Baths

While searching the internet for animation related news, I came across Baths, a Polish animated short. Directed and animated by Tomek Ducki, the four minute film begins with two elderly swimmers in an innocent enough race that quickly spirals into a bizarre and abstract situation. There are a lot of blurring effects that are used effectively on the characters and environments and, when combined with its watercolor style, produces a very unique experience.  Ducki used paint on glass, ink on paper, cut out animation, rotoscopy, digital drawing, photography, digital cut out, and digital compositing techniques to pull the whole picture together. Since its 2013 release, Baths has received 30 film festival awards including best short at Cinanima. You can check out the entire short using the link below:

       http://www.cartoonbrew.com/cartoon-brew-pick/baths-tomek-ducki-137163.html 

Rotoscoping

This video is a short overview of how to make a rotoscope animation in after effects. Rotoscoping is when animators trace over footage, frame by frame. It turns live-action into animation. Rotoscoping is something that I find very interesting because of how realistic it can look. It also fascinates me how much work the animators have to put into drawing each frame to create a smooth animation. I find this video entertaining due to the fact that he shows us the live footage first and then reveals how he slowly turns it into an animation. He doesn’t go too into detail, but he highlights the general steps that are needed to accomplish rotoscoping. 

Music and Animation

I think it’s important to recognize the connections between music and animation. Kanye West’s music video for “Heartless” is an inspiring example. Hype Williams produced and directed the music video, while he worked with the animation sources, Michael Chomet and Optic Flavor. They teamed up and used a technique called “rotoscoping”, which involves drawing over footage of live actors. This technique gives the animation a very life-like feature. After doing some research, I found out that the animation team was only given 10 days to hand-draw 3,000 frames of animation and backgrounds, which seems insane to me. Amazingly they were able to finish in time and create a music video that is an inspiring piece of artwork.

Sky Star Wars Promo

So I was surfing the net, as I am to do from time to time, and I stumbled upon this promo the UK cable service SKY put together to advertise their upcoming star wars marathon.

Besides being the coolest thing I've ever seen, this promo incorporated a lot of the techniques and skills we've learned over the semester, albeit with gorgeous execution.

Aside from the double exposure effects, there are a lot of cool 3D space camera moves, rotoscoping, and even some very slight puppet animation. It's rare to see a piece of content made independently from it's creators that really captures the feel of the original content, butt I believe this promo does an absolutely stunning job. I've watched it about 8 times now and each time I've noticed something new. I really don't have anything else to say regarding this piece. I just thought it did a really awesome of capturing the feel of the Star Wars Franchise! Hope you guys enjoy!

More Rotoscoping

While considering what movie to place myself in, I've watched a number of YouTube videos of examples and tutorials of others doing so. Here I've found a short tutorial by Tara Arts Entertainment--though quite corky, it is informative and effective.

The man who makes the tutorials on this channel I find to be funny, knowledgeable and easy to follow. All things that make a difference when learning an extensive program like After Effects. The video above covers everything we talked about in class including the green screen, keylight (chroma key effect), in addition to other helpful how-tos like color matching.

Also, I found this quick little video to be something of interest. Here the artist takes a video of himself, then uses rotoscoping to create the outline for his desired animation.

While thinking of some movies and television shows to rotoscope myself into, I took some time to look for some examples and inspirations. This is Freddie Wong's spoof trailer of "Twilight: Eclipse". I found that he did a great job of fitting himself into the negative spaces of the film as well as weaving in some funny one liners between the characters conversations. Even the scene where he puts himself in the same bed as Bella and Edward, he did a pretty good job of editing himself in there. Not to say that there weren't some quirks to the video. At certain parts I could see the green screen feathering around Freddie, and at other parts you could tell that the lighting he used really put him out of place, but this is ten times better than what I will probably do.

I also watched Ellen DeGeneres' skit of the same idea. Although hers had a lot more practical effects, like rebuilding similar sets, but I think her editor did just as well! 

Putting yourself in a scene, and Rotoscoping

One of our new projects for class is to insert ourselves into a movie scene using green screening. This effect was something that was actually done on my favorite YouTube Show about filmmaking: Film Riot.

