It is the last week of the project and things are starting to come together. Having finished the interiors, I fused together the outer chasis of the train (Ceri’s vector art) with my interior (watercolour) for the opening shot of the people leaving the train. I am extremely pleased with the result (below), having being slightly concerned that the two styles would conflict.
I think the clean exterior and the slightly stained interior reflect the actuality of a train’s construction quite effectively. The animation of the crowd leaving the train is also proving to be quite a challenge, but with the use of a Fast radial blur, I think it will look nice and colourful once finished.
I have also completed a test on the cartoon style (exaggerated) throbbing of the main character’s hand after it has been crushed by the “oblivious man”. At the moment it is inbetween looking conmpletely ridiculous and quite realistic. i.e. it is believable enough to be real but not exaggerated so much that it is meant to be a joke, which has resulted in an extremely stomach turning display, especially with the addition of purple veins. In addition to this I will have to animate the hand being crushed and the oblivious man’s position in the background.
Moving through the train has not presented a problem so far but I imagine a simple zoom combined with a walking rock (in addition to the train shaking) will give a convincing outcome. Ralph has also informed us of a method of recording what the mouse is doing (live) whilst the animation is playing. This will obviously save us alot of time, not having to animate each and everymovement, and will undoubtedly be more realistic.
We are coming into the last week of the project now and most of the elements we need have been created. The character design (below) is being vectorised by Ceri, as most of the main characters have been, to make them stand out more. The rest of the crowd, including the people coming off the train, is currently being drawn up by myself using watercolour. I intend to keep the detail of these characters to a minimum in order to create a vibrant atmosphere and not detract from the main characters.
This character is only to be used in the opening shot, when the train is coming to a halt. After which the camera will be in first person.
As inspiration for the interior of the train I looked at the work of Studio Ghibli, having remembered a scene in the film “Spirited Away” in which there is a fascinating scene, where the characters are returned to some kind of normaility of a train journey.
Apart from this influence I have abstrained from using any other sources of inspiration directly in an attempt to illustrate my own interpretation of trains that I have taken in throughout my life. I feel that by drawing purely from this melting pot of things I have noticed I can depict what is both a personal and encompassing viewpoint of the atmosphere you get on a train. This is definitely an advantage of drawing purely from memory, but can sometimes be hard to pull out or make realistic (if that is what you are aiming for).
The inside of the train is also close to completeion. I was slightly concerned about the perspectives between the view down the carriage and the facing door inside the train, but when they are in motion this distortion is not that recognisable. I intend to disguise this even more by using a motion blur.
The only thing that remains is the adverts that line the isles which I intend to design myself, to give a little attention to detail. Hopefully I can think up some quite satirical renditions of modern day adverts and culture.
The result of my first attempt at scripting in Mel (Maya’s Programming language). I was fascinated by the logic of programming, but found the inflexibility of the commands extremely difficult to adhere to and quite frustrating. I realised that there are many different mathematical routes to achieve the same result, but they are more often than not the simplest routes, depending on the what you want to achieve and what the programmer wanted to create the language for in the first place. Having created a three-dimensional grid our next task is to randomly fill a 2D grid then somehow apply the rules of “The Game of Life” to make intricate patterns that move across the grid:
promptDialog -title "my dialog box" -message "Enter x" -button "OK" ; int $v1 = `promptDialog -query -text` ;
promptDialog -title "my second dialog box" -message "Enter y" -button "OK" ; int $v2 = `promptDialog -query -text` ;
promptDialog -title "my second dialog box" -message "Enter z" -button "OK" ; int $v3 = `promptDialog -query -text` ;
If I am honest, as I said I would try to be with my blog, I was very disappointed when I heard we would be making animations for the BBC. I realise that it is an excellent opportunity for people to see the work we are doing, and in collaboration with an obviously very high standard of writing and sound engineering (from the samples we recieved). However, I feel that the areas that I wanted to develop in have been completely hijacked by the BBC, as has my personal progression as an aspiring artist. I had many ideas that I wanted to develop, all of which are at the other end of the scale to story-telling and cartoon style animations. Despite my gripe with this brief, I felt it necessary to bite the bullet and I take comfort in the fact that I could be creative with the style of the script that I chose, which was the underground/tube instruction animation. I am very pleased to be working with Nat and Ceri, both of whom I appreciate as artists and hope that our individual styles will work well together.
