#i was working on a short animatic earlier today

[doctorsiren]

Angsty Psychic Lawers AU stuff?

like Separation Arc or Disbarment era

yeah so I decided Reigen’s disbarment was only gonna be 6 months since that’s the length of time that Mob was stuck in the mindscape world that Mogami made, and so it’s then the length of time that Mogami is Mob’s mentor (and also this allows the ages to not be all messed up LMAO haha)

[percythemapleboy]

Hey there!

First thing I wanna say today is that I hope you’re having a wonderful day/week/month/year/what have you!

Second is that I’m going to be going on a bit of a hiatus for about a month or two, for sure until late September.

Before you say anything; I am 100% okay! I’m not overworked, burnt out, or going through any kind of drama. If anything I’m going through the opposite right now! Recently I was at work, doing a deep clean of the school I go to so I can make some money - going on my grind-set, as they say - and listening to a bit of music. While I was enjoying the aforementioned music, a particular song came on that triggered something within me and inspired me to start planning something in my head for the rest of the day!

For those of you that are curious at to what the heck I’m talking about, do you remember the twenty first night of September?… If you didn’t get that reference; it’s one of the first lyrics to the song “September” by Earth, Wind and Fire. An absolutely amazing song that reminded me of an equally amazing game series called PAYDAY.

Now I imagine a lot of you are wondering how the heck a video game about robbing banks and preforming all kinds of exciting heists has anything to do with a song I listened to at work. Don’t worry, I’ll explain.

As mentioned earlier; one of the first lyrics references the idea of something to remember that happened on the twenty first of September, and coincidentally the release date of the newest entry in our favourite heisting game, PAYDAY 3, was set to… the twenty first of September!

To celebrate the game’s release and snatch my one and only chance to make a mash-up like this, I will be making a short music parody animatic of “September” by Earth, Wind and Fire based on PAYDAY! If you wanna know how to help; I have no idea. What I do know is that I will be taking a break of sorts from social media platforms as not to get distracted and miss my chance to make something like this and post it on a day like that. I’ll see you all soon and I can’t wait to actually get started!

Love you all, and I’ll see you when it’s done and posted!!

[oops-prow-did-it-again]

Journal #3

Prev | Next

Had a bad day today to be completely honest.

I took my sleeping aids way too late the night before so I was too exhausted to do much more than draw and watch videos today. So, didn’t earn anything today.

I’ve taken them at 10pm tonight rather than 2am, so...that should help I hope lol.

On the flipside, though, I did get a short animatic done as well as a lot of sketches.

I redesigned Laraza, from my Avenue story (which I don’t think I’ve talked much about on this blog but I will eventually). Long story short, she’s a demigoddess of justice gone rogue based on kitsune mythology.

I also drew Zee, a talking cheetah and Laraza’s adopted son.

Dinner with mother was delayed again due to rain.

I am going to try to start waking up a bit earlier and going to the YMCA before work. Working out will be hard on me because of my dysphoria, however, my chronic back pain is really too difficult to bear anymore and I can’t just be inactive every day aside from working, where the most activity I get is walking between a restaurant, my car, and a house. I think getting a sports bra and a full-body bathing suit will help me alleviate that stress, though. So, once I have that spare money, I’m going to do that.

I’m going to start plotting my meals in advance. I admit I’m a little miffed as to how I’m going to fulfill protein goals. My MyFitnessPal app says I should be eating 50% carbs, 30% fats, and 20% protein. As it stands, my eating habits tend to average out to about 60% carbs, 30% fats, and 10% proteins... Or less proteins. The fact is, protein-rich foods just seem to cost a lot more. I mean, that’s meat right?

[...]

A search has turned up that while meats do have the most protein, nuts and dairy products do as well. Hmm. I may have to start eating more eggs and I can start buying peanuts at the store.

I think I will try planning my food a week in advance so that I do not have days where I slip and get something outrageously high in calories because I’m hungry and can’t decide on what to eat quickly.

Not much to report today. I missed yesterday. Don’t totally remember what all happened yesterday. Probably going to go lay down now so I’ll leave this one here.

