MEDIA ROLES - FINAL PRESENTATION AND OVERALL PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS

Today, we had our actual real presentation of our findings for the Media Roles research task. We've spent time putting our slides together, making one cohesive presentation. We all worked on our individual slides, then established a uniform look and format.

(Our final presentation we showed)

We were alongside groups 1 to 4 for a morning session, where we all presented to each other, as well as Peter, Helen and Jon. I felt quite nervous, since I was worried that I'd mess something up during the presenting, or that I'd done something wrong in the slides that I hadn't caught up until then. But when we finally came to actually present, it went pretty well.

We established an order for who would say what:

• I would start by introducing the presentation and explaining what area we looked into
• Tanje would take over talking about the pre-production pipeline, and her slides on Monsters University's production design
• I would then go on to talk about Moana and character design
• Gareth would talk about Blur Studios and 3D character modelling
• Jacob would talk about Ori and the Blind Forest and it's art direction
• Tom would talk about Spyro and the 2D to 3D process
• We'd all read the conclusion on what the biggest thing we took away was

Now, I say the presentation went pretty well. Why not good or great? Because I feel like members of our group wasn't 100% there. The presentations of each others slides started to dip in quality, and in some cases, it was clear that more rehearsal time was needed. One person spoke for too long, speaking more about the studio than the actual area he was meant to be talking about. Gauging reactions afterwards from audience members, I found they also found he went on too long. Another person went too quick, and was incredibly quiet so barely anyone could hear him; I was up at the front with him and I couldn't hear him.

I feel like my slides went well, which was further affirmed by Peter and Helen bringing up me and my points directly when getting positive feedback on our presentations. Both Tanje and myself got positive feedback on how we seemed to be leading the team well. In my head, this did make me glad; for most of this project, it felt like the two of us had to carry the team a lot, so it was nice knowing our hard work getting everyone together paid off. 

Now that the presentation and research task is over, is there anything I'd change? Yes, a couple of things.

First off, the presentation itself. I'd want to make sure it was all prepared a LOT better in the start, and that everyone was on the same page. Looking at all the slides put together, some of the less vocal members definitely didn't get the format as much as others, which lead to a lot of reformatting and trimming down. Making sure everyone's got the same idea is essential.

Another more personal thing I'd want to change is adding a little bit more, for lack of a better term, showmanship to the presentation. With the other groups, they managed to get a few chuckles and laughs from making little jokes and adding funny things into their slides. I tried to get some kind of reaction from the audience twice through what I was saying, in an attempt to keep audience retention; they laughed once. If I had to do this again, I'd definitely want to make a more engaging, entertaining slideshow.

Finally, the biggest thing I'd change is getting the group presentation ready. It was clear that not everyone was ready for this, but for more than just nerves. Unpreparedness and a somewhat lack of interest was also at play. I'd make my group more prepared if we did it again, even if it means I have to keep getting everyone together to practice.

So, to reiterate my aforementioned feelings towards this presentation, it all went pretty well. And that's about it.

FANTASTICAL CREATURES - SKOLLCRABB MODELLING #2

This was the first session back after Easter, bringing me back to the Fantastical Creature modelling! 

Over Easter, I thought I'd finished my Skollcrabb model, filling all the necessary gaps and fixing anything that didn't work so well. But the key word there is "thought". As it turns out, when I imported my Skollcrabb into another program, it came up with a LIST of errors. 

I got Jon to give me feedback on the model, hoping he could point out what was wrong. His main feedback was to do the skull again, since that seemed to be causing me the most problems. The skull had gaps in the mesh, vertices & edges weren't meeting, but my biggest downfall was my polygons. I'd forgotten that these models had to made from 4 sided polygons, but my inclusion of polygons with sides ranging from 3 to 20 was my biggest issue.

Instead of starting the skull again from scratch, Jon advised that I retopologise it. Retopology is the process of creating a new poly-model using another poly-model as reference; it's essentially tracing in 3D. You place 4 points down to create the basis of a polygon and then fill the gaps, adding to your new shape.

So I got started on retopologising the skull! I also plan on doing this for the bottom jaw as well, since that also seems to be a problem area for the model. But I got about halfway through the skull by the end of this session, so I'm definitely coming back to work on it more.

