Edditing

Well I have been furiously editing down in 'the dungeon' (the basement) and the suite is really well equiped and I have spent more time downstairs, over the past week. And i am very pleased with the work that i have produced. The only thing which has been a pain, is the fact that i had trouble capturing at the start etc. I would have had that extra edditing time etc and wuld have got the piece even better perfected.

Future thought

I have just found yet an amazing series of short comical sketches, about an unfortunate guy etc. I really like the style of anmation, also it kind of reminds me of the old pink panther cartoons. Which are funny because the main character is constantly a victim of his fate. And we are lauphing at his expense, his pain etc. If i could create a series of animations featuring the same anti-hero, it would be my complete dream.

Its Jerrytime!!

Ive found this really nice example of 2d animated photo montages. Like the montypython style. It has a very strange and bizzre plot. It is based on a series of short films about a guy who narrates and stars in his own show. I really love the style of format, its telling the story and beeing the story at the same time. I think the main reason why i love it so, is its out right wackyness and isnt of typical animation and film formats.

monty python

As some miight be aware of an early post of my attempts of a monty python style animation, i do quite love the 2D photomontage animations thingys that monty python flying circus created. There have been many different companys trying to re-create these styles. There have been tv adds etc, which have copied the style, and always pull off that kind of, 'olde' look to it. Im not sure what you wud call it, but i call it genious. Obviously the newer animations, that come from the origional monty python animations, from Terry Gilliam, are very clean, and in the desperate housewives intro sequence, there is that escence of 3d, mainly due to after effects 3d engine. I like how it is replicated, and modernised, but at the same time, it is a shame cause i like 2d-ness of the monty pythons animations and the highly absence of 3d really does make it extra unique.

cg robot and ww2

introduce robots to world war two and what do you get? Ill tell you what you get, ultimate destruction!haha, no seriously this short film that i have known of for a while was quite a wonderfull thing to watch for me, as i had always wonderd what wud happen if you put ultimate technology into the past. Its kinda like what i wanna do in terms of animation and sureal style. I had known this animated film for a while now, just couldnt find it again. Now have it is for everyone to enjoy. Its just a bizare idea that robots could have existed way before we think, and to unleash their powers when we least expect it. I might even now come up with a similar story, including the past, time travelling and ultimate anailation.

cg robot

The previous week....

...has been bloody hell! I have had many problems when it has come to capyuring second life fotage to tape. First of all when i go down to the dungeon on weds afternoon and find out that it hasnt been set up properly, i was quite infuriated, cause we had to show something on the friday morning for the final crit, and i hadnt even got the footage, never mind the editing. The only decent piece of structue that i had was the edited audio, cause all i had to do was add the visuals to the audio, if you like. So for editing it was quite easy, it was just a matter of choosing the right pose in the footage clips. As i spent all afternoon in the dungeon, trying to set the capture device up, i had many problems where, second life kept on crashing and at the same time i had to keep running up and down them stairs to tell rob, that it had crashed, and to wait etc. Rob was my sl actor, to pose and do a few poses etc. Anyway, once we got it working right, i got rob to controll his character and i recorded this straight to tape. At least i thort it had! I decided to review it before dooing more poses, and for some strange reason there was no footage on the tape, it turns out you have to press the red and the play button at the same time, for it to record to the tape! This was my suggestion to Matt, the dungeon keeper, and he was like 'oh yeah, so it does!' I was quite mad because i had spent a full day trying to organise to get some footage to tape and at the end of the day, left with the same amout of footage as i came with, which was very little, or pretty much nothing. So as soon as i got home, i turned on my PC and got FRAPS working and second life windlight on, which was looking much better and not even crashing, whilst the ones in the dungeon were not as good. So i am pleased i have got full quality graphics rather than lower, which i would have got if i had recorded it onto tape. But at the same time, i was anoyed that i had literally had to start the day all over as soon as i got home, and i wasnt even feeling well enough to go into college in the first place, which means, cause i did it at home, i could have stayed at cozy warm home, where there is comfy chairs and sky tv.

