Lights

In todays seminar, we've had a lesson on creating virtual lights. Compare to the real filming (with cameras..etc), creating lights in animation is quite easy as there is no need to book and set the equipment. But actually it took me quite a long time to place the lights in the animation.
I think in order to be good at animation, I need to make mistakes and try and use the software more. The more I practice and work on projects, the more I'll get better at it...hopefully.

Anyways, here is a quick render of the lightings:

Charlotte Thomson

I went to see an art gallery of Charlotte Anne Thomson in Waterstone bookstore(top floor).



Website: www.charlottethomson.co.uk

She is an artist and illustrator,
"Charlottes work is highly varied and adaptable, covering many styles and mediums. As a result she has sold and exhibited internationally and has been featured in international magazines and books. Her specialism is figurative work, from realistic portraiture to graphic low brow pin up aswell as gothic, fantasy, mystic and new age art. She also finds time to run The Independent Artists Group and recently took on the role of Gallery Co-ordinator at VIEW from the Top Gallery Nottingham. She is also expanding into the areas of exhibition curatorship and organisation with many shows planned for 2007."

Her work is really imaginative and the drawing that I saw in the gallery are based on a fairy tale. But in her art, the theme is based on a fairy tale but are changed into a very unique and imaginative way. (For example, a painting of a little red riding hood with a gun in her hand)
I liked some of her art, expecially a painting of three mermaid in blue illuminous backgound. The use of different colours at the background was really beautiful.

WSM-seminar 6 "Documentary Form"

Look at some documentaries in Youtube. Where does you stage 1 project fit? Think about visual styles that then might fit that documentary form.- Think about the characters.



‘Creature Comforts’ – animated short film made in Britain about how animals feel about living in the zoo.
The environment is clearly designed. Each animals are paced in different cages.

Characters- Many of the characters move their eye balls a lot. Their movement in general (i.e. polar bear raising hand, gorilla twisting the thumb while being interviewed) are just like normal human.

By having the human voices and human expression onto animal figures works really well. The face expression on the animals goes really well with the voices. It shows as if the animals are really like humans.

The movement of the mouth are really detailed. The shape of the mouth is effective. In fact, the face expression on all of the animals expresses their personality. For example; in the interview with a turtle, the movement was only from its mouth and eyes blinking. And usually turtles have got minimum amount of movement.
Another example would be the interview with the lion; the flexibility of the lion is expressed through the hand movement (gestures) and lots of face expressions.

Arm rigging

I've been working on arm rigging since last week;



And I've been having a major problem with animating the arm.
I think I've linked all the controllers to the right place, but when I move the controllers, the arm doesn't move. So I need to ask Andy for some help tomorrow!

Holding Pattern

Here is a short film 'Holding Pattern' done by our group!!



1.) What does the 'character' do that illuminates her character?
Her face expression when she is sitting in the office. Her eyes moving from side to side expresses her nervous feeling of being in the government office.
And a scene where she stands next to the grass verge, she looks annoyed. My favorite part is when she kicks the duck out of the screen. The sound for the duck goes really well with the scene. This part shows how the character doens't really care about animal abuse.

2.) What does the 'film-maker' do that illuminates his character?
There are more about the film-maker than characters in this film. The close-up of the face of a character expresses the character feeling uncomfortable being in that office. The two different shots at the end of the film; CU of a character taking out the letter and LS of her ripping the letter up expresses how she is annoyed and just want to go home.

I think this film is quite different from the other ones that we've seen in the seminar; such as having written dialogue in some of the scenes and several different background music throughout the film.

It would have been better if the font size of the written dialogue was bigger, as might be hard to read especially in smaller sized screen (e.g. Youtube).

We had a really hard time booking the equipment and rooms. It also took quite a long time to edit and burn them onto DVD and it was really stressful at times. But through doing this project, I've learnt how to use Final cut pro in Mac and I think this will help me a lot when I do more project throughout the year.

Feedback on 'Holding Pattern'

Just to add more on the list of reasons: 'Why do we do this task?'

Explore ideas and experiment with the visual vision
To make mistakes as part of the learning process
To stimulate emagination
To show how scripts can have different interpretation to different people
To think analytically
To develop own ideas
To bring script on screen
Create an original work
Working collaboratively
To challenge
To learn more techniques
Develop group working skills

Here are the feedbacks after seeing the films, answering to the following two questions;
1.) What dows the 'character' do that illuminates his character?
2.) What dows the 'film-maker' do that illuminates his character?

1st film (Sid and Lez's group):
1.) The face expression of the character was good, especially when he reads the newspaper and the dance movement. When he slowly types an e-mail with using only one of his finger expresses how he is not use to the english key board.
2.) The slow and mandane atmosphere throughout = bordem of the character.
The CU view of the e-mail make sthe audience understand that the character is not good at English. The number of dictionaries on the sofa while reading the newspaper is quite good as it shows how the character is trying to control himself, making sure that he understands what is written in the newspaper.
Loads of isolation in the grass verge scene. And also I really liked the menu on the DVD.

2nd film (Alex's group)
1.) How the character eats in the office and the dance movement expressed his nervous feeling, perhaps a little uncomfortable of being a little different from the surounding? (Romanian living in UK)
2.) The underwater shot in the swimming pool scene was great! Very different from the other films. The grass verge scene with the character standing alone and with some cars and truck passing by creates isolation. I also liked how the title appreared on the road.

3rd film (Glyn's group)
1.) The face expression the character shows the personality and how he is bored. It was quite frantic and disorientated. The face expression of the character when he reads the letter was good as it expressed his 'Oh no' feeling.
2.)The CU of the character looking down at the letter was really effective as it kind of shows how he is irritated and then starts to rip off the letter.
I think there were more abor the film maker thatn the character.

4th film (Emily, Adrian, Richard and Sej's group)
1.)Blank face expression of a character looking down into the camera (looking at the letter) was quite effective. Wearing the Hat and a thick suitcase was different to other films. There was some comedy used which I really liked; it was when he dance to the music but get shouted at by his neighbor, and then he tries to dance to the music again but this time with his head phone on!

2.) Zooming out of the PC screen showing what the character is searching on the internet was effective as it allows the viewers to see what he is thinking. This film uses bath rather than swimming pool, which was again quite different. Sound of the clock ticking at the start of the film was also effective as it created the nervous/unstable atmosphere and feeling of the character.
This was the only film that zoomed into the words that character was writing on the notepad, and also writing circle around the work on the newspaper.
This film has moved away from the script quite a lot, which made it look very original and I liked it!

I'll comment on our group's film in the next post because I'm writing quite a lot on this post.