Showreel 14

SS2- Animating Blocking 2

The early stages of blocking out my second animation went swiftly I was confident in using maya and worked efficiently and well to get this stage of the animation complete quickly and smoothly and thus I was able to get feedback on my blocking stage of the animation.

Blocking stage

This is a playblast of the scene blocked out.

Playblast after feedback.

SS2- Animating Blocking

With the scene chosen from Road to perdition and video reference complete it was onto blocking out the animation this process went smoothly. Overall all I thought the animation  was looking good in blocked out.

These are that key poses.

Blocking Stage

SS2 - Animation Tips

This is a really good tutorial I found on character animation and hold me during my process of blocking out my animation.

Really good and quite in-depth tutorial although basic as stated in the title I would suggest a watch for anyone keen on becoming a better character animator.

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

Novermber's 11secondclub Competition Animation

Having to work fast in order to get this done in time for the competition, only a few more days to finish it off. I started work on the other character. First blocking out his key poses adding the inbetweens and then smoothing out his animation.

Once I'd finished with the second character I started to lay out the scene. little focus on the background however I did want to convey to the audience that they were in jail or in captive by what they would see. This as an early test.


Playblast Test
 

 Final animation "What now?"

Overall I am pleased enough to enter my animation into the 11 second club. However I feel there are a number of improvements which could be made to this animation. However completing it in the time period that I did I am pleased. Just have to wait and see what the club think! 
 

Novermber's 11secondclub Competition

Update - Performance I have decide that the performance animation micro-test will be my 11 second club animation. 

This month I plan to enter the 11 second club. For this I would be animate to a sound clip.  I thought this months sound clip was particularly good. So I was looking forward to hopefully creating a good piece of animation. The sound clip featured two people talking, the second person speaking was the more dominant voice so I decided I wanted to focus on him first. With what I had learned from looking at the few of the professional animators and there workflow. My  process was the same as it had been in my previous micro-projects.

This would be my first entry into the 11 second club and so I wanted to push myself with it. make it about performance and have my character really make strong poses. I want to implement the principles of animation such as exaggeration, anticipation and appeal as well as all the others. I started by first acting out the scene.I created key-poses my character was going to make.

 key poses.

 
Blocking stage

Once having completed my planning stage I started animated this is the blocking stage of the second character.

Looking At Character Animation

In Ed Hood's book 'Acting for animators' he highlights the fact there are only three different conflicts in animation these are:

1. Person vs person
2. Person vs self
3. Person vs environment 

These are some Character Animation I looked at for inspiration. The three videos demo straight the three different conflicts faced in character animation.

Character Animator - Andrew Gordon

Who is Andrew Gordon?

Andrew Gordon is a character animator who has been working at Pixar studio for 15 years.

He recently did an article with creative blog which highlight his time so far at Pixar. I found this to be a very interesting and insightful read. One of the things he says I found especially interesting was his answer to the question "What do you prefer about 3-D animation vs 2-D "

"I like the subtlety of acting and the very small minutia that you are able to get in 3D animation" 
 

Click the link below to read the full article, and find out which one in the photo is him. If you don't know, here's a clue he's wearing glasses.

http://www.creativebloq.com/animation/andrew-gordon-interview-1012880

Character Animation Micro-Project Facial Expressions

One of the key areas I looked at was facial expressions.  Facial expressions is a key area in character animation and one I wanted to enhance my knowledge and skill in.

This is a very useful chart or infographic I found highlighting the various facial expressions we make. I am sure I will be referring to in the future.

I used the site Reference Reference, which is great for, you guessed it references for animation. The video I choose was of a man terrified.

Expressions test animation 1

In the second facial test animation I wanted to show the character nervously eye darting before looking towards the camera, as to say he knows his being watched.


Expressions test animation 2

I decided to composite the two facial tests together to make this one animation. I think it works well overall and makes for a good short animation.


