The Chickening.

I would like to share a video I found by a motion graphics artist named Nick DenBoer. He has done graphics professionally for a variety of known companies such as Conan, DC, and more. As far as I'm aware, he does much of his stuff in After Effects. As you will see a lot of it is very strange but extremely impressive in my opinion. The video below is a short film/trailer that is going to Sundance and several other festivals. It is called The Chickening. It uses clips entirely from the movie The Shining, but with many, many things added, from face replacements to all kinds of background objects. In this class, I hope to be able to enhance my abilities to anything near this level, and probably to a less disturbing degree. Without further a'do, The Chickening. I'm sorry.

As you can see, his ability to motion track and pretty much seamlessly add objects to a previously shot 2D scene is extremely impressive. I have done work like this in the past but nowhere near as complex on shots that moved as much as these. I look forward to extending my knowledge of After Effects and Mocha motion tracking as well as other similar plugins and programs. Check out his reel if you wish, and here is his YouTube channel.

Walk Cycle Tutorial

As soon as I sat down at my computer and started to design characters that I would like to animate, a horrifying thought came to me. I have no idea how these characters move. I couldn't fathom how someone could animate a human--say--throwing a ball and making it look natural. Let alone a drawn character with different physical rules than a human. How would I make a cartoonish-looking figure walk and bend and express themselves?

I wasn't interested in making my characters too realistic, and wanted to pursue a more comical tone. After browsing through my hoard of favorite animation videos on Vimeo, I found that I was drawn back to an animator named Charles Huettner. I followed him a year or so ago and found that his style intrigued and inspired me. Digging through his videos, I found an excellent Photoshop animation tutorial that might prove useful for anyone wanting to animate a walk cycle of a character that isn't necessarily human. The first video features Charles Huettner and Caleb Wood animating in photoshop and the second is a finished animation by Charles Huettner. 

I hope this inspires people as it inspired me! Get animating! 

Photoshop Animation Tutorial from Charles Huettner on Vimeo.

The Jump from Charles Huettner on Vimeo.

Drawn to Animation

I, like many, have grown up watching some form of animation, from classic Disney and Pixar films to Spongebob. I’ve always thought about the difference in production time between two-dimensional animation and stop motion animation. The two offer completely different feels, especially two dimensional because of the vast amount of artist styles that can be employed. Well I guess the same can be said about stop motion and and three dimensional and just about any type of animation. The fact that animation can range in not only content but style as well is very interesting to me and a reason I chose to at least learn a a little about it.  

I’ve always felt more connected to stop motion animation, only because my skills with a pen and pad aren’t as great as skills with a camera and figure. Growing up the animation in Henry Selick’s “Coraline” or Tim Burton and Michael McDowell’s “A Nightmare Before Christmas" has always mesmerized me and on many occasions I have thought about making them myself. (I’ve realized I might not have the patients for it, although now I’m in an animation course that will be equally time demanding.) Watching these films now I think about the movement and precision and the dedication each person these sets must have. Recently I watch the film, Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson’s “Anomalisa" and was completely astounded. When I first viewed the trailer I was amazed to realize that it was stop motion animation and not a live action film. (The trailer also lead me to believe the film would be taking a completely different turn than it actually did, but that’s a topic for another time.) Clearly during the film you knew the character weren’t live action humans from the line that splits the face as well as the the way the characters walk. It was a stunning film as strange as it was.

All in all, even though I seem to be stuck on stop motion, I do enjoy many different animation styles and I am excited to be learning new skills throughout the next couple months that I will hopefully develop beyond this course. 

