Lip sync second attempt

I've added the hair rollers make-up and adjusted the lighting using spotlights, I need to work more on the timing and i may have jumped into , and the video seems a little out of sync. I'll have to fix these after the feedback session Wednesday.

Believe Animatic

I've uploaded the animatic to Believe, I've make it  using the facial sketches I've drawn using my own face as reference for the animatic. I've planned out the timing of the animation ot the facial exspressions she makes when speaking to the camera, she begins on low energy and builds up tension my engaging the camera, looking striaght at it. She then attempts to intimate the audience showing her anger. I hoping this performance will be an example of my animation skills in exspressing human emotion

Here are a few more pre sketches of the character in poses associated with her personality:

New Character

More images for the IOS game, here are a few character designs for the main character

Mr Rabbit

Pushed for time so had to get a move on with the designs for the rabbit, I've re-designed the rabbit in a more cartoon style and  added extra features, I've adjusted alot of the poses for the run cycle and the jump just to make the bunny a little more "cuddly" if you like. Client requested 6 frames for the run cycle and 5 for the jump,  i think as its only a small IOS game, i've added one extra for the jump anyways.

"Ouch"

"Run cycle"

Thats everything, two days before the deadline too :).

more work

Extra platforms and the health token, trying to keep it within the arab theme, using references from Arabian shines, I've re-designed the original grass platform also send to me  here with the same shapes and colour schemes.

Had sketches too but my scanner isn't working at the moment, i've been using the university scanner instead and since uni's closed for the holidays am a little stuck. :/

Carrots!

Carrot designs for the Rabbit Run Ipad/Iphone game, I started out with sketches of just cartoon carrots, I then started looking at a few general Arabic buildings and art deco and came up with the three final designs:

Have to speak with the client to see which he prefers, I like the one with the circles the best :).

New client.

New brief, I have to re design a character for an IOS game, hopefully should be too hard :), I havn't picked the best time to start being Christmas and all, but a jobs a job!. The main characters a rabbit, he wants an Arabic "cartoony" design, hmm I shall have to do some research.

New logo

I'll be using this profile for now :)

first attempt lip sync

This is my first attempt at the lip syncing exercise, I've been trying to get the mouth gestures right, particularly the "believe" section; I wanted to exaggerate the "eel" sound in "feel" and make it flick of the end of her tongue. I think it adds more intensity to the scene and also goes with the soundtrack, she speaks quite softly throughout the soundtrack, up until the end, the sharp "feel". I think i may have made the mouth gestures too much but I think I should have a second opinion be for i go about changing everything.    

My Presentation: Holy sheep

Holy Sheep created by the character animator Justin Farris, this was an short film for his senior thesis at the Ringling College of Art and Design. Justin recently had become animation resident at the Pixar animation studios.

I thought the whole concept design was fantastic, well thought out and simple to follow but at the same time had so much thought and depth to it.


My thoughts: 

The storyline is simple, A Shepard has a herd of sheep who try to follow him to church, The Shepard tries to prevent the sheep from following him. Farris has used the relationship between The Shepard and the Sheep and the conflicting motives of the characters to create humour and charm in the animation. The 

 Analogous colours used in the scene create a peaceful atmosphere (blue and green are next to each other on the colour wheel).

Farris uses a dynamic establishing shot to introduce the church, Farris has made effective use staging, leading the viewers eye to the church by intensifying and directing the light over the church symbolising a holy church as well as effective use of flow lines in the shepherds pose to lead the viewer to the church on the hill.

Farris has placed the Shepard and the sheep on opposing intersecting points in the rule of thirds, making a well balanced establishing shot.

The sheep are just as important as the Shepard, but are limited to the emotions they can portray.  The sheep’s designs are exaggerated forms of  ordinary sheep,  simple  large round body with big round eyes give the character a lot of appeal.

I did this

 

 

Character development - Lip Sync

For the lip sync I want to create a straight forward, dramatic scene with a female character. I had a few ideas of a young woman 20s, who was in a drastic situation trying to convince the detective she hadn't done wrong, pleading for to the detective to understand, she showed compassion, vunrability and weakness:

 But after drawing out a few poses  the idea didnt quite seem to fit the voice of the soundtrack, the   plus the sequence of poses seem to be too repetitive, so I developed the character further, this female character is a little more mature, mid 30s she is a close friend of a detective and more in control.

Complete!

All finished! 10 background designs full colour. I had alot of creative freedom with this project, the designs just had to be simple, clean-cut and vector so most of the designs have my own personal touch. The backgrounds are being used for a 2D flash animation.

Outside

Close up village

Fireplace

Chimney

Village second background (long shot)

Bedroom

Rooftop

Living room

Rooftop

Village first shot (through the trees)

Character and lip sync

I'd been collecting ideas for the poses and camera angles from watching a few of the classics such as D..O.A (dead on arrival), Quicksand and Jealousy.

Collected a few of the shots for more reference

(0:41:35 - 0:42:20) D.O.A Its a small scene with Mrs Philips (Lynn Baggett) but it has quite an intense build up. The camera switches P.O.V to an over the shoulder of Mrs Philips, I could use a shot like that to capture  the characters face from a different point of view particularly if she is turning away, then the character will not be disconnecting from the audience.

