Avatar: The Art of Performance Capture

An insightful look into the mechanics of Avatar's animation. This looks like motion capture is being used to its greatest advantage!



via EXXCORPIO tweet
via eguiders.com

Walk Cycle video

Finally i've worked out how to get suitable lighting, camera setup and rendering out of Maya. So here is the video of my finished walk cycle made with the Animo rig from digital tutors...



Somewhat better than my robot walk cycle from first year at Uni! =D


Soundtrack: Moreno Trio - Du Dja Yal

The 10 Principles of Photoreal 3D

During some research into Maya's texturing, shading and render stuff, I came across an article from the website of Visual Magic Magazine. It suggests that there are 10 Principles of Photorealism in 3D and attempts to explain them in great detail.

The 10 principles are...

1. Clutter & Chaos
2. Personality & Expectations
3. Believability
4. Surface Texture
5. Specularity
6. Dirt, Dust and Rust
7. Flaws, Scratches and Dings
8. Beveled Edges
9. Object Material Depth
10. Radiosity

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

via CGTalk - Maya: Shader Networks


Soundtrack: Billie Holiday - All Of Me

Animation Basics: Maya Bouncing Beach Ball

In my first year at uni a small 1 hour class project was to create a bouncing ball. I couldn't do it, well it looked awful so I think that's why i've gone back now to learn the steps of creating a believable bouncing ball. Also, because it uses the first of the 12 principles of animation; squash and stretch.

I found a great tutorial from Digital Animation Guild which also helped me to better understand maya's lighting and rendering.

Eatliz - Hey

This is the first time (to my knowledge) that I have discovered a really good band with good music, through their awesome music video! For me its always been the other way round, so it's quite exciting this time.

The animation took three years to complete and the story was written and directed by the bands guitarist and composer of this song; Guy Ben-Shetrit.



The style of the song first reminded me of Sleeptime Gorilla Museum, especially her voice. But there is something unique about it and i'm not sure what. There are definitely a lot of influences in this song.

Direct link to the songs website!

You can also download their album for free on their website!

Christmas 2009

It's that time of the year, where I get to spend a lot of time with my family; eat, drink, play games and be very, very lazy. It's also a time of presents and this year I think i've done quite well. After my research project I decided it was time to get some decent animation books and here they are, taken by my new camera too! :-)



Merry Christmas all and enjoy the time today with your family, friends and loved ones.

Live Client Project - New Brief!

After a conversation today with Smoke & Mirrors I found out that they will be sending me a new brief. It seems that their pitch didn't win the Churchill Dog advert and Glassworks did.


Follow this link to read about and watch the finished advert.

My only problem with this is that the product ended up different to what Churchill required in their brief. I was told the the whole dog needed to be animated; as it walks along a path and then jumps up onto a wall, then talks to the camera. In all they just animated the head and facial expressions!
Also, I don't like the kitchen scene very much. It says in the description that there were reactions from both kids, well, only one laughed, the other had her head in her food.

Anyway, I should receive my new brief tomorrow lunch time!


Soundtrack: Billy Holiday - Body and Soul

Walk Cycle

In a previous post I said that this holiday I would be concentrating on the curve editor, or graph editor as it's known, in Maya...

21/12/09 - 02:20

It's a really good tutorial i'm working from by Digital Tutors so far it's going well. I've realised already why my last walk cycle was so bad!

This is simple pose to pose animation.

This might be the next tutorial I follow to learn how to animate the Churchill dog for Smoke & Mirrors.

Update:
21/12/09 - 21:53

It's going really well; i'm really getting into the graph editor and this guy on the tutorial i'm watching, even though he's messed up a couple of times (!) is very good at explaining what he's doing.

Only thing i'm not enjoying is I can't listen to my music!

Update:
22/12/09 - 03:30
I've finished the generic male walk cycle. Now I have to figure out how to render nicely in Maya and i'll upload the video!

Update:
30/12/09 - 17.25
FINALLY!

BBC 1 - Animated Xmas Short Film

Look out for this...

BBC One
Christmas Day @ 5.30pm
THE GRUFFALO



via Oliver Ladeuix Blog post.


Soundtrack: Captain Beyond - Raging River of Fear

Yr 3 Term 1 - End

I feel a Godzilla analogy coming on...

Yeap...

Apologies in advance...

Yesterday was the end of the essay-zilla; the monster of all essays that ever was! I killed it, and I think I killed it good! So now the world can go about it's daily business without the fear of such an menacing, evil villain.
Ok, stupid Godzilla analogies aside, the PRP research paper was a very difficult task so i'm just glad to be done with it. I think I gave it my best so i'm eager to find out the results.

Celebrations to the end of the essay were had in good style last night too. My band Spring on Jupiter played at the Horn In Hand. We had a great time and the rest of the evening with MM students was, to say the least, epic!

Now i'm focusing on my Live Client project and speaking to Smoke & Mirrors today to get more info. It's quite an ironic project in that anyone who knows me, knows that I have a fear of dogs for many years now and the project is to design and animate the new dog for the Churchill commercials. *hmm, perhaps I can use my past experiences and turn them around into a story for this project...*

If you don't know which dog i'm talking about, here's the little fella...


I'm glad I have this project though because my view at the moment is that I will be researching dogs and hopefully educate myself about them and be rid of my fear once and for all!


