Pixilation: Socks

This is my finalised pixilation project. It went through a lot of changes from the initial storyboard as I am trying to keep it simple and straightforward. I directed and acted in this video, while my friend, Galuh, helps me with the camera. I am really satisfied with the end product, especially after I added the sound effects since it helps to clarify what is going on in the film. Enjoy the film!

Identify: Honda "Paper" by PES

Pixilation is not the type of animation that I am exposed to, but I do enjoy watching them. Paper is an animation made by PES Film to document the history of Honda, a multinational motor vehicle company, and advertise the quality of their products to the public throughout the years of their business. PES uniquely combines traditional animation media like flipbooks and pixilation to engage the audience, and deliver the message. They also take into account the type of papers they will be using for the animation, and such paper engineering helps them to achieve the effect of smooth transitions between frames which are drawn on different types of papers. The animation is made two-dimensional in a three-dimensional set to achieve a visual trick which shows depth of fields so that the subjects can be perceived as moving in a three-dimensional space.

Pixilation: Puppets

I created these puppets for my pixilation project with some alterations so that it is simpler than the initial design because they will be too crumbly to be moved if their bodies are covered with All-Bran.

It is my first time creating a puppet, and  I had lots of fun creating it. I started by putting peach food colouring and kneading the plasticine dough to colour it and sticks All-Bran cereal on their heads, which turned out great. Unfortunately, I made a mistake by not connecting the wires inside the body of the puppets because I did not know that it is necessary to put them together, as a result, the puppets' joints would fall apart if I move the them to the extreme.

Cereal Monster

The Girl Protagonist

Pixilation: Storyboard

In this brief, I decided to explore the relationships of lost and found and I did managed to think about many different kind of stories until I come up with this story. It is based on my daily experience of losing one of my Primark cozy socks every morning which I found lying beneath my duvet.

The story is about a girl, acted by myself, trying to find her missing sock beneath her duvet. Unfortunately, she ended up being swallowed by her own duvet and got transported into another realm where she saw her sock lying on a monster's head. She made several sneaky attempts to retrieve her socks but the monster noticed her presence when she desperately tries to grab the socks from its hand. The monster ate her socks and spits it out immediately. It picks it up and give it to the girl. The story concludes as the girl take the sock from the monster and got teleported back to her bedroom. 

Storyboard Page 1

Storyboard Page 2

Storyboard Page 3

Storyboard Page 4

Telling Stories: Good Storyboarding Skills

Here are some of the lessons that I have learnt after looking at 5 good examples of storyboards:

1. Storyboards can be in any form as long as it articulates details clearly

 

It should show effective variations of camera angles which tells the story, so it is good to know the types of shots commonly used and the effect it has on the audience. Use arrows and short annotations to indicate what is happening at a certain scene.

2. Use contrasting colours to focus on the subjects

 

Subjects should be distinguished from the background. Many key practitioners paint over the subjects they intend to focus on. Sometimes, they even reduce the details in the background to make the contrast more obvious.

3. Every change of postures should be recorded in the storyboards, even the slightest change of facial expression

 

Storyboards need to indicate key frames in the story so that the people in the production teams can get the jist of the story which they are going to develop into a film.

 

Good Storyboard 5: Finding Nemo's Colourscript

Colourscript, first used in the production of Toy Story, is a good practice of drawing out the scenes for 3D Computer Generated Image (CGI) animations. It does not just tells the story of the animation like a storyboard, but also helps to map out colours, lighting, emotions and moods. While Pixar claimed that it is easy to get the colourscript done, I still think that a lot of effort is needed to make a colourscript especially if one is not really good at speed drawing and painting. 

The Finding Nemo colourscript is made with pastel because it is a quick colouring medium, but people normally speed paints the scenes digitally in the present. I really like this colourscript because it is well-polished and it gives the cinematic effect such that I can see how the film will turn out just by skimming through it. Colourscript makes the film production more efficient in this sense because the colour allocation has been done at an early stage when the colourscript is made.

Good Storyboards 4: The Scarecrow Animatics

A few weeks ago, I saw the animation The Scarecrow by Moonbot Studio commissioned for Chipotle Mexican Grill in which the scarecrow saw a disheartening sight of food being mass produced with artificial ingredients, and he thinks that it is bad, and he decided to open up his own restaurant next to a huge fast food chain restaurant and use natural ingredients to cook the menu. This film made a great impact on me, and I decided to do some research on its pre-production process. It turns out that the animatics is made in digital medium with some 3D animations. I have never seen people use this method to produce an animatics so I decided to share it.

The animatics involves basic 3 dimensional shapes which constructs the structure of more complex objects, and it also shows the animated movements of characters. I think, this type of storyboard might take a lot of time to make but it clearly tells us the personality of the characters through their movements.

