Rotoscoping Evaluation

This has been my favourite project to date; I have enjoyed every second of it! I have become a lot more confident with my ideas and ideas development that I have spent the right amount of time focusing on the end result rather than sat drawing in my sketchbook until I run out of time. I have enjoyed the response from my fellow class mates, tutors and professionals from my portfolio visits about my ink rotoscoping and I think it will be used somewhere within my final major. The only think that I would take more care about is making sure the frames are the same size to avoid the jump across the screen. This time around I have edited the frames in after effects to make it appear smoother however towards the end of the animation some were to far over that they couldn’t be edited.

The only negatives about this project were the cost of acetate and trying to get the library staff to sell me the acetate. I overcame this problem by asking the rest of the class to go down in shifts to buy 20 sheets each.

Boat Evaluation

This is the first project where in which I have animated within after effects successfully. It was extremely difficult for me at first to get my head around making my objects move realistically and smoothly but as I have struggled through the project my skills have only got better. A personal trait of mine that I believe stops me from animating successfully is the fact I assume things are harder than they are going to be, therefore making me shy away from them. But within this project with some guidance from Rick I am now more confident in using after effects to animate my work.

However reflecting on the positives of this project there are still some parts that weren’t so successful, for example the sound. I always struggle with placing sound onto my work so I think as a pointer for my final major project I should start with sound and then animate to fit because my method doesn’t work for me. Another aspect I would like to have done is a making of; I didn’t film or record any footage from the beginning so I didn’t manage to create one. However for my next brief I will try it out to show my hand crafted processes.

Portfolio Visit 3 - Dave Clark

For my final visit I went to see someone that has used his creativity in a variety of ways. When I first met Dave he owned a digital advertising agency called Clark and Clark who were responsible for the touch screen navigators within the Trafford Centre. He now owns his own clothing company named ‘Stoned Monkey’ where he himself designs the clothing. As well as this he is also a talented photographer and creates his own catalogues for his company and was the wedding photographer at my Mum’s wedding. The reason for wanting to visit Dave was to gain an incite into using different skills and interests and pushing them towards career paths. Some great advice he gave me about success was to be polite, confident but not smug and persistent; if there is something you want and you try hard enough eventually you will make it (similar to what was said within the thoughtful lecture).

As my showreel goes he was very impressed but suggested adding some of the processes to add interest and excitement as to how my pieces are created. He was excited about my rotoscoping piece as again I took the acetate that I have used for the final animation so it was something physical to handle and look at. Which lead him to suggest that a physical portfolio might be a nice way to showcase the acetate as he said they looked great as stand alone pieces.

Reflecting on my portfolio visit overall I have defiantly decided to create a physical portfolio to showcase the hand crafted side of my animation. As my work goes I have had some extremely positive feedback regarding my ink rotoscoping so I think this technique should be a serious consideration to my final major project.

Animation Continuity

So after managing to perfect the movement of the waves I needed to decide how I could successfully move the boat from one side of the screen to the other to make it appear continuos throughout the scenes. Since the start of the project I had literally been moving the boat from one side of the screen to the other and as the animation progressed the continuity of the boat on the screen was inconsistent so I needed to think of a way to improve this. It took me a while but I finally came to the simple conclusion of moving the sky across the screen instead of the boat so that on each scene I created the boat will be in the same place with the surroundings moving past.

Here is one of my original tests with the boat moving along the screen:-

This is my developed test moving the sky instead of the boat:-

I can really tell the difference and as I began to add the sequences together the overall flow of the piece started to fit together more successfully.

Thoughtful Lecture

I attended the Thoughtful lecture today which was about how to get in contact with people within the industry and present yourself and you work to them professionally. It was an amazing lecture with loads of information i can take away and keep in mind for when find portfolio visits and even looking for job interviews. A word used by Greg Quinton from Partners design company was 'persistence' so basically if there is something you want you have to work for it, nothing is easy but if you want it so badly and try hard enough eventually you will get it.

Something else that also stood out to me was a statement made by Patrick Baglee a creative director at Navy Blue 'It is better to be interested than interesting'. Reflecting on this i believe it means to make yourself appear interested in everything that goes on around you and the studio your visiting and also appear interested and ready to learn as he also mentioned that you never stop learning.

Some things to consider about first getting in contact with a studio:-

1. Preferred method of first initial contact is e-mail.

2. Know something about the studio, letting them know you have done your research.

3. Find out who you should address the email to, to show it is specifically for that company rather than just a basic email sent out with out any thought to loads of different companies.

