Pitch Project: Editing and Music

I have spent a lot of time working on the audio that we recorded of Ben's voice. Having cut all the individual lines from the script, I began to put them back together, using different lines from different takes and trying to select the best one each time. The only problem with creating something that is supposed to be funny is that after you've listened to it 40 or 50 times the joke wears a little thin. I cut together the audio we had for the Egyptions, the Greeks and the Romans, but we decided after speaking with Andy to just use one of these for the pitch, and the Egyptions seemed to be the funniest.

Anyway, it seemed to be coming together, it just needed a few more lines recording; an introduction ("Hello, Professor Piddle here") and a signing off ("that's all for now, goodbye!"). Once I had those, I added in some music. Ben and I went through the sound effect cd's until we had some music which sounded like stereotypical Egyption background music. I brought in a recording of Handel's The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba, which I used for the opening and closing music, it gave an air of authority and authenticity to the whole soundtrack. After some time playing with the sound levels, I asked Will and Ben to listen as they had not yet heard it with the music added; they both started laughing almost immediately, which I took to be a good sign.

I was suprised how long it took to edit the sound together and how important it was to take breaks away from it as it becomes very difficult to judge whether it's working when you have been sitting with headphones on for the last couple of hours. The effect that the music had was immediate and gave it a much more completed sound; suddenly it had become something which I could genuinely imagine working well as an animation. The combination of the music and Ben's voice as Professor Piddle creates an image in the head and I have become quite keen to see how it would actually work with our drawings. However, I think in the presentation will have the audio playing out over a static image because it will focus the audience much more on the sound, which I am pleased about as I have tried to get a good result.

Animated Exeter - Special Effects

Within After Effects there are lots of effects and presets, which with a little bit of manipulation can be used to great effect. I think, as with most things, it comes down to the individual user and individual taste. On the whole I think less is more but it always depends on the project. Until I actually have a scene to put together, there is little I can do with these effects, but the end scene features a smoke trail as the phoenix emerges from the clock tower. So here is a "magical" smoke trail, that can be adapted to follow a motion path or just make random movements by using an expression (which you add to the object - or smoke trail - properties and it will tell it to move in a specific "random" pattern).



This smoke can also be put into 3D space and so can be used to wrap around the tower within the film. The great thing about this effect - which is actually a plug-in called Particular - is that it has about 20 or so presets, so it is very easy to get a variety of results without a huge amount of extra work. It really is down to the individual user to adapt the presets to fit the project. Again, as I also said above, it is difficult to create too specific a look at the moment without either a final shot of the set, or more input from the producers, who are a bit busy at the moment. I guess it would help if there was one person overseeing the post production, inc sfx. But no one seems to be in that role.

Here are some other examples of the same plug in...

fire and smoke:


fireworks:


even snow:

Animated Exeter - 3D compositing

So, I've taken a picture from the Ivan Biliban book which Ben brought in as concept art for the project. In photoshop I have cut all the elements into individual layers and then put the whole composition into After Effects.

I then converted the layers into 3D and created a camera. Each of the layers can be moved away from the camera at different distances which means I can move forward or sideways and create an illusion of depth.

It's not perfect, but it's been very useful as practice for using a camera and 3D space. I spoke to Kathy yesterday and she seemed to like what I'd done, but I suspect that might be because the art work is Bilabin's.

I was using this as part of my "research and development" for the compositing role for this project. At the moment, there doesn't seem to be much else I can do. I have spoken to Adam, our producer, and he has told me to continue with R&D. There have been some delays to the stop motion section which means everything else has been delayed.

Animated Exeter: Sunshine

I have been working on recreating a sun from one of the Ivan Bilabin images we have been using as concept art. This started out as an exercise so that I could practice using After Effects, but there is a possibility that it might be used in the final film. Either way, I'm quite pleased with how it works so far.



I drew it out in photoshop and added a filter to get a slightly grainy look. I then cut up each circle to be on a separate layer. Then, in After Effects, I imported my pohotshop file as a composition (which means you get all the layers as seperate, er, layers). I could then rotate each one individually. I have also added a glow effect, although I think this needs a little more work as it lacks for subtlety in my opinion.

Pitch Project: Editing, recording and more editing

I booked the radio studio and we have recorded the new version of the script. It was a little annoying as Dennis blundered in with all the delicacy of a wildebeest to find out of we have the studio booked (er.. yes, that’s why we’re in here recording). This threw Ben for a few moments, but he soon got back into character and we continued with the recording. It is very odd listening to the session because occasionally Ben slips out of character and the voice changes from Professor Piddle back to Ben Dennett.

I went through the script and broke it down into individual lines. I then went through the recording and did the same. For each line of script (there are 35 in total) I have got between 1 and 5 versions. My current task is to cut them back together, making sure they flow and that the sound levels are all the same. I am finding that there are some lines that just don’t work and so I am starting to cut a few of them out. I have to get this finished so that Will can finish the storyboard for the final cut of the script. I then need to put the animatic together. I have offered to take this on as I don’t really feel I’ve done enough for this project so far, but as far as the rest of the bible goes, I think we are a long way behind and I sense that Will may be starting to panic. I feel a lot like I’m letting him down by leaving him with so much work and the fact that everything seems quite last minute. I’ve always struggled with managing my workload and just at the moment I’m not sure I’m doing a great job.

Animated Exeter: everything changes

With wonderful timing, the day that our animated got selected for the Animated Exeter ident, I got sick and spent the next week in bed feeling very sorry for myself.

