Thursday, 20 March 2014
Further update
Having just found this website: Perspective Drawing, I will now be having a closer look to decide if any of the perspective within the animation needs changing.
Update
From the last time I updated a lot has happened. I have updated the animatic so the timings are now locked.
The flow is now a lot more smoother and I have decided to go with morphs between scenes and clips. This has allowed a really fluid feel to the animation and allows for the three separate clips to feel like they are all one big animation.
I have updated the walk cycle that was used. This has meant a much more realistic look to the walk. Also the lines no longer boil, which means a more professional look as the animation looks as if it fits within its world rather than invading. Also there are three layers of perspective within the walk cycle. A foreground, a middle, and a distance. This as well makes the walk cycle look more realistic and that it is inhabiting a 'real world'.
I now have a sound designer, working on the animation, doing the sound effects and editing the music.
Oh, there is now a finished script and narrative transcript. This will allow for the voice over to be a lot more in sync with the animation, and will no longer be prone to change.
The flow is now a lot more smoother and I have decided to go with morphs between scenes and clips. This has allowed a really fluid feel to the animation and allows for the three separate clips to feel like they are all one big animation.
I have updated the walk cycle that was used. This has meant a much more realistic look to the walk. Also the lines no longer boil, which means a more professional look as the animation looks as if it fits within its world rather than invading. Also there are three layers of perspective within the walk cycle. A foreground, a middle, and a distance. This as well makes the walk cycle look more realistic and that it is inhabiting a 'real world'.
I now have a sound designer, working on the animation, doing the sound effects and editing the music.
Oh, there is now a finished script and narrative transcript. This will allow for the voice over to be a lot more in sync with the animation, and will no longer be prone to change.
Thursday, 13 February 2014
Review
Have watched George A. Romero's Land Of the Dead (2005). Here is my review.
I enjoyed this as it showed a deeper meaning to what being a Zombie is. After all in generic Zombie Films the Zombie is the antagonist that needs to be killed so the heroes can get to the safe destination. What was different here was that the Zombies were becoming self aware, so that rather than just ambling around they were becoming organised. This seemed to breathe life into the genre.
However, it is still based on one of the 7 basic story types, that of Overcoming the Monster. Although, because of the way the film has been developed this is a murky area. What you realise is that rather than the Zombies being the monsters they are just a side show to who the real monsters are. The film shows what many people suspect. That the rich would use the situation to stay rich and to keep those beneath them downtrodden. Indeed it was almost inevitable that the Rich would have their downfall as they were still hanging onto the old world, by leading parties to gather remnants of food, medicine and whatever else was left over from the old world. This was a problem as to truly survive then they would need to start again and build up their own new community and to make everything from scratch. The problem being that the rich as portrayed don't know how to do this and are always relying on others to hold them up whilst oppresing these very same people.
I enjoyed this as it showed a deeper meaning to what being a Zombie is. After all in generic Zombie Films the Zombie is the antagonist that needs to be killed so the heroes can get to the safe destination. What was different here was that the Zombies were becoming self aware, so that rather than just ambling around they were becoming organised. This seemed to breathe life into the genre.
However, it is still based on one of the 7 basic story types, that of Overcoming the Monster. Although, because of the way the film has been developed this is a murky area. What you realise is that rather than the Zombies being the monsters they are just a side show to who the real monsters are. The film shows what many people suspect. That the rich would use the situation to stay rich and to keep those beneath them downtrodden. Indeed it was almost inevitable that the Rich would have their downfall as they were still hanging onto the old world, by leading parties to gather remnants of food, medicine and whatever else was left over from the old world. This was a problem as to truly survive then they would need to start again and build up their own new community and to make everything from scratch. The problem being that the rich as portrayed don't know how to do this and are always relying on others to hold them up whilst oppresing these very same people.
Tuesday, 11 February 2014
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.
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.
Monday, 10 February 2014
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.
Wednesday, 29 January 2014
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.
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.
Tuesday, 9 July 2013
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.
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