Kayla - Home From School (cont.)

Continued animation sequence from last month with the Kayla rig:

Kayla - Home from School from James Saunders on Vimeo.

Going to make a couple of changes to the arc of the jump onto the sofa. Been very tricky trying to work out the change in Centre of gravity as she goes in and out of the front flip. Maybe a nice render will help the animation eventually too!

Anomalisa (2015)

Stunning trailer for 2015 film "Anomalisa" A glorious looking stop-motion film by Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson. Definitely looks like it's pushing the boundaries of what an animated feature can achieve, and i can't wait to see it!

Kayla - Home from School

As part of our showreel submissions for this year I decided to do an animation with the Kayla rig as it looked like it'd be a lot of fun to animate with:

I wanted to come up with a mini story for the animation, something that I could try and draw an audience into despite being only 20 seconds long or so. I ended up with the following scenario:

"Kayla is returning home from school to find her favourite TV program on"

From here I quickly scribbled out some ideas on paper:

It's not much but it gave me a base to start on. From here I quickly modelled the scene in Maya so I could explore some more camera options. I do this as i find it a little bit tricky sometimes to explore all the camera options on paper:

Once I worked out how the two shots cut together I began work on the first shot as Kayla comes home. I imagined her slightly down, hugging all her books and she walks past the living room where she sees her favourite program is on. As i was shooting the video reference I was getting lots of great feedback from my peers and lecturers as we tried to think of ways of getting as much juice from the shot as possible. For example someone suggested that Kayla does this little dance of excitement before she runs into the living room. I didn't have this in my previous versions but it adds so much character, it's so important to get that fresh opinion on your ideas.

A WIP is here on Vimeo for the first shot. I still need to work on a couple things but i'm pretty happy for where i'm currently at. I've been working on the shot mostly in the evenings after uni for a couple weeks:

Home From School - WIP from James Saunders on Vimeo.

More to come!!

Key Poses - A Refresh

Found this video the other day and it's really made me look more closely at one of the key principles of animation. Key Poses!

The key poses are the building blocks of any good animation. Ideally one can communicate an entire idea through just the key poses, the storytelling poses. For a great key pose there are several factors that are usually kept in mind. These are usually:

Clear silhouette, Line of action, appeal, squash and stretch, rhythm, tilt and twist, (and many others i'm sure i'm forgetting) Life drawing really hones the eye in on what makes an interesting pose too!!

The video below highlighted just how important good key poses are in communicating a a story clearly:



The Keys: Inside Out from Kyle Kenworthy on Vimeo.


It's made me rethink the way I approach a shot as I have been becoming more reliant on video reference to give me basis of the shot. I think I need to spend more time drawing out the key poses I want as well as figuring out exactly where they lie in the shot too. That way I can be sure I have a really strong base to start animating on from the start.

Team Danger Explosion FINAL YEAR FILM

My final year at Uni has come around which means it's time to make another short animated film!!

Team Danger Explosion is teaming up again (Dan Ridley and James Richardson) and hopefully we're going to make an overall better film than last year, and if we're lucky get into the end of year Animation Expose.

All film updates can be found on the film's blog page here:

Robot and Dog

Check it out!!

Framestore Internship London

I had the opportunity to spend 8 weeks at Framestore over the summer to work with the animation team on Jungle Book. Working as an animator I got to experience what working on a major project is like, as well as having an amazing time :)

During the evenings I worked on a personal project to really push my character animation skills. I was assigned to a mentor Edwin Schaap, an amazing animator, who helped me along the way with notes and feedback as well as getting help from the Jungle Book guys around me. 

I looked online for a soundclip and began working my way through:


Framestore Internship - Personal Project from James Saunders on Vimeo.


Overall i'm pretty happy with the result. Looking back at it now I reckon i would change the acting at the end to match the angry tone of the dialogue more. It was a huge learning experience doing this and I've learnt a huge amount, can't wait to do the next one! (Huuuge thanks to the animators around me for such great feedback and patience aha)

Dialogue Piece - Workflow 02 - Acting and Reference

I decided to pick a sound clip from cancelled BBC sitcom 'Siblings' . It made me laugh and had some cool little qualities to it that I thought would be really fun to animate.

Sound Clip: https://www.dropbox.com/s/60bu9rz72lgq38f/shorter_version.wav?dl=0

The first thing I like to do is just sit and listen to the audio over and over. I tend to get an image in my head of who the character is and the general situation that he's in. (Refer to the acting essential blog post for more acting notes (Acting Essentials) This really helps inform the acting decisions later on.

