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EXPERIMENTATION REEL:

This is my finished experimentation reel, I’m glad it is finished and am happy with it, I was worried the video was going to go well over 2 minutes, but I edited it down, so the videos and images cut to the music and it ended up being just over 1 1/2 minutes long. I do like how it shows my progression and I am happy with how the mystery project went, although there were downs, like me losing my work, I turned that into a positive and am overall really happy, it definitely went better than I imagined. Just like the showreel I just wish I could have spent time on the title pages and made them myself on Photoshop or something. I am not happy with how they are, but they are going to have to do as I get on with other work.

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FINAL SHOWREEL:

After my first attempt at my showreel I watched it back and had noticed some things I realised some things I didn’t when I was editing it and exporting it, I did update the video, and this is the updated version, all I did was add in where I got the music from, and I think I shortened the start title page. I am happy with my showreel I just wish I was happy with my BA1a animations, so I could put them in, it would have been nice to have some more 2D stuff in my showreel as I really enjoy working in 2D. I also have probably said this before, but I wish I could have spent time on the title pages at the start and the end as all they are, are static images, it would have been nice to draw them myself to make it more personalised. Next year that’ll definitely be a focus for me.

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WEEKLY SUMMARY - WEEK 9

MYSTERY BOX:

This week I had nothing really timetabled so I just got on with my experimentation reel, I felt relieved to get this done, it was the last thing on my list before only getting my blog done. I felt the same as I did with the showreel, I feel as though the editing was okay, but the title pages could have been a lot better and I hated not having the time to improve them.

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PRESENTATION SLIDES:

This was my section of the presentation, talking about prop design. I spoke about what prop design is, why we have it and a person who works in the industry, Scott Watanabe. I tried to conclude my slides by talking about why I feel prop design is a crucial part of visual development.

Prop designer commonly can be tied in with production designers and environments – rarely is it singled out on its own as a job.

A prop designer will design props for a film, the styles and aesthetics of the props will be based off what period the film is set. Props can make the environment more realistic and believable. The prop is drawn from all angles, so the object can be modelled later in production. 

Visual Development artist and art director at Disney.

·       Big Hero 6 (2014)

·       Tangled (2010)

·       Zootopia (2016)

·       Paperman (2012)

Tangled is set in the 1800s in Germany so for the film to be culturally correct, Scott designed wagons and carts that would have been seen in the market place during that period, using traditional German handcarts as inspiration.  

Scott Watanabe was the art director for Big Hero 6 designed props for the film within the hybrid city San Fransokyo, taking inspiration from both cities, Tokyo and San Francisco. The production team actually went out to Japan for a research trip and found careful details on things like the vending machines, the pavement and the bins, these little details they incorporated into the design of the hybrid city. The city contained pieces of what we already know and that’s gives the environment some familiarity, therefore I feel, believable.

 prop design may be considered an overlooked aspect of visual development, however is crucial in adding an extra and deeper level of detail that can help immerse the audience in a different culture or even world.

I think the presentation went well, I did my best, I hate talking in front of people and I didn't want to stand there and read straight off of the paper I had with my notes. I don't know what we were being marked on so I tried to come across as confident as I could, and tried to give eye contact and all that. Overall I think my group was great.

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EXPERIMENTATION REEL RESEARCH: 

Below are experimentation reels from previous years who attended NUA. I had a look at theirs as I had a feeling they’d gotten the same tips and pointers as we did this year. I just wanted to see how they edited the experimentation reel together and if it was just the same as the showreel or if it was significantly different. I think it’s basically the same, with only a few differences, so I have a better feeling about how to do mine.

I liked these two experimentation reels because I think they were edited well and show the progression throughout the mystery box project which is what it needs to do.

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MY FINISHED RENDERED MYSTERY BOX ANIMATION:

This is my final, finished animation!

