Contacting an Industry Profesh (Study task 3)

We've been tasked with contacting and interviewing an industry professional, so I want to meet Peter Dodd, animator and director of animation who's worked on many of Lupus films' productions such as Ethel and Ernest where he was animation director and The Snowman and the Snow dog where he was lead animator.

Contacting him would be great as I am interested in directing, 2D animation and character animation, plus I'm keen to learn about how everything works at Lupus films which is a sick company.

I will contact him at the start of January. Ideally I will travel to London to see him in person but we shall see. I would much prefer to ask him my questions face to face. It would be awesome to someday work for a company like Lupus films or Studio AKA

Networking Opportunities (Study task 4)

Ten Networking Opportunities:

1. Manchester Animation Festival, every November in Manchester
2. Thought Bubble, every September in Leeds
3. Aesthetica Short Film Festival, every November in Bradford
4. With a LinkedIn account
5. Through an art Instagram account
6. At Annecy International Animated Film Festival, every June in Annecy
7. By arranging local studio visits
8. Meeting the visiting professionals who come to university
9. Sending a showreel to lots of animation festivals
10. London International Animation Festival, every December in London

I've created a complete LinkedIn account as well as an art Instagram. It seemed daunting at first but having finished it has helped me understand online networking better. I have struggled to find things to put on there, though. Thus far I've connected with a bunch of my classmates and one or two industry professionals I admire such as Peter Dodd and Marcus Armitage

Learning Social Media (Study Task 5)

I got my LinkedIn done and my art Insta done (@poshpercy_art). I upload all my rough animation and drawings I deem worthy to the Instagram and I have nothing on the LinkedIn so far besides all my details and skills. I will use it as more of a CV and post my showreels up there along with a link to my art instagram.

I'm happy to keep my social media simply to the art instagram and LinkedIn, and I'll create a website when I graduate. I will attempt to post my showreels up on Linkedin, but I won't update it as much as Instagram

Initially I had problems with obsessively checking my Instagram to the point that it was detrimental to my real life socialising so I've turned off the notifications and vow to only check it when I'm uploading something new. I'll try and upload a couple of times a week at least.

I will market myself as a character animator with a FLARE for a few other things.

SWOT Analysing Myself (Study task 2)

SWOT ANALYSIS helps me identify how I can improve as an animator.

Admittedly, my sheet wasn't very comprehensive. I lack self awareness about a lot of things. It was helpful to put everything on paper.

I was analysed by two of my classmates which I found to be much more useful and found that a lot of their points lined up with one another. I do want to become capable with MAYA, even if it's just in one aspect of it such as character animation. It would be nice to have that string to my bow.

I've drawn up a schedule to plan my weeks, and I'm going to practice MAYA every Tuesday night.

Manchester Animation Festival 2017

Another trip to Manchester Animation Festival, to help me broaden my wise animation knowledge. My regret is that I didn't take the opportunity to speak to more industry professionals (my fault), BUT I got to see a lot of sick films.

Some of my highlights included:

The Breadwinner, a very moving film and well paced film that cemented my enjoyment of hand drawn full length features. I wish that more full length films were hand drawn, but I'm starting to think that the whole art form lends itself more to mixed media or to short films due to its time consuming nature.

Cops and Robbers, which was sick because it incorporated a moving camera in a 2D short film. One thing I wish 2D animation could do more is a moving camera, because it looks awesome. It's something I'd love to do in my own work.

Goodnight, Everybuds was great because I enjoyed the liquid-y transforming, dreamlike way it was animated. It was bursting with energy and embraced the fact that animation doesn't have to be constrained by any rules.

Alternatively, Grandpa Walrus was realistic (in parts), measured and subtle. Everything from the sound to the background art of the windy beach to the nuanced facial expressions on the characters set the scene perfectly.

This Week at the Hyde Park Picture House

I watched two bizarre things at the Hyde Park Picture House this week:

The Night is Short, Walk On Girl:

It's a Japanese film by Masaaki Yuasaabout one girl and her night of crazy misadventures, as well as a really horny guy who's trying to find her so they can fall in love.

There's also a wide range of wacky characters that she bumps into.

I liked the art style. Normally I'm not mad about anime character design because they all have a creepy spaced out stare and everything seems really fetishised.

But this art style seemed more unconventional. I liked the BRIGHT COLOURS and more simplistic, but nonetheless detailed look. I've watched very little anime but the character animation seemed more fluid and dynamic than in other Japanese films.