Compilation

3D Computer Animation Principles

The twelve principles are of huge importance when creating animation and can be apply to all kinds of animation in Isaac Kerlow's book 'The Art of 3D Computer Animation and Effects' (third edition 2003). Kerlow says: "The twelve principles are mostly about five things: acting the performance, directing the performance, representing reality (through drawing, modeling, and rendering), interpreting real world physics, and editing a sequence of actions. The original principles are still relevant today because they help us to create more believable characters and situations. They can be applied to almost any type of animation, even though they work best for comedy. But, some of these principles require updates, and a few new additional principles are also needed to address the new techniques and styles of three-dimensional computer animation."

Kerlow list few more principles designed for 3D computer animation include: visual styling, blending cartoon physics with real world physics, using cinematography, mastering facial animation, and optimizing user-controlled animation.

•  Visual styling 
•  Blend motion
•  Cinematography  
•  Facial animation
•  User-controlled animation

 

Resouces

http://www.cgsociety.org/index.php/CGSFeatures/CGSFeatureSpecial/applying_the_12_principles_to_3d_computer_animation_by_disneys_isaac_kerlow

Character Animation Micro-project Push Heavy Object

So after completing my tests with walk cycles. My next test in the fundamentals was to try and show believable weight. I felt this would be a good test as it would further test my timing as well as my work process. The animation was simply to showing a character attempt to push an object with all his might before giving up at having not beening able to move it.

For this test my work process was firstly to act the scene out. From this I would use my visual reference of acting it out to create a storyboard which highlighted the key-poses my character would make. After all planning was complete, this included the making of a storyboard and thumbnails, I started animating.

 Blocking Stage

The first video is of my blocking stage this went generally well as I could see my frames coming into animation. This stage was where I made my rough timing of how long I thought each pose should last.

Flat Stage

Coming out of my blocking stage cause some serious problems for me. I took my character out of liner and stepped tangles and into flat tangles. From here I worked to smooth out the animation and add more details. I seem to have lost a few poses from doing this as I added holds to the animation, which was disappointing.

The main problem I had was with the animation was with the timing. Animation works, because of good timing as much as it does because of good performances. Showing this to my tutor and fellow peers it was clear that the timing had to be improved.

Final Push Animation
This is my final version of my push animation. Having made the changes suggested by my fellow peers. I have improved the timing and feedback has been that it looks and works much better. As a test I am positive about the overall outcome and that with more practice I will improve.

Character Animation Micro-Project Walk cycles

Walk Cycles are one of the most difficult tasks for an animator. This is because both mechanics of motion and character and personality must be infused into that walk through your timing, spacing and poses. A solid understand of technical shifts in weight and acting choices are key to making a successful walk cycle. 

                                                                                   -Thinking Animation.com

Starting off with a walk cycle I feel is a good starting point for me. As there is much I can do with this alone. although it may seem basic, the knowledge of creating convincing walk cycles are Fundamental. It is something all good character animator would have done and something I want to gain a good bases of.
  
  

After showing this to my tutor and peers the feedback was to further exaggeration the walk give him more personality. 

Overall I please with this walk after adding the improvement suggested by my peers and tutor  i am happy with the outcome. From this I now wanted to go on and create some character personality walks

Carrying out some more research into walk cycle Thinking Animation Brought some good theory of what facts the animator should think about when making a walk cycle.


CHARACTER, STATE OF MIND, AND PERSONALITY: Character and personality are what make the walk real and make the audience identify with it on an emotional level. Disney always said "the mind is the pilot" and that is where every motion you create must start. Before even drawing a pose, you need to establish in your mind where your character's head is at. The lead is one quick way to establish this through the posing of your walk cycle. Remember this is a very simplified approach is not the "end-all be-all"...only a stepping stone to understanding how to infuse character into your animation. There is one little trick that can help you find your way inside the character. This is just one little trick, there are many other facets to a walk that also contribute to a personality, this is just one suggestion.

THE LEAD tells the audience where you character's head is at and how they view themselves and their place in the world. Actor/Actress/Musician/Personality examples below illustrate how the lead in motion can define a character and state of mind. After you familiarize you with the lead of a walk, try walking around the room aware of what part of the body is leading. Observe how this changes your attitude and sense of self. 


 Source Thinking Animation.com


Bearing this in mind I created an angry walk cycle and running cycle the following to animation.   
  
