D&AD

After waiting patiently, D&AD finally released their briefs for this years New Blood competition. In previous years I always assumed it was just for Graphic Designers to enter, and hadn't ever properly looked at the briefs on offer and just dismissed the whole competition. However looking closely, it is a lot broader, but still under the category of creative advertising. Each brief is quite open allowing you to use any medium and any visual style to complete it, which includes animation and illustration. There a few more specific briefs too, but these are mostly for graphic designers.

The two I am most interested are below.

National Trust 
The first is a brief for the National Trust, making some information packs and content to attract people aged between 20 and 40. At first when seeing this brief I imagined creating activity packs for children, so I had to rethink how I would target such a different age group. I am really interested in this brief and started making a mood board which you can view here- http://www.pinterest.com/iambambiwillow/national-trust-brief/
http://www.dandad.org/awards/new-blood/2014/categories/8/national-trust

Don't Sell, Make Your Mark
The second brief I was interested in wasn't for a specific brand, and is more of an open brief designed by D&AD themselves. This brief is to tell a story interestingly, it can be any story but you can't sell something in it. As a concept itself it could be fun to do, especially as I was hoping to write a narrative for an animation anyway. However I feel this brief slightly juxtaposes with its intent, as by completing the brief and if you win, you are trying to sell your own brand and your own style of working in hope for recognition (which I suppose is making your mark, and technically there is no prize money so it wouldn't be selling necessarily, however I just think it is a little odd!)
http://www.dandad.org/awards/new-blood/2014/categories/5/d-ad

Tom Sito

In a lucky flook, I came across this great lecture by Tom Sito on animating with live action sequences. I personally had never heard of him before seeing this video, but was completely blown away by his showreel and by the amount of knowledge he so clearly has.

What I liked best was his planning drawings for the main character sequence in Who Framed Roger Rabbit at the end, where he mapped out where every character would be and what action would take place at each camera movement, to ensure it didn't look flat. What an inspiration!


Animation and Live Action: Lecture Highlights with Tom Sito from Virtual Animators on Vimeo.

Regular Show Animatic

As a huge fan of the cartoon Regular Show, when finding the animatic for one of their first episodes I was really excited to compare it the finished animation. Unsurprisingly they had mastered the timing, movement and content, which all looked near identical to the episode.

What I personally struggle with the most is keeping to the animatic/storyboard when editing, as I tend to edit with the footage I have and what looks best, whilst sticking mainly to the sequence in which the events happen.

Temporary tattoo test

After deciding that a temporary tattoo pen would be best for the costume of my actor, I ordered one on Amazon and gave it a test.

I drew out one of the designs I had created and tried to replicate it as best as I could, given that the pen nib was a lot larger than expected. Saying this when scaling my designs up it worked well and was a lovely shade of blue which wasn't too bold and looked slightly washed out. It washed off quite easily but still left a slight marking for a few days, but nothing too noticeable (saying this, my skin is really sensitive to facepaint/pens/full make-up so I find it notably difficult to wash off). Overall I am happy with the outcome, and can't wait to see what it looks like as a full tattoo sleeve.

Persopolis

One weekend I decided to watch the graphic novel turned animation, Persopolis. I had heard that the story was pretty dark but dealt with really beautifully and I couldn't wait to see what it actually was about.

Although very different in subject matter to my own film, there were some elements that I took away from watching it which linked directly to my own VFX practice. The main point was how they animated water. Much like the opening title sequence for 'The Series of Unfortunate Events', they used spiraling waves to give a more dramatic effect and stylized look. The style really stuck with me, and this is how I hope to portray my own waves.

Below is a short trailer for the film, including snippets of water animation.

After watching this film I was so inspired to animate and learn more on their process that I went in search for any behind the scenes info I could find. Luckily for me they created these small videos on the  process and team which were really interesting. I couldn't believe that they had rendered each frame by hand in pen! I absolutely love that this was all created by hand yet looks so graphic. What I love more is the small things that show a hand has created it, such as the slight roughness the ink has given to each line. It is completely perfect in it's own imperfect way. Depending on the amount of time I have left in this module I would love to render sections of my animation in such a way.

Winnie the Pooh

I was concerned how to make my bear character cute and stylized yet still have believable, and found this really cute fan-art model of Winnie the Pooh which has been rigged and animated in a Pooh like walk. It was really interesting to see such a well known character in a different medium and personally I think it works well. What I like most about Winnie the Pooh is his distinguishable movement and personality in his walk, and I need to really work on this with my chracter.

Grizzly bears in 'The Living Edens: Kamchatka' documentary

The Living Edens: Kamchatka from MacQuarrie-Byrne Films on Vimeo.

