Update #8 - Shot Two

Two blog posts in a day? MADNESS!
I've decided to try a bit of a different workflow than I'm used to on shot_002 of my animation. I've grown in a bit of a rut after going through my entire clip many times blocking it, so both for the sake of morale and experimentation I am going to from now on focus my efforts on shot_002 and complete one hundred percent.
If I manage to successfully finish the shot without having a nervous breakdown I will do the same for my other shots. Previously I've always built up my animation more or less at the same time in all the shots I've been handed. That way I'm always working in the same stage of animation on all shots, but I think doing it all at once can help me greater. It may let me rethink how to do other things for other shots later on, and perhaps I can also get things done faster by being used to working in all the phases of animation rather than just one at a time.

Update #7 - Reference Video and Glen Keane

I've cut together what I shot on Monday to a reference video I'm using while animating. I'm mostly pleased with what I got, but some the scenes I, myself, did (Erik, bloke on the right) I want to change. When I was on set and viewed it I thought it was good, and it is for what it is, but I've found I want something a bit different.
I'll probably film some revisions myself at home, and if they don't work then at least I've gotten some more practice before booking the studio again for a second round of filming.

While on twitter an animator from Pixar shared this video of Glen Keane animating a dance, it was very nice seeing a professional going through it an explaining his thought as he did so. It definitely made me rethink the importance of thumbnails, which I've never been good at doing.

Update #6 - Green Screens!

I started today off at Teesside University's green screen studio to film reference videos for a bunch of animation projects. We were only two who turned up, though, so lucky for us we both got extra time filming our references. There was one hour booked for ten people, we were two using it for two. Needless to say, we got a lot more detailed references than we expected to get.

Later tonight I'll get access to the footage and I'll find the best scenes and cut them together. I don't even think I'll need more references videos shot as I mentioned in yesterday's post, maybe I'll have to do some separate face references, but I'll take that as it comes.

Perhaps the best thing about this day was the input I got from Mark Buschbacher and Em Johnson as we were doing our references. It got me thinking a bit more about exactly why I'm having the characters do certain things.

As it stands now, I'll have a finished motion reference by tomorrow (Tuesday, 29.01.2013) and will be start animating properly by Wednesday. If nothing else, this studio visit has really pumped me up.

Update #5 - Reports and References

I've spent the past few days mostly writing on my dissertation, and I regret I haven't started it earlier. I've had a lot of ideas about what I want my animation to be, but they've been floating mostly through my mind, and I haven't put them black on white. The moment I did that I felt as if I had an epiphany, I started really liking my idea and my take on it (you can see a paraphrased version of a small bit of what I've written in my last blog post), I caught my second wind, even though I didn't know my first had slipped past me. I've actually had to take myself away from writing these past few days to do some animation.

When I'm talking about animation, my Final Year Project supervisor, Em Johnson, has booked my FYP group some time in the Phoenix Building's green screen studio tomorrow. I imagine that tomorrow will give me enough reference for the basics I need, e.g. someone leaning on a bar for a prolonged period of time, but probably not the more in-depth motions and over-all acting. Me and one of my flatmates have agreed to do this for each other (he has a similar FYP to me), we're learning each other's sound clips my heart and thinking of ways of doing it.

Hopefully, when I've gotten all of those references down I'll be able to really start getting somewhere on my animation, and finish blocking by February as scheduled.

Update #4 - Defining the Characters

I already spend a lot of time watching films, television shows and web series, but in preparation for this project I started looking at them. I wanted to see what I could steal, draw inspiration from, just find out what the great actors do to express certain emotions and desires. It wasn’t a quick process, I always found small things that I took a mental note of to remember, but when Django Unchained was released I found an actor I wanted to research further, Christoph Waltz. I wanted my character Erik to be a bit like the character Schultz that Waltz portrayed. I found that the way Schultz treated Django was close to how I wanted Erik to treat Thor. As an equal man, a man physically superior to him, but still able to manipulate him to do what he wanted.
I decided that that is what Erik is doing throughout the clip. In the beginning when he’s answering Thor and giving advice he’s establishing himself as a man who will help him. In the middle when he starts talking about some of his personal relations that relates to Thor’s he relates himself to Thor and helps Thor trust him even more. Then, in the end, Erik uses that trust to gently, but with power, tell Thor to leave town. Thor agrees, having fallen for Erik’s rhetoric.

Update #3 Long Overdue

I've been forgetting that I even have this blog, but hopefully I'll be posting a lot more frequent here onwards. I've now entered a pseudo-production stage. I've spent the last week making a 3D-animatic (previs, which ever term you prefer) slash blocking out the keyposes of my animation.

I've chosen the rig I want to use, after downloading quite a few I decided on the Dee rig. It's the rig I learned how to lip-sync with, and the rig to this date that I feel the most comfortable doing facial animations with.
So far I'm just using the rig unaltered, so both characters look exactly the same, but eventually I will do some texture changes and perhaps add some props to differentiate the characters from one another.

The reason I won't call this stage blocking is because I haven't filmed proper reference videos yet, this is all done "by hand", improv. I'm planning on filming reference videos over the course of this week, so that I can have some proper blocking by next week.