Film Riot is an awesome show that teaches you "the effects and techniques that go into some of your favorite Hollywood films." So everything from pre-pro to production and post production, they cover most everything that it takes to become a filmmaker. And from time to time, they teach you how to how to do some cool VFX using After Effects. One in particular is how to insert yourself into the scene of a film, or in their case the trailer for the first Avengers movie. Its a really fun tutorial, and the technique is almost exactly what we talked about in class, which covered lighting, placement, and motion. If you need another reference for how to do this effect, this is definitely worth watching!

Also, earlier this week, I found a really great article that talks about the history of Rotoscoping. IT goes from when the technique was first invented in 1915 by Max Fleischer when he created Out of The Inkwell to what we use it for now. I love using this technique to make lightsabers and other fun laser sci fi-based effects. If you want to check out the article follow this link here: https://www.rocketstock.com/blog/rotoscoping-from-early-animation-to-blockbuster-vfx/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=post&utm_content=Rotoscoping:-From-Early-Animation-to-Blockbuster-VFX&utm_campaign=09-2015-facebook-posts

'Unbroken' VFX & Rotoscoping with Hybride

In the Angelina Jolie film, Hybride, a division of Ubisoft, takes the concept of VFX and rotoscoping to a whole new level. Given the complexity of recreation the Berlin Olympic Stadium as a virtual replica, Hybride needed to match the accurracy of the crowd in each of the 50 actions shot. But unlike the average CG crowd, Hybride needed to construct a tool that would allow the added flexibility required for the film's completion.

Considering the stadium’s size and numerous camera movements showcased throughout the film, the technique for creating the magnanimous CG crowd varied according to each camera point of view. On top of the varying camera movements, the size of the environment made it impossible to use a green-screen for most of the live actions scenes. As a result, the foreground plates had to be rotoscoped and integrated over the CG backgrounds. Hybride's technique allowed for greater freedom and speed for the camera operators when shooting action scenes from the foreground camera perspective. According to the director of photography, Roger Deakins, the main goal was to to always have the effects shows fit perfectly into pristine composted and lit shows to make up the live-motion portion of the film. The greatest amount of accuracy was required in the tracking and layout work in order to actively blend the CG elements to the rest of the camera shots. As a result of the crew's strong production ability, the production was produced with the highest quality possible.

Orphan Black Magic

Orphan Black has been a major hit show for the past two seasons and is one of my absolute favorites. Not only because of the characters, but also because of the special effects put into the production to make this show a possibility.  The special effects used in this show allow Tatiana Maslany to play all six clones during filming instead of having six different people playing the six different clones.  Through their use of robotically controlled dollies and the software Fusion, a scene like the one below can be created.  (hint, all four women in this scene is Tatiana Maslany)

While Tatiana does all her work with stand ins acting as another clone, Fusion allows for the editors to manipulate the footage and put all the different Tatianas into the scene at once.  If you have not seen the show I strongly encourage you to watch it.  It will satisfy your creative, technical and slightly weird side that all of us hide.

WAAAAAASSSSSUUUUUUUUP

So here I was realizing it was Friday afternoon and I had yet to write up a blogpost for Animation so I started scouring the internet for something to entertain you people with. A quick search on the reddit subreddit - r/animation provided me with a really entertaining and topical (considering what we learned last class) video that will surely stir some level of nostalgia in you guys. Or maybe not, who knows.

The video in question

Considering I'm an Emerging Media major, I should really be able to figure out how to embed this video rather than just posting it as a link but alas here we are and I should probably get back on track. I was spending most of my time during thursday's class looking for a good scene for the new project so I wasn't actually using the roto-brush tool, but this video really opened my eyes to the possibilities that get opened up with rotoscoping. In this case, the humor of the original video is these guys tossing aside the traditional greetings of "hello" or "hi" for an exaggerated and elongated "waaaaazuuuuuuup," but the animator took that and adapted the overall aesthetics to reflect the vibe that goes with "waazup," specifically the unnatural length of the tongues as they say the phrase. Each one of the characters gradually evolves into caricatures of their laid-back, hanging-out selves.

