Monday, 4 May 2015
Sunday, 3 May 2015
The Ani Jam - Nina and Flick
As a class, we seem to have a propensity to work to foolishly improbable deadlines (see: 10 films 10 days), so i reckoned the challange of The Ani Jam wasn't anything i couldn't handle. After i convinced Vera to join me, we got to thinking about the sort of thing we'd like to create. We had both just seen the then latest film from London based studio Animade, called "Chronemics". We were fascinated at the creative play between light and dark, and decided to, if we could find a chance to, play with this aspect in our film.
Chronemics from Animade on Vimeo.
Aside from this one idea, we decided to go in sort of blind, with only a rough idea of what we wanted to do, no big plans. The story, characters etc would be decided on the night. We brought a range of materials, including a whole load of paper that we punched and put back into its packaging, which took forever.
The day of the Jam came, and after meeting and greeting and a few free beers at the Citizen M hotel in glasgow, we got assigned our words to base our film off of. We were assigned the word TRIP and the easter egg that everyone was assigned was CLOCK.
We decided to interpret trip in as many ways as we could. Trip, as in journey, trip, as in fall, trip, as in strange state of mind. Our initial idea was of a character wandering round in a strange void, where their interactions with the space would cause strange and unexpected outcomes (definitions one and three). As we were sketching out ideas for scenes, i came across a page in my sketchbook that i thought could be useful - a little character I'd drawn that sort of resembled a light switch. At this point we had the idea, that what the character reacted with was not the environment, but another character, who in turn changed and sculpted the environment.
Thus Nina and Flick were born
At this point we were about an hour in, we decided to spend no more than two hours storyboarding
and designing characters in order to get as much production time as possible. We thought of scenarios that these two characters could be in - Nina could switch flick and the air could turn to water, birds could turn to fish, things slow down, day turns to night, objects could change their form, time could pass, the floor could dissapear etc. We pieced the best of these together in a story where Nina meets Flick, spends the day exploring with him, before having to say goodbye. (also we managed to get a physical trip in the story, definition two, check). What we at first thought would be a weird and visually striking film, turned into quite a strangely sweet one, much thanks to Vera's character designs, especially Flick's who seemed to evoke an "Aww!" reaction from most people.
After about 40 hours of very little sleep, lots of free juice, croissants and pizza, and the repetition of the hotels playlist at least three times, Our frames were all drawn out. Then it was on to probably one of the most hellish editing experiences of my life. With less than four hours, the sound took a serious hit, and it almost didn't get finished. But we got it in probably bang on the deadline, I'm not even sure my brain probably looked like mashed potatoes at this point.
It took a lot of hard work and perseverance to finish this film. It probably wasn't healthy, what we did. In the end, it definitely payed off, what with us winning and all. What i learned from this project is that a) story is key, it is what engages people, and it is what makes animation worth doing a lot of the time, and b) it is so important to respect your team-mates, doing so will make sure you can make the best work possible.
Chronemics from Animade on Vimeo.
Aside from this one idea, we decided to go in sort of blind, with only a rough idea of what we wanted to do, no big plans. The story, characters etc would be decided on the night. We brought a range of materials, including a whole load of paper that we punched and put back into its packaging, which took forever.
The day of the Jam came, and after meeting and greeting and a few free beers at the Citizen M hotel in glasgow, we got assigned our words to base our film off of. We were assigned the word TRIP and the easter egg that everyone was assigned was CLOCK.
We decided to interpret trip in as many ways as we could. Trip, as in journey, trip, as in fall, trip, as in strange state of mind. Our initial idea was of a character wandering round in a strange void, where their interactions with the space would cause strange and unexpected outcomes (definitions one and three). As we were sketching out ideas for scenes, i came across a page in my sketchbook that i thought could be useful - a little character I'd drawn that sort of resembled a light switch. At this point we had the idea, that what the character reacted with was not the environment, but another character, who in turn changed and sculpted the environment.
