Animation skills - Apply - Initial Idea Development (OUAN403)

In this stage of my development I needed to quickly mind map out possible routes in which to take the project. I have circled the key words that really jumped out at me and which i felt had more depth to them or moreover a wider scope to explore different narratives.

The word 'hate' jumped out at me, as I had a preconception of the type of animation I would like to produce, this word suited the aesthetic that I felt I wanted to attempt.
I want to subvert the word 'hate' to a self directed hatred- I may communicate this through expressive qualities in medium and the actions of characters in the animation.

There are initial sketches that detail the style of drawing that I would like to implement in my animation.

On this page in my sketchbook I considered the media in which my animation would be rendered, i quite like the idea of using pen and ink within a stop motion animation- I shall research into animations that have used similar mediums.

I feel the pen and ink would be best, to give the animation a very expressive quality that alongside a characters movement would emphasise the mood/atmosphere.

On this page I considered wether or not there should be a narrative in this animation, why the character feels the way he does etc.

Here i had the idea that the character loathed himself because he felt that he was a disappointment to those close to him, I felt this would illustrate well why the character carried hatred towards himself.

This idea worked well as a still, but i still had to consider what other actions would show that the character was directing hatred towards himself. The idea of someone punching there own reflection sprung to mind as a way of illustrating this theme.

Here i began drafting out ideas for a narrative for the animation, as i was drafting out my original idea for a narrative i realised that it may be too complicated for a 5-10 second stop motion animation.

I then opted for more of an abstractive idea just by showing a character in distress but having him interact with something like a wall, banging his head on it- which causes cracks in the wall that spell out words that can be associated with self-loathing.

flippin 'eck - (OUAN403)

Here are the flip book animations that demonstrate squash and stretch and to some extent follow through and overlapping. I tried to make the curtains in the second animation seem like the bottom of the curtain trails behind slightly.


In the animation of the dog i tried to take into consideration the principle of anticipation, with the dog preparing to bark.

If i were to improve these animations i would add more frames so that the movements seem more fluid and not as jumpy. I feel i have grasped the importance of taking into consideration the principles of animations.

 

Pixelation - (OUAN403)

Pixelation - Storyboard Development (OUAN403)

12 Principles of Animation - (OUAN403)

The twelve principles of animation include the following:

Squash and Stretch; this principle gives the illusion of weight and speed, for example a bouncing ball may squash in shape when it hits the floor,stretching back into shape when it becomes airborne on the way back up.

Anticipation; anticipation communicates what is going to happen, for example when a character goes to jump, they bend their knees to build up the energy in order to jump - this is anticipation. you could argue that for every action there is anticipation.

Staging; staging gives us the ability to communicate the mood of a character/ scene, to communicate one idea at once and to enhance the atmosphere you are trying to cultivate through shot framing etc.

Straight ahead & Pose to Pose;  straight ahead animation is animation that does not have key frames for the animator to follow and the animator makes up the movement of an object/character as he/she goes.
Pose to pose animation is animation that makes use of key frames, certain points in an object or character's movement that are extremes of that given movement e.g at the beginning, middle, and end points of a character jumping.

Follow through & overlapping action;  this is when the main body of an object or character has stopped moving and things like hair, limbs, clothing, string etc carry on moving in the same direction for a short duration of time.

Slow out & Slow in;  as an action begins more frames are needed at the beginning to show the movement speeding up, this is also true for the end of an action whereby more frames are needed to show the momentum decreasing in a movement. A good example of slow out & slow in would be an animated pendulum swing.

Arcs; ALL actions follow an arc or a circular path

Secondary action; a secondary action is an action that reinforces the effect of the first, an example of this could be the sneeze after the initial build up.

Timing; a mixture of low and fast timing can add texture and interest to an animation, however this can only really be perfected through practice and experience.

Exaggeration; exaggeration does not have to be large exaggerated movements, it is possible to exaggerate things like, a character's mood very subtly with subtle changes in expression

Solid Drawing: It is essential to have a good level of technical competence when it comes to drawing. This makes things more believable with things like depth, size and scale.

Appeal or Character Personality; a character needs to have a certain charm/likeability to keep the audience interested.

Identify - 'Montage of Heck' (OUAN403)

There is a somber, chaotic and dark feel to these animations of kurt cobain's journal entries and drawings that give the audience an intimate look into his thought process, even if it is only another persons external interpretation of how kurt might want his drawings to move, if he wished for them to move.
i think the feelings that are emoted while watching the rotoscoped segments of the film, come over due to the way the actions on screen seem to have more expressive qualities to them than if we were just watching normal video footage.
the animations of Cobain's journals are almost brought to life by giving the effect on the drawings and writing by having them appear on the page accompanied by the sound of a pen scratching the paper.
There is an attention to detail with the use of diagetic and non-diagetic sounds that makes the rotoscoped animation seem very  believable.
i believe the directors of this film wanted to communicate the message that kurt cobain was a troubled creative person who was; brutally honest, expressive, yet consumed by insecurities and scared of ridicule.

