Practice Animation - Evaluation

So the animation was done and we had to present it to the class. How did that go? Well, let's find out.

Presentation

 I reflect on the presentation with disappointment. Obviously it doesn't look like much here, because I believe the idea of a *presentation* is to put very little on the board and bring the heavy details in through, y'know, presenting. But apparently I missed the memo on what this was meant to be, because everyone else seemed to have a lot of text and also their entire pre-production folder within their presentation. Either way, it still went okay. Here's some feedback.

Feedback

Here's where my real problems come in. Everyone was really nice to me and dealt pretty much no criticism, despite the fact that the animation is a piece of trash. I'm aware of that, and I'm aware of the reasons for it being trash, so I really wouldn't have minded people taking a dig at it. In current state, it kind of feels like I'm just getting the same level and kind of feedback, no matter what state the finished product is actually in. Now I know how Apple feels.

ZING!

Anyway, as serious pointers for improving.

I've already got my pointers noted in the presentation up there, but here are the two big notes for me:

1: Buy a Remote

Handled that. Literally bought it as soon as I was finished shooting this animation. I've learned from my novice mistake this time, and am ready for what's next.

2: More coherent teamwork

Or preferably, none. I mean nothing against Sapfron, because honestly I don't think there's anyone in the class I could have been more content being with, but I just didn't enjoy or understand the teamwork element in this assignment. Firstly it made the same mistake as Short Film and Multi-Camera did in Year 1 by seemingly gifting creative control to everyone, which DOES NOT WORK. Especially for something as experimental as amateur cutout animation, I don't understand expecting two people to share or at least feel passion for the same ideas.

Secondly, it put a lot of pressure on getting the actual production done during class, which once again I did not feel worked. Every example we were shown was created in a certain environment, with the right equipment and lighting conditions and time.

I'm not blaming anyone or anything other than myself for how crappy my particular animation was this time around, but all the same I will be requesting to work alone for this final attempt at it. I've heard it will otherwise now be handled by teams of four, which I'm not particularly game for.

Practice Animation - Post-Production

Due to the small pool of material I had after the shoot, the edit was always going to be a bit easy. I headed into the college sound booth and recorded all the voiceover/dialogue myself, and then got cracking on throwing the thing together.

Here is what it looked like at the end on Premiere:

And here is what it looked like at the end on YouTube:

Practice Animation - Production

Before you could even click your fingers at how fast time flies, it was time to produce a golly gosh darned animation!

I was feeling nervous, but the important thing was just getting on with it and seeing it through.

First off, though:

Set-Up and Testing

To shoot the animation, I set up in my room where there was plenty of room for equipment. I placed the background on a large circular desk, and then set up the lights. I used two soft boxes, both extended to about 75% of their maximum height and tilted at around a 45 degree angle downwards. I then flicked three of the five switches on for both lights, giving a strong but even light to the piece.

I then set up a C-Stand with my camera (a Canon 700D) screwed to the end, so that it hung over the animation for a perfect framing. I weighed down the lights and C-Stand with sandbags. I also set up an external display screen attached to the C-Stand and pointing away from the lights, to make it a lot easier to monitor how the picture was looking.

Everything seemed set up to make something good, that was until...

The Shoot

 So everything divebombed pretty quickly. It turned out that every time I took a shot with the camera, no matter how careful I was, the pressure of me pressing the button threw the camera just a little off frame. I struggled for a while with this, but without a remote (which I had failed to consider I might need), it soon became clear that getting any kind of consistent framing for a shoot featuring movement as complex as I had planned would be impossible. As with any production, compromise quickly became the word of the day. In the end I shot far less photos than I had hoped to, but figured it would be enough to at least create a narrative with.

To finish with something more appealing than some text, here's a picture of the background and character models sat on the table:

Practice Animation - Pre-Production

Last Tuesday, Sapfron and I worked our butts off to ensure we had some kind of cutout animation ready to present on the following Tuesday. Here is some of the work we did:

Brainstorms

On the day we were supposed to brainstorm, I wasn't in the best state, so here is what I ended up scribbling as a 'plan':

These ideas unfortunately did not stick, as we moved forward to the...

Proposal

In case you're struggling to read that, here is the written piece in full:

“It hurts. I miss my kids. I miss my kids in so many ways that I can't explain.”

There are few words that have been spoken truer. Val Kilmer said that, and while it doesn’t have anything to do with this proposal, or my life, I really struggle with starting written pieces and generic people often seem to start with a quote so I just did that.

