Modeling On Maya

KINETIC FORCE

My Childrens Tv Time Line



(click on image to enlarge)

Ivor The Engine(1959) written & narrated by Oliver Postgate/ animated by peter Firmin/ 2d cut out stop motion

The Magic Round About (1963) (French version) 1965 (English version)

The Pogals 1965

Pogles Wood (1966-1968) BBC/Oliver Postgate (writer and narrator)/ Peter Firmin (modelmaker, animator and illustrator)/ Vernon Elliott (music).

Camberwick Green (1966)/bbc 1/ producer Gordon Murray/ Animator Bob Bura, John Hardwick and Pasquale Ferrari/music Freddie Phillips/ Narrator and song vocals Brian Cant

Trumptons (1967 ) written by Gordon Murray/ Animated by Bob Bura, John Hardwick and Paquale Ferrari.

The Herbs (1968)/BBC1/ written & animated by Michele bond/Produced by Ivor Woods/ narrator Gordon Rolling

Chigley (1969) 3D stop motion/written by Gordon Murray/ narrator Brian Cant

Parsley the Lion (1970)

The Clangers(1969-1972)/BBC/Oliver Postgate (writer and narrator)/ Peter Firmin (model maker, animator and illustrator)/ Vernon Elliott (music).

Bagpuss 1974/Creted by Peter Firming and Oliver Postgate

Paddington Bear 1975/Animator Ivor Wood/Narrator Michael Hordern

Morph (1976) Plastacine 3D stop motion/ BBC/ Aardman Animation/Creator Peter lord & David Sproxton

Postman Pat (1981)/3D stop motion/Woodland Animations/BBC1/written by John Cunliffe/ directed by Ivor Woods/ narrator Ken Barrier

Pingu (1986) Clamated stop motion/Created by Otma Gytmann/Produced by the Pygos Group

Fireman Sam (1985) (in wales then aired in 1987 in the uk) Created by Dave Gingell & Dave Jones/ written by Nia Ceidog

Script Writting Masterclass (notes I took )

• Is this an animated idea ?
  
• does this idea lend its self to animation?
• its good to let your audience know what their in for in the first five seconds.

If your a good lier your a good story teller

Your central character needs a good protagonist

Be absoulty clear of the protagonist

Transcript other scripts to see what other animations you have appreciated have achieved

Let you audience know your genreh in the first minute

With comedy end with the punchline

The always must be a change of energy at the end of the scene/engery shift/maybe provoke the character/grab the character with some thing which concerns them.

Act 1 show setting character happening/ Act 2 Despiration/ Act 3 solution to problem, to get your character out of a dilema makes a great film/animation

When writting think like a camrea, think about where the camrea is, write what the camrea is doing i.e close ups

Split up scene (each action) i.e Scene 1 John walks to door/ Scene 2 John kicks is/ Scene 3 John trips/ twist/resoulution at end of sequence

No langue = universal access

Quick points to ask your self when creating a character

• First name:
  
  
• Second name:



• Lives:


• 
  
• Where does you character like to go on hoiliday?



• What your characters favourite animal?



• What you characters deepest darkest secret?
  

Sound In Animation Seminare Notes

Alway engage with the idea of the sound because they are just as important as the animation if not more as we are so hypersensitive to sound that we can begin to forgive bad visual but not terrible sound as we as human beings a exsperts

Reading out your script whilst playing music

Give your muscian an Idea of you infleneces being culturaly specific and never invite a musician to a mix.

My Thoughts on This Seminar

To be honest I took very little from this seminre as there were four speakers of which rattled on irrelivantly as if they were on an episode of lose women saying the same this over and over, contradicting there own point reguarly, exsept for one whom didn't speak much as he had a saw throat . I found that the host loved the sound of his voice far to much interupting and speaking over his guess speaker again and again which felt was very rude leaving me to ponder the thought why ask a question if you already seemingly know the answer?

I Met The Walrus





The audio that is being explain visually through animation is an interview between john Lennon and a 14 year boy whom snuck into his hotel room for an interview. I felt that the animation brought alive Lennon's voice and ideas and has this random quality where you feel as if you running through his mind and heart in perfect timing to his thoughts. You feel as if with every word a new door is opening with a completely new illustrated idea of how this animator is visualizing each word.

Spirited Away

The storyline of this film completely blew me away I could definitely see a comparison to western animation through this eastern style. I was told in a seminar by Ed Hooks that Miyazaki was asked what the difference between east and western animation? He began to clap his hands and said "the difference between them is the sound inn between the clap which we call mwa, western animations are afraid of adding the in between bits to their consistent point". I could defiantly see what he was say withing the film as there was so many points of the film which excited me and I could see that Miyazaki almost see's beyond a beginning a middle and an end. I can't say I was bored for even a second whilst watching as round every twist and turn I was exhilarated path, as nothing in Miyazaki world was ever what It first seem to be.

Visually the film was enchanting demonstrating a bright an bold colours, stylised using a watercolour look for the backgrounds, his characters drawn in a distinct Japanese style with large eyes with a tiny or extremely large mouth depending on the emotion the character is experiencing. I also like the fact that Miyazaki has kept to the traditional 2D style and feel absolutly no need to result to computer animation which seem rather rare these days as 2D seems to be dying In the west which I feel is an absolute shame.