Good Storyboards 3: Avatar: Legend of Korra Animatics

For some reasons, most of my storyboards inspiration are mainly from 2D Animation because they are simply beautiful and the end product is rendered from the storyboards. It is an immediate application of the role of storyboards, in the form of animatics, to tell stories. 

I am curious about the detailed fight scenes animation in Avatar: Legend of Korra because it is easy to follow, so I look up on the film animatics and I stumbled upon this video. The animatics shows every change of movements of characters and other subjects while the details on the background is minimised, but there are still attempts to focus on the movements on it to achieve a more cinematic effect. Furthermore, colour-codes on the moving subjects- even though not as elaborate as those in Japanese anime storyboards and/or layouts- is evidently helpful for the animators who animate the films. 

Good Storyboards 2: Gorillaz Music Videos

These are the best music videos of all time made by Jamie Hewlett which is one of my favorite artist. I like Hewlett because he uses his imagination to the fullest to create oddly charismatic characters. Aside of making animations for Gorillaz music videos, he is a comic book artist which explains the quality of drawing he produces for the storyboards. The storyboards that he makes demostrate variations of camera angles which helps to tell the story in a professional way. Another good technique that Hewlett use is focusing on the subjects on the move and use simple backgrounds to emphasise more on the action taking place, and it helps him to engage the viewers on what is going on in the video. 

Good Storyboards 1: Attack on Titan Layouts

This storyboard is made by Wit Studio back in 2013, and it really captivates me because of how the storyboard artists are really clear in articulating the details on it. They made their annotations look simple by using less words, more symbols and colour coding things that move. The technique whih they use is really efficient since they will be likely to pass on their work to someone else.

The storyboards of serialised anime are done within 3 weeks because the anime storyboards are turned into layouts which will be combined together and screened on TV. Despite all the pressure and time constraint, the storyboard artists can still manage to produce a very neat and professionally colour coded drawings which is why I respect them. 

Identify: The Clock is Ticking

The Girl Effect (founde by NIKE Foundation in 2004) made this infographic video to present their solution to make a better world by educating 12-years-old girls living in poverty around the world. This video has made a good impact on the organisation as the Girl Effect is now an independent organisation which educates girls living in poverty in Ethiopia, Nigeria and Rwanda, so there is no question about its effectiveness in communicating the idea.

The positive presentation of The Clock is Ticking made the video unique and appealing to me. It seeks for cooperation from the audience by presenting a solution and they can be a part of the solution if they are willing to help. It got my sympathy better than many other publications about the third world country which portray poverty in a very stereotypical depressing mood.

Check out this link to find out more about the Girl Effect Organisation: http://www.girleffect.org/

Identify: Premier Automne

Premier Automne is an 3D Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI) animation about a star-crossed love story between summer and winter by French animators, Carlos de Carvalho and Aude Danset. I like the well-established setting of the story and the personification of winter and summer. Abel is winter who freezes and kills everything that he touched while Apolline is summer who brings life to her surroundings.

The film does not only tell a love story, but also made us question about the relationship of life and death, for instance, Apolline runs away from Abel because he took the life of her dog as he touched it because she is scared of death just like many of us. Life and death cannot co-exist. However, the film concludes as Apolline runs around a tree with Abel, which leaves me a question: will I be able accept death as it is?

Identify: Mandarina Duck "Yellow Think" Promotional Movie by Alfred Image Works

I really enjoy watching this short 2D animated promotional advertisement because of its simplicity. It does not use many colours aside from yellow for the moving subjects and shades of grey for the background, which inform the audience that Mandarina Duck company puts emphasis on colour, in this case yellow, as the trademark of their products. 

Furthermore, the combination of leisurely music and moving subjects highlighted by the shades of yellow produces an effective portrayal of travelling. In my opinion, this is what made the "Yellow Think" advertisement successful. It reaches out to the consumers desire to travel. On the other hand, it also helps the consumers appreciate the company's product, thus influence the consumers to make a decision to shop at Mandarina Duck stores.

Check out these links below to find out more:

• Mandarina Duck "Yellow Think" Video
• Mandarina Duck Company Website

Telling Stories: My Beard

I did a storyboard of a nursery rhyme titled "My Beard" which is about an old man who has a very long beard. There are many birds nestling on his beard as he has feared. I perceived "My Beard" as an entertaining, funny and expressive nursery rhymes which is enjoyable to make.

Although I put in a lot of effort in this project especially on the line work, in which I particularly takes a long time adding lines to exaggerate the old man's facial expression to make it humorous, it looks unfinished. I think it is essential to have shadings and more variations of camera angles to establish the settings after I looking at my friends' work which have those qualities. Overall, I am not quite satisfied with the end product. I wish that I could do better and faster next time.