After Effects Induction 1

I made this animation for a study task given during the first After Effects induction. We are taught to do simple solids animation by changing their positions, scales and rotation.

The Other Side: Moodboard

This is the moodboard that I came up with for the first critic session. It is not elaborate as it just explains the nuance of the animation. Based on the fact that shadows can be extremely long during sunset and that sunset can be associated with fluorescent colours, I think it will be a good idea to use fluorescent colour palette in the animation. In addition, such colours will make my animation more aesthetically pleasing rather than just producing it in grayscale.

Set, Series and Sequences: First Subject of Interest - NFL Helmet

My first subject of interest is the evolution of american football helmets throughout the years. Although I am barely familiar with the sport itself, I still find the progress amazing. The virtue of the development is pretty clear. It is to improve the safety for the NFL players, so that they can play to their fullest potential with less worries on getting injured.

 

The Other Side: Story

After doing some research on the internet, I finally decided that my animation is about shadows. The animation is set during sunset when shadows can be extremely long. A girl is suddenly stopped as she walks by an invisible force. She looks back and saw her own shadow shaped like something scary. Suddenly the shadow starts to move and tries to drag her towards it. She tries to get her off its grasp and runs away from it, but she did not realise that she is running towards a tall building until she stops running and looks up. She looks behind her and the shadow has gotten bigger and more powerful than it was before. In the end, she drowns into the shadow.

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HE Phorography Resource Induction 1

Our assignment today is to go around town, and I went to the German Christmas Market in the Millenium Square with Tom, and took several pictures there to apply what I have learnt during the induction. Along the way, I met a friendly shopkeeper from the honey stall who offers me to take a picture of his non-price-tagged honey wax deer sculpture although I did not get anything from the shop. It is a mouthwatering journey indeed, but thankfully, I managed to hold my desire to grab some food in the market.

Merry-Go-Round

Honey Wax Deer

Sweets

The Electric Press

What I have learnt

1. Exposure

I made some mistakes along the way and some of my pictures mainly because of not changing the settings as I took them. I think this issue persists because I did not check how they turn out after I took them. This causes some of my pictures are over-exposed.

Over-exposed picture 1

Over-exposed picture 2

Over-exposed picture 3

After realising this issue, I tried to adjust the setting of my camera so that my pictures have the correct exposure. Although I still think that some of them are still bright, I think they are the most correctly exposed pictures that I have taken for this assignment.

2. Depth of Field

These two pictures below shows the variations of depth of field. Difference in depth of field gives different effects to the subject of the pictures. In the first picture, the depth of field is shallow which gives more focus on the subjects as it isolates the subject from the background. On the other hand, the latter picture has greater depth of fields which focuses less on the subject although the contrast between the foreground and background still helps the eyes to focus on the subject.

Shallow depth of field

Greater depth of field

The Other Side: Initial Ideas

I have two themes which I generated at first for this brief.

 The first one revolves around doing unconventional things such as walking with hands around a city. 

While the second theme is about different perspectives on global warming. Instead of stories told from human perspective, the environment will be the one telling their worries on the moral degradation in human being as they contributes to the global warming. Their paranoia makes them outcast the human race.

I think my first idea is too generic and I do not think that it is worth developing so I decided to make a story based on my second idea.

The story is about a teenage girl who goes to an art gallery on a school trip, she got separated from the group at the entrance of a museum. She tries to look for the group from one room to anothe until she found herself in a room full of plants paintings. As she entered the room, she does not move in a 3 dimensional space anymore. She only moves back and forth in a two dimensional manner, which makes her realise that she is inside the painting. The plants, which privacy have been breached, responded by pushing her towards the exit really quickly to get rid of her. The girl tells her experience to her friends when she came out of the room. She wants to show her friends how intriguing it is, but as she tries to go in again there is a really strong wind blowing to which prevents her from getting in.

Beheaded

We did a short animation clip in photoshop in which we explores the movement of a pendulum and bouncing ball. I came up with the idea of a guy being beheaded, and his head flies off his body, and I am really proud of how it turns out to be. The process of animating in photoshop is rather tedious, but enjoyable at the same time. Moreover, it is convenient because we can look several frames back through the 'Onion Skin' feature. On the side note, no minds are harmed in the making of this video.

Explore: Flippin'Eck

Bouncing Ball 1

Bouncing Ball 2

Bouncing Ball 3

Apply: Caged

Caged is the animation that I made for this brief which turned out better than how I expected it to be. I have managed to explore the theme surprise and produce this 8 seconds animation. There are definitely loopholes in this animation, but I am still happy for myself that I finished this project.

Apply: Storyboard

In this storyboard, I did a very quick series of thumbnails from the list of actions that I came up with. I think it is the most effective storyboard I have ever made so far because it clearly depicts the key poses that I need to draw first before doing the 'in between's.

