Lifting Tower: Mario

Me and Ewan worked together making the Santa/Mario crossover. I made the characters and Ewan did all the backgrounds. On top of the Tetris and Pacman clips that I made, Ewan has done a Space Invaders one too, so we now have four separate clips that can be shown in order or dispersed throughout everyone else's work.

Lifting Tower - PACMAN

The Pacman animation was equally as easy to complete as Tetris (maybe I will just make pixel art from now on (joke)), in retrospect it actually doesn't have that 8Bit look like the Tetris one and Ewan's Space Invaders have, because I used proper round corners in all the Illustrator shapes, and also I didn't animate the movement in the same jerky way, but I think it will probably look fine when it is projected.

Complaints with Vimeo

As of October 2017 Vimeo Basic accounts can no longer see the very basic statistics that were once on offer to those who didn't have a paid-for account. It is the latest in a long list of features Vimeo has been stripping away from its basic users, in order to force people to subscribe to premium accounts.

Vimeo once had a reputation as a classier cousin to Youtube or Dailymotion, a home for creatives which "puts video first" as their slogan states. By slowly stripping away functionality from non-paid for users they are showing themselves to be just another profit hungry corporation - and the atmosphere of a well curated site run specifically for creatives begins to look like hollow elitism from a site that has barely a thirtieth of the number of users as Youtube.

Lifting tower - Tetris

Today I finished the entire Tetris animation.
The individual blocks were made in Adobe Illustrator and animated in After Effects. AE keyframing is perfect for this sort of animation as it is deliberately jerky and movement is done in mathematical steps.

Garde Dog Visuals

Beefy Squarms were approached by Cinnamon Collective, and asked to produce some visuals for a night of live music at Wharf Chambers. They had paired us with Leeds band Garde Dog and wanted some video material to be projected on a loop during the set.

We decided to each produce an individual section which would be played in sequence.
Cinnamon's logo for the event was a kind of colourful, glitch arty letter C. I am not really a fan of glitch art or the "VHS" kind of look that lots of people are using recently, but the highly saturated colour scheme seemed to fit in with the band's psych-funk sort of style, so I chose to replicate that style slightly.

Cinnamon Logo

My idea was to find copyright-free or creative commons footage of dogs, preferably scary looking ones, and animate short loops over the top of the clips.
It was quite hard to find exactly the sort of footage I wanted, but through a number of stock libraries and vimeo's creative commons section I managed to find a minutes worth of footage.
The actual animation I did was very basic, mostly just big icons in the centre of the screen with some line boil, or short simple loops. The most complicated part was the walk cycle of the doberman type dog, on a 3/4 angle to the viewer but even that was only 6 frames long.

Lifting tower project - 8 Bit Ideas

Me and Ewan decided to work together on the lifting tower brief. Whilst brainstorming we focused on the specific requirements that Jimmy had mentioned during the briefing.

1. The projection must be in 4:3 ratio and standard definition.
2. The projections will be shown on a dark background, so bright colours must be used.

Right off the bat we decided on an old school video game theme, as it would mean using bright block colours and simple shapes. We decided on four games:

• Tetris
• Space invaders
• Pacman
• Supermario Bros.

Each one will be "christmas-ified" in different ways, for example the Tetris blocks will be designed like wrapped gifts, and Pacman will be white with a hat and carrot nose like a snowman.

Applied animation: Evaluation

This module offered an opportunity to try something I hadn't done yet on the course, a really big and ambitious animation project within a team, and whilst I was initially not happy with the mandatory nature of it, we quickly decided on a topic that all three of us were interested in and excited about working on and this made me feel more happy about being put in groups. I differed from the Responsive collaboration in that all three of us this time round were animators, and would be working on a purely animation project rather than the mixed-platform approach we took in Responsive which allowed everyone's individual skills to be utilised separately.