[dib-shit]

So I wanted to upload a short (and very rough) animatic for the 2 year anniversary of this blog... I finished it earlier today but since I use flipnote studio on my 3ds I've been having difficulty converting it to an uploadable video of decent quality. I'm gunna have to re-do the audio and hope I can sync it right. In the meantime I have a quick little zasr gif I think I can upload.

So yeah, that's what I've been doing lately. I've been working on short comics too that hopefully I can figure out how to ink well, and also been rearranging my room.

[robbiejohnsonyr3ax3021]

AX2002 - University - Week 9 Friday Lesson Reflection

During this week’s lesson, I was unable to attend class in person as unfortunately I had contracted Covid-19 earlier in the week, however I tried my best to not let this illness slow down my work, especially now more than ever. For today’s lesson I wanted to wrap up modelling, get everything done from character models, to props to sets and variations of the sets. Between this week’s lesson and last week’s lesson, I was able to implement the shaped cut out walls to my interior set and create the chainsaw prop that my Pentagon uses later on in the short film.

I first worked on tweaking and adjusting the interior set one last time. The main issue I had been facing with this set was the alignment of the walls, I had tried to enter identical Z axis coordinates (as well as trying X and Y coordinates separately). When entering the Z axis coordinates for one of the wall pieces would work just fine, but when applying the same data for each piece of the wall, sometimes the wall piece would go in a drastically different direction and not properly align with the other wall pieces, so I had to roughly eyeball place each wall piece to make the wall as smooth as possible to leave as few gaps between each wall piece as possible. I then selected each wall piece, coloured them in a similar colour to my concept art, as well as the previously established walls, delete the previous walls and then make any further tweaks to the gaps between each wall piece.

Next was working on my city scene, as in last week’s lesson I learnt that I had made my scene too big or more accurately gigantic, my character models when imported into this set looked like ants. So, I shrunk everything down to better accommodate the character models and possibly reduce rendering time. At first everything started to freak out as all the buildings, roads, windows, etc would shrink but scatter in all different directions, to resolve this I combined everything together to their respective areas, for example all the wall cut outs where combined to the pentagon building & and all the windows for the background buildings where combined with their own respective buildings. After awhile of mostly testing and seeing what would shrink and what still needed adjusting, I was able to shrink down the entire set to a better suited size to work with.

With this newly resized set, I did my next thing on todays to do list being to rip it apart, well not exactly but I needed to re organise the set for different camera angles. When referring to my animatic there are three main reoccurring cameras angles throughout my piece being a straight on shot, a side view of the street and a back view of the street, aka facing away from the larger yellow pentagon building. Instead of creating new buildings and sets from scratch, I decided to reuse the buildings that I already had made but reposition them and, in some cases, slightly change their colours so they look different to their original counterparts. For example, most of the buildings used at the end of the street in the side view shot are the buildings used on the left-hand side of the Pentagon building, seeming as they aren’t in shot at the beginning, I decided to use them as background filler in the side shot. This technique was used again for the behind view shot of the street where the buildings where re used and the “Goodies” logo was replaced by a red strip/ window.

That was everything I managed to do today, and I feel that for the most part I am finished with modelling until I receive feedback. Between now and next week’s lesson I want to work on my character rigging as well as learning what mapping is, as my tutor explained to me as the four main aspects of 3D animation that need to be complete before animating modelling, mapping, texturing, and rigging. I think I understand what the other three aspects are, but the mapping one eludes me so I will try to also figure this out before next week’s lesson too.

[thedappleddragon]

ok time for 2 days worth of journaling

yesterday I discovered that if I take half of a mini bagel (because the store was out of bagel things), put on cream cheese and a slice of salami, you can make a pretty good bagel bite. I talked with my dad for a while about college things when he came home from work and brought groceries. I also made a frozen chicken Laredo pasta thing for dinner and ended up sharing it with my mom. dad and I shared ideas for what to add to it next time to make it better. I started with chopping up spinach, because I know it shrinks a bunch and is easy to hide in stuff. I want to try adding a little salt, maybe some garlic and onion, parmesan cheese, more greens, a bunch of stuff. idk. I like pretending to be a chef. but I talked with my ad about what kind of stuff I'll need for college, and how I'll probably need to buy real clothes and makeup so I dont look like a goblin who’s been existing solely in basketball shorts and pajama pants for the past year in quarantine.that;s why I made that post last night about fun girly sleepover or simple-ass makeup tutorial. I tried washing my face with an Olay soap bar, and it left my skin feeling nice but idk how good/bad it actually is for your face since its meant to be a body bar. I real online that a plain dove bar is actually pretty damn good for your face, but Olay was the only thing I had on hand. whatever. i played a bunch of stardew valley as well