Soundtrack: Meshuggah - In Death -- Is Death

The Passenger

This seven minute short film can be summarised in seven short words... brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, brilliant! :D Created by Chris Jones. This is a fantastic story and excellent soundtrack!



The YouTube link is poor quality, so if you have a good internet connection (and 5.1 surround sound) you can watch the film in HIGH QUALITY here.

Fortunately, Jones documented every step of the way!

Live Client Project

I have just completed the first part of my final year major project; Personal Research Project. The research paper was an enquiry into the methodologies animators use as core principles to bringing characters to life.

Now my new big project is the Live Client. I have managed to secure a brief from Smoke & Mirrors in Soho, London. My brief is to re-design, model, rig, animate and place into a scene the new dog for the insurance company; Churchill. Many people from the UK will know this 'thespian of pantomime' dog all too well, so it's a great privilege for me to have the challenge of the re-design!
Smoke and Mirrors have more recently adverts such as; Rock Band Beatles, BBC Electric Proms 2009. Music Videos such as; Paolo Nutini - Pencil Full of Lead. They are one of the top leading Post Production studios in the UK. They have Maya specialists there so I will be working in Maya to get the most advice from their 3D artists.

More info soon!

Music: Freddie Hubbard - Red Clay

PRP - Update (final week)!

Image from kf6nvr.net

After a week or so with not much on here about my Personal Research Project and seeing as though it's 4.30am, i'm drinking coffee, listening to a post-rock compilation (great to work to) and I am working on the PRP right now, I thought i'd post an update on how things are going...

I want to start off with a confession. It seems I have an insatiable appetite for knowledge and an overt appreciation for many many things. This becomes apparent if you look at the myriad of topic questions i've had since beginning this project.

First there was Foley; i'm a musician too, apparently.
Then after the holiday I changed to bringing inanimate objects to life
Soon after there was a tutorial from which I took advice to look at choreography.
After that came something about character arc.

But wait, there's more...

Then character design was a point of interest.
And finally, finally I realised where i wanted to go; character acting in animation.

So my research topic question is:

What techniques of believable character acting give animators the ability to influence audience’s emotions?

I can't help the fact that these different things do interest me greatly. To the point now where I am learning how to draw and practicing everyday (which is getting in the way of my guitar playing! lol) and my interest in animation has grown ten fold.

I plan to make the most of this year; make some really good animations (as soon as I learn how to use the curve editor in 3ds Max and Maya(?) properly!)

Anyway, back to the point of this post. It's going quite well now. I've got so many quotes about acting in animation and some about acting in general which will back up my points in the discussion and so on. I've been in touch with a few professionals and asked them questions which has been a great help too.

Next week this will be over!

And you will find me in the (Horn In Hand) pub!


Music: Explosions In The Sky - Magic Hours

Greed

This.
Is.
Awesome!...



Made by Alli Sadegiani
This link will take you to an Interview with the creator and the making of!

MAGI Synthavision

After discovering the Where The Wild Things Are animation by Lasseter and co, I found out which studio (as well as Disney) helped to achieve this. It was MAGI Synthavision and here is there 1984 show reel. It's actually really good, except for the walk cycle they show, and from 2min35sec - 2min41sec it really made me laugh!...

Where The Wild Things Are, by, Disney??

I recently discovered that back in 1983, before Pixar, John Lasseter created an animation test with Disney for Where The Wild Things Are. Back then Disney owned the film rights to the Where The Wild Things Are books... they didn't use them, though, so they lost them.

While he was working on “Mickey's Christmas Carol”, another movie titled “Tron” was under development in Disney. John happened to watch some of the early tests and was excited, not for the quality of the stuff but for the 3d feeling it generated. He found tremendous possibilities with the use of computers and knew it was the future. Lasseter wanted to create a 3d world where the 2d characters could move around. Together with Disney animator Glen Keane and Tom Wilhite, Head of the Production, he made a 30 second test film titled “Where the Wild Things Are”, where they combined the hand drawn images that Glen did with a computer generated background. They moved the camera like a steady cam shot for the first time in animation, following the animated character in and around objects.

Check out this amazing test, which combined traditional hand-drawn, 2D animation with then-state-of-the-art 3D computer animation!

"Their next dream was to make a feature in this fashion and they selected the story of “The Brave Little Toaster", by Thomas Disch. Lasseter made contacts with people in the Computer Graphics Industry which included Ed Catmull and Alvy Ray Smith of Lucas Film Computer Graphics Group. Lasseter started his works to make the dream true. But things went wrong when he unknowingly upset a few superiors in his effort to pace their dream project. When Lasseter presented the idea it was turned down and in a few minutes time he got the information that he was fired from the company.

But the man joined Lucas Film with Ed Catmul and Alvy Ray Smith to create the first complete 3d animated short "The Adventures of Andre and Wally Bee".It was followed by other shorts like Luxo Junior, Red's dream, Tin Toy and Knick Knack before moving to make his dream of making a fully 3d animated feature true."

From Here It Begins.blogspot.com

Useful Animation Tips (keep 'em close!)

From the official Frank & Ollie website. This is what John Lasseter said at the SIGGRAPH '94 conference...

"When I was an animator at the Disney Studios, I had a xeroxed list of simple notes from one of the great Disney animators, Ollie Johnston, pinned to my drawing table. The list was originally written down by another great Disney animator, Glen Keane, after working as Ollie’s assistant for a few years."

