Organization of scenes v storyboard panels |
Vlad's Studio Practice
Wednesday, 9 May 2018
Extended Practice: Lessons Learned / Post-Submission Plan
Extended Practice: Division of Final Piece Into Acts
First sequence of Second act - outro to animation |
Friday, 4 May 2018
Extended Practice: Art Book Design and Reflection
Upon the sudden and abrupt shift of the art book's focal point, I decided on refining it based on the entirety of the art, idea, and immersion of my animation "Pact". Previously it was supposed to focus on the pre-production if I'm not mistaken, and due to the inferred substitute it became to blog posting but ultimately not realizing its initial purpose I have decided to make it visually appealing for potential readers. Yes, it does include a myriad of pre-productive works, but only those that envelope the personal methods and techniques of how I made it (or shall make it) be what it is. With the extremely didactic After Effects induction sessions, I have learned how to use the program accordingly and adhere to the art of geometrical layout and interrelation of objects instead of just placing images and text that looks accurate solely by my eye. Finally, the art book outlines the lack of backgrounds and the need to reinvent the space and realm of the film, which would involve a more sturdy and ambitious collaboration with a background artist. Ultimately, one learns best from mistakes and it is these inconveniences that increase an artist's astuteness in who to collaborate with - artists with integrity.
I am extremely satisfied with both the printed and my digital outcome. I did not believe that my first printed design would look so immaculate, or at least in my eyes. Goes to show that along the pathway of this course I have learned profusely not only about animation, but also design, among other multimedia skills.
I am extremely satisfied with both the printed and my digital outcome. I did not believe that my first printed design would look so immaculate, or at least in my eyes. Goes to show that along the pathway of this course I have learned profusely not only about animation, but also design, among other multimedia skills.
Saturday, 21 April 2018
Extended Practice: Obstacles
As with any and every project in history, the creator(s) is/are bound to run into inevitable obstacles that hinder the smooth flow of the project. Unfortunately, these obstacles shall prevent me in finishing the full film fit to the working standard for the official deadline. However, I would have proven to myself the escalation of my work ethic as well as my artistic development and improvement with the outcome I shall have to that date. I have grown to fall in love with my animation and consider it to be my first ever official magnum opus upon completion. Based on a previous post of mine outlining the time management storyboard ethic I utilized, the projection verifies the aforementioned. The first obstacle is my background artist leaving the project halfway through to my surprise. However, she has created full backgrounds for two background-character interactive scenes, which would facilitate a decent level of consistency. For a future prospect assuring the complete rectification of my animation either I will find another artist fit and willing to complete the backgrounds, or shall do it myself once the animation is done (or the one which does not require background-character interaction).
Ana-Marija's completed establishing shot designs |
Another obstacle would be the unexpected time-consuming nature of lip syncing. Although I have surpassed my expectations in doing proper lip-syncing for the first time with it looking up to the standard I desired to impose upon this project, it is taking quite a bit of time cutting up the pieces of dialogue, annotating in which frame what syllable is dominant, as well as re-coloring every mouth position on a frame-to-frame basis. This has not hindered the production in any way but instead has consumed a bigger portion of time within a smaller resolved piece of finished work. In the future, for any lip synced animation I shall need to explore more effective techniques of reusing mouth shapes as is done in almost all animated shows to date. Lastly, during Easter I had to attend to family issues that drove my time away from producing my animation, which arguably isn't something that I should not prioritize. Alas, I did not shirk off my duties but instead chopped up the time remaining to animate, which would be something I would need to improve upon after graduating; must always have a Plan B intact.
Extended Practice: Storyboard Timeline
In order to assure the completion of all the animated parts, I have been using the storyboards as a guideline. In other words, I've been crossing out every scene I have fully finished with red rectangles, whereas every scene that has been completed in Photoshop but not fully finished, animated, or compiled in After Effects as green. I've been doing this so that I may keep track of the production progress and the speed of animation. Unfortunately, according to the projection of the method, I shall not finish animating in time for there are quite a bit of scenes left with demanding graphics in them that will require both patience and meticulousness. However, up until this point, the animation fits the standard and style I've expected where I'm mostly elated with the success of the lip sync scenes - the mouth movements perfectly fit the dialogue, making the characters a lot more real. Although there are quite a bit of consecutive panels not completed, some scenes use the line-boiled loop of a keyframe with the only substantial changes being the lip movements like in the poker scene - it seems like there's a lot more but there isn't really.
Wednesday, 21 March 2018
YCN: Action on Hearing Loss - Production and Finalization
The animation process lasted a rigorous three days with several tests for good measure. The armatures and perforated steel proved to be quite a useful asset in assisting us with composure, for the puppets were static as we wanted them to be. Once the animating was done, I began the post-production work of assembling the film as well as creating the soundscape. Samuel Grey's ambience soundtrack helped loads with the timing of the animation, as we felt that it progressed too fast instead of lingering enough to sink the motif into the heads of the audience. The manipulation of sound added greatly to the visceral punch of the motif as the preceding silence stands out by doing the exact opposite - omission gives the impression of an empty "unfinished" film. Furthermore, this is even more so highlighted by the simple yet fortitudinous statement at the end of the animation - "deafness is a lonely place to be" with the lack of vivid color and abundance of darkness. To tie everything together, Stacy created a poster that would interjectionally start a hashtag campaign or movement - #highfiveforaction - assisting the dissemination of hearing loss awareness and educating the community through the macrocosmos that is social networking. Overall, I am quite proud of this animation. Quite disappointed that there was not much of a choice in-between briefs for an animated response, which is what we wanted our portfolio to consist of. However, it was good practice for 24fps stop-motion and how to time slow vs. fast-paced movement.
Friday, 16 March 2018
Extended Practice: Storyboards and Animatic
With the consideration that my animation is quite rigorous and arduous to make (alongside lip syncing), I have decided to make highly detailed storyboards in order to visualize every scene separately. Furthermore, when animating the brisk and short scenes I will use the respective panel to draw the main key frame governing said scene in order to speed up the work process and save time. In terms of the animatic, I dubbed it unnecessary considering I am working on my own as well as the limited time I have to animate. The scenes perfectly adhere to the script in order to eliminate any possible confusion when animating and snipping pieces of the voices to match with the number of frames per scene. I figured, while experimenting and testing my method of lip syncing, that the length of the voice(s) per shot would be the length of the animation for said shot itself, effectively enabling me to mathematically lip sync without any necessity for tedious testing (other than the first test).
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