Thus Nina and Flick were born
At this point we were about an hour in, we decided to spend no more than two hours storyboarding
and designing characters in order to get as much production time as possible. We thought of scenarios that these two characters could be in - Nina could switch flick and the air could turn to water, birds could turn to fish, things slow down, day turns to night, objects could change their form, time could pass, the floor could dissapear etc. We pieced the best of these together in a story where Nina meets Flick, spends the day exploring with him, before having to say goodbye. (also we managed to get a physical trip in the story, definition two, check). What we at first thought would be a weird and visually striking film, turned into quite a strangely sweet one, much thanks to Vera's character designs, especially Flick's who seemed to evoke an "Aww!" reaction from most people.
After about 40 hours of very little sleep, lots of free juice, croissants and pizza, and the repetition of the hotels playlist at least three times, Our frames were all drawn out. Then it was on to probably one of the most hellish editing experiences of my life. With less than four hours, the sound took a serious hit, and it almost didn't get finished. But we got it in probably bang on the deadline, I'm not even sure my brain probably looked like mashed potatoes at this point.
It took a lot of hard work and perseverance to finish this film. It probably wasn't healthy, what we did. In the end, it definitely payed off, what with us winning and all. What i learned from this project is that a) story is key, it is what engages people, and it is what makes animation worth doing a lot of the time, and b) it is so important to respect your team-mates, doing so will make sure you can make the best work possible.
Wednesday, 29 April 2015
The Exhibiton Pt. 2.
A quick word on the exhibition
We funded enough for whitespace through bake sales mainly, but also from our own pocket.
We began to promote the event, mainly by badgering all of our friends on facebook. After postering all around the city, we set up a vimeo channel with a 12 day countdown of videos leading up to the night
https://vimeo.com/user37386443
And through a bizarre turn of events, we ended up being shown on STV for the fountainbridge show advertising the exhibition. (?!???!!??!!!???) This was the night before the exhibition started, and we needed a trailer that showed examples of our work. We cut this together a good hour before going on air as it was a pretty last minute request, on top of everything else that was going on, but it came together quite nicely: https://vimeo.com/120730550
After coming back from being on TV, i sat down to decide the final running order for the show. It was something that, through the production of three new films of my own, i hadn't really considered. I tried to roughly pace the running order in my head, so that the longer and more complex films, along with new creations for the event, were spaced evenly throughout the reel, with the shorter films acting as sort of "stings". It was also important to note the tone of the films i was ordering, i din't want to bunch together too many of a similar type, as it would saturate for the audience, so again this required thought. On opening night i was complimented by a couple of people for the running order, so i guess it worked.
As a group we thought of ways to communicate the work of the animators to the audience. A programme was the obvious solution, but we worried it would be an issue of continuous printing and litter. Instead we decided to do little artist bios that included a photograph, contact info, and the list of films made by that person, alongside screenshots of said film so they could be identified. After piecing 11 of these together very neatly, i stuck them down on mountboard and if i do say so myself they looked damn professional.
The opening night was a success, in my eyes. Despite multiple technical issues surrounding the show, and the fact that we were nailing up our atwork to the walls until the last minute, our guest screening was a success with lots of people from the animation industry in edinburgh showing up, then many more friends later. It was a chance to show how creative we can be and how much we have learned at our time in Uni in a very legitimate way.
My wallspace was filled with a few scans of sketchbook pages showing some development for some of the films i included in the show
I also included a demonstration of how i achieved the effect from one of my ten films ten days films "drive" https://vimeo.com/117426380 . The frames i used in the animation, i hung up in the gallery. Unfortunately i didn't take a photo of this.
In terms of the show, i had 5 of my ten films ten days films in, along with three new ones I'd created for the event.
1) No
I wanted to make something that made little sense. Why is she constantly clicking no. why is she so angry at being interrupted. I wanted to create some sort of surreal loop wherein the audience isn't really sure why something is happening, but accepts that it is.
