SS2 - Storyboard/Thumbnails

Having now chose the scene from Road to perdition it was on to video reference, storyboarding and thumbnails.

This is same rough early thumbnails.

SS2 - Acting Reference Study 2

I decided to research some more into actors performance and came across the new york times 14 actors videos. This basically was a range of actors such as Matt Damon acting or perhaps not acting... in front of the camera. However there was no audio track Instead each video was overlaid with a soundtrack. What this did was add an extra depth to each performance so you were just focused on the performers acting and movement.

So I found these videos to be helpful and inspiring in the mitts of performing my own video reference. This is a selection of some of the best I saw. I also liked that the videos were shot in black and white or more like shown in black and white.

SS2 - Acting Reference Study

Once I decided two go with this idea my plan of action was research and study as many monologues and character performance.

Here are the selection of  performance I have choose to use along with a few great performances.
All of these scenes I feel captures a different emotion that I would like to show in my animation.

 

 from 1:19 to 1:35

From 0.48 to 2.05

Specialist Study Two

Okay, so my final module Specialist Study Two, has commenced and the goal is to produce a finish high polish animation. With specialist study one my aim was to enhance my knowledge of character animation as well as learn new skills and gain a solid grasp of character animation and performance. I feel I had achieved these aims through the micro-projects and 11 seconds club entry. Thus prepared me for how I will approach Specialist Study Two.

So, for my Specialist Study Two I have been juggling around a few ideas for my final animation piece. Going back to what Ed Hook's mentions in Acting for Animators on the subject of conflict and there  being three types of conflict which are as followed: conflict with self, conflict with situation and conflict with another character.

Bearing this in mind I chose to do conflict with another person. the reasoning behind this is that I wanted to show the intimate or conflict between two characters communicating.

Demonstrated in this AM showcase.

I like the simplicity and the intimate feel it gives off between the two characters as well as the dialogue. The animation is fluid, with very nice nuances in the acting, this all adding to a  believable and natural performance.

This is a great piece and demonstrates numerous aspects I want to convey in my piece. I also took note of the animator's comments about improving the scene your animating. 



My Learning aims are as followed:

To develop and enhance my existing knowledge of Maya to a professional Level.
Demonstrate a good technical understanding of character animation.
The ability to specify efficient work flows
To generate and evaluate the substantial piece of work I created
  
Update
  
I have made a few changes to my idea. firstly being that the conflict scenario between two characters has been scrapped in favour of a one character scene. So basically I have simply moved from conflict with another person to conflict with self. The decision to make this change came from discussion with my tutor and group tutorial. Were I could do two characters, reducing it to one character would allow me to solely focus on it. Which I thought would be better for me.

This AM showcase is a great character piece that solely focus on one character.

The changes also came from watching a scene in The Big Lebowski where the landlord is auditioning for a role. My idea developed from there to where I would have my character auditioning on stage given he's rendition of a few iconic scenes from films.

Here's the scene

As I was watching Ultimate Spiderman which might I add is not as good as Spectacular Spiderman or Spiderman The Animated Series (1996) but still fairly entertaining. There was a scene that lent itself kindly to my idea. This was a great scene and help me further visualize how I want my animation piece. Cartoons

Here's the scene