The MAIN lesson I can learn is from the camerawork, though.

This film used the camera so creatively, flipping through multiple art styles and going inside characters' brains with elegant scene transitions. It exemplifies the unlimited possibility of animation and I wish more animated films would go wild with their cinematography. It helped the film keep a really good pace.

I didn't like how the male protagonist was a creepy stalker though. It didn't make me invested in his plight.

"Won't you have some wine, matey man?"
"SHADDUP I'm trying to be a creepy creep and stalk this girl"
(Direct quote)

Notes From Another India: Shambhavi Kaul 

The 2nd thing I went to see. It was an Indian Artist displaying her short films. I felt like I would've appreciated them more had I searched deeply for a powerful subtext, but I wasn't in the mood to.

On a purely aesthetic level, the short films had a good sense of texture and showed the world in a beautiful way. It was very relaxing. So relaxing, in fact, that I fell asleep for 45 minutes of the screening, which I why I'm not able to discuss it at length.

Who I am and What I Want PART TWO (Study Task 1)

What I know now:

• The Adobe Suite
• Line testing and Dragonframe
• Animating on Wacom tablets
• How to make armatures
• Making character turnarounds

What do I want to know?:

• How to be a great director
• How to be a great character animator
• How to be a great cinematographer
• How to be a great leader of men
• How to be a great sketchbooker

Skills I am good at:

• Presenting
• Organising my time
• Embracing new software and being adaptable
• Some of the 12 principles of animation
• Creating emotive characters

Things I want to improve:

• Everything in the 3D realm
• Organising a team
• The 12 principles of animation
• My knowledge of adobe
• Adding more spicy variety to my designs (variety is the spice of etc.)

Practitioners that demonstrate my interest in animation:

• Glen Keane (Disney Animator)
• Bob Godfrey (Animator)
• Brad Bird (Animator and Director)
• Harry Partridge (Animator)
• Chris Shepherd (Animator/ 

Websites that demonstrate my area of interest:

• Skwigly Animation magazine (http://www.skwigly.co.uk/)
• Box of Broadcasts (https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ondemand)
• Hyde Park Picture House (http://www.hydeparkpicturehouse.co.uk/)
• YouTube channels such as Cinefix
• Cartoon Brew (http://www.cartoonbrew.com/)

Amateurs and Armatures (OUAN402)

I really enjoyed making this model armature of a character I designed in a previous module. Later, I plan to imbue it with runes to bring it sentience.

The master craftsman applies his trade.

I had quite a few issues building this thing. I kept snapping the wires because I got over excited and then I got my measurements wrong so I had to cut them again. Our technician was really helpful and had oodles of patience.

After I'd made the actual wire frame, it was much easier to bulk out the rest of the body using styrofoam and a paste that hardens when heat is applied.

The character model sheet I worked from

I'm glad I had the experience of building an armature. It would be quite cool to become, like, an expert model making guy or something and I will CERTAINLY be using these skills in the future. I'm generally pleased with how this thing turned out, but I'm still rather ham-handed when it comes to clay modelling. In future I'm keen to add more detail. ESPECIALLY on the hands.

Look a those bloody hands! They look like gross squashed octopuses or something.

I also want to develop a technique to make eyes and mouths more natural looking and flexible. Right now his face looks a little terrifying and intense.

Things to Come (OUAN402)

Based on a short story written by H.G. Wells in 1933, "Things to Come", the movie made in 1936, takes a stab at predicting the far flung future leading all the way up to 2036. And if there's one thing I bloody love, mate, it's old films that try and predict the future and then get it wrong.

I love it when a director pours their heart and soul into creating their vision of the future, only for little bastards like me to look back on those visions and sneer at them purely because I had the luxury of being born now, with the virtue of hindsight.

This isn't how people dressed in the 1960s, H.G. Wells! You bloody stupid idiot. Predict the future right next time.

I can't wait for 2036 fashion to come around. Don't want to touch your bare calves to one of those marble floors though. That'd be well cold.

BESIDES that, there's a lot to be taken away from this film. I hugely enjoyed 1930s era sets, props and costumes. I still say that there's something really special about a handmade set, creatively incorporated into the scene. A little movie magic like that is part of what makes a film a piece of art!

Look a this big spaceship-boarding-platform thing. It looks so massive and cool!