Identify - 'A Funk's life' The Mighty Boosh (OUAN403)

This animation is composited of artwork by noel fielding, the artwork has a painterly aesthetic to it, which considering noel is primarily a painter could mean that noel painted each component of the animation but then the production team assembled his illustrations into a cohesive animation.

due to the media that the animation is in it feels very flat, having said that there is a very vague sense of depth due to the background and foreground scenery. 

from watching the animation closely i can see that any elements which move, e.g character limbs will have been rendered digitally individually.

the aesthetic of this animation is quite psychedelic, a reason for this would be that the series that this animation features in - The Mighty Boosh - has within it a lot of avant-garde  story telling involving the realms of fantasy, mythological creatures and characters with references to pop culture and icons such as; Brian Ferry, Gary Numan, Boosty Collins, Etc. References in the show are dependent on the context of the storyline and what themes are being explored within an episode.

The storyline of the animation describes the rise and fall of the popularity of funk music, characterising funk as an extraterrestrial entity/creature 'a funky ball of tits from outer space' that was lost on the 2nd of july 1979 by George Clinton- so there is also some light hearted social commentary within this animation/series.

i think the animation was used to communicate this storyline as it is so imaginative and based in the realm of fantasy that it would be difficult to effectively produce it on set with actors and props. Another reason i believe the creators of the show opted for animation is that the animation is of an anecdote that the character previously on screen narrates, the change in the media of the moving image also keeps the audience captivated.

Identify- 'Plaid - itsu' (OUAN403)

This music video incorporates motion graphics, live action& pixelation. the themes that i can detract from this are corporate culture, neo-liberalism, and the sense that we are still in a patriarchal society.
the characters in the music video at times show exaggerations in their character that are subtle to begin with but progressively become more obvious to the audience, which inherently, are going to be fans of the artist who created the music.
There is a sequence in the video whereby the character doing the corporate presentation, is shrink wrapped, much like a piece of meat. this refers, i think, to the previous sequence of 'corporate suits' being dressed in pig masks. almost as if the message being communicated is that through they're greed (the pig representing greed), they have become the very product they are selling the video makes clever use of the synchronisation of the music, as towards the end of the music video the music hs glitchy effect sounds that, when combined with pixelation are effective at portraying the dark, self destructive undertones that are present in this piece of communication.
The video exhibits a restricted colour palette throughout the video to keep the theme of the video consistent.

Storyboard - (OUAN403)

Here is my final storyboard. I decided to colour code the camera actions and the sounds that you would expect to hear, a key at the bottom deciphers this.

If I was to change this storyboard in any way I would add the actions of the characters on screen and label the different types of camera shots to make it easier for people looking at the storyboard to understand what it is that is being communicated.

I think it would also be interesting to pick out a few certain stills to develop them further, to give more of a sense of the atmosphere etc.

StoryBoard Development - (OUAN403)

At this point of development I had completed more stills for the storyboard than intended, hence why these five stills do not feature in the final storyboard design. If I have time I may carry this story on further to perhaps produce a simple animation form the planning that I have already generated.

Also at this stage I wanted to reflect on how I could make the the shots better, how they might flow together better and how I might communicate effectively what it is that is happening on screen in terms of camera actions and also the actions of the different characters.

Storyboard Development 2 - (OUAN403)

Here are my initial thumbnails for the 'bottomless pit' idea whereby Humpty falls down a well, the king and his men fail to save him and after his fall, Humpty is approached by some shadowy figures at the bottom of the well.

The idea of the well played a key roll in introducing some interesting perspective shots to the storyboard, aswell as the landscape providing some variation in the distancing of shots, with extreme long shots as establishing shots and some medium to extreme close up shots focussing on the characters in the story.

I also added notes for what actions i would like the camera to play out on screen e.g zoom out, pan etc.

Storyboard development 1 - (OUAN403)

This page of my sketchbook documents the early stage of development, whereby i analysed the nursery rhyme to see which parts of the narrative could be exaggerated within the storyboarding process.

As the nursery rhyme i chose is 'Humpty Dumpty', I decided to play around with the scale of the wall that Humpty falls from, and thought carefully about the line ' Humpty Dumpty had a great fall' - i asked the questions; How far did he fall? How long did it take for him to reach the ground?  How did he fall? What did he fall from?

The thumbnails you see here were part of the idea development process, to have a visualisation of how my own storyboarded version of 'Humpty Dumpty' could look like. I decided to opt for the 'bottomless pit' idea as i felt that there would be more opportunity to include interesting perspective shots much like the shots that were incorporated into the storyboards that i had researched.

Breaking Bad - Storyboard Research (OUAN403)

Psycho - Storyboard Research (OUAN403)

Ridley Scott's 'ALIEN' (1978) - Storyboard Research (OUAN403)

South Park- Storyboard Research (OUAN403)

'The art of the matrix' - storyboard research (OUAN403)