WEEK STARTING - 29th of April, 2019
WEEK ENDING - 5th of May, 2019
MONDAY - Fantastical Creatures Modelling workshop
Original post: https://ncarolannua1b.blogspot.com/2019/04/fantastical-creatures-skollcrabb_29.html
TUESDAY - Media Roles Presentation
Original post: https://ncarolannua1b.blogspot.com/2019/04/media-roles-final-presentation-and.html
THURSDAY - Lip-Sync
Original post: https://ncarolannua1b.blogspot.com/2019/05/lip-sync-finalised-animation.html
"So now my animation is all done! I really enjoyed this unit all in all, mostly due to my own bias towards 2D animation. Getting back into it after units which were more experimental & foreign to me was like a nice homecoming, and was definitely a more comfortable way for me to work. I don't really have any major gripes with the sessions, they let us get on, and Katherine was very enthusiastic and helpful! The only thing I'd really change is keeping an eye on consistency. I feel like my lip-sync animation was very successful, and it's probably my favourite piece of animation I've done this year!"
SUMMARY
This week is the final week before hand in, and it's all about getting things fully finished.
The lip-sync feedback has been fully implemented, and now it's finished! I'm really happy with how it came out, it hits the sweet spot of feeling like something I'd make on my own, but with the skills I've learnt since coming to university, mostly how to properly apply the principles and animating on twos. Overall, my thoughts on this project are entirely positive! I got to animate in a way I adore, and work in a medium I'm more comfortable in.
My Fantastical Creature is so close to being finished at this point! The model is all there and textured in Substance Painter, I just need to figure out how to get it back into Maya with the textures all intact and applied correctly. I've got a feeling it's either going to be ridiculously easy or ridiculously difficult. But I want to make it look as good in Maya as it does in Substance Painter, and hopefully the correct application will make that possible. Then it's just a turntable and compositing to do and it'll be a wrap for Fantastical Creatures!
Showing posts with label Media Roles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Media Roles. Show all posts
Sunday, May 5, 2019
Tuesday, April 30, 2019
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.
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:
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.
(Our final presentation we showed)
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.
Sunday, April 28, 2019
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.
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.
Monday, April 15, 2019
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 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.
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!
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!
Wednesday, April 10, 2019
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
This article also gives us an exact quote used to justify Maui's larger size, straight from the film's producer Osnat Shurer.
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
Tuesday, March 26, 2019
MEDIA ROLES AND RESEARCH - GROUP TUTORIAL PRESENTATION
In today's media roles session, me and my group had a Group Tutorial with Helen. It was essentially just a way to touch base and see how we're getting on. I prepared a small presentation just in case I needed to actually show anything... but didn't end up needing it at all.
So instead of wasting it, I thought it'd be good to post here as a way to show where I am and what my plan of action is.
So instead of wasting it, I thought it'd be good to post here as a way to show where I am and what my plan of action is.
Sunday, March 24, 2019
WEEK 13 SUMMARY
WEEK BEGINNING - 18th of March, 2019
WEEK ENDING - 24th of March, 2019
MONDAY - Fantastical Creatures Brief
Original post: https://ncarolannua1b.blogspot.com/2019/03/fantastical-creatures-briefing.html
TUESDAY - Media Roles Mini-Presentation
Original post: https://ncarolannua1b.blogspot.com/2019/03/media-roles-more-information.html
THURSDAY - Maquette Workshop
Original post: https://ncarolannua1b.blogspot.com/2019/03/fantastical-creatures-maquette-workshop.html
"I'm overall not very happy with how this session went. Not due to the actual session's content, but more so with my own work. I produced something that wasn't up to my own personal standard, and that's something I don't want to put up with. So I'm going to be taking time out of lessons to work on the maquette, maybe even starting from scratch again. I don't want to have a "that'll do" attitude about this, I want to make something I'm happy with and is an accurate representation of what I want my Skollcrabb to look like."
SUMMARY
This week was our introduction to our newest unit, named "Fantastical Creatures". It seems like a really nice change from our last few projects, which have limited creativity a little bit in that we can't really make things our own outside of the movements. But everything about these characters are going to come from us, and that's really exciting to me! I'm a big fan of my creature, the Skollcrabb. It feels like it fits my style really well, but is also outlandish enough to be different from other things I make! It's definitely something I want to keep using both inside and outside of university! Overall, excited for more with the Fantastical Creatures!