This is thanks to art director William Cameron Menzies, a real master of production design. Orson Welles once said of him "He brought the illustrator’s eye to the camera and graphic validity to an art form that was all too often theatrical rather than cinematic", which is true! "Things to come" is full of bold cinematography and impressive set pieces that made me go "woah, that's cool" and would probably have made some 1930s guy's heart explode from excitement.

Like this cool underground laser drill.

The cinematography packs a lot of awe into it. Every detail has been really nicely thought out to give the impression that the world is real, tangible, yet has a sense of wonder in it's exuberant design. It's shot with GUSTO, in a style I'm keen to emulate. 

William Cameron Menzies, drawing a window with lots of things going on outside it.

The main problem was that it had a tendency to drag a little, which is often a feature of old films. I think it was because 1930s acting requirements seemed to be less stringent than today's. I reckon that if you started method acting back then or tried to find the emotional centre of a scene the director would smack you with a gin bottle and tell you to just read the lines.

Look! She looks at the camera! And it lasts about 5 seconds!

- "hey look it spells out 'gullible'"
- "what really where"
- "haha lol not really"

Practicing my Follow Through (OUAN402)

A quick line test where I practice the principle of squash and stretch. I returned to using the light box and pegboard for this short animation because I love the smooth smooth feeling of it and I've missed the connection that I don't feel with a graphics pad. Also, I like using a light box because it makes me feel like an old timey animator from the past.

I am pleased with how this turned out. I had to add a few frames after my first line test to avoid parts of the animation being too jumpy. Were I to do it again, I would exaggerate the swing of the beard and the hat more, just for fun and to see how far I could go with the principle of follow through.

UPDATE. I actually DID do it again, in a sweet digital remastering. I'm more pleased with this version.

Squashing and Stretching Test (OUAN402)

I made this in response to a quick quick brief asking us to animate a square that explores the principles of squash and stretch and anticipation.

I improved on it later by altering the character's run cycle to show his foot making contact with the floor before he puts weight on it. I think it looks less floaty.

Paterson - Giving On-Screen Worlds a Personality of Their Own (OUAN402)

 What makes some on-screen worlds feel like real worlds and what makes others feel like a set that the actors are confined within the boundaries of? Like, in some films I feel like I would be able to walk outside the frame and still come across great characters and stories that weren't on camera.

When I animated before university, I did everything with a plain white background because I lacked the technological know-how to do anything more sophisticated. Now I have a lot more choice I'm feeling overwhelmed because I had never considered the importance of the details of the scenery behind the characters. What colour scheme should I use? How much detail is too much detail before it distracts from the focus of the scene? Can a minimalist set feel tactile and relatable?

Most importantly, what kind of story am I looking to tell with my set and how can I tell it? I have no clue.

I loved "Paterson", partially for its scenery and set design. Though the locations in the film did not look objectively beautiful or traditionally cinematic, Jim Jarmusch made me relate to them very well because they felt authentic.

None of the sets looked like they were staged, in the sense that the director hadn't walked into the frame and tweaked things and placed visual clues all over the place to tell the audience more about the characters and how they live. It wasn't overdone, it was really realistic. Every prop that was there was there because it would make perfect sense for it to be there, and there was nothing more to it.

We've all been to places like the ones in the movie before, so they had a sense of familiarity to them. The familiarity with the locations gave me empathy with the characters before they even spoke.

This leaves me thinking about what I should and shouldn't add to an animated background? As in, what's the line between an authentic set and a caricature of that set? I think I should draw my backgrounds keeping in mind the time of day it's meant to be, what types of characters are there and what impact those characters have on the environment. If it's messy, then I can't just draw a generic mess because there's no story behind it. I want every facet of my background to be planned and be explainable.

The film shows us Paterson's walk to and from work quite a few times. We're also shown the route that Paterson walks his dog quite a few times. By the time the audience sees him walk these routes the second or third time, we have a basic grasp of where everything is in relation to each other and it gives the world a sense of proportion, making it feel real.

("American Beauty" does this really excellently as well. A lot of the shots are repeated to make them seem familiar and give the audience an attachment to that location)

This shot of the suburban neighbourhood is returned to a few times

Perhaps a lesser film would indicate Paterson's journey to work by doing one cut between home and work, but I found that showing me the walk increased my immersion.

A Swamp Monster (OUAN402)

I'm very excited to get into stop motion. I have an absolutely HILARIOUS plan for a cracking stop motion animation with a swamp monster in it, but it's too long and complex for me to tackle at my current level.

But that doesn't mean I can't DESIGN a swamp monster.