This video has some gorgeous shots of grizzly bears, especially when fishing and playing in the water. Some great reference footage in here.

Industrial Light and Magic

When we first started this module I watched the documentary 'Creating the Impossible' which is about the beginnings of the first VFX company Industrial Light and Magic.

They were the founders of visual effects and still are the leading company in developing new software and improving the old software. They used matt paintings on glass and then composite film footage over the top, miniature models on blue screen, complex masks and costumes and optical compositing when they first started out making the first Star Wars.

They then led onto creating the Dyxtraflex computer allowing dynamic and repeatable camera moves, they developed computer graphics, made the first computer animation of the hand moving and first computer environment using Mac's software, they made the stained glass man character in the Young Sherlock Holmes in 1985 (was a lot of work as they didn't have the tools to do such things then) which was the first animated character ever made, they made the first morphing shot in the film Willow, the first digital editing system, the first digital audio editing system, a film laser scanner, The Pixar computer with a powerful graphics computer for digital compositing and RenderMan their software and they created the first digitally animated film. Phew!

After all of these massive advancements in technology, equipment and software the company split, which the other half then became the first 3D animation company Pixar. Lucas film then set up their own CG group which was to develop the medium but only for films, which led to them creating the film Abyss.

They carried on to break new ground always staying innovative and forward thinking. Jurassic Park was the biggest turning point for showing the possibilities of CG, whereas Forest Gump did the same but for understated hidden effects. During this time people felt threatened by the digital shift, and referred to it as 'the dark side' where they lost a lot of their employees due to reluctancy to change their way of working.

Their most recent developments is the creation of their own particle system and way to render that, mastering photorealistic modeling and effects using both hard surface with organic and advancing their mocap technology when filming the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.

Below is a fantastic VFX breakdown of their blockbuster film The Avengers.

http://www.ilm.com/

Bears!

I had a sudden realization that bears actually do stand in water when fishing, which I stupidly hadn't thought about when thinking of them splashing in puddles! So I did a quick sketch of a little bear cub trying to hunt in a waterfall as a reminder!

Salmon

After my intensive research, the most common food grizzly bears eat are salmon which come in a wide variety of species. Most of them are really sort after by fishermen as they are in high demand for human consumption. So I have decided to use salmon as my dedicated species when animating the fish.

Below is a diagram of the different species of salmon, which all have visual variations, which may or may not be known by the everyday person, however these details will give my film credibility and authenticity. 

(image source: http://www.epa.gov/wed/pages/staff/lackey/pubs/illusion.htm)

As I haven't decided which medium my salmon fish will be animated in, I looked into the general animation of fish swimming and struggling and their bone structure. This video was really interesting to watch and a great reference.

I then went onto drawing some concept sketches on the visual look of the fish in different positions and different amounts of detailing, whilst sticking to my films aesthetic look.

Over fishing

My whole film is about overfishing and the effect it has on the environment, so I did some intensive research into this subject matter to ensure that I knew everything I could and really feel effected and motivated against such a cause. Hopefully this passion will drive this film forward and really show in the finished piece. Below are a list of links and videos I found the most useful in my research. A few of the video's actually use animation which I found really interesting, and work well in showing their data in an interesting yet informative way.


http://overfishing.org/

http://ocean.nationalgeographic.com/ocean/critical-issues-overfishing/

http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/oceans/problems/overfishing-emptying-our-seas

http://saveourseas.com/threats/overfishing

http://worldwildlife.org/threats/overfishing

http://scotland.wwf.org.uk/what_we_do/press_centre/?6038/Salmon-farming-Standards-to-help-reduce-industry-impact-launched

http://www.wwf.org.uk/what_we_do/safeguarding_the_natural_world/oceans_and_coasts/oceans_europe/sustainable_fisheries.cfm




MSC: Sustainable Seas from Marine Stewardship Council on Vimeo.
lovely animated section




Cats in space from Marine Stewardship Council on Vimeo.
funny animation supporting the MSC




WWF's Earth Book 2012 - Oceans and seas from WWF-UK on Vimeo.






The Last 130 from WWF-UK on Vimeo.




Mermaid Tears from Ola Liszewska on Vimeo.





Catching Tuna from WWF on Vimeo.





Sustainable Seafood, China from WWF on Vimeo.




MSY, get it right from WWF on Vimeo.



Net Gains: Tackling pirate fishing in Spain from WWF on Vimeo.

I also found a link specifically linking to bears shortage of food and the effect this may have, which surprisingly could link to a bear coming into someone's garden (and perhaps splashing in their puddles!)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/12/grizzly-bear-sightings-yellowstone_n_3910948.html

Fantasia 2000

Whilst researching into the original Fantasia, I came across Fantasia 2000. At first I thought it was just a  re-working of the original, but soon I realized it was in fact a completely different film.