Now I have returned to college, everything has changed. It is odd, because I know it is only becuase of the timing of my absence, but I completely missed the transition from this being mine and Ben's project to it becoming a group project. Ben is now art director, Adam and Holly are producers and I have been marked up in the whiteboard as comp'ing.

I have no objection to this (although have added myself to SFX and post-prod sound), but it is very weird to find so many people now involved in a project that I have already spent so much time on. I suppose on one hand I feel a little defencive, on the other I feel a bit bored by it after spending so many hours on the animatic!

The advantage to being post it that I do have more time now for our other project and I can rescue Will a bit. I have started some R+D too, with further experiments in 3D space ready for the compositing. Luckily I have already discussed smoke trails and fireworks with Pete Felstead, when it was still at animatic stage. Again, I feel a little defencive about other people working on it, whilst at the same time I don't want sole responsibility for anything on the final film! Grrr... I can't have it both ways! Don't know quite what's wrong, I've just lost a bit of my enthusiasm, which is a shame cos I thought I was doing ok so far this term.

Animated Exeter: A pitch and a win!

We had to give a little presentation of our idea, which essentially consisted of Ben pressing play.

The end result? Our idea was selected! Ben is stepping into the Producer role, which is a bit scarey, and I have offered to be his assistant producer. I don't really have any desire to be a producer, but Ben and I have worked together on this for so long I don't want to abandon him!

Animated Exeter: The Animatic

OK, this Exeter project is taking up all of my time. Ben completed the storyboard and I was able to scan it in on Saturday while I was at work, ready to start putting it together as an animatic this week. We have spent every day working on this now, which wouldn’t be such a bad thing if it wasn’t for the fact that we have completely abandoned Will on the pitch project! Hopefully once this is finished there will be time to fix that! In the meantime, I have been having a go at using 3D space in After Effect, to give the animatic more depth and movement. The part where we pan in through the clock face and past the cogs into the interior of the clock now works quite nicely, even though it flies past and I doubt anyone will notice the effort that went it! I guess that’s the whole point really: if it’s done well, no one really sees it because they are too busy watching the story! Ben’s little duck creatures inside the clock were much more work than they should have been! And although I mocked up a spinning floor which I think Ben quite liked, it wasn’t as good as it could have been because I was just exhausted by that point (and the end was finally in sight!)



Mike has been working on some sound, but it’s been tricky for him because I’ve spent longer on the animatic, which means he’s had less time to prepare it. I suppose at the end of the day it is only the animatic, but there is a real sense of competition in the group now and I am torn; part of me wants to win the pitch, the other part really hopes we don’t because then we have to make the thing!! Either way, I want to do the best job I can because despite its sometimes-tedious nature, I actually just really enjoy working on this. It’s tricky sometimes not to be too much of a perfectionist and just let it go...

Animated Exeter: pre-production continues

So, I seem to be getting into this pre-production stuff. I have done concept art and a storyboard. Now, I can’t imagine that either will actually be used, but I’m not sure how much I care. I’m just kinda pleased that I did it. Also, my idea of having a clock that only goes to 10 is being used in the final idea. I quite liked a combination of the oddness of a 10 numbered clock, plus it’s Exeter’s tenth anniversary of the festival AND of course the roman numeral for ten is an X. Neat, huh?







Kathy has suggested that maybe we have too many people all working on this stage of the project and that the storyboard should really be one person’s vision. Ben has been nominated for the role of storyboard artist, which I think is definitely for the best; for one thing he is very good at it, plus he has the strongest ideas. I think I will probably be involved in the next stage of transferring it from storyboard to animatic as I am a little more familiar with the computer stuff than Ben. But as I have mentioned before, Ben and I have worked together quite a lot so I think it will be a team effort.

Pitch project: Sound workshop and voice trials

Steve Carter – the audio technical instructor – has given us an induction for the radio studio. The timing of this is just right for our pitch project, as we have been discussing how we can best use sound. It is pretty much settled that we should have a voice over. Kathy helped us out by recording a child reading from the script, but it just didn’t work. I think it might be the timing, but the bottom line is that we don’t have access to a 11 year old actor and we can’t expect to just ask a child to perform for us.

Meanwhile, in the sound studio, Ben put on a wonderful voice, which has now been named Professor Piddle. Will and I were both thrilled by Ben’s performance. To be honest, I don’t know how happy Ben is with it, but I genuinely believe it will work. The next step seems to be to finalise a script and continue creating artwork. The art side of this project is being totally carried by Will as Ben and I are being distracted by the Exeter project, which is very time consuming at the moment. I hope there will be an opportunity later to rectify this imbalance, especially if Ben is going to be our “voice artist”. It’s really starting to feel like I’m just not pulling my weight. Ahh, the guilt…

A quick word about Maya...

...I hate it.

I just do. I can't help it. I don't know what to do about it. Maybe some kind of psychological help is required.

I went along dutyfully to the first 3 or 4 Maya sessions, but I can't keep my mind on it, my brain just tunes out after about 15 minutes and I suddenly find it's coffee time and I have no idea what's been going on for the last hour.

What now?

Soundscape! A Lazlo Woodbine thriller!

Using a basic digital recorder and library sounds, create a soundscape no longer than 3 minutes that captures some form of story…

For my soundscape project, I wanted to begin with a story and try to communicate its atmosphere. I am a fan of the fiction writer Robert Rankin. Although he is usually to be found in the scifi section of the library, his style can be more accurately described as preposterous-fantasy. I find his writing style to be very visual – I know exactly what his nonsense world looks like – and I wanted to see if I could recreate one of my favourite characters through sound alone.