I am very pleased tho to come out in the end a good looking prototype for my final crit, i am happy with it. I have a bit of editing to do, when it comes to sound, i need to get rid of negative comments etc and also i need some more live action footage and second life footage with people working together etc.

qavimator

I have had Avimator for a while now on my pc, i had it for quite a while, it was gathering dust somewhere on one of the sectors of one of my many harddrives. The reason why i havnt used it, was because i belived the layout sucked! You cudnt see the frames on the timeline and there was very little things to do if u made a mistake, and you had to make everything perfect 1st time round, or u wud have to start from scratch. And i believed this was so stupid because u wud have to be a super expert in timing etc, for u to be able to master it etc. Because t was a while since i downloaded it, i looked for a new one, and got the latest one. I was amazed to find that it had seperate timelines for each individual limb and body part. I have made a few poses for my sceen capture session tomorow, and am quite pleased with wat i have done. I am now used to it, and it is actually very easy to do. I am just delighted they sorted the problem out with the keyframes etc. It is much better, tho u cant see the individual frames, u will know because the time slider snaps to each one. So for my final thing i will have custom animations. I am very happy.

interviews and windlight-2 blogs in one

Well i was very happy with my interviewing of fellow class mates, even tho, when i finished interviewing luke, he asked me if he shud send elf in, and i felt like a tutor,lol. Once i got all the footage together i realised that i was gunna have a lot of work to do to edit it all down. I got loads of interesting matterial, probably over half an hours worth. There were a lot of stuff which was great for advertisement purposes and loads of funny stuff, but i have only 2 mins, which is not a lot, when u got a lot of interviewd stuff with loads of questions etc, i just have to cut loads of stuff and only feature like 3 of the 6 or 7 questions that i asked people. But of the selected answers i chose, i feel its the best arangement, for the brief. Theres been certain answers that have been heavily edited, due to pauses, and uming and erring, to get that extra time. I mean, as well as that i have to feature some live action, which i havnt filmed yet, and the final crit is in 3 days!!!It shudnt be too much of a problem tho, cause i know what i want, and its only very quick, maybe a few seconds.
Also the newly founded 'Windlight' an alternative SL client, is so awesome, it features amazing water and amazing skies with editable cloud cover and sea colour!!, its so koool!!! its yet suposed to feature in the normal secondlife client, so its kind of a massive beta test at the moment. Oh so just to let u know, i am filming the sl bits in Windlight.

Edirol R-09

These little devices are so kool and inoitive technology, i borrowed one from the bloke in the dungeon and they are soo good, regarding recording sound, u can set em for the sensitivity of the mic etc, dependent on where you are, conditions etc. I initially borrowed it to record some interviews etc for my moving image brief. What i learnt from the wee device was that it can be set to record people in a room, and only them, even if there is background noise going on. I decided to take it to a gig, last thursday, sneaked it in, and recorded the entire 'Within Temptation' gig (didnt record the support-cause they were shite- they were the 69 eyes and were total dicks, looked like a combination of motley crue, with sound-a-like of HIM and the lead singer looked like vince noir from mighty boosh).
Anyway, i concealed the device in my coat pocket and wraped a few tissues and stuff round it to difuse it. And guesss what it worked really nice. I was very impressed, next time im going to have a more of a professional approach, like make a wind sock or something.lol

regarding personal development

I have just realsied a blog i posted the other week, the day before the moving image lot had there mini presentation thingys in front of mike, i posted something on my old blog page by accident, i am such a gimboid!!!lol, both blogs do look the same, and i must have clicked the new post of that one by accident, cause my new blog site is normally above the old one, must a been sum glitch. bloody blogger!!!!!!!!!!i will avenngeeeeeeeeeee uuuuuuu!!!!
you must read it cause i spent a while gathering the images and stuffff

after effects creation

at the weekend, i was feeling creative, and made a quick animation using a photographs that i had taken and sum of the weberdy web, i wanted to experiment with after effects more, and create like a photo montage animation thing, kinda like the montypython style and the sumo tv adds. This is relating to my gf's obsesion in coke, so she is like an imperial guard to the mighty coke!!