I slept like shit last night, waking up at like 4 am and all mr dreams being shades of muted grey and brown and broken up into blocks, idk. I've been having weird abstract dreams and sleeping like shit for the past couple days. I think that's partially what cause my head to spin all afternoon. whenever I moved my head, it felt like my ghost was lagging behind my body if that makes sense. it sucked but got better when I moved around. I had my dad bring me water and Tylenol and then come back a second time to light my candle because he smelled like cigarettes and left the smell in my room. but I realized it was April fools day when I woke up, and contemplated how I was gonna prank my friends. I didnt come up with anything until my sister sent a picture of a crashed white Volvo, saying she failed her driving test. when my mom showed me I didnt believe her for a second, and folded over laughing when my mom was concerned about if it was real or not. I stole that joke and showed it to my 2 friend groups, with panicked misspelled texts to go with it for *authenticity* lmao. both groups fell for it at first, but band friends taking longer to catch on so I had to tell them it was a prank. my gamer friend in the other chat caught me almost IMMEDIATLY with reverse google image searching. but I laughed my ass off for a while either way. I didnt play any stardew today but I did play a little Webkinz. when my sister came back from her driving test, my dad brought home Dairy Queen blizzards and mentioned getting a nice-is dinner takeout :) unfortunately I waited forever for him to bring home food and it never happened. so my sister and I went through the mcdonalds drive through and got served by this absolutely DELIGHTFUL middle aged man who was very nice and funny and I told him she just got her license today. we went home and ate in my sisters room and watched John mulaney’s new in town. I had never actually watched the full special, but through Tumblr memes and a million animatics, I had pretty much seen everything. I had fun tho. we got regular chicken sandwiches when we porobably should have gotten the deluxe ones with lettuce and tomato and source or just gone to Wendy’s. tbh Wendy’s is SO MUCH FUCNKIN BETTER. and the mcdonalds was more expensive than I thought it would be. whatever. if we had gone to Wendy’s, sure we would have gotten better burgers, but we wouldn't have seen that deightful man. anyway earlier today I gave my cat some catnip and she was really cute about it. do cats drool more when they’re high? cuz damn it sure felt like it when she was mashing her face into my hand.  for lunch I made a different pasta thing, this time shrimp lomeign. I added spinach and broccoli, which I'm going to do for now and forever because it SLAPPED but my mom was acting like a child, saying broccoli is gross. she had me make spaghetti and proceeded to eat 3 or 4 bowls. I had a couple and went to my room. I realize that I'm typing all this shit WAYYYYY out of order, sorry to me reading back in the future or anyone who bothers to read these. tbh why would you. I hope people dont have my talk tag blocked (thanks for coming to my ted talk) and instead have 2021 daily blocked if they dont want to see these. I still make funny posts sometimes!! that’s also what I tag my art with!! but neither of those people would be able to read this anyway so I'm just preaching to the choir. anyway you’ll be happy to know that my head is no longer spinning, my teeth are nice and clean, I've got my comfy socks and pajama pants on, and I’m ready for bed. eventually. it’s not even midnight yet lmao. I guess I can mention this morning when my cat yelled at me asking to go outside, but it was literally FREEZING and im 100% sure I saw some snowflakes while I was out there for a couple minutes. she got so cold she climbed up on my lap as I was wrapped in my childhood sleeping bag I found in the laundry room. I breathed warm air on her and sat out there for another minute or so, mostly insulated by the sleeping bag, but carried her inside eventually. I didnt want to have to deal with that shit. tbh even tho I just had mcdonalds and it’s almost midnight and I've already brushed my teeth, I'm still a little bit hungry. but I dont know it’s that’s just because I'm lying down and your body takes a little while to tell you when you’re full, or if it’s because I waited for SO LONG waiting for city barbecue or bento cafe that just a burger and fries wasn't enough to cut it. well I'll just sleep it off anyway. you know what’s really cute? my cat laid on my lap and rested her chin on my hand as I typed :) I love her