"These notes have been an inspiration to me for years. Even though they were meant for hand-drawn animation, I believe that they still apply to computer animation."

1. Don’t illustrate words or mechanical movements. Illustrate ideas or thoughts, with the attitudes and actions.
   
   
2. Squash and stretch entire body for attitudes.
   
   
3. If possible, make definite changes from one attitude to another in timing and expression.
   
   
4. What is the character thinking?
   
   
5. It is the thought and circumstances behind the action that will make the action interesting.
   
   Example: A man walks up to a mailbox, drops in his letter and walks away.
   
   OR
   
   A man desperately in love with a girl far away carefully mails a letter in which he has poured his heart out.
   
   
6. When drawing dialogue, go for phrasing. (Simplify the dialogue into pictures of the dominating vowel and consonant sounds, especially in fast dialogue.
   
   
7. Lift the body attitude 4 frames before dialogue modulation (but use identical timing on mouth as on X sheet).
   
   
8. Change of expression and major dialogue sounds are a point of interest. Do them, if at all possible, within a pose. If the head moves too much you won’t see the changes.
   
   
9. Don’t move anything unless it’s for a purpose.
   
   
10. Concentrate on drawing clear, not clean.
    
    
11. Don’t be careless.
    
    
12. Everything has a function. Don’t draw without knowing why.
    
    
13. Let the body attitude echo the facial.
    
    
14. Get the best picture in your drawing by thumbnails and exploring all avenues.
    
    
15. Analyze a character in a specific pose for the best areas to show stretch and squash. Keep these areas simple.
    
    
16. Picture in your head what it is you’re drawing.
    
    
17. Think in terms of drawing the whole character, not just the head or eyes, etc. Keep a balanced relation of one part of the drawing to the other.
    
    
18. Stage for most effective drawing.
    
    
19. Draw a profile of the drawing you’re working on every once in a while. A profile is easier on which to show the proper proportions of the face.
    
    
20. Usually the break in the eyebrow relates to the highpoint of the eye.
    
    
21. The eye is pulled by the eyebrow muscles.
    
    
22. Get a plastic quality in face — cheeks, mouth and eyes.
    
    
23. Attain a flow thru the body rhythm in your drawing.
    
    
24. Simple animated shapes.
    
    
25. The audience has a difficult time reading the first 6-8 frames in a scene.
    
    
26. Does the added action in a scene contribute to the main idea in that scene? Will it help sell it or confuse it?
    
    
27. Don’t animate for the sake of animation but think what the character is thinking and what the scene needs to fit into the sequence.
    
    
28. Actions can be eliminated and staging "cheated" if it simplifies the picture you are trying to show and is not disturbing to the audience.
    
    
29. Spend half your time planning your scene and the other half animating.
    
    
30. How to animate a scene of a four-legged character acting and walking: Work out the acting patterns first with the stretch and squash in the body, neck and head; then go back in and animate the legs. Finally, adjust the up and down motion on the body according to the legs.

Music: K.D. Lang - Bird On A Wire

Nine Old Men and the 12 Principles of Animation

Recently I found out about these important figures in the animation world and what they contributed and I found it really interesting so I had to post something...

Nine Old Men was the name given by Walt Disney to his core team of animators (even though they were in their thirties or forties at the time) who created some of Disney's most famous works, from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs onward to The Rescuers. All members of the group are now deceased.


Les Clark (November 17, 1907 - September 12, 1979)
Ollie Johnston (October 31, 1912 - April 14, 2008)
Frank Thomas (September 5, 1912 - September 8, 2004)
Wolfgang "Woolie" Reitherman (June 26, 1909 - May 22, 1985)
John Lounsbery (March 9, 1911 - February 13, 1976)
Eric Larson (September 3, 1905 - October 25, 1988)
Ward Kimball (March 4, 1914 - July 8, 2002)
Milt Kahl (March 22, 1909 - April 19, 1987)
Marc Davis (March 30, 1913 - January 12, 2000)

The Nine Old Men also refined the 12 basic principles of animation ( a book now on my christmas list! ):
Squash and stretch
Anticipation
Staging
Straight Ahead Action and Pose to Pose
Follow Through and Overlapping Action
Slow In and Slow Out
Arcs
Secondary Action
Timing
Exaggeration
Solid Drawing
Appeal


Music: John Scofield & Pat Metheny - The Red One

A Process of Character Design

For my PRP research i'm reading into Character Design which I think will tie in nicely with my previous PRP topic; Animation Choreography.

I've found this great blog post by Chris Wahl where he takes us from design sketches:

To final realisation of TV commercial:



This is extremely useful information for me at this time because my Client Project is focusing on Character Design for a big UK company who I'm sure will ask me to redesign over and over again. I could use Wahls' almost as a template.


Music: The Rosenberg Trio - Mediterranean Sundance

PRP - A big change

I can't seem to hold onto a PRP question...
On Monday i'm going into Uni to talk to Andy and Simon about changing my PRP question. I'm not sure yet what the new question is going to be, i'm going to think about that today and hopefully have something for them. The question now is...
Is there a commonality in choreographed animation that is used to assist and/or enforce the story and inform the audience when there is no dialogue?
I want the question to be more focused on Character Design.

Why?

I've found it REALLY difficult to find relevant information on the subject. More work has been published around the science of movement than the art. Character design is something that really interests me as a 3D animator. I design characters all the time, especially cartoony ones and have done for longer than i've bee animating. So in this sense I think I'm compelled to change my PRP question... only it's SO annoying as I have less than three weeks to write about it!!!!!!