I really really really like this video because it opens up, at least to me, a new canvas to practice some of the skills that we have been learning in this class. While inserting ourselves into a particular scene, like we are doing for our project, is a similar exercise, this video reminded me that commercials are meant to arrive at a point relatively quickly as well as the fact that they very frequently require making fun of so it might as well be satirized in an animated format. I don't know. I'm just ranting.

Our Current Projects

So clearly working on these projects have been a lot of work and taken a lot of time. But after all of the work that we have put in, it has most definitely come a long way. The insert yourself into a movie project has honestly been the most difficult one. I feel as though it required the most amount of work just to be able to find a scene that it was even possible to insert yourself into.

Me doing Ferris Bueller, I thought that it wouldn't be too difficult. Clearly I was wrong when I chose a scene that was just about 5 minutes long. But that's not the point. The point is that learning to roto-scope yourself into a project will be able to help me out much later in life. Especially if I am able to possibly get a job working in post.

The name project and the intro project are also very time consuming, however, I felt as though we would be able to be much more creative and show our style and show what we can actually do and what we have actually learned in this class. The name project that I did was difficult and time consuming, but I feel as though it came out really good for the amount of information that I know.

The Dexter project that I'm doing is taking me the longest because I have my own footage that I am trying to adjust to make it fit into the intro. Being able to put cool effects into it also is time consuming because putting an effect that doesn't exactly fit can really hurt you and throw off the whole aura of your project.

Anyway, the point of this post was to talk about the projects that we are working on in class. Once they are done, I can't wait to show all of my friends that I was able to accomplish such a thing.

The work of our peers

Nearly every blog I read is about these professionals who produce movies, games and shows in similar programs as us. I wanted to blog about something different this week but I wasn't sure what....I signed on Facebook today and scrolled through my newsfeed. I saw that Will Gelder posted a video of some rotoscoping work that he has produced.
It is important to acknowledge the people around us and also learn from them. We all have a lot of talented friends and forget that they are easily accessible and may be willing to help us. (which is better than watching a tutorial.)
Below is Will Gelders work:




Our professor Arturo Sinclair also has some work published on the internet that is pretty neat.
Below is his work:

My Favorite Rotoscopes

Something about this particular medium I've kind of found fascinating and pleasing to look at. From what I have come to understand, the animation technique of rotoscoping involves drawing over various parts of a live action film frame by frame. One of the earliest examples I've seen of this technique has been the 1981 Canadian cult film know as Heavy Metal directed by Gerald Potterton. 

Different objects and actors were rotoscoped to give the film its uniquely 80s feel to it. One of my favorite segments of this piece was the segment with the car in the opening segment known as "Smooth Landing." 

Some of the other movies I have come to learn used rotoscoping were Max Fleischer (the creator of the process) cartoons with characters like Betty Boop and Coco the Clown from the Out of The Inkwell series. These segments mainly used their rotoscoping capabilities to capture the human movements of the actors for the very realistic movements they were seeking to convey. Of the various cartoons created by Fleischer, I would have to say one of my favorite ones from his group was the 1939 animated film Guliver's Travels. (link specific time in vid of rotoscoping example)

The other example of rotoscoping I've come to know growing up was the "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" scene of The Beatles Yellow Submarine film. This segment's subject matter of LSD is portrayed in a psychedelic manner as far as its art style.  

One of the other examples of rotoscoping that has come to be one of my favorite examples of this style of animation is the 1986 award winning music video "Take On Me" by A-ha. The video uses a pencil sketch style of animation drawing the approximately 3,000 frames needed to make this video possible. The video's director . The original video for this song was the band members signing against a blue background,  the didn't pick up on popularity with this video.

     

 In 1985 Warner Brothers had the band re-record their song and using them in a revolutionary style of video. The Norwegian group teamed up with director Steve Barron, director of Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean." The other key player for this video's success was animator Michael Patterson, made it to the team at Warner Brothers thanks to his 1981 USC Student Academy Award winning film Commuter. 