(0:12:35) Looking through he shop window from the outside looking in. I really like in the cinematography how he the depth of field is manipulated to "blur out" the background focusing on the female protagonist face and intencifing the relationship between the character and audience.

Christmas angel

Quick break from making backgrounds,

A job!

I've started a new freelance job today, I have to create 10 christmas backgrounds for an animation, I've been developing a style for the backgrounds combining by my own style with the influence of Dr Suess. Heres some of the design work i've been doing, my next post will hopefully be the completed poject.

                                                                          Bedroom

Film Noir & Lighting

I want the lip sync exercises to show I can invent characters with soul,(yes this is a little cheesy) but I mean a character who looks convincing without performing any physical dance routine or over exaggeration.

So, to set the scene and develop the staging I've decided to go for the classic Film Noir theme for the lip syncing exercise.

Heres a simple diagram i found from http://www.darkmansdarkroom.com/film-noir-lighting-with-lighting-diagrams/, it exsplains how to produce the lighting for a close up scene for film noir style movies. Spotlights from the front and ground highlight the face and put the character directly on the spot like a crinimal, creating more drama and intensifiing the scene. Another less intence light creates a refection in the eye, while the light at the back highlights the figure and creates a shadow at the front.

The lighting has alot of effect on the atmosphere and mood for the female character I want to portray, the close up shot combined with the Film Noir lighting technique

lip sync - staging

As you may have read, i decided to stage my lip syncing animation to appear to be conversation between to close friends, even though only one of the characters is speaking. I think this will add more believeability, I found a useful page with a little history on the staging in cartoons thanks to the one and only John K. Have a little read:
http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2010/06/34-left-to-right-camera-angle-vs-over.html
So, as a little prep work, ive looked into some staging for conversation. I eventually narrowed it down to two possible shots: profiles views: where both characters are in the shot, and over the shoulder.


"2 Profile views"


(http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2010/06/34-left-to-right-camera-angle-vs-over.html)


"Over-the-Shoulder - is a medium or close up shot including 2 actors taken over the shoulder of one actor and showing the face of the other actor."

(reference from http://production.4filmmaking.com/cinematography1.html)

With the over the shoulder view the focus is more on the exspression and emotions of the individual speaking in the conversation itself. I think this would be alot stronger than using the 2 profiles, the 2 profiles looks more like its been designed - like a painting or a still sketch, which works for 2D animation but for 3D animation we are focusing on the the characters performance.

Lip syncing

Hey peps
I wanted to get a head start and begin the next assignment, we will be lip syncing a rig to a soundtrack we've selected from the tutor, I've narrowed it down to these two:

"Believe"

"Treason"

Analysis

I like the first one as it has a lot of drama already in the sound, especially at the end. The character is obviously female, young, 20s 30s so it will be an easy character to develop. But what I really like about the soundtrack is the transition from low energy to high energy, the emotion of the character flows from quite light whisper and gradually gets louder and stronger to the "feel" at the end.

  The second sounds lot  more feisty, a very young character, could be male or female. I imagine this character with clenched fists, angry, pointing and and other provocative poses. There is alot less to the soundtrack however in comparison to "Believe", it could flow from high to low energy but it wouldn't quite work as effectively as the character makes one clear, concise statement in the soundtrack.

The presentation for this is in 2 weeks.  

Staging

I set the camera up to catch both cavemen within the shot, i needed to line up the angle carefully so that the round boulder didnt hide caveman1 with the square. As far as the staging goes it does look a littl bare, however this ICA is more about the animation than the decoration or modelling so i should worry too much.

I need to go through the pass one more time, partiularly the second caveman, as his legs still seem to snap a little. If I have the time i think i will have to re animate his cycle, especially if this is going in my portfolio. The cycle itself seems a little uncomfortable for the character, it maybe the leaning side to side which i've included to show how the character is balancing, perhaps less exsaggeration would be more effective here.

Progress

Starting to run out of time, been quite busy this week, made a little progress with the characters, i've managed to block out and fill in a few inbetweens on the characters walkcycles and facecial exspressions.

Not very happy with the scene alltogether though, it seems a bit dull, (not mentioning the fact that i need to work on the staging!). The second caveman (on his knees) also seems to snap 3 times in the scene. I've tried to mix up the cycle to make it more spontanious and amusing, but i dont think its quite worked out. The first caveman making good progress, although there are ares which seem a bit "floaty"  but the timing seems just about right. I also havn't started on the hands and will have to go over pass to include the hand exspression. Not to mention include props and build the caveman scene!

working progress

my working progress and testing the poses in animation:

As you can see, I've exaggerated the pose and adjusted the timing to make the box appear really really heavy. Just making a note to myself for future: never underestimate the power of line, especially line of action. Working far too slow at the moment, with graduation tomorrow I shall need to get a move on with this assigment to get finished on time.

Prep work

I've drawn out the poses i could try with this animation to see which could work better than others. Theres alot of scrap work so i'll just upload a few ideas. I've decided to make the ball boulder alot bigger, just as a gag and seem lighter than the smaller box.