I try to keep in mind several key points: What's the story? What is the scene objective? Overall objective? Obstacles to the objective? Play an action until an obstacle makes you play a different one.

From here I'll write down the dialogue and work out the general rhythm and timings of the speech. As well as writing down the acting beats:

I'll then put the audio on loop and start filming some video reference as i mouth the dialogue. 

Have a look at this video from AnimSchool where a mentor talks through different ways of approaching video reference:

Dialogue Piece - Workflow 01

Thought it'd be a good idea to blog my workflow for this dialogue and acting animation exercise.

I'm currently in the blocking phase so i'll be recapping the previous steps. Nearly all of this information is simply me passing on that which has already been worked out by many other more accomplished animators than me. Check out AnimSquad for a huge array of knowledge from some of the best people in the industry.

1. Choosing a Sound Clip

The first step in animating a dialogue piece (obviously)

There are quite a few things that are important to keep in mind when choosing to animate a dialogue piece. 

Firstly it's super important to know what type of animation that you want to animate before looking for sound clips. It could be a humorous, sad, dramatic, feminine, etc. Knowing what you want will make it so much easier when looking for sound.

We must also look for something that is interesting to listen to. For example monologues tend to be very boring. They're tempting to go for but without the context of the film or TV programme it's being taken from it will be very dull. That being said, it's also better to tend to avoid super dramatic scenes as the lack of context makes it hard for the audience too. 

Aspects that make a good sound clip:

• A fun payoff at the end / interesting twist
• Having a character audibly thinking (e.g. taking a breath, stumbling over words, human flaws)
• A good rhythm to the speech

The best place to look for dialogue is usually TV shows. Just have fun on YouTube searching for favourite shows and actors. TV is sometimes better than film when looking for dialogue.

Lastly, play the dialogue to friends and see how they react. Usually a good way to tell whether it's worth pursuing a clip or not.

Next up, prepping the shot...

Comparing Acting and Performance

Found this fantastic clip a while ago and thought i'd share it on here. It's a great example of taking a piece of dialogue and finding two completely different ways of performing it.




The acting choices turn the scene into either a dramatic piece or a comedic one. The way the actors choose to pause and run the dialogue is particularly interesting too as well as certain emphasis on words to really hit those emotional beats. Denzel breaks to allow time for the audience to laugh whereas James Earl Jones will break at different times to emphasise the poignancy of the message he is telling his son.

So many great acting notes to take away from that clip.



Whilst i'm at it I'm a big fan of James Earl Jones and his poetry readings, have a look at this clip below:



James Earl Jones Performs Shakespeare at the White House Poetry Jam: 3 of 8 from The White House on Vimeo.


I could watch this performance taken from Othello all day. Incredible reading and acting. Even when some of the Shakespearean dialogue becomes a little hard to understand, the emotion of the words is never lost which is all down to the acting. Love this stuff!

Summer 2015 Showreel - James Saunders

An update to my showreel for the summer:

Summer 2015 Animation Showreel - James Saunders from James Saunders on Vimeo.

Walk To A Stop - Animation Exercise

More animation exercises woo!

Used some reference to help me do a fairly detailed walk to a stop. Was a really fun little exercise to do:

Walk To A Stop - Animation Exercise from James Saunders on Vimeo.

Dog Animation WIP

Been working on this dog animation the past 3 days. Really fancied doing some creature animation with a bit more personality than a vanilla walk cycle.

Dog Getting Up WIP from James Saunders on Vimeo.



I worked off a couple videos as a reference guide:




I began by working in all the major keyframes from the reference. I would then try to keyframe the entire dog on these major keyframes. For the most part this worked and helped me keep my time slider clutter free at this first stage of animation. For the more complicated movement as the dog gets up I did have the break away from this a little bit.

I then checked out how the animation was looking out (not great) and then went back in and started the tailor the animation slightly to how the rig was constructed as well as exaggerating some motion following the animation principles such as overlap and removing twinning.

From here I had an okay base to start working over some more, fixing some feet issues and general mechanics. (I've found the more I paid attention to the mechanics at the beginnning the smoother the animation went). Always checking the graph editor for funny shaped curves.

A quick final go over to smooth some more stuff out and that's just about where i'm at now. 

