Sunday 25 March 2012

Portfolio Visit | Daniel Greaves

I was lucky enough to have a one to one portfolio crit with Daniel Greaves at his studio 'Tandem Film'

I was pretty nervous to say the least, but I got so much out of it which will help towards my FMP and my views on where I'm going in my professional career.
I got near enough the same feed back on both my Feelgood and Train animation as Beakus gave me which only highlights the fact that I really need to consider timing in my work whilst taking into account what the piece of work is for.
He had a real good scrub through the feelgood piece and pointed out the design, like beakus, is really good and went on to say the characters feel like they belong to the environment you've designed. He was very careful with his words and didn't want to say things which weren't true which I admired, the overall feedback on my work and how I approach it was that the design of my work is very impressive and is working to my strengths.

What was good about showing my animatic for my FMP is that Daniel made me scrub through it and explain what was happening after he'd watched it through once. No one's ever asked me to do that, they've just tried to understand it and given me feedback which might not even apply. Once Daniel understood the piece he was able to give some really good feedback. As a result of the feedback (from both visits) I've made a new animatic with added shots which gets the story across better.
I showed a style test of how I wanted the piece to look, again, he liked the design of the animation. He said it seems I've got a lot of work to do if you want to get it all up to that standard!

What I've learnt from the visit is that design is a major strong point in my work and work needs to be done on my storytelling.

Protfolio Visit | Beakus

Me, Jack Maguire and John Hind went to visit Beakus studio last Wednesday whilst in London, arranged by John,  I showed three pieces of work to Steve Smith and Eleni O'Keeffe who kindly took the time out to see us.

I showed my Train Animation and Feelgood, the main bit of feedback I got, which applies to both, was that their too long for what they are. Feelgood should be shorter because it needs to be short and snappy as its advertizing a product whilst the Train Animation should be cut due to its lack of story.  I've been told this a few times now, and as a result I'm making sure my FMP is the right amount of time for what it is.
It was said for both pieces that my design work is really good. This was nice to hear as its something I've been working on to improve.

Lastly I showed my FMP animatic. It was really hard to do, as I had to sit there and explain the concept and it always makes me embarrassed, but I think its essential to do it and I just have to get over it.
It was good to show though, as I got a fresh pair of eye on it. The main thing brought up by Steve and Eleni was that there needs to be more of a reason for the Kid to scare the Bear, which is something I never considered, but it makes perfect sense now. I few suggestions were given which I went away and thought about and have now added to the animatic. Its added more work, but i think its work which is essential to the story.

Aslo, showed this piece which I did with jack. We described what it was for and why we did what we did. As a result they both understood it and had no comment on it...which was a good thing!

Thursday 15 March 2012

Portfolio Visit | Kilogramme

Me and Jack went to visit kilogramme studios on the 24th of February. We showed work to both Jon Turner and Claire Grey (also some of their freelance illustrators and animators)

I showed my train animation which I started working on when I did work experience with them. They thought it looked visually nice and they liked how it went from the storyboard and animatic (which i did whilst with them) to the final piece.
Although, they thought it needed more of a story for the length it was. I'm really surprised at how long the piece is now, as My last animation was so much shorter and still got the message across, even more so, my final major project is shorter than both of them at the moment and has a proper story to it.
So i've learnt a lot from that piece of work

Feelgood went down well, they laughed at it (which was a good sign), they thought the style was nice. Jon said the style reminded him of the designs for sleeping beauty, which I referenced when creating the piece. They still thought it could do with a cut down version which get to the punchline quicker.

Lastly I showed a style frame for my latest project (FMP) so I could get some help with style.


Both Clair and Jon liked it, but work needed to be done to make the character not slid along the background (which I've noted....but think my animatic is showing that it won't be much of a problems with the final animation due to choice of camera shots)
I also showed two of their freelance illustrators/ animators, Craig and David, both gave me some good Photoshop tips which would help with various things throughout the process of making the animation.

Tuesday 6 March 2012

Colour So Far



FMP | Animation Style

My way of animating has developed due to the time constraints of the projects we get at university. I really enjoy frame by frame animation, but its so time consuming. But from watching loads of animations over the past 3 years i've managed to home in on a type of animation which I think works but doesn't require too much of my time, well sort of.



This animation by Dylan Forman starts to show how holding on a pose isn't too bad. Also, stretching the character within the inbetweens is something which I did a little of in the feelgood birds animation, but I think I can take it to the next step and really emphasize the stretches within my new animation, but I need to be aware that if the background doesn't have a looseness to them, it would look out of place. At the moment i plan on having the backgrounds quite loosely done, but if it gradually changes, i need to be aware of that before i start exaggerating the stretches.

This is another animation by Dylan Forman...

Again, there's lots of limited animation in there, but its real fast pace, which works well for limited animation as the faster the movement, the less frames are needed. I need to keep this in mind for my animation. There are slow bits within my piece, so i need to make sure i keep the frames to a small amount, but be weary that it doesn't look lazy or crap.

Lastly this animation by a US based studio called BUCK

There's actually a lot of frames and fluidity within the main character in this ad, but its the background character which I'm focused on; The busker and the bin man. You can tell there's less frames involved in their movement, maybe because there not the main vocal point of the piece and they can get away with looking a bit jittery, but I think it works well and feel even if they were the main character it wouldn't look too bad!