Farnham Retrospective - BAF

What a great start to our final day in Bradford... Looking at work produced from previous students/lecturers of Farnham University, the first uni to introduce an animation degree course to Britain!

Set up by Bob Godfrey in 1969, it was already destined to give the world some great animations, including:

This animation made a lot of people laugh. The chairs are the characters, using stop motion; It was commentated by two elderly people talking about modern day society, so people found this funny.
I thought it was nicely made, with smooth actions, despite it only being furniture.



I fell in love with this short film the first time I saw it; I really like the style and it tells the story so well, despite not having dialogue; using subtle features, such as the shadows cast by the tree and the colours to tell what time of day it is and time passing by.




This is a good example of the interaction between drawing and pixilation. It plays very nicely with the principles of animation and how it moves.




This style and movement of animation made the whole cinema laugh; since it's so un-realistic it becomes funny.
The character is very fluid, considering it's only made up of simple shapes. Less is more...

Animate Projects' Random Acts - BAF

The second day of our adventure ended with watching 15 animations produced for Channel 4's Random Acts.

Three of these artists, Sean Vicary, Elizabeth Hobbs and Mandy McIntosh, introduced themselves at the end of the showreel to answer any questions the crowd had about their pieces. I didn't particularly find any of these films very appealing, since the plots were too strange for my liking. However I think some good effects were used during some of them, including:

Sean Vicary was the creator of "Re-Tolled", and one of the animators to speak.

Double Negative - BAF

One of the events I had most been looking forward to finally arrived... A talk from the special effects company Double Negative!

A man called Nathan Ortiz came to talk to us about one of their most recent contributions to the film "Rush".
It's a story about two F1 drivers James Hunt and Niki Lauda, and how they survived and dealt with a car crash in 1976 (a true story).

Ortiz started out by saying he's a fairly new employee, after studying computer science he eventually became the FX Technical Director for this film. As important as his role is, he described a piece of film as a shared painting, because everyone on the team adds bits to the picture to make it better.

The director to the film is Ron Howard, who evidently was inspired by Senna, and is a fan of the 70's, where health and safety wasn't as big of a deal as it is in today's world.

Howard would record the live action on the track/on set, some employees of Double Negative were on set as well to give him a hand, and so they could agree on what looked best. After the footage was captured the special effects team worked their magic on adding or removing parts to the film, to complete the image.
The cars were filmed at 50mph, so they could have some control over the cars, then sped them up in the editing room.
The track and surroundings were edited as well. Adding signs, barriers and crowds on stands, as well as removing the sand pits that now sit around the track, all adding to the "track flavour" of the 70's.

In order for the editing to be slightly easier, they had to shoot as much foreground as possible; after this they would use a technique called crowd duplication... it's pretty self explanatory but this made it easier to have control on set. To get the crowd duplicated, each person was filmed in front of a green screen from different angles, then the films were labeled and added appropriately.
Some green screens were involved, the fire was digitally manipulated and the sound was replaced to make it sound more "70's"... All of this took 1 rigger, 17 effects artists and 40 compositors to make the complete film... 7 effects artists were involved in completing the main crash! I'm not very surprised since hearing about the amount of work they had to do.

One of the tools they used to help them get the accuracy of the cars movements was a simulator. They had one which allowed the animators to physically feel like they are driving the cars being used in the film! They calculated and took the information from the game and put it onto Maya to animate.

There were particular aspects that were difficult to animate accurately, such as the tyres. Getting the right texture and speed of them proved more difficult to them then they originally thought! So to solve that problem they studied every aspect of the tyre, the way it moves etc. and showed the footage to an F1 consultant.

A similar scenario with the fire, there are lots of aspects to think about: the ember, smoke, damage, trail of fire, shadow, speed, and the actual fire itself! After shooting the original footage, Ortiz sketched over the scene to plan out where to add the effects.

So after starting shooting in August 2012, it's incredible that they managed to finish it so quickly! Heres the trailer:


This talk was one of my highlights of BAF; Ortiz was very informative and spoke a lot about the techniques used in this and other films, as well as showing us some exclusive clips of the editing process!

Porfessional 3 - BAF

After watching some brilliant student works, it was time to see some short films from the pros!