"Lazlo Woodbine is the undisputed master of the 50's era American detective genre. With him you always get what you pay for, when you pay for the best private eye in the business. He doesn't come cheap but with him you can expect a lot of gratuitous sex and violence, a corpse-strewn alley and a final rooftop showdown. No loose endings, no spin-offs and all strictly in the first person.

Laz only works the four locations: his office, where his clients come to engage his services, a bar where he talks a load of old toot and the dame who does him wrong bops him on the head at the beginning of the case, an alleyway where he gets into sticky situations and a rooftop where he has his final confrontation with the villain. No master of the genre ever needed more."

When Rankin writes the character of Lazlo Woodbine, it is an obvious pastiche of the genre. By creating a soundscape for the office of a 1950’s Private Eye, I suppose I am doing the same. I hope that the ambience conjured up by the sound effects are “visual” enough for the audience to recognise the genre, even if (or probably because) they are such stereotypes. I don’t think for a moment that a listener will pinpoint my soundscape as that of Lazlo Woodbine, as in actual fact he is a fairly unknown character to most people. But I think the point is to leave no doubt in the ear of the audience as to the genre of the scene and where possible to give further clues to its location, period, time of day and general mood of the scene. The main theme I wanted to get across was that this was a lone charecter, thoughful, possibly weary. I am not entirely sure, with the phone ringing in the background, whether this is the beginning or the end of a story (or case).

My sound effects were: clinking glasses and the glugging of whiskey being poured from the bottle, rain, ticking clock, blinds closing, footsteps, the lighting and first drag of a cigarette, telephone ringing. Apart from the old-style telephone ringing (which I got from Steve Carter's huge collection of sound effects) I recorded all of the sounds myself. Special thanks to my housemate Susan who kindly lit-up for the sake of my homework.

I had in my mind the idea of using music to add to the atmosphere. My plan was to have saxophone but as I listened to various jazz cds from the Media Centre’s collection, I found a piano piece that seems to fit the pace rather perfectly. Mind you, I had to listen to a lot of inferior jazz before I came across something that worked!

I also had a last minute panic about the timing. I spent some time with Ben showing him how to use Audition and how to find additional sound effects and music from the ones he'd recorded. Having played my project to him, it suddenly seemed far too fast and I wanted to go back and re-edit. In the end I think I only added about a second between the phone and the glass, but it was very difficult to let it go; I could have continued editing for many more hours.

Hmmm…. I think I like sound…

I hope to upload my soundscape here, once I’ve worked out how…

Animated Exeter: briefing, initial group changes and more mood boards

We have been asked to produce an ident/trailer for Animated Exeter, an animation festival that takes place in February. The ident will be played before every screening, which means it has to be visually interesting enough to survive repeat viewings. It also has to include the sponsor logos – not the most fascinating imagery ever! I began working with one group, but it soon fell apart as no one else actually wanted to be working on this project. By week 2 I was in a different group, who seemed pleased to see the mood board I had created.

There are lots of ideas being discussed within the group. I find that I am usually the boring one who points out that we have limited time available to us (we can’t spent 5 weeks building a set; the project has to be completed by early December). Ben has got some strong ideas around using a clock tower. He’s also keen to use a wooden egg prop which he has at home. This fits quite well with Ralph’s idea of using the Phoenix from Exeter’s Art Centre. I am lucky in that I live in Exeter so am familiar with the building, so I am doing some sketches of the phoenix and also of a couple of clocks… I don’t know if they are useful but I want to be doing something towards the concept art. I really don’t enjoy the pre-production side of projects, but there doesn’t seem to be much else to do at the moment. I am worried that if I stop working it will be hard to start again! I guess I should try my hand at some storyboards too… groan…

Pitching Project - Mood Boards

I created this mood board using images from the illustration library at Woodlane campus. I tried selecting pictures that suggested collage, fairly crude hand drawings and scribbles and also layering and annotations.

I think the top image (by Nick Gould) has probably influenced the art work that Will has started working on [see below]. It is leading onto the idea that we might have one continuous line, maybe being drawn in a notebook, which will change to illustrate the script. It might also be a timeline of some sort, but I'm not entirely sure how this will work.

Pitching an idea to an animation producer from the BBC

When this project was first discussed, I immediately thought of working with Ben and Will. I have worked with them before on other projects and so was hopeful that the three of us together would come up with some “sellable” ideas.

Ben had found a website by an Amerian English teacher, Richard Lederer (http://www.verbivore.com), which had a collection of school children’s humourous errors from history papers (eg, George Washington was a very social man. He had big balls and everyone enjoyed them…). We began talking about how we would present these funny lines and how animation could be used to enhance the humour. Our initial thoughts were of Terry Gilliam style cut outs, creating a collage of images. We then went on to discuss using a page from an exercise book, with scribbles and pictures appearing as the script was read as a voice over. This lead us on to thinking about having a character presenting the historical-mistakes as a 1950’s style “public information film” but concluded almost at once that this idea had been done before and been done better. The next step is to put together some images into a mood board so we can better communicate our ideas with one another.

New Year

This is my first post of the new academic year. I should have started them earlier, but I've been too busy doing work for the course to have time (or be bothered) to write about the course.

So I will try and do a catch up blog soon, with updates of the course so far...

The Movie

Here it is folks!

Personally, I think it's the compositing which really makes it a success ;)

I have spent so long looking at these scenes that I can no longer judge whether it works or not. Please judge for yourself.

The end..?

I think this might be it... my last post? (obviously not, looking above!)

The project has rendered and is being written to DVD.

This last week seems to have lasted FOREVER. I have spent so many hours in the studio that it has felt strange to go home and not be comp'ing scenes anymore.


