The Dark, Dark Tale: Storyboard

Storyboard:

The idea for this animation is to have one continuos shot traveling through the environments. This is a little difficult to show via storyboard stills so I made a quick animatic to show the movement of the continuos shot. As it stands at the moment the sequence is 1:13. I hope to make this longer but without doing the animation it is difficult to determine just how long it will be.

The music I have added is form Edward Scissorhands soundtrack by Danny Elfman. This is a better example of the music I would like than by pervious test shot.

Storyboard:

The next stage of development will be to complete designs and concept art which in turn may inspire a more detailed storyboard.

The Dark, Dark Tale: Idea Development

One of my favourite short stories was The Dark, Dark Tale by Ruth Brown so I decided to animate this tale. Having just finished my Time Based Narrative which involved a lot of running cycles and frame by frame animation I wanted to explore using the camera to create movement.

After Effects virtual cameras have many settings which can be changed and used to create dynamic shot through what would have been a 2D image. I used this tutorial to get me started on my camera work.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_ax8s3Ftkw&list=FLHNSkJVo8XO8-WpCtHQtLdg&index=2&feature=plpp_video


This is a 17s test clip of how the animation might look like. There I explored colour and form of the environment and tested how the camera might move around. I also experimented with aperture and focal distance. The music is form Avatar by James Horner. I used this music temporarily to help emphasises the atmosphere but for my final animation I would like to collaborate with a music composure to create a score to fit the spooky atmosphere I wish to convey.

The Dark Forest:

Final Submission: The Snow Queen

Group Animation:

              

Created by Rebecca Meilak, Lloyd Thomas, Amy Cowley, Adam Atkins, Neil Yu- Ting Chio and Shadia Mohaiyuddin.
(Unfortunately Adam Atkins didn't provide any material so his animatic was used in the final sequence)

My Part of the Animation: 00:01:32:00- 00:01:55:00

The main thing learnt in this project more than the others is understanding the work flows in a projects, especially  when pitching ideas and working and directing a group. I enjoyed and felt comfortable in my role as director as I could take forward my idea and bring it to life but also could direct the group to achieve an other synchronised piece of work. 

The project was an over all positive experience for me and I enjoyed pre production concept ideas, idea development, story boarding to music, exploring software and animation tests, production and post production editing in After Effects. I had never used After Effects before this project but now I am confident in it's use all be it a  basic level.

This project particularly alerted me to the importance of story boarding and carrying a narrative through visual images and allowed the practice of these skills. This is particularly true in our project as it is the music which carries the narrative and no dialogue. 

Overall this project has giving me the planning and technical skill to start producing my own projects and shorts which I plan to start doing over the term break.

Life Drawing: Term 1 Summery

This 1st term of life drawing has taught me to actually see the pose and draw it and not draw what I think I see. I have learnt many ways to deconstruct a pose, it's different elements such as weight, line of action, and rhythm. I feel that the work I have produced has improved significantly and I can work faster with each pose. Theses drawings and work flows have helped when drawing my running cycles for my animation in my Time Based Narrative module as they have allowed me to give a realistic quality to my characters movements.

Life Drawing: 21st November Week 8

1 Minute Drawings:

There are some warm up sketches, again I use a lot of curves as I find this the easiest way to capture the pose.

2 Minute Drawings:

Here we were exploring the concept of 'drawing across the body'. First I identified where the weight was being spread across the body, form shoulder, to hip, to knee, to feet. When drawing I lightly drew a zigzag line across the page to get a rough idea of direction the weight was going in. From there I drew in the pose. I felt that this helped me push the pose, giving the pose a real sense of weight and keeping it in proportion. 

30 Second Line of Action Drawings:

These are an improvement on the previous weeks. I can capture the pose in a few lines and give it some level of weight or stance. These still aren't my strongest drawings and prefer 1 minute sketches as I can collect more information and draw it in a way which is easier to understand.

15 Minute Drawings:

I started of these drawings buy lightly drawing across the body, and lightly indicating the form using convex and concave curves. After which I started to build up the line to show weight and kept drawing the forces going across the body and not focus on the out line. The shading came last one I was happy with the proportions. Using the techniques I've learnt in the past weeks I drew this figure with more confidence, especially in regard to proportion, than before i started.

Life Drawing: 31st October Week 5

30 Second Drawings:

These are some warm up sketches. I feel I can work faster and can deconstruct the pose quicker, picking up the essential elements.

15 Second Drawings:

I am still having trouble with my flow lines. I have trouble working at such speed especially when deciding what to draw and what to leave out. However I feel a slight improvement especially in the second page, the poses are clearer. 

30 Second Arrow Drawing:

Here we went back to arrow lines. These I find an easier concept to grasps than the flow lines. Instead of keeping all the lines straight I allowed myself to curve them which I felt helped exaggerate the pose.

Left and Right Hand 1 Minute Drawings:

Here I first drew the pose with my left hand and then my right and was told to compare the two. Dan was instant that out Left hand drawing were better than our Right as they had more fluid lines. I disagree and think that the drawings are very disproportional and the lines are more static and broken than my Right hand drawings. When ever I draw I always keep my wrist off the table and use my shoulder keeping my lies fluid, which is why I think I like the Right hand drawings better. 

Drawing A- left hand

Drawing A- right hand

Drawing B- Left hand

Drawing B- right hand

3 Minute Drawings:

Before drawing these posses we first wrote down descriptions of the pose, what they ment to us to help depict a particular characteristic when drawing. I found this did help but for me having more time to study the pose means I know what draw and how to draw it. 

