Monday 11 January 2010

Work in progress.

Here I just wanted to post some of the work I have produced leading up to my final piece.



This is an example of one of the first renders I created, to describe visually the look I was searching for.



This is a sketch of a character design I have created as part of the storyline for my animation.

Storyline:

My animation is going to be an abstract, artistic approach to storytelling. I will let my images speak for themselves as there will be no dialogue, and to accompany the images I will be using a song which I felt matched the feeling of the piece quite well.

The start of the animation will be quite dark, you are given the impression that it is night time. You will be shown abstract images of clocks, while moving towards a girl sitting at a desk. The clocks are to symbolise the passing of time. I tried to relate the story to myself, sending two messages. One, that art can be a pleasant experience most of the time, in that you spend hours and hours working over an image to get it perfect and you don't notice the time fly by. Then at other times.. You just can't seem to get the message out, and time slips away while you scramble to accomplish your goals.

You follow the character in my story as she creates drawings of another character, who's world is bright and vibrant. Fast moving and beautiful!
I have many many inspirations, varying from music to commercials, movies, imagery and the world around me. When I think that I want to make an animation for this project I'm compelled to research a lot of the animation I've seen recently and love. One specific piece of anime which I feel has greatly inspired me artistically is Fullmetal Alchemist (FMA).

Fullmetal Alchemist is an anime show which I have been watching for quite some time. More recently Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood was released. It is a remake of the series with a richer style of animation and storyline which is closer to the manga than the original.

FMA always makes me wonder just how do they do it. Coupled with very crisp, clean characters and movement, the scenes are filled with bold, rich colors. Especially the openings and endings! Energetic and inspiring, they are almost always coupled wiht the perfect song, creating a specific mood and bringing out emotions in me I would love to be able to portray through my own work. In the endings and openings is where the animaters can really let themselves create something different, not neccessarily having to make a scene specifically shown in a world they can be imaginative and playful.

Here are some other anime openings:

Fullmetal Alchemist/FMA Brotherhood.
Elfen Lied
Claymore
naruto
Bleach
Death Note
Murder Princess
Geneshaft
Ugly and Beautiful World
Witchblade
Gray-Man
Over Drive
True Tears

From the openings above I plan to get ideas, take screenshots. Look for interesting animation.

Focus:

Character design
Traditional animation
Computer graphics
Typgraphy
movement
Emotion
Comic
Comic movies/style
Film noir


Emotion - Style
Negative - Noisy, dark, bold, desaturated.
Motion - sketchy, wiggles, flashes.


Themes, ideas, what to do.

At the moment my idea is to make an animation which has individually drawn frames done in digital format.

I would like to add other ideas and make some tests to find out what the final piece could look like.

My plan of action:
Research into environments and backgrounds which could be of use to me when creating my own animation.

Movie openings

Use of typography.

Pixar's Monsters inc.


The animation and over-all style of this movie opening is very vintage, making lovely use of monotone colours. The style itself reminds me of 101 dalmations opening.

Pixar's Wall-e.


Large sweeping camera movements show the vast environment well, emphisising how great the space is.

Silent Hill opening.


The typography has a very rustic appearance, like metal or old surface. It matches the theme of the movie well. Also, the use of small particles of dust/ash floating in the shot works well to add atmosphere and depth.

Kinetic Typography ideas.

Pulp fiction - kinetic typography.

Fight club - chemical burn

V for Vendetta.


Adobe after effects is used for these videos. Text is written on screen then a timeline is used to create sweeping camera movements, showing the typography in 3D space.

Perhaps I could use this method as part of my video. As I would like to do character design, perhaps I could move an image of my character in a similar way?

Kinetic typography usually goes along with music, or dialogue from a movie so it's quite energetic and full of movement.

2D image.

I am very interested in using this project to create a video which shows use of 2D image in 3D space.

A great video I found while researching can be found below.

"Suddenly by Magnus Engstors."


In this video he uses various photographs and arranges them in 3D space (in adobe after effects) to make them look somewhat like actual footage, adding depth of field and warping them slightly to give movement.

Magnus Engfors also created this video in which he has shown a very interesting use of typography in 3D space. (link geometry)

Anime openings.

Death note:
Very energetic, (mad house) lots of textures, mark making involved. Use of black&white/monotone colouring. Music is very loud and heavy.

Fullmetal Alchemist:
Combat, I really like the style of animation for FMA. It suits the character design well and gives great energy and movement. The environments are especially vibrant and full of colour. Beautiful, in my opinion.

Bleach:
5- I love the overall style of colour. It's quite dark and almost realistic. I really like the use of neon lighting.
8- The style of characters is unlike the other bleach openings. The lines are very thin and crisp and the people are very characturised through their movement and occasional "silly face".

Character design.

Story is the starting point.
Easy to identify - clothing, hairstyles, etc.
The right look.
Believeable.

When is the story set?
What role does the character play?
Where do they take their story?
Who are they? Personality translates into your character's mannerisms, expressions, etc.

Step by step.

Set the scene
Get the look
Develop the character
Lock it down
Tell the story

Create a character description
Name, age, height, occupation, main outfit, hair colour, eye colour, brief background, personality, physical details, etc.

So far.

At the moment my plan is to create an opening to an anime I will be designing.

I will need to design the character, backgrounds, themes, interaction between the characters, background story, everything!

I'd like to include two character interacting with eachother, perhaps some lipsyncing and combat.

Theme ideas:

Combat, conflict, seasons, races, space age, fantasy, colours, mechanics, elements, animals, dragons, artist.

Need to do:
Storyboards, finalise theme, character designs, environment designs, music/backtrack considerations.

Artist theme:

Drawings, characters come to life in the comic strips? Super heroes?
Paper coming to life?
Cartoon characters?
Paper plans, concepts, blueprints?
Paper stitches, textiles, squared paper. Stains, watercolours on paper.
Paints, ink stains, symbolising art?
Use different mark making for background effects. Chalk, crayon, oil pastel, oil paint, etc.

Style ideas:

Typography - Iosys -


I really enjoy the asian style of animation. I think it is lovely to look at and very fun and energetic. I feel Iosys' particular video is sweet and quite trippy! I like the use of music/vocals to make it look like the character is telling a story.

Kill Bill animation -


Very sketchy style, thick inked lines. Very expressive characters, often in warped, exaggerated poses during animation. Quite a violent style of animation, but it suits the content well. The colours are very vibrant and lighting, I found, was quite harsh.

Tuesday 22 September 2009

Got my brief!

Alright, so I got my brief today. After finding out I am allowed to create any type of moving image (animation, realtime movie, film etc..)I want I was flooded with ideas of many different things I can do. I decided to keep a blog as a great way to compile all my research and keep an up to date journal of my progress to help workflow and hopefully narrow down my ideas to decide upon a final project.

Here are some of my notes from today's lecture:

My brief (in short)is to deliver a type of moving image, movie or animation up to three minutes in length. I have 12 weeks to complete the piece and my first deadline is on week 4. On week 4 I will be marked for 10% of my final research (which counts for 30% in total).

The class was showed four movies today to inspire our creativity!

Synchronomy by Norman McLauren 1971
Pièce Touchée by Martin Arnold 1988
Two-lane blacktop by Monte Hellman 1969
Tales of Mere Existance by Lev Yilmaz 2000