I hope my blogging has got better, if nothing else they have become more frequence. I have realised it's quite useful to keep a note of day to day progress and plans.












This is how I have been planning my work during this project. The timing for the scenes, the comp settings, missing shots, requests from animators, details for the titles etc etc, they are all posted up infront of me.

This system has worked really well for me. When people have asked questions about the comp, I can often just look at my wall rather than having to load files. It also serves as a prompt for what still needs to be done, as well as a reminder of what I have achieved. Listing things is one thing, but ticking them when they're complete is something very special indeed.

Goodbye wall. Goodbye Library.

Mulit-tasking!

Yesterday I was working on 3 computers at once... I had one doing test renders, one on which I continued my compositing and another where work continued on the title sequence.

Will had taken the title sequence off my hands and was finishing the sound edit. However, I needed to oversee this process as he wasn't as familiar with either After Effects or Audition as me.

I am extremely grateful that Justin hasn't been in very much the last two days as moving between his computer and mine has made my work much easier to manage.

Today I have also been using 3 machines, this time including the Mac laptop for test renders (until finally this afternoon we fixed the problem with the pc renders).

As I type this, the final comp is rendering (music video version - identical except for a slight change in the titles). My brain is completely full and I can hardly think straight anymore.

I wish I had planned my portfolio better instead of rushing things at the last moment as usual. This comping has been a HUGE amount of work. I would not for a moment suggest that I have worked harder than the other people on this project; we have pulled together as a team and that is the only reason this has worked at all. I think all I would say is that it would help in the future if we had a clearer idea of what different team members are working on.

Have help from Will and Mike was invaluable. I think on future projects, if there are a team of use working on compositing then it would be useful to be working together from the beginning, rather than at the last moment. I am equally happy to be managing a team or be supervised by someone else, but I would like to be really clear on my role and responsibility, which has not always been the case in this project.

After Effects

I have spent quite a lot of time this year playing with After Effects. Not everything I found was useful in terms of result, but all were useful in that they taught be a little more about how the programme worked and what its potential might be...

This is an effect called Binary; useful for learning how to use "random" presets and make better use of the text facility.

I have used this flock of birds a couple of times for students who are filming in front of a still image using green screen. It can make a still background come to life.

These light trails were used in the Live at Five titles, but I would also like to make further use of them. The fact that you can import a path from Illustrator, which a light trail could follow, would seem to have great possibilties!

Smoke: haven't found a use for it yet, but Pete Felstead assures be it's the next big thing!!

So far, I haven't explored layers and depth in any details. I would really like to explore the 3d potentials in AE. There is so much that this programme can do, I am actually quite excited about continuing to use it next year... and I'm quite surprised at myself that I have found something to be excited about!

I have also learn a huge amount about AE as a compositing tool during the Library project. As with Live at Five, now that I am at the end of this I can see how I would do it differently. But isn't that always the way? How boring to know it all already ;)

Extra! Extra!

Since I worked on Live at Five, several of the Broadcast Journalism students have asked me to do some extra work for them. This has included showreel title graphics, title straps or astons, and additional graphics for their final projects.

At the moment, I am planning some graphics for a documentary about the recent elections in Georgia. These will include a title sequence, title straps and some images to illustrate the election results.

I have learnt a huge amount through doing these projects and have become much more aware of tv graphics and what makes them successful. It seems that the most successful graphics are hardly noticed, because they fit seemlessly into the film footage, whereas any shot where the viewer pays more attention the the graphic than the information - whether because they are so slick or a complete disaster - is essentially a failiure.

The pressure of working on Live at Five makes strange things happen to my work. The urgency means you have to deliver to the deadline, even if it means compromising on the "artistic vision" for the graphic. I feel very encouraged by the comments I have had from the BJ students. I wish there had been further opportunites for feedback from both them and their course leader.

Continued blogging...

Last night I tried to update my blog. Sadly, my internet connection failed and I was unable to publish, so today I will try and catch up on the project so far...

Yesterday morning, I optomistically changed my view from the rest of the week and thought that we might actually complete the film on time. By the end of the afternoon I wasn't so sure any more.

The animated sequences which are coming in from Flash - and supposedly slotting straight into the background compositing - don't fit at all. They are all much to fast and as a result I am having to cut each scene apart and time-stretch in AE to make them fit. Given that I have already cut together the background shots twice, once with the original render and onces with the newly lit render, I feel like this process is a little too labour intencive, especially for one person. my worry is that quality control will suffer...

More reflections on Live at Five

Since I have been putting together my portfolio, I have been looking at the work I did on Live At Five. There is more there that I remembered.

When we begin creating the title sequence we were supposed to be working in a group of 4. Unfortunately, 2 members of our team decided not to join us and so Cherie and I were left to work on the project by ourselves. I have to day, looking back at it now, that I think we really did ok given that we were a team of 2 while others in the class were working in a team of 5!






I missed the very beginning of the brainstorming session and so Cherie came up with the initial idea: a 3d globe with light trails moving around it. Luckily, Cherie is a genius at Maya and so creating the 3d globe was no problem for her. I set to working on the light trails.


There were several After Effects tutorials which suggested ways to approach this. One (from Video Co-Pilot) turned out to be completely impossible and I wasted several days trying to use it. Finally, Pete Felstead recommended one - and gave me the 3d stroke plug-in that i needed to make it work.


I used motion paths to get the light trains to move around the globe. Motion paths also made it possible to get the light train to draw a number 5, which really added something to the sequence. I love the way the 3d, 2d and FX work together.

Computers

I have been in the studio a little under an hour and my computer has already suffered a major crash. In fact, it was worse than usual; I got the full Blue Screen of Death.