The three of us quickly made good working relationships, which I think was helped by the fact that we all three were personally interested in the subject of sustainability and climate change. Originally we had discussed focusing on the issue of fracking, and were planning on conducting interviews with anti-fracking activists and campaigners to create a sort of vox-pop style documentary. At the time I was looking forward to making this sort of film, but I think we all had worries about making it original and having it stand out from the many hundreds of vox-pop and talking-head kind of animations out there. For this reason we were very excited when Devi Lockwood offered us the use of her collection of climate change stories, and the opportunity for us to create a really poetic documentary from a first-hand account of climate issues.

Initially we couldn't decide on which story we liked best from our shortlist, and so I came up with the idea of each of us picking one and then producing storyboards to pitch it to the group. At the time we all thought that was a smart idea, but actually when it came down to it I think the process of going through and creating storyboards kind of bonded us each to the story we had chosen, even if it wasn't particularly our favourite beforehand. This just made it seem a little bit harder to decide out of the three as it felt like we were competing with each other, and nobody wanted to concede. Eventually we settled on Noelline's story and Rosie's storyboards. I think there could have been some more hurt feelings after we had to have this discussion but luckily by this time we were all on board with the project and just wanted to make the best film we could.

Once that was settled we divided up roles and made a Gantt chart, but actually I don't think any of us looked at it again after we had made it. What we hadn't anticipated was that because of the aesthetic we had decided on, with a mix of real and digital watercolours, the animation process was going to be quite piecemeal until near the very end when compositing could begin. I began putting the pitch-bible together whilst Rosie and Brenda began on key frames and backgrounds, respectively, but again the pitch-bible was going to be something that was worked on and tweaked throughout the course of the project as more and more artwork became available.

For lots of this module I felt like I wasn't able to give my full attention to it, in part due to having a very big and ambitious collaborative project going on in Responsive, and when that had finished I turned my attention to finishing my COP submission. Also for a while at the beginning of production I felt like I wasn't having much influence or impact on the project. The visual style was very much Brenda's, and the storyboards had remained virtually unchanged from Rosie's very first thumbnails.

Similarly to Responsive, I found myself spending 11 or 12 hours in the studio practically every day, and working efficiently but still feeling like I wasn't putting a dent in the work I had left to do. I also completely neglected to blog what I was doing each week, but realistically with 60+ hours per week dedicated to actually doing the work I really couldn't be bothered to spend any more time talking about said work (not having access to a computer when college is shut also helps.)

I was surprised to find out I quite enjoy the task of inbetweening - just put on some music and it becomes a kind of automatic action - and getting into the kind of work-trance that is required for that sort of repetitive stuff is quite easy for me. I think to some degree I did resign myself to just doing the menial labour of the project and letting Brenda and Rosie really run the show, but then later on I took control of compositing and adding After Effects animation and visual effects, and I felt like I had finally really contributed to the production.

Altogether I am really proud of the outcome of this project. The animation itself is finished to a pretty high standard, and visually it has a strong style due to a combination of the watercolour aesthetic we chose and Brenda's really beautiful character designs. But more than just this, I think as a group we really researched and planned the project in a way which I haven't really done so far and it has resulted in what is probably a much more rounded and complete piece of work than I have often achieved before.

Crit Presentation 2

Crit Presentation 1

Noelline's Flood - Press Pack

Sustainability Award Submission

Applied: Dividing out roles

Since the interim crit we have tweaked our Gantt chart, and divvied up different roles. I wrote the copy for the pitch bible whilst Rosie and Brenda prepared assets such as the concept art and pre-production imagery. The pitch bible will be an ongoing process which will be completed as we go along the production schedule.

It was decided that the most important thing for a consistent visual feel to the piece is the watercolour painted backgrounds. As Rosie and Brenda's styles differ wildly and I am an unexperienced painter, we chose Brenda to paint all the background for the video. The brush pack that Rosie prepared for us will allow us all to chip in with the digital painting, which - for two reasons - will not be so jarring as if the backgrounds were jointly painted.
Firstly, because the character colours will be animated, and therefore always in motion, it will be more difficult to notice any stylistic differences that may occur between the three of us.
Secondly, due to the nature of digital painting, graphics tablets, the limits of the brush pack, and a simplified and restricted colour palette, our individual styles are likely to be less distinct from each other than they would be if we were attempting to paint with natural media.

