Why animation?

I saw this great TED talk recently and it inspired me to ask myself "why?"



Here is why I love working with animation and the moving image:

- Any idea is possible!
- It can offer a simple, fun and effective way of expressing a message.
- In the audio visual area, I get a deep satisfaction of matching visuals to music/sounds.
- Live action can be integrated with animation. It is great to make something that has been previously imagined be perceived as real. If you're not going for photo realism, it is still great to combine the two and create a cool style or express an interesting idea.
- The joy of breathing life into a character or object. Creating a believable world and defying the laws of the real world.
- Animation tends to be a team sport and I enjoy working with others.
- I love working with visual narrative - conventional or abstract.
- It's highly stimulating and utilises both my technical and creative skills.
- It has a range of different applications - television, films, theatre, AV performance, music festival screens, clubs, the internet etc. It is widely accessible.
- It carries the ability to entertain, inform, influence and amaze people, ways in which that are unique to the medium.

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"The Otherworld" - compositing work experience

I am currently busy doing some work experience for independent feature film "The Otherworld." It's good to get some experience and fun to be part of the project. My role so far has been to key out a green screen shot and create "magic mist" that surrounds the character. The shot I'm on now involves a bit of rotoscoping and match moving to line up a moving camera shot of a character in front of a matte painting backdrop. It's nice to refresh my skills previously learned as well as develop my knowledge. Unfortuantly, I cannot put up any stills/movies of my work until the film gets released.

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Animation, vfx and self-promotion work

Since moving to London in September, I have actively been seeking work in animation and visual effects. Alongside this I have been developing the look of my website, creating a visual identity and two new showreels - one for my general moving image/animation work and the other - more specifically for my compositing work. Here are the shots I have been working on:

Unidentified sea creature - 2D animation

A 2D animation created using Flash, textured in Photoshop and composited in After Effects. This was sparked by a quick doodle I did of a Fish/Robot hybrid that breathes fire. No fire breathing in the animation yet but perhaps this is something I will come back to in the future!

'Harry' the crab - Match moved

I initially created this crab in 2010 using Maya to model and texture it. I always wanted to place it into a real world environment striking a pose! Back in Cornwall I filmed a bit of it's potential environment and last month I finally got round to stabilising the footage then placing the crab into this environment using Match Mover and Maya. Following this, I added a touch of colour in after effects. This is best viewed in HD. To do so - click this link, turn on HD and scrub to 00:54.

Vfx breakdown - Placing a house onto Bodmin Moor

Here is an image I used in an earlier post. I have uploaded this image here again in order to precede the matte painting breakdown of this shot that I completed a week ago. Breakdowns are always a fun way to display the amount of work that has gone into a shot. This shot was created for a MA student film project entitled 'Gone.'

  

These shots have been included on my Moving Image and Compositing showreels respectively. This week I am going to continue applying to jobs and learning new things!  

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Moving back to Blogger.

Following the end of Uni, I tried integrating this blog into my Wordpress website and found as a result it was slower and some of my older uploaded videos were no longer available. So I have returned to Blogger :-)
The sudden influx of posts this September were actually created on my Wordpress blog throughout the summer and now I have pasted them back here.

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Butterflies

Here's something I've been working on - following a tutorial but customising it to fit my own textures, backdrop etc. It has been fun to create these butterflies and interesting learning about how particles work in Maya. I have been keen to do some effects stuff for a while so I'm glad I have now got round to it!

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VFX shots

Just before completing Uni I hired out the portable green screen and shot some footage. Here is a shot I composited of my housemate Olly, complete with a breakdown.



I have also been asked to help out on a MA Film project entitled 'Gone'. I have spent around a week compositing a 2 minute shot, my goal was to make it look like there was no grass or plant life and to deteriorate the rollercoaster. The purpose of this was to emphasise the apocalyptic feel of the film. I used Photoshop for matte painting, Mocha for tracking and After Effects for compositing. Below is a 6 second segment of the shot complete with a breakdown.



Here is another shot I worked on for 'Gone'. In this case my job was to place a house onto Bodmin Moor. I learned a lot from doing this in terms of using perspective, matching the lighting and matte painting.

Here is the final shot - I added some binoculars on top, linked the still plate to the camera movement which accompanied the initial shot of Bodmin and applied a bit of blur and scaling to show the binoculars coming into focus.

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Finished university

It has been a productive few years and I have learned a lot of things. It's been great getting to know everyone on the course and I'm sure our paths will cross again. I feel privileged to have spent 4 years living in Falmouth, Cornwall. It is such a fantastic place. I'm currently living with my girlfriend Nina in Stroud, Gloucestershire and our next move will be to London where we aim to get work.

I helped arrange this exhibition at The Poly, Falmouth to represent our Digital Animation course. They screened our films at The Poly as well - Shell and Paddy, 1890, The Pasty Child and Kernel. This was all part of UCF's Film course's Pixelate event. It was great seeing our work properly on the big screen and it got a very positive response from the audience.

Our exhibition with an interactive stop motion set up:

Part of the Pasty Child set:

Goodbye Falmouth! We shall meet again..

