Pixilation Week

Learning about Pixilation gas bee pretty baffling because normally if somebody says "Stop Motion" we often thick straight to Claymation and nah made models. Pixilation however puts live action and Stop Motion together and its actually one of the most clever things I've ever seen. It consists of the usual technique of moving somebody, or an object sightly, taking the picture and then continuing to do the same throughout.

Pixilation "Keep on Dancing" (start 86 Musicvideo)

Anna Gawrilow / Stefanie Binder / Jacqueline Dukr / Sebastian Gurcke

This is an example of Pixilation which I think is really funny to watch. I found it on YouTube, I'm not entirely sure who is to thank for this but I'm assuming the names of those I have given played some very important part in the making of this! I love the use of Pixilation in this because its been used in a comical way and its pushed the boundaries because the people in this aren't just walking around, they are doing every other stupid thing under the sun apart from walking and it just makes the whole animation more interesting. They have also made great use of the environment around them and taken advantage of their surroundings. 

More Photoshop Inductions, happy days!

After using the Wacom Tablets for longer this week I reckon I've really started to get the hang of it a bit better, since it took me a while to get to grips with it because it was such a strange concept for me, Im so used to drawing onto paper.

We were set the task of creating an animation of at least 5 seconds, consisting of 12 frames per second using a timeline. The aim was to base it around elements such as water, earth, wind and fire. I went with ice because I thought, well its still water. Its a pretty simple, low standard animation but to be honest it was really good to get used to drawing with the Wacom Table and doing it frame by frame. Its not completely finished so I'm going to try and give it a big comical ending at some point (which will sadly consist of the death of this poor man)

The Twelve Principles of Animation..

This week I had a lecture on the "Twelve Principles of Animation" which were created by Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas and were mentioned in their book "The Illusion of Life".

1) "Squash and Stretch" - The focus on giving the illusion of weight and volume. For example in the bouncing ball diagram above, the ball becomes less round and more elongated as it shoots towards the floor because gravity would be pulling it down. Also when it hits the floor it becomes more squished because the fact that it has hit the floor at a speed has made it loose it roundness! 

2) "Anticipation" - Communicating what is going to happen before an action is carried out, for example if a character lunges backwards before throwing a ball! 

My brilliant work of art to show this..

3) "Staging" (or "Mis-en-scene") - The communication of a character's or an object's emotional state. Shot framing can often help with this to direct the audiences attention, or the use of a "Dutch Tilt" to indicate something is not quite right!

4) ""Straight Ahead" and "Pose to Pose" Animation - Straight ahead animation is when there is no use of a key frame, it starts with the first drawing and continues on until the end of the scene. It does create fast action but if not careful it could be easy to loose sense of scale, size and volume. 

Pose to Pose animation on the other hand is where an animator will work out the key poses and somebody else works out the bits in-between. Ironically these people are called "In-betweners" (Que. the giggles) This technique can result in better quality and its easier for other people to assist because they know what they have to wain towards. 

5) "Follow Through and Overlapping Action" - This would be the main action that continues after a character has stopped moving. For example, if somebody swished their hair in a majestic manner their hair won't stop moving the second they do! NOTHING STOPS ALL AT ONCE MY FRIEND. 

6) "Ease In / Ease Out" - Its pretty simple. The more drawings, the slower the animation. The less drawings, the quicker the animation! So when trying to make something look as though it is coming to a halt gradually that would be especially important to think about. 

7) "Arcs" - Animals and humans normally follow the Arcs, which are the features of their movement which make them look natural. (If I wanted something to look mechanical then it may not be so much of an issue!)

8) "Secondary Action" - This is a way of reinforcing something, for example if a character's eyes pop a meter out of their head then that would reinforce the fact that they are having a bit of a shock, 

of some description. 

                         

9) "Timing" - The more drawings between poses, the smoother the action will be! 

(UK TV - 25 FRAMES A SECOND / US TV - 30 FRAMES A SECOND)

10) "Exaggeration" - Sometimes when creating an animation, the more subtle exaggerations can make better effect compared to somebody screaming and running around. (e.g. somebody just raising an eyebrow!)

11) "Solid Drawing" - Its important to make the drawings realistic in terms of weight, volume and solidity. Thought also needs to be given to the possibility of 3D as well as 2D.

12) "Appeal" - The ability to give a character appeal and make the audience interested in them whether they are a cute, heroic, comical or a villain. Which can be done through their design, dialog or personality.

... and yes, I am obsessed with her.

Flip Books are easy you say? what? no.

This is probably the first bit of animation I have EVER done.. BIG DAY! 

To start off with we all focused on just creating a bouncing ball animation of our own, which rather challenged by amazing brain.. After rubbing out a few attempts and thinking about gravity more than I ever have in my whole life, I started to get somewhere! 

When creating this first flip book there were some important things to think about which I  maybe wouldn't have thought about as much if we hadn't just learned about the 12 principles of animation. I made the mistake of not creating any arch in the ball's bounce , so it didn't look very realistic at the start. Also it was important to think about the "squash and stretch" factor. As the ball is being pulled towards the ground I made it look more elongated and once it had hit the floor I drew it to look more compact and flattened. It definitely made the whole animation look more realistic because the ball didn't look the exact same shape throughout.

Definitely want to make a second, better one after this!

Yes, I went for the typical apple! 