[cameron-ashurst22]

Media Roles In Industries Weekly Summaries

Media Roles in Industry Weekly Summaries

Week 21

Day 2- Media industries: Roles and practices lecture

Project overview

6 weeks project researching media roles and practices giving a 10 minute group presentation on your work. Working in groups , you will research areas within the animation industry and the potential jobs available to you.

Research blog needed in the area I want to look into . Also including contacting a practitioner in the industry about research area. My early thoughts are to contact Ben Su a Pixar animator who I had made contact with earlier on in the year.

Project deliverables:

10 minute group presentation using video clips and supporting text.

Everyone in group must contribute and speak during the presentation

Research portfolio 

Blog has to contain what the degree can go into. Further study , independent filmmaker or working for a company.

500 word statement that summarises research findings.

Must include bibliography for the presentation.

Project aims

-Employability 

-By researching into the industry it familiarises yourself with the job roles and studios that I can apply to after my degree.

-using areas of interest as a starting point. Begin to locate creative practice with a wider range of knowledge

Group 1

Rachel Selby 

August Abrahamsson

Tan Sriwongwaew

Zayrick Villar

Sam Abbot

Myself

Weekly Breakdowns

Week 22

Working in your groups, discuss and chose an area of interest on which to focus your presentation research.

Group task for the following week

-Prepare a 5-minute, 3 slide presentation profiling your chosen area Job role you are profiling 

Week 23

Career presentation from Daisy Morgan 

Week  24

Career presentation Helen Schroeder 

Week 25 

Internship presentation by Oyku Baskin

Career presentation by Indigo Illusions

Animation industries 2d, Cg, Motion graphics , stopmotion

Content producers 

Studios( Laika ,Pixar ,Aardman)

-Hire creative talent 

-create the content

Production companies(aspect film/not scale)

-Manage logistics and finances

-Distribute the film 

Examples

Animated features (stop motion)

Kubo 

Fantastic mr fox 

Shaun the sheep

Animated feature (2d)

Ethel and Ernest 

The illusionist

Animated features 

Toy story

Paddington 

Pre school/ children 

Twirlywoos

Peppa pig 

Gumball

Tv series: Adults/ teens

Adventure time

Rick and Morty

Tv specials 

Shaun the sheep 

Watership down 

Motion graphics 

Advertising

Title sequences

Idents

Artistic 

Education

Good books example for motion graphics

Blink productions and blink studios- Stopmotion

Week 22

Day 2 - Media roles in industry lecture 

Career presentation from Daisy Morgan 

Take aways from the lecture :

Influence - Her influences are many anime cartoons , nature with national geographic and children’s programmes. She is also influenced by the games played when she was younger. Instagram also plays a part in inspiring her pages like pun animation and Manta Gr, Gaston Pacheco.

University - She chose NUA due to the sound design and narrative aspect of the course. The course was based on the fundamentals and offers the understanding with other creators. Convinced on doing 2D hand drawn initially. 

Through experimentation it is the best way of bettering yourself instead of trying to be perfect at each aspect. Take as many risks as possible through experimentation.  This allows you to find your own style and way of creating.

Internship scheme- Go to as many networking events as possible as this will allow career opportunities and internships.

Presentations

-   Title slide

-   present information in concise paragraphs and bullet points

use visuals and present information clearly

Use key quotes source directly from research

Include short films clips

Conclusion what have you learned 

Include a bibliography 

Make a contact- A checklist 

Thoroughly research the organisation and the individual before writing.