Of the different forms of animation I have come to see thus far in this class, this is the one I would want to master the most. I do realize that the process of drawing on several frames to get an effective display of this animation, but for seeing the end product of stuff like A-ha's famous video makes me want to at least give this style of animation the old college try for a pursuit. 

Rotoscoping

Out of the Inkwell was a silent animated series  produced by Max Fleischer.  Max Fleischer came up with the rotoscope concept to simplify the process of animating each individual frame. Rotoscoping is a technique in which you trace over footage frame by frame for use in animated films.





The image below shows how rotoscoping began.

This is another video with some cool rotoscoping involved. It's awesome how you can use the same clip to rotoscope into several different videos Rotoscoping saves so much time and leaves you with a realistic looking clip.
There are also reasons to rotoscope. Some rotoscope to animate a scene completely using a live action reference; or to add animation to live action scene while tracking camera movement.

Super Bad - Intro Animation

Over break I spent a few days on the couch feeling kinda sick, but I managed to catch the extended version of Super Bad on FX and got really excited about the animation I had totally forgotten about in the opening credits.  It reminded me of what we've been doing in class with green screens & rotoscoping.  Here's the actual animation and a neat behind the scenes look at the set:

More Fun With Rotoscoping

So I was playing around in Mocha/After Effects once again with some rotoscoping for our latest project, and was finding myself forgetful on some of the basics when it comes to the craft. So I went to youtube and found this cool tutorial to get my mind back in the effects mode as Spring Break winds down:

I like some of the mattes/filters they apply throughout as well, and as always it helped to gather a bit more experience as this can be really tedious and tricky at times.

Forrest Gump Rotoscoping

Continuing with the theme of our current project, "Forrest Gump," provides a great example of the use of keying and rotoscoping in major motion pictures. The following three scenes represent how motion graphics can be used to further a story and provide comedy. There is no other way in which Tom Hanks could have been placed in scenes with such historical people like LBJ and John Lennon other than the use of green screens and rotoscoping. I believe the makers of the film used ADR as well to create three, nearly seamless sequences.

Making of 'Sin City'

I'm sure most of you have seen the film Sin City, if not read one or several of the comics the film was based on. The animation techniques used in the film give it an aesthetic quality that resembles film noir, while integrating the style of Frank Miller's graphic novels as heavily as possible. Since we are going to be working with green screens, rotoscoping and compositing, I thought it'd be interesting to share how Robert Rodriguez so uniquely captured the essence of the Sin City comics in the film. The use of florescent colored tape and paint while shooting was definitely one of the most intriguing strategies used by Rodriguez. He used it to capture various moments where a high-contrast white was appropriate to match certain elements present in the original artwork (i.e. blood, Marv's bandages, Kevin's glasses, etc.) By shining a blue light against that particular color, it would glow brightly as a result, and a matte could be pulled while in post so that the color could be changed. Also interesting... Elijah Wood's (Kevin) chin was shifted in post-production to create a more haunting look.

Making of Sin City from World of Motion on Vimeo.

Rotoscoping

From last class, we learned about using Mocha and the effects we can do on it. When Arturo brought up the subject of rotoscoping, it reminded me of a certain YouTuber who did that. This video features an introduction done by JonTron, a well-known YouTuber who does video game review videos. In this intro, you see the man walking down the street and his parrot. But there is a rotoscoping effect used here, so you see images replacing the silhouette of the two.

Ever since I saw this for the first time, I wanted to do the same thing. By learning more about Mocha, I'm sure it's possible to do this.

At first, I thought he just wore a green suit and used a chroma key effect. But that would bring up a question of how he keyed the parrot...

Waking Life - Rotoscoping

The first two clips below are both from animated films by director, Richard Linklater.  The first is from Waking Life, the second is from A Scanner Darkly (feat. Keanu Reeves).  I've always appreciated the use of animation to tell a story and the ability to bring out certain artistic elements in a film.  These two films in particular really struck me with their ability to create such a unique asthetic and are what inspired me to try my hand at animation.  The last video takes a look at the rotoscoping technique via a specially designed program called Rotoshop; currently not available outside the company.