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Annecy International Animated Film Festival 2012

I found this to be a very inspiring and eventful week packed full of animation goodness! It was nice to see some of my friends from the course and it also presented a good opportunity to network. Over the week I saw a lot of short films, commissioned films and feature films. Aside from this I also enjoyed Serge Bromberg's morning interviews with the short film directors, a VFX conference, a feature film conference, talks from directors, a talk from an animation supervisor from Dreamworks, the awards ceremony and a rounders game! The festival seemed to strike a balance between the mainstream and the weird and wonderful stuff being produced on the fringes. It was inspiring to discover a large, open-minded and respectful audience for all things animation.

Here are a few of my favourite films that I saw:

Features:

Wrinkles directed by Ignacio Ferreras.

"An astonishing cocktail of friendship, resistance, and life that goes on in the unexpected setting of an old folk's care home" - Annecy guide.

The characters were really well developed and the story was moving, well structured and interesting. It was visually quite stunning.

Approved for adoption directed by Jung Henin and Laurent Boileau.

"200,000 adoptees have been scattered around the world since the end of the Korean war. Jung is one of them." - Annecy guide.

This was a very personal account of the directors life growing up as an adopted child. It was 3D but rendered in a refreshing 2D style. The film juggled this style with live action documentary footage of Jung speaking, old footage of the family as well as some expressive 2D animation to emphasise some key moments. The mediums that were utilised encapsulated Jung's story on different levels and offered a rich and vivid account of what he had been through both internally and externally. The film won 2 awards at the festival.

Le Tableau directed by Jean-Francois Laguionie.

"Three characters living in an unfinished painting venture out into the real world in search of their creator, to convince him to finish his work." - Annecy guide.

This was also created in 3D but rendered in a very painterly style  - visually, it was quite unlike anything I've ever seen. It was a good concept with some funny and surreal moments. Whilst at the festival I went to see Jean-Francois Laguionie talk about making this film. He noted several interesting points:

-He had 2 years financed to make the film plus 6 months for pre-production.
-The animatic is a great communication tool. It is helpful for the producer to help outline a budget.
-Drawing helps establish the connections between objects, people, landscapes etc. more then writing a script. He felt that he was writing with his drawing.
-Recording actual actors/actresses prior to making the characters is an advantage.

Commissioned films

We cut corners "Pirates life" by P.Adamski and K.Kijek

This is a very cool hand drawn animation - it goes to town on the simple visual theme of water and reflections.



Five years older "I should have known better" by Dirk Koy

This shows an interesting technique that has been carried off effectively, showing landscapes in a constant state of flux.



Ants directed by Gerrit Bekers

This is definetly 30 seconds of your time well spent!



Short Films

I saw a lot of great short films at the festival - it would take me a long time to post every one that I liked so I will just put up a few. Most of these are trailers.

The people who never stop directed by Florian Piento

This was visually stunning and contained a nice message.



Tram by Michaela Pavlatova

This had the audience in stitches! A wild journey through the driver's fantasies..



Second Hand directed by Isaac King - Full film!

This has to be one of my favourites. Brilliant and funny characters, interesting visuals and a strong message. Definetly worth a watch.



Modern no.2 directed by Mirai Mizue

An excellent synchronisation of visuals and music. The animation looks great.



How to eat your apple directed by Erick Oh

A Dali-esque surrealist take on eating an apple. Pretty surreal and fun.




VFX conference and other things

I found the VFX conference very interesting. People from MPC, Framestore, BUF and Double Negative talked us through breakdowns of Wrath of the Titans, The Tale of the Three Brothers (animation for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows), Marsupai and John Carter of Mars. I always like learning what goes on behind the scenes so it was a highlight of the trip. I particularly enjoyed seeing the making of The Tale of the Three Brothers as it is quite a distinctive and stylish animation which brings together a variety of techniques. Dale Newton, Animator supervisor noted how Houdini was used for the procedural forming of the bridge. I really liked this effect (and the other effects.) Later in the week I spoke to a Houdini representative who showed me the software - I'm inclined to try it out when I get a bit of spare time.

The directors conference was quite interesting as well. What I found amazing was how these productions were spread across several countries. It really takes some strong organisation to make these things materialise and stay cohesive.

I also enjoyed Serge Bromberg's morning interviews with the short film directors. It was nice to hear about their inspirations and ideas behind the films.

I had a couple of interviews in the week with Snarx FX, Paris and Mokko studios, Montreal. This was a valuable experience.

It was good to meet several other fellow animators/vfx artists throughout the week. The rounders game on Saturday was highly enjoyable and I scored two rounders!

Annecy itself is a beautiful place and I'm glad that some of my mates from the course could make it. I hope to return in the future.

Photos:

Inside Bonlieu (the main venue)

Serge Bromberg interviews Jun-Ki Kim - director of 'Her Story'

Tom and Fran sitting outside of Bonlieu next to the big outdoor screen. Mountains and the vast Annecy lake are in the background.

The outdoor screen. Serge introduces the last screening of the festival.

