drawing of Basil Fawlty and Manuel

One of my proudest achievements during this topic, was my drawings of the two main characters in each film from my favorite film trilogy, the 'Cornetto' trilogy.

The 'Cornetto' trilogy Simpsons Caricatures

I am incredibly impressed with the growth of my Facebook page, and I know that without this project, this page would have never got to this scale and would likely have been discarded and forgotten about. I will continue to add to this page in my spare time, as this project has shown me how rewarding and helpful running this page can become. Below I have included a current screenshot of the Facebook page, with it amassing nearly 3k followers, which as shown on the graph also included below, has grown from the 1359 followers that I had when I started this project back on the 17th November, meaning I've more than doubled my audience.

Screenshot of the 'Simpsons Celebrity Caricatures' page on Facebook

Graph showing the growth of followers on my page

As for actually presenting all my caricatures, I didn't want to stick them in a sketchbook, because due to the fact that they were all produced digitally, I was able to group them together in one big illustration, unifying all my work through this project into one, large scale product. This will also be more entertaining for people to spot out any people they can recognise, as with a lack of names accompanying each character, it will be only the drawings themselves which communicate who they are. As I stated in a previous 'ongoing project' update, I have also included two characters from 'The Simpsons' in an alternate style, providing a 'Where's Wally' type effect. I printed the final illustration on an A1 sized foam-board, in order to present it at a large scale and gain a full view of each drawing. After getting over my initial disappointment of not keeping up daily with this project, I am still impressed with the outcome, as it shows a clear progression in style, accuracy and management.

The final digital product

The final printed product

Short Story - Stop Motion

I was very excited when I found out about this exercise as it gave me a chance to be creative again such as I was with with the 'Block Interaction' in Animation 101, as I wasn't simply following an already established movement or principal, and instead was creating my own narrative. From the titles available I selected 'Dental Pain', as I felt it would be interesting to see how I could give the armature a nervous expression though it's actions and postures. 

The idea I had in mind was to have the armature worryingly pace about before impatiently sitting down waiting for his name to be called to see the dentist, followed by him/her praying pleadingly and shaking it's head disapprovingly after hearing a drill go off in the distance, ending with the armature look up as a dental nurse comes out and finally jumping out of his seat in shock as it hears it's name. 

I acted out what I had in mind myself which can be seen above, but unlike all the other video reference material, this was mainly used to analyse how a nervous mood would effect a persons movements, as well as getting a general idea of timings. I didn't feel the need to research about a specific cycle or principal this time, as I saw this exercise as a combination of all my learnings from the previous stop motion exercises, as I have it start off with a walk cycle, followed by a sit down, with the rest being emotions following other emotions, so from this I realise how essential those other animations were as they are all often typically applied within animation. From this video reference material, I drew up a bar sheet.

Bar Sheet Scan

I decided to instead produce this bar sheet with hand drawn illustrations as appose to digital illustrations, the reason being that I would be able to be more free with drawing the motions that I require, and as I've learnt from my previous bar sheets, digitally tracing around certain points from the reference material often resulted in the illustrations being although accurate somewhat unclear, so I though it would have been more beneficial to draw them as I want the armature positioned. Several elements were altered from this plan to the final animation which I will bring up later. As I am already familiarised with the walk cycle, I listed each key pose instead of illustrating them under the frame I wish them to appear. 

https://vimeo.com/217222527

This is the final result and I am very satisfied with how it turned out, although there are some minor quibbles which I will assure not to include in any similar animation in the future. I had never animated anything walking in anything else other than a straight line, so I was very pleased with how convincing and accurate I managed to animate the armature walking around aimlessly in a circle, the only thing I had to keep in mind, was that once the foot contacts the ground, it shouldn't move until it's lifted up, and the body tends to start turning before the legs. The pacing I feel was very well done, as it's got enough pauses and rests that the movement feels natural, but not too much that the activity looses that nervous and panicky feel. However, the things which I was not impressed with are as follows;

- I wanted to add a little bit of humour in the animation, which I tried to do by making the armature jump out of its seat at the end, however I feel that it may have come off as overly cartoony, which would have been fine if the rest of the animation were in a similar style, which it was not.

- Due to me slightly adjusting the path of the armature's wander whilst in production, it didn't reach the seat in timing, meaning I had to improvise the armature reaching out to the seat and pulling it closer, which turned out to be fairly decently animated, but I would have preferred for him to sit at his seat more naturally 

- The story wasn't entirely clear to the people who were shown this animation without the title, therefore next time I will ensure to add a few more clues into the performance about the context of the situation

Despite this, I am still satisfied to have this as my final short story, as I feel it communicates the emotion of the armature in this situation well.