WALL-E










Sound
The sound design for Wall-e was done by Ben Burtt whom had in the past worked on star wars and idiana johns films. He recorded 2500 sound for the film which was a record for his carrea. Through the nature of the film having so many robot whom did not speak with human diolog meant that all the diologue conveyed emotion through and infinate range of high pitch and low pitched sound. The lack of human diologue also meant the sound of contact between this new world and the characters had to be extra sensitivce as they were trying to create a new world of sound.

Winsor McCay















Gertie the Dinosaur
Gerti the Dinosaur was the first animated film with a star and a story line. Mccay gave his character Gertie personality and emotions by adding such tiny details as tears dripping.

He gave her slightly wild boisterous nature as she attacks jumbow the mamouth by throwing him into the lake after being told not to harm him by maccay like a parent commanding there child.

To produce gertie McCy drew 10'000 imagies on to rice paper and then mounted them on cardboard, MaCcay was then able to flip through the drawing to check through his work.

In 1914 in Chicargo McCay greeted an audience for gerties first premiere standind alogside the
screen. After explaing how he hadproduced the animated film, he introduced Gertie as "the only dinosaur in captivity" he cracked his whip and the film began.


Little Nemo

Was the first animated film to feature established new paper comic strip stars. The storyline begins in a regular film style where McCay and his friends make a wager where MaCcay must make his drawing move in an animated film. McCay is then shown doing so and ends with a viewing of his film, this features the characters from his comic strip little nemo which showed believable weight, dimention and motion, as well as personality and life.

We were given plastic armature models to put together which seemed a challenge in its self. After they were finally assembled we were told to use replacement animation to fashion a walk cycle, this proved quite difficult as we only had six models to work with and felt that this technique would had been far more successful had we had enough armature to align each next to each other so it would be easier to judge the cycle of movement. Although this was our first try at replacement animation I felt that the walk wasn't any where near convincing enough to convey any stretch of realism through your notice that the head and torso moves in a irregular arc. You will also notice that the arms do not move in tune with the bodies anatomy either.




This was just a test some of the group did whilst I was having a tutorial

EPIC ZOMBIE MOVIE

This was just an experiment test which was mainly conveying zombies walking towards there victim whom get as far as kicking one of the zombies a kick in the face. We experiment with two different camera angels the first of which I feel is completely ineffective through I didn't feel that the viewer would be able to see what was going on. How ever the next camera angel was far clearer and worked a bit better. The zombie walk I felt was quite convincing yet way too fast for the living dead to pull off. I quite like the us of 2D pools of blood especially when the zombie was kicked in the head, although I though the speech bubble did not show up for long enough for the brain to register what they were suppose to say.

Vincent


This is a short by Tim Burton about a seven year old boy called Vincient Malloy (top left picture) that wants to be like Vincient Price (top right). He spends hes day pretending that he is this dark sadistic lonley tortured soul, reading novels of Sir Edgar Alan Poe that is possed by his house slowly dying as he morns the death of his late wife. when really hes an over dramatic little boy. So although this animation is quite dark its also quite comical as just when you feel drawn into vincient dark and excentric world you are snapped right back out of it as the real world interupts abruptly showing you the reality of the present world.
The differnts between Victor's real and imaginary worlds are clearly demonstrated through lighting in the pictures above. The real world you notice shows far lighter tones effectivly appearing more alive, where as victors imaginary world is far more dark and dramatically mobid revealing its self to be practically dead.

I looked at the range of differnt camrea angle Burton had use to create the illusion of this wounded reality, which seems off scale twisting and turning giving you the feeling that there is nothing in your visions way that can be trusted causing you to feel some what disattached. You almost feel as if its closing in on you creating a certain claustrophobia, clasping tighter and tighter with every word and every movement convincing you of it mood, which is why the ironey is so amusing when you are snapped back to the lighter bright current world . The use of a spot light on victor is offen the trend how ever other lighting is used on his face accomponied by a shadow which show a great defined quality.

I made this flower bed out of green flanle and the flowers made out of ballons.
For the planting scene I used a mirror to potray water and just so the ceiling wouldn't be in view I made sure the colourful scriblely sky was in view which was effectivly on an A1 Piece of paper which I moved slightly back and fourth to convey water moving, rippling and reflecting.

For the scene where a whole body shot wasnt nessacery I made the contraption above and the hand was adjustable so I could animate just the hand.

STOP MOTION




This is the finial cut of the video which I felt worked quite well with the 3d stop motion and the pixelation which we split our group in half t0 do as half of the group wanted to try one style and the other half the other which feel worked brilliantly. The sound affect were all acapella using peoples voice from the group trying different sound affect on top of each other and editing volume to fit the mood which for this certain animation felt right.

In the above i feel that we did really well with the zooming out shot, how ever I feel some one thing that let us down was the lighting through your notice that it moves, the reason for this is because we put the octopus in to late which meant I was conscious that this character would be in the dark and deciding to try and gradually change the lighting effectively gave this scene a poorly controlled lighting. I was extremely please with the walk cycle as I thought Marcin did an excellent job with the animating and was also very happy with the scenery which we all shared efforts in producing.