Animation Showreel 2012

As the Gregorian year of 2012 draws to an end, a compilation of my work at Animation Mentor and Ragdoll is here in my showreel.



Soundtrack: Supergrass - Caught By The Fuzz

AM Master Class Assignment 11

The final version of the final assignment in Term 1 of Animals & Creatures Master Class is now complete...
I have enjoyed working on this piece immensely. It's the first time i've been able to animate an angry character and an anthropomorphic character that can change from animal to human characteristics.

I enjoyed everything from the planning stage, watching practically every video of gorillas and chimps on youtube and reading The Naked Ape by Desmond Morris (to learn how I could incorporate human/animal traits). To blocking; creating the environment, getting the timing of his positions and the camera action the way I wanted. Through to blocking plus (adding the inbetweens), polishing and final animation. It's been a fantastic journey. Along the way i've had such great support from other students, a peer buddy, my mentor and the AM staff too.

I can't wait to get stuck in to the second term. There will be so much to learn. For starters i'll learn how to animate to a back plate, which I have done once before back in 2010, but I basically taught myself and haven't done it since. And I'm already reading Birds In Flight by Carrol Henderson, to get a head start on flight, because i'm going to animating this creature...

AM Masterclass Assignment 10

I made a couple of changes from the original blocking after some new ideas suggested by my mentor. And once I got into the swing of animating after being ill I noticed a couple of areas that could be pushed further. One week left to go!!

AM Masterclass Assignment 9

This week I wasn't very well, so I only managed to work on the walk cycle. Next week you'll see a HUGE update to my current assignment, so be sure to check back and leave comments. Only 18 days until this first term/class has finished!!

AM Masterclass Assignment 8

First blocking pass...

AM Masterclass Assignment 7

Final... That's the end of the Tiger assignment now. However, I have some more notes from my mentor that I would like to address which will improve the piece by a long way. I will try to upload an updated version next week.

For the next 4 weeks I'm going to animate the Ogre creature in a Gorilla/Chimp way, demonstrating walking, anger, running down uneven terrain, jumping, making himself big and roaring to ward off a threat on his territory.
I've definitely gone for the most challenging animation I could think of and have spent a couple of days searching for good reference footage. Here is what I have compiled so far...

AM Masterclass Assignment 6

Revisions...

AM Masterclass Assignment 5

Blocking Plus...

AM Masterclass Assignment 4

Just a very short post today to show the first video of my new quadruped animation.

The first video is a reminder of what I want my animation to look like...



And here is the first stage of blocking...

HDR Image Test

For a while now I've been looking into purchasing a digital SLR camera and have been researching the specs of all the Canon's that are always talked about; 650D, 7D and 5D MK II and III.

One thing I really want to do with the DSLR is take HDR images. So yesterday I borrowed a friends camera and took these three photos, however I forgot to shoot in RAW and use a tripod!..

High Exposure

Mid Exposure

Low Exposure

Using an image compiling software, the photos were automatically aligned and blended together.

HDR result

I'm going to try again with tripod and shooting in RAW soon and will hopefully have an even better result.



Soundtrack: John Scofield - I Brake 4 Monster Booty

AM Masterclass Assignment 3

I've had a brilliant third week on the A&C program! Starting with Brian Mendenhall's lecture on Advanced Quadruped Walks, which was epic and then I was really inspired by my peers working on this assignment. After seeing how detailed some students have been planning and sketching their assignment, the first thing I decided to do was step my game up with my planning and sketching.

One part of this weeks assignment was to plan a 4-6 second quadruped animation piece that I will be working on over the next 4 weeks. I've planned something really simple to look at, but has plenty of animation to think about. Here is the sketch I made to plan, analyse and note the important parts of this upcoming piece.

