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!)
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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.