This is now proving to be a major problem and frustration. I can't imagine that I am asking more of my computer than can have been expected when it was built, so why is it struggling so much? OK, if I am running Premiere, After Effects and Audition at the same time I would understand it slowing down and complaining. But all I did this morning was open AE and try to load up the portable hard drive (where I have been backing up the project). Am I asking too much?

Richard! Where are you!?

Putting in the hours...

Today I was the first person in the studio (at 8.55am) and the last to leave (at 8.35pm).

Hard work, this animation business.... who'd have thought it'd be so labour intensive ;-)

Premiere, Animatic and Backgrounds

I thought I should explain how I have been planning my compositing...

When I joined the Library Project, Pete showed me the project's animatic to get the timing a scenes. My first job was to cut together the background shots and line them up with the animatic.










For some scenes this was very straight forward, for example scene one. Cherie had exported the 3d backgrounds to be the right length and I just had to position them and bring in the still images for the right length.


















Other scenes were more complicated. Scene 4, which I have mentioned previously, was entirely animated in Flash. Unfortunately, Justin did not have the timing when he animated the shots. This meant they needed a lot of editing to get the scene to work. Today I had to ask Justin to re-animate a few of the shots as the scene was not working. There were definate continuity problems and however I cut together the scene it looked wrong.

I spoke with Andy about the scene both today and yesterday. He pointed out that the principals we started to learn in storyboarding are also relevant in editing. This is quite interesting to me; as can be detected from previous posts, I didn't really enjoy storyboarding (or pre-porduction in general). But I am interested in shots, angles and setting up shots. I have now found my viewing of The Simpsons slightly spoilt by my automatic tendency to analyse the shots they use.

I am aware that what I am doing at the moment is not really editing, due to time contraints and the "tightness" of the animatic, but it has given me an idea of editing and it's definately something I would like to look at again. I am torn by my dislike of storyboarding, because I would now like to look at the shots Justin animated for Scene 4 and discussed how the whole sequence could be planned to flow better. At the moment it is better than it was, but it still jumps around much more than I would like and there are definately still continuity problems. But, time being what it is, the scene must be locked and we must move on!

I wish I had kept the previous version so I could demonstrate how improved it is! But I cannot find it :(

Update on Compositing

Today Mike joined the Library project and took some of the compositing off my hands.

This was a great help, although there were one or two things which would have made it more helpful... for example, I came into the studio to discover that files were being moved from my computer for Mike to access. However, as I was not involved in this, we have ended up with duplicate files which could easily make a mess of the work I have already done.

Once I had gone through my filing system with Mike, he really was a huge help. Another boon was Will taking the opening titles off my hands. The animation was done, but the sound needed more work which I just didn't have the time to do. I'm sorry not to be able to see the titles all the way through, but it is much better that they are completed by someone else than they are incomplete.

So, my thanks to Mike and Will. Maybe it is possible to get this project finished...

The Blog

I don't really like blogs.  The cartoon below sums up my feelings far more eloquently than I could...

Design for Animation Portfolio

To put it simply, I just don't have this work.

My interest for quite a long time now has veered away from pre-production and towards post-production.  This means I have next to no drawn work, concept art, mood boards etc.  

What am I going to do about this? I just don't know.  I have no time available as the Library project is eating up the remaining days.  I fear there is a real chance I could fail this module. At  my last tutorial with Kathy, she expressed a general sense of surprise at my lack of work.  I have to admit I am little surprised myself that I have so little to show.  But I am also confused as to why it has only been noticed now, by both myself and my tutor.  It seems utterly pointless to "recreate" (or fake) design work. And even if I were to do this, I am genuinely at a loss as to how I create concept art for news graphics (what kind of mood board to you create for a sports table or a weather map?), especially when the journalists tended to come to us on the day with their requirements.

Rosie <---- confused and a little lost... is this even the right place to voice these concerns?

Work in progress

I'm having serious doubts as to the amount of work still involved in this project.  I cannot see that it will be completed on time but I cannot see any way of changing it.  My work rests entirely on other people finishing sequences.  At the moment, everyone is working as fast as they can, but scenes are not being passed on to me very quickly. 

Today there were major problems with Scene 4, which is based on a sequence from North by Northwest.  The shots just did not fit together and had terrible continuity.  I asked Andy to have a look at the scene with me and he concluded that we should leave it until tomorrow when Justin (who has animated this scene) is in and can go through it with us; I think certain bits may have to be re-edited.  I have a strange feeling of guilt about this.  It seems that my role of compositor has merged with that of editor and continuity!  I am being asked to re-edit scenes on a frighteningly regular basis and I have a terrible sense of dread when I hear the words "we just need to make a slight change..." because it sometimes seems that no one else realises the impact that even the smallest timing change can have on the rest of the film.  Maybe I'm being too sensitive about my role; I really feel I can only do my best with the clips and the time I am given.  But I'm getting more worried everyday that someone will want to blame me when it doesn't all fit together.

When I spot the errors that mean the shots, scenes and therefore film, don't work, I am half reluctant to point them out because it means more work for someone else. But if I don't then I don't think I'm fulfilling my role.

Live At Five

I've been looking at some of the work I did for Live at Five while trying to put together my portfolio. Some of it isn't that bad. I can see 100's of things I would do differently now. but I look at it all and realise how much I learnt from doing it. Sometimes it seems you learn so much more when there is pressure to perform. I will think this over and add more later...

Worries for the final week...