Remember to maintain a certain level of formality

Address correspondence to a named person

Be enthusiastic 

Three questions max and that they are easy to understand 

Can contact other people as well

Group one presentation review-

I feel like the first presentation went well as we each shared how we were going to research and structure the projects with the group. As I am slightly uncomfortable with public speaking I was anxious when first speaking. However I quickly grew to enjoy it and explain the processes of some of the artists and the work they had created. I feel like the presentation will progress as each person adds their own personal style and slides on their chosen artist. This explains the pipeline and the way characters are developed. As the presentation was only three slides long it was a small sample into what the main presentation will be about. I felt like more input could be made by my peers as it was me and Rachel mainly speaking to the audience. This is something we can work on in the future giving everyone an allotted time to speak.

Week 23

l

Day 2 - Media in industries 

Helen Schroeder Lecture/Talk on careers- Pre-production work 

Introduction 

Has tried multiple disciplines. Helen explained how competitive character animation is and that if that is what you want to do you have to be completely driven and focused on that goal. This is instead of jumping between roles and jobs. She also explained that jumping and changing job roles can also help establish a career as it helps find what you want to specialise in. 

Developing career

At the start of her studies she focused heavily on stop motion animation. So in her work at university she focused heavily in the stop motion genre. She then through her final third year film got an internship in model making. She then became an animation intern on Dragon in 2007.This helped her become recommissioned  as a freelance animator and model maker. As she was working for the same company she decided to focus heavily on the animation aspect instead of becoming a model maker splitting and letting go of the opportunities that this created to pursue stop motion animation.

Aardman storyboarding course 

This was a professional course and a foot in the door to a major studio. This allowed her to work on the storyboards for Arthur Christmas. This helped her get the job in animating Arthur in cg but she took a stocktake and because of her family did not pursue a future in La where she could work on the larger films.

Teaching and freelance 

Helen then decided to teach at NUA and worked freelance doing storyboarding for Tv and freelance.Helen worked for Hurst animation and was paid per scene.She also storyboarded for a Flora campaign. She then got back to  storyboarding for Aardman on early man but was cut from the project because of travelling and working remotely. She then worked on Watership Down and worked remotely and continues to do that to this day.

Key skills and take ways from talk:

Be adaptable 

Be profesional

Don’t be arrogant limits further opportunities

Keep to deadlines and promises

Be reliable

Have a collaborative attitude

Be positive

If able select jobs carefully and value yourself 

Helen also mentioned Annecy animation festival in France which allows opportunities forms he major studios for work.

Week 24 

Day 2- Media Roles in industry lecture

2nd year lecture - Oyku Baskin

Gobelins animation - A week intensive course on animation in Paris.  Consists of conferences, a big assignment , new friends and people. They bring industry professionals that are currently working on projects which help guide new perspectives and ideas. 

The 2 week assignment. A small exercise where you can choose the mediums of traditional 2D, Digital 2D or 3D. Receiving feedback from peers and tutors. The content changes every year.

What do you gain from this ?- Gain connections from all over the world.

Main tips for this course is to kill you ego. Removing your ego allows adaptation and a better realisation of what work you can produce.

Indigo Illusions lecture

1 Year after graduation 

Tips for the university course

Go to everything the uni puts on 

Separate your work and home space : come to uni to do work

Ask for help constantly

Get as experienced with software as possible. Use Lynda as much as possible

Draw everyday

Keep up to date with weekly summaries and blogs.

Collaboration tasks tips

-   Meet up every week, know what everyone is doing. Set goals for each other 

-   Work together 

Constantly ask for feedback

Indigo illusions -Set up in the ideas factory 

Their vision- contribute to the creative community of norwich swell as become a personal company. Getting new films and commissions on a regular basis

Easter Break week 27

Day 6 - Media roles in industry 

Today I finalised the slides for the presentation that I will send to the group. These slides contain bullet points for the research I have completed for the project. Furthermore, I have printed a longer more detailed variation of this to be used as a script for the presentation itself. In addition I was able to complete the 500 word report on the project and took the angle of what the research had shown me about the industry. This included the different job roles I had found how companies develop characters and what are their fundamental values in crating characters. I focused heavily around the process of Pixar in this project as I was drawn directly to their way of storytelling and character design process. I am going to add how the presentation went to the later section of the evaluation as the presentation is on Tuesday next week.