Angry walk cycle

I feel there are problems with this walk which makes me it the the weakest of the three.

Run cycle

Compilation

 Usefully tutorial

  

Character Animation- Learning From The Professional

One of the most important things during this module was for me to examine and look at how profession character animators animated. I wanted to look at their workflow and in turn hopefully implement there work methodology into my workflow.

http://www.itsartmag.com/features/the-making-of-hotel-transylvania/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ankIY3yJZh4&feature=related

SS1- Case Study- Buster Keaton

“Animation is movement! Movement is animation! What a person in the audience sees creates a stronger impression than what he hears”

                                                                                                    (Hooks, 2011)

In this case study, I will be exploring the films of Joseph Frank ‘Buster’ Keaton, well known for his silent films in the 1920s. He is regarded as one of the most influential people of the time, alongside Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd who were the most popular and significant comic actors of the silent film era, helping it to flourish and be so successful during this period. In particular, I want to focus on several of Keaton’s ‘shorts’. I believe there is a lot to learn from Keaton’s works and looking at his theory and practice will help to further my knowledge as a filmmaker, storyteller and character animator.

Keaton’s early life influenced his career and comic portrayals and therefore, I will now briefly describe his early life and path to film. He began at the age of three as a Vaudeville performer alongside his parents (A & E Networks, 2012). ‘The Three Keatons’ was his first performance on stage and the show was billed as ‘The Roughest Act That Was Ever in the History of the Stage’. Keaton was referred to as ‘The Little Boy Who Can’t Be Damaged’. It was here that Keaton would develop his craft as an acrobatic comedian (Deming, 2012) by learning his signature trade, the deadpan look, which he took into his films. The following was written about Keaton, “Buster . . . is thrown about the stage by a merciless father in a careless fashion and his treatment and comedy are the things that bring the laughs” (Unknown, 1909).

In 1917, at the age of 21, Keaton made his debut (just two years after Chaplin) in ‘The Butcher Boy’ starring Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle. This was a small role for Keaton; it was however, extremely slapstick with Keaton being subject to a range of abuses (A & E Networks, 2012). In the 1920s, Keaton made arguably his best work, ‘One week’ (1920), ‘The High Sign’ (1921), and ‘Cops’ (1922). With ‘The High Sign’, like Chaplin, Keaton was not only an on screen presence but also worked behind the camera; his credits included director, writer, and producer (A & E Networks, 2012). Together, these roles I feel added to his performance as he was in full control of creating his films. 

In ‘The High Sign’, Keaton delivers a masterful performance of comedy and athleticism, both being entertaining and thrilling. Keaton makes the most of every opportunity to captivate the audience. In one scene in ‘The High Sign’, Keaton’s character is seen trying to go through a newspaper. This, by most people’s imagination, would be a simple and dull task to perform and consequently watch; but not with Keaton. His character injects personality into this as a visual performance. As he unfolds the paper, its size grows with every turn. Keaton plays with this strange occurrence he is finally overwhelmed by its volume and falls over.

Figure 1: Buster Keaton and Crew on set filming the 'The High Sign'  (1921)

Keaton’s use of props in his features were extraordinary, never running short of ideas and ways to use what was around him in new and comic ways. Guy Crucianelli (2011) noted that Keaton’s props were often used for utility objects stating, “Keaton is an on-the-spot inventor of primitive machines—contraptions, more accurately—and also replacement objects verging on a kind of rudimentary psychology, but more utilitarian”.

I noted the following examples of these in ‘The High Sign’; a cigar as a nail and Keaton painting a floating anchor. These actions are more fitting of a cartoon character than used for a reality performance but it could be argued, they worked well for Keaton.

Figure 2: Keaton with props in 'The High Sign' (1921)

In a scene in ‘The High Sign’, Keaton’s character demonstrates exaggeration and anticipation, both key principles in character animation. Keaton sets the scene, walking in to the shooting gallery; he sees no-one at the counter so he briefly looks around. As he becomes more impatient, he starts to knock on the counter. This is where we see anticipation, knowing that something must happen. A man from behind the counter springs out, scaring the life out of Keaton. There are no close-ups of Keaton’s face to express his shock or fright; instead we are shown this reaction through his body language and performance.  “A character’s body language is going to transmit a more powerful message visually than his dialogue” (Hall, 1966).