2) Bored
This was probably the thing i was most disappointed with that i made for SHORTS. Initially, i wanted to make a film where i used a laser cutter to engrave each frame into wood. Upon the completion of the animation though, i soon learned that economically, (probably ecologically too) and time-wise it was completely unfeesable with the scope of my animation (I kind of got carried away). I was planning to shoot the frames in a physical location, but i feel that my intentions for this were probably mostly spectacle instead of an actual feature of the film. I ended up just displaying it as a regular animation. It's a small, slow and quiet piece about being bored. I wanted to evoke that lost feeling when one is at a loss of what to do with themselves on a Sunday.
3. The Really Scary Snakes
This film actually started as a joke between friends in a pub one evening when we all wore a very similar outfit and joked we should start a gang. And six months late, wouldn't you know it, it became an animation. This is the thing with animating a joke, it takes so long to do you are not even sure if its funny anymore in the end. Anyway. What i always find funny is the media's complete overreaction to harmless youth activity, so I chose to narrate this in the style of a news report, with the very stiff british computer voice. With the sound in general i wanted to play around. instead of regular footsteps and body hits, i really wanted the sound to transform the piece. This rubbery sound i felt really gave the characters a whole different feel, instead of being people, they are these rubbery leather beings that are slightly uncanny.
This project is probably what i'm the most proud of in my time at uni, not to mention i think its really useful practice for when our degree show comes around.
We funded enough for whitespace through bake sales mainly, but also from our own pocket.
We began to promote the event, mainly by badgering all of our friends on facebook. After postering all around the city, we set up a vimeo channel with a 12 day countdown of videos leading up to the night
https://vimeo.com/user37386443
And through a bizarre turn of events, we ended up being shown on STV for the fountainbridge show advertising the exhibition. (?!???!!??!!!???) This was the night before the exhibition started, and we needed a trailer that showed examples of our work. We cut this together a good hour before going on air as it was a pretty last minute request, on top of everything else that was going on, but it came together quite nicely: https://vimeo.com/120730550
After coming back from being on TV, i sat down to decide the final running order for the show. It was something that, through the production of three new films of my own, i hadn't really considered. I tried to roughly pace the running order in my head, so that the longer and more complex films, along with new creations for the event, were spaced evenly throughout the reel, with the shorter films acting as sort of "stings". It was also important to note the tone of the films i was ordering, i din't want to bunch together too many of a similar type, as it would saturate for the audience, so again this required thought. On opening night i was complimented by a couple of people for the running order, so i guess it worked.
As a group we thought of ways to communicate the work of the animators to the audience. A programme was the obvious solution, but we worried it would be an issue of continuous printing and litter. Instead we decided to do little artist bios that included a photograph, contact info, and the list of films made by that person, alongside screenshots of said film so they could be identified. After piecing 11 of these together very neatly, i stuck them down on mountboard and if i do say so myself they looked damn professional.
The opening night was a success, in my eyes. Despite multiple technical issues surrounding the show, and the fact that we were nailing up our atwork to the walls until the last minute, our guest screening was a success with lots of people from the animation industry in edinburgh showing up, then many more friends later. It was a chance to show how creative we can be and how much we have learned at our time in Uni in a very legitimate way.
My wallspace was filled with a few scans of sketchbook pages showing some development for some of the films i included in the show
I also included a demonstration of how i achieved the effect from one of my ten films ten days films "drive" https://vimeo.com/117426380 . The frames i used in the animation, i hung up in the gallery. Unfortunately i didn't take a photo of this.
In terms of the show, i had 5 of my ten films ten days films in, along with three new ones I'd created for the event.
1) No
I wanted to make something that made little sense. Why is she constantly clicking no. why is she so angry at being interrupted. I wanted to create some sort of surreal loop wherein the audience isn't really sure why something is happening, but accepts that it is.