Week 28 

Day 2 - Media roles in industries presentation

Today I had the group presentation for our chosen subject of character design. I found it quite easy to talk infant of the group and deliver my part of the presentation well. This is due to previous practice through my college years. I tried to speak slowly and confidently in order to ensure that my point was iterated about Animatics, Alonso Martinez and the characters like spot and Arlo. I found that as a whole the presentation flowed and we we able to fully explore the subject matter due to the extensive research we had completed. On feedback from Helen, Peter and John this feeling was reciprocated. 

On reflection I found that the presentation could have included slides on interactions with the animators and character designers we had contacted. However, this was chosen against due to the layout of the presentation being cluttered and we opted to say who we spoke to instead. I was able to contact Ben Su and not Alonso Martinez , however they have similar job roles within Pixar and I expected the same sort of response. I felt this observation of to keep drawing and be open to influence and inspiration would have helped hit home the message of the presentation. This is due to the presentation being about the extensive research and development that is used in the character design pipeline to ensure that the characters are culturally and morally appropriate.

[elytrafemme]

I agree with you I don't want anyone outside of the fandom perceiving the fandom lmao

Also hewwooooooo drink some water today ily!!

hey hey! hope you don't mind me derailing here to talk about something tangentially related to this i mentioned earlier JFDHJDF

i think one of the things that makes dreamsmp feel like such a small fandom, to the point that it's unnerving to hear other people talking about it, is the collaborations across fans and the acknowledgement of fan content from creators that goes beyond just, head nods in their direction before moving on.

not to only talk about ranboo here, but he's a good example. his discord has that whole short story writing content, he has a twitter dedicated to retweeting ranboo fanart (run by other mods too ofc), and he's very pro- fan creations. same with the others, some saying that fanart is the best part about being a creator, the watching of animatics like SAD-ist's, listening to fan music, etc.

and, well, if the passerine chain of events isn't enough to show people in the fandom working together to create what is now practically an entire sector almost of dsmp fandom specifically dedicated to passerine and all inspired off of it, i don't know what is.

it's like, we know that dreamsmp as a fandom has its flaws that i could sit here and talk a lot about if i cared to, and there is discourse and people who are content creators and part of it that are not condoned by everyone in the fandom, and we know that it trends on twitter often, and we know that it's practically fucking revolutionary in some respects, but it feels so small. because it feels like everything you create is appreciated, not just flung into a chasm, you know?

and like, just adding this now but like, thinking about the fact that it's a roleplay, too, and there was that poll to exile/not exile tommy, etc. like, it feels some home-y because it feels like the fans are genuinely a big part of the fandom, more so than other fandoms. like, holls, you're with me in DR hell, which is another big fandom, and i think we can both agree that while DR is smaller than dreamsmp it feels a HELL of a lot less close together, you know?

anyway, sorry for the prattling here. just wanted to bring that up i guess.

love you, drink water!

[ana-motion-nua-ba2a]

25/01/2019

As things turned out, the internship I signed up for got unexpectedly cancelled. I still ended up missing the final narrative strategies lecture, but I do have a pretty solid idea for a story already, so I don’t think it should affect my work too much. 

For the brief time I was in London, I managed to get some writing exercises completed, including a dialogue ‘deleted scene’ to establish the dynamic of my script’s two main characters. I didn’t want to be going into my script blind, having very little idea of how the two women would interact, so I imagined them as formerly close friends to establish a quicker connection - since economy of time is all-important in a short film. 

Unfortunately, I missed my character bestiary tutorial due to problems with insomnia, but I managed to talk with Jon later in the week anyway. Now that I know two characters aren’t required for the film, I feel a bit freer to take full advantage of my background photos; Jon pointed out the range of bright colour in them as something to make good use of, and it’s definitely something to factor in when I think about composition. I need to get some style frames/storyboarding done this weekend - because I wasn’t originally planning to do any drawing this week, as I didn’t take my laptop to London, I’m a little shaken up in terms of my work schedule, and hadn’t gotten around to any of that yet. 