The Annecy ident.... 'LAPIN!!' (sorry - only people who were at the festival would get this ;-))

To summarise - it was a great week packed full with films, conferences, meetings and people and all set in a beautiful location. After every competition film was screened the director would be invited to come up and take a bow. This was one of the (many) strengths of the festival - paying much deserved tribute to the creators. I would definetly like to return in the future.

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Showreel 2012

My latest showreel, marking the end of my Digital Animation degree. A selection of shots from throughout the last few years which focus on compositing but also demonstrates my skills in animation and 3D. The first two shots are from our 3rd year final major project: Kernal. A CG animated film I worked on as part of a team of 17 which we have now completed and anticipate entering it into festivals.

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Innovations - How to composite a polluted city shot

Here, I have put together a detailed guide which documents the process of compositing a typical polluted cityscape shot for our 3D animated film Kernel.
Innovations - How to composite a polluted city shot

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To browse through other innovations documents by people on the Kernel team and on our course check out the links below. I will continually update this page as more people upload their documents.

A linear lighting workflow based around mental ray's final gather by Olly Skillman-Wilson

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Dissertation and Kernel progress

Dissertation

Here is my dissertation. In it I relate art to modern forms of commercial animation and digital media. My argument is that audio visual areas of commercial digital media and animation could allow for the most 'artistic freedom'.

Art, Animation and the Audio Visual: An exploration of art and its relationship with commercial media forms

I enjoyed writing this. I found it interesting learning about and applying the fundamental attributes of art to contemporary and commercial animation/digital media.

Some of the music videos I referred to in my dissertation are the following:

Everytime (2009) by Oi Va Voi. Directed by Kijek and Adamski.

So So So (2011) by Rone. Directed by Studio Funf.

Frozen (1998) by Madonna. Directed by Chris Cunningam.

Joga (1997) by Bjork. Directed by Michel Gondry.

Yes I Know (2011) by Memory Tapes. Directed by Eric Epstein.

There is also this great web page which documents in detail the making of Jonsi's live show visuals: 59 productions.

Kernel progress

Things are getting pretty busy at the moment as we have less then 3 weeks left to complete our final major project. Kernel - our CG animated film which is looking fantastic. My role on this currently consists of overseeing the compositing and editing. Below are a few finished stills - Its an exciting time!

                                   

32 bit colour implications
Heres a little 32-bit colour related compositing mystery I recently stumbled on whilst analysing the final awesome touches Olly added to the first city shot shown above. This may look pretty boring but it was quite intriguing from my point of view!

Other stuff

I'm currently working on a website, aiming to promote myself and my skill set (a mixture of concept art, storyboarding, compositing and animation.) Here is a screenshot of the current layout.

Furthermore, I'm hoping to create a business card, C.V. and up-to-date showreel all in time for the Annecy animation festival which I'm greatly looking forward to! Woop :-D

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Progress!

I have been very busy since my last blog (hence the lack of blog posts.) I am currently working solely for Kernel which is the main 3D animated film being produced in our year. Since completing a lot of concept design work I have also created the new storyboard for Kernel. From this, I have been able to develop an animatic that has progressed through 6 stages (from an epic 6 mins 38 secs down to a more realistic 4 mins 11 secs.) In the process of refining the animatic, I have kept the essential story information, cut out whats not needed and maintained a good sense of pace and rhythm.

From the animatic, Olly and Hugh have been creating block-throughs in Maya. These Maya shots - that dictate basic animation and camera moves - are being carefully timed to fit with the animatic. (I have also helped by going into Maya and adjusting the camera sequencer lengths to block-through shots that were completed prior to the final animatic.)  The idea is that people who're doing the animating can work within the appropriately timed shots that maintain the correct pacing to the film as a whole. Its an intuitive process and of course, the animation will probably not stick to the frame counter exactly - so long as it roughly fits with all the original timings then we're on the right track!

My roles on the project have extended to editing and compositing for which I have been getting to grips with Adobe Premiere (CS5.5) and The Foundry's Nuke (6.3 v2) software. For both of these I have been working my way through some helpful books - 'Adobe Premiere - classroom in a book' and 'Nuke 101' by Ron Ganbar. Both of which, give you files and exercises to work through. As the editor, I will be constantly updating a premiere project file, as the shots gradually progress from the block through stage to animation and eventually the final composited shots.

The image below shows what I have learned most recently in Nuke. Using a rendered 3D sequence of exr images, I have rebuilt a basic beauty pass which mirrors the way a beauty pass would be created in Maya. The advantage here though, is that the beauty pass has been divided to its essential elements - which I can tweek independently. Working this way should prove highly efficient as it allows one to have good aesthetic control over the shots and save on the lengthy processing and rendering times Maya would incur. The bonus is that the files that Ganbar has provided with his book is of a lemming 'road-skiing' using a car. Amazing!

The Kernel team have been working really well together and it feels like we're building up a creative symbiosis of all our talents. If we maintain this kind of momentum then we should have something good to show by the deadline which is now less then 100 days away!

Aside from Kernel, I have been working on the dissertation and am currently 2 weeks away from completing a Web Communication Dreamweaver AQA course. Busy busy busy!

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