FEAST - Short Animation

I have always had a love for animation, and I think that's mainly responsible because I survived on Disney & Pixar films growing up. One of my favorite things about the Pixar films is the animated shorts that always premiere before the movie. Although there are several to choose from, my favorite short is FEAST. From first-time director Patrick Osborne and Walt Disney Animation Studios, it follows the story through the eyes of an adorable little Boston terrier, a man’s best friend as he watches his owner go on the journey of a relationship, and is able to witness, and potentially save, the man's love life. What I love about this short is there is little to no dialogue throughout it, and yet you completely understand what is going on the entire time. The short is just a charming story that will pull at your heart strings. After having my first After Effects lesson, I have a whole new appreciation for animators, and especially for FEAST. The amount of time and effort that went into every last detail of the short is impeccable. I highly recommend you check out this short, and the rest of the Pixar shorts if you have not because they are a real treat to watch. 

Giving Motion Graphics a Go

I am an Integrated Marketing Communications major and I have never used editing software before, but I thought learning motion graphics would be a great learning experience. I love strategic advertising, branding and have interest in films. In Wednesday's class I felt less intimidated because I actually understood the pen tool from Adobe Illustrator and got really excited about the endless possibilities there are within Adobe AfterEffects. When looking at aesthetics, a lot has to do with color and we briefly discussed the Interaction of Color by Josef Albers.

I have read this book to better understand color theory and it truly helps. The way that the eyes perceive color is very important especially with motion. It can change the effect and feeling of the picture. It will be interesting applying print and graphic design principles to motion graphics.

World of Tomorrow Review

I first watched Don Hertzfeldt's compilation of short films, It's Such a Beautiful Day, nearly a year ago while I was taking another one of Arturo's classes. It was completely on a whim and I needed something to review for our blog. I figured a simple, hour long animation featured on Netflix would give me enough to write about, and it absolutely did to say the least. Since then, I've rewatched it multiple times with family and friends as I tried to share it with as many people as possible. To me, It's Such a Beautiful Day, is the perfect example of taking advantage of the medium of animation: inserting compelling narration alongside abstract imagery in a seemingly simple but very complex way that makes you think.

Over the Winter break, Hertzfeldt's newest short film, World of Tomorrow, was added to Netflix's library and I didn't hesitate to press play as soon the title card popped up on my dashboard. This 16-minute animated film shares the same style as his previous works, that being a minimalist art style contrasted by thought provoking narration. Unlike his other shorts however, World of Tomorrow featured a very Sci-fi theme. The short begins with a little girl, Emily, being contacted by a future version of herself developed through cloning, a futuristic method which they explain greatly in the film but I will omit from this review. The rest of the story revolves around these two versions of Emily touring throughout various scientific advances that seemingly dehumanize the human race with every step, illustrating a very bleak and depressing future.

The dialogue seemed very genuine the first time I watched through it and I was not surprised to find out that the voice of the little girl was actually recorded by a little girl; four year old Winona Mae, Hertzfeldt's niece, to be more specific. What I did find surprising was the fact that Hertzfeld recorded all of his niece's dialogue while drawing pictures with her so all of it was completely improvised. The film was then tailored to match Winona's words, creating a unique experience while making the theme of the short even more impactful.

Overall, I thought this standalone 16-minute film was a strong addition to Don Hertzfeldt's filmography. Unique furtustic-esque ideas and creations are reenforced well by the narrative and brief moments of humor throughout help to alleviate the bleak scenario that unfolds. It would be unfair to compare it to the hour-long, It's Such a Beautiful Day, based solely on the fact that Hertzfeld didn't have nearly as much time to flesh out the characters and environments, but as a fan, it does leave me wanting more. With an additional 45-minutes, this could have definitely been a masterpiece, but I'm content with the final product nonetheless.            

            

When animators make a mistake

Recently, I was reading an article about the upcoming film, "Zootopia," and I learned that even professional animators can get lost in the process from time to time. The movie which is linked above and largely 3D animation, is based on the perspective of a rabbit that wants to be a police officer, and her partner is a fox. Originally, the movie's protagonist was the fox but after nearly completing the film the animators realized that the fox was too pessimistic and something needed to be done. So, nearly a year before the release date they decide to restructure the entire film from the rabbits point of view. The person whom I was reading the article alongside remarked that its amazing the animators felt strongly enough about the project to turn it around in that short amount of time, and I agree.