- We might have to leave a day to do rendering and sort any problems that result from that. I have spent enough time using AE and watching other students (broadcasting, film studies) to know that something will always go wrong at the last minute. Given that we will probably also need a day to finalise the DVD this means the film should be ready by end of Wednesday. I have mentioned this but I don't know if I was heard.

- I could easily spend all of next week comp'ing. The 3d scenes need to be re-loaded with their final effects plus I have to add in the 2d scenes, many of which don't fit the animatic so I have to "edit" as I go along.

- The above being true, when do I add the "special effects"? Especially as this is something I really want to do?

- How do I organise a team of people to do comp'ing? Pete has said that Dan and Will should be available to help but I don't want too many version of scenes floating around.

- How the F*$% do I put all the scenes together? It's gonna be one big AE file. Felstead had better be on hand or I might have to have a nervous breakdown.

- When do I finish my portfolio? When do I finish my sketchbooks for Kathy? Will I pass my first year?

Compositing

Compositing is the combining of visual elements from separate sources into single images, often to create the illusion that all those elements are parts of the same scene. (Wikipedia)

The Library animation project is being done in several different stages and styles. The main background are 3d and created in Maya. Our "hero" in animated in 2d using Flash over the top of these scenes. And then there are additional scenes that are created entirely in Flash or are flat Photoshop images which we pan across. This means we have a large team of people each working within their particular area. And it means that at some point it all has to come together in one single, coherant form... that's my job.

So far so good; the 3d scenes have been completed (although without lighting as yet) and these are passed to me as different shot which I am cutting together to make the scenes. I have based all my timings with the animatic. Initially this was a little tricky because I only joined the project after the pre-production work was finished and so was unfamiliar with the finer details of the film. Andy pointed out to me that this is how it will almost always work for the compositing team; it would be unusual for a compositor to also be involved in storyboarding. The difference with this project of course is that this is our first experience of working together as a large group and within our specific roles. As a result, I felt a little out of my depth at the beginning because I was putting scenes together looking only at the backgrounds and the storyboard, whereas everyone else involved at that time seems to know exactly what should happen and when.

I have now become much more familiar with the story and know what happens in which scene (at least those scenes which aren't being changed as it goes along!) I am not having any real problems with After Effects, everything I am doing so far is within my exsiting knowledge. Sometimes I feel there are difficulties with the fact that the others in my team don't know After Effects. There are moments when someone will say "can we look at scene 3" and then someone else will want a render from scene 7, whilst in the meantime I am trying to work on scene 9: it's not that I can't do any of the above, but I can't move swiftly from one to the other, it's not like moving between Word documents, or even Photoshop documents! Each scene is a separate project, I have to close whatever I'm working on - making sure it's saved - and load the next scene. Always assuming that my computer doesn't crash in the meantime due to the strain of running AE and Premiere at the same time! And everyone wants everything NOW!

It worries me because sometimes when I can't produce something on scene NOW, I feel like it is assumed that it can't be done. AE is an incredibly powerful tool but it takes time to get good results - if I rush then the results are unimpressive and again people turn away and mutter about using Flash instead! Flash!? It may be a good programme for certain tasks but it is not a compositing tool! How can explain this more clearly!?

Continued Work on Titles... now with sound!

There have been several discussions about the titles. Are they too different from the rest of the film? Is it an advantage that they are different? Do the colours work with the style or should they fit with pallet used in the opening sequence?

I am not precious about the titles I have created. I quite enjoyed making them but if they need to be changed for the film then so be it. That said, I struggled a little on Friday when Pete wanted to change them but wasn't entirely sure how he wanted them. We went through several variations of colour but I really didn't feel that the "earthy" colour scheme from the Library fitted with the compter-style of the action.

In the meantime, I recorded some sound effects with Richard. There was supposed to be a group of us learning about Foley, but for some reason this didn't happen. Instead, as Richard had already set up the studio and I was ready to record, I got a recording session to myself. For the opening of the titles we had talked about having some typing effects as the lettering appeared. I recorded several versions of typing; fast, slow, individual letters and heavy handed. I was really pleased with the results - the sound was so clear and sounded, well, exactly like typing! Once I had the file in Audition I could chop it up so that I had individual sound files for different key presses. I could then load the film and the effects into Premiere and line up the key strokes with the appearence of letters on screen. I then decided to add a couple of seconds to the beginning of my sequence where the screen was black (before the curser appears) where I used the sound clip of fast typing. And I was pleased with the result. I'm not sure what else I can say about it.

So, back to Friday afternoon. Whilst Pete weighed up the new colour choices, I asked if he'd like to hear it with the sound effects added. And once he'd heard it he decided that infact we should stick with the original sequence, keep the background black throughout and I should keep working on the sound effects for the end of the titles...

Title sequence renders

So far, Pete's preference is with a white background. I originally designed it to have a black background which I think works better with the blue glow.

I added a texture to give some depth. The second one works much better and even burns out to white at the end. So far, it's my favourite but we'll have to see how it fits with the rest of the film before a decision is made.

The end titles are worrying me a bit. Pete is very keen we get them organised but I can't do anything until the design has been oked and I have the data. Now that the comp'ing has started on the backgrounds I don't know when I'll have an opportunity to spend proper time on them, I might hand them over to Will, or at least try and get his help - he seems quite annoyed that I've taken the graphics away from him.

(I hate the layout of this page. I'm going to see if there's anything I've learn in my Dreamweaver classes that can help!)

Title Sequences in After Effects

The final projects all seem to be well underway. As I had specified that I wanted to do post-production or more specifically I DIDN'T want to do pre-production, my life has been a little quiet for a week or so. (Just time to fit in a quick cold and some quality time feeling sorry for myself.)