After discovering this I decided to watch just a snippet of it before buying the actual film. On Youtube this was the first video I came across, and to my amazement it has some perfect shots of how I imagined my VFX module to look like. This shot is where the tin boy is inside a fish which is being pulled out of a net onto the boat. I could not believe how perfectly timed seeing this clip was, but the framing and angle is exactly how I envisioned my own film.

You can watch the full short below

Puddle splash effects

Now I've looked into how the body moves when splashing in puddles, I can look into how the water moves when being jumped or stepped into. Below are two great examples. The first is by a student who is looking into hand-drawn visual effects and has used really beautiful curves. The second is a professional who has done visual effects for The Amazing World of Gumball as well as other projects, and that video is a showreel of the best of his hand-drawn (on the computer) VFX. I love the contrast between the two videos, yet how they both have perfectly displayed believable yet stylized visuals.


Intro to Effects: Water splash. from John T Hill on Vimeo.



2D FX Reel 2013 from Matt Timms on Vimeo.

Fisherman photoshop test

Much like my splashing test, I decided to test out a different form of rotoscoping, where I was drawing on one element (the fisherman's overalls), tracking with the character. This was a really quick test created on Photoshop, which is why the line work is quite rough, but I feel it shows the aesthetic I am hoping for. I think this makes my film look more handmade, unique and quite comical.


fisherman test from sacha frampton on Vimeo.
;

Splashing roto-scoping test

From the reference videos of the children splashing, I filmed myself pretending to splash doing the foot movement and jumps that I had seen. From this I quickly rotoscoped over each frame with a rough white line and added stretches and exaggeration for the quick movements. Once I was finished I simply replaced the video footage with a black plate and exported it out.

I am quite pleased with the outcome of this and feel it is a good place to start when thinking about the movement of my bear.


Splashing roto-scoping test from sacha frampton on Vimeo.

Puddle splashing

As I know my bear character will be a young child and will be splashing in puddles, I decided to do a bit of research into how it's body would move when splashing as well as the ripples and splashes it would create. These videos were the most useful for reference, as they are energetic and enthusiastic. 

Puppet Tool in After Effect test

After all the After Effects inductions, both with Mat and Mike, I learned about key framing along with many other handy animation tips and tricks. We didn't however learn about the uses of the puppet tool, so Mat gave me a quick induction where we created this to mimic how nets would ripple in the water without having to film and somehow composite it in. This is a really quick and effective way of animating and was really useful to learn.


Puppet tool in After Effects test from sacha frampton on Vimeo.

After Effects induction 4

These are my notes from the fourth and final AE induction with Mike Flowers. I have found these sessions extremely useful and will be referring back to all of my notes for when I come to animating.

Green screening induction in After Effects

My notes for the green-screening in AE induction. I found this really useful, although I did struggle at first to grasp some of the masking techniques.

History of compositing

Here are my notes from the History of Compositing talk

                                         

I also found this video which covers most of these key points.

Change in heart

The more research I have done, the more I am worrying about the brief I have chosen and how unattainable it is becoming in the timeframe. My main concern is not completing any of the three platforms (book, animation or app), and that the book is the main priority but not relevant to the course directly. From looking into the children's book industry further I have also noticed that the process we started to undertake this project in is flawed and has stunted the growth and development of the project already in the initial stages.

I have spent some time thinking it over and have decided that this brief is far too big and I would simply not get it done in the time period or to the quality my client wants, and it is better to spend a few years on it as a side project.

With this in mind, I now need to find a new live brief before it is the deadline for the proposals.

Maps within games

When researching transmedia as a whole, I became really interested in fold out and keep poster maps which come inside the cases in some video games. These not only help you find your way around the game, but also sometimes have other unexplorable areas on the map, hinting into future stories. The physicality of these maps are also interesting to me, that people would use these as posters on their walls, inviting other people to engage and look at these different worlds. I am also intrigued by different games choices of visual style, sometimes being different to the game itself, which I find strange but appealing, almost as if this world has been found and is new and exciting.
Below are a few examples, I particularly like the vibrancy of the Zelda map, and the graphic style and almost touristic look of the GTA map.


Zelda

GTA

Red Dead Redemption

Skyrim

Lynne Chapman

After finding the Academy of Art video, these two videos were suggested. I really like these snippets into this woman's illustration process and her tips and tricks to surviving as an illustrator in children's books.

This video is how to become an illustrator.

This video is more specific into illustrating books.

I was really interested to find the story has to be accepted by a publisher first and they choose the illustrator they think fits best, and the author has no contact with the illustrator until the near completion of the book. This allows the illustrator to think imaginatively and not be held down by the pre-imagined ideas of the author. Already I find I am having a loyalty to Alex's vision and finding it difficult to think outside the box as he clearly knows what he wants it to look like.