Rosie has been given the role of animating keys, which I will then in-between, and Brenda is going to paint backgrounds. Once Brenda is finished with the painting she will join either me or Rosie, depending on which one of us looks like they need most help. This will hopefully free me up to begin on compositing the various scenes.

Applied: Animatic

Here is our animatic for Noeline's story. Rosie cut the audio down from its original length but was careful not manipulate Noeline's words.

Whilst quite fiddly, it wasn't difficult to make the animatic, as the timings of each shot were mostly dictated to us by the pace that Noeline delivers her story.

Applied: Rosie's media tests

We decided quite early on that we wanted to use watercolours in the animation for two main reasons. Firstly that they would add a lovely hazy wet feel to a story which revolves around water, rain and flooding. Secondly that Noeline is recounting a story that happened nearly 80 years ago - and that hazy feel will also add to the idea of the story being a distant and foggy memory.

Whilst I was getting on with the storyboards and animatic, and Brenda was designing characters and creating their style sheets, it was Rosie's task to test out different media so we could decide how to actually go about creating frames. It was decided that painting in Photoshop using special watercolour brushes would be the quickest and most efficient way to animate whilst retaining the look we want. Rosie has prepared a list of the best brushes she found in her tests.

Applied: Storyboards

Here are our storyboards for Noeline's story about the flood. I am turning these into an animatic synced with the voice recording.

Applied: Storyboards

Today we met to show each other our storyboards and to decide on a narrative to follow.
Below are my quick thumbnails - very roughly timed to my transcription of the recording of David talking about the squashed frogs on Alabama highways.

After making an animatic from my thumbnails we all got together to watch the three animatics. We still couldn't decide on which to choose but eventually decided against Brenda's story because the quality of the audio recording was just not good enough - even though it was probably the best story. We drew up a list of pros and cons for mine and Rosie's stories, and eventually chose Rosie's because of the quality of the recording, and of the narration itself. Rosie has shared her storyboards with us and me and Brenda are going to look over them together and feed back any changes or tweaks we would like to see.

Applied: Knostrop Visit

We thought it would be a nice idea to visit the waste water treatment plant in Knostrop, South Leeds where all the fracking waste water from the UK is sent to be processed. The idea was to get more primary research, to collect photographs and make some drawings etc. but when we got to the entrance (after a half an hour walk into the middle of nowhere) multiple signs told us trespassers would be prosecuted. We expected not to be able to snoop around the whole site, but unfortunately because it was surrounded by trees and muddy lakes visibility of the plant was incredibly limited.

Applied: Devi's recordings

Over the weekend Devi sent us a Dropbox folder with the recordings we were interested in after our chat. After we each listened to the recordings the three of us came together to identify ones which we all agreed would be nice to animate, or had a strong climate change/sustainability message. Out of the six that I really liked, Brenda and Rosie were also interested in three or four of them.

The best story that we all liked was a man talking about the experience of farmers whose land and water was being contaminated by chemicals as a result of fracking. This story was exactly what we were looking for from the start, since we started out with fracking as the area of "sustainability" that we were interested in pursuing. Unfortunately this recording was made at a music festival, and try as we might it was impossible to remove the background noise to any usable point without completely distorting the voice.

Another nice tale was from a man, now living in Australia, who was originally from Alabama. He spoke about how his neighbourhood used to get infested with toads who liked to eat the swarms of flies and crickets attracted to the electric lights. On returning home after a 15 year absence he was shocked to see no more toads - which he related to a drastic change in the climate. He also mentioned having worked for a wind-energy company, who found their plans for a farm in California scuppered by Bob Hope's wife who didn't like the look of the turbines and used their connections to have the project binned.