Run & Jump - Maya

For this animation, I gathered as much primary and secondary research as possible, as I am unfamiliar with animating running and jumping. As images which present illustrations of key poses of a walk assisted me well with my walking animations, I collected the same with the run. 

Secondary Source

From this material, I have gathered some noteworthy elements of this cycle that I will have to keep in mind when animating the run;

- The 'up' and 'down' poses appear to be a lot less extreme as they are in the walk, as the head stays relatively level compared to the walk

- Both feet are never seen on the ground within the same frame

- Body is more forward facing than it is on the walk

- Arm swings are more noticeable

Secondary Source

This is some secondary material which I found for the jump aspect for the animation. However, there are several reasons as to why I feel this material would not be suitable for this animation, one of which is that is very cartoony, therefore may look out of place if the run isn't animated in the same style. This will still help me in ensuring that I include a variation of each pose however. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any drawn and decent material which chains a run and a jump together, and although I found plenty of illustrations regarding the key poses of a jump, they mostly started with both feet on the ground, therefore it would be complicated to chain these two movements together, so this is where I had to refer to video reference material.

Here is a video which I captured myself, I found it interesting how different this jump looks as appose to the drawn jump I shown earlier, so I decided to gather some more secondary reference material from YouTube.

Along with this secondary and my primary research, I produced a bar sheet.

Bar Sheet scan

This was my first attempt at this exercise in Maya, and although I found the run fairly simple to accurately portray, the jump I found to be very difficult to make, which was most likely due to the lack of drawn secondary material to use as reference, the arms were especially problematic, as they often appeared as though they stayed perfectly still in the air whilst the body moved on. Though on the whole I was satisfied that I make Buckid perform a moderately accurate a run and jump, being especially pleased with the foot movements and utilisation of the anticipation and follow-through animation principals, there were still several things that I think needed a touch up in a updated version, these being;

-  For the run leading up to the jump, the jump seems relatively weak, as Buckid should travel further and higher, though I was hesitant to do so as I didn't want the action coming off as overly cartoony

- As I used the same number of keyframes separating each key pose as I did in the walk cycle, the run looks very 'floaty' and slow

- As I have previously mentioned, the arm movements seem unnatural

For these reasons I have decided to remake this animation.

https://vimeo.com/217222101

This is the updated version, and I am happy that I have successfully fixed all the complaints that I had with my previous version, and also added a few more subtle quirks and additions. The speed of the run was very easy to amend, as all I have to do was shorten the amount of frames between each key pose. The height and length of the jump however, was very difficult to fix, as each keyframe for the feet after Buckid's initial contact with the ground had to be altered as they each had to be positioned further than they were initially. I also experimented with some 'squash and stretch', which can be seen on Buckids head before and after he sets off for the jump, and his expression towards the end, which adds a very subtle yet expressive sense of character. Overall, I am very happy with this outcome, and had the most fun making it out of all my past Maya exercises due to its dynamic nature.

Push and Pull - Stop Motion

Before perfecting my walk cycle, I first wanted to attempt some other one of the exercises. Below is the Primary resource which material which I used for my 'Push and Pull' animation, I acted it out myself whilst recording it, I assured not to make the same mistakes as I have previously done in my primary material in the following two ways;
- By having the camera positioned so that I am the direct approach as appose to a low angle such as seen within my 'sneak' primary material, thus making it easier to determine my posture
- By having my full body in view, especially feet, as it was essential to see how the force of the body affect the positioning and movement of the feet, something that wasn't captured in my 'Emotion to Emotion' piece.
I am satisfied with this source material and along with the bar sheets I think it should be enough to produce a good animation from.

Below is the bar sheet which I created with reference from my source material. The pacing is relatively the same as is seen in the video, however certain movements and postures are greatly exaggerated in the diagrams on this bar sheet, this was due to the fact I couldn't exaggerate many of my action whilst recording them due to the cramped space, and I really wanted to have a clear representation of what position I want the armature to be in when it came to animating. Due to past experiences in the stop motion room, I decided it would be best if I put the push and pull into separate animations created within separate sessions, the reason being that I often panic about the amount of time I have left, therefore am more likely to rush the last lot of frames within the animation. By doing this I am assuring that I can remain all focus onto either the push or the pull, and work on perfecting them instead of worrying about time, hence why the bar sheet provided only shows the 'pushing' aspect of the animation. 

https://vimeo.com/216015313

This is the final result. As you can see a lot changed in-between the planning and production phases, as the final animation features both the push and pull, contrary to what was planned. This was improvised whilst animating, as the moment when the armature grips the object was meant to be followed by a push, but I tried to incorporate the animation principal known as 'Anticipation' before the armature pushes against the object by pulling itself back in order to gain more momentum and force, as observed from my primary material. However, I felt that I went overboard with this principal, resulting in the armature appearing as though it is pulling the object, so instead of restarting, I decided to run with this by having the armature's arch away from the object extended and becoming slower and slower as the arms stretch further and further out, thus showing strain as it attempts to pull it. The video reference material was very useful at this point. 

