Moving Image Final Animation – “Breaking Time”

My finished animation for the Moving Image rotation, based on the theme word of “break”

Moving Image and Photography Week Reflection

For my final rotation of part 1 of the foundation course I was on the Moving Image and Photography pathway. Overall I absolutely loved this pathway as it is exactly what I want to do and I love being able to learn more about animation.

The project for this week was to make a short animation revolving around the theme word of “Break”, which could be interpreted any way that we wanted. The film that my group created was called “Breaking Time” (Although this is more of a working title and we didn’t put  a whole lot of thought into the final name, admittedly), and we were going along the lines of breaking apart and analysing an object, specifically a clock and the mechanical systems inside it. However we used the “breaking apart” aspect as more of a springboard to explore other ideas such as the creative process, time and emotions also.

When coming up with ideas for our potential film, we initially created a spider diagram of all the potential meanings that could be taken from the word “break”. After we had decided on some of the areas that we found most interesting and thought had the best potential we then created several smaller spider diagrams exploring all the possibilities for those ideas. Once we felt that we had fully exhausted all the ideas we had at our disposal, we had a discussion about what the main gist of our narrative would be and defined the main beats of our story. With the skeleton of a story laid out, each member of the group then worked on their own smaller storyboard of potential ideas for the short film. After about half an hour, we then re-grouped and compared all of our ideas and wrote one final storyboard that combined everyone’s individual ideas and formed our final story.

When it came to creating our animation, i think that everyone worked really well as a team and each member individually made a significant contribution to our final film. In the morning we created all of our assets needed for the film, such as the clock face, the side view of the head and all of the individual cogs. Just before lunch we started to animate using DragonMotion animation software, which has been used on Hollywood productions such as Frankenweenie and ParaNorman. The actual process of animating went a whole lot smoother than we expected, so much so that we were able to go back and re-do the beginning scene as we made a minor mistake when we were first getting used to the software.

I did most of the editing of the film, which was done in Final Cut Pro, a software I had never used before. However Final Cut is incredibly similar to Adobe Premiere, which I have spent a lot of time with before so I didn’t find Final Cut too challenging to use. Once we had all of our images imported into Final Cut we adjusted the timing of all our shots so that the overall film would run smoothly and we slowed down shots in certain places to place emphasis on what was being shown on screen, such as when the clock strikes midnight. With the timing sorted out we then exported the film as a Quicktime video and re-imported it, this time adding in sound effects from a website I have found useful in the past, http://www.sounddogs.com. I would have liked to have done a bit more with the sound aspect of our film but unfortunately due to time constraints and my in-experience with Final Cut I couldn’t manage to do more than put in two or three effects, without being able to make them fade in or fade out.

Overall I am very happy with the end film that we created. I think that the animate is really smooth and the different combination of materials is very interesting visually. However our film is quite short in comparison to what other groups have managed to create in the same amount of time, with ours only just scraping the 10 second mark. I think that this is because during the planning stage of this project we wanted to ensure that the film we planned was manageable and do-able in the time we had. We didn’t want to bite off more than we could chew and not have a finished film to show for it at the end of the week. I think that we may have been a bit too conservative on our part and definitely could have squeezed in another scene to our film.  Another criticism that we received during our critique was that the message/narrative of our film wasn’t completely clear, which is a fair point. When coming up with our ideas for the film, we didn’t plan out a clear story exactly but more of several pieces of imagery we wanted to show and experiment with animating. If I were to have the chance to do this project again I would definitely work on increasing its running time and expanding on the narrative.

I really enjoyed doing Moving Image and I’m certain that I will be choosing it for my pathway – I can’t wait to start!

Fashion and Textiles Week Reflection

On my fourth rotation week I was on the Fashion and Textiles pathway. Overall I ended up actually really enjoying the myself throughout the week. Our brief was to come up with our own type of disaster, then design a piece of clothing that would aid society adapt or cope with this apocalyptic scenario. In my scenario, the high levels of pollution humanity has been pouring into the atmosphere have made it increase in density, meaning that everyone now floats slightly. Not massively, but still to the point where it’s pretty irritating. I wanted my scenario to be something outside of the box, something that not everyone would think of and I think I’ve managed to achieve that!