The final rendered animation I think came out well, there are a few things I’d improve on, but I think overall for my first time properly animating in Maya, I say I’ve done okay. I would change the fact when he walks there is a part where the robots leg is too straight so it looks like it drags a little, also I’d make his turn a little slower so it seems as though he is inspecting where he thought the noise was coming from. I think there are more good things, I like how he takes a little jump right before he looks into the box after tiptoeing. The tiptoeing I felt came out okay, especially as the robot has no joints in his foot apart from the ankle, I only think it worked because of the shape of his foot which allowed him to be able to stand on his tiptoes. 

To me his reaction came out a lot better than the previous attempt I had done, this one puts the foot down quicker and his arms are thrown down faster so he looks more angry, the only thing I’d want to improve was the part when the robot’s knee comes up, I think that part is too slow and could be faster, I did try to fix that with the graph editor, but I didn’t have much luck. 

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MOUTH SHAPE CHART:

For my lip sync animation I had to draw out the mouth shapes for the phonetics, from the research I had done I managed to come up with the main mouth shapes to have Theresa May say her line.

The image above shows my original mouth shape chart, I just redrew the mouths digitally from my hand drawn ones and coloured them in, I only drew the mouths also with the labels very messily written next to them. 

The image below shows my updated one, I thought the first one was too messy, but I still might submit it with the updated one because I have a version without the messy writing. The updated one is a lot better and neater and has context on Theresa May’s face.

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FINAL LIP SYNC:

This is my final lip sync animation, I liked how this turned out especially now I’ve added the eyebrow and pupil movement. I think I could have added more keyframes to make the eyebrows and pupils not drift to the next keyframe, I still think it works.

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WEEKLY SUMMARY - WEEK 8

MYSTERY BOX:

This week was stressful as I had lost my whole animation I had done. I was upset and not having enough time to redo it was running through my head, but I sat down and got on with it, trying to think of it as a positive situation. In the end I did get to improve the animation like the reaction the robot had as well as the timing. By the end of the week I did manage to get the animation finished and rendered which I was really happy about and proud, I redid the whole scene too and added the lighting which all looked alright in the end.

MEDIA INDUSTRIES, ROLES AND PRACTICES:

I focussed on getting everything ready for my presentation which I felt was harder than I ever imagined it too be, probably because I was worrying as I get such bad anxiety about this stuff. All I really did was make sure my slides where finished and went over what I wanted to say along with the slide. I also had my presentation which had me feeling so many emotions, I was anxious beforehand, but also excited I wanted to get it done and wanted to see my peers research, but the thought of speaking in front of everything freaked me out and my heart was racing, and my hands were clammy, luckily, I had my cue cards with me. I did my best to be confident and I think it worked slightly, but not too much, my voice was trembling, and I was stuttering. After the presentation was over I was happy it was done and think my group did really well.

SHOWREEL:

I just worked on my showreel at home this week, I collected all my first year projects and looked through them to decide what I wanted to put in, it made me feel a little sad because I didn’t find much of my work from BA1a that good and I didn’t want to put any in, I’m much prouder of my BA1b work. When I had finally chose the animations, I wanted in the showreel I edited them too the music and added a title and an end image, both something I would have loved to spend more time on and make it my own, but I had so many other things to make sure I had done so that I felt was disappointing, next year I’m going to make sure that’s something I think about to make it better.

LIP SYNC:

This week I had designed my lip sync character and drew out all the mouth shapes as well as drawing them digitally on Photoshop ready to be put into After Effects to start animating, once I had all the parts ready and the files were in After Effects, I got on with filling out the dope sheet which was such a different experience from the first time I’d filled one out as this was pages long opposed to like 50 frames, I’d say it was 200 and something. I still managed and was happy with my end result, I’m also was so glad I managed to finish this project within a week as I was worried I would have had to spend a lot of time on this. 

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FIRST ATTEMPT AT MY SHOWREEL:

This is my attempt at my showreel, I think it is okay, but I think my starting title is on for too long, sometimes I don’t know if the video is playing or not, the only reason it is so long is because I edited it so it played in time with the music, but I might have to change that. Also I might do some little details when editing like cutting the videos so there’s no hold at the start of each video and I might add in some transitions to make it smoother rather than it looking like jump cuts. Another thing I need to also add is the music, although it was copyright free I still feel I need to mention them, I only realised I hadn’t after I’d exported the video.