Academy of Art - School of Illustration - Children's book publishing

When researching illustration techniques, I came across this filmed lecture from the Children's book illustration course in the Academy of Art. Although I had not heard of the illustrators talking, it was a really interesting lecture, and discussed the normal process for illustration in publishing to work.

The key thing I took from this, is that it takes well over a year to plan and illustrate a book solidly, so to complete a book, an animation and an app to a marketable level is simply unachievable in the time scale, even to just complete one of these in the style and medium wanted is simply unrealistic.

Ipads for kids

When researching The Children's Media Conference, I found an interesting link to a past talk dedicated to young children's development in literacy and reading with the aid of iPads. Although this link doesn't include the talk itself, it has a few questions which the talk covered and discussed, which are great as a starting point with my work and my understanding into this area of work.

You can view the link here: http://www.thechildrensmediaconference.com/sessions/research-sessions-8-9/

Seth Boyden

Abduckted from Seth Boyden on Vimeo.

This beautiful animation popped up on my Vimeo timeline this week, and was created during the CalArts event 48 hour animations. During this event, their animation students were given the task to create an animation under their set theme, in 48 hours. Each person is expected to do an animation each, but also collaborate and help on other people's short films. This year their theme was 'Duck', where Seth Boyden took the theme and twisted it to make an interesting and funny story on a group of ducks abDUCKting an evil human hunter. I thought the storyline was really well developed and the visual style was so so beautiful. I love his use of water colour and how each layer was coloured one limiting flickering, yet retaining the visual style. His work really reminds me of the illustrator Scott C, who's work I really love.

Shishi Yamazaki

Showreel 2010 - 2013 from Shishi Yamazaki on Vimeo.

In my first year I mentioned Shishi's work as being one of my biggest influences. She mainly works using rotoscoping methods, but has since developed into doing hand drawn animation sections in her work too, flowing between the two methods seamlessly. This makes her work interesting and beautiful to watch. What I love about her work the most however is the use of different mediums, swapping between crayon, water colour, acrylic and pencil.

Notably the frames in which water colour is used, are in fact my favourite sections, as the water splodges and changes in colour tone give the work further depth and makes it look more visually interesting, however I am unsure if this would work in an animation aimed at young children as it may just be too distracting. So I am now not sure how to create this work in the visual style that my client wants.

Kirill Nagornych

Walking On Air (soundtrack ©1995 King Crimson) from Kirill Nagornych on Vimeo.

As Alex stated that he wanted the book/animation/app rendered in water colour, I decided to have a look at people who have done this. When discussing it with Mike, he showed me an ex-student's third year piece which was done in a similar way to what I was wanting. I think this piece is really lovely, and has cleverly used After Effects to save on time rather than doing it frame by frame. However saying this, a whole year has been put into creating this which is unrealistic for my brief, and it has started to worry me that my brief may be unrealistic within the time frame.

Storytelling Apps

After talking to Alex about the potential to expand his story to be made into a storytelling app, I went straight back onto TED talks' website and found a great talk I had seen last year on a developer and her take on storytelling apps. It was such an inspiring talk and the visuals were really stunning, and she had really understood her audience and ensured it was as interactive and accessible as possible. You can find the talk here:  http://www.ted.com/talks/shilo_shiv_suleman_using_tech_to_enable_dreaming.html

Apps are complicated things to make, and it can take years to make a successful app from start to finish, plus marketing also takes time too. As I was concerned about learning coding I set off to find ways to create the apps using software which does the coding for you. I found two of these sorts of 'app makers' here:
http://digitalmediadiet.com/?p=2456
http://www.kwiksher.com/

Kwiksher seemed the easiest interface to use, so I decided to have a look at a few apps which have been made with their software. Below are two of my favourites. I think these examples are rather basic, but with better visuals it would really be something.
http://www.kwiksher.com/work/piggly-wiggly/
http://www.kwiksher.com/work/goldilocks-and-three-bears-interactive-storybook-hd/

After a bit of searching, I found that Kwiksher have started a kickstarted to update their software adding many more handy tools to thier already useful software. This is definitly something worth keeping an eye out for in the future.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/532972293/interactbuilder-30-interactive-apps-without-progra
http://www.interactbuilder.com/


I then did some research into some existing storytelling apps and searched for visually stunning ones, but found it difficult to find many. Underneath are links to a few I liked.