Initially I had a few good ideas about the kind of style I wanted to push forward for the project. A general consensus appeared to have the interior of the train and backgrounds as clean and simple as possible, in the style of an emergency instruction manual. E.g. Below.
In contrast to this I thought that a line-drawn, sketchy kind of depiction of the characters would look really nice. If you can imagine a similar style to that of Erica Russell’s, but with a little more detail. As an idea, I don’t think the other two bought into this so much, especially as line-drawn animations are notoriously difficult and laborious to achieve. Instead we agreed on simplistic cut-out style characters which we would split between us. I was asked to create the main character, who would only appear for the opening scene, after which the camera would go into first person. Aswell as this I was asked to design the interior of the train, taking into account the camera movements and seperate angles. In terms of colour I imagined very high hues, giving a feeling of intense lighting and low saturation for a blandish kind of look.
In addition to this I had an idea to animate the hand cursor (being a mock interactive interface) with certain expressions to fit in with the story. I hoped this might give a point of interest to the interactive side of things and also to make something a little more alternative to your average cartoon style animation.
I think that it might be easy enough to act out the movements/expressions with my own hand, then simply pixelate it, to appear like the white glove you see on computer interfaces.
Here is my rendition of the song “I’m Only Sleeping” by The Beatles from the Revolver album. I tried to choose a song that I could interpret in an interesting way, not too literal, so that I could use abit of imagination with it and allow room for some abstraction.
I knew immediately after being briefed on the project that I wanted to design and animate my own character. I felt using a pre-made model in Maya would be challenging but would not give me any scope to be creative. I was glad of some guidelines, in that the character needed to be “humanoid” in appearance. When hearing the actual dialogue, “Maybe I should go back to making noodles” i felt this would confine the possibilities too much, in having to be somehow connected to noodles.
I began to develop ideas around this framework, one possibility, as obvious as it may seem now, was to have an extravagant gourmet chef, trying his hand at something different, then having something disastrous happen to him in the kitchen. It was then I realised the necessity of having an anterior action of the character to set him up for the line.
Another idea was to have a rather pompous judge figure, complete with wig, to be taken down a peg in the courtroom. I imagined his hammer breaking or having him fall off of his seat. Unfortunately I don’t think this character would fit into the context of the quote, nor match up with the sound of Jack Black’s voice in the Kung-Fu Panda. Above is a montage of the sketches I have made so far. I have tried to concentrate on the faces of the characters, as I think this gives an immediate depiction of their background and some personality.
Having being briefed on the animation festival, and having seen past year examples, we began brainstorming ideas for a short 30 second ident. One of the first ideas that was put forward with some conviction was Ben’s “Coo-coo clock”. The idea of clockwork seemed to fit in well with the festival and furthermore an opportunity to develop a character in the coo-coo bird. We then learned that through Ralph’s local knowledge of Exeter that there stood a statue of a phoenix outside the main theatre of the festival. This seemed to reinforce our direction and we decided to go away and develop the visual style and any of our own additions. Initially I had envisaged trails of solid colour behind the bird after it left the clock. I put this forward in our next meeting, and was given the task of depicting the scene after the phoenix had left the clock. November the 5th passed and through some spectacular fireworks I was inspired to depict the ending scene as an explosion of colourful fireworks.
I began to work out the technical viability of the final scene, and realised quite early on that the surrounding environment i.e. the clock tower. would need to be lit up in time with the explosions. This was not necessarily a difficult effect to achieve, but I felt it would be vital in making the scene look believable.