One that I particularly liked was third on the list: "Marilyn Miller":


Directed by Mikey Please, he used polystyrene to create his characters and sets in this stop motion piece.
The main character is likeable, with funny puns and phrases that made the cinema laugh; I think this added to my enjoyment of the film, as it was visually pleasing from the start, with some nice motions within the animation.

Another one that stood out to me was "Mr Hublot":


This animation test make back in 2010 proved Laurent Witz was onto something with this character... He managed to make Mr Hublot likeable and friendly, yet intriguing to watch, as I am curious to the characters back story. A really nice piece of character design as well.
The actual story was interesting and unpredictable, which made it an overall good film to watch.

Overall, I wasn't particularly wowed by the rest, because I didn't particularly like the visual styles used. However I've seen a good variety of techniques used to pull off these films, which has been interesting to watch through the whole festival so far!

Student 2 - BAF

The second day of Bradford Animation Festival was upon us. Sitting in the familiar Pictureville cinema, I eagerly awaited for the day to start, with more student films. This is part of the programme given to us in our free welcome bag, listing all the names and details of the films and directors:

"The Odd Sound Out", "Rabbit and Deer", "The Shirley Temple", "The Magnificent Lion Boy", "Sockskewerstreet 8", "Miss Todd", and "Memoria".
It's interesting to see what students around the world are producing at a graduate level, and overall I have to say I was impressed with what I saw.

I particularly enjoyed two out of those titled above, this video is "The Odd Sound Out":



Directed by Ida Maria Schouw Andreasen and Pernille Sihm, this is about small bands of invisible creatures playing music to represent the moods of the characters. About one particular creature called Trootpout, who annoyed the other creatures in his group and got expelled from the band. After this he just wants to fit in, but his odd sound disrupts everyone.
I like the style the animators have used, 2D on the computer; as this helps to illustrate the different colours of each little band, and the story line is cute!

This one has to be my favourite though, "Rabbit and Deer".


A mixture of 2D and puppet animation describes the friendship of these two characters, living happily, until Deer discovers the 3D world...
It's lovely to see the interaction between the two characters, before and after Deer becomes a 3D puppet; that's just one of the elements that make this film entertaining to watch. It's just endearing to see how they interact with the weather conditions, and how they adjust to the new lifestyle they have to face, since Deer can't change back into a 2D character.

Lee Hardcastle - BAF

Seeing Lee Hardcastle speak was the last event on our agenda for the first day.
It was presented in an interview style, where a representative was asking Hardcastle questions about his work/career, and what he intends to do next.

They talked about his first claymation piece, An Alien Claymation. It's obvious after watching this, be he explained how he is inspired by horror films, and he likes watching gory things. I'm not such a big fan of gore, but I think he did this piece well; with nice camera angles that follow the action, to make you feel more a part of the film. I liked how he portrayed the explosions and how the final, giant alien was defeated, showing the inside of the head as the saw cut through it.



He talked about how he made his next film "Dead Corps", inspired by GI Joe and Resident Evil, he had no plan when going into this project. I guess that makes sense since making it up as he goes along is his favourite approach to making a film, which is why he prefers to do his own work instead of commercial.

I liked the sense of humour shown in his next project: The Evil Dead in 60 seconds. The simple character design and structure were becoming his distinctive style, which Youtubers were enjoying watching. It was this film that got him "Youtube famous", and he started getting paid for it; talking about how it sustained him financially.



After the major success with this claymation, he wanted to figure out what people liked about the film, to develop on from there to sustain his successes.

So the next thing he came up with was "Pingu's the thing", which was an instant hit. He created it as a parody of "The Thing", which audiences, even famous ones such as Simon Pegg, loved. However Hardcastle got into trouble for it, as the creators of "Pingu" claimed he was breeching the terms of copyright, so the film got shut down.

However, determined for his ideas to be successful, he continued on to make a series called "Claycats", the one showed to us at BAF was this:



"Claycat's The Raid" has a similar style to Pingu, but with Hardcastle's twist to the story. He explained how he made the flare from the guns as they're firing:
Using a material called iron wool, he would light it on fire, then use a long exposure on a DSLR camera, to give the impression that it's actually firing.

After this success, Hardcastle was even more established in the claymation world. Which is why ABC selected him to be a part of their project, The ABCs of Death; which involved 26 animators to create 26 short films, one per letter of the alphabet. This is where Hardcastle discovered "T is for Toilet".


