Author: adarabi

OSTN Ident: Initial Ideas

Trying to keep the student t.v. theme in mind, I began drawing up some ideas of my own, which I could then suggest to Mike (my partner for this project). Many ideas sprung to mind, the strongest of which was the visual effect of morphing a grid (stack) of tv screens into a hexagonal latice, then panning out to reveal the eye of a bee. ALthough Entomology is probably not the strongest concept, I felt the idea of the TV screens and alien looking eye would be visually quite strong. Here is a concept drawing of the bee character + basic storyboard:

When I brought this idea to the table, the relevance of a bee seemed even less appealing, and due to the limited time we had, modelling and animating a bee would’ve taken too long. Eventually we went with an idea Mike had, which was a nightclub scene, which most students can probably relate to. We developed the idea further, bouncing some ideas around, I felt that I did not need to hold back on any seemingly outlandish ideas as I know Mike pretty well and this worked to our advantage. Eventually we came up with the idea to have a retro dancefloor (with lights) as the focal point, then to introduce a character dancing in an embarrassing way, inspired by the Brent dance in Ricky Gervais’ “The Office”. The punch line then came to us through watching an animation by Cyriak Harris (animator for Sumo.tv) which I have posted below:

Cyriak Harris: (inspiration from first animation) An extremely raw and imaginative compilation. Some find his stuff too chilling, but I like the simplicity and humor in his work. I especially like the little touch of leaving the cyclist’s hat where it is on impact.

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Zoetrope Animation

Post author By adarabi
Post date 29 February 2008

The first animation undertaking would be viewed in the form of a zoetrope. The freedom to produce a depiction of any subject matter whatsoever was great, but sometimes too much choice is a bad thing. I can see myself encountering this problem alot, as the possibilities of animation are pretty much boundless. Eventually i decided on depicting a chain of stickmen holding hands. Their movement would be in the form of a Mexican wave, but with the slightly graphic twist of their heads popping up when the wave passed them. As we only had 12 frames to work with, I found it quite difficult to squeeze this movement in. With 12 frames being the tv equivelant of half a second (with there being 25 frames per second), I should have pre-empted this problem beforehand. When it came to spinning the zoetrope, the animation did appear a little fast, but i think you could just about tell what it was.

Looking through the gaps in the side of the zoetrope made me realise how animation is just an illusion that tricks the brain into thinking that a static image is moving; which is pretty crazy if you think about it, and quite mesmerising.

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Blogging

Post author By adarabi
Post date 29 February 2008

I have never made a blog before, or a diary for that matter, but I think that recollecting thoughts and experiences is definitely good for inspiration. I doubt many people actually read blogs, but even so I think it is great that people all over the world can share their thoughts opinions.

I will try to be as open and honest as I can, mostly for myself, but also because I might be able to contribute things that I might not think of at the time or not have the intrepidety to say out aloud. Also there is so much bullcrap on the internet, I think it would be quite original to actually say what I think.