First I tested a few swamp monster faces. The eyes were the hardest part because I didn't want them to look too human-ey but I also didn't want them to look creepy.

Then I did some character designs for the swamp monster. I liked the sort of dumpy looking one who isn't holding any tea

I know it lacks some detail. I will add in scales or something on a later model.

And then I built it out of plasticine and placed it on my window. Now I can sleep safe in the knowledge that it will either protect or kill me in my bed.

The Iron Giant - Lessons Learnt PART TWO - Storytelling (OUAN402)

PART TWO - CHARACTER AND STORYTELLING

"The Iron Giant" is my favourite film because no other piece makes me laugh and cry so consistently and keeps such a good tonal balance, nor can I think of a film that I can watch over and over again and get more out of each time. EVERYONE can learn a lesson about storytelling from this movie. It doesn't beat the audience over the head with backstory or get bogged down with overused clichés. Everything in the film is there because it tells us more about the characters or builds the relationships between characters and as such, nothing is wasted, the story is very tight and I was left really emotionally satisfied at the end.

FOR INSTANCE, this is a brief shot of a picture of a bloke hopping into a military jet, placed on Hogarth's bedside table. It is a really nice visual touch that tells us a tonne about Hogarth's character and doesn't talk down to the audience. If Hogarth had picked up the picture and then looked at the camera and said "THIS IS A PICTURE OF MY DEAD DAD WHO I OBVIOUSLY ADMIRE AND FROM WHOM I DRAW MY STRONG MORAL COMPASS" then it wouldn't have worked so well. That's how I'd have directed it, though, with the "no drooling moron left behind" attitude to film-making.

The themes in the movie are another example of amazing storytelling. They are subtly woven into the film constantly and they pay off really well at the end. The concept of being what you choose to be, rather that what the world projects onto you, is presented really touchingly without coming across as saccharine. The characters of Kent Mansley, the government official who's job it is to protect the people, and the Giant mirror each other really well as they both have to fight their programming. The Giant succeeds. It's implied throughout the movie that he is designed to destroy, and he battles with this concept for the whole film before deciding that he is "not a gun".

Meanwhile, Kent Mansley loses sight of the right thing to do, protect people. He becomes so fixated on killing the giant that he decides to bomb an entire town full of people as a means to that end. The emotional climax comes in the end, when the giant must die for doing the right thing while Mansley gets to live. It's a complex and captivating message. You are who you choose to be, but it sometimes comes coupled with great adversity.

The Iron Giant - Lessons Learnt PART ONE - Animation (OUAN402)

PART ONE - DESIGN AND AESTHETIC

The Iron Giant is, and I'm not speaking in hyperbole, my favourite film ever made. Re-watching it recently, I learnt a tonne of  lessons that can apply to my work. I'm hesitant to analyse this piece in depth for fear of ruining the WONDER and WHIMSY that it makes me feel. The character design is top notch. Everyone has a slight exaggerated look to them that gave them a great deal of energy and personality without seeming alien, distorted or creepy.

Each face is distinguishable from the others and has oodles of character

The character design reminded me of the characters from Team Fortress Two, a game well known for having a wonderful aesthetic with characters who could be identified from just their silhouettes, which is key to iconic design.

 

   

I chose to draw a few quick face designs myself.

Using basic shapes like raindrops and rectangles as guidelines, I tried to draw faces that were aesthetically appealing with minimal features that stood out. I'm not a fan of largely inflated caricatures, the likes of which you'd see drawn at a pier or something because I find them not pleasant to look at, so the hard part was finding a good mid point between boringly understated facial features and overly exaggerated features.

I think that this flippy hair guy on the bottom is my favourite of all of them.

The characters in The Iron Giant have brilliant eyes. I found I was constantly drawn to them during any scene which had talking characters which made me relate to them far more.

 

When I was in Disneyland they have this well ace thing called "Animation Academy" where they would teach everyone how to draw Disney characters which I went back to five times or so. Every single time the person running the workshop would tell us all to make the eyes the darkest point on the drawing as it draws attention to them. That's what the eyes in "The Iron Giant" are like.

I've only scratched the surface of why the film's aesthetic is so great. There's plenty to cover from the props, costumes and scenery that give a quintessential fifties vibe to the phenomenal sweeping landscape shots, but what's worth mentioning is the fantastic camerawork that is done to convey the enormous scale of the giant from a human's point of view. 

It's powerful, looming and really scary at first.