We have agreed that, in order to decide on a story we will each pick one, make storyboards for it, and then reconvene. We can then look at the three storyboards, and decide on which one we want to continue to develop. I picked the toads story, Rosie picked a story about an old lady whose town flooded when she was a child, and Brenda chose the fracking story discussed above. Brenda's challenge is to find some way of making the background noise seem less intrusive.

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We are taking a trip to Knostrop on Thursday, to a chemical processing plant which is used by fracking companies to dispose of their waste water. We plan on getting a few drawings and photographs, which may come in handy if we decide at some point to move our project back to a more fracking based approach. Also on Thursday we will share our storyboards with each other.

Applied: Meeting with Devi

Last night we went out for a pizza with Devi and discussed her project, and the stories she has collected. She suggested that instead of her narrating a story to us she would be able to give us one of her field recordings to use. This is really great news as it means we will be animating somebody's first-hand experience of climate change related issues.

During our chat we went through Devi's field notes on each of the recordings she made, and highlighted some which sounded interesting and suitable for our project. Devi is going to send us the recordings and hopefully we will be able to find something to use as the basis of our animation.

Applied: Devi Lockwood

We went to Preston New Road, near Blackpool where there is a new Fracking drill site which currently has a pretty much permanent protest camped outside its gates. We got some great photos of the signs, which we are thinking of incorporating into an animation as they are so bold and striking.

Yesterday, Rosie made it to a Frack Free Leeds meeting, and got speaking to a poet and journalist called Devi Lockwood. Devi cycled round the world collecting people's first hand stories of the impact of climate change. we are meeting with her again tonight (Tuesday 7th) to speak to her further, and hopefully to collect a story or two to animate if Devi is up for it.

This would be a really nice opportunity to make a narrative led documentary, on a an issue that is still quite removed from people's everyday lives in the UK (for the time being), but has very powerful and immediate effects for people in poorer parts of the world.

We are also continuing to look at protest camps and occupations which we might be able to visit in order to build up a body of stories, opinions and alternatives from people living in areas which will be affected by fracking.

Applied: Sustainability

I have teamed up with Brenda and Rosie for the applied documentary brief, and we have decided to choose sustainability as our theme and focus specifically on fracking. There are lots of infographic-y type animations out there which visualise the process of fracking, and explain the possible side effects, but few of these actually stated whether or not fracking was a good idea or not, preferring to stay neutral. For example:

As a group we all agreed that fracking is not a sustainable or worthwhile process to engage in. Not only does it have detrimental effects on the land and the lives of people living in the areas surrounding drilling sites, but the continued use of fossil fuels as an energy source is a hole we cannot dig ourselves out of.

The biggest and most obvious example of the evils of fracking is Flint, Michigan in the USA, in which fracking for shale gas has resulted in the contamination of drinking water supplies which has led to in an increase in the levels of lead and other toxic substances in the blood of schoolchildren, and a higher likelihood of a variety of cancers and birth defects. In rural communities there have been sharp increases in livestock infertility, deformed young and mortality rates.

Aside from these side effects - which are admittedly easy to ignore if you are an energy company executive living in a mansion on Bishop's Avenue, or an MP in the Westminster bubble -the introduction of shale gas into the UK energy infrastructure will increase carbon emissions by 11%, when our government has already "committed" to reducing emissions. The UK's climate Change Act of 2008 set specific targets for reduction in emissions by 2050 which will be completely unattainable if we introduce fracking into the energy industry.

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We have decided to take a slightly different tack to the video shown above. We thought that it would be interesting to try a vox-pop style documentary, in which we discussed with people their ideas for alternatives and for improving our current carbon output.

From the top of my head I think it would be interesting to talk to somebody from Leeds University physics department, who I know are currently researching improvements in the storage and release of solar energy. As well as this there are a number of anti-fracking organisations in and around Yorkshire who may have spokespeople that would like to speak to us. Rosie suggested a visit to Blackpool as there is a lot of fracking activity in that area, along with a lot of people attempting to block this action.