3D CGI in Film

In the 3D modeling course I took last semester, we spent a few weeks discussing the topic of 3D animation and how it could be used in a variety of mediums. We started this discussion by looking at some of the oldest examples of computer-generated 3D animation in film, and how different filmmakers have used the tool differently from back then to now. One particular milestone that I found interesting was that the first fully 3D rendered and animated sequence in any full length film premiered back in 1982 as part of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. The sequence depicted a simulation of a device which could change any lifeless environment into a habitable one, and was it was created by the group that would end up becoming Pixar a few years later. Most blockbuster films nowadays are filled to the brim with 3D graphics and sequences that sometimes seem to blend in almost seamlessly with whatever live action performance is also part of the shot (or constitute the entirety of any number of shots), especially those films in the science fiction or fantasy genre, and I thought it was fascinating to see where the use of those graphics to that scale in that medium first debuted.

I've attached the clip from the movie here. Sorry for the bad quality. It was the only one I could find.

Superpowers and Visual Effects

One thing I love about superhero films is the visual effects that go into them, they're spectacular, larger than life, and believable, I still won't get over how the Life of Pi  one best visual effects over The Avengers at the Oscars. Basically don't get me started at the snubbing of superhero films at Oscars. 

Anyway, so before taking this class I do have a diverse background in visual effects and enjoy doing them. 2 years ago I wanted to make a superhero film, but I knew I needed visual effects so I decided to search them on youtube. Through seeing and trying different superpower visual effects I garnered a pretty good understanding of the program. From there I shadowed at visual effects house in Buffalo for the summer where I learned how to use Nuke and Silhouette and because good at rotoscoping, paint & rig removal, and tracking Although I do know that post production is not for me after the summer because personally I can't sit in a room and do work for hours. 

So I don't really know where to go from here, but one of the more interesting things I watched in the extras from Avengers: Age of Ultron was how the team created The Vision in post production. It's really cool to see what they did and how they went about it so I posted it below. Give it a look!

Animated Bloopers

I've decided to dedicate my first post to something I love but don't entirely understand. In my internet travels, I've come across bloopers for things I watched as a kid; things like The Lion King, Toy Story, and Monster's Inc along with many others have bloopers on YouTube. I understand that some of the bloopers come from the voice actors messing up their lines while rolling, or accidentally making other strange noises during a take. But, there are some things that I have to question, like are some of these thing just funny things the animators just envisioned? I love that it is something that we have, even though it is kind of confusing, because bloopers are just fun. Anyway, here are a few that I love to watch anyway.

Animation is impressive

Coming into this Motion Graphics and Animation class, I can confidently say I know nothing about animating. I've never used After Effects or Maya before, but I plan on being able to improve my skills throughout the next few months of the year. Animated movies have always been a very important part of my life, especially Pixar and Disney movies, and I have always found animators to be some of the most talented people. When I was in London, I had an internship at Objective Productions, where one part of it was finding facts about different animated movies, including Shrek, Frozen and Bambi. It was interesting to view the commentary on how they created Frozen, a very recent Disney film to how they animated Bambi, the first Disney film ever created. The content that I viewed showed me the evolution of cartoon animation and how everything used to be drawn by hand while now everything is digitally animated and it can take days just to animate a characters hair! Overall, animation is something that I really admire, and I am excited to become more knowledgeable on how to create certain things for all of the projects that we are going to do in class.

Here is the link to the Frozen documentary I watched: 

https://vimeo.com/105934014

And here is the documentary on Bambi I watched: 

Growing up Animated

I am pretty sure growing up; making animated films was always a goal of mine. Once I used up an entire post-it notebook to make a stick figure animation of a snowboarder. Stop motion interested me until I found out that it takes so much time to make a scene that lasts only for a couple of seconds. To resolve this, I used those little green GI-Joe men (like the ones in Toy Story) and move them with my finger while filming. Just enough so you wouldn’t see my finger but still making it look like there was action happening. 