Meanwhile I was also developing the background landscape for the opening long-shot. I imagined a fantastical and vivid combination of simple lines and colours. Ben also had a strong idea of the kind of style he wanted and I tried to take on board his envisagement by studying some references he gave me, such as the early 20th century artist, Ivan Bilibin. Strong and colourful patterns and a very distinctive colour palette used by Bilibin would certainly give the vivid and almost mystical style we wanted.
Initially I put together a basic layout of the landscape, just to assemble some structure and composition. We decided to create a library of elements that we could then layer up in photoshop. I felt this was a good idea at the time as it would allow us to chop and change the background as we pleased. However, In the end we decided it would be much easier to put all the foliage together into one slide. Using Holly’s developmental drawings and some of Bilibin’s organic patterns I compiled the foliage like this.
I also had the idea of including a waterfall, which I had learnt to do from a Starwars documentary on the special effects used, by filming sugar crystals on a black background. The end result was extremely satisfying, but when putting together the background I decided that the rock formation required to house the waterfall would not really look consistent with the rest of the landscape. Nevertheless, below is some of the raw footage from this experiment.
My first drawings that included a few tors (rock hills) that I felt would be recognised as an Exmouth landscape, were not really in keeping with the style of the animation or Ben’s vision. I found it quite difficult to adapt my style of drawing for the ident but I think that it came off quite well in the end and looks very stylish with the abstract sky and clouds.
This also made me realise the problem encountered when working with a number of people on the same animation, when a team effort is often required. That is, trying to keep a consistent style throughout the piece, even though numerous people with different styles will have been working on it. I suggest that great importance is given to the segregation of the animation, and which bit is given to whom, and whether it should be separated scene by scene or into small details, as we tried to do with the background elements. I know that in the film industry, people are employed specifically for the job of making things consistent throughout a film i.e. a continuity adviser. By using the same colour palette throughout and comping the animation together with the same filter the differences in styles should not be too noticeable. Unless of course we are looking to emphasise the different styles that can be achieved through animation, using different types of animation i.e. 2D, 3D or stop-motion. This is something I will have to quiz Ben on when comping the animation.
Overall I think that when it eventually comes together the animation will look great. It had been a long and winding road with some confusion about what type of shots were required but this was inevitable with a mixture of animation methods.
For some time now I have been exploring the idea of the role of sound within animation. I am also exploring the idea of harmonisation between sound and light and what the outcome of this may be. Both natural energies have a spectrum of frequencies which the human brain is able to pick up and interpret. Music can be sectioned into specific wavelengths using an equaliser. Conventional music visualisers also use an equaliser by measuring the amplitude of each frequency then relaying them as a graphic line or bar. Visualisers use algorithms (mathematical equations) to translate sound measurements, sectioned into layers, into graphical images.
The new Itunes visualiser, “Magnetosphere” is a briliant example of a 3D equalisation, algorithm, music visualiser.
Although a graph is arguably the simplest and clearest form of displaying data, I am also sure that it is not the most immediately understandable visualisation of information. In an attempt to find new ways of visualising sound I have begun to explore the possible parallels between sound and light, and although I am not sure it is scientifically feasible to compare two different sensory elements I feel that these links might provide a more immediate recognition of sound, through light: <>=is to
Stroke/beat <> Mark/line (or at origin through chemical reaction) Note/Freq. <> Colour (wavelength) Tone <> Mood/ lighting (Overall) Amplitude <> Contrast/weight Tempo <> Movement (in relation to background) Stereo/panning <> Dimension ie. 3D
Also the way in which sound and light is echoed and reflected by physical matter is quite similar, although far more important for perception of light. It may be quite interesting to experiment with sound echo and how much the initial sound can be changed.
In the simplest terms what I am trying to develop is the possibility that:
Waveform <> Form ie. Shape.
Theoretically, if these properties could be synchronised, I am hoping that a harmony of sound and light can be reached, or possibly a fusion. It is difficult to know how or if the human mind could even be able to experience such a thing but I am hoping to gain some insight into this through the study of a condition called synesthesia. Kandinsky, possibly one of the most famous artist’s in history with the condition, painted many abstract soundscapes. He named them after the symphony or piece of music that he interpreted.