Pete, who is the producer on "The Library" film, has asked me to create a title sequence. He has a clear picture of what he wants and I hope I have done ok at interpreting his idea. Essentially he described a sequence where a curser appears on a blank screen before a simulated computer search begins and the word LIBRARY flashes up on the screen in as many languages as possible. The animation he described seems designed to be created in After Effects; lucky for me as this is the only programme I am confident (should that be competent) in using.

First problems first: the flashing curser. I began using a single line to recreate the text curser you see in Photoshop or Word. This worked ok, but it tended to glide across the screen as the word "searching" appeared. After a quick chat with Pete Felstead (our After Effects technician), he suggested using a block instead. This worked much better. The letters appear on screen using one of AE's text presets and I just had set up the curser's position keyframes to line up with the letter's appearance on screen. I say just, it was of course far more fiddly than I might have first predicted but it was really a case of working out before hand what the movements should be.

Next problem: the text. I used Google Translate to find the correct spelling, then had to bully Richard into setting up the right fonts so I could use Greek/Chinese/Arabic/Cyrillic/Japanese charecters. I chose a blue colour to fit with the INFORMATION sign in the film and to avoid the Matrix cliche of green computer text. I also gave it a bit of a glow.

I have tried a couple of textured backgrounds in the hope of giving the sequence a little more depth. I have about 4 versions at the moment and I think I have a favourite. However, I am not really too concerned about which one Pete choses or if he wants more changes. I have already learnt more about AE through this small project and for me that is the point. The only reason I want to continue using AE is so I can learn more and get better. These titles are for someone else's film and at the end of the day it's their choice which they use. There is always the possibilty that the titles won't work with the rest of the film (too soon to tell, the film is still at the early stages of production) but it won't break my heart if my work is scrapped.

I will try to get some test renders up on the blog, but so far it is defeating me.

The End of Maya

I finally reached the end of the Maya project. Although I feel I should be a little more accurate with that and say that Richard finished the Maya project.  I don't quite know where I'd be without his help, probably rocking in a corner pulling out clumps of my hair.

Richard sat, very patiently, and explained how Maya worked. Then he demonstrated how Maya worked. Then he asked me what I wanted Maya to do and he pretty much did it for me.  I really feel like I gave Maya a shot; I spent a lot of time staring at the screen, repeating sequences over and over until .... well, until they still didn't look right.  I stayed into the evening. I went home and tried it my own computer in case that made a difference.  I then tried very hard not to alienate all my friends and housemates by ranting permanently about how Maya was driving me slowing mad.

My finished sequence of a flour sack jumping off a platform is ok.  It's not great. But it is finished.  I wish I could be more specific about why I have struggled so much with Maya. It could just be my usual difficulty with 3D. I have felt many times that I understand theoretically how the programme works but for some reason I cannot put it into practice.  I do however feel satisfied that I gave it a good try and I really wanted to get it.  But I cannot hide my relief that Maya is over. Hurray! 

Balls, balls, balls

So, Maya. 3D animation. Great.

Except it's not. I can't understand it. I can see where my animation is going wrong but I cannot work out how to fix it.  It is driving me insane.

I completed the football animation and felt relatively happy with it. However, my table tennis ball is just horrible. And I haven't quite the mental reserves to start on the bowling ball yet.  

Honestly, I've tried. I've watched the tutorials. I really want to understand. But my brain just can't manage it.  I'm a Maya Failure.

Return of Maya

This week we started working with Maya again. As previous rantings may indicate, I have not enjoyed using Maya as the process of thinking in 3d baffles me. What's wrong with everything being flat?

Obviously I am aware that the world around us is in fact the three dimensions, the Earth is not flat and whilst studying on a Digital Animation course it is probably wise to try and grasp the concept of 3d modeling and movement. Although I do grudgingly admit that it’s possibly not as bad as I might think, I got off to a bad start on Tuesday when I had been suffering a migraine all day and the simple process of moving my eyes from one side of the screen to the other made me want to a) cry, and b) throw up.

I am keeping my fingers crossed that Richard will go through Maya slowly and patiently as he has promised (in front of witnesses I might add). And I am hoping that he will have slightly more pity for my lack of Maya comprehension than James, who when I explained that my problem with Maya was really the fact that I didn't understand 3d, just looked at me blankly. I think he assumed I was joking.

The Art of Storyboarding

...I hate it. I hate it so much.

Hmmm.... storyboarding. Why do I hate it, Andy asks me. Well, maybe I don't hate all storyboarding. I certainly see the point of doing it, I understand its importance; how else to you ensure that everyone involved in a project is making the same film unless there is a detailed plan of how every shot should work?

The recent storyboard project we were assigned was deeply dull. I think this is probably because the script itself was pretty dull. Maybe that was the point? It's probably easy to design a creative storyboard for an exciting story. When faced with a script that you have no interest in, there is more effort involved in thinking up dynamic shots. There are of course many themes or genres you could add to the story; through the choice of shots, angles and zooms, the script could probably be transformed from horror to thriller to action adventure.

But I didn't do that, I struggled to get to the end of the assignment because the process of thinking up new camera angles made me very sleepy. I guess I'm not gonna be a storyboard artist. Another career to cross off the list.

"One of the great appeals of animation is that spontaneous ideas can be incorporated into the work at hand. It seems perverse to ape too closely the process by which live-action films are executed." Dave Borthwick, Imagine, Mar/Apr 2008

Exeter Animation Festival

A few weeks ago I went up to see Animated Exeter, with particular interest in the work of the Quay Brothers and an exhibition by a theatre group called Forkbeard Fantasy.