Don't panic.

Simulated Project - Final Cut

Six week project to design a 20 sec animation to be used as anti digital piracy campaign advert.

Software used:
3ds Max
Photoshop
Pro Tools
Premiere

Feedback...
In the recent tutorial, I showed the video to my class and feedback was pretty much what I expected. As usual I 'filled' the brief, in other words, I have done what was required and nothing more (and nothing less). Basically it didn't wow anyone because I played this brief safe. I ran with the first idea I had, again, which was pretty a mediocre one. Also, you could tell that I didn't plan it very well. This was supposed to be focusing on an animation, and the animation is very scarce!
That being said, the positive feedback was the effect I implemented on the musicians; the way they 'dissolved'. The music worked (as usual) and the voice over was clear and people got the message.
Conceptually the idea was again, a 'safe' one. It was on a boarder line of being quite a dictating message, but it was quite subtle too. Perhaps the nature of the narrative made it so, after all, it's only music (you're buying/downloading something that doesn't really exist, sshh!)
So the general feedback I got was 'ok'. It was an 'ok' piece of work, and I agree. I know I can do better though.


Music: Ed Palermo Big Band - Aybe Sea

PRP: Delving further into the abyss

Choreography in Character Animation

That's what I'm going to be writing about. Now with only 3 weeks to go (thats on average 1250 words a week) I need to start collecting my thoughts and organising myself and what I'm reading.

There are different areas of Character Choreography and I will be looking out for anything written about these in context:
Fighting,
Dancing,
Filling in for dialogue,
Voice Acting,
Miming,
Spacing,
Timing

And there are different areas of the entire animation industry that I will be looking into, such as:
3D,
2D,
Puppetry

I will list my resources below as I find them...

Books:
Hans Bacher - Dream Worlds
Jerry Beck - Animation Art: From Pencil to Pixel




Music: Joan Armatrading - How Cruel

And Now For Something Completely Different...

Music: Atomic Bitchwax - The Formula

The Hive Extravaganza

Yesterday I went to one of the best entrepreneurial conference/seminars I have ever attended. It was organised by The Hive. These are my notes from the day.

Firstly I arrived and saw that there was in fact free tea, coffee and buffet. Good, then! I thought to myself. Breakfast! :)

BassToneSlap were the first people talking about their business. They are a african drum workshop organised by Richard Enion. They were on Dragons Den and successfully got the £50k they were looking for, for 40% of the company from two of the "dragons". This was more than they wanted to share but in the end realised it was okay, and got some great publicity out of it.


One thing I noticed is that their business wasn't a new idea. They saw a working type of business, saw their own potential doing it and chose to do the same. I'm always trying to think of a new business idea. What I understand after this is that perhaps it's better to start with something which already exists, and do it better!

Piccy Products Ltd were an interesting business. They are simply mums and teachers (as they put it) who found a way of kids to eat the healthy foods without kicking up a fuss. Sue Amphlett and Vonny Shelley entered and won the iEXPO "Last Business Standing" (speed dating-esque) competition. Some of the reasons why is because of their uniqueness. They had a song to grab the audience. They thought creatively about their business plan; it spoke to everyone not just people who understand figures and profit forecasts etc. And they had a well thought out pitch to execute.

Shed Simove was on the program but couldn't be there. He is the Ideas Man. He thinks of funny, innuendo gifts and sells them.

Then Mike Southon came on stage to give his talk, and my life changed forever. Haha! Well, near enough. His talk was great. It really made sense what he was saying. It was funny. And he used the best entrepreneurial analogy of them all; The Beatles.
He writes for the FT and has a book out called "Beermat Entrepreneur". This is what he had to say:
Does your product sell? Would your friends buy it? If not, strangers won't!
Get a good picture of yourself...

He is the ambassador for Peter Jones' National Enterprise Academy... so he's a celebrity!
Think about your career in seven year cycles. This made a lot of sense to me. I couldn't explain it until now but i've seen it before and he's absolutely right about it...

Make a level of connection to your customers like Paul McCartney has done... but don't make them cry like McCartney does!
Find someone with the opposite set of skills to yourself.

Then he somehow managed to relate this to the Simpsons characters and it still made sense!

There are three people needed to make a business work well...

• Delivery - Product or Service (Intovert)
• Sales - Who needs it? Who's rich? (Extrovert)
• Finance - Can we make money? (book keepers and accountants)

Could be three people in the pub, talking about those things, hence beermat entrepreneur.

Seven stages of finance:

1. Operate a cash business
2. Use a spreadsheet
3. Get a part-time book keeper
4. Get a part-time accountant - you could end it here and be a comfortably small business.
5. Get a Virtual Finance Cornerstone
6. Get a full-time Finance Director
7. Get a top accounting firm.

Think about your elevator pitch (the 5 p's):

1. Pain - what is the pain/problem that is to be addressed.
2. Premise - be literal. say exactly what you want to do. local, reliable and nice - be them!
3. People - who are the people in your team? it's important. what makes you different?
4. Proof - friends. happy customers. references.
5. Purpose - why this and not something else?

Money and Wealth (guanxi) link in with the purpose.

Wealth - treat people how you would want them to treat you. Always help, without going broke. Tell the truth!

To finish his talk he showed the new and brilliant animation for The Beatles Rockband...