WEEK ENDING - 24th of March, 2019
MONDAY - Fantastical Creatures Brief
Original post: https://ncarolannua1b.blogspot.com/2019/03/fantastical-creatures-briefing.html
TUESDAY - Media Roles Mini-Presentation
Original post: https://ncarolannua1b.blogspot.com/2019/03/media-roles-more-information.html
THURSDAY - Maquette Workshop
Original post: https://ncarolannua1b.blogspot.com/2019/03/fantastical-creatures-maquette-workshop.html
"I'm overall not very happy with how this session went. Not due to the actual session's content, but more so with my own work. I produced something that wasn't up to my own personal standard, and that's something I don't want to put up with. So I'm going to be taking time out of lessons to work on the maquette, maybe even starting from scratch again. I don't want to have a "that'll do" attitude about this, I want to make something I'm happy with and is an accurate representation of what I want my Skollcrabb to look like."
SUMMARY
This week was our introduction to our newest unit, named "Fantastical Creatures". It seems like a really nice change from our last few projects, which have limited creativity a little bit in that we can't really make things our own outside of the movements. But everything about these characters are going to come from us, and that's really exciting to me! I'm a big fan of my creature, the Skollcrabb. It feels like it fits my style really well, but is also outlandish enough to be different from other things I make! It's definitely something I want to keep using both inside and outside of university! Overall, excited for more with the Fantastical Creatures!
Tuesday, March 19, 2019
MEDIA ROLES - MORE INFORMATION
Today, we presented our brief outline of what our group is looking at, and got some more information on what to do for our media roles and research task.
First is our presentation.
It's plain, simple, but gets the point across.
For my part, I'm going to be going to be looking at the character design role in 3D pre-production, specifically on Disney's Moana. I'm debating on which character to focus on, Maui or Tamatoa. But the specific area I'm going to look at is the how a character is made; the process from idea to finalised character, inspirations, research, etc.
PRESENTATION STRUCTURE
We got an ideal presentation structure for our final slideshows we'll be showing at the end of the unit:
First is our presentation.
For my part, I'm going to be going to be looking at the character design role in 3D pre-production, specifically on Disney's Moana. I'm debating on which character to focus on, Maui or Tamatoa. But the specific area I'm going to look at is the how a character is made; the process from idea to finalised character, inspirations, research, etc.
PRESENTATION STRUCTURE
We got an ideal presentation structure for our final slideshows we'll be showing at the end of the unit:
- Start with your title, subject matter and names of everyone in the group
- When delivering our slides, information should be in concise bullet points or small paragraphs
- Visuals, short films clips and key quotes to back up what you're saying
- A conclusion of what we've learnt from this unit
- A bibliography
- We should do some research into a person; that way we won't make mistakes when contacting them.
- When making contact, stay formal; no "hi!"
- Address them by name
- Introduce yourself
- Stay enthusiastic
- If asking questions, make it no more than 3 short questions.
- Make the message short
- If no response is received after a week, try a follow up message.
- Try and contact more than one person
- At the end of it all, be polite and say "thank you!"
Sunday, March 17, 2019
WEEK 12 SUMMARY
WEEK STARTING - 11th of March, 2019
WEEK ENDING - 17th of March, 2019
MONDAY - Mystery Box workshop
Original post: https://ncarolannua1b.blogspot.com/2019/03/mystery-box-maya-session-4.html
TUESDAY - Media Roles introduction
Original post: https://ncarolannua1b.blogspot.com/2019/03/media-roles-introduction.html
"Overall, I'm a little bit more enthusiastic about this research task than the other two, mostly because I hated doing the essays. This allows for a bit more creativity, even if it is just in a powerpoint form. But I'm not so sure about the group angle. I've known for a while I need to improve on working in a group, and I feel like I've achieved that for the most part in other animation tasks. But this group in particular has me a bit concerned. There doesn't seem to be anyone desperate to jump straight into the project, and it feels like we still need time to get to know each other. But only time will tell."
[NOTE: Weekly summaries aren't needed for this project.]
