WEEK 9 SUMMARY

WEEK BEGINNING - February 11th, 2019

WEEK ENDING - February 17th, 2019

MONDAY - Mystery Box Briefing

Original post: https://ncarolannua1b.blogspot.com/2019/02/mystery-box-briefing.html

"I'm really interested to see how this project will go, considering it's the first real CGI animation I'm going to be doing! I have to storyboard some idea for what I could do for this animation, and at the minute I'm not entirely sure what that could involve. I'm sure I'll have something by the time the next session rolls around! There's a performance workshop on Wednesday, where I can start working on more realised ideas!"

WEDNESDAY - Performance Workshop

Original post: https://ncarolannua1b.blogspot.com/2019/02/mystery-box-performance-workshop.html

"Did I enjoy this session though? Kinda. I think it was the repetition that got me; I realise it's important and understand this is entirely a me-thing, but doing the same short performance over and over with changes so minor each time just didn't seem too interesting to me. I much prefer going with more wild ideas and trying something entirely new each time."

THURSDAY - Performance Analysis

Original post: https://ncarolannua1b.blogspot.com/2019/02/mystery-box-performance-analysis.html

SUMMARY

This week was all about introducing the Mystery Box unit, and stuff surrounding it. And while my excitement for it dwindled a little bit from session to session this week, I'm still overall enthusiastic! The choice for what medium we do this task in is exciting, since it's our first real experience with choosing what we could expertise in! I've not really been a fan of producing stop motion, so I think CG is the way for me to go. Like I said, my enthusiasm dwindled a little bit, but that was mostly due to not actually animating this week. I understand that the performance element is important, and it's entirely a "me" thing that I let not animating get to me.

ANIMATION PRINCIPLES - SCENE ANALYSIS #3

For this scene analysis, I'm going to look at a scene from Gravity Falls, which aired from 2012 to 2016 and was created by Alex Hirsch.

 

(A clip from season 2 episode 11, titled "Not What He Seems" - credit: Disney Television Animation) 

STAGING
There are a few examples in this clip where staging is used really effectively. One of the most notable ones to me is when Agent Powers' car and a police car are being lifted off the ground in all the strangeness going on. We get a worms eye view directly up, something not seen very often in any medium. We see the under-side of both cars, and Powers' face poking out the window, scared and yelling. This staging is used  to emphasise just how weird and unusual this scenario is; using an unconventional camera angle feeds into that.

Another example of effective staging is when Stan gets pinned up to a wall with a pipe. This ties in with elements from his character arc across the episode. The beginning of the episode shows Stan's inner conflict on whether he tells Dipper and Mabel about what he has hidden in the Mystery Shack's basement. Midway through the episode, Dipper, Mabel and Soos discover Stan's been hiding secrets from all of them for years. This gives the shot of Stan pinned up against the wall, all on his own, a bit more emotion and depth to it. It shows Stan at his most vulnerable, and at the brink of losing everything he's worked for.

WEIGHT AND EFFORT
We see hints of weight and effort across the entire scene, especially when characters are colliding midair, pushing each other, and generally interacting in a rougher manner than usual. A good example is when Dipper floats toward, and then collides with, a large beam. We see the impact the beam has on Dipper; it's a lot heavier than he is, so it's less of what he can do to it, more so what it can do to him. During the impact, we see that the beam causes Dipper's body to be thrown to the side a little bit. So much so that he has to bounce back a little bit, he hit the beam that hard. This impact can most be seen in his head, as it lowers down and squishes his cheek up.

SECONDARY ACTION
Most of the secondary actions the characters experience is as a result of the wind blowing. This means that Dipper, Mabel & Soos' hair and the rope on Stan's fez flow about. 

Characters also communicate with their hands quite a lot. As Dipper tells Mabel to "listen to her head", he points towards his own head. Characters also make small gestures with their hands when they're just talking in various scenes.

EXAGGERATION
This scene is more serious in tone compared to the more fun, adventurous feel previous episodes and scenes have had. In this vein, you wouldn't expect any exaggeration to heighten any kind of humour or make movements seem more cartoony. But there is a moment when a character has their facial features exaggerated to show extreme emotion. Mabel decides to do the opposite of what Dipper was hoping her to do, which could potentially "destroy the universe". So he's pretty angry; and the transformation of his face shows it. His face elongates, his angry eyebrows raise in a mixture of anger and disbelief, and his eyes grow bigger .

EASE IN / EASE OUT
The major scene where easing in and out is showcased is after Mabel presses the red button and causes a massive flash bang. After seeing it spread throughout the town, we see all the debris floating about slowly stop ascending, and then very quickly fall to the ground.

