Documentary animation// More work assigned

My director for this project (James Beardsell) choice my character designs over Malachis character designs; because he didn't feel like Malachis designs were appropriate for the project. I thought that Malachis character designs lacked emotion and look far too simplistic and 'robotic' considering the narrative represented by this involved such an personal subject as losing a parent. I also pointed out considering we agreed to focus on the characters looking naive and childish; as a way to represent looking back at a memory from our childhoods, Malachis style had moved too far away from our initial ideals for visuals. I agreed to start working on character concept but then I was tasked with final character designs. Originally I was tasked with developing environmental designs and basic thumb nails to then be used when storyboarding, however I've taken on a lot more work since then by developing concept work, thumb nails, colour pallets, character designs and final design boards.

So far I've developed our characters from concept to final boards, defined a rough verbal storyboard script and recorded my part of the narrative. James Beardsell has begun working on the animatic from Malachis storyboard and has yet to produce an animation test involving the key frame positioning tool in after effects. Malachi is working on fonts for the final animation as well as background design. I don't plan to work on much else concerning the character designing since they've been cleared but I will be developing a few more concept pieces in different medias so I can get a real feel for the characters.

Documentary animation// Script for storyboarding

Today James finished editing the interviews we both recorded the other day together. He stitched our dialogue together because we agreed it'd work better to have our stories interlocking rather then having them as two separate segments in the documentary. The over all narrative for the documentary runs for 1:59 seconds, a single second under the two minute limit.

After listening over the finished audio a few times I began to write a visual script to help drive the story. This visual script would then be given to Malachi for him to storyboard from...

Visual Script

I've never worked like this before, with taking dialogue and visualising it in script form first and then giving it to a storyboard artist. Malachi is currently developing the script into rough storyboards.

Documentary Animation// Final character design sheets

Documentary Animation// Character animation test

Above is a youtube link to an animation test I did last night to see how I'd animate using the 'textured brush' tool when drawing out the feline character.

I used different files of slightly 'jiggly' basic shapes and then layered them up in after effects. Using the position and rotation tool I animated the character. I thought this animation was quite effective considering the 'visual look' we're looking for.

Documentary Animation// Continuing visual development

Today I presented the 'visual inspirational boards' to my class mates and my director decided on which 'style' he liked the most; both me and Malachi began working on that style, which was a very simplistic naive child like style. I experimented with brushes and textures when drawing out concepts and the two illustrated 'designs' for the characters. Below is the work I completed today;

;

Documentary Animation// Visual research

Below are two concept inspirational boards for the two species of character me and Malachi will be designing for this project...

Documentary Animation// Visual development

I suggested to my group, as the newly appointed art director, that we shouldn't attempt to represent me and James visually in the animation with characters that resemble us; because there's really no need for it. Of course, its a very personal story we are both telling and I understand that it needs to be approach with respect and honestly; but considering our audience is the young surely we should use the fact we can literally draw anything - to our advantage.

I pitched that like we should aim towards some form of animal representation to 'familiarise' the feel of the animation. Viewers would find it far more difficult to relate to characters so 'human' looking and I felt like it would be far more easier if we used something 'non human'. I mentioned dark themes (which is something we are talking about, particularly towards my story) may be represented better with animals, visually very naive and simplistic - not cartoony - but drawn in a naive approach. My class mate also mentioned 'mr.men' but we thought that would be too cartoony and would appear insulting to both mine and James open-ness in our interviews.

I'd sat in with James as he recorded this morning and without hearing the final cut of the interview I already had a rough idea in my head about what animal would best represent his story. His story is about loyalty, about family and he mentioned that his dad was ginger, but he was really muscular; I thought it would work perfectly if we used Orangutans. James is quite small and living with him I've discovered (more than once) that he can't help himself with he sees something he could climb or jump on; we don't need to go into any details but he once scaled the kitchen door then couldn't get down.

With my story, Malachi (our character designer) asked me what I would like to represented by in our animation. I thought it over and said cat. Now, not because cats are cute or anything, lets not suggest I'm some crazy cat personal with the internet at her fingertips and only cats in mind (because we don't need to suggest that). But because cats are unpredictable, they can go from silent to claws in an instant - which is something I feel fits my story very well.

Below are a few photos from the whole sketchbook I filled up with the first concepts...
I've shown both my work mates this work and I've settled on the possibility that the animal to represent my story may be a 'Big cat' to better suit the Orangutans in James...

(soon to come)

Also heres the original doodle I gave Malachi when we were still focusing on humanoids...

Documentary Animation// Research

Above is a youtube version of an animated documentary by Julia Pott, which documents the 'first crush' experiences from multiple interviews that she then interprets visually as different animals. I first saw this animation back in 2008 and when being briefed on this project; it was one of the first documentary animations I thought of looking back at for inspiration. Considering with our own project we're planning to interview both me and James about our personal experiences with our fathers - much like is documented in this animated film - this piece I feel is quite relevant to the development of the project.

After looking over this animated piece I mentioned to my group if we were sure about going with a more 'humanoid' look as far as character design was concerned. We'd semi-'jumped the gun' at designing, instantly talking about representing me and James as simply as we could in the animated project. After talking briefly with my group and suggesting we could draw up rough ideas of animals to represent our narrative in the project as well as humanoid ones...

Responsive// Illustration Friday

I heard about this weekly brief website thing from illustration students when presenting our completed/developing Responsive work as a group of both animation and illustration 2nd years. For this weeks theme it was 'Tropical'. I really just wanted to complete a simple brief to see if I'd gain any digital interest from users of the website, which I did. I don't think I'll be entering any more of their briefs as I feel like this is more a playful little bonus to this module rather than it's own stand alone mass of work - I really did just want to put my work on their website.