This improvisation resulted in both a positive and negative, the positive being that the push and pull are both successfully chained together, resulting in more of a natural progression. The negative on the other hand, is that the 'push' aspect of the animation isn't as expanded on as much as I intended to be. I am very satisfied with the initial push thanks to the 'follow-through' of the body as the hand stays stationary against the object, showing that the armature was unaware of the weight of the object, resulting in the body falling through, as acted out in my source material. Despite this, there is no further progression in the force of the push, as the armature isn't seen going into the push with more force by changing its posture and using both hands, and instead goes straight into the pull. Regardless, I still feel enough force, effort and reaction is shown in what I animated of the push that I am satisfied with it.

My main concern when going in to animate his was the position of the hand as it is either resting or pulling against the imaginary object, as if it moves position at all, the illusion that the object stays stationary will be ruined. As I did previously with other animations, this was heavily assisted via the 'onion skinning' feature, however as subtle movements may built up overtime, the hand may move ever so slightly, but still enough to ruin the effect, which is why I decided to mark the position of the imaginary object by gently sticking a sticky note on the monitor, therefore I will always have reference for where the object would be.

I wanted the armature to succeed in moving the object in his much more forceful second pull. The forcefulness was shown through a faster speed in the beginning of the pull by using fewer frames, which leads to a more noticeable slow down as the strain begins, and also more anticipation. The second pull ends with the hands coming closer to the body, making the armature step backwards as the object hypothetically is moved closer towards it, clearly showing that the armature has succeeded in it's attempts.

Overall, I am very satisfied with the final result, the only complaint being the lack of push development, therefore next time I will think carefully about whether or not I am over-exaggerating an anticipation effect, thus not having to improvise where to take my animation next. But this animation process has shown me that even if things do go wrong during the process, sometimes running with the mistake could create some interesting and successful results.

Update on Making of Project #3

In order to become further familiarised with team based projects, for the next making of project I was paired with two other individuals. Unlike the previous two projects, this time my team was faced with a specific brief, though it was very familiar to what I have done previously, as we had to obtain and record our own 'Outsider Story' and then provide a visual addition to it. Though at first misinterpreting the brief, mistakenly thinking we could animate any pre-recorded story as I have previously done in this module, I still was highly anticipating tackling this brief after realising we had to obtain the recording ourselves, as it gave me a chance to try something new, an area of production which I have yet to explore in this module. It also well allows us to make something that is entirely the project of my team, as although I was still proud of the work I've created previously in this topic both myself and collaboratively, as I didn't create the audio I never had the feeling that it was entirely mine or my teams creation.

After getting a full understanding of the brief, there was one idea which stood out to me a lot. I have been watching a lot of the BBC television series 'Would I Lie to You?' recently, and I find the format of that show so entertaining that I wished to create one myself, but using people that I know personally. The idea I had in mind, was gathering three students from my animation course (therefore giving the show a theme) and task them to write down an amusing truth about themselves on a piece of paper, and mix it in with a written lie which will be fabricated by my team, then record the outcomes as each of them as they unknowingly pick up either their lie or their truth, and have to convince the others its the truth regardless of whether or not it is. This would have hopefully caused some humorous outcomes which a visual addition could potentially emphasise.

BBC's 'Would I Lie to You?' Panel regulars

This would gain me a whole new experience which I have always been interested in, and there would have been a lot of opportunity for documenting the production in live action for the making of aspect, something that I felt has been lacking from my previous making of's. As there would be three stories to animate from this, I thought it was a perfect opportunity to have each person in my team animate a segment each, each in our very distinct and varied animation styles, such as my modern 2D animation, Dale's 3D animation, and Rowena's animatic and typography style.


However, this was when I considered the learning that I gained from my previous making of, and took into further consideration the time we have available, as I would prefer one perhaps shorter but complete outcome than a half finished more ambitious project, so I instead decided that we should instead pick one of the three stories that we found the most entertaining, and work as a team to animate that one segment.

An essential aspect of the brief was the term 'outsider', as that was meant to be where the story comes from. My interpretation of this term, was that the story had to come from someone who has views and experiences which are vastly different from our own, as we are an 'outsider' from their way of thinking. Interestingly however, in a discussion on Facebook with the other members of the group, it appeared that we each had a different interpretation of what an outsider is here's what the others said;

This has shown me that it's discussing this aspect of the brief further with the team, in order to ensure that each of our own interpretations of an outsider are implemented into the project somehow.