MYSTERY BOX - PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS

This is, essentially, a part 2 to this post. This session, we were analysing our performances from yesterday.

But first, some theory. Mostly, it was the theory of performance itself. Within the Larbon Movement analysis, there are 4 main things to take into account: Body, Effort, Space and Shape. We delved a little deeper into Effort specifically, and learned it was made up of time, weight and direction.

We did a mini-analysis of a Charlie Chaplin short, looking at how Chaplin's performance is exaggerated and carnivalesque.

(A clip from one of Charlie Chaplin's films - credit: Charlie Chaplin)

The two main things picked up from this clip was how he moves very directly and that his poses are very clean cut. For the latter, this means that you could abstract his form as far as you want, and still get the idea of what exact pose he's making. There's no subtlety, there's no small movements, it's all LOUD. The reason for this, ironically, is because of there's no sound from Chaplin at all. He had to communicate entirely through his body, letting audiences know what he's feeling by moving and posing very clearly and cleanly.

Exaggerated poses like this break the Kinosphere; the personal bubble. By going into extreme reaches from it's X, Y and Z axis, you can achieve more far-reaching poses, where you dial your movements up to more than natural. Contrast that with smaller, closer poses, which are called near-reach poses. Anything between those two are just mid-reach poses.

Next, we moved on to the 5 main poses of physical acting. There are:

• THE PIN - Straight up, thin poses.
• THE WALL - Wide and tall, making yourself seem bigger
• THE BALL - Somewhat sphere-like, making yourself seem smaller
• THE SCREW - Your pose has some kind of twist in it (usually from the hips)
• THE PYRAMID - Poses where your base are larger than the top

Using the "Do You Want To Build A Snowman?" progression reel from last time, me and some of the others were asked to come up and show how the opening few shots use all 5 of these pose types.

After the presentation wrapped up, we went back and looked at our own performances from yesterday, and saw how the poses could be pushed further, especially after learning about the 5 Poses and Kinosphere. I looked at the poses from the last session, and tried to draw basic interpretations of them but with the added notes and enhanced performance elements.

I feel like this session was really beneficial to my Mystery Box animation! It's going to help out with making the performance more engaging, as well as following more of the animation principles than I would beforehand.

MYSTERY BOX - PERFORMANCE WORKSHOP

This post will be going over the performance workshop we did for our Mystery Box project.

We started off with a warmup game, called "Chase the Chicken". We had to imagine we were following a sequence of events:

1. Chasing a runaway chicken
2. Reaction to seeing it get away
3. Grow sad about it
4. React to clouds parting, sun shining, and seeing more chickens
5. Sneaking up on a chicken
6. Successfully catching it

We'd block out our own sequences, each time being more focused on one particular area of it. One stage that would prove important later on was exaggerating our movements, so we can show what the character is feeling through their body language, as clearly as possible.

Once Chase the Chicken was done, we moved on to work on our own Mystery Box animations, and blocking out what movements we wanted for it. We all came up with some individual ideas, which we would workshop across the rest of the session. I had a few ideas, mostly having indifferent or positive reactions to what was in the box. But ultimately, I found the one negative reaction the most interesting. The events would go as follows:

1. Character walks across, just overshooting the box
2. They look back, becoming curious of the box
3. They check their watch, have they got time to look in the box?
4. They do! The character walks to the box
5. Crouches down to look in the box, and...
6. SHOCK! Something surprising and dangerous is in the box
7. Character backs up, hands in the air

When I brought the performance of my idea to the rest of the class, we worked on making it better. The first step was to understand the character's thought process more, so I said out loud what they're saying instead of remaining silent. The expressions and body movements were pushed further, to be more exaggerated. Timing was also considered, seeing how the sequence in the end will have to fit into a time threshold.

After that, we split off into groups and all tried to interpret each other's prompts. Daisy, Jenny and August all tried my blocking out, and I chose August's as what I'd use in the end! After I chose him, we took photos of what the key blocking points were. These are essentially base lines for the actual storyboard to start from!

So the next step from here is performance analysis, which is tomorrow. Did I enjoy this session though? Kinda. I think it was the repetition that got me; I realise it's important and understand this is entirely a me-thing, but doing the same short performance over and over with changes so minor each time just didn't seem too interesting to me. I much prefer going with more wild ideas and trying something entirely new each time.

ANIMATION PRINCIPLES - SCENE ANALYSIS #2

For this scene analysis, I'm going to look at a cutscene from the game Epic Mickey 2, released in 2012 and developed by Junction Point Studios.