Intro...

Outro...

And closed the event by summarising everything in quoting The Beatles:

And in the end

The love you take

Is equal to the love you make

Music: Fatboy Slim - Right Here, Right Now

Character Arc

Through reading various articles on the Internet i've come across a new term in the industry called Character Arc and because it seems like such a big topic, I thought I would compile the articles I find here into one post.

Definitions:
Musik Therapie
The rocky path of personal growth and development a character undergoes in a story, usually unwillingly, during which the character wrestles with and eventually overcomes some or all of a serious emotional fear, limitation, block or wound.

Wikipedia:
A character arc is the status of the character as it unfolds throughout the story, the storyline or series of episodes. Characters begin the story with a certain viewpoint and, through events in the story, that viewpoint changes.

Examples:
1) From musik-therapie.at:

All stories are about people, even when they're about rabbits. And the stories that move us most, the ones that stick inside years later, are those inhabited by characters we can connect with and admire.

And no characters resonate more than those who in the course of a story learned how to transcend their own flaws and weaknesses to do something great—this is known as a Character Arc.

And by great I don’t mean saving the world, for often the quietest moments are the ones in which characters find their greatness. The moments that truly define us are almost always personal, times when we’re able to overcome our own limitations and rise to be something more.

Character Arc—the rocky path of personal growth and development a character undergoes in a story, usually unwillingly, during which the character wrestles with and eventually overcomes some or all of a serious emotional fear, limitation, block or wound.

In a character's development he or she might overcome:
o lack of courage or inner doubts
o lack of ethics
o learning to love
o guilt
o trauma from the past
o errors in thinking, etc.

Weaknesses, imperfections, quirks and vices make a character more real & appealing. They humanise a character. The audience can identify with them. Flaws and imperfections give a character somewhere to go and progress toward in the story. The development of a character is only interesting if they overcome something.

A great example of a character arc is Tom Cruise’s character in "Rain Man."

Beginning – Cruise is a ruthless car dealer who kidnaps his autistic brother because he feels cheated about not receiving any money from his father's will.

End of Arc – After a cross-country journey with his brother, he learns the importance of family and turns down the money.

Role of a Character Arc...
- Keeps the tension high and the conflict going.
- Serves as the “inner” conflict and is always mirrored by the story's “outer” conflict. e.g. DieHard: Inner conflict = overcome internal weaknesses to be able to get back together with wife; Outer conflict = fight bad guys who have taken over wife’s building.
- The Arc is the internal change the hero goes through in a story.
- It can be positive change of character—a happy ending
- Or a negative or no change—which gives us a tragedy.

Characters who remain essentially the same from beginning to end are fatally flawed. They have learned nothing from their experience and have shown no growth.
Or the character is already ‘good’ and doesn’t change (e.g. James Bond, Braveheart, John Wayne).

Development of a Character Arc...
Personal changes in a Character’s Arc require smooth development—changing is really hard.
2D verses 3D character development
2D—Jumping changes in character create 2 dimensional characters.
3D—Show the natural, step-by-step development of a character.
Show how the personal beliefs that cause internal flaws are torn away little by little by forces within a character and by his surroundings.
Small conflicts/transitions as the character evolves from one state of mind to another in a slow even pace until he is compelled to make a life changing decision.

2) Lucas Martell has mentioned Character Arcs on a few occasions on his blog:
Animation Pyramid
Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs
Groundhog Day Breakdown
Kung Fu Panda Structural Analysis


3) Here listology.com has published a HUGE list of character arcs.


4) From eldritch.org, eight examples of character arcs from the game Shaintar: Immortal Legends





Keep checking back for updates!



Other useful related resources:
Wikipedia - Monomyth


Music: Cantamus/David Angus - Class:: Symphonie Lumière (Spanish Suite)

Pigeon: Impossible

Here's a great short film i've been waiting to watch for quite a few months. It's made by Lucas Martell with a budget of just under $10k. Have a watch and let me know what you think.



Also, prior to it's release, Martell made a series of really useful podcasts, which only made me more eager to see the film. These are really good so i recommend watching them too if you'd like to know how the film was made.

Check out the podcasts here.


Music: Dave Brubeck Quartet - Charles Matthew Hallelujah

Max Fleischer's Out of the Inkwell

This beautiful piece of animation is 88 years old and is still amazing to watch today as it was back then! It was made by Max Fleischer and implemented his innovative animation technique known as rotoscope to make the animation movements more "realistic". And this technique is still used today. This was also made a whole decade before Disney!




Music: Adrain Belew - Addidas In Heat

Hollywood Screenwriting Masterclass

Today has been very productive for me. I gave a presentation for my Simulated Project, which went quite okay. Then I attended the 'Hollywood Screenwriting - Jumping The First Hurdle-A Masterclass' by industry expert James T Bartlett at Broadway Cinema. I was surprised and disappointed not too see many others from my course, especially as I know how relative it is to them.
Still I decided it could be a worthwhile (and cheap!) class to professionalise my writing. Here are some of my notes from the three hour seminar...

• EM Media - FUNDING! Does your idea have commercial success? Because that's what they want/look for.
• Execs are always looking for reasons to say 'no' because they have so many other scripts to go through.
• They will look for 'dirty fingernails' and 'chewing gum' like they will during interviews. So here are 13 tips to get it right - whether you are sending your script to UK or USA...

