backgrounds

These are 2 variations of the same scene, I was testing to see what difference the background colour makes.

Knight animation

These are 2 finished scenes minus the background, the posterize effect was done in photoshop and it was the put together in flash. The first video has 60 frames and the second one has 42.

I've tried out the posterizing technique on my knight character and I think this is the way I will animate him instead of rotoscoping, as the posterzing keeps all of the detail of the knights armour. I will only use rotoscoping with the ghost character. This is a render of what the animation will look like, the background for most of the scenes will be very minimal except for the scenes focusing on the castle.

Soundeffect

This footage was for trying to get a wind sound effect with the recorder on the camera, but the wind just sounds like a lot of interference rather than wind so I'm not sure if it works well.

Video footage

I was able to get some of the footage done today, below are some of the shots that are finished but need to be edited a bit, luckily the weather stayed good throughout the filming and it came out pretty clear too. All of the fight scene is finished too.

Character sketches

These are the front, back and side view of each character.

The ghost might look different in the animation because it will be drawn with pastel.

Knight photos

Live action storyboard

This is the storyboard for the live action filming, this storyboard just outlines the angle of shots and figures movement. Once I have it filmed, I'll draw and the animation storyboard with the background scenery based on the footage.

Work Flow

Resolution Stage

Storyboard Stage

• Character design- knight and ghost.
• Live action storyboarding.
• Filming live action.
• Setting design.
• Storyboarding for animation.

Animation Stage

• Rotoscope knight and draw background and setting (outside castle scene) done in photoshop.
• Rotoscope knight (inside scene) Background- either drawn in photoshop with pastel animation green screened, or pastel background with rotoscoped knight green screened over it.
• Use projector to project photoshop animation onto sheet and the draw out pastel animation to match with it. (Ghost)

Editing Stage

• Put together on photoshop and flash and edit.
• Create music and sound effects.
• Finish off for submission.

Pastel Green Screen test.

I tried out the green screen effect on the pastel animations with adobe after effects. The test seems to work ok although the previous traces of drawings did not seem to come through. Its an interesting effect though, and of the two, I think the abstract shape works the best. This may be a good effect for one of the characters.

Animation Experiment 2

This is a photo of the green screen room in the studio. I will have to fix it up more if I need it for the filming.

Green Screen Live action

Planning sketch for film the green screen live action shots.

This is one video I filmed for it, I just need to follow some tutorials in final cut pro to see if the green screen works. I am going to use this footage for testing rotoscoping too.

Green screen pastel animation.

Planning sketch for this test.





This footage is going to be used to see if I can green screen pastel lineart over my digital animation.




This footage is for testing if shaded shapes can be green screened into the animation.

Animation Experiment

This was a list of each section of experiments I need to.

The first section I tested out was the pastel animation, this is a plan sketch for it.

This is the finished test for this section.

Character research

These are some photos of the suit of armor which I'm going to use as a prop for the animation.

Setting research

When I was on holiday in Wells, I came across wells cathedral, which also had a castle beside it so luckily I got a lot of reference material for the setting in my animation. I took lot of photos of certain details like doorways, stone work etc. We weren't allowed inside the castle grounds so I took a quick video of it from outside.

Development

For this project, I am hoping to create an animation which lasts up to one minute. The techniques I am experimenting with in this animation are live action film, rotoscopeing and green screen. The software used in this animation will be final cut pro, adobe aftereffects, and photoshop.The two characters are a knight and a ghost which are to be developed through character design sketches. The rotoscope technique will be used on the knight and for the ghost I will be sketching a series of pastel drawing on green screen and then put them in the animation. The background will either be drawn in photoshop or drawn with pastels by hand.

Musically Focused animation

I'm hoping to make an animation without any dialogue and hopefully its soundtrack will be composed of sound effects and music. So I decided to look into some musically focused animations.

Fantasia (1940) Disney

The first one I looked at was Fantasia since it was one of the first musically focused animations. The animations were made according to different feelings and stories felt when listening to the music. As well as animation, Fantasia had live action character incorporated into it.

On Your Mark (1995) Hayao Miyazaki

This is a music video produced by studio Ghibli. I think the character design is interesting in this short since they are based on the singers for the video and yet still are drawn in the Ghibli style. The colour scheme is quite innovative as it uses bright highly contrasting colours.

Interstealla 5555 (2003) Leiji Matsumoto

A feature length film in which the storyline is shown completely with visuals and music, with the exception of a few sound effects. The animation is also perfectly timed with the music in the film.