The reference I found and cut together videos clips that really shows a lot of the mechanics and the small intricacies that I will be adding at the polishing stage, such as ear flicks, tongue licks and breathing. So I think it's going to be very helpful now and during the production. Here is my Quadruped Walk Cycle revision. It's still not great, but I think it passes and I know that the next time it will be even better because I have learnt SO much from doing this one: The feedback this week from Leigh was really indepth...
- Ear flicks will happen when they hear something, they tune in the sound. Or it can happen when they want to flick away bugs.
- You can feel the weight from the shudder when the tiger stops.
- Communicating through body language; think about eye, (but can be broken down to...) head, shoulder and hip direction, where they are all focused on an object, but when something happens else where, one can stay focused on the object while the other turns or looks away. Each part amounts to how much attention the character is giving to the object.
- It can be one thing if a Lion looks at you, but if he puts his foot down in your direction you know he's going to come for you.
- Get into the habit of including the cadence of the piece and time out beats so that you're aware of how many frames you'll be using and how long an action will take.
- Pick out/find a moment in each shot that speaks louder than everything else in the shot. That will keep the audience interested and coming back for more! In this piece, sell the moment where he stops and stomps his foot down and looks around.
- The roll of the feet in the revision still isn't quite working and needs some attention and the scapula is punching a little bit high.
- I could losen the jaw a little bit to look like he's breathing.
- The toes could be spread further as the paws land.

Animal joke of the week:
I really should be animating cows, because they are the only animal that go to the moovies!

Thanks for reading this week and as always feel free to leave me comments!

Adiós!!

Soundtrack: Ladysmith Black Mambazo - Induku Zethu

Animal Locomotion: 10 Marvelous Means of Movement

Via WebEcoist.com

"Locomotion is a fascinating thing. Though we typically only think about swimming, walking or flying, there are over 30 different documented types of animal locomotion. From slithering snakes to rolling armadillos to moon-walking inch worms, check out these strange and fascinating facts about animal movement."

AM Masterclass Assignment 2

My second assignment was really fun and interesting to do. I had to block out a vanilla walk cycle - an exercise to get a better understanding of the quadruped body mechanics. A vanilla walk is a term used to describe a walk exercise that explores the body mechanics without personality. They don't have to be on a treadmill, so next time i'd like to attempt animating a vanilla walk through space. After the first two attempts didn't go very well, the third time I found a workflow that worked for me.

I got an A- grade for this assignment, which i'm very happy with, but there are a few places that could make it better:
1) Move the scapula forward and backwards with the arms,
2) Lift the paw so that it flicks of first, then the wrist/palm, instead of breaking the wrist first,
3) The shape on the back paws needs to be pushed further in the flick off on f1,
4) The bend of the back right paw on f9 should only appear when the foot has landed,
5) Roll the front paw from the outside (in Z axis) as it places down on the ground.

In the planning and sketching stage, I hadn't quite grasped the pattern of the foot fall, as you can see in my first drawings...

Once I saw the problem I checked my reference videos over and over again and then sketched the walk cycle once again, this time leaving out the details of the body and just focusing on understanding the foot fall pattern. I left out some poses at the end because I felt confident enough with what I had and I was dying to just get into Maya and start working! Plus i'm not a big fan of lots of drawing.

Now that i've blocked the walk cycle and got my feedback, i'm going to add another layer of detail and start polishing it.

Check back soon for more updates!

AM Master Class Assignment 1

For my first assignment I had upload my show reel to get feedback on it from my mentor, upload sketches of quadrupeds and create two poses with the Cat rig in Maya. Very simple requests to get me back in to the mind set of studying.

For my sketches I went to Whipsnade Zoo but for some reason most of the quadrupeds that I was interested in (Tiger and Cheetah) were very docile and I didn't really get to see much of their anatomy. On top of that the fences blocking my view and distances from me also hindered my ability to study their anatomy. However, the internet was there to save the day. When I got back home I found a lot more references I could use.

The feedback I got from this was to make notes to try to understand what I was going for and that the sketches don't have to be perfect. I have taken these points on board for future sketching and thumbnailing. I can't draw very well anyway so it's probably a better practice for me to make notes!