Machinia vs Frag Video

I found this really good video, which is of course a machinima made film, but ilustrating the few points, when it comes to ameatur film making, some people just film how 'elite' they are and 'awesome' they are. But they are just filming something to show off, but there si no actual plot or inteligience involved in them. Where as machinima involves many people working together to create a movie, all in digital and use of existing matrials.

Alien thing

just had a go at animating in after effects with a lil creature i made in photoshop. I was surprised how easy it was. Like copying keyframes etc, made life much more simple and stress free.

Second Human Life!

Well i havnt had chance to start working on our new brief, so ive just been looking around at videos and found a rather funny viral style ad which involves people pretending to be avatars in second life. This of which was something that i did for a joke, and thought it wud be funny to do something like this,looks like someone else thought of it. Im still gunna do sumot similar tho, in a sepeate project maybe.

spoofs

How it should have ended!!

i have found a nice collection of animation spoofs, based on some very epic and some fairly old films. All animated in 2d. They kind of remind me of those 'adult swim' episodes on paramount. The style of it all, is quite comic book sketched. Its nice to see some 2d animation for a change, despite its a spoof thing, it is a good watch.
how it should have ended

Ident Evaluation

Evaluation

On the return from the summer break I was still in motivated to work to a brief, as I was quite busy over the summer working on various projects I had set myself. The brief for making an ‘ident’, using after effects at first seemed quite simple. The only thing that I was worried about was learning after effects, as before id had a go before a few times and always got ‘blown away’ by the complexity of it. It was just not a program that I could learn for my self without tutoring a little bit. Once I had a few lessons in the programs, there were little things which I was told whch helped me a hell of a lot. After these few lessons on the programs, I then picked it up fairly fast.
I chose the fear brief, as I could have the opportunity to involve some of my favourite horror movies etc, have clips, I was wanting to do the fear as It was the best one for me out of the four.
My main idea for the ‘ident’ was to involve the psychological things which had always effected me when I was younger, these usually were things which were involved in death, execution devices, like the hang mans noose, the guillotine and various other torture devices. In my opinion these things are the most psychological devices to scare someone, or someone who is about to die. So I wanted to create something that might have involved something like this. So I came up with a ‘first person’ style view of the viewer about to die, dieing, and then coming back as a zombie somehow. So the view you see is like looking through someone’s eyes. The main part of the ‘ident’ would involve the part where the ‘1st person’ would be dieing, and this part involves going through some kind of tunnel, as if you were travelling from the physical self to the spiritual self hence going towards ‘the light’ or something in that way. After much careful thoughts it was decided to get rid of the first part of the ‘ident’, that was a short bit from ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ the hanging scene, which was perfect for what I was wanting. Unfortunately it made my ‘ident’ way too long and didn’t seem to fit in with the other parts, seemed to look too ‘nice’ looking. The decision to get rid of that small scene from the ‘pirates’ film was good one as just the travelling through the ‘tunnel of death’ looked much better with all the montage of roto-scoped footage.
One of the most important issues when working to brief such as this, that would involve a lot of roto-scoping, as what mine did, is the time management. It is important for every other brief as well, its just I had to be extra careful as I had a lot of work to do and to fit other things around it, was a challenge. That is a thing which I am going to work on more in the future, is deciding on what kind of work ill be doing before I plan my time, as certain creative processes do take longer than others especially roto-scoping.
With the overall ‘ident’ finished with the soundtracks perfected, I am quite pleased with my final piece, there are certain things which could be improved in it, and they would be the quality of the roto-scoping, which is a skill in itself, to do it quickly.

A cool website on some 3d and photoshop art

3darts and photoshopy stuff

This persons has done a few bookcovers etc for maya etc.

New tunnel renders

i did these renders, just to see wat they wud look like i the different lighting conditons.