I personally find this film too gory, as I'm sure some other squeamish people do. However I can see how his style and technique has developed from the first film he made, actually creating characters in more detail with more of a storyline.

The final film shown was his sequel to "T is for Toilet", "Ghostburger". This shows even further character development as it continues to play on the boys fear of toilets. Unfortunately most of my class and I had to leave early to catch our train back home, so I missed the conversation that went on afterwards, I'm assuming about how he created his longest film.

Overall I found Lee Hardcastle's story informative, as he explained his career and how he made his films, but his story lines are too gory for me to enjoy, despite the light sense of humour.

Dave Mckean - BAF

This story teller - Dave Mckean - gave us a masterclass talking us through his career, how he started on DC comics, then explored other areas, galleries, kids books, films, photography... This man has really done it all, and seems to love doing it!

He took us from the very start of his career, telling us about his first few DC comics works; Violent Cases, Sandman and Mr Punch. He worked with Neil Gaiman on these, illustrating the words that he wrote. 

After working with Gaiman and other writers, he decided to write a comic himself - and illustrate it! Cages was created, which he wrote and illustrated 10 issues of. This is where he claims he taught himself to draw properly, practicing his style over and over again.

Once he had established he can draw comics, he decided to do some work for galleries. Firstly was "The Coast Road", where he thought it would be better to change the layout of his comic book style to be displayed on the walls - because he believes comics belong in books.

The Rut

Blue Tree

After this he went on to do two more major galleries; called "The Rut" and "Blue Tree". The Rut was in the Pumphouse gallery in London, where he had a series of pictures displayed throughout the rooms to tell one story, and put a body - (don't worry it was a dummy!) in a small corridor, to see if people would look through the whole gallery to notice it. 

The Blue Tree was displayed in his hometown, which he started setting up at around 5am, so the locals would wake up surrounded by his work. He later put this in a proper gallery space, where the branches/twigs were attached to the ceiling through the whole of the three rooms, with illustrations on the walls.

By the time he had finished these galleries, he wanted to work on some children's books. Reuniting with Neil Gaiman,  the pair of them created: The Wolves in the Walls, Coraline, The Graveyard and the Ocean at the End of the Lane.

After this he continued illustrating books for people such as David Almond (The Savage), Richard Dawkins (What is Magic/Reality?) - to get the science accurate in this book, he got a tutor to teach him the facts! - and Heston Bloomington's cook book.

He went on to illustrate record covers (for Michael Nyman), get involved in photography, and more recently has made several low budget films!

He also showed us illustrations from the sketchbooks he kept, telling us how he uses them at any free moment, and even getting his kids involoved with their own books!

I didn't recognise a lot of his work, but I still find it interesting just how much he has contributed to, and doing what he loves! And he is still going, making a film called "Callisto and the Wolves" next year! He has been a big inspiration for many people, so I hope he keeps it up!

Student 1 - BAF

These are the second set of films shown to us in Pictureville cinema:

Some of these were quite strange and the storyline too dark for my liking, same as the last set of films (Professional 1). There were some that I particularly liked however; "The Kiosk", "But Milk is Important" and "When One Stops".

The trailer for "The Kiosk" by Switzerland student Anete Melece:



The main character - the woman in the kiosk - is a likeable person, since the story tells us of her dreams to get out and travel the world, which some people can relate to. Also how he events pan out make this an enjoyable film to watch, since it has a sense of humour.
The cut out, painted style is not one I'm particularly as interested in as other techniques, but it's still been cleverly made.


It's the first clip in this showreel that was shown to us on the big screen during this hour:



This video is from a musician called Phil Brookes, who composed the music for "But Milk is Important".
Directed by Eirik Gronmo Bjornsen and Anna Mantzaris, I like the story behind this animation, with cute characters and a nice style to go with it.


"When One Stops" is a story of a character who doesn't want to flow with the constantly spinning world around him, due to his recent loss. It's about how you have to let go of things or loved ones you lost and move on, because the world is still moving no matter what. I think if you find your own meaning behind any film, then you can enjoy it more, which is why I enjoyed this one.

The illustrated style and different camera angles really bring this piece alive and make you feel like you are moving - or not moving - with the main character.

Professional 1 - BAF

The first event we went to see at Bradford Animation Festival. This series of short films opened my eyes to the possible techniques used to create animated films.
However, I think I liked the actual motions and sets better then the story lines (for the majority), because the plots became too dark and unsavoury for my liking.