Our animation will start on a background filled with clouds, and people will be milling about in the background. All of this will be drawn on rather than individual pieces, like with Mr Benn, to create a set-in-stone background of locations and characters without distracting from the key narrative at hand.

Then, limb by limb, someone will pop out of thin air into scene, soundtracked by a scream. I aim for this scream to be blood curdling in its design, a backing track to the existential pain of being ripped into existence by a reality you don’t understand. Each limb will be taken from a different celebrity, and the head will be from a portrait of Henry VIII for that extra renaissance touch.

(Does Henry VIII count as renaissance? Oh wait, I don’t care. This is TV & Film, not History. GOODBYE FACTS, HELLO CREATIVITY.)

Following this, a second being similar in its body structure will be popped into existence, only this time topped by the head of Pop Superstar and Beloved TV Everyman OLLY MURS. An exchange will be shared between the two on the benefits of living within cutout animation, eventually resolved by the Olly Murs creature having its own arm force fed into its mouth and down through its body.

In a final touch of beautiful poetry, the animation will end just as it began. An awful, traumatising scream.

It will be shot on location at Hector’s house with a Canon 700D and some lights. 

 

Surprise, surprise: the idea changed yet again after that. But this time we were confident we were sticking to it, so Sapfron got on with the...

Storyboards

 

 

 We had of course also had all of this planned and scheduled beforehand, as shown by this wonderfully complete...

Production Schedule

That was pretty much all the necessary paperwork out of the way, and we were set to get on with the shoot later that week. But as a special bonus, here are pictures of both Sapfron and myself as we were producing paperwork and resources on the Tuesday. 

Just a little extra research

According to my tutor, I've got to add just a little extra salt sprinkling of research as it's being considered for a separate assignment this time around. So, as I've already stressed myself out enough uncovering facts on where it came from and why it was made last time around, my addition will simply be notes on other pieces of cutout animation and how they link to mine.

Cloud Bread - Not Another Word!

Who are we kidding with this one? I don't have the time, focus, or skill to make this one. But hey, it was a good watch and I like those tinkly piano soundtracks you get on cartoons and this.

United Airlines - Dragon

Again: nahhhhh. What is it about cutout animations found on the first page of a google search that means they can't be comparable with the efforts of a 19-year old with no history, talent, or passion for animation. What a bust.

Paper Cut Out Animation

There we go, that's more like it. I changed my searching tactic, went for "cutout animation a level". Finally, my fellow amateur kind have come crawling out of the internet woodwork. Anyway, this is still far better than what I'm probably going to make, but I like how the water rises here. It's effective, and probably really easy as well.

Secret Life Of Words

Yeah, it's alright isn't it?

Making Cut Out Animation

There's plenty of useful information here. A bit of book-flogging around it, but I guess we all gotta hustle in this. I'm starting to feel truly inspired, oh boy am I ready to go make my animation through compromise after compromise after compromise. Good times.

Dead Man On A Line: One Week to Cutout

I have a deadline next week. I haven't done any work for it. I mean, I have, but I decided a couple of days ago that was all rubbish and unusable so now I don't have any work for it. Some would call this a problem, but I would call it an opportunity.

An opportunity to get into college for 7:20am (check), hit play on Carly Rae Jepsen's latest album (check), and do some damn good work!

Well, maybe some at least passable work. I'll be honest, it's probably going to be compromise city around these parts, so strap yourselves in for a solid session of disappointment.

PART 1: RESEARCH

Right, okay, about the research. In my opinion, as unfair as it is, I don't really have to do any research. You see, we're doing cutout animation again. I say we're, but I'm the only one doing cutout animation again, which I believe leaves me in a position where it's A-OK for me to just post some printscreens of my previous research blog posts and move on. It's maybe a bit unfair, but I just watched The Big Short (damn good movie!) the other day so I'm pretty game for the mindset of life always being unfair. Here's some printscreens.

Wow, I really am pretty good at this research business huh? If you're anything like me, those tantalising printscreens have left you *desperate* to read the full pieces. So here's the links to two posts dedicated to research that I did over three months ago now.

http://yeartwoanimated.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/research-wars-episode-iv-no-hope.html

http://yeartwoanimated.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/research-wars-episode-v-library-strikes.html

Now I'm going to watch some cutout animation shorts and write up my proposal. Maybe I'll even post some of that to this blog. Oh, alright then. I'll definitely post some of it to this blog. Just for you.

PS Seriously though, the latest Carly Rae Jepsen album is incredible and you all have to get past the fact we unanimously wrote her off as a one-hit wonder three years ago. Not even a hint of irony to this, she's made one of the best pop albums to release in years.

BANGER ALERT