MEDIA ROLES - MY PRESENTATION SLIDES

This post is just me uploading my slides from the group presentation.

These slides are looking at the character design process, especially how important research is and how influences hand-in-hand with research can define a character's look. It's still on Maui, from Moana.

MEDIA ROLES - BILL SCHWAB

So... contacting Jeff Williams didn't work out.

He's abandoned his Tumblr after they made changes to their Terms of Service, so that means I've got to find a new Moana character design contact. But luckily, I found one in the Art of Moana book! His name is Bill Schwab, and he's the character art director for Moana.

(Schwab working at Walt Disney Animation Studios)

Schwab is an Annie award winning character designer and character art director, who started working on Disney animated productions with 2009's The Princess and the Frog. Since then, he's worked on films like Wreck-It Ralph and Frozen and shows like Aqua Teen Hunger Force. He won Annies for his work on Prep and Landing as well as it's sequel, as well as an Emmy for the aforementioned sequel.

A lot of his art is shared in the Moana art book, especially his work on Moana, Tamatoa and, most relevant to this project, Maui. 

(Some of Schwab's concept art for Maui - credit: Bill Schwab, Walt Disney Animation Studios)

I'm attempting to contact him through Instagram, where he posts concept art and drawings relatively frequently. I'm just hoping he'll at least see the message, and a response would be great! Also hoping that he doesn't have a specific NDA where he can't say anything about his work. We'll see. Update coming if he responds!

MEDIA ROLES - RELEVANT ARTICLES

Instead of posting each of my articles used individually, I'm going to make a masterpost of all my articles, going into each one and why it's relevant. Links to each article will be in their titles.

EMPIRE - MOANA'S DIRECTORS ON HOW THEY CREATED DWAYNE JOHNSON'S MAUI

This article is where Empire talked to Moana's directors John Musker and Ron Clements about the elements that went into creating Maui. They break the character down into themes; the voice, the mythology, the tattoos, etc. Specifically, I looked into how they made the character hand-in-hand with an Oceanic trust to make sure they got the details down correctly.

"Very early on, probably in consultation with our Oceanic Story Trust, some of the feedback we got from them was that they recommended not to draw the movie in one specific culture. There were bits from different cultures that we wanted to wed together in this story. It took on its own life and grew differently. Obviously with the islands being separated at times by whatever, politics etc, the cultures evolved differently."

- John Musker

They also talk about how Maui's larger figure was decided upon in an attempt to make him more like a demi-god, who was able to accomplish the feats his myths claimed he could.

"He was short of stature because we'd read about that in some of the myths. When we designed him, we really felt that he was a demi-god. He's gotta pull up islands, he's gotta battle monsters. So we thought he was of superhero-like proportions, broad-shouldered and a big, solid man-mountain kind of a guy."

- John Musker

WASHINGTON POST - WHY "MOANA'S" MAIN DEMIGOD LOOKS SO MUCH - AND SO LITTLE - LIKE PEOPLE'S "SEXIEST MAN ALIVE"

This article is an interview with character art director Bill Schwab, and goes more in depth on some details the directors only lightly went over.

One of his main points was about how important research was to make Maui, and the entire world of Moana, to seem right.

"What shells did they have, what would have been available? What ancient dyes did they use? And what of their wood and woven materials?"

- Bill Schwab

The article elaborates on this further, claiming Schwab and his team thoroughly looked into the tattoos of Samoan chiefs. 

BUSTLE - ALL OF MAUI'S TATTOOS IN "MOANA" SHOW HOW CULTURALLY IMPORTANT THE DEMIGOD IS

This article delved into how Maui's tattoos all have significant meaning to the Maori people, since they all come from the actual Maui mythology. The tattoos are shown off in the "You're Welcome" sequence from the film, where every tale Maui tells are all true.

("You're Welcome" from Moana - credit: Walt Disney Animation Studios)

This would be a good way to show off the dedicated research the character designers did on the mythology of Maui, and how they translated it into his actual character design. I followed this up with a look at the Genius analysis of the You're Welcome, and they went more in depth into the actual stories.

VANITY FAIR - HOW PACIFIC ISLANDERS HELPED "MOANA" FIND ITS WAY

This article goes more in depth about the Oceanic Trust the filmmakers and character designers worked with on Moana. This trust was made up of Polynesian anthropologists, cultural practitioners, historians, linguists and choreographers, who all chipped in whenever the team needed their expertise, or when the Trust found incorrect details.