Disney App
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/story/id548398240

Animation Liam showed me (This app was by far the most developed and showed me the potential behind how apps can be used as a great platform for animation and interactive storytelling.)
http://www.fastcodesign.com/1664419/an-ex-pixar-designer-creates-astounding-kids-book-on-ipad

La Luna App
http://appadvice.com/appnn/2013/09/disney-launches-ipad-app-based-on-oscar-nominated-pixar-short-film-la-luna

Goodnight Moon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=467-34zMJH8

The Amazing Train
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpuYAgus1cY

Where do the balloons go
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7Vj6pNznz0

What do bugs dream about
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LIJiqFP-ts

Pan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KUFAN86Y6c

Premiere sound induction

I missed Annabeth's session on sound design and how to edit sound in Premiere Pro so I booked a brief induction with Matt Burton in AV to catch up with what was missed. The sound editing in Premiere is much like Final Cut Pro so I feel confident that I will be able to use this software to do this in.

Portable sound recorder induction

At the same time as the GoPro induction I had a quick induction into the portable sound recorder. I wasn't initially going to use this piece of equipment, but during the GoPro induction Matt said that the camera struggles recording sound in the waterproof casing, and picks up on any moment of the camera. So I decided to take this piece of equipment out too. Below is the small amount of notes I took.

GoPro 3 Black edition induction

Once I had decided to use the GoPro for filming with I asked for a quick induction to learn the very basics of the camera so I'm not completely phased when I came to filming. It is pretty easy to use, but changing the settings is a bit of a pain without the phone app which allows you to send information to the devise without having to do it on the tiny attachable screen on the camera.

Go Pro Hero 3 Black Edition

After the Canon 5D induction I talked to Matt Burton about which camera would be best to film my sea footage with. I knew that the Canon was not waterproof and didn't have a casing for it, so I discussed using the GoPro's I knew had a casing. I was at first concerned that filming with two different cameras, the Canon with the green screen and actor and the GoPro with the sea footage, would not edit well together. However if I ensure all the camera settings are the same and shooting in the same format, then I will be able to edit quite smoothly between the two. 

Once I had confirmed I could use the GoPro Hero 3 Black Edition, I decided to look at other peoples footage of waves and underwater. I was really impressed with the results and really excited to shoot my own footage.

The only issue with using a GoPro is the image is distorted into fisheye footage as the camera and lense is so small, however this is apparently easy to fix with the GoPro's free editing software.

Canon 5D Mark 3 induction

As I am a bit of a nervous nelly around cameras, especially new and expensive ones, I was slightly dreading this induction. Saying that, I learnt all about how to set the camera up properly, and the best settings for different situations. I will definitely refer back to these notes when using the DSLR for filming.

Maya 2014 version changes

At the beginning of this module we had a quick Maya recap before the Maya render task. Here are my notes to remind me of the basics in Maya, the changes to the software, and then my notes on render layers which was a new technique we hadn't previously explored.

Rough storyboard

Before making a digital storyboard I made a really quick and rough sketched version in my sketchbook, to help me organise my ideas and get everything down on paper.

After Effects induction 3

This was our third After Effects induction, this time looking at motion paths and more advanced key framing methods, which were all aspects of AE I had not previously worked on.

Concept artwork

As my idea is still pretty fresh and in it's early stages, I decided to do some silly sketches and doodles to help my visual ideas flow out with ease with less pressure for it to be 'perfect'. I had one page for sailor/fishermen concepts and a double page for bears. Although rough and raw I think these two images really show which direction my film is going in.

Equipment induction

Today we spent the morning learning how to set up different pieces of high-end equipment ready for our VFX production. Although I have worked with all of these pieces of equipment on set before, I have never learnt how to use them myself as usually I am working within the Art Department. 

It was great to get a good understanding of how to set it all up, but also how to use the equipment and overcome problems you may find along the way. After everything was set up we all had different roles in the production, with myself being one of the actors. As I was in front of the camera I didn't have any first hand experience with the equipment, but could look at what everyone else was doing whilst we weren't on film. 

Overall it was a really useful session, and I have definitely learnt a lot and feel more comfortable with how to work everything.

Initial discussion with Alex

After writing the long list of questions I need to ask myself and Alex to properly start the project off, I sent the list to him to have a read over. At first he answered the questions he was able to, which then led to a conversation afterwards.
 

Percy Pirate is aimed at children between the ages 2-5 (preschoolers), and isn’t directly aimed at boys but will naturally interest them more. We discussed this aspect and whether or not a female character needs to be developed to target girls separately in a different range of books. We both agreed that it doesn’t need to be gender specific, and we will ensure his unnamed crew will be a mixture of genders.
 

For this book the crew is made up of Percy, an unnamed pet parrot, the pirate captain and an unnamed crew of 6-7 others. When it snaps back to reality I asked Alex if the crew members are other children or if the characters are what Percy has made out of household objects or even imaginary friends, which Alex replied that they are other children who have come round to play out.
 