After creating my first flip book I thought, why not add some colour? And why not make it better? So yes, my lunch break gave me some inspiration! I wanted the apple that is situated in the middle to be gradually bitten away until "POOF" its all gone. To be honest I really enjoyed doing this one because I had a much better idea of what I was going for. I think the fact that I used some different media and added some wording, it made the whole thing a bit more interesting. I still want to improve my ability of creating flip books because I reckon if I have done this just after a day then who's to say I can't get even better. Fun times! 

GANGNAM STYLE FLIPBOOK (yes its real)

Okay I know we are all probably sick of hearing this song, but thats not the reason I put it on here. This Flip book version of the music video is SPOT ON (well there are many Flip Books involved but thats not the point) First of all, the use of spacing and camera angles work really well, its not all on one level all the time which makes it more interesting to watch as a piece of animation. The fact that not too much colour has been used actually draws more attention to how the people are moving and dancing around which is what makes it so amazing. Around 2:35 there is some really good attention to detail when it comes to the Follow Through and Overlapping Action where the woman's hair is obviously being blown around in the breeze, it looks really believable. I know this would have taken absolutely ages to complete but its worth it! 

Photoshop Induction

In our Photoshop induction, I was taught how to have multiple layers and blend them together into one.  I had a play around with blending some different images on top of one another, which I found enjoyable since I had never really done this before. I don't think what I produced in this first hour is amazing, but it has helped me gain an understanding of the different tools on Photoshop. 

I kept on experimenting with what I had learned so far, for example the use of colour, use of layers, blending using the brush tool and cropping images. All of these images I have created are just products of me playing around and experimenting, so I aim to get A LOT better over the next few weeks…

Developing my flip book animation in Photoshop.

This week I chose to develop my apple animation in Photoshop, so i began by scanning in each page individually. When layering each frame on top of one another something that made the whole process much easier, was making sure the opacity of that individual frame was reduced so it was possible to see through and line it up with the image below. Thank god for technology. I played around with the levels  because I didn't want to stick with  the typical red apple look, I wanted to make it look more out of the ordinary. I ended up with this change in colour which I think looks more like a poison apple, which is pretty cool. After this weeks session I actually feel like I can animate, finally! I understand the way it works much better now too. The only way is up! 

Little Miss Muffet - Storyboarding time!

Getting A Better Understanding of Storyboarding - Lets go!

I didn't know a lot of the technical terms which are used during storyboarding so it was really good to become familiar with some of them before getting started on my own. I have come to understand the meaning of terms such as "Key Frame", "Paper Edit" and the "Rule of Thirds", which has really helped me a lot!

To begin with I used paper editing to get an idea of what frame shots would work best and what wouldn't. Having each shot on a separate sticky note made it a lot easier to move frames around and actually get a better idea of how it could look if it were to be animated, which was helpful since I am prone to being indecisive! This first stage was quite a quick process because I wanted to focus on the layout and making sure I used the space I had wisely. 

The next day I continued with this but I now put more thought into the smaller details like characters and their facial expressions. I actually altered the mood of the story slightly by making it all a bit darker and put more thought into the use of media as well. After this second attempt I decided that I was going to stick with fine liner and pencil for the time being because I like the fact that it makes the whole thing seem just that bit more gloomy.

Looking at some other storyboards..

Tim Burton's "9"

I get a lot of my inspiration from Tim Burton, so I thought it would be interesting to do some research on the storyboards for some of his films because I can compare them to the actual films. This is part of the storyboard for the film "9". This is one of my favourite films of all time so its really cool to see what the basis of it was! The characters in this film are very small so the use of different camera angles definitely show this. I think the choice of media, which looks like a possible mixture of black pen and pencil really makes the lighting look effective. No two panels look exactly the same which means that once it has been animated it will have a load of variation when it comes to camera angles and spacing, making the whole sequence much more interesting to watch. I just love it.

Looking at the use of colour 

I thought it would be useful to have a look at some storyboards which aren't in black and white and not just drawn onto paper, but have been worked on digitally as well. The use of colour tells the two characters apart which I think is necessary because if it wasn't for one of the women wearing a hat it could potentially be quite confusing. I think colour also brings the whole environment to life as well.  I have noticed how the space has been used in each frame and the variation of shot frames makes the story look more consistent throughout. All in all I think its pretty cool.

David Lowery - "Jurassic Park"

I love this storyboard section by David Lowery for "Jurassic Park". I especially love the third frame where the character is sticking his foot out to kick the raptor in the face. I have seen this film countless times but even if I hadn't I know exactly what was going on thanks to the annotation that has been added under each frame. I can't get over how well the shadows and lighting have been shown so realistically. In the last frame I like the use of outward lines that have been used where the foot meets the raptor's face because it gives a realistic of idea of how hard he is kicking. This has made me super interested to have a look at the rest of the storyboard, its awesome! 

I found this section of the storyboard from "The Avengers" which is showing part of the fight scene between between Iron Man and Thor. I think the camera angles in this are brilliant, I haven't seen this part of the film but I this makes me want to! I love the roughness of the drawings too, especially in the final larger frame you can see where basic shapes have been used to outline the shapes of the characters. Also in the second frame the fact that the arm has been covered with lines to show that it is in mid swing really shows that this is a fast moving and dramatic sequence.