THURSDAY - Mystery Box workshop
Original post: https://ncarolannua1b.blogspot.com/2019/03/mystery-box-maya-session-5.html
"By the end of this session, I got my main blocking all done! Max now has all his basic movements down, and with a couple more tweaks, he should be ready for splining! Those tweaks, along with things I fixed today, were done with the animation timeline editor. It's a really useful tool, and I'm glad we managed to learn how to use it to our advantage!"
SUMMARY
The Mystery Box project this week didn't have anything major happen; I started again from scratch, but that's about it. I think that Jon's tip to do this was the best course of action; if the way I was doing it would only end up causing me more issues than anything else. I managed to translate the same blocking from my previous version over to the new file, but making the necessary changes I needed to make sure I didn't end up recreating the mistakes that got me here. But this week has proved one thing to me, and it's 3D animation is more tricky than my first experiences lead me to believe it is.
WEEK ENDING - 17th of March, 2019
MONDAY - Mystery Box workshop
Original post: https://ncarolannua1b.blogspot.com/2019/03/mystery-box-maya-session-4.html
TUESDAY - Media Roles introduction
Original post: https://ncarolannua1b.blogspot.com/2019/03/media-roles-introduction.html
"Overall, I'm a little bit more enthusiastic about this research task than the other two, mostly because I hated doing the essays. This allows for a bit more creativity, even if it is just in a powerpoint form. But I'm not so sure about the group angle. I've known for a while I need to improve on working in a group, and I feel like I've achieved that for the most part in other animation tasks. But this group in particular has me a bit concerned. There doesn't seem to be anyone desperate to jump straight into the project, and it feels like we still need time to get to know each other. But only time will tell."
[NOTE: Weekly summaries aren't needed for this project.]
THURSDAY - Mystery Box workshop
Original post: https://ncarolannua1b.blogspot.com/2019/03/mystery-box-maya-session-5.html
"By the end of this session, I got my main blocking all done! Max now has all his basic movements down, and with a couple more tweaks, he should be ready for splining! Those tweaks, along with things I fixed today, were done with the animation timeline editor. It's a really useful tool, and I'm glad we managed to learn how to use it to our advantage!"
SUMMARY
The Mystery Box project this week didn't have anything major happen; I started again from scratch, but that's about it. I think that Jon's tip to do this was the best course of action; if the way I was doing it would only end up causing me more issues than anything else. I managed to translate the same blocking from my previous version over to the new file, but making the necessary changes I needed to make sure I didn't end up recreating the mistakes that got me here. But this week has proved one thing to me, and it's 3D animation is more tricky than my first experiences lead me to believe it is.
Tuesday, March 12, 2019
MEDIA ROLES - INTRODUCTION
In this session, we were introduced to our new research project, about media roles. This research task is a different to the last two, in that the deliverable this time around is a group presentation, not an essay.
This is a 6 week project, in which we research into media roles & practices. This can involve looking at certain studios, productions, practitioners and/or techniques. Our blogwork for this will be solo (we'll all be marked for our individual work). This project involves attempting contact with a practitioner in the industry, and in the end showing our group's findings.
The deliverables include:
The presentations have to be visually appealing; make them look pretty! They should be no more than 20 slides, containing an intro, quotes from practitioners, a conclusion and a bibliography. Spelling and grammar are also important to consider.
So what's the aim of this project? It's mostly to familiarise us with the roles that are out there, and to make us think more about our own employability. We should be considering what we want to go into after graduation, and researching the roles out there is a good way of learning the intricacies of potential jobs.
We got put into our groups after this presentation; I'm with 4 people I don't know at all; Jacob, Tom, Tanje and Gareth. The set date for the presentations is the 30th of April, so that's just about 5 or 6 weeks away.
We got another presentation after learning who we were with, this time looking at the different animation disciplines and production types we can look at.
It started with "traditional" animation productions, that being animated films and television shows. There are three types of these features; 3D animated (e.g. Toy Story 3, Star Wars: The Clone Wars), 2D animated (e.g. Aladdin, Gravity Falls) and stop motion (e.g. Wallace and Gromit, Robot Chicken). We then looked further into that looking at the different age groups that watch specific productions.
We finally looked at VFX, where animated characters and effects are applied on top of live action footage.