"Musker and Clements originally imagined that the scene would depict ancient sailors decked out in traditional Papua New Guinean face paint, ornamental headdresses, and jewelry—until the Trust shut that down, pointing out that those would be hilariously impractical outfits to wear to sea."

This trust helped out on even the most minute details, from the clothes down to what the curtains would look like in Moana's house. Scenes involving Moana kicking coconuts were shot down by the trust, since it was seen as "absolutely offensive". The trust's biggest influence to Moana was in Maui's design. 

"We have to put more hair on Maui’s head, because it’s very important. The mana is in the hair, the power of the demigod. It looked just like he was naked. For us, it was really important."

- Hinano Murphy

The relationship between the Trust and the character designers was vital to Maui's final look, and should absolutely be cited in the presentation.

NEW YORK TIMES - HOW (AND WHY) MAUI GOT SO BIG IN "MOANA"

The final article I found was on the deliberate choices made on Maui's design; most notably, his larger size. When the character was first revealed, there was some upset from Polynesian communities about how the demigod was designed.

"I have seen the trailer to this film, and I was astonished that anyone would depict Maui like this..."

- Gavin Bishop, Maori artist

This article also gives us an exact quote used to justify Maui's larger size, straight from the film's producer Osnat Shurer.

"Even in the myths where he’s small, he’s larger than life. And in animation, we’re not literal. You’re trying to find the essence of the character. We always felt that the audience needed to know right away, visually, that this guy is stronger than anybody else."

- Osnat Shurer

WEEK 15 SUMMARY

WEEK BEGINNING - 1st of April, 2019

WEEK ENDING - 7th of April, 2019

MONDAY - Fantastical Creatures Modelling workshop

Original post: https://ncarolannua1b.blogspot.com/2019/04/fantastical-creatures-skollcrabb.html

WEDNESDAY - Showreel Premiere Pro Induction

Original post: https://ncarolannua1b.blogspot.com/2019/04/showreel-premiere-pro-induction.html

"Since this was just a practice with the program, I had some fun with the titles and put in whatever just made me laugh! This little session taught me a couple of new basic techniques that're going to make the actual showreel's production a lot easier. All in all, this was a nice little session that was calm and I enjoyed it!"

THURSDAY - Lip-Sync

Original post: https://ncarolannua1b.blogspot.com/2019/04/lip-sync-colours-and-feedback.html

"So now I have this feedback, I'm gonna work on making the head look better and more consistent! Honestly, I'm glad I got more to work on, because I feel like I worked a bit too quickly on this task. That's not to say it's rushed, just that made it in a very short amount of time. But now I have something to do with the extra sessions we have on lip-sync!"

SUMMARY
The work on the Fantastical Creatures project has essentially just been working on the model of Skollcrabb. I'm trying to make it look like an amalgamation of my original design and my maquette, taking my favourite elements from each one. Most notably, I took the legs and eyes from my maquette, and the bottom jaw and claws from my original design. I think from here, I just need to keep working on it and making sure it's finished. I've also got to texture it, but I'm still a ways out from there yet.

For the showreel, I've got most of my clips all together in one folder, so that I can move it all around in one place, instead of constantly having to relocate files that are scattered all over the place. I've also found a nice font to use for my titles, called Back Issues. It's meant to replicate comic book speech bubble text, which fits with the kinds of things I make. These showreels are meant to be personal and reflect our style of work, and given how much influence I have from comic books and cartoons, it seems appropriate.

With the lip-sync task, I'm glad to be getting more to do on it! The feedback I got from Helen has been really great to recieve, since it means I can keep working on making 2D animations like I want to. Plus, I felt like I was going really fast and was worried that I had eventually done something wrong... and I kind of wanted something to be (unintentionally) wrong so I could keep working. But now I have more to work on once I get back after Easter!

LIP-SYNC - COLOURS AND FEEDBACK

This Lip-Sync post is about how I coloured the animation and the feedback I got on the animation I considered finished.

Unlike my preferred animation program Adobe Animate, TVPaint's layers work more like digital illustration layers. What I mean by that is that they are able to fully interact with each other, to create lighting effects, the ability to choose a source layer, etc. I took advantage of this when colouring the animation.