2) Bored
This was probably the thing i was most disappointed with that i made for SHORTS. Initially, i wanted to make a film where i used a laser cutter to engrave each frame into wood. Upon the completion of the animation though, i soon learned that economically, (probably ecologically too) and time-wise it was completely unfeesable with the scope of my animation (I kind of got carried away). I was planning to shoot the frames in a physical location, but i feel that my intentions for this were probably mostly spectacle instead of an actual feature of the film. I ended up just displaying it as a regular animation. It's a small, slow and quiet piece about being bored. I wanted to evoke that lost feeling when one is at a loss of what to do with themselves on a Sunday.
3. The Really Scary Snakes
This film actually started as a joke between friends in a pub one evening when we all wore a very similar outfit and joked we should start a gang. And six months late, wouldn't you know it, it became an animation. This is the thing with animating a joke, it takes so long to do you are not even sure if its funny anymore in the end. Anyway. What i always find funny is the media's complete overreaction to harmless youth activity, so I chose to narrate this in the style of a news report, with the very stiff british computer voice. With the sound in general i wanted to play around. instead of regular footsteps and body hits, i really wanted the sound to transform the piece. This rubbery sound i felt really gave the characters a whole different feel, instead of being people, they are these rubbery leather beings that are slightly uncanny.
This project is probably what i'm the most proud of in my time at uni, not to mention i think its really useful practice for when our degree show comes around.
The Man Who Lives in the Zoo pt. 2.
The groundwork for this was laid in semester one, now just lies the task of creating it. Most of the animation is finished, all that's left to do it the colouring and the background designs, which my teammate Vera is in charge of.
Ungaretti pt. 2.
So the Ungaretti project was all mapped out, it was just a case of making it. in terms of sound, i knew from the start that i wanted a sort of drone/soundscape to accompany the deathly and dark imagery. I created tension and unease in the way it was built up to the loud snap. At that point i chose to create total silence, as the line in the poem going "with the pressure, of his hands, piercing, my silence". And have the drone build up again from there.
Roy's Iron DNA Music Video
In January a classmate brought to our attention Edinburgh based Band "Roy's Iron DNA" who were looking for animators and filmmakers to create music videos for their upcoming album.
Their Brief is as follows:
"Roy's Iron DNA are currently seeking to secure a select group of video creatives to deliver 10 music videos using tracks from their forthcoming 3rd album.
The album which will be released Scotland wide in a 16 page tabloid newspaper. 10,000 copies will be printed and distributed to 250+ outlets across Scotland from Orkney to Eyemouth including the coolest bars, cafes, pubs and clubs in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, St. Andrews and many other cities and towns across the country.
Each page of the newspaper will come to life through the use of an augmented reality app called Layar. Users can download the app to their smart phone or tablet, scan the main image on the page and a music video will play instantaneously.
Film makers are required to submit their proposal for a video to the following specifications and outline idea per track."
I took a particular shining to the track "She Said", the description of which read "Dub sounds. Indie, underground club style scenes – fluorescent lighting"
I had an immediate image in my head, as it was something similar to what i had produced before in 10x10x15, but never felt i had had fully finished
I think this video itself emulates the keywords given for the song: the strange background lights backing the crisp white rhythmic graphics.
I listened to the song on repeat for an entire night, visualising what i was gonna do.
I wanted the video to "build" in a similar way as before, start of simple and minimal, and over time, to the beat, become more complex. While i liked that abstracted video background of the above film, i did want something more formative and recognisable, and with the keyword i was given of "florescent lighting" my mind went to lights when passing through a tunnel in a car (specifically memories of driving through the clyde tunnel as a kid) Once filming my backdrop (thanks to my mum driving me about with a camera pointing out the window) i began to think about the content of the foreground.
A lot of it was listening to the song and familiarising myself with the rhythms and the progression of the song, and visualsing in my head how that beat was displayed, and after sketching some ideas the main theme of the visuals were decided
I knew from these sketches that i wanted simple lines to make up the first part of the video, which would then transition into 2d geometry, which would then transition into 3d geometry, and then to formative 3d geometry, and finally to formative naturalistic shapes. This whole thing would wind down again in the end in reverse order, till it was a line again.