Feedback from Pose 1 - Unfold the back paws

Feedback from Pose 2 - Front and back legs could be more straight and stretched. Front paw could be turned up more.

First week on the course has been a blast! This week i'm animating a vanilla/lateral walk cycle with the Cat rig and at the moment i'm planning my poses in thumb nails. Check back next week for more updates.

Adiós!


Soundtrack: The Mars Volta - Eunuch Provocateur

Animals & Creatures Master Class

This morning I attended my first class on the Animals & Creatures program with Animation Mentor. It was an exciting hour as my mentor Leigh Rens gave an introduction about himself, getting to meet the other students from my class (really talented animators from all over: USA, Spain, Belarus, S.Africa) and to delving straight into basic animal anatomy.

I'm really looking forward to learning as much as I can from this opportunity. Tomorrow I am going to Whipsnade Zoo for some inspiration and to fill a few pages in my sketch book.

This will give me the chance to update my blog more often so check back once in a while to see how i'm doing. Adiós!

Ten Things To Think About

I'm back again. This time I've been catching up on my blog feed and found this excellent post by the fantastic Angie Jones titled Ten Things To Think About...

#1 - Listen
#2 - Subtext
#3 - Experiment
#4 - Rhythm
#5 - Empathy
#6 - Simplify
#7 - Texture and Psychological Gesture
#8 - Honesty
#9 - Eyes
#10 - Commit

Really really useful resources! Thanks Angie.

The Adventure of Animating Abney & Teal

In March 2011 I started working for Ragdoll, probably the most prolific and successful children's television entertainment company in the UK. To name a few of their successful productions: Rosie and Jim, Brum, Tots TV, Teletubbies, Badjelly the Witch, Boohbah and In The Night Garden...

1

My days at Ragdoll were always numbered. Then extended. But ultimately numbered. And it seems the phrase "all good things must come to an end" is very appropriate to use. Ragdoll was an amazing place to work and many others are of the same opinion. I was fortunate to meet a few industry veterans who were there on a short term contact and would tell me that after Ragdoll "it's all down hill from here". I'm sure that isn't entirely the case as there are literally hundreds of studios in the UK alone, but I understood the sentiment that Ragdoll was a really great and unique place to work. Unfortunately the emphasis is on was, because the future of the company is uncertain. I can only wish Ragdoll the best of luck and I hope they will continue in business... because I would love to return to work on another season of A&T!

2

I feel very proud to have worked on The Adventures of Abney & Teal for just over a year until the series wrapped up. It was my first time working on a full animation production and in an animation department. I was truly in my element. I wasn't involved in any of the early story, style or character development, but I'm going to try to recap all the good times and the bad, all the milestones and achievements I made in that year and share what went into making this CG Animation Television series.

I can still remember my first week really well. I was the first Junior Animator to join and right away I was made to feel at home. My first episode was The Radio.

3

I was immediately excited to work on this episode because of its musical appeal. The first shot I worked on was of the Poc Pocs at the beginning of the episode where they are dancing on the shore next to Bop. At the time I was pleased with my work, but as time went on and I grew more accustomed to the style of each character, I realised that I could have made a better acting choice. I also animated the Poc Pocs being entranced in Abney's house, by the static noise of the radio tuning between stations, and that was much more like the Poc Poc style! I found a rhythm in the static noise and synchronised their movements accordingly.

After this episode I was given more Neep and Poc Pocs shots. Neep was my and pretty much everyones' favourite character so I was really happy to be given the Neep shots. For inspiration, I always tried to think of silent movie actors such as Chaplin and Keaton.

Part of my role as a Junior Animator was doing a lot of fixes. It is one of those 'messy jobs, but someone's got to do it' kind of things, but for the most part I really didn't mind. I actually enjoyed doing the fixes because it gave me the opportunity to analyse shots by looking more closely at how the more experienced and senior animators animated the characters. They were always happy to answer any questions. This was a good way of speeding up the learning process of the animation styles for all the characters. Early on in the show after the director had set the characters' personalities, the characters were assigned to specific animators who had full creative reign to develop their movements following the set of personality guidelines. By the time I started they knew the characters inside out!