When it came to designing my body adornment, I had to imagine every single aspect of the new society that I had created with my scenario and consider all the possible problems that they may face in these new circumstances. I looked at how we would meet our basic needs, such as eating/sleeping/hygiene, how we would dispose of all our rubbish, how people would be able to work, what warfare would be like in this new environment, how peoples lifestyles would have changed and what types of new transport would have to be created to navigate this new, floaty world. I really enjoyed this world-building part of the week as it allowed you to be really creative and properly flesh out your very own world.

When it came to the creation of my body adornment, I originally intended to produce a net/glove hybrid that would be used to scoop up items of rubbish that would be floating around in my scenario. I constructed my prototype by making two hand shaped pieces of MDF, which were going to hold a wire mesh net in between them. This was then going to be attached to a glove which the user would wear, allowing them to reach far away floating items. However, when I got to the stage where I was attaching the two pieces of MDF together with a hot glue gun, in a very special moment I managed to glue my work to the table. When I attempted to remove it from the table, the wire mesh ripped straight down the middle, pretty much rendering a day’s work useless.

 

After I had finished crying, I decided to try to move onto another one of my designs which I had previously developed in my sketchbook – propeller gloves that would allow the user to fly around. Since this construction was pretty last minute, I had to use whatever materials I could find in the classroom rather than going to the workshop and getting proper materials. I made the main body of the two fans out of the bottom sections of some empty plastic acrylic paint bottles. I then attached the bottom cups to several strips of blue plastic that wrapped in between the fingers, keeping it securely in place in the user’s hand. I created the propellers for the fans out of wooden lollipop sticks and attached them to the plastic pots using a hot glue gun. Finally, I wrapped wire mesh around the front of the pots to cover up the propellers.

I actually think it was a good thing that my previous design broke, as I personally think that my original design was admittedly pretty boring, and deep down I knew that I could have come up with a more exciting design. The pressure of a last minute change of plans forced me to really think outside of the box and be resourceful with the time that I had left and the materials that were currently available to me. Surprisingly, I’m actually happier with my new design than I am with the previous failed one!

I did really enjoy Fashion and Textiles week, as it was quite similar to 3D Design which I also enjoyed doing. However I think that if I did take it as a pathway it would be a whole lot more fashion focused which is really not something that I am interested in. I had fun on Fashion week, but I don’t think I’ll end up choosing it. Moving Image is next week, and I can’t wait to start doing some more animations.

Fine Art – ‘Traces’ animation

My finished animation for the Fine Art rotation week, based on the theme of the word ‘Traces’

Fine Art Week Reflection

For my third rotation week I was on the Fine Art pathway. Overall I actually ended up really enjoying this rotation, mainly due to the amount of freedom that we were given, which essentially meant that we could create whatever we wanted. I took this opportunity to experiment with some stop-motion animation, as well as a technique I had always wanted to try called Crayon Melting (It’s pretty self-explanatory).

Due to the large amounts of time needed to create a smooth animation that I would be happy with, I didn’t actually manage to do very much research this week at all. In order to make sure that I would have completed my project by the deadline, I jumped straight into the animating – First creating all of the animations digitally, in Adobe’s 2D animation software Flash CS6. This has meant that whilst I did manage to complete the film in time, my reflective journal, sketchbook and research file are currently very bare. I’m going to have to go back and add to them over the weekend. 

Aside from that though, everything else through-out the week ran surprisingly smoothly! I made sure that I had planned out precisely what had to be done each day to make sure that everything would be finished on time, and I think that I actually managed to stick to it pretty well. First, I created the walk cycle in Flash, so that I could properly work out the timing and spacing of the walk so that it had the right amount of weight and movement. I then printed out each of the individual frames of this walk cycle (there were roughly 40). I spent the entirety of Tuesday tracing around these frames onto black card and cutting them out. One problem that I faced when doing this was that I hadn’t made my outlines simple enough. There were several objects that stuck out – such as the umbrella handle – that became quite a hassle to cut out accurately and neatly each time. If I were to do this project again, I would definitely go for a simpler shapes. 

Once all of the individual frames were cut out, I then set up a mini studio in my bedroom where I animated the walk going from left to right of an A3 page. The animation took about an hour and a half to shoot, and as I shot it all in one go it ended up looking really smooth and I was very pleased with the end result. The next day I went out and bought all of my crayons and designed the 3D version of the protagonist so that the melted crayons would melt around him, rather than just go straight over his flat, 2D self.