1. Number the pages - USA standard is top-right hand corner - Easier to read.
2. Spelling and Punctuation - Right it the way you know best; not with Americanisms as this will miss guide the reader. Frequent spell checks. Read it backwards - it uses another side of the brain, doesn't make sense in context but will show any spelling or punctuation mistakes.
3. Formatting - Length should be: UK - 90-100 words, USA 110-120 words for a feature length. Think of it as almost one page per minute on screen. Font should be: UK - Curier New 12, USA - Curier 12. Send an e-mail if that's what is asked of you, but also print and post a hard copy.
4. Sluglines - Every new location has to have this. Interior or exterior, place, day or night. Very brief description of where, when and what is happening. Every new character the appears has to be written in capitols, but only the first time, every other time is normal eg. JOHN (20s).
5. Camera Angles and direction to actors - Don't put directory things into the script. Leave camera set ups out. Leave out character motives and emotions. Don't number the scenes.
6. Songs, Poems and Quotes - Don't list specific artist, track or band names; keep it generic. Keep in mind they won't know the songs and they might be expensive to get the license. Don't quote poems; again licenses are expensive and unnecessary. It's easier to use dead people rather than people who are alive. No famous living people. UK - 75 years of an authors death. USA - 90 years of an authors death.
7. Literary Description - Avoid the flowery description; being like a novel. Think about what the audience can see! Do not describe how the character feels.
8. Describing Emotions and Characteristics - Examples: She fears that... he knows... he wonders... she thinks... ALL BAD. Enigmatic, moody, troubled... ALL BAD. Blue eyes, rugged handsome etc... ALL BAD! How do the characters get in trouble?
9. Smells, Time, Temperature and Taste - It's novelistic and unnecessary.
10. Transitions - Think of interesting alternatives to just fades such as: A dog to a cat, a tap to someone drinking water, raining then sunny, ceiling fan to helicopter propellers (Apocalypse Now), a bone to a spaceship (2001: A Space Odyssey).
11. Referencing other films, Books or Actors/Characters - Just don't do it. Keep the idea unique so that it doesn't sound like anything else or is made comparable to anything else.
12. Nudges, Prompts and Jokes - It's showing off! Like you know the business of films, but it has no business in the script. There is no "we" in a script eg. "we see the car coming..." should be -> "the car comes towards the screen".
13. Presentation - Don't underline or make bold. Don't use coloured paper, only white with black text. Don't give it any pre-conceived notions such as writing 'First Draft' on title page. Title page contains contact details. Three wholes in paper connected with Brad clips.

Extra things noted:

Watch: City of Ember, The Wire, The Shield, Sideways, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer.

Read: Smoking In Bed.

The profit margin on popcorn is huge. It's the biggest money maker in the whole cinema industry!

Winnie The Pooh makes more money for Disney than any other one of their character franchises.

Music: Santana - Samba de Sausalito

Business Card

A few things over the past couple of weeks have prompted me to materialise my business cards. Firstly Rob has made some really good cards. Then at Game City I was given lots of cards, but didn't have anything to give out. And tomorrow I'm going to the Flip Animation Festival Launch Party so it's an ideal time to have cards at the ready.

After a couple of hours designing here is the final one.

Front


Back


Please let me know what you think of these as it's quite important for me.


Music: Tom Waits - A Little

Behind: Where The Wild Things Are

From motherboard.tv...

You’ve heard of this film Where the Wild Things Are by now, maybe? Well, back during the making of movie, Motherboard’s own Shane Smith headed over to London and caught up with the film’s director, Spike Jonze, and his legion of masterminds as they toiled away at the digital artistry that would ultimately breathe life into the creatures known as the Wild Things. It was the painstaking work of 300 artists and tech-wielding specialists, who, in the process of tweaking every frame and every miniscule detail of every image, undertook to create an entirely new way of animating—an ingenius blend of the artistry of traditional, film-based movie-making and the wizardry of newfangled technologies. In the end, Jonze and Co. created some of the most compelling monster-beings in history.

Music: Tom Waits - Time

Game City Summary

From 26 - 31 October (last week) I worked at the games festival here in Nottingham called Game City. I have seen it every year for the past two years that i've lived and studied here, but never really paid much interest to it. This year however, I received an e-mail about working there as a steward, applied (in a drunken haze at 4am) and swiftly got the job!

It was very well organised, but most of the time I had no idea what was going on or what I was supposed to be doing.

I started work on the eve of Tuesday the 27th at the Launch Party. It was such a great and memorable evening! I helped set up the drinks table on which there was champagne, soft drinks and red wine. I was stationed at the champagne table handing out A LOT of free bubbly to lecturers and professionals in the industry.
It was a great opportunity for me to meet people and I had a great time listening and sharing stories about the creative and games industry. I also got a free bottle of red wine :-)

Wednesday I went snowboarding with Trent Snowsports so I didn't work that day... but it was well worth it!

Thursday I worked on another late shift from 17.00 - 23.00 inside the Exchange Arcade where I helped to set up the Flower installment. Flower is a game on the PS3 where you play... a flower. It's not a game a particularly like but it was cool to set up the four sided projector and get a fan from uni which was going to be used to blow dried fragrant petal leaves over the audience below.

Friday began EARLY at 8am and I was working in HMV. I set up and ran a Lego Rockband audition. We were briefed to find people who were really good at the game and to ask them to come back on Saturday to play live in the tent on stage. I had loads of goes and it was a fun morning.

