Notes after the interim crit -- OUAN405, The Other Side

People gave me positive feedback on the animatic itself, but the actual story didn't seem to impress much. Now the group seems to have agreed with my own doubts about the idea it is only confirming my thoughts that it is a rubbish premise, and that I should start over with one of my other ideas.
People also made comparisons to the film Space Jam, which I now realise I have essentially ripped off, but without the payoff of the good guys winning at the end.

Photography Induction

This is the same photo with different shutter speeds. I used the exposure metre to get the "correct" medium exposure, but i actually think that it looks slightly underexposed - somewhere between the overexposure and the medium exposure probably would have looked best.

The first long exposure I took handheld, and the background and foreground are very shaky. The second one I took with the camera on a fence post, which removed some blur. In the first photo I think the people walking past look better than those in the second photo, even though they were both taken with the same camera settings.

The first exposure shows a shallow depth of field, and the second one a much wider one. In order to keep the images looking similar I raised the ISO for the second exposure, which has added a fair amount of noise in some of the darker areas. I chose to raise the ISO as I was shooting handheld and didn't want to increase the shutter speed for fear of blurring the image out.

Creating an animatic in Premier Pro -- OUAN405, Practice

To create my animatic I scanned in the initial thumbnail storyboards from my sketchbook, edited out my annotations in Photoshop, and isolated any moving elements from the backgrounds. Then I imported all the seperate files into Premier, using motion controls to animate the moving parts.
Sound effects were found on Youtube.

After Effects Induction

The Other Side Football Match, Visual Inspiration -- OUAN405, The Other Side

Some visual cues. I want to use a quite limited pallet, like in the Eleanor Rigby scene from Yellow Submarine. I also plan to use a similar repetitive look for the warmup scene in my animation. I want to use lots of squash and stretch and exaggerated figures like the football match in Bedknobs and Broomsticks, and the slapstick violence as well.

South Park Storyboards -- OUAN403, Telling Stories

South Park is known for its quick turnarounds - episodes are often planned, written and animated within a week, famously allowing them to react to current affairs in a way that no other cartoon achieves. Because of the tight schedules that the animators are working to, it is important for them to know precisely what work to do and how to do it - as a result the storyboards produced by the writing team are very descriptive, using lots of annotation to describe the action.

In fact, the actual drawings are quite lively and expressive, often more so than the rigid animated style of the finished show - including levels of facial expression not always achieved in the final product.

Internet Meme Animation, starring Drake, Arsene Wenger and more -- OUAN403, Identify

There is no single animation that I am going to talk about in this post, instead I am talking about a recent trend in internet comedy - the editing of short video clips, normally adding in humourous props, or superimposing somebody's face into another situation. These videos make use of motion tracking in programs like After Effects.
Like any good viral meme, these videos normally come in swarms surrounding a particular event - most recently has been the release of Drake's ridiculous video for Hotline Bling, prompting various edits of his lame dance moves.

It is a testament to the power of the softwares used that people are now able to do fairly detailed and high quality animating quick enough to jump on the viral wave before it dies down.

Another steady source of these videos is professional football. Videos like these are released within hours of the final result of a match, often portraying the winning manager or players celebrating, or depicting some cruel analogy of the losing team being beaten. Here is my favourite, released on Vine only minutes after Arsenal won the 2015 FA Cup final:

The Other Side, Football Match Character Designs -- OUAN405, The Other Side

A few character designs for the footballers. "The Oher Side" need to be physically intimidating, with lots of grimacing. There won't be any vocals in the animation but I might include some grunting or heavy breathing to make this team seem more animalistic, and some whimpering or chattering teeth to make the weaker team look more scared and diminutive.

I am debating whether the team bus for "The Other Side" should be a plain design, which would leave more of a surprise as the dust clears and the team are revealed, or to have it heavily stylised to look aggressive or suit the character of the team. I was imagining something like the bus out of the film Doomsday.

White Stripes, Fell In Love With A Girl (Dir. Michel Gondry) -- OUAN403, Identify

The video for White Stripe's song Fell In Love With A Girl is a primary coloured, 2 minute long, punk riot, animated entirely with Lego blocks. I like how the video differs from most Lego based animations by using the blocks to create flat frames rather than animating Lego figures. The animators actually used a sort of rotoscoping technique, turning live footage of the White Stripes into Lego-ised frames. Some scenes are a bit messy, as the size of the Lego pieces limits the amount of detail possible, but others achieve a really lovely bold, pop-arty look. I would like to have a go at animating with this technique - although rebuilding the Lego for every single shot is a mammoth effort, the results are very pleasing.