I still kept the ideas pretty free whenever i was making the video, i felt my way through a lot of it, creating what felt to me to be natural transitions through the different steps. While i was creating these, they seemed to form a theme, that i then utilised and carried through the piece.
The meaning of the video that i arrived at is about the journey of someone separating from something close and important to them, namely and most obviously, the ending of a relationship. The imagery at the start of the video contains a lot of shapes splitting and severing, a visualisation of the minds initial processing of the fact. It grows and splits further until the screen itself splits and two separate but related images are shown side by side. The person is thinking about "what they are going to do now", processing the now two separate lives that are being led. This then grows to a stark recollection of the moments, before during and after the moment of splitting, where it is remembered vividly and is overwhelming. But the memory then fades, and gradually, acceptance is found, and the mind is calm again, and eventually they forget. It is about the journey of this experience, which i think the inclusion of the backdrop, the moving streetlights and views of a moving road, intensifies.
The final video can be found here (It is password protected as of now as the album is yet to be released, the password is "ridna")
Their Brief is as follows:
"Roy's Iron DNA are currently seeking to secure a select group of video creatives to deliver 10 music videos using tracks from their forthcoming 3rd album.
The album which will be released Scotland wide in a 16 page tabloid newspaper. 10,000 copies will be printed and distributed to 250+ outlets across Scotland from Orkney to Eyemouth including the coolest bars, cafes, pubs and clubs in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, St. Andrews and many other cities and towns across the country.
Each page of the newspaper will come to life through the use of an augmented reality app called Layar. Users can download the app to their smart phone or tablet, scan the main image on the page and a music video will play instantaneously.
Film makers are required to submit their proposal for a video to the following specifications and outline idea per track."
I took a particular shining to the track "She Said", the description of which read "Dub sounds. Indie, underground club style scenes – fluorescent lighting"
I had an immediate image in my head, as it was something similar to what i had produced before in 10x10x15, but never felt i had had fully finished
I think this video itself emulates the keywords given for the song: the strange background lights backing the crisp white rhythmic graphics.
I listened to the song on repeat for an entire night, visualising what i was gonna do.
I wanted the video to "build" in a similar way as before, start of simple and minimal, and over time, to the beat, become more complex. While i liked that abstracted video background of the above film, i did want something more formative and recognisable, and with the keyword i was given of "florescent lighting" my mind went to lights when passing through a tunnel in a car (specifically memories of driving through the clyde tunnel as a kid) Once filming my backdrop (thanks to my mum driving me about with a camera pointing out the window) i began to think about the content of the foreground.
A lot of it was listening to the song and familiarising myself with the rhythms and the progression of the song, and visualsing in my head how that beat was displayed, and after sketching some ideas the main theme of the visuals were decided
I knew from these sketches that i wanted simple lines to make up the first part of the video, which would then transition into 2d geometry, which would then transition into 3d geometry, and then to formative 3d geometry, and finally to formative naturalistic shapes. This whole thing would wind down again in the end in reverse order, till it was a line again.
I still kept the ideas pretty free whenever i was making the video, i felt my way through a lot of it, creating what felt to me to be natural transitions through the different steps. While i was creating these, they seemed to form a theme, that i then utilised and carried through the piece.
The meaning of the video that i arrived at is about the journey of someone separating from something close and important to them, namely and most obviously, the ending of a relationship. The imagery at the start of the video contains a lot of shapes splitting and severing, a visualisation of the minds initial processing of the fact. It grows and splits further until the screen itself splits and two separate but related images are shown side by side. The person is thinking about "what they are going to do now", processing the now two separate lives that are being led. This then grows to a stark recollection of the moments, before during and after the moment of splitting, where it is remembered vividly and is overwhelming. But the memory then fades, and gradually, acceptance is found, and the mind is calm again, and eventually they forget. It is about the journey of this experience, which i think the inclusion of the backdrop, the moving streetlights and views of a moving road, intensifies.
The final video can be found here (It is password protected as of now as the album is yet to be released, the password is "ridna")
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