Film 19/10/15

16/10/15 Final Piece - Feedback + Reflection

Elliot

We didn't finish the project - which I felt really let down by my group. Some group members done more than others, and some none at all - I learnt from this project to not work with your friends. I think that messed our group up was time management - we spent a lot of our time organising the style of our piece - therefore our narrative suffered. To improve I would make sure that this piece is finished to the quality of the first 25 seconds.

Feedback:

• I love the style and mood
• Art style is smooth 
• looks fantastic
• fit
• professional - sleek
• looks complete
• narrative suffered - rebalancing thing
• effective visual language 
• collaged - enough texture to tell story
• don't make piece longer than 3 minutes

14/10/15 No Colour Bar visit

Photos of this visit can be found here.

I found this task extremely difficult.  I took photos of the only two people that went to the gallery while I was there. As a white female I felt uninspired by the artwork I saw to create a more effective response. While I understand what BHM means to others - I think it may be my upbringing that makes it difficult for me to identify with the artwork I had seen. I don't think my final piece works well as there is no representation of black culture. It really surprised me that I had no ideas for this project - I think to improve in general as well as other projects I may encounter, I need to research more if I don't feel inspired. What I have learned through this project the importance of research as I could have made a more successful piece.

 

13/10/15 Black History Month brief

To create an original visual response to your visit to the galleries in postcard format. 

I am currently finding it difficult to come up with ideas for this task - I feel very uninspired and blind in this project - I know what Black History Month is and what it means to the black culture - personally I do not identify with BHM which makes it difficult.

12/10/15 Animation Workshop Piece

Here I used After Effects to create this animation. I liked the technique, I think it put me and ease and calmed my stresses about animation to see how simple I could put an animation together - which had surprised me. Previously when creating animations it was usually a stressful process with no pay out to the quality of the animation. The only difficulty I found was that sometimes the animation would loop back to the beginning although I hadn't moved it, perhaps due to the fact I tried to cut corners putting the markers in place first. I would use this process again to create little animations for future film projects and while not put it off due to thinking I can't create animations.

10/10/15 Group Roles / Update

Group Roles: 

• Will: Sound Design + compositor 
• Me: Animator + storyboard artist/ animatic 
• Victor: Producer + Animator
• Fran: Character Design 

While discussing what techniques to use to create our animation, Victor suggested to use rotoscoping, which is drawing over live action footage frame by frame creating a stop motion of movement. We will also use paper cut outs and the stop motion technique for the legs/taller people walking beside him. 

An example of rotoscoping can be found in this music video: 

9/10/15 Updated Storyline Storyline + Animatic

UPDATED STORYLINE:

• Elliot is small and is therefore unnoticed
• Someone drops a purse
• Elliot know he needs to return this important object back to the person
• Elliot is knocked about on his journey, is nearly stepped on and it rains stopping his search
• Elliot finds person and returns purse
• Elliot is noticed by person
• Receives whistle for returning purse
• Elliot uses whistle next time he is nearly stepped on, avoiding death and is noticed by the taller people around him
• Elliot is content

8/10/15 Feedback from Pitch

Feedback:

1.  Logic in diegesis doesn't make sense (people should grow taller if Elliot does)
2. Protagonist doesn't work for anything 
3. Don't rely on chance for change

Story = (character + wants) x obstacles 

To do: 

• Rethink storyline
• Redraw storyboards
• Create animatic reflecting new idea
• Plan sounds 

6/10/15 Storyboarding, Moodboard and Animatic

Storyboards can be found here.

7/10/15 Influences

I enjoy watching short animations for comedic effect. What I like about animations such as this one I found while browsing tumblr, is that anything can be done - the characters are tortilla crisps that bleed nacho cheese. Animation is radical and audience's tend to believe anything the diegesis throws at them.




I decided to look into paper cut out animations and stop motion animations to get inspiration as to what we could do with our own animation. I found this animation to be very simplistic and lacking in story arc. I liked the various layers of movement within the animation.




I liked the amount of detail in this animation, however I felt the animation itself was choppy in some areas. I liked the style of the paper animation and feel as if our own animation could take inspiration from this style.




I had watched this animation a few years ago and enjoyed the story arc of this piece. I think this could also present a variation of different styles of animation we could incorporate into our own piece by drawing digitally or something similar.

Personally I love the animated feature films produced and created by Studio Ghibli - particularly the animations by Hayao Miyazaki


I studied him in A2 last year and his films for my own extended project. I rewatched the latest and last of his filmography - The Wind Rises. Not my personal favourite. Howl's Moving Castle is my favourite animation due to the extent of the animation - particularly in awe of the different movements of the castle and the detail gone into it.

I also rewatched The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness - a documentary following the production of The Wind Rises, and briefly re-read Miyazaki's biographies Starting Point and Turning Point.

6/10/15 Animation Introduction

Honda "Paper" from a52 on Vimeo.


Procrastination from Johnny Kelly on Vimeo.

Dad's Dead (2015 Remastered Version) from chris shepherd on Vimeo.

New York Times - Modern Love from Freddy Arenas on Vimeo.

Les talons rouges / The Red Heels from Olesya Shchukina on Vimeo.

Revolver from jonas odell on Vimeo.

5/10/15 Ideas

Feedback from Sound Design work

Feedback for Sound Journey:

Add more sound spots

Like the gradual build

End should be louder – more chaotic finish

Not obvious what is being listened to

Good progression so sound moves smoothly

 I agree with these comments, I think that I could've improved the foley making it more obvious what was being listened to. I think I could also improve by building the end up to be more chaotic

Feedback for Film Clip:

Beginning of piece is similar to sound journey

Add lightning effects

Low piano music to add dark effect

Comical take on dramatic scene – subverting the genre and works

Add more sounds to actions – example Jason getting out of coffin

Like that own recordings have been used

Add more heavy breathing and steps

Syncing could be more accurate

Wind sound – feeling of dread

Felt a bit empty

Very well mixed & synced

Knife sounds fit well and increase intensity

Sound spots are almost perfect

Could do with some reverb

More foreground sounds needed

To improve my film clip piece I could change up the beginning of the clip not repeating the same sounds, add lightning effects synced up to the lighting of the screen. I also need to add more action movement sounds and more dialogue to the scene. I could also add a soundtrack to create more of an atmosphere in this piece, and add reverb to some of the audio clips within my sequence. 

Foley to movie clip: Friday 13th - Reawakening of Jason

 I really enjoyed this task, so much that I completed the whole scene rather than a minute. I enjoyed the experimentation of sound choices to decide what sounded more like, for example, a footstep squelch in mud while raining. I think that this piece was successful, however I think I could've continued layering more sounds and therefore making it more descriptive, for example adding thunder, heavier rain and a variation of breathing patterns to match characters. To improve I would also use actors to voice the character's dialogue rather than my own voice. I learnt from this task that a range of material to choose from is best, as sounds that are recorded sometimes don't really sound like what you want them to, so it is good to have a range to fall back on and layer sounds if needed to. I think that I would definitely use foley sound in future film projects to exaggerate sounds.