The following is the list of actions:

1. Remote control fell from the sky
2. The yellow guy saw it falling
3. He shows his fascination by whistling
4. He walks towards the remote control
5. He tries to press the button
6. Expecting something to happen
7. Nothing happened
8. He thinks about a way to activate it
9. He shakes the remote and an antenna came out
10. He tries to press the button again
11. Signal is sent out of the remote control
12. A cage fell down
13. He got caged

I revised some of the actions on the final product because I feel that some actions are too elaborate, so I came up with another alternative for them.

Apply: Idea Development

I decided to explore the theme 'Surprise' for this brief, and I did a small mind map on the theme. I am not using any ideas from the mind map in the end. Instead I came up with a sequence of actions to summarise what I want to put in my animation, which I think is more effective than the vague mind map I came up with.

At first, I have an interest to make an animation about 'hate', and I came up with the first idea titled Race. However, the story for Race is too complex for a 5 to 10 seconds animation so I decided to think of developing simpler ideas instead from a list of actions.

This is the character I designed for this animation. I made a simple yellow human-like creature because I do not want to complicate the animation process by having too much details on my character. I think having a simple character allows me to focus on getting the basic principles of animation right in this project.

Pose to Pose Pendulum Animation

This is the line test that I made for a pose to pose animation of a swinging pendulum. It took a whole day to get it right, but I feel accomplished for doing so because it is the first time for me to make an animation according to the principles of animation. I had the sequence planned earlier on my notebook before actually drawing it out to minimise the chance of making mistakes.

12 Principles of Animation as Seen in Paperman

Paperman is a Walt Disney Studio's short animation about comedic romance between an office worker and the girl of his dream. I decided to use this animation to identify the use of 12 principles of animation as much as possible. Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas introduces these principles in their book The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation in 1981 which acts as a guidline for animators to create an effective illusion of characters.

1. Squash and stretch

Squash flattens an object by its own power or external pressure. A squash makes objects look shorter and compressed.

Stretch can increase the sense of speed and helps to the squash by contrast. A stretch makes objects look elongated and thinner.

The most basic application of squash and stretch is the bouncing ball animation. In this case, squash occurs at the time of impact when a ball hits a surface while stretch occurs when the ball gains speed. Other than that, squash and stretch is also occurs with the changing of facial expression as evidenced by the example below.

Important Note: Although the shape of objects changes as they are being squashed and stretched, their volume will remain the same.

As Meg blinks, her eyelids squashes while her forehead and lips stretch.

As she loosen up, her eyelids stretches back to its original position while her forehead and lips squash. 

2. Anticipation

Anticipation foreshadows what is going to happen. For almost all action, there is always be anticipation. Anticipation is when the character think of a major action before they do it. Anticipation itself is an action which can be subtle at times. 

So, anticipation is the movement that a character or object makes before a major action.

Anticipation is always in the opposite direction to where the main action is going to go. 

Anticipation is usually slower and less violent than the major action

(i.e: Slow anticipation.... ZIP!!! Fast Action)

George anticipates by stretching his right arm towards the paper plane.

George tries to catch the paper plane with his right arm.

3. Staging (Mis-en-scene)

Staging is the presentation of an idea so that it can be clearly communicates to the audience. It shows mood, attitude and emotional state within a story which can be established through variations of shot framing so that it directs the audience's attention to the idea or story being told.

It is a good idea to present one idea at a time otherwise the audience would not know which way to look.

In this scene, Meg brushes her hair with her finger and tries to get the attention of George. Her action sparks a romantic chemistry between them.

4. Straight ahead and pose to pose animation

Straight ahead is when the animator animate frame after frame without the use of keyframing. The outcome will be surprising to the animator. Straight ahead is commonly used to animate fast action so that they often feels fresh and fun. However, there are some downsides for using this technique as you can wander off and you can lose sense of scale of volume. Hence, the size of the character or object animated might be inconsistent.

Pose to pose is when the animator meticulously plan and works out the key poses needed to make an animation work, then their work will be passed to his assistants who will draw the 'in between's.It allows a key animator to focus on key drawings to allow more control hence he can get people to help him do the 'in between's easily as by doing so he has provided guidelines for them. Therefore, the imbetweeers know what they are working toward while the director can track their progress. This technique is especially useful in the production of weekly animated series like The Simpsons because it saves up time.

Best of both:

• Thumbnail drawing of key poses
• Starts filling up the 'in between's
• Identify contact point and extremes
• Filling up more 'in between's and even more

Both straight ahead and pose to pose is used in the scene when George is crossing a busy street to chase after the paper plane.

5. Follow through and overlapping action

Follow throughs are actions that happen when the main body of the object/character stopped moving.

An example of follow through : Meg lean her body forward, her hair swings to the front following her body movement.

