Review...

Have just watched Tim Burton's Corps Bride.

Although animation it is still a typical love story with references to Romeo and Juliet and numerous other love stories. The difference here being that it is stop motion animation as opposed to live action. It is a very cleverly done animation. Very slick, but then professional animation usually is. It has a fluidity that would be very hard to achieve in live action as everything is designed specifically for the animation and shot carefully. This is a degree of control that you cannot get in live action. My only problem is that it just seems too good, but I suppose this makes it better as you know it is animation trying to be animation rather than animation trying to be live action.

Research

Stuff that I have been working on in the last week include, camera movements and zombie fonts.

First the camera movements. I have been looking at a better way at connecting the clips that make up my zombie animation. First off I started looking at zooming in and zooming out, and discovered that this didn't work. The problem I believe is that because I have limited detail in my animation it just doesn't work to zoom in and then zoom out, as you end up with big blurred detail rather than a refined look. Because of this I have decided yo use the morphing technique to link up the clips. With the limited detail in the clips it works a lot better morphing as the technique enables me to link by shrinking all the detail into a ball and then expanding this into whatever I need it to, this is something that I have always found an interesting thing to as it really does allow me to convert anything into anything.

Secondly, the Zombie fonts. From the research that I have done, fonts come in all shapes and sizes but the one thing that I have noticed is that these fonts are usually covered in blood. So whichever font I do use, it will come covered in blood.

Added extra, I have also designed my own ident that I can include at the start of any of my animations.

Updated Animation

Having the chance to update the animation, I have made the decision to make some change that will definitely improve upon the idea.

These include: going down to only having 3 clips that will make up the overall animation, and making these 3 clips more zombie based.

This in practice means that the overall movement of the zombie will be slowed down, which connects a lot more with how traditional zombies are portrayed in cinematic history. Also the changes mean that now within each clip everything that happens will now only happen to  the zombie and because of his own doing. So whereas before accidents happened because of external influence, they now only happens because of the zombie's determination to interact with its environment. So for instance taking as example one of the discarded ideas, for the updated series, the zombie would pull his own head off and shake it to complete the task. Before with the older series something would have taken the zombies head off. Now the zombie makes the decision, as it were, because only a zombie could pull its own head off and survive. Before anything could take off anybody's head so it wasn't particularly restricted to being based with a zombie character, but now it can be as in media only a zombie type character can physically damage their own body and then carry on as if nothing happened.

Some other changes that I had been considering. Were: white lines on a black background, and a more sinister atmosphere to the piece.

However, after consideration and having received feedback from tutors I have decided to keep the overall feel the same.The problem with the slower moving sinister piece was that it just felt as if it dragged on, it had a good impact but because of the dragging feeling it just felt wrong. This can be seen as with the same feel from before on the new ideas it works a lot better. I believe this is because the more humorous aspect allows the clips to drag on a little more, than when it is sinister, and therefore the viewer is a little more forgiving than they would be with the sinister piece.
I think that for the sinister piece to work that it would probably have to have been one clip so that a story could be developed that would enthral the viewer, which just wasn't possible when having 3 short clips together.

Another change that will be implemented will be camera movements. This will allow the finished animation to be more professional than the original idea where the camera as it were was still. The movement will at least be a zoom in and out that will link the 3 clips. This will allow for a more fluid feel to the overall piece than what you got from the original piece, as the black that separated before interrupted the flow of the animation. Now the movement would mean that the flow would be more fluid and would keep the viewers more enthralled. Other experiments would still keep the black in between the 3 clips but with captions on. However, as this is an idea that is left over from the sinister idea it is likely that this will be dropped in favour of the zoom in and out linking of the clips. Another idea for the linking of the clips is that instead of zooming in and out, there would be morphing between the clips. However, as both of these ideas involve smaller effort for animating than the overall piece this will be something left until the end when the 3 clips will be linked up.

For now this is everything that will happen, but I may make more changes depending on circumstances, but I vehemently believe that the changes that I am going to implement will vastly improve the overall piece and in the end have a more professional feel than the original.

all done

My animation is now finished and handed in and I have received the mark for the whole animation course which works out as a 2:2, which is what I was expecting. I am happy with what I have achieved and am now looking forward to the next challenge.

The Final Hurdle

I am now coming up to the final hurdle for my graduation animation. The work is just about completed. Just a few loose ends to tie down. I would have liked to have done more but unfortunately I have been unable to do so due to illness.
However, I have to say that I am happy with what I have got. If you were to look at my animation from before I started the FdA for Film and T.V. Production right through to the here and now you would be able to see how I have progressed. The movement contained within the animations themselves is a lot smoother, and I now have the experience to add those little touches to the animations that turn them from being amateur into that something a little bit more special. Although this may not be easily noticed by most, it is these simple little touches that just add a little bit more to the animation that make them so much more impressive. Such as the understanding for where to use sound effects and music and what dialogue is right to use.
This progress can be see most clearly in my final animation piece for the Fda and the update of the same piece I did within the last couple of months. As seen below:

As seen above with the original and below with the update.

So clearly the same animation, but in the second you can see improvements such as: the characters never being still, achieved by the use of 2/3 images of the same character/object on a cycle. The effect of this is to create continuous movement whihc adds more life to the picture when in effect the character isn't moving. It is the same technique that they use in the simpsons or other shows where characters are stood still for a time, but they have a couple blinking every now and again just so that you can see that it is still being animated and that there is still movement so that it doesn't look like the screen has frozen.
Most of what I have learnt has come from being able to focus excluisvely on animation on the BA Hons Animation course. As it has meant that I have been able to improve my animation skills and the understanding of the craft that I have. I have had fantastic help both from the tutors on the course as well as the other students who have given me both technical and creative feedback, which has allowed my development from amateur to more professional.
The biggest change I should mention for myself is my work ethic. Whereas before, even on the FdA I was quite content to just get the work done, I am now in a position from the BA where I spend the time on making a quality animation. This means spending time not only producing the animation, but spending the time neccessary to go through the animation and to make any improvements to the animation that may be needed. This is evidenced most clearly for my graduation piece where I have had the luxury to be able to spend the whole of the educational year working on only one project. This has allowed me to be able to carefully craft an idea into something that I am proud of. Having spent that time adding and making that changes to the piece that change it from being just anothe animation among the many to something that is that little bit more special.

I will release it after it has been handed in.

Animated Zombies

So I have been working hard on my graduation animation. Before I only had six shorts of around 30 seconds long now they are all interconnected meaning that they can still shine as an animation on their own or they can shine as six together one after the other. Which creates I believe a more enjoyable experience. A 30 second clip is alright as an advert or ident but for something to show off more creativity and experience then a longer piece is required and this is what I have achieved with the connectivity.

 I am waiting for feedback on what I have currently done with regards to the actual animation and whether there is still anything that may need to be changed with regards to this. However at the moment I am working on the editing of the piece and getting the sound and the music for it just right. It is getting there but there is still a lot of work left to do with it. So we will see.

What I'be been up to

I have completed a first rough cut of my graduation animation and have had some good feedback from people on how I can make it better. It is mostly about timing and movement, so I have been making a list of things that I need to do with it. Now I just need to organise the list.

In other news I have done some life drawing. The object was to draw the person in the same pose but from different angles. Using the proportions to draw lines across that allow you to keep the other drawings within the correct proportions.
Also I have made another animation about giraffes, which was rotoscoped. And I have been watching the usual collection of of DVD's.