I liked two the most out of this list: "Boles", and "In the Air is Christopher Gray".

This is the trailer for In The Air Is Christopher Gray:



I particularly like the silhouetted style Felix Massie (the director) decided to go for, and the use of colour on those silhouettes. It makes the film simple, yet you can still feel the characters emotions and the dialogue goes well with everything.
The characters were created to be humorous, making the whole cinema chuckle a little at some of the dialogue; this also made them likeable, to draw its audience into the story. Its the humour that made the dark plot easier to watch.
I also like how theres no hard black lines to illustrate the scenes.

"Boles" is a piece by Spela Cadez, a German director of animated shorts such as "Leibeskrank", "Zasukanec" and "Lovesick" (I haven't heard of any of them) but after watching "Boles" I'm interested to see how else Cadez has used this style.
Again with this piece, I like the style of the set and character design, using a different material for their hair to give it a different texture was a good idea.
The use of lighting is also good, having the sun shining through the window etc.

BAF 2013 Indent - Joanna Quinn

The week commencing 13th-15th November, my fellow animators and I boarded a train to Bradford to celebrate the 20th year of Bradford Animation Festival; a place where all animation and games lovers are welcome to watch new films and hear guests speak about their work. This is the film that was shown before every screening:


Beryl's Back! BAF 2013 Ident from Skwigly on Vimeo.

I really like Joanna Quinn's style generally, so I'm glad that she got the chance to make this indent! The sketchy style and pencil shading/smudging bring an animation to life, as it creates a flickery effect.
What better way to celebrate a birthday then cake? The short story behind this feels appropriate for the occasion! Using her famous character Beryl and including some others from films such as "Wallace and Gromit" is an interesting thing for animation lovers to recognise.

Watching this brought excitement awaiting for the rest of the week to commence...

The Snowman and the Snowdog

I loved the Snowman and the Snowdog when it first was released!



This video documents the art behind the backgrounds of the film, which follow on nicely from the original film - The Snowman. The artists have added elements from the first film into the backgrounds of this one, which reminds audiences of the first film, but have also added a spin onto this animated short to keep it original.
It has a really nice, soft style, which is visually pleasing to watch.

Justin Hillgrove

I really like Justin Hillgrove's illustrative style (screenshots from his website: http://www.impsandmonsters.com/blog/):

These images he drew have a good, consistent character design, defining his own style. They are also drawn really well, with lovely bits shading to give his images a 3D feel.

The Art of Monsters University - Steve Henderson (For Skwigly)

Skwigly is a great online magazine for animators.
That's because they post films, showcases, podcasts, reviews and keep us up to date on the latest events happening in the animation world.
One review I found interesting to read was The Art of Monsters University by Steve Henderson:

http://www.skwigly.co.uk/the-art-of-monsters-university/

Heres a little snippet of the article:

I like seeing the original imagery created before it gets to the big screen, as it shows the development of their thoughts and characters.
Because it's a prequel to the origins - Monsters Inc (also one of the best films of my childhood), a lot of the world has already been created. So the artists could use the same style in this film, but have a different scene, what with the film being set 10 or 20 years before the original.
So seeing this development from Pixar through one book is nice to see, since this will make it easier for fans to follow the process of the film making.

Anthropomorphism

The human form or characteristics being depicted in any object other then an actual human being.
Half of the characters in Disney's Beauty and the Beast are objects that have been personified due to a curse set on the Beast and all his servants... Watch this video and listen to this very catchy song to see fantastic animation on these objects:



Sorry if that song is stuck in your head now...
But you can really see the characteristics of humans within these characters, how they move, speak, act, and in Disney's case - sing!
I'd like to have a go at personifying an object one day

Google Earth Pics...

I know this isn't a lot to do with animation per say, but I really like the photos Earth Pics post!

I think it has the potential to be a great place to go to for inspiration about scenery and backgrounds... I mean I'm in awe just looking at these photos!

Backgrounds are a part of an animated piece, so I could take inspiration from the photos this Twitter account post, or even use them to draw over and animate on top of... My drawing is one subject I want to improve upon over the next few years, so practicing drawing landscapes such as this or even my own scenes will help me to improve.

