Monday 24 November 2014

Leeds International Film Festival: Giovannis Island

Giovanni's Island follows two boys during World War II on a small island near Japan. The small community is invaded by Russians, who gradually take the peoples home and food rations. The boys father takes it upon himself to share soliders rations between the people and gets caught whilst trying to keep the rations hidden. From this the boys are taken to a far away town in Russia and try to find their father, losing people along the way.

The hand drawn animation for Giovanni's Island was gorgeous, it contrasted nicely against the heavily intricate and detailed painted backgrounds, with the addition of CG. It actually worked well with the animation as it absorbed the stylization and atmosphere that the hand drawn quality gives to the narrative. The animation style reminded me of the film 'Summer Wars' with the use of the thin lined animation, and use of matte tones, and the narrative reminded me of Miyazaki's 'Grave of the Fireflies' through the setting and view point of the boys that the narrative followed. - Both Grave of the Fireflies and Giovanni's Island start with a scene from the end of the film before going into the story - a flashback. It was interesting to see how the camera angles in the film emphasised the emotions throughout the film, one of which was from the perspective of the boys, highlighting the boys vulnerability compared to the adults around them. The animation style changes when the Galactic Train appears before the main protagonist - the animation is presented in a line art fashion with a galaxy background that represents the child like dream perception of the scene - I found this really inspiring through the change illustrative style, the chalk like appearance of the train as if drawn by a child.

I was really inspired with the character and background design, I found a few production sketches from the film, it was interesting to see how they would design the prop, and then show how it would interact with the character, considering light and shadow, volume and size.







Leeds International Film Festival - Dragon Ball Z: Battle of the Gods

Compared to traditional cel animation to the new digital animation, the animation is shiny, clean and neat however it doesn't hold the original stylization that fans love as much. The animation itself was smooth and the anticipation worked well with the actions that the main characters used, for instance the super saiyan god technique. The movements of each character were quite exaggerated, over the top expressions for humor, which works well with the fantasy and anime theme.

The CG that was used in the animation, was covered up quite well in places, as a texture in the style of the 2D animation was placed on top to stop it from standing out from the rest of the frame. The only scene which the CG stood out too much was when the main protagonist Goku got into a car and drove around the small planet that he was on. I think this was due to the repeated animation that was with the CG car that really made it standout compared to the other animation.

I was particularly inspired by the character design for the two new characters that were introduced, Whis and Beerus. The design for these characters were interesting through how they were designed in a Egyptian fashion mixed with a space/futuristic blend - this can be seen in the rings and extra cuts of fabric that are on the clothing.

I was also really inspired by the framing in the action scenes - when Goku and Beerus fight each other the camera shots followed the animation as it sped through scenery. This inspired me with approaching storyboards - considering how drastically changing the angle of the scene could make the action more interesting.

I can see that this film will be the beginning of a new franchise of the already popular series due to the new form that the main character has obtained and the ending of the movie which gives the impression that a few more films will be made to complete the narrative.


Whis
Beerus


Monday 17 November 2014

Thought Bubble: Sketching Panel - Notes


What do you do?

Babs Tarr - Made money through college by commissions and selling traditional oil paintings. This helped her alot with her digital work, especially with layering backgrounds in panels. Bat Girl was her first comic in which she draws for DC Comics. Previously she was a 2D game artist during the day and freelance in the evening, until she decided that she definitely wanted to freelance for a living. For the Bat Girl comics, she collaborates with Cameron Stewart who does the layouts as she draws the illustrations as she finds it hard to direct a scene and making the panel atmospheric.

Emily Carroll - Mainly creates horror and fairytale comics, being both the writer and the illustrator, and is her own personal thing. She does sometimes include gifs with in her work to emphasise her work, using photoshop to create it. She went into webcomics as she didn't know how to publish her work - she uses mixed media, ink washes, graphite etc.

Boulet - Creates his own webcomic, which needs alot of planning. Finds computer colouring annoying, watercolours are more aesthetically appealing, cheap and quick to use. He draws from life - realistic style at times, as he was good at life drawing but could never use this in his comics. It was a challenge to make both non and realistic drawings - the change between the two.

What informed your style?

Babs Tarr - She found the foundation course she took helpful as she learned a broad range of skills that she uses to inform her cartoony style. Life drawing was a huge aid in her work, helped her to learn to draw quickly and in a good quality with the 5-10 minutes poses that you would do.

Danielle Corsetto - Draws from life - 2 1/2 hours on a Wednesday is dedicated to life drawing - a break from her webcomic - tends to focus on certain parts like the feet or hands. Quite objective, likes short poses as easier to make cartoony whereas the long poses are a challenge and forces her to become more realistic in style. Makes life drawing simplistic, think about the poses, deciding which lines you need and dont, thinking before drawing.

Babs Tarr - Starts with a sketch, own personal work and then breaks down the items - background, layout, figures etc, only draws traditionally at conventions as normally she works digitally, faster and easier to produce. Prefers traditional.

How do you handle people helping you or taking part of your workload?