We then split off into our groups, and decided what we'd look at for our presentations. To put it bluntly, our group's chemistry is non-existent at this point. None of us knew each other, so we didn't have any kind of reference point to go by in terms of what we know already. Eventually we settled on character design after deciding we all liked, and I quote, "character stuff".
We wrote down a list of potential subtopics from the character design angle we could look further into, as well as characters we'd want to look at.
Overall, I'm a little bit more enthusiastic about this research task than the other two, mostly because I hated doing the essays. This allows for a bit more creativity, even if it is just in a powerpoint form. But I'm not so sure about the group angle. I've known for a while I need to improve on working in a group, and I feel like I've achieved that for the most part in other animation tasks. But this group in particular has me a bit concerned. There doesn't seem to be anyone desperate to jump straight into the project, and it feels like we still need time to get to know each other. But only time will tell.
This is a 6 week project, in which we research into media roles & practices. This can involve looking at certain studios, productions, practitioners and/or techniques. Our blogwork for this will be solo (we'll all be marked for our individual work). This project involves attempting contact with a practitioner in the industry, and in the end showing our group's findings.
The deliverables include:
- A 10-minute presentation showing our group's findings
- Includes visual aid (images / videos) and vocal aid (actual speaking)
- Research portfolio
- Contains information on what types of roles we'd be interested in when studying or as a career
- 500 word summary
The presentations have to be visually appealing; make them look pretty! They should be no more than 20 slides, containing an intro, quotes from practitioners, a conclusion and a bibliography. Spelling and grammar are also important to consider.
So what's the aim of this project? It's mostly to familiarise us with the roles that are out there, and to make us think more about our own employability. We should be considering what we want to go into after graduation, and researching the roles out there is a good way of learning the intricacies of potential jobs.
We got put into our groups after this presentation; I'm with 4 people I don't know at all; Jacob, Tom, Tanje and Gareth. The set date for the presentations is the 30th of April, so that's just about 5 or 6 weeks away.
We got another presentation after learning who we were with, this time looking at the different animation disciplines and production types we can look at.
It started with "traditional" animation productions, that being animated films and television shows. There are three types of these features; 3D animated (e.g. Toy Story 3, Star Wars: The Clone Wars), 2D animated (e.g. Aladdin, Gravity Falls) and stop motion (e.g. Wallace and Gromit, Robot Chicken). We then looked further into that looking at the different age groups that watch specific productions.
(The trailer for Pixar's Toy Story 3 - credit: Pixar Animation Studios)
Then we delved into more specific animation types and productions, including TV idents and adverts.
(Channel 4's 2018 idents, involving a giant made up of the blocks from the channel's logo - credit: Channel 4)
There was also a brief look at Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality, and how animated stories can be told with the viewer able to fully explore the world it's happening in. Related to this is video game animation, specifically in cutscenes.
(Cutscenes from Valve's Portal 2, pertaining to space - credit: Valve)
We finally looked at VFX, where animated characters and effects are applied on top of live action footage.
(Framestore's VFX reel for their work on Avengers: Infinity War - credit: Framestore, Marvel Studios)
For the final part of the presentation, we learnt more about the animation industry in the UK. The facts and figures are a lot more surprising than I expected; there are 10,000 people in the UK working in animation, with a 60:40 male to female ratio. 50% of animators are freelance, meaning they get a lot more freedom and choice in their work. But the most surprising thing to me was learning there's a skill shortage. Animators, storyboarders and production staff / management are in desperate need; shocking to me because I expected there to not be enough jobs.We then split off into our groups, and decided what we'd look at for our presentations. To put it bluntly, our group's chemistry is non-existent at this point. None of us knew each other, so we didn't have any kind of reference point to go by in terms of what we know already. Eventually we settled on character design after deciding we all liked, and I quote, "character stuff".
We wrote down a list of potential subtopics from the character design angle we could look further into, as well as characters we'd want to look at.
Overall, I'm a little bit more enthusiastic about this research task than the other two, mostly because I hated doing the essays. This allows for a bit more creativity, even if it is just in a powerpoint form. But I'm not so sure about the group angle. I've known for a while I need to improve on working in a group, and I feel like I've achieved that for the most part in other animation tasks. But this group in particular has me a bit concerned. There doesn't seem to be anyone desperate to jump straight into the project, and it feels like we still need time to get to know each other. But only time will tell.
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