Check out 3dhit.co.uk for some critique and more personal work

Panther Walk Cycle

I've been working on this panther walk cycle on and off the past couple weeks along with a few other exercises. Been trying to improve my realistic animation as it's an area in which i'm lacking at the moment.

Using plenty of reference as help I think some progress is being made.



Panther Walk WIP from James Saunders on Vimeo.



There are tonnes of little nuances to a cat walk which I had never really noticed before studying the reference.

Going to try and improve this some more next week!

Acting Essentials

Watched this great video by AnimSchool on acting tips to keep in mind whilst planning out and animating a shot.

Main Points

• Acting is reacting. Acting is doing - have an achievable goal

Thinking tends to lead to conlcusion. Emotion tends to lead to action.

• The character needs an objective. Who are they and what do they want?

• A character will play an action until an obstruction makes them play differently

• Scene is a negotiation/conflict. A character pursuing a goal but on object is in the way. e.g. - Person vs Person

      Person vs Situation/environment

      Person vs Self

• Acting is real life heightened - the character feels more than you do

• Scene starts in the middle. Adrenaline moment (a moment in the character's life they'll remember)

• Power centre (the focus of the body e.g. high, low, nose, hips)

• Comedy - extremes

e.g.  An unusual person in a normal situation

        A normal person in  an unusual situation

        Drama is normal. Comedy in drama heightened

• Simplicity

       Illustrate the idea clearly

       Make it obvious to the audience

Make sure to have a look at Ed Hooks advice on acting for animators too. Incredibly insightful information. 

Boy Racer - The Finished (almost) Film

The final-ish version of our 2nd year student film: Boy Racer

BOYRACER from Daniel Ridley on Vimeo.

We had a tonne of fun making this film over the course of the past few months. It's amazing how much we have learnt and also how much more we have left to learn!!

We're currently making some edit changes as well as tightening up some lighting, rendering and comping.

Thanks to:

 Dan Ridley

James Richardson

also:

Toby Winter-Perreau (Sculpting)

Philip Aldous (Composer)

Early Score Tests for Boy Racer

The past couple of weeks we've been continuing to make small edits to our film in order to really tighten up some sequences. We have also been in contact with a 3rd year composer here at Hertfordshire, Philip Aldous, who has created a very nice early piece of music for our film.



Intro Latest from James Richardson on Vimeo.

Once the animation is fully blocked in Philip will be able to refine the music to the exact beats that are shown on screen.

Boy Racer Pre-Vis

We're at a stage now where we're fairly happy with the previs. Below is the 10th edit of our film in the maya. 

We tightened up a few edits and added a few shots to make the film clearer. One of the bigger changes was swapping a pothole for a fallen tree. The shots following up to the crash hold the tension a bit more now too.

Life Drawing Christmas 2014

A collection of life drawing's made over 10 weeks in the run up to Christmas last year. Drawn mostly with conte pencils and brush pens over periods of around 5-20 minutes!

Initial Storyboard Tumbnails

After the screenplay for the film was written I drew out the story very quickly on post-it notes. Upon seeing the film visually it was clear which parts of the story weren't working properly.

Thumbnails serve as a very rough way to visualise the film. They aren't as polished as final storyboards but the important idea is that they communicate what is happening in the story.

After discussing these initial thumbnails with other coursemates and lecturers we made several changes to the story. Act 1 was shortened considerably so that we could make the downhill scenes as interesting as possible without making the film too long. It also helped pacing of the film too. After these changes a live-action version of the animation was filmed and edited together.

Boy Racer - Short Film

Since the new term has begun at Uni we have been busy creating our film currently titled 'Boy Racer'. This short 2 minute film will make up the bulk of the work for semester B.

Concept

An audacious young boy wants to imitate his Formula 1 idol by racing his home built Formula 1 car down the hill outside.

The story was initially based on an idea of a boy pretending to be an astronaut by racing his sledge down the stairs at home. The idea was then refined through back and forth with the lecturers and team members to the concept above. We committed about a month to working out the story. Story is hard!!

The film will be set during 1975, a golden era for Formula 1 where James Hunt and Niki Lauda were battling for the title.

Character Design

Whilst designing Philip, the main character, I wanted to keep in mind his personality traits to help form the design. He's ambitious for his age of about 9, spritely, full of energy and somewhat foolhardy.

Initial shape exploration

Refining

Final turnaround (colours to be finalised)

Exploring some emotion

 Some potential poses for the film

More updates to come!