The silver lining to my internship being cancelled, though, is that it gives me more time to work on my bestiary puppet. I still have to sculpt the torso and one of the legs, but I’m really quite pleased with how it’s turning out. The huge blocks of foam I glued on it at the start of the week were a bit intimidating, but they’ve since shaped up nicely. I had a bit of a panic on the day I actually left for London - feeling rushed, and being more worried about getting something put together, I’d started out using things I had to hand, like fabric glue. Barry was very understanding telling me that I needed something with more flexibility, but I think being told that I’d used the wrong method right before I was due to be making things for an actual studio would always have set off my anxiety. I’ve since stocked up on the necessary supplies, though, and improved my puppet. 

It was also really helpful to get a refresher on sound recording, and an introduction to foley - I’m glad that the cancellation at least meant I could attend that. I was really worried about my coordination, when it came to my turn for creating sound effects - but I suppose that’s what editing’s for, and it was interesting how even the bits that were slightly off still seemed fairly effective. I think when you spend so much time working on an individual-frame basis, it’s easy to forget how quick scenes actually are, and how little, comparatively, an audience will actually pick up. 

That said, I’ve found more and more that on the lip sync project, it’s the tiny details the audience might not even pick up that interest me. I put together a bit of an unconventional dope sheet (the traditional format reminds me too much of paperwork forms, which I always struggle to get my head round), to get a handle on what mouth shapes I’d need, and I found it strangely fun to ‘translate’ the accent of the speaker into phonetics, rather than what I’d be expecting to hear in ‘proper’ pronunciation. 

The idea of going back to 3D has been making me a bit nervous, as it’s been so long, but on the Wednesday I just sort of made myself go in and at least get the two Max rigs lying down, even if I did nothing else. I did, in fact, end up doing nothing else, as - whether down to my inexperience or a limitation in the rig - I couldn’t find a way to move the whole thing as one object. That resulted in a lot of gradual pushing, pulling, and rotating, to get them both in the right positions, but I do now have a composition I was happy to start animating with earlier today. I’m starting small, with the mouth shapes, and working my way outwards, so that I can copy shapes across and worry about less repetitive gestures later. 

I also talked with Kris a little about the body language of my speaking character - he pointed out that the vague, staring-at-the-ceiling expression they’d ended up with while I made them talk worked well in its own right, and suggested having them tuck an arm behind their head and only gesture with one hand. I really like that idea - I did feel like my animatic was a little too busy, and I think having less movement from the speaker will direct more attention to the expressions and actions of the second character, and their fury at being kept awake. It’s also a nice, simple solution to the problem of keeping the speaker mostly in their personal, rather than social space - my previous attempts at getting that across feel a bit overwrought, now. 

[ekniemisba2a]

BA2a Narrative Strategies - Reflective Essay (2nd Draft)

In this essay, I will be reflecting on my short story inspired by the themes of dreams and the uncanny in our set text Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) by Robert Louis Stevenson. I will explore Magic Realism and the depiction of the ‘little people’ in both Stevenson and Japanese author Haruki Murakami’s work. Finally, I will be discussing how I would animate the short story with references to my inspirations in animation, as well as my research into the Victorian Era.

One of the key themes in and surrounding Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is dreams. In the book, this mystery of Mr Hyde is unveiled through the character of Gabriel Utterson, whose ‘imagination was engaged or rather enslaved’ by this man, ‘even in his dreams it had no face, or one that baffled him and melted before his eyes’ (Stevenson, 2002, p.13). Similarly, writer Robert Louis Stevenson was plagued by images of Mr Hyde and changing powders in his dreams, supplying him with his desired plot for this story (Stevenson, 1892). Freud described dreams as ‘the royal road to the unconscious’ often revealing repressed desires (White, 2018), which has a clear connection to Henry Jekyll’s inability to suppress his dark cravings, resulting in the creation of Edward Hyde. I was first introduced to Sigmund Freud in A Level Psychology, and although he has quite questionable ideas and theories, I always found them to be fascinating in their madness. Which leads me to the next theme I took an interest in within this tale, the Uncanny. This is also evoked by the presence of Hyde, who gives ‘an impression of deformity without any nameable malformation’ (Stevenson, 2002, p.16). This Ernst Jentsch would describe as uncanny from his essay On the Psychology of the Uncanny (1906) for its prolonged state of uncertainty (White, 2018).

Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is a Magic Realist narrative which is the ‘inclusion of fantastic