When talking about how we could make this more transmedia, we discussed creating a range of items which could be sold with the character branding. This also led to us discussing the possibility of more book in the series and different adventures they could take.

 

When we have a completed book, we have discussed looking to publishers at first to gage an interest, however if this does not seem possible we can then look into self-publishing. It is Alex’s vision that this would be a standard children’s book on any bookstores shelf and not a specialist collectors book. We discussed how we could make the book itself more interactive, by adding pop out and pull tab sections in the adventure aspects of the book, such as the actions “swinging” and “jumping.” He also would like the animation to go alongside the book in DVD format, which he would rather develop into a short series, which makes it more worthwhile to purchase. He gave the examples Peppa Pig and Pingu for animation DVD’s he would like us to go down the route of. This would be necessary as a DVD of the one animation alone would be a bit too small and unworthwhile for parents to buy, as it is hoped that each adventure lasts 2-5 minutes. If this didn’t work as we hoped, only then, would we post it on sights like Vimeo or Youtube.

 

We then discussed entering animation festivals to gain a global audience, and attending the Childrens Media Conference to gain a wider audience there too.
 

In relation to the format, Alex is most interested in having a book created, then an animation and if time then developed into an app. We agreed that the same style should be used across all three formats, which would make it easily identifiable and not too confusing for the children. Creatively Alex has given me full artistic license once we have confirmed the basic imagery. He has stated that he wants bright eye-catching colours, veering towards a hand drawn look rendered in pencil crayons and possibly a water wash, in full colour, with plenty of detail, not in a sketchy drawing style.

 

VFX Moodboard

Like my other modules, I have decided to make a design reference mood board looking into sailors, fishermen, bears, water, character design, tattoos, fish and other visual influences. The reason I use Pinterest for these mood boards is because it is so easy to see all of the images visually in one flowing display. Throughout this module I will keep adding to this board and refer back to it for inspiration.

http://www.pinterest.com/iambambiwillow/vfx-module/

Tattoos

For my fisherman/sailor character Ozzy has confirmed that he is happy to act for me. Which led me to thinking about how I want this character to look and act. I decided to go down the 'stereotypical' route but decided to push it to the maximum.

 

The first thing I wanted to look at was sailor tattoos, and spent an hour designing a range of my own. First I looked at different images of excising images and recreated them in my own style. I am really interested in blue ink and personally I feel this looks more aesthetically pleasing and links to the ocean more. I am really happy with my designs, and by creating my own rather than using other people's images, I think it adds more interesting detail and depth to my design and again adds to the hand-crafted look I am aiming for. I am also able to add humorous tattoos in too, such as the 'chips' crest.

 

I found this website about how I would make my own temporary tattoos from scratch. Although it sounds interesting, it seems a very time consuming method due to the amount I am wanting to create, plus it uses not so readily available resources which I would need to source from somewhere.
http://victoriacullen.typepad.com/queenwithoutacountry/2012/08/tattoo-you.html

As I am wanting lots of tattoos created, I was willing to get them all printed on transfer sheets you are able to purchase rather than getting them professionally printed as I simply don't have the budget to do that. I found this pack on Amazon, however it has really mixed reviews and I am sceptical whether this method would work at all, plus where I would actually be able to print them using this paper as I don't have my own printer and college is strict about using your own printing materials.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tattoo-Transfer-Paper-A4-Temporary/dp/B006ELY672

I also looked into other ways temporary 'tattoos' are made, which led me to thinking about henna tattoos, this is a much more drastic yet more permanent solution. I would not want my actor to have his skin stained for after the shoot and this would be a very last resort if any other method didn't work.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/TheRedHotShop-Beauty-Essentials-Mehndi-Henna/dp/B0050BIOC0/ref=sr_1_cc_3?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1382447300&sr=1-3-catcorr&keywords=henna+pen

This final method I found is definitely my first choice. It is basically a pen, almost like an eye liner, which you draw straight onto the skin and let it dry for a few minutes. I have read a few reviews where it doesn't stay on the skin longer than a day and washes off really easily, which is bad in their cases, but really useful for me.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stargazer-Semi-Permanent-Tattoo-Pen/dp/B003AWKM3K/ref=pd_sim_office_1

Here is a quick Google search into what some people have managed to produce using these pens, there aren't many results, and I have looked on other photo sharing platforms and found it difficult to find any different pictures. I am going to buy the pen myself and do some experimentation and see if it is smudge proof, which will be important if my actor is being thrown around as if on a boat.
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=stargazer+tattoo+pen&client=safari&rls=en&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=4EFkUvyjCuOQ1AXsvoHgDA&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ

Animation Documentaries

When I was looking for animation pre-production references I came across a great Pinterest account called Character Design References just as it first started out. Since then animators and illustrators all over the world religiously follow the accounts posts/pins and is considered one of the best collections of varying reference material. One of the boards is called Animation/Documentaries, which I hadn't previously looked at before, but the other day I noticed it again and decided to watch through a few of the videos they had on there. I ended up spending hours watching various different posts, and felt really inspired afterwards to animate and get better at animating. This is a really great link for any artist, and I am sure there is a video on there that everyone would relate to or be interested in, maybe that's just me being bias towards it though!

http://www.pinterest.com/characterdesigh/animation-documentaries/

COP2 Lecture 1- Introductory Briefing Overview of Lecture Programme

Here are my notes from the first session of Context of Practice 2, where we were briefed and given an introduction of what to expect with the lecture program this year, taken by James and Richard.

Transmedia Consultant

Whilst looking at the Childrens Media Conference, I came across a speaker who attended last year who's job title is a 'Transmedia Consultant', which really interested me and a role I had never considered to exist. If I am lucky enough to attend the conference in July I will definitely attempt to talk to people with this role and discuss transmedia and the best ways to do this when designing for children.

http://www.thechildrensmediaconference.com/profile/john-lomas-bullivant-transmedia-consultantcreator-kickback-media-ltd/?event=cmc2013

Childrens Media Conferance

For the Responsive brief, I have chosen to create a trans-media story aimed at young children. I had heard about the Childrens Media Conference before but never was able to attend, however now I am creating work which is suitable for the festival it would make sense for me to look into attending. It would also be a fantastic opportunity for networking not only for myself but for Alex the writer of the story I am creating. I have discussed attending with Alex, and the potential businesses and companies which have attended in the past, and we are drawing up a business plan of how to advertise our work and potentially get funding/backing/taken on by a company there. It is a large ambition and understandably won't come easy, however we are wanting the work to be at a standard which we would be their competitors.

Last years festival had a wide range of talks, varying from fun song and film making activities, to more serious discussions about child welfare and child sexual orientation. Although my work for this project is aimed at pre-schoolers, I feel all of these talks would have influenced how I work.

This years schedule isn't out yet, but they have confirmed it is taking place early July.

http://www.thechildrensmediaconference.com/events/cmc-2014/

BBC transmedia

When looking for examples of transmedia brands, I came across a really useful article on the BBC, which are the notes taken from one of their workshops. They go into what 'transmedia' really is and the questions you need to ask about your work to ensure that it can be made more interactive and adaptable to different mediums.

A few quotes I really liked from this article were:

'It changes things into a conversation'

'A small percentage get involved, a large amount of people watch' 

'The amount of content produced ABOUT your content should far outweigh the original content itself'

'Don't make assumptions about the audience. Don't underestimate how much they'll involve themselves'

View the full article here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/production/article/art20130702112135506

After Effects induction two

This was the second induction into After Effects, where we went further into the basics of the software.  It was good to look into the function of each of the tools in the layers palette, and helped me clear up some of the questions I had about the software. We also learnt some really useful and easy to do animation techniques, some of them I had previously used before, but some I didn't even know were possible on After Effects.

Premiere Pro induction

This was the first time I had used the software Premiere Pro, as I have done all my editing in Final Cut Pro previously. Although personally I prefer the interface for Final Cut, I am really interested in how easy it is to go between the other Adobe packages, which will definitely be beneficial for this module and my practise as a whole.

Royal Tenenbaums

As mentioned in my film influences, Royal Tenenbaums directed by Wes Anderson, has been one of my creative influences in this module. I decided to watch the film whilst having my sketchbook in front of me, allowing me to pinpoint recurring or interesting sea/water based imagery and draw them in my own style. By doing a small task as simple as this it allowed me to really focus on the details which you take for granted when watching it. This exercise has definitely given me inspiration for the set and prop design, and a technique I will be using again for future projects.

After Effects induction

Here are my notes for the first After Effects induction of the year. I have used this software before so most of the information I already understood and new, however it was really useful to recap on the interface and keyboard shortcuts. I initially taught myself the software with a bit of help from Matt Burton, and I wish I had an induction like this before! 

Water water everywhere

Water is a huge part of my VFX module, so using the best medium to represent it is really important to the look of my film.

I hadn't really considered using a 3D software for the water, but when discussing it with Mat he was able to show me in less than a minute how to create a moving and controllable ocean on Maya. Having seen this sort of thing being created in Unity in the past, I was looking into using that software to potentially create moving water, however it is (to my surprise) just as easy to create in Maya. Mat was even able to change the amount of foam the water creates, the colour to pink and the amount of ripples and the direction of the wind.