Another thing when I was growing up was watching animation and more specifically Claymation films like Wallace and Gromet or The Miracle Maker. The Miracle Maker The Story of Jesus, by directors Derek Hayes and Stanislav Sokolov, is especially interesting to me because of the use of not only Claymation but also transitioning to cartoon animation to show flashbacks or stories being told by Jesus. Granted the animation of the characters are somewhat  rigid and are not as fluid as later films like Wallace and Gromet but still a great personal childhood memory.

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.

Stop - Motion Animation

I have been a fan of animation for as long as I can remember. My parents were the first to notice my passion in it and suggest I look further into animating. This is when I took a drawing class where one of the projects was to create a charcoal animation; ie destructive animation where you erase and redrawn your frame every time. So far I haven't been able to devote a great deal of time to actual animating, but in my spare time all I do is watch and analyze animated films.

Animation has been around as long as film has been around. With early innovators like Méliès in 1896 already attempting stop - motion, the animation industry has evolved along with traditional narrative films.

While animation has gone through many phases, many pioneered by Walt Disney and his company, the type of animation that interests me the most is stop - motion animation. Many beloved films are produced through stop - motion including The Nightmare Before Christmas, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, and Coraline.

Stop - motion animation is the process where an animator will move the figure by a small amount, take a picture, and repeat. When all of the photos are put together the figure now has the appearance of fluid motion. One of the best examples of this is The Nightmare Before Christmas with dance numbers and multiple characters in each scene. Even though most of the scenes were shot at 12fps, there are two exceptions.

My favorite studio, and a studio that only does stop - motion productions, is studio Laika. Laika is responsible for the stop - motion films of Coraline, ParaNorman, and their upcoming project Kubo and the Two Strings, just to name a few. Studio Laika has 10 years of experience producing stop - motion films, with several Academy Award nominations. Laika has put out stop - motion films that never cease to amaze me. From color dynamics in Coraline to the incredibly accurate representation of bullying in ParaNorman, Laika has been using stop - motion animation to create incredible pieces of art for 10 years, and I can't wait to see what their next 10 hold.

Many of my friends claim that stop - motion animation is weird or disturbing for them but that's almost the reason why I like it. It's physical objects that are manipulated into giving the appearance of smooth motion, and I think that's fascinating. Hopefully with Kubo coming out in August and Anomalisa already out in theaters, people will be more open to stop - motion animation come to understand and respect the incredible amount of work that goes into these beautiful films.

This is a cool tutorial that I found online. Easy to follow and a very cool effect to do if you want to work on After Effects. It is making your text look like light. The narrator is easy to follow and goes slow enough to follow along. With our name project coming up it might be something to play with. It also has some features that I hadn't heard about that might be useful for us to use in other projects.

External Hard Drive Crashing

As Arturo mentioned in the first class, a quality hard drive is essential. Though I haven't experienced a failure yet, I'm sure it will happen at some point. Unfortunately, my friend did have a hard drive fail during finals week, which forced her to restart her project from a certain point just a few days before the premiere.

We talked about G-tech drives during class, and I have to say these are some of the best drives, though they are also expensive. I personally have been using a WD Passport, which is a cheap drive. Though primarily for storage, I have been using it to edit off of but I hope to transition to a better suited drive soon so that I don't lose it entirely.

Take a minute to watch the short animation, and be prepared for the worst case scenarios this semester.

Who doesn't love a good parody?

If you love games like Animal Crossing, as well as online cartoons, then look no further!  A few days ago, one of my personal favorite online animators, Max Gilardi, aka "Hotdiggetydemon," posted his new cartoon, titled as "Isabelle ruins everything."  It parodies the popular Nintendo 3DS game, "Animal Crossing: New Leaf," by showing what would happen if the player's second in command, Isabelle, takes charge over the town.  The hilarious dialogue between the mayor and Isabelle entertains the viewers by basically explaining why a Marxist government wouldn't work in today's world.  I found it to be rather smart, as well as pretty adorable.