All images are taken from youtube.

Styles of animation 2

Stereoscope (1999) William Kentridge

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oy5rj3JDx5g

Here is an example of Kentridges animation . He uses a very basic style of animation with the use of charcoal on a single piece of paper.

The blue line splits the screen in some shots making two screens for the animation. There is always a trace of the previous frames of animation left from the previous drawing.

Death and the Mother (1997) Ruth Lingford

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hi4zdX-OG5Q

An animation I found in animation now. It was completely drawn in computer graphics, but gives the illusion of wood carving prints. It also reminds me slightly of Kentridges animation as some scenes leave traces of the previous animation.

I found this scene interesting in the fact that the animation is strongly conveying the sense of tough, as the mother feels the face of death the imagery in brought into view.

Millennium Actress (2001) Satoshi Kon

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlQ4c6xMZLA

This film is a merge of Japanese history with Japanese film industry shown through the memories of an actress. I think this scene is an impressive montage of different still images and animation.

The feeling of reminiscence is shown in this scene by animating the character moving through the photographs.

All images were taken from youtube and my own dvds

Styles of animation

The Lord of the Rings (1978) Ralph Bakshi

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MB2THT89PE4&feature=related

I find the animation in this film very appealing because it is drawn in a more detailed illustrative style. I'm planning to try rotoscoping in my project so I think this film is quite a good refernce for it, as it uses rotoscopeing for a lot of its scenes.As well as rotoscoping the film is highly posterized which creates the 3d look. I also like the abstract backgrounds in some of the scenes. Instead of using realistic scenery, differenting textures are put in. This might be something I could do in my animation with markmaking.

Christmas Carol (1971) Richard Williams

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hA5T1G7rxg

This is my favourite animation by Williams, it is a very realistic and dramatic version of the Christmas Carol. The design is based on old 19th century illustrations which futher enrichs the setting of the film.

This is one of my favourite scenes in it, the movement of Scruge is shown only in the face and the flame as he walk up the stairs.

Water Ship Down (1978) Martin Rosen

In this animation, the style changes through out the film depending on the mood of each scene. For example, the start is an old tale so its shown in a simple picture book style.

Plague Dogs (1982)

Another film by Rosen, its uses the same type of animation as in watership Down, and uses Watercolour backgrounds. Although the audio from the film is sometime difficult to hear.

This sequence in the film is very impressive. The animators have created a very difficult sequence of the dog rotating as it howls with the background panning across the scene.

All images were taken from youtube and my own dvds.

Animation production documantry.

I found this on youtube quite recently and thought it was very interesting. It shows the making of one of Studio Ghiblis movies and is very detailed in the whole production process within the studio. Its very long and is subtitled but there's a lot of lessons in it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fi3LRn7EKx8

Research

When looking for an idea for my project, I decided to research different animation studios and animators for some inspiration. Heres some quick bullet points about what I found interesting about each animator I studied. I first decided to study early Walt Disney animations which

• Perfected animation with synchronized sounds and music.


• The Animations explored various animation techniques, such as storyboarding, which helped in the plotting and development of the animation, and actions coordinated with musical score.


• Made the first feature length colour cartoon.


• Use rotoscopeing for rendering realistic human characters.
  

Another area of interest for me is Japanese animation, some of the main animators are Osamu Tezuka

• Began his career as a manga artist.


• revolutionized the Japanese manga industry by it’s use of cinematic art direction, such as dramatic camera angles, pans and close ups instead of static imagery


• produced over 150.000 pages of manga over his life


• began Japans TV animation industry


• made the first coloured Tv animation in Japan.

and Studio Ghibli.

• The type of animation it produces is traditional hand-drawn animation


• Uses many themes in their films such as environmentalism, good and evil, anti war etc.


• Critically acclaimed for realistic expressionisms in it characters and scenes


• Very high quality cel animations, with a slight use of 3d graphics.

However, the production process of their films are very complex and are industry standard, I realised that I would have to highly simplify my work method for this project. It was then that I came across William Kentridge's films, and realised that his method of animation might be more suitable for this brief,

• He is an artist as well as an animator.


• His animations are combined with installation pieces in exhibition and theatre.


• He uses a raw and basic style of animation with charcoal drawings overdrawn on one piece of paper.


• He also mixes cutout, stop motion, live action and puppetry with his animations.

For my research in weeks 1 to 4 I have created a folder in which I have stored all the information in small summarys about each Studio and Animator I have studied from my bibliography.