There was one episode early on that was a nightmare to fix and we ran over schedule by quite a few days. That episode was Sky High.

Although I had some really cool shots animating Neep doing mid-air cartwheels and a Bruce Lee style flying kick to pop all those bubbles, I had the gruelling task of reanimating some colleagues' work on Abney & Teal because the wrong music track was used as a guide for the animation. It was no-ones fault, but I had to battle between keeping as much of the original animation as I could do and erasing some of it to fit the new music.

A little joke reminder I made

Shortly after this episode around May '11, I moved into a new and very nice apartment (whole other story why I moved there!) only 20 mins walk away from the studio. I was on the second (top) floor of a new build and had a fantastic view of the sky, and would see brilliant sunsets almost every night until the winter. Feast your eyes on some of these...

The sunsets really inspired me. After talking to a few people at work about these sunsets, I discovered that we had a digital SLR (Canon 40D) and after enquiring if I could use it, I found out that a time lapse remote control was on its way! The timing couldn't have been better. So with a lovely camera, tripod and brand new remote control to bring home with me over the weekend, I was able to experiment and create my first time lapse sequences. The sunsets weren't enough though. I wanted to spend the whole day shooting, so I would take the camera around the town and here's what I captured...





I also did three time lapse videos from within the animation department. Hopefully they will be included in a Behind The Scenes on the DVDs... if there are going to be BTS and/or DVDs!

During this period I also co-formed and drummed in a band, called:

The name was inspired in 3 parts:
1. Our mutual appreciation for Wacom tablets.
2. Our mutual appreciation for The Karate Kid movie. and
3. Our mutual appreciation for not really caring about a band name! We just needed one to book a rehearsal room.

The music was a mix of continuous drumming (like heavy Motorik), big-spacey guitar solos with lots of effects and groovy bass riffs. I miss jammin' with the band a lot.

Back to Ragdoll...

After 10 months of being a Junior Animator, a day before we all went our separate ways for Christmas and the Winter Holiday, I was called in to a meeting with the producer and animation lead and supervisor. They said they needed someone to fill a position of Animator and had me in mind. And so for the final 3 months of production I was doing pure character animation. A lovely Christmas present indeed!

I have to leave a gap here because none of these episodes have been released yet so I can't talk about them. Moving swiftly on to the wrap party...

The wrap party was a fantastic success. Held in a popular bar in town, we hired it out for ourselves for the evening. We put on our own music, there was a light buffet and free drinks for practically the whole night. During the wrap party Chris our Producer, made a funny speech that included the total amount that it cost to make our show. I have to thank Nayden for recording this speech on the night! "For the geeks among us"...

On average 110 - 120 shots per episode
6000 composited shots
572 minutes (9.5 hours) of broadcasted content (4.8 feature films)
134 TB of data
2 Keyboards
5 Monitors
480 loaves of bread
36,000 tea bags
1,440 packets of biscuits
1,927 dishwasher cycles
36kg of instant coffee
480 pens & pencils

So there you go. Now you know exactly what it takes to make a quality CG Animation Television series!

...and then it was time to say Goodbye

My contract might have come to an end, but the journey of my animation career continues. On reflection I can see that I have achieved a lot and have made some really good friends over the year.


Image sources:
1. http://logos.wikia.com/wiki/Ragdoll_Productions
2. http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/grownups/programme/abney-and-teal
3. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b015sl50

The Solitary Billionaire: J Paul Getty

I've just watched this unique piece of film history thanks to the BBC (although unfortunately you can only see this if you're in the UK!). It's an hour long video of Alan Whicker interviewing J. Paul Getty in 1963. A unique insight to a multi-billionaire's (the richest man alive at the time) life. Well worth watching...