I first heard of Forkbeard Fantasy when they brought their play “Fall of the House of Usherettes” to Exeter’s Northcott Theatre in February 2006.  It was a piece which incorporated live performance and puppetry along with projected film and animation sequences, all brought together in an extraordinary creative and comic show.  It told the story of Bernard von Earlobe, a film archivist set on rediscovering the secret of Liquid Film; along the way the play references influences as varied as (obviously) Poe, Shakespeare, The Shining, Don’t Look Now, Georges Méliès and the Lumiere Brothers. 

Alongside their 2008 production titled “Invisible Bonfires”, which charted the history of the Carbon Weevil (or humanity), Forkbeard Fantasy put together an exhibition of puppets, props and videos from their back catalogue.  There was, sadly, very little from their “Fall of the House of Usherettes”, the exhibition seeming to focus more on interactive models which given that it was part of the Animated Exeter festival is perhaps understandable.  Certainly the day I visited there seemed to be a huge number of children enjoying the show.  Perhaps because of this audience, Forkbeard Fantasy seemed to have steered away from some of their darker humour.

tbc

Underwater OSTN

I worked on this project with Ben and I think it worked out ok.  From our initial ideas we chose to turn the letters O, S, T and N into characters, using the letter in each case to form the nose of a face.  Ben had an idea which involved our characters floating out to sea and being rescued by a sofa.  However, after we had created the storyboard and animatic we decided that it was too complicated an idea for the 10 second time limit.  

By this stage we had already created a water effect, made by Ben adapting a couple of Miro paintings which I put into After Effects and animated using an adjustment layer.  We therefore decided to stick with a watery theme, but simplify it down to just having our characters float down through the water and then transform into the OSTN logo.  Ben and I had each created a version of the characters and – although I think Ben’s designs are beautiful – it was decided that the simpler characters that I had drawn would work better on the sea background.  (Ben’s characters really were wonderful but they needed a plain white background to show them at there best and we both wanted to keep the background we had already made.)

I drew up the characters using Illustrator and Photoshop, while Ben created arms and legs in Flash.  We were then able to bring the characters to life in After Effects.  To add depth to the water scene Ben used Flash to create a shoal of fish.  I created bubbles in After Effects and layered them so they went both in front and behind our characters.   

The final stage was the sound; Ben recorded his friend playing the mandolin (?) and gurgling!  From the 30 seconds or so of sound, I edited out 10 seconds using Audition and added an echo and water effects. 

Sadly I was unsuccessful in getting the video to play on this page, so here is a still image instead...

I probably cried the first time I saw Finding Nemo

Once I had recorded a new sentence to use for the self portrait project, I started the lip synch process again. And again I made the same mistake, lining up the mouth shapes with the letters of the words rather than the sounds being made. Once I realised where I was going wrong, I tried to repair the animation. The result is not perfect, but I hope it’s enough to understand the “theory” behind the process.

Within Flash, I began making the scene a little more interesting. I found an underwater scene for the background and made the brightness increase and dim every few frames in the hope of creating a deep sea effect. I’m not sure how well this works, but it is using my very basic knowledge of Flash. I’m sure there are more impressive effects, but I would probably chose a programme like After Effects to create these.

I also added a fish from “Finding Nemo” (I think it’s the dad, I dunno, I didn’t pay that much attention to the film). Initially this was going to swim past, but it seemed more interesting if it just floated up the screen. Andy showed me how to use a motion path to make its movement a little more as I had imagined. The motion path seems like a very straightforward way to get good control over the movement of objects.

Finally, I added a sample of underwater sound effects. And it’s complete! (and this is where I would have it on show, except I have no idea how to upload it – sorry folks!)
____

Flash: I do like using this programme, it makes so much more sense to me that Maya. Having watched Justin use Flash to create beautiful, flowing animations, it seems to suit a loose style of drawing - it seems to be the closest thing to drawing freely in the computer. I definitely need more practice with Flash if I am ever going to realise its potential. However, at the moment I am trying to get my head around After Effects, which seems better suited my way of working; After Effects feels more analytical in the way you use it, whereas Flash seems somehow more intuitive. This could be me having entirely the wrong impression of Flash (or just too much time spent watching Justin create wonderful sequences in a seemingly effortless manner). I guess my conclusion is that I want to concentrate on After Effects for now and revisit Flash another time.

Flash and the Self-Portrait

I enjoyed working with Flash, I felt much more comfortable using the programme and found the extra notes on Moodle extremely helpful as I could scan through them as the workshop progressed.

I was not particularly thrilled at the idea of creating a self-portrait - or having to record my voice - but decided to keep it simple and impersonal. I drew my image using Illustrator, in the style of Julian Opie, whose work I admire for its economy of line, which despite its simplicity manages to communicate intention and emotion. It terms of using his style for my self portrait, I like to think it reflects my confidence in stealing from other artists and (as his work has a very flat, 2D feel) also reflects that I am essentially a simple, two-dimentional charecter.

Anyway, having created my self portrait, it was relatively straightforward to convert the Illustrator layers into Flash symbols. The simple style of drawing made it easier to create the mouth shapes I needed for the lip synch.

When it came to lining up the speech with the mouth shapes, it was a little more difficult than I first thought; I found I was using the letters that I knew the words were made up from rather than the sounds. I had also recorded myself speaking very quickly, which made the process harder again. It seemed like a good idea to record some additional sound and so using the M-Audio device (or “talk-box” as I prefer) I recorded a conversation between myself and my housemate Lora. In the end, I chose to use one of her sentences: “I probably cried the first time I saw Finding Nemo”.