Documentary Animation// Research

Today I briefly looked at visual inspiration in the media of animation; I've been given the role of environmental designer and as part of the team we'll all be coming up with concept work to help kick off the project.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica is a Japanese animated series which uses mix media; with 2D character animation, stop motion and depositing textures. Above is a youtube scene from the series; which involves 2D animation and texture compositing (into the background and characters themselves). I found the visual aesthetic of this series so beautiful and stunning. I'd love to animate in a similar way, within this project. Where photographed 'real' objects are incorporated into the background. Honestly, every second from this series is its own painting, with each shot seemingly build up with layers of 2D  illustrations/animations and 'real' textured build from compositing.

Documentary Animation// Research

As part of the briefing my tutors screened a few examples of animated documentary as a sort of inspirational taster to kick off our start for the project. Below is a link to one of the animations I was shown which has been partially inspirational to the idea my group has for our animated documentary.

https://vimeo.com/70122505

This animation documents interviews with people based on their different experiences when losing their virginities. The animation style differs between interviews, reflecting on the vibe of the individual stories from the interviewees; for instance the first interview (which is far more playful) is visually represented by a far more quirkier style then the second (which involves sexual assault). The difference in style reflects the interviewees experiences - which is something my group and I have agreed to also use in our own animation. I particularly like how one of the interviewees is rotoscoped very simply and cleanly - to being across the naivety of the interviewees story.

Both James and I lost our fathers in different ways, both emotionally and physically and being a close friend of his I'm aware of the background of how he lost his father as he's aware of my own experience. Without the interview yet we're already aware visually our stories will have to be represented differently because of the different between vibes coming off from our experiences.

Documentary Animation// Research

Below is a link to an animation which was one of those introduced to us at the briefing of this project as a sort of taster of what can be done within the field of 'documentary animation'.  The animation circulates about a short interview with someone talking about their grandfather and how he passed away. Such a theme is very similar to what my group and I want to achieve within our own project, so this documentary animation is very influencal to our own work.

https://vimeo.com/2170382

The visual aesthetic to this piece is very basic and the motion is simplistic; the segment with the car being very effective for example despite the slight motion. I really like the strong lines to define the characters and environments as well as use of colour against the textured background. I also find it interesting how the visuals do nothing more than visualise what the narrator is saying, which is honestly all we need for this project considering its cented around visualising a story.

Documentary Animation// Idea Generation

Today my group and I discussed how we could develop our idea further;
After writing up basic questions to interview James we then moved onto the question of who was our audience for this documentary. Our audience was unclear, in fact we had no idea. However we settled on the idea for this animated documentary that it would be aimed at children who are dealing with the loss/lack of a parent. For this idea to be reached my group asked me if I would be willing to talk about my own father and what it was like to grow up without a father figure. Both me and James have grown up without our dads for different reasons, but the same basic events followed. 

My group thought a rough outline for the interview for us both would be best, keeping it to one minute each between myself and James. James is someone I consider a close friend and I'm aware of the details of his father as he is of mine; so we're both aware that our stories will heavily contrast each other.

Myself and Malachi are animating 2D and we spoke today about worries involving developing a style that both of us would reliably animate to. After the idea of both mine and James stories being told, we thought of the idea of having two separate styles to visually represent the different events within both mine and James stories about our fathers. With animation we've decided to encorparate 3D modelling perhaps in some shape or form within the mix media element of the animation, which James will model then composit in post-production.

Documentary Animation// Briefing, Project Group and Idea Generation

Today my class and I were briefed on our first project of 2016 titled 'Documentary Animation'. This briefing defined that our class separate into small groups of two or three and animate a documentary related to one of the following categories; Sports, Mental Health, Family and The Environment.

To make the process of choosing groups easier, we wrote our names under the category we were interested in working within and then discussed with each other about our desired roles and rough ideas for the project. I knew I wanted to make something full of heart and emotion, I also knew I wanted to work as an animator in 2D and that I wanted to possibly work on concept. Moving around the class and hearing each fellow students ideas I began to get a basic idea of my own about who I wanted to group up with. I settled into a group with James Beardsell and Malachi Lawrence; drawn to the group by James honestly about wanting to make a project surrounding his own experience of growing up without his father.

Our idea for the animated documentary surrounds a very rawly personal interview with James about his memories of his father who passed away when he was a child, including his feelings about the subject. As far as thinking up ideas for the animation itself we mentioned the style of 'Draw My Life' which is a youtube video trend where bloggers take a time-lapse of them drawing on a white board, which illustrates their life; however we felt like this didn't really feel like animation but rather a time lapse. We thought about doing a rotoscope animation with the background being far more detailed and complex then the 'animated' features itself, which would be animated using James as a reference when speaking. However we agreed that mix media with this project would be perfect, because mix media isn't nesseserally a visual technique that live action can achieve there for as animators we should take full advantage of the artist field we work within and use it to our advantage heavily. I thought it would be a wonderful idea to mix between live action footage, rotoscoping and 2D animation with contrasting composited textures and memoribilia that James still has used as a sort of environment or elements of focus.

We also outlined our roles within the group project, for myself I was given the roles of Visual script writer, Colour design, Environment design and Animator.

Responsive// OnFormSketches WEEKTHREE

Here is the simply animated entry for this weeks OnForm Shape. I've always loved deers and couldn't resist drawing one! (and honestly, I saw nothing else in the shape besides a deer snuggling up to something, so ended up drawing in a snuggle buddy).

I animated this simply on purpose; I thought it would be far more effective then if I animated the grass moving and the ears twitching because there would be far too much to look at in such a simple image.

So far I feel like this is my most suggesful entery into their contest, despite the fact it's barely animated.