Boulet - Had an assistant, in which he would create scripts for the assistant and then create drawings from that. The drawings were good but didnt like giving the control of the comic away. However it was interesting to leave her to do what she wanted, a different view point, both merged to make a new story, "sometimes you have to give up and let it go"

Babs Tarr - Had 2 assistants, one does patterns, dont touch the main illustration, alot of work, hard to complete it all with the narrow deadlines. Would finish a comic and take a break, then stress about the work she should have done.

Emily - Had assistants but finds it hard to let others take control, likes working by herself.

Sketchbooks?

Boulet - Sketchbooks, uses it to record memories, much like a photo album, draws scenes of where he is and views, people around him, everyday life, gains inspiration from this. When drawing he draws directly in ink, no sketches or references. Tends to rip out pages quite alot. Uses Twitter to help him draw - asks a question to his followers for a theme to draw and draws these whilst traveling, a good way to generate ideas and challenge narrative/design.

Emily Carroll - Gets inspiration from dreams and folklore, childrens books and fairytales. Always carries a journal with her, instead of drawing characters, she draws thumbnails and storyboards to generate ideas,



Thought Bubble: Sketching Panel (Saturday)

The sketching panel was extremely inspiring, it was interesting to see how they work, whether they start with sketches or draw straight in ink, and it was also inspiring to know how they started their work, and why they chose that form of media and publication.

The sketching panel included:

Danielle Corsetto - The creator of the webcomic "Girls With Slingshots", she has also wrote and drew "The New Adventures of Bat Boy" for the Weekly World News, and written two Adventure Time graphic novels for BOOM! She currently works with three other people on her webcomic including interns.



Babs Tarr - A full time freelance illustrator with a BFA in Illustration. She currently draws for DC comics for the new "Bat Girl" comics, and previously she has worked with Cartoon Network, Disney, Boom!, Brand X and Hasbro. Her work has also been featured in magazines such as ImagineFX, Juxtapozed and Comic Alliance.





Emily Carroll - An illustrator who graduated with an animation degree. Currently she has been making horror and drama webcomics. She has some published work, with publishers Dark Horse, Vertigo and First Second, her first book which was published "Through the Woods". Not only does she illustrate and write books, she also works in the game industry in games such as The Yawhg and Gone Home.




Boulet - A full time webcomic illustrator, in which he created "Bouletcorp" and in the process created an english website for these comics. He also works traditionally and rips out pages from his sketchbook much like I do. In his comics he includes parts of animation and gifs.


Tuesday 11 November 2014

Leeds International Film Festival - Appleseed Alpha

Appleseed Alpha is set in a post-apocalyptic earth, where the surviving humans coexist with cyborgs which have a higher ranking than the humans. The main characters, 'Deunan' a human who fought in the war, and 'Briareos' an elite cyborg designed for war, end up helping a girl and an android who they find whilst doing a mission for a robot named 'Two Horns'. The narrative was obvious in some parts but it was still very entertaining and gripped the audiences attention with the explosions and action that followed suit with the two main characters where ever they go.

The appearance and movement of this animation was amazing with the use of CG, the backgrounds were very distressed and worked well for setting the scene of a post apocalyptic earth. The lighting was stunning it helped to set the atmosphere through the use of shadow, the shadows helped to make the characters more sinister and show how bright and desert like the earth had become.

The animation for the robots were far better than the movement of the humans. The robots animation held more personality through the exaggerated walk cycles and general movement, which can be seen in both the characters, 'Two Horns' and 'Briareos'; Two Horns having a casual slumped approach, and Briareos, being more aware and alert. This use of movement added to the characters personality helped the audience to identify with these characters, able to tell whether the character is good or bad. The animation for the humans however lacked in these exaggerations, they lacked any stylized movement so the actions felt boring, for example there wasn't alot of anticipation to make the action more exciting/tense when the main character was fighting the enemies she faced. At one point in the movie the main character Deunan jumped into an armored suit and ran alongside with Briareos, and the movement of the suit was far too quick and felt jagged compared to the smooth animation of Briareos.

Deunan and Briareos

Monday 3 November 2014

Gorillaz

The British band Gorillaz has always inspired me through their character design and animations that went along with their albums. The movement of the character animations are emphasized to portray the personality of each individual and exaggerate the style of the designs. The animation then evolved to using 3D software, in this case Autodesk 3DMax, creating a realistic perspective of the virtual band. The 3D animation was used alongside film which worked well as the characters interacted with the objects around them. Even though the animation has become more realistic with the rendered textures, the characters still hold the illustrative style of Gorillaz that they are known for. 










The animatic inspired me through the use of the imagery being key frames for the final product, capturing the main emotion and movement for that frame, the use of colour to emphasise the atmosphere and the use of the camera angles to exaggerate the scene.

Looking behind the scenes of the music video, it as interesting to see the designers adding textures to the 3D models and also the basic polygons that the characters are modeled from. From this I saw the importance of the performance reference before the movement of the animation, to create a smooth action.

I feel like I can identify what practice that I want to work in, through the animation and modeling of the characters seen in the Gorillaz music video 'Do Ya Thing'. I enjoy storyboarding, making animatics, and character design/animation, in order to inform my area of practice, I want to look at modelling in own time, looking into creating textures and making cartoon based models, and also create a short storyboard and animatic of a character animation of the model I would be making. To show this process I could look into creating a time lapse of making the model - look into recording process? what equipment is needed? av suite?