Twitter

So yeah, recently I created a new Twitter account...
I've always thought of Twitter to be a place for people to vent and stalk celebrities; I tried keeping up an account because I was recommended it by a friend, but I never could think of anything to say really, so I don't go on often!
Now however, I've been shown how Twitter can be a place to Network with people, and view/post awesome films you find; so I'm going to give it another shot.
So this is my new profile:

I'm liking using Twitter in this way, because I've actually found people/companies I'm interested in 'following'. This being said, I'm starting to realise this might be a good way to discover new things about animation, new videos, and keep up to date with the latest releases.

So I will try harder to go on this website and use it in a similar way I'm using these blogs! If you have Twitter then please follow me: https://twitter.com/A_Neildanimator Thank you.

The Process of How to Make a Story at Cartoon Network

I would love to develop my ability to make stories... This video goes through the process of how Cartoon Network create stories for their show 'Adventure Time':



I find the process of how to make a TV show interesting, how they have to make a new episode for every week! No wonder they call on a team of Animators to finish the in between frames of a sequence...
But before that they have to come up with the ideas, and create storyboards. It's great how they can use real life situations to make a hilarious episode, because some of the situations the audience might be able to relate to the show, making it/the characters more loveable.
It sounds like fun, working together to make up stories for these characters! The exercises they use/play allow the storyboard artists/scriptwriters to say whatever comes into their heads, sometimes the ideas are brilliant, and some aren't. But that's the point!
Now I haven't watched many episodes of Adventure time.. (Yet!) but I think their story lines sound hilarious!

So yeah... I'd like to use some of these techniques to create stories one day...

Monsters University

I really love this film:

I like lots of aspects of this film, including;

The quality of animation; you can see little details such as Sully's fur, which really bring the film alive and make it visually pleasing to watch.

I love the character design - very creative monsters!

The subtle humour within the dialog is entertaining for both children and adults, despite it being officially a "child's film". 

The storyline is one I can relate to right now - starting university. This makes it generally more entertaining for me to spot things within their lives that I can relate to.

It was made by Pixar - A company with one of the best reputations involving animation!

So basically, I think this is a great film.

http://pixar.wikia.com/Monsters_University_Trivia

Typography Animation

I've always found the use of typography in animation interesting, such as this one:



I like the creative ways Jonny Lawrence has integrated their voices with text, getting the timing right and using imagery as well.
You can use typography to emphasise important things people are saying, by popping/bulging text, making it zoom in and out... You get what I mean!

Here's another example of typography:



I like the use of the little character to help control what people are looking at... I think the words flying all over the screen seem a bit jumbled and not as easy to watch as "The Earth". After watching several times I realised the different words flying around at the same time are the harmonies.

Who am I? Why am I here? What do I want to learn?

In a seminar I attended on Thursday 24th October, we were given the task of reflecting upon ourselves, to get us to think about ourselves as students and people, to start understanding why we chose to come here...

Why you chose to study on this programme?

• I think it's a good idea for me to start from the basic techniques, even though I've explored some already it will be better to refresh my memory of them
• The tutors seemed more involved with the students learning development compared to most universities
• The city in general is very big and exciting, I'm looking forward to exploring more of it!
• The course size I feel suits my ideal working environment better - 17 students including myself!
• The modules seem to be designed to develop the students skills over the course of the three years... Right from the start

What do you want to learn during your time on the programme?

• How to use software properly, such as Photoshop, Premiere and After Effects
• I want to develop my own drawing style - attending life drawing classes and such will help!
• How to use my time efficiently - planning what work I do and when
• Using a drawing tablet to create animations
• Adding sound to my films

What skills do you think are your strengths?

• Photography, I do it in my spare time so I hope think I've developed a good eye...
• Finding work through social networking sites/the internet
• Drawing objects from observation or photographs
• Picking up how to use a computer/mac quickly - all the little short cuts they use
• 
  

What things that you want to improve?

• My time keeping skills... I don't want to leave my work till last minute!
• Using the appropriate colours and shades to finish my drawings
• How to summarise what I want to say about other artists and their work - realising why a piece of work is good or bad
• Drawing portraits/character designing
• Using plasticine or clay to make stop motions/models and set designs

What ways will you evaluate your progress?

• I'll write everything up on these four blogs
• My sketchbook, which I will try to keep with me at all times
• Feedback from tutors and fellow classmates
• Hopefully I'll receive feedback from animators in the industry
•