The animation of Terry Gilliam -- OUAN403, Identify

Among all the jokes (including loads i wouldn't understand for years) what made a 12 year old me fall in love with Monty Python were the animated inserts. I particularly remember The Holy Grail as one of the first times I had seen animation mixed into live action - and there was also something special about the fact that it was quite clearly a film aimed at adults that contained what I had previously considered an artform meant for children. The lo-fi paper cutouts added another layer of wacky humour, helped move the story along, and I later understood that they were also a cost-saving device. The film, which is full of meta-jokes, probably most famously the final scene where a policeman breaks the fourth wall, also contains one of my favourite jokes; the animated heroes are being chased by a terrible monster, all hope is lost and the beast is about to pounce. Until the animator has a heart attack - saving their lives. This was almost certainly the first piece of animation I had seen which acknowledged itself as such, and explained, albeit in a humourous way, the relationship between animator and animation.

The Ant and the Grasshopper, Władysław Starewicz -- OUAN403, Identify

A surprisingly sophisticated stop-motion considering it was made in 1911. Starewicz' take on the classic morality fable ramps up the action, the grasshopper being depicted as not only lazy, but an alcoholic.
The sets and puppets are beautifully crafted, and the animation, whilst being quite jerky, does manage to convey some personality to its characters. When winter comes and the leaves fall, the grasshopper looks genuinely morose - despite this the cruel ant still mocks her request for help, even watching as the grasshopper curls up in the snow to die.
This sort of animation was still in its infancy, and there is a stiffness to some of the movement which can be put down to a lack of easing, as well as some of the other 12 principles which presumably hadn't been devised in 1911.

10 Second Animation -- OUAN403, Apply

My 10 second animation was achieved by a mix of traditional drawn animation and digital editing. The individual characters were hand drawn seperately from each other and animated in Photoshop, backgrounds were also created in Photoshop, and then it was all layered up in Premier, using the motion control panel to edit timings and movements. SFX were sourced from online public domain databases as well as the running sound effect from the Hanna Barbera collection.

I am mostly happy with the outcome, although I think the use of photographic backgrounds makes the 2D drawings look especially flat. I also got bored of the story halfway through animating, another symptom of my habit of rushing in and starting on the first idea that comes to my head, without much development, and I think there could be a bit more narrative instead of the quite linear action that came out. Also the process of hand drawing, scanning, cleaning up every frame in Photoshop, and then amalgamating it all in Premier seemed like a very time consuming way of producing a 10 second film. Yeah, I get that animation is a slow process, but there definitely seems like a mismatch in the time expended and final result - and I would like to explore other possible techniques for traditional animation which might streamline the process.

The Beatles' Yellow Submarine -- OUAN403, Identify

As mentioned in my post about the storyboards this is one of my favourite films, and possibly my favourite ever animated film. It is essentially a series of music videos, each with a distinct animation style, connected by a loose story preaching peace and love. Heinz Edelmann who was artistic director on the film says that the decision to make the film like this was made as a way of keeping the audiences' attention for 90 minutes, as up until then every animation studio who had attempted to produce a feature length film had gone bust in the process, the only exception being Disney.

Throughout most of the film the animation is fairly limited. There are a lot of static shots with only a small amount of movement on the one character who is currently talking, but the musical sections contain much more interesting snippets of animation. Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds is rotoscoped, Eleanor Rigby is a collage of loops, cutouts and old film footage, and Only A Northern Song uses one of the first instances of visualised audio waveforms outside of a recording studio. In fact, off the top of my head the film makes use of almost every form of animation available in the pre-digital age.

To top it all off it has a cracking soundtrack using songs from Revolver and Magical Mystery Tour, plus three previously unreleased tracks and snippets of many other Beatles hits, and a cinematic score composed by George Martin.

5 bloody stars!!!

Some of the different styles of animation:

Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds

Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds

Eleanor Rigby

Eleanor Rigby

Only A Northern Song

Only A Northern Song

Pose to Pose Pendulum -- OUAN403, Explore

I was pleased with the outcome of my pendulum swing, the cushioning worked well. It is 12 frames repeated, and I think it looks a lot smoother than some of the other students' because it swings on a narrower angle - the restrictions on the amount of frames mean that if I had used a longer arc the gaps between drawings would have to be larger and therefore the movement look a bit jerkier.

Flip books -- OUAN403, Explore

I was happy with one flip book, and not so happy with the other. Oddly the bouncing ball was the one I  don't like so much, and the jumping rabbit which seems like it would be harder came out better.

I don't like how the ball lands. The stretch whilst it is airborne is ok, but the squash when it impacts doesn't look very natural to me, I think it looks like it loses some momentum as well, since it sort of squashes backwards to where it has come from.

I like the secondary action and anticipation that I achieved with the ears as they flop around, but the rest of the rabbit's body seems a bit stiff, even though I wanted to go for a relaxed and floaty kind of movement.