4. If you are going to attach anything such as a CV or PDFs make sure they are small preferably under 5MB.

Somethings to consider when at the portfolio visit/interview:-

1. Be prepared - ask how much time you have been allocated and make sure you don't run over.

2. Be organised - make sure you have everything prepared and ready.

3. Include sketches in sketchbooks or possibly even in a paper portfolio.

4. Make sure that while you are presenting your work it is visible at all times to the viewer and not yourself.

5. Sit up straight, portray good etiquette

5. Make something you can leave behind so that the studio will remember you after you have left.

Rotoscoping Test - Drawing with ink

After testing with biro directly onto image I decided to draw with ink using a stick onto acetate tracing the photo underneath. I love the effect it has created as each image is so different i even realised i forgot to draw the head on some of the images but i think this adds to the personality of the piece. However i do need to add colour asap because my piece cannot be black and white it needs to be colourful, bright and more visually stimulating but i do like the use of ink and stick to create the characters in my animation.

Inspiration for aesthetic style - Quentin Blake

I have always been interested in Quentin Blake's illustration style, I love the use of sketchy black outlines and pale water coloured fill. As I am using ink to rotoscope for my 'Feel Good' brief I feel like this particular style will influence the style of my aesthetics, obviously I won't mimic the style but something similar.

Rotoscoping Test - Drawing directly onto the image

This is the first quick test I have made using the rotoscope technique, here I filmed myself putting on a jacket, edited it in after effects then exported as an image sequence at 12 fps to make my job less difficult, created contact sheets in photoshop, printed them out and drew in black biro directly onto the images. I do like this technique but it isn't right for the mise-en-scene of the advert, it is very dark and the lines are very thick i want something a little more intricate and hand crafted than this. Also i don't want the background to be seen as i want it to be all hand drawn so filming the final rotoscoping footage i think should be done by using acetate or tracing paper so i only pick out the figures movements and then i can create the surroundings.

Mini Blab 3

I really enjoyed the fact that a group of creative people from around Manchester was approached with a topic and asked to create a 15-minute presentation with the topic being 'Things you've seen'. Similar to our 'new way of looking' brief in the first year they went and found things that they would normally see around and about but never really give much thought to it until asked. It was really great to have short, snappy and very humorous presentations as I feel if one speaker is talking for a long time it tends to become fairly tedious and I loose focus.

There was one presentation that I think had the most effect on the speaker and me was Simon Griffin. He talked about ideas that stay hidden away in a 'notebook' and how we shouldn't hide them we should do something about it for our own pleasure (not just for business and money). It really got me thinking about some ideas about animations I would love to try but just don't seem to bother trying to create them even if just very crudely. Reflecting on my boat animation and my improvement in animation skills (even though still basic) I feel more confident in playing around with my own ideas and 'writing my own brief', which is something I never thought I would be confident doing this time last year since I struggled so much with my sonic project. So from this I have started to work on small projects of ideas that I have had so I can also place them in my showreel to show I am still working outside of what I am asked to create within Uni.

Openbare Bibliotheek, Amsterdam

Arriving back from Amsterdam reflecting on what I have seen one place in particular that really excited me - Centrale Openbare Bibliotheek quite obviously located in the centre of Amsterdam.

Not only was the outside of the building amazing but as you entered the building it took my breath away. I have never seen a library so big in my entire life and what was nice about it was that it was so futuristic unlike a stereotypical library we would find in England. It is the largest public library in Europe with 10 floors in total, each floor rammed full of books on a huge variety of subjects.

As well as taking in the gorgeous interior they also had a graphics exhibition called 'Everyday Graphics' which contained a range of different work from still graphics to short animated pieces using symbols universally recognisable to everyone. There was one piece in particular that stood out to me and it was as soon as you entered the exhibition - It was a short animation named 'Logorama' and it is described as 'A short 16 minute animated film that depicts events in a stylised Los Angeles, and is told entirely through the use of more than 2500 contemporary and historical logos and mascots.'

Similar to that of the 'Kiss' i saw at the Whitworth Gallery it creates that interaction between the audience watching as you automatically want to point out what logo and mascot is and where is it from. Using familiar and universal images also gives a sense of versatility which can be understood by all. It is also a change to create an animation using imagery already created by others it adds that element of excitement as the mascots and logos are given characteristics and personas you wouldn't normally associate with them. In context the animation was projected onto a white wall to keep that clean, sharp and neat feeling as you do within the graphic industry. It made me think again how I can create an interesting way of presenting at the final show.