Our group arranged to meet to discuss the ideas that we've developed so far, and unlike the previous making of projects, which had all the audio scripted and recorded in reflection, we decided to record our discussion as our ideas initially developed, thus providing more material for the making of and a more in depth look into our thought processes. As I previously have been using rather amateur ways of recording audio in past topics (using my mobile phone), this time we wanted to record it in a professional manor, so Rowena arranged for us to have our discussion in a recording studio at Media City. This was new territory for all of us, and I felt it very beneficial for me to have this experience, especially as I have yet to delve into audio production in this topic.

Me, Rowena and Dale experimenting with the software available

There was a lot of things that went wrong during this session, but fortunately we made some interesting compromises for some of these problems, which would be interesting for the future making of documentary;
- There was a mix up of the rooms meaning we had to wait for the guys in the room to leave
- We didn't realise that there was only one mic, meaning we all had to be stood close together in a cramped space in order to get good audio quality
- As we wanted some video reference of this discussion, we booked out a camera. However, we soon realised that there was no decent vantage point where we all could be seen within frame, meaning that we had to move a chair and the camera into the already cramped space, and due to the low angle, we then needed to sit down whilst recording.
- This then lead us onto yet another issue, where being sat down meant that we were too far away from the mic, and as we couldn't get the tripod to stay level to us, I had to hold it in place whilst assuring not to obscure any of us in frame.

A screenshot from our recorded footage in the recording booth

Despite all these issues that we ran into, we still managed to gather both an audio and a video clip of our discussion. The discussion itself had some interesting thoughts shared, though unfortunately we weren't able to compromise with what our outcome should be, as we all were going into completely different directions. For example, I wanted to continue my trend of animating comedy, whereas Rowena wanted to go for some darker and more serious subject matter.

This is when we developed our final idea, which was to animate our individual ideas in our individual styles from our initial conversation, as well as any other aspects which could have an interesting visual aspect implemented into them. This meant that we could each develop on our own ideas, and still have a unified final piece which would implement all our skills and abilities. As this discussion was originally going to be for the making of, and we wont be creating any project outside of this discussion and the visuals we put towards it, we decided to experiment with ways in which we could combine our project and the making of together, though we will have to wait until we have finished our project to see further into how we would go about this. If we do eventually decide to go down this route, it will be refreshing for me as though I felt the format of my previous two making of documentary's was effective enough, I am interested in experimenting with alternate, more imaginative ways of presenting our ideas and the production process. This would still fit the brief perfectly, as we are all outsiders from one another, as shown clearly by our different preferences and thinking patterns, and we are still effectively showing each of our stories.

Now that we all settled on an idea, I then began selecting my audio from our conversation that I wished to animate, which was where I discuss my 'Would I Lie to You?' idea. I decided to stick with the same animation style that I have developed over the course of this module, but due to the time-consuming method of lip-syncing (as experienced in the previous project), I wanted to limit it as much as possible, not only for time reasons, but also because it would give me more options to be creative with the visuals, as appose to just animating me talking, I could instead show what I was thinking. I've talked previously about how 'The Ricky Gervais Show' inspired my first making of, however the way I planned this animation was even more reminiscent of that show, as the conversations aren't just animated, but visuals are shown to better communicate what they are thinking, and it is done in some very clever ways, such as in this following clip -

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3oBQ7YRjEU

Character models which I drew digitaly for all the people who will be seen within my animation
(from left to right): Me, Rowena, James Lawson, David Mitchell, Jeff and Lee Mack

A screenshot showing my animation process along with a showcase of my keyframes

Logo which I created for the show I idea I had

Below is a link to what I managed to animate for my segment of the piece

https://vimeo.com/216014762

I am very pleased with what I have created for my piece, as I feel I have had some imaginative ideas for how to put visuals to my speech such as; animating me showing my mobile up to my phone to the screen to swipe through examples as I mention them, the set of the show adapting as new suggestions are made in the audio, and ending the video with a zoom out from my sketchbook as I hold it, showing the audience that they have just been witnessing my ideas. Though I tried to leave animating people talking as much as I could, I still used enough of it to incorporate my learnings from the previous two making ofs, and I feel as though I have shown even more progression in this technique, as this is the smoothest and most professional looking example of animation and lip-syncing which I have produced during this topic. Another thing that I am very satisfied with, is how much my caricatures have improved, seen within the many models which were made especially for this animation, this progression in quality was possibly due to what I am achieving in my daily project, but I feel I am truly developing my own style of caricatures which. One concern I have with this outcome however is the length, as I was worrying about running into the same issue as I did in my previous making of where I run out of time, this meant that I couldn't squeeze in some of the more humorous aspects of the conversation, and instead just animated the essential aspects that were needed to communicate my idea, but fortunately I managed to animate what I started to a high standard. I am highly anticipating combining this with the rest of the teams outcomes.