Another well known synesthesiac, Richard.D. James, better known as Aphex Twin, whos complex, layered symphonies have often given me great inspiration. He has also bridged the gap between sound and light, using an electronic spectrometer . James often uses his own face in music videos often in an extremely sinister and vile context, contributing to the dark image he has developed.
Interestingly the face is possibly the most instantly recognisable and communicative forms to the human mind, however it is simply a reflection of light, not a light source.
The above video shows the incredible feat of creating a recognisable visual image through sound, translated by the electronic spectrometer. Although it is extremely haunting, I feel it is a breakthrough in the field I am looking at. Even though it is just effectively lines on a graph, sound-engineered to look like a face. It makes me wonder if James used drawing tool that translates spectrometer lines into sound, but as he is a sound artist I guess it is probably the other way round.
Another collective of artist I have come across in a similar line of work is the graphic depiction of magnetic fields on a filmed background.
One of the first people to demonstrate the shape of a magnetic field was the scientist Robert Hooke. Using iron filings placed around a small magnetic ball, he hoped to demonstrate the shape of the earth’s magnetic field. Magnetism is a prime example of an energy/force that we cannot see but we know is there. It is only through the medium of another material that we are able to see what it might look like. This animation produced by Semi-conductor films demonstrates how magnetic fields might look if they could be seen. This links together with my idea that different types of energy can be somehow related and visualised into what we can see. Detailed research was conducted by the collective into how magnetic fields behave then illustrated as lines of energy, mainly through interviews with various experts in this field. Not only is the artwork interesting to look at, obviously with some aesthetic consideration, but also might serve some educational purpose in demonstrating to budding scientists how magnetic fields look. Whether or not there depictions are accurate or not is debatable, but the work is more impressionistic rather than an actual diagram of measurements.
Since our exercise in Audition and the emphasis made on timing within dialogue, I have recognised how timing effects a scene within animation, especially within comedy. Watching Family Guy, not usually noted for it’s animation, I began to think of each scene of Family Guy as a song or music album. Let me explain. A work of music usually opens with something to grab your attention, a sound rhythm to engage and excite (or perhaps something well renowned, that the listener can be immersed into). The second song usually begins with a catchy, characteristic tune, further engaging and immersing the listener, usually definitive of the album as a whole. Having set the mood for the rest of the album the artist can kick off the journey of the rest of the album. This may consist of a series of waves, peaks, troughs and plateaus. Inevitably the final song will reach the pinnacle then disband to leave the listener with a final thought. Alot of the time the beginning will re-emerge giving the album a circular property that echoes on, as a complete work. Finding parallels between an animated story and a musical masterpiece may be quite far fetched, but there again some similarities are apparent.
I was extremely happy at the prospect of creating my own story, told through sound, without dialogue or visual reference. Having previuosly done quite abit of experimentation with sound recording, I felt confident that I could find some interesting sounds to include in my story. The workshop given to us on the different types of microphones and their directional sensitivity was also extremely useful for this, especially the point made about the importance of microphone placement. I.e. Getting the levels as loud as possible in order to get rid of white noise during editing.
Bearing this in mind and having a rough idea of the story I wanted to portray, I set out to the Falmouth Marina. I began by trying to record the clanging of runners against the masts of yachts, as I felt this gave alot of atmosphere and would be immediately recognisable to listeners. On the marina jetti I noticed the sound of creaking ropes and water lapping against boats. Having managed to record a few good quality sounds I decided to call it a day, but on my way out I discovered an absolute folley goldmine just behind the Maritime Museum. Reams of interesting sounds from metal pipes to blocks of wood, discarded gas canisters and oil drums providing deep ringing sounds. Also, just something interesting that I noted whilst hitting the drums was the water that had collected ontop of the drum, and the pattrerns that formed from the vibration of the stroke, known as the natural phenomenon of cymatics.