Final Crit

Well after i spen all night last night tryin to get a clip from the the 3rd pirates film, i cud only do it via uncompressing a divx encoded file, from 700mb to 140gb!!, so at the same time i was rendering out summot, and i did start to uncompress it around 10pm, plus i was tired. Anyway, it got to about 1.30ish and it still hadnt finished, so i thort id better go to bed, so i can wake up next mornin,lol. So it come to the morning, and i hear drowning of my pc,and the bright blue and red lights, turn monitor on, go to the folder, to find the bloody file was corrupt! So kud've got that extra hour of sleep!! The most anoying thing is, that during my crit it was suggested to get rid of the pirates bit, which is sods law really, even tho i was unsure that i like it like that, so after all that annoyance, its gunna be deleted!ha! Also the 3d animated text is going, from feedback and my decision that it doesn't really fit the overall theme.
What i am going to try to do is to do some bit of squiggly animation in red, just like i tried to make the text merge from the shatterd glass, but shud go better with the text, as itl be the same colour etc. Other things which i would like to do, would be to alter the montage slightly in after effects, i really want to try and give them shadows, so they are meant to be in the creepy tunnel, or sumthing along the lines.
Oh and last thing, is the sound design, the irritating symbols at the end of it, really doesnt go well at all, more like 'jazz season' than 'fear season',lol.

Escape from paradise

This short film i found, merges 2d and 3d, quite literally, and it is very enjoyable watch, very comical and totally mind blowing bizare, its a film where the end meets the begining. This really inspires me, as its a way of film making which is unique to others, and it not the usual, a-b scheme, more like b-a-b, weird!!

escape from paradise

Nam June Paik

Nam June Paik is a South Korean-born American artist. He has worked with many media and has been considerd one of the first video artists. He uses old tvs in his sculptures and uses them well in his work. I have found this guy quite interesting as it converges dital media with modern art instalations etc. Also, i thought might be an interesting one to use in my critical studies.
'Video Flag' by Nam June Paik, synchronized video playback on 70 CRT monitors, 1958-1969, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (Washington, D. C.)

Personal development

from reading the magazine '3d world' and now seem to have 3 issues of em so far. The magazine has many issues in the world of the 3d industry, it has many reviews of animators and films they have done etc. It explain the processes they went thru to create their films. I have found a website which achives various animated short films from people interviewed in 3d world.

list of films on the website
There are lots of examples of how short films have intregrated many different process together, and ive found them quite inspiring. As this is the definate path im going for. The website has a lot of independant amators etc. The film 'Help Me!
by Isaak Fernandez Rodriguez'(2007) is especially a nice peice, using various bits of sofware, for the compositing, but mainly done in maya.
help me-batman thing

Footage

Just getting the damn footage from dvds takes so long, and thats before i have to rotoscpe the damn things. However i am quite enjoying a certain ident to a tv series called bones!

previous comic book style illustration

The previous images are from various bits of art from two different artists, on the old frankenstein films and comics etc. This sort of dark and old look, is the way i want my ident to have. It may have seemed to be a big difference of years, of films that i am looking at, but i want that 'original shocking psycoligical' horror/thriller aspect.

Bernie Wrightson

Robb Bihun

virgin trains- old films merged with newer footage

sumo tv

This is some idents from 'sumo tv' doesnt relate, but i love the animation in them!

initial ideas/research

I havnt had the chance to scan my scetchbook in, of wat i came up with initially, so hear it is, finally.

My anamatic

My idea for the ident involves a single camera shot. so the things which go on in the scene, will happen right after each other.
I have looked at many different idents, bbc, itv, and of course channel four, also others include 'sumo tv' and some other tv comercials. I was quite interested in the short gags in some comercials, despite they werent actually idents. They captured my interest. My 'fear' ident, is going to involve lots of rotoscoped bits of films, etc. So i have a lot of films to look at and steel. well borrow, etc.

2nd year-2nd beginings

A new blog for a new year!