I had three layers of animation that needed to be coloured; the main body, the head and the eyes. For each of these layers, I created a new blank animation layer underneath it. Using the paint bucket tool, set to use the layer above as a reference, I coloured each piece of animation on it's respective colour layer.

After I applied the colour, the animation looked like this:

I got some feedback from Helen on the animation. She was approving of my "less is more" method with the mouth, approving my justification for using less mouth shapes to fit my cartoony style.

The main thing to work on is consistency. The hair isn't consistent the entire way through, with it changing shape and size. One clip in particular showcases this in particular, when the character says "complicated"; the hairline keeps shifting.

So now I have this feedback, I'm gonna work on making the head look better and more consistent! Honestly, I'm glad I got more to work on, because I feel like I worked a bit too quickly on this task. That's not to say it's rushed, just that made it in a very short amount of time. But now I have something to do with the extra sessions we have on lip-sync!

SHOWREEL - PREMIERE PRO INDUCTION

This is a one-off session on the showreel unit.

For our showreels, we're going to be making them in Adobe Premiere Pro, an editing program part of the Adobe Creative Cloud. I've had experience with this program for the past 3 years, so going into this session I felt pretty comfortable with the program.

The entire session could be split into two parts: the basics of Premiere Pro and the fancy stuff. The basics were mostly on how to set up projects & sequences, import & insert clips, audio dipping, etc. While I knew all of those already, there were some basics I hadn't known up to that point which are going to be really helpful in the future; specifically, Ripple Delete. Ripple Delete closes gaps between clips and audio, and bumps everything up that applies.

And like I said, we also moved onto the fancy stuff Premiere Pro can do. I'd never noticed the multiple tabs at the top of the workspace, including Editing, Effects, Graphics, etc. I'd only ever used the editing tab, since that's all I used Premiere Pro for. We went into the Graphics tab to find lots of title & graphics presets, the kinds used for news reports and sports channels. Their text is all editable, and different attributes can be messed with the create the title graphic you want!

In the end, with all the steps followed, my project looked like this:



Since this was just a practice with the program, I had some fun with the titles and put in whatever just made me laugh! This little session taught me a couple of new basic techniques that're going to make the actual showreel's production a lot easier. All in all, this was a nice little session that was calm and I enjoyed it!

LIP-SYNC - CHIN AND CLEANUP

This post is a further update for my TVPaint lip-sync animation. This time, it's on the chin movements and line cleanup.

There wasn't anything too complex to this, honestly. There were only two steps involved in this cleanup.

Firstly, there's the chin. In my rough stages, I specifically left the chin static so that I wouldn't be too focused on that when blocking out my main motions. I deliberately left it for this part of the process. It was simple enough to do, I just went through and drew chins on a new layer, that react to the extremities of the mouth shapes. When the mouth is closed or in a very small shape, it stays in a neutral position. But when the shape is more open and wide, the chin goes back down.

The rest of the animation just had to be traced over essentially. I took the opportunity to clear some inconsistencies with the body, especially with the collar and tie.
So from here, it's about colouring and getting feedback.

FANTASTICAL CREATURES - SKOLLCRABB MODELLING 1

This session was modelling my Skollcrabb creature in Maya.

When starting to model the Skollcrabb, I already had an idea of how it works in a 3D space, thanks to the maquette. But now came the part where it actually had to exist in a 3D digital space.

After our session learning how to start modelling characters last week, I felt like making my Skollcrabb would be a lot easier than if I hadn't had that session. Each part was made up of different poly shapes; the skull, body & eyes were made from spheres that I had edited to resemble the shapes I wanted more, the bottom half of the legs were made of cones, the top half of the legs were made of cylinders, and the bottom jaw.

The most complex shape by far was the skull shell; where other parts of the Skollcrabb didn't require too much modification, the skull needed constant changes and modelling techniques to make it resemble what I wanted.

I also tried closing off as many gaps as I could with the skull, but it's going to prove difficult in later sessions, just due to how I made it. By the end of the session, the Skollcrabb was in pieces:

The only real next step is to just carry on modelling. I still need to add the arms and claws, and then bring it into texturing software to make him colourful and textured!