Gilardi has been known in the past to be rather controversial in his subject matter, and many of his cartoons involve explicit material, such as violence, swearing, and sex.  This animation, however, is oddly innocent compared to many of his other past creations.  Other than a few moments of light police brutality, the cartoon overall felt very refreshing to watch compared to many other popular online animations out today.  It was mostly dialogue that consisted of little swearing, and a more informative commentary.  The animation is also superb, and the little quirks, such as the way their mouths moved, made me fall in love with this.  If I ever had the opportunity to work with an animator like this, then I would do it in a heartbeat.

Here Goes Nothing

I do not intend on attempting this.

I don't know anything about animation, but I do know that I like it and I'm excited to learn about it. Movies, shorts, title sequences, whatever it is I'm always amazed at how animated pieces are put together. I enjoy watching animated movies and then going back and learning from the 'behind-the-scenes' videos or 'the making of' videos. I have no previous experience with this stuff except for maybe the drawing classes I took when I was 10 (does that count?). I started using photoshop over winter break to learn about masking, layering, and some other basic techniques, but After Effects is on a whole other level.

But that's okay. I went to Cinemapolis with some friends a few nights ago and saw Anomalisa--now that looked like it was very, very difficult to make. In other words, I'm thankful that a lot of stuff we're going to be doing will be on a computer with a least a few presets, and that we're not creating sculptures that have to be manipulated to create every single frame of a film.

I know that I need to work on my drawing skills this semester. Before I create good 3D animation, I have to be proficient in 2D animation, which means I have to get better at drawing. I plan on getting my colored pencils this weekend and then starting from there. Arturo showed my Fiction Field 2 class last semester a video where this comic book artist talks about drawing as a skill, not a talent: something that anyone, with enough practice, can get good at. Of course I can't find the video now, but maybe he'll show us in class next week. I'm not exactly sure what to look for as I collect source material for my name animation, but I presume I'll figure that out shortly. 

Performance Animation

One of my favorite experimental filmmakers also just so happens to be one of my favorite animators. Miwa Matreyek, a multimedia artist, animator, and designer combines her skills to incorporate her beautifully collaged animations with her own physical performances. She explores the physical interaction of her body with the animated world around her.

Matreyek gives live performances in a variety of showings and installations. More of her work can be found on her website: http://www.semihemisphere.com/

Amazing student film done in Maya

https://vimeo.com/152985022

Above is a link to a short film I found today on Vimeo from Jacob Frey.  It was his senior thesis film from the Institute of Animation, Visual Effects and Digital Post-production in Germany.  I just find it to be so amazing that people our age are capable of producing 3D animation that looks this amazing. It's a simple short story, but I would say it could hold it's own against anything Pixar or Dreamworks put out in terms of technical quality.

Must Have Guidebooks

In case your wallets aren't crying from buying all your textbooks this semester, there are a couple of not-quite-textbooks that I definitely recommend checking out if you can get your hands on them.  If you're at all interested in the work and techniques of hand-drawn animation, these are must-haves.  The first one in question is The Nine Old Men by Andreas Deja - an animator who has contributed work to a wide variety of the Disney films' villains - which chronicles the stories of the nine biggest Disney animators and what work they contributed to what films.  Don't worry, there are plenty of pictures; this book features loads of storyboard artwork and sketches of keyframes from some of their iconic animation sequences.   Quite an interesting read for people looking for inspiration of what to draw and how to make their drawings come to life.

The second book to add to your shopping list is The Animator's Survival Kit, written by Richard Williams, the director of animation for the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit.  This entry goes more in depth on the tutorials for the fundamentals of hand-drawn animation; it includes the essential stuff like bouncing balls, walk cycles and body physics, but it also includes do's and don'ts of how to animate dialogue, the methods of visualizing the the sequence of anticipation-action-reaction, and a general workflow of this style of animation.  There's also some great examples of how to animate four-legged animals realistically, tips on directing a project, and other cool sequences that can make for some fun drawing exercises.  Not to mention all the text looks like it was hand-written (it probably was, it's the source of this book's charm).