(Cutscene #4 from Epic Mickey 2 - credit: Disney Interactive, Junction Point Studios)

ANTICIPATION
There are quite a few examples of anticipation in this animation. Anticipation is somewhat easier to make apparent in hand-drawn animation over CGI or stop motion, since you can somewhat emphasise the movements more so than in other mediums.

The majority of anticipations implemented are when characters move their arms, head, and other body parts. They first recoil the part they're going to move back, and then move it in the opposite direction with greater speed and power.

One example this cutscene uses is when the Mad Doctor unbuttons his lab coat. He pulls his arm up to it's extreme after grabbing the button, and then drags it back down across his body to it's opposite extreme.

Other characters use anticipation in a similar way, like when Mickey and Oswald both react to something being said, they bring their arms back a little bit, and then forward again in a bigger, further motion.

FOLLOW-THROUGH
Oswald the Lucky Rabbit has long, tall ears, which lends perfectly to follow through. They wouldn't lead the body in any way, they're always reactionary. Whenever the head moves, the ears will always take a second to move as well.

This is best illustrated when the Mad Doctor picks up Oswald, and raises him up above his head. The upwards force is making Oswald lead with his head, and the ears only catch up once the major movement stops. There's also some bounce back too, where the ears go forward a little further, only to come back to where they'd finally stay. This is as a result of excessive force going forward, and needing to recoil back a little.

Ear movements like this continue throughout not just the game's cutscenes, but through the game itself.

SECONDARY ACTION
The animation in this cutscene is a lot more style over substance, so the animation doesn't get complex enough to include too much secondary action. However, I found one shot which perfectly uses secondary actions.

Towards the end of the cutscene, a character approaches the others to reveal a pair of wind-up chattering teeth in their hands. The teeth have two actions going on at the same time; the primary action is the teeth jumping around and chattering. However, on the side of the teeth, we can see the key to wind them up, which is slowly spinning. Both these actions going on at the same time applied to one element counts as a secondary action.

Oswald's ears could also be seen as a secondary action.

STAGING
During one sequence during the musical number, the Mad Doctor recalls back to events from the first game, where he was driven to villainy in his attempt to control a large evil creature known as the Blot. As he describes this, we have an show looking up at the Mad Doctor with a shadow of the Blot behind him, towering over him.

The beginning of the game made it clear that the Mad Doctor wanted to redeem himself after his original actions (which, ultimately, turns out to be a lie). So the staging is somewhat reminiscent of the fact that the Blot will always haunt him, whether he's repented or not. The taller stature of the Blot could play into the hierarchy of power in their relationship, seeing that in the end it was the Blot who was in charge all along.

MYSTERY BOX - BRIEFING

Today we were properly introduced to our Mystery Box brief. 

The project involves us making a short animation with a predefined CG rig or stop motion armature. We're to consider applying the animation principles to when the character walks onscreen, looks inside of a box, and their reaction. The box cannot be moved or touched, and the audience can't see what's inside it; only the character. It should last between 10 and 15 seconds, and be one fixed shot. We should also consider what's actually in the box, and how the character reacts.

Along with the usual deliverables, we're handing in:

• A storyboard, detailing the sequence
• An animatic
• The Mystery Box sequence itself

Exaggerated physical performance is a vital part of this task. The animation won't have any audio, all the information about the character's emotions & thoughts has to be entirely done through body language. We looked at classic silent performers and how they show a range of performances using only body language.

(Charlie Chaplin in "The Lion's Cage", a film that involves Chaplin only using physical movements and signals to communicate - credit: Charlie Chaplin)

We were given the choice between CGI and Stop Motion for this project. I chose CGI, for various reasons I discuss in both my Maya and Stop Motion workshop blog posts. We would be working in Maya again, and the animation would be a three step process:

1. BLOCKING  - Key poses, held to allow clarity for review
2. ANIMATION - Converting stepped keyframes to spline, and adjust to make a more appealing performance
3. POLISH - Refining movements and adding detailed keyframes

We saw an example of these steps at play with shot progression reels, specifically from Frozen and Kung-Fu Panda 3.

And that was the end of a surprisingly short briefing! I'm really interested to see how this project will go, considering it's the first real CGI animation I'm going to be doing! I have to storyboard some idea for what I could do for this animation, and at the minute I'm not entirely sure what that could involve. I'm sure I'll have something by the time the next session rolls around! There's a performance workshop on Wednesday, where I can start working on more realised ideas!