I was initially looking at hand drawn water splashes and ripples with a slowly moving back-plate underneath. This however would be extremely time consuming, especially as I am having other elements of 2D animation in my film.

I then looked into actually filming some water, which to me seems to make the most sense. It will look more believable, I will be able to film from the angle I want with no issue and can capture more footage easily if needed. It was then a case of whether I'd need to go to the coast myself to capture the footage I needed or if I could stage some water ripping in the studio and it retain the depth and scale I needed.

After weighing up which option I thought worked best aesthetically and practically for my work, I decided that filming the ocean myself would be the best option. Although I am heavily relying on the weather, I can easily go to Scarborough (which is only an hour either way on the train) and retake footage as I need it.

Initial research

To start off the research for this module, I wrote a list of films and animations which are related to fishing and the sea, which quite specifically relate to my chosen narrative. The list that I put together was The Life Aquatic, Lost and Found, Fisherman's Friend lozengers adverts, Mighty Boosh (Old Gregg episode), A series of Unfortunate Events (Count Olaf as the fisherman).

Below is a short clip of an episode of Mighty Boosh where the main characters become lost and end up in a strange fishing town. I love the over the top character and set design, which makes the whole situation even more surreal, humorous and just plain odd!

As well as looking at films and characters that look at fishermen and the sea, I also wanted to concentrate on how bears have been developed and anthropomorphised too. The main influences for this are the characters in Panda Go Panda, Brother Bear, Winnie the Pooh, Brave (mother and triplets), Jungle Book (Baloo) and Bear in the Big Blue House.

All of these films/animations/adverts have influenced the art direction so far, and have been a good grounding for the sort of film I want this to become.

Narrative idea

When thinking of an idea for this module, the first thing that came into my head was having a 2D animation of a panda child splashing in puddles, composited on top of film footage of water splashing. However this didn't fit into any of the four given themes, so I started to think of how I could develop this idea further.

The theme that stood out to me the most was 'man/woman VS nature', especially as my idea already had elements of nature. This led to me to thinking about how humans could be involved in this idea, which in turn led to thinking about humans involvement with water. I started initially thinking about swimming and surfing as well as other water sports, but it didn't seem to make sense to me. From the water sports idea it developed into boating, and then developed again into fishing. The idea of a fishing boat seemed to work as often these are made into children's toys and links to the bear playing in the water.

From this basic idea I extended it to make the fisherman and fishing boat have a more substantial part in the film, and the boat having issues staying afloat due to a storm and choppy waves, created by the bear.

I am unsure of which order to have the key events, as the narrative works both ways:
1. Fisherman in boat floating calmly whilst fishing - suddenly there is a change in weather as he goes further into the ocean, sees the fisherman battling for survival - cuts to large feet splashing in the water and boat still swaying - cuts to large bear splashing like a child in puddles

2. Large bear splashing in puddles with what seems to be a toy boat - closer shot of feet splashing and the boat - cuts to inside the boat with a fisherman struggling against the tide - the weather calms down/ the bear has stopped splashing and the fisherman is able to continue with his work

I feel either way has an element of surprise and potential humour, however I would like to contain a deeper meaning behind the work, and how over fishing is effecting nature and other animals fight for survival. By making the bear childlike it makes the audience want to help protect it, as well as adding extra 'cute factor'. I don't want to cast the fisherman as a villain in this however, but more someone who simply doesn't understand that he is doing wrong by using large nets and specifically fishing for certain species. I feel this part of the narrative needs to be developed further, but as my development and research progresses I am sure this will click into place.

After I had a solid idea it was time to start tweaking the small details. I found that my narrative was lacking in a greater meaning, and the Panda didn't quite fit into the context. After hours of deliberation, I decided that a grizzly bear would be better suited, not just aesthetically, but that it actually eats fish and has a closer link to the sea and fishing.

I then had the problem whether to keep it as a bear splashing in puddles, or if the bear was sat playing with the water in the bath which would make sense for there to be a boat more. I decided that the puddle seemed more fun and made the child bear more playful rather than destructive.

Going into finer details again, now I had decided that the bear would be splashing in the puddle still, I needed to choose if the bear was going to be clothed. In my initial sketch it would be wearing wellington boots and coat, which links to small human children when they play in puddles. I was worried that the coat needs a strong vivid colour, but using a red coat could possibly look too much like Paddington Bear. This started me questioning if the bear actually needed to wear a coat at all, but I found it strange if the bear was just wearing wellington boots. A yellow rain coat was the next choice in colour, but again I was worried that this would match the fisherman too much. I however think that using a yellow coat represents that the bear is also a fisherman too, but on a different scale, and that it would actually bring a smoother flow to the narrative as it is more linked visually.