I definitely feel that there is still a lot I can do with this, but for a first attempt I think it came out okay.

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FIRST ATTEMPT AT MY CHARACTER LIP SYNC:

This here is my first attempt at my character lip sync, it is not finished as I still need to animate the eyes and the eyebrows, and colour in the her cardigan. I think this attempt has gone pretty well and I am proud because it works and it was my first time actually drawing my own mouth shapes opposed to using pre made ones. 

The only thing I can think that needs improving is the part where she says “my friends sort of used to...” that part of the lip sync could be improved because right now I haven't put in some of the mouth shapes and I'm finding it hard to pin point where each mouth part would go, so right now it is a bit jolty. I think the starting sentence could be pushed a frame back, especially when she says the first “me”. 

With the eyebrows, I want them to be raised when there is a part when she says “erm” and her to narrow at that time. 

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LIP SYNC CHARACTER DESIGN:

Fir the lip sync project we were given three audio files, I chose the one which was a quote Theresa May had said in an interview about running through fields of wheat with her friends. I wasn't actually going to design a character that looked like her, my original design looked completely different, but I thought it would look funny if I recreated her saying it in my style. 

After I drew out my character, I had to draw out each mouth shape and each eye shape. I found this okay to do, but still quite difficult as I’ve never drawn my own mouth shapes, and figuring out what the mouth does with each phonetics is was something I found challenging, but having references like myself in the mirror and pronunciation videos on YouTube made it easier.

This is Theresa May blinking, I might change this slightly cause it does look as though there should be pupils, but it is actually just her eyelid.

This will be her eyes when they are just open, I’m likely to start with this set of eyes and probably end with them too.

This is showing her eyes narrow.

This image shows her eyes wide.

This is my drawing 95% complete, all I need to do is colour her t-shirt and cardigan, but apart from that I am ready to begin filling out the dope sheet and getting on with the lip sync.

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MOUTH SHAPE CHART:

For the lip sync animation we had to draw our own mouth shapes, something I found hard especially because with my dyslexia I find it hard to distinguish the phonetics and the mouth shapes. This meant I had to have visuals so I’d be able to understand much more than if I’d just looked in a mirror. 

I used all of these images to help me and manage to get most of the mouth shapes I needed.

I liked how all the images were the same but all slightly different, it made it easier to come up with my own individual mouth shapes as I combined all the ones I’d seen and was able to come up with my own ones.

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LIP SYNC RESEARCH:

After changing my idea for my character I decided to look at illustrations of Theresa May to get inspiration so I could draw her myself. I did plan on making her look evil and bad, like some of the images below, but decided not too and go for something more like her because I didn’t want it to be about something it’s not, if that makes sense.

I want my drawing of her to be a mix of the image just above and just below, of course without spider legs, but that style of drawing, I want to add in her double chin and her bags under her eyes, and her thin eyebrows.

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MORE RESEARCH FOR SHOWREEL MUSIC:

I continued to research music for my showreel, I felt the music before wasn’t right and didn’t think it’d go with my animations, so I looked for some more. I was looking for something quite upbeat, but not too much that it would become distracting or annoying. I think the first two were alright and not too much, but ultimately I went with the last video, Sunshine by urpleactus which I think had something and I knew would go with my animations, I guess I don’t know for sure, but I will make my showreel and experiment.

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LIP SYNC RESEARCH:

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ORIGINAL LIP SYNC CHARACTER:

This was the original drawing I did for my lip sync character, I wanted to base it off of Theresa May, by having the hair and the bags under the eyes, I even made a double chin (there is no mouth as I drew them separately). 

I only changed my design to a drawing that more closely resembled Theresa May was because it had clearer features to attach to the rig on after effects. Plus I thought it would be funny to have an illustration of Theresa May say her iconic quote.