Saturday was the day of Brickstock; he Lego Rockband concert on Market Square in the big tent. Here I managed to have a go as some players were without a drummer...


Thanks to Rob for taking this photo.

Everything came to an end after Brickstock and there was ALOT of clearing away to do. Rob and I were both totally exhausted after a long week of Game City and Uni work. Fortunately there were free things handed out to us and they let us go a little bit early. Afterwards, I went home and my friend from Hungary was on his way to visit. This being Halowe'en n all and his first time in Nottingham I wanted to find something really good to go to. After much deliberation I decided the best thing would be to attend the Game City After Party, because I figured there would be free alcohol and games to play. Sufficed to say, it was a good decision =D I spoke to more people from the industry. Met the man who made Canabalt! Played Left 4 Dead live and Street Fighter live!

It was a really great week. Worthwhile participating and I'd do it again. Only if I didn't have so much work at Uni to do as well though!


Music: Joe Zwaniul - Good Day

Simulated Client Project Proposal

I've just handed in my Simulated Proposal and thought about uploading it here so that you can see what i've done for it and give me some feedback if you want to or compare and contrast with your own.
Was anyone else a little bit miffed about the random 3pm hand in deadline? No e-mails to tell us what time the deadline would be. Are just meant to find out on the day of the deadline?!

Simulated Project Proposal.pdf


Music: Gentle Giant - Way Of Life

Pixar Parody

This is so good I had to post it. Picked it up through someone's tweet but I can't remember who it was now. But it was posted on collegehumor.com




Music: Al Jarreau - She's Leaving Home

PRP - Choreographed Animation

After a recent tutorial with Andy I am going to start looking at choreographed animation for my Personal Research Project.
So first I must define what choreography is in relation to animation.

Leopard OSX Dictionary:

choreograph |ˈkɒrɪəgrɑːf|
verb [ trans. ]
compose the sequence of steps and moves for (a performance of dance or ice skating) : he is now choreographing a ballet.
• figurative plan and control (an event or operation) : the committee choreographs the movement of troops.
DERIVATIVES
choreographer |ˌkôrēˈägrəfər| |ˈkɔriˈɑgrəfər| |-ɪˈɒgrəfə| noun
ORIGIN 1940s: back-formation from choreography.

Wikipedia:

Choreography is the art of designing sequences of movements in which motion, form, or both are specified. Choreography may also refer to the design itself, which is sometimes expressed by means of dance notation. The word choreography literally means "dance-writing" from the Greek words "χορεία" (circular dance, see chorea) and "γραφή" (writing). A choreographer is one who creates choreographies.

Examples of choreographed animation (More to come soon)...
Sigg Jones


One Man Band


Anima

Simulated Project - Research (4)

Production Pipeline...

First I looked at Pixar's Production Pipleine to get a better idea as to how the animation production pipeline is structured.



I found more reading here for animation production pipeline

Production Pipeline job at Dreamworks Animation, California

And another useful bit of reading for the Principles of Animation / Production Pipeline

Using some of the above I have written my own Animation Production Pipeline...





Music - Mahavishnu Orchestra - You Know You Know

Simulated Project - Research (3)

This is SO interesting. It doesn't help the project, it actually goes against the outlines of the brief but it is really interesting so I had to post it.
This video follows the history of one of the most well known and used drum loops in history.
It covers the subject of copyright and which bands/artists have used it.
I also found it useful to watch because now I know what music (or drum loop) I am going to include in my final 20 second animation.



End of post :)

PRP and Simulated Project - Tutorial 1

PRP...
The first tutorial for PRP was really useful. I got to hear what ideas everyone had for the 'question'. Although the point was made that it doesn't have to be a question, I just have to ask myself; What am I looking for? And form an informed opinion! That makes things easier and more sense in my mind.
Andy suggested that because I have shown an interest to it on my blog, that I look at choreographed animation. This could be a lot of things such as fight scenes, dancing, non-dialogue interactivity etc. Now that I have a key word; choreograph, which I didn't think of before but am interested in, I will have a better direction for my PRP project.

Simulated Client...
My idea is very simple, to the point and contains some animation in a 3D world (ala Matrix white gun room).
There is an evil, sinister looking character who is sitting at a laptop. He looks around to make sure no-one is there and he presses DOWNLOAD on the keyboard of his laptop. In front of him are thousands of faceless figures with names above them. As he hits the download button you see one of the figures disapearing. As an example; Pink Floyd. The message shortly after, though I haven't given it much thought yet, will be something like; Downloading music and films is killing the industry and stopping people from working and financing the music and films that you enjoy. Stop file-sharing, stop downloading; It's illegal!

These are my notes, drawings and ideas up until now...




I'm going to get started on some simple 3D storyboards once I have 3ds max 2010 up and running.


Music: Dub FX - Love Someone

Simulated Project - Research (2)

More examples (artefacts?) of Anti-Piracy campaign videos already made by government or private funding...





Classic! Think I saw this first on Charlie Brooker's (check out the baadass dance moves)


Oh my good gracious no! They couldn't stop at the first one and had to make another (ala Eiffel 65 - Blue music video anyone?)...



This is just funny! I can't take it seriously. Is he being serious? I can't tell...