Keaton exaggerates somersaults onto the floor, but is quickly back on his feet. This seemingly works as a believable action I feel, due to Keaton’s secondary action, which is of him looking over the counter to see where the man came from. These small but significant actions add a lot to a performance and its believability. The staged shot is also very important. As it is a long shot, we can see Keaton fully fall to the floor.

Keaton was always doing something with his posture and body language to communicate to the audience a mood or something he was thinking; he was rarely very still for long.  Unlike Chaplin, whose facial expressions were very important in his films, Keaton’s were not. There were close-ups however, often of the antagonist showing a very sinister and vulgar face. Keaton's expressionless face on close- up shots earns him the nickname “The Great Stone Face”. Keaton’s face was not used to express views, feelings or emotions; instead it was used as a comic gag (TV Tropes, 2012).

Figure 3: Keaton’s Trademark “deadpan” in 'The High Sign' (1921, with Joe Roberts and Bartine Burkett)

For a character performance actor, your face is very important in expressing how you are feeling and what you are thinking to the audience. In Hook’s (2011) book ‘Acting for Animators’, he notes that audiences only empathise with emotions, saying of Keaton, “Buster was marvelous with physical comedy…but he never quite understood the empathy thing the way Chaplin did”. The reason I feel he says this is because of Keaton’s lack of facial expressions in his films, whereas Chaplain’s face was use to tremendous effect to convey emotion to the audience e.g. his betrayal as Little Tramp.  This view is however, in contrast to James Agee, (1949) who said of Keaton:

He was by his whole style and nature so much the most deeply 'silent' of the silent comedians that even a smile was as deafeningly out of key as a yell...No other comedian could do as much with the dead-pan. He used this great, sad, motionless face to suggest various related things; a one track mind near the track’s end of pure insanity; mulish imperturbability under the wildest of circumstances; how dead a human being can get and still be alive; an awe-inspiring sort of patience and power to endure, proper to granite but uncanny in flesh and blood.

I feel that there is much truth in Agee’s analysis of Keaton’s deadpan look and the emotions it can convey to one viewer and others to a different viewer. It has conveyed much emotion to me as a viewer and I empathise with the character being portrayed.

To conclude, I have found that studying Keaton’s work has been very enriching to my growth as a character animator. Keaton’s character performance in films such as ‘One Week’, ‘Cops’, ‘The High Sign’, ‘The Goat’, ‘Steamboat Bill Jr’ and ‘The General’ have inspired me to improve my performance. I feel I have learnt from how Keaton acts or reacts using props, gestures and exaggeration and body language. Hopefully, I will be able to add some of these traits to my character performances.

"No man can be a genius in slapshoes and a flat hat” (Keaton, unknown).

         __________________________________________________________________

Here are some of Buster Keaton feature films, among the first I watched, and thought they where brilliant. They managed to keep me engaged considering they are silent. Simple and fun stories, slapstick humor, extraordinary stunts in 'cops' Equal some excellent films and are all worth a watch!   -->



 The High Sign (1921)

Cops (1922)

One week (1920)

SS1- Character Animation- Plan and Research

Going in to 3D character animation, the first thing I decided  to do was create a mind map. The purpose of this was for me to try and list as many things as possible, I feel are seen, in good character performances. These were some of the things that came to mind straight away.

With this my plan is to complete a series of micro-tests before entering the November 11 seconds club Competition. My Micro tests will be in the following of the the key area in character animation performance. I intend to research follow in to these area in the following of case study.

 Micro-Projects plan

Fundamentals- Will see me look at the basics of creating believable character movement. My tests will be in the following of walk cycles and weights issues looking at arcs and timing.


Facial expressions- This micro project will focus on me carrying out tests on creating believable facial expressions.



Performance- Here I will be looking at body language, posture, anticipation. Strong focus on capturing a believable performance. Tests will be in the following of animating a scene from a film.