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE VIDEO

Animation Home Studio: Phase 2

Phase 1 of Jonimations Home Studio setup went quite well. I sold all but one of five music items. Then on Wednesday I built myself a monitor stand ready for when my new monitors arrive.

Now phase 2 of operation is underway and this time i'm selling four guitars.

Find all the items on THIS LINK.

Help me make a few bob and spread the word to anyone who might be interested! Thanks!


Soundtrack: Joan Armatrading - Love and Affection

Animation Home Studio: Phase 1

Pictured above are some items that I am trying to sell in an attempt to reduce the clutter and turn my room into a better living area and home studio to work from!

I've listed these items on ebay and I hope they sell because I don't have long to get my room in order to start working on my reel again.

If you think you know someone who'd be interested in this stuff, please send it on, it would be a big help!

CLICK HERE to find everything I am selling.

Thanks!

Mind Game - Escape from the Whale Sequence

I saw this movie recently and was totally mesmerised by this ending running sequence. Made at Studio 4°C, the same studio who made Tekkonkinkreet and Paprika. It might not make much sense out of context, but it's still got a lot of energy and a terrific sense of timing that can be enjoyed.

Dr Breakfast

Stephen Neary made this great short animation called Dr Breakfast. Really surreal and totally inspiring. Check it out!

Billy Collins' Animated Poetry

I saw these on a TED Talk the other night, and thought they were well designed and complimented the poems very well. Definitely a successful collaboration between poet and animator. Either Forgetfulness or The Country are my favourite!

FORGETFULNESS- Animation by Julian Grey of Headgear



THE COUNTRY- Animation by Brady Baltezor of Radium.



THE DEAD - Animation by Juan Delcan of Spontaneous.



SOME DAYS - Animation by Julian Grey of Headgear.

Disney's Nine Old Men Flip Books

I saw on Cartoon Brew this morning that Pete Doctor is organising the release of 9 flip books, one for each of the nine old men that will contain a sequence from one of their most well-known and best-loved line drawn animations. I'm very excited about this because i've been looking out for animation flip books for about 6 months now, as something i want to start collecting so these will be a fantastic addition.

They are currently available on Amazon to pre-order and will become available from 18th September 2012 to buy. The price (in USA) seems to have changed slightly though as CB stated it at $37.42 whereas now it is $36.70. The UK price is still £34.02. I will get my order in soon!

Walt Disney Animation Studios The Archive Series: Walt Disney's Nine Old Men: The Flipbooks...
Amazon USA
Amazon UK

Tom Bancroft Webcast

This is a really cool interview with animation veteran Tom Bancroft provided by AnimSchool.






Tom Bancroft Disney Animation Reel

Tom Bancroft Blog

Tom Bancroft Bio

Turning

An very nice and interesting short film I found today by Karni & Saul. I've only seen a handle of what they do but so far I love their work and the animation style.

The Making of: The Incredibles

DreamGiver

I thought this was brilliant!

A regular night of dream delivering turns into a literal nightmare when a boy's book of ancient mythology comes alive.



The extra footage here is so inspiring, and gives a little insight into the school: Brigham Young University's Center for Animation.

The Art & Flair of Mary Blair

Great story about one of Disney's unsung hero's... Mary Blair.

Comedy Salutes

I started to think about comedy salutes last year, when I sat in on a Q&A with writer David Sacks. Today I am thinking of some animation ideas for a new animated children's television series where the main protagonist is a space man and I think he needs a salute. The salute hasn't been written in to the show, but it's fun to watch these hilarious salutes. And if I develop a good one I will try to get it written in. I will add more as I find more.

Snow White - The One That Started It All

The Making of: Toy Story

Earthflight - Bird Reference

More on Gizmodo

Weightless

I haven't posted in a while, but when I saw this today I had to share it here.

Erika Janunger has created (directed, designed and scored) this fantastic piece of film that incorporates beautiful dance with architecture and music

The Monk and The Fish

Tom Sweep

Jolly Roger