More silly campaigning. I checked the site at the end and www.filesharingfacts.com doesn't exist




More useful links...
http://www.fact-uk.org.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federation_Against_Copyright_Theft
http://belmontsife.org/filesharingfacts.aspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_sharing
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Parents/Yourchildshealthandsafety/Internetsafety/DG_071136



Music: The Atomic Bitchwax - Smokescreen

DJ Hero is here

And i'm not a fan!
But I am a fan of the cinematic advert made and released by Framestore London.



For high-res video click here

Simulated Project - Research (1)

Every bit of research and reading that I'm doing at the moment is making this project much more difficult. I keep finding documents arguing for and/or defending file-sharing and company Pirate Bay.

First I looked at Pirate Bay's website and found a link to e-mails they had received and sent back from various compaines threatening to take legal action if they did not pass on information etc. 1

Then I discovered Pirate Bay is actually owned by Reservella. 2

So the guys who were held responsible at the court hearing are not liable to any sanctions or suits. 3

The consequences of Pirate Bay operating has been a year-long jail sentence and a fine of $3.6 million. It has also seen the company shut down on many occasions and as recently as Monday 12th October 2009. 4

As you can see i'm finding a lot more information about the persons who are providing the facility to download illegally and not the person who is doing the downloading. I have to steer myself away from that now, as interesting as it is to me and focus more on the public who downloads...


Other useful links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Act
http://torrentfreak.com
http://www.zeropaid.com
http://www.afterdawn.com
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/file-sharing
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/aug/26/filesharing-pirate-party-uk-downloads
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/oct/08/winny-file-sharing-court-result

File Sharing - STOP IT!

Okay, the title is a little with tongue in cheek, but this is the underlying message I have to convey in my Simulated Project...

I wanted to start my research by looking at other types of campaigns that aim to inform (and more often scare) the public for; what is illegal, why it is illegal and what the consequences will be. So I searched around, through ALOT of parodies for the adverts that i've seen on television before and found these:

TV License...



Anti-piracy...

Car Tax...

DVLA not paid you car tax advert
Uploaded by hamster1992. - Check out other Film & TV videos.

They are all a bit longer than the 20 second piece in my brief, but I think they give me a good idea of the rhythm with which the animation advert will flow to achieve it's purpose of sending out a message.



Music: Pearl Jam - Last Exit

Back to School

Today was the first day back to University. Here are my notes, thoughts and plans from the lecture...

My first thought when we sat down in Waverley Lecture Theatre was a sad notion that everything was coming to end, but also that everything in between was just 'stuff' that had happened... kind of strange as I don't usually think like that.
I believe this thought was prompted because it was the first time I had been back in the Lecture Theatre (from memory) since the first year. I don't usually think of things in this way so I found it interesting.

Anyway, lots of other things to think about now, such as:

• Simulated Project
• Personal Research Project
• Careers Service
• Hive Start To
• Successful Practice and Principles Year 3
• Multimedia Exhibition

The Simulated Project sounds really interesting as it holds much relevance to our society today.

The Copyright Protection Society (CPS) is starting a public information campaign that illustrates and explains what file sharing is, when and why it is illegal and also the consequence of being involved with this illegal activity.
They want you to produce a piece of Multimedia that will address the points above.

To meet this brief I'm going to research into Pirate Bay as suggested by Deb and talk to friends about this topic. I have 6 weeks to complete this project. Two weeks to have a proposal and the rest to complete the project which is roughly 150-200hrs of work.

The Personal Research Project (PRP) has been the module that I have given most thought to. I have to make my final decision on a question by the end of October. So far I am on my third idea which is: "Bringing and inanimate object to life". I have a few ideas for films to look into but need to do some more planning first.
NOTES: Who else has done it? So, what is the precedent? Argue the point, even if it is a lie.

Linda from Careers Service came in to talk which was very useful to me. I can book appointments to see her on:
Mon 1-3
Tue 2-4
Wed 10.30-5.30
Contacts: linda.brown@ntu.ac.uk 0115 848 8638

HiveStart To sounds like a really great new scheme to help students in the creative fields understand and move into self-employment. The lecture was given by the super cool Bindni Karia; an alumni of Multimedia who is doing great things such as the recent edit for behind the scenes of All My Sons at Curve Theatre in Leicester. I have just signed up and sent off my application so I hope I get the place!

Successful Practice and Principles Year 3 (SPP3) is about preparing yourself for the industry. My first project is simply to create a mock post graduation package. I have to find 4 actual Multimedia jobs and create a mock application for one of them. Then find 4 post-graduate courses being advertised online and create a mock application for one of those as well.

Finally, I let everyone know today that I was running as student ambassador. Someone else volunteered for the role too which is really cool. And it sounds like everyone is going to help in the design process for the exhibition and make it a really good one this year. I have a few ideas but can't wait to hear what everyone else has in mind, so I'm going to arrange a meeting soon.

Points that were mentioned today were: The importance of the industry night. We have to create a really good mailing list so that the potential for work opportunity from professionals coming to the exhibition is really high. Also, I might get in touch with David Cameron Walker. I've spoken to him before about Fly FM last year when he was running it. He was also on Multimedia and he is now running the Students Union. I can't think of how at the moment, but if we can have his help in some way that would be great.

So, two hours and two rooms later (which was only supposed to be one room for 50 minutes) we can now see that this year is going to be CRAZY! But i'm so excited, enthused and ready to work hard and get my 1st degree!



Music: BBC Radio online - Jazz Line-Up (11/10/2009)