So if you're ever looking to make the next Disney or Warner Bros. animation film, grab a lot of paper and pencils, an animation lightbox from PPECS, and these two books and you'll be well on your way.

Some Helpful Links

Hey everybody! I thought it would be helpful to you all if I shared this online game that I used to get better at the pen tool. I'll warn you, though, it gets pretty difficult, but you learn A LOT from it.

I'll also give you this link to a page of online games that are meant for creative graphic designers. They're fun, helpful, and wicked competitive. I'm not kidding. I've lost friends because of some of these games.

And last, but not least, Lynda.com is now free for IC students so I highly suggest going on and checking out the After Effects Essential Training course.

Part 1- Research and Concepts

Part one of Graphic Design School begins by explaining to the reader how designers today successfully achieve their greatest work through engaging with the world and really taking in whats going on around them. It goes on to give examples like using the knowledge of famous designs in the past and putting a spin on it in a creative and personal way. One of the things that stood out to me the most was how the author touched upon the Air Jordan- nike symbol. This alone shows how design is literally everywhere whether its clothing,art, ads, trademarks, media and etc. the list is never ending. Ive been following Jordan's Nike collection for a good amount of time and have really caught an interest in the product so I decided to look up a a few designs I liked.

These are Jordan's first colab shoes with nike. These were released in 1985 and ever since have been released every year. My favorite part about these shoes are the wings by the heel of the shoe.

This was the first of many, as you can compare to the examples given in the book many artists have taken it upon themselves to work up a design for the nike company and certainly make a lot of money doing it. 

Learning from Past Mistakes

Last semester was a quite the learning experience for me in terms of the correct workflow for animation and VFX processes. When we we're shooting Relativity, my senior thesis, one of the more important details of the project was that we had to include several computer screens in the shot (they were hackers, so it was unavoidable). This is something that didn't come up in pre-production, although it probably should have, and so we showed up on set the first day with no plan for rotoscoping the screens.

Someone on set had the idea of taping the corners so that I'd have something to track onto in post. A good idea, especially since the tape was green and easy to distinguish from the surrounding white and black screens. What we failed to think through was the fact that many of the shots had obscured screens or characters moving through them, which makes it a much more difficult process. This could have been shot around, we just didn't think of it in time.

The other detail that we shouldn't have overlooked is the fact that a large number of the shots were handheld. This makes it a lot harder for AE to track all the points, especially when there are characters moving in front of the screens. This shot was particularly difficult, because the characters crossed both screens independently at different times.

That being said, this was by far the most difficult shot. Not only does he move in front of the screen but there is an intense amount of motion blur and shaky camera movements. On top of all that there is light changes across the entire screen, something I didn't notice till the day of the premiere and is currently on my to do list for this semester.

Definitely a learning experience for me, but it gave me a great crash course in rotoscoping which I hope to improve upon this semester.

Bingo (1998 Maya Animation)

I watched this video last semester in my Computer Art and Animation course. I thought of it as soon as I heard we would be learning how to animate in Maya. It was created to demonstrate what one could do with the software in 1998 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bingo_(1998_film).

(Unfortunately, Wikipedia seems to be the only detailed source of information regarding this animation.)

I think this was a great story to tell with animation. The professor who showed this to me
liked to say that animation is an excellent medium to create what's not possible in real life. A good example of this is shown at 0:42. The clown's head begins to grow larger as he yells at our protagonist, creating a much more threatening image. Had this scene been created with real people, it certainly wouldn't have been as fear inducing as it was here. This exaggerated image helps the viewers empathize a bit more with the small man in the chair, by showing us exactly how afraid he is. Not everyone is scared of clowns--even if they're yelling-- but I'm sure anyone would frightened of the giant monster portrayed in the short.

Despite its age, this animation is certainly still a gem and is worth a watch (or two).