Description: protective, stationary, someone is about to jump over her (a ballet move).

Description: fluid, twisted, exploring space, about to push off into a spin.

Life Drawing: 24th Oct Week 4

3 Minute Drawings:

Here are some warm up sketches where i have taken forward the curve technique I learnt in the pervious week. I can easily capture the pose and I don't work down one side of the body and then the other as i used to before, nor draw a static outline.

1 Minute Drawings:

I found these poses difficult to do using the curve technique, the poses came out to static and I felt that I couldn't capture them as well as the pervious week. However the lines are less overworked and the pose is still represented well enough. 

1 Minute Drawings: Pushing the Pose

There we had one minute to draw the pose and then redraw it exaggerating the stance. I found that the second drawing looked more realistic a representation of the pose and certainly capture the essence of it more than the first. Again with these drawings I was drawing form the shoulder to give lose fluid lines.

1 Minute Arrow Drawings:

There we practiced using arrows to present the 16 parts of the human figure and thus making the shape of the pose. The arrows indicate the direction the limb is pointing in. This helped me understand flow lines a little better and deconstruct the pose. 

1Minute Left Handed Drawings:

Here we used our left hand to try and loosen our strokes. we started off drawing an arrow drawing and then went to a full figure pose. It is difficult to judge my progress when using my left hand as the lines are messy but I still achieve a basic representation of the pose.

1 Minute Right Hand Drawings:

There we went back to the right hand but were told to maintain the fluidity we experienced with the left. I feel that these sketches capture the movement of the pose more than my first 1 minute drawings and have stronger and more defined lines.

  

Life Drawing: 17th Oct Week 3

1 Minute Drawings:

These are some warm up sketches. They are an improvement from last weeks drawings as I could finnish the pose quicker but the lines are still over worked.

1 Minute Flow Lines:

With more time for every pose I could the study poses and make different versions of the line drawing. I used no more than five lines for each pose trying to create the pose with one line.

1 Minute Reversible Line of Action: 

There I created the pose using only curves, convex and concave. to create the pose I had to use both types of curves opposing each other to balance the pose. The type of curve depends on where the light comes from. I preferred this type of drawing as it created the for of the figure well as used simple lines akin to the line drawings.

Life Drawing: 10th Oct Week 2

1 Minute Drawings:

These are some warm up sketches trying to capture the key essence of the pose in the limited time.

2 Minute Drawings:

Here I started to use heavier thinker lines to show a sense of weight. I tired to hold the pencil in a loser way moving it using my shoulder and not my wrist. 

15 Second Line Drawings:

These line drawings were meant to show the essence of the pose in a few lines.  I had difficulty doing this as I didn't know where to start and which lines where the most important for the pose. I believe this task would have been easier if I had time to analysis the pose and then have 15 seconds to draw it. 

1 Minute Drawings: 

After the line drawings we went back to 1 minute drawings trying to capture as much of the pose as possible.  I felt that after the line of action task I could finnish the pose with more ease and have time to reinforce some lines to give a sense of weight. 

2 Minute Drawings:

These next set of two minute drawings are an improvement than the first as i feel they have a better sense of movement and form. My favourite is in the first photo in the arched position, the simple line of the back is what I feel makes it effective. The pose next to it on the right is over worked, there are too many lines however it gives it a less static look.

After Effects Video Editing

I'v only used After Effects as a compositing tool and never as an editing tool. The video below shows four clips which before and after they were edited in After Effects.

Unedited Video Clip

Edited Video:

In most of the clips I used a Warp Stabiliser to stabilise a hand help shot and produced a smother or still shot. In the first clip I also experimented with the Brightness and Contrast and used a Dust and Scratches setting to create the blurry intro. I key framed it to make it look like a POV shot with some slowly opening their eyes.

When editing clip 2 I enlarged and repositioned the clip to remove the bar at the bottom of the shot. I also used the Exposure to create bright fade out at the end of the clip and used the same technique for clip 3 as well as the Warp Stabiliser. Even having used this the shot still remains a little blurred showing that the computer can't correct every thing.

Clip 4 also needed the Warp Stabiliser but with this shot I wanted to experiment with downgrading the quality of the image. I used an Add Grain tool to create a pixilated effect.

The video below was edited in Premier Pro using dynamic links with After Effects. Here I removed the video's audio and replaced it with a music track with a audio cross dissolve at the end.

Editing Photos in Photoshop

I have used photoshop during this term for my concept art and for my Time Based Narrative 2D animation. However I have never used it for editing photography. The first image below is an unedited jpeg image which I edited in photoshop.

 When editing i decided i wanted to create a dark dull day with the light coming in at a low angle lighting the bridge. Using the brightness and contrast I made the image less washed out. I increased the hue and saturation but still kept the colours keep the colours dull.  Separately I edited the buildings and the sky; making the sky darker using a Levels tool and edited the buildings using the Vibrancy and Curves tool.

I wanted the bridge to be lighter as if it was receiving more light than the buildings. I selected it using the Lasso tool and edited separately and feathered the edges. As an added effect I created reflections on the water where light form the bridge reflects onto the water.

Editing Raw DSLR files

This is the original Raw file before editing:

Here I experimented with the various editing settings to warm the image. I also tired to make it look like a brighter day by experimenting with the contrast and saturation. I also increased the detail to make the tree trunk in the foreground more textured.

This image was edited in photoshop where I could edit selected parts of the photo. Here I tired to make it look like the photo was taken at dusk. I experimented with the exposure, colour balance and learnt how to feather a selected are to prevent a defiant line between selected and non selected elements.