 

Melting the crayons was actually a relatively simple process. I used a hot glue gun to mount all the crayons in a rainbow on a sheet of cardboard, then rested the board on top of the canvas. I then started recording on my flip camera and melted the crayons using a hair dryer. The process overall only took about 10 minutes, but the crayons did need a few minutes of heat before they would melt in a proper flow rather than just in dribs and drabs. Once all the footage was shot, all that was left to do was animate the protagonist walking on to the canvas and the walking off again after it had ‘rained’.

The main criticism I have for my film is the lack of continuity when it comes to the lighting and backgrounds of the animation – This is due to the fact that it was shot in two different places (My home and in the studio) at various times of the day. This means that the background and lighting changes through-out each scene, which is really noticeable and makes the whole film look amateurish, in my opinion.

Overall I really loved Fine Art. The fact that you can interpret it into your own personal preferences and explore whatever mediums you wish to explore really appealed to me. There’s just a little part of me that wants to do this over Moving Image now. A very teeny part.

Visual Communication Week Reflection

My second rotation I went through was Visual Communication. Overall I must admit that I didn’t enjoy it very much as it just didn’t seem to click with me. I’m used to doing most of my work digitally or simply with a pencil in my sketchbook, however Vis Com seemed to be very hands on with lots of cutting, sticking and physical manipulation of images, which I don’t have much experience with. When you’re working digitally if you make a mistake you can simply undo it, whereas when you’re physically cutting out images there’s very little room for error. I think this hindered my creativity a bit as I was really cautious about the work that I was creating.

The research I carried out at the start of the rotation was somewhat helpful. I chose to study Robert Massin, a graphic designer active from the 1940’s to the 1970’s. Whilst I did find his works very interesting and did enjoy learning more about him, I struggled to adapt elements of his works into mine, although this was mainly due to time restraints. The research we conducted as an overall class where we explored all of the different possibilities of books that we could create was very helpful, as it really opened my eyes to the wide variety of possible outcomes that my project could have.

The designing and construction of my product all ended up happening very close together, mainly due to poor time management on my part. I ended up designing portions of my book as I went along during the last day as I was constructing it, as I hadn’t left myself enough time earlier on in the week to properly plan out every aspect of the card. Unfortunately this meant that I ran out of time on the last day and didn’t manage to include the typography that I had created earlier on in the week in my book – This meant that when my work was being critiqued and shown to my peers the message wasn’t as clear and several people ended up not understanding the themes of my book, which i personally class as a failure – My book failed to perform the main function that it was designed for.

Overall I didn’t enjoy Vis Com week very much. I was still catching up with work from 3DD week, meaning that I ended up falling behind and this in turn hindered my progress in Visual Communication. The main bulk of the week was focused on Typography and Graphic Design, which is something that I learned did not interest me much by the end of the week. I have yet to be swayed from Moving Image!

3DD Week Reflection

The first rotation subject I experienced was 3D Design, which I ended up enjoying as it was quite similar to what I had already done at A Level product design.

The research I carried out at the beginning of the week was very helpful as it allowed to me identify the type of crisis I wanted to explore early on, giving me more time to think of new designs and developments. Overall I was happy with the research that I carried out, although for my next piece of research I think I will try and use more traditional ways of researching, such as using the books provided in the library rather than just running to google in a panic.

When it came to designing the product, I decided that the most important aspect of the product was that it was very aesthetically simple, so as to not intimidate any new users and so that it’s function would be obvious to anyone who saw it. I think that I somewhat managed to achieve this with my finished design, as so far the people I have shown it to have easily understood what the product is when it is placed in context. When it’s placed out of context however, the results haven’t been as great.

The construction of my product was rather stressful. I had originally planned to create the net of the stand out of acrylic, cutting it out using the laser cutter to the shape of a hand. However the technician that usually helps students use the laser cutter was unavailable on the day we were building, and I only found this out once I reached the workshop that morning. This forced me to quickly re-think my design so that a net could be built and designed around a styrofoam hand so that the two would slot together easily. This re-design ended up going pretty well, except for one mistake I made when I was using the line-bender (Which I hadn’t used in a very long time) and didn’t bend one corner down far enough to the correct angle. This means that when the product is left to stand on it’s own, it is a little wonky. However, when it is actually in use it is completely fine.

 

Overall I am pleased with how this 3DD week played out. I learnt loads about new designers I hadn’t heard of before, such as Shigeru Ban and was even able to design a (semi) useful product. I don’t think I will chose the 3DD pathway though, as my heart is pretty much set on doing animation at university, which means I’ll be taking the Moving Image instead.