The Last 2 weeks...

Well it looks like my career as a non-stop blogger is in doubt - but heres a round up of what Ive been dong for the last 2 weeks...

Digital Story Telling

The Digital Story Telling Module ended a week ago Friday and below is my final outcome. Im pretty pleased with the way it all came together in the end and its not a bad effort for 2 weeks work. The script was written in about a day and I guess it shows but its the first Ive ever really written so in the words of Yazz "The only way is up". I was quite worried towards the end as I wasn't sure if all the elements would tie together. But it turns out its not too bad. The addition of sound effects and the re-recording of my voice over with the aid of some (medicicnal) brandy really helped.




Eisteddfod Mobile Phone Brief

Last week was taken up mainly with an introduction to Flash with Marc Lewis. we used the opportunity to work on a mini brief for Cyfle, intended for use at next Weeks Eisteddfod in Mold.
The brief was for 3 10 second episodes intended for distribution via mobile phone at the event. The episodes were generally to involve a single character and his/her adventures at the Eisteddfod.

As I had a little extra time at the end of the week I went slightly off brief and added a 4th episode.

Its Friday again...

Yes is is.
This week was pretty much devoted to our first mini project - Digital story telling.
Alot of Monday was taken up trying t o work out story ideas. Not so easy. Especially when the story has to be something that has actually happened to me. I guess alot of things happen - but nothing that interesting - from my perspective anyway - difficult

Anyway story found. Well I say story - more a series of events really - but I thought it may have some possibilities. On Tuesday a chap called Ian Staples came in to help us shape our stories into scripts. Amazing. What resulted was something that I think might actually be a script! Ian had some top advice on developing stories and ideas in to full scripts and it turns out to be quite fun. Blimey

Any joy I felt about my script on Tuesday was quickly beaten down on Wednesday when it came to recording my voice over... Oh dear. I don't often have cause to say this but I cannot act... In fact on the evidence of my recording session I can barely speak the English language....

I haven't yet had the nerve to listen back to what travesty was committed to tape...

Ah well - creating some pretty pictures (below) has kept my mind firmly off the subject. At the moment I'm just ploughing through my storyboard - creating all the images i need before I lay them out in someway next week and add the dastardly VO.

I also managed last night to finish some kind of Showreel type affair with music and everyfink!



Then I went and said good bye to my good friend Leanne who's off today to live in Ireland. Nothing to do with animation - just a bit sad.

Friday - presentation day...

Friday was presentation day and it was a whole lot of learning. My little study of John Lassater came together pretty well in the end and the biggest challenge was operating the web-native sideshow application great idea just a little clunky - but thats a discussion for another lifetime.
Everyones presentations were pretty informative and after I had finished mine it made for a pretty relaxing afternoon. Links to all lovely the presentation will be here once I get round to it Cheers!

Mike Collins

Mike Collins is a comic and storyboard artist. In his role as a comic artist he has drawn stories for the likes of Batman, Superman the X-men and Judge Dredd. Pretty impressive. Mike also works on story boards for companies such as Calon and Dinamo. Mikes had some interesting points about the difference between constructing the comic layout and the storyboard - - -

• Comics have to read left to right. Storyboards don't - the action can come from anywhere.
• If you are storyboarding for 3d/live action then scale has to be accurate - as the set/models are set sizes.
• Also if you are storyboarding for 3d/live action you have to have to have a realistic knowledge of what is possible with the camera.
  
• In comics the 'camera' can do what it wants but just make sure not too much is going on in the frame.
• Mike also talked a little about how the camera is like another character in the action - with its ability to effect the mood/pace/atmosphere etc.

Shrek 3
This was a pretty good film. It had some areas of genius comedy - towards the end mainly - and some bits that were rather flat. As ever Eddie Murphy pretty much held the whole thing together - along with the rest of the ancillary cast such as Puss, pinnocho, gingerbread etc. In fact the least amusing character is Shrek himself - by Mike Myers invented Waynes World so thats okay.

The Bate - Richard Villeneuve

This morning we went to visit "The Bate", a company just round the corner at Stuart Buildings. The Bate specialize in titles for television and I guess what is termed as 'Motion Graphics'. In that regard they have much less of an emphasis on character animation that was such a major factor in Calon and dinamo. From what was talked about the company draw heavily on a graphic design basis partly because of their background but also as the nature of title design requires that they deal imaginatively with text. I was surprised that when designing titles - the company often has to design the whole logo/branding of the program. This element is often left to the last minute by the program makers - which seems strange as I would have considered it and extremely important factor. The bate also seem to have an extraordinary amount of control over the look and feel of their work - factors for this include the short turn around of these project - typically 1-2 weeks, and fact that sometimes the program makers seem to think of these as an after though.
All in all I was very impressed with the work produced by the bate. It had a sophisticated and playfull fell which I found appealing - plus its roots in effective graphic design were very evident

Bruce steel

Hello Blog

This morning we met a very interesting fella called Bruce Steel. Bruce worked his way from a Cardiff computer shop, through working on computer animation for 80s gameshows up to being head of special projects at Glassworks. Bruce - apart from having a really cool name - has worked on a lot of the most interesting adverts that have been on telly over the last 10 or so years. The work he showed us from his time at Glassworks was really top drawer and covered may different animation/special effects disciplines from character animation to seamless real world special effects. Coming from a special effects background alto of what Bruce has dome seems to have involved allot of problem solving and working out the best and simplest way to bring the writer/director/producers to the screen. Most of this seem to involve successful and seamlessly combining camera footage and cg effects. Whether that was fantasy characters interacting with human characters. Or bringing realistic but impossible/too expensive to shoot elements to the screen - such as the WWI dogfight in one of the Stella Artois adverts.
Alot of the wisdom Bruce had to impart was to do with the virtue of taking the simplest route for effects, and essentially doing as much work for real and in camera.