Submarine Sandwich by PES -- OUAN403, Identify

The third film in PES' series of food animations. I only just realised this had come out, after I re-watched the Western Spaghetti and Fresh Guacamole films for the millionth times. PES again manages to pick all the right props for his pixilation/stop-motion short, which makes you go "oh yeah *everyday item* does look like *food item*". It is full of lovely smooth animation, and we finally get a full body look at our mysterious chef, but I thought that despite the slick production it wasn't quite as engaging as the previous two efforts. I think where the first two films (and Western Spaghetti in particular) were so great was that they showed more interesting processes. Cutting a boxing glove into slices of ham is cool, but then the next ingredient is also sliced on the same machine, and the next, and the next. Where Western Spaghetti showed slicing, boiling, frying, serving, Submarine Sandwich repeats the one action and leaves me wanting more from an animator who can do so much better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWEl8-PHhMI

Yellow Submarine Storyboards -- OUAN403, Telling Stories

Quite possibly my favourite animated film of all time, despite The Beatles not even bothering to voice-act their own characters. The film itself is fairly crudely animated for the most part (the sections in which the animation style changes temporarily are generally much nicer to watch and more interesting artistically), and the storyboards are equally rough and ready. They have an almost funny-pages quality to them, with sound effects drawn in the frames, and fairly detailed characters rendered on empty backgrounds (just like much of the film). I especially like the vague notes like "Ringo tells John what they're about"

Perhaps for the small studio that made the film these basic images were enough - Heinz Edelmann's psychedelic art direction was very clear, the character models fairly basic and the actual animation very limited, so maybe the animators only needed rough instruction. Another photo from the studio shows a wall of coloured and more detailed thumbnails, so we can also assume that these line drawings may be preliminary sketches.

Jaws Storyboards by Joe Alves -- OUAN403, Telling Stories

A firm favourite in my family, and generally accepted as a classic, Jaws shows Stephen Spielberg flexing his directorial muscles and produced some of the most famous and most parodied scenes in cinema. The storyboard artist on Jaws was Joe Alves, who had this to say about storyboarding the film:

"For JAWS, the shots needed to be meticulously planned so that everyone knew which shark was to be used and how the shot would be achieved (sled, left to right & right to left). Since it took literally a day per shot each storyboard drawing had to be precise."

Alves was actually on set for a lot of the shoot, and he describes his storyboards almost like a technical guide for the crew rather than simply a visual aid for the director or  cinematographer. It may even be that such a smart and creative director as Spielberg needed someone like Alves to act as a communication aid between the director and technical teams.

I personally think his boards are visually attractive, and at the same time very descriptive of each shot. Alves doesn't bother to describe the type of shot or camera angles etc. as the drawings are very descriptive themselves, but he does add some notes about the action taking place in the shot.

"Football Match" Storyboard -- OUAN405, The Other Side

Storyboard for the "Sports Match" idea. Decided to display some cartoon violence in this football match.

Story Ideas -- OUAN405, The Other Side

Pre-Production - Story Ideas

Sports Match:
A team warm up by the side of a football pitch. (look at footballers from Eleanor Rigby scene in Yellow Submarine). A bus pulls up and opponent team step out looking physically powerful/superior, and very scary/aggressive. Cut to the first team looking scared and quaking in their boots. Cut to the captains shaking hands and flipping a coin, then the referee blows his whistle, cut to black. Next shot first team in the pub looking very battered and bruised, crutches and casts etc. One player lips to the bare, barman says "Had a rough match?" player replies "You should see the other side."

Crossing the floor:
A man in a suit and blue tie walks down the street. He see s a homeless man wrapped in a blanket trying to sleep in a doorway. He sees a queue of people including old folks and people in wheelchairs outside the job centre. He sees a small business shutting down, next door a giant chain supermarket is being built/opening. He looks worried at each of these sights, but continues walking. We see a shot of Big Ben/Houses of Parliament, and then interior of ministers in session. The main character is sitting on a green bench as debate takes place. Suddenly he stands up and tears off his tie, walks down from the benches and crosses the floor.

Attack:
One or two characters in military fatigues with assault rifles are in a building (maybe a barn/garage/warehouse) barricading doors. They work efficiently and don't look too scared. Cut to them sitting round a small fire eating tins of beans. It is dark and they are eating in silence. Suddenly a dog begins to bark outside, and they look scared, reaching for their rifles. The dog stops barking with a death rattle. Suddenly there is a banging on the walls and a zombie moaning sound. The characters stand up looking grim and in silence cock their weapons. Cut to black.

Dark side of the moon:
A child looks out his window at the gibbous moon. Camera zooms through space and round to the other side of the moon. We see a portal open on the ground and various semi-organic spaceships and massive monsters (see Avengers) crawl/fly out and amass. A slow track into the biggest spaceship, in through a window to the control room, an alien in military looking clothes says something in alien language, subtitles read "ATTACK."

Card Game:
A bead of water dribbles down a surface. As we zoom out it reveals to be sweat on a man's forehead. He is concentrating hard and staring forward. Opposite is another man, looking more calm but still concentrating. Neither are willing to break eye contact with each other. Next shot we see four cards face up on the table between them, each man holds two cards, the first gripping them intently, the second holding them nonchalantly and carefree. A croupier picks up one last card from the deck, and lays it face up on the table. The men's expressions intensify. Quick alternating cuts between a track into the first man's worried eyes and the cards in the second man's hands. Sound effects and music build up in tension. The second man smiles an enigmatic smile and throws his cards on the table. Cut to black.