Overlapping actions are actions that happen when the object/character changes direction and its attributes starts to follow the movement. It works like the hair swings in shampoo advertisements.

6. Slow-in and slow-out (Ease-in and ease-out)

This principle is used to show momentum which softens the animation, to make it more realistic. More drawings are drawn for slower action and vice versa.

It is usually used in this manner:

• More drawings at the beginning of the action (slower)
• One or two in the middle (faster)
• More drawing at the end of the action (slower)

The basic application of this principle can be seen in oscillating pendulum animation.

7. Arcs

All action, except perhaps some mechanical ones, follows an arc or circular path since it is believed that the movement of human and animal figures tend to follow arc.

When considering arcs, think about a pendulum oscillating or the motion of your arm as you walk.

8. Secondary Action

Secondary action is an action that supports and reinforces the action of the first. Tex Avery always uses this principle to exaggerate or give more life and meaning to the first action 

9. Timing

It takes countless number of practices to get the timing right since an animator must get the feel of it.

Some basics on timing:

• More drawings between poses slows and smooths the action.
• Fewer drawings make the action faster and crisper.
• A variety of slow and fast timing within a scene adds texture and interest to the movement.
• Most animation is done in twos. (i.e: each drawing for 2 frames)
• and sometimes on ones (i.e: each drawing for 1 frame) for fast actions or when there is camera movement.

A really important thing is REFERENCE. Use a real life model if possible or you can also watch and record actors or animals performing the action.

10. Exaggeration

Subtle characterisation of expressions, poses and facial features. Chuck Jones uses them effectively in the Looney Tunes Series, in fact he is really good at it. It gives the animation more appeal by having it in walk, head turn or even just an eye movement.

Exaggeration makes movements of character in animation different to real life actions. Animators often makes the characters do movements that is impossible in real life.

What George did here is an exaggeration because his head is stretched as he drags it down. Exaggeration dramatises his action so that the audiences will give emotional responses.

11. Solid Drawing

The basic principles of drawing applies to make an animation. Form, weight and volume solidity helps to create the illusion of 3D in animation. Solid drawing also includes the variety of colours used. It give characters and objects the illusion of life as they move through space and time.

12. Appeal or Character Personality

Appeal facilitates the emotional connection between characters and audience. A good character design can be distinguished from its silhouette.

Check out this video which concisely explains the 12 principles of animation:

Identify: Feast (2014) by Walt Disney Animation Studios

Feast is a romantic comedy animation told from the perspective of a boston terrier named Winston  through the dominant use of low shots to focus on him. The story is uniquely told through the different types of food given to Winston by his master. It is an animation that pet owners can relate with and laugh about, but on top of all it tells me that being pretentious is the last thing you would want to do while you are in a relationship. I think of it that way because the scene where Winston's master is going on a date, and gave him vegetables which is not the usual food that both of them eats Winston rejects it. This animation is also wonderful because of the realistic portrayal of pet dogs. Unlike Bolt (from Disney's Bolt) who has personality, Winston behaves like a real pet dog who only cares about food most of the time and shows compassion which mends his master's broken heart.

Feast is created in the form of 3D animation, but is rendered so that they are seemingly 2D. I like Disney's initiative to go back to 2D animation in the past few years because I find 3D animated films too contrived hence I feel disconnected from the feelings that the film is trying to convey.

Identify: Motorbike (2014) by Mechanical Apple

An animation which tells a story of a man on his way to meet his lover. He faces some problem on his way to get to the meeting point which cause him to be late. The story is light-hearted and romantic with a subtle suspense which is perfect for its running duration. In my opinion, this animation proves that a simple story line does not compromise the goodness in it. The appeal of this animation comes from the background illustration and beautifully composed background music which suits the idea of travelling. Furthermore, the variation of camera angles enhances the pleasant experience of travelling through the town.

Identify: Out of Inkwell - The Tantalising Fly (1919) by Max Fleischer

Max Fleischer is the inventor of rotoscope which is a medium used to animate in the silent era of animation when animation is generally comedic. Apart from being an inventor he is also an animator who is famous for his character, Koko the Clown, designed after his brother who worked as a clown at Coney Island then. In this deconstructive episode of Out of the Inkwell, Fleischer and Koko tries to catch or kill a fly which is tantalising them.

In terms of technique, Fleischer's animation moves smoothly as his work shows that he is very familliar with the principles of animation. Moreover, he took comedy to another level by allowing interactions between the character in the real world and the one on paper. For instance, he lends his pen to koko so that koko can draw a fly bait (another man) on the paper and hit the fly while it is on the man's head. I really like the comical interaction between the two characters in the story since it tells me that Fleischer perceive Koko as a mindful and trustworthy partner, not just a mere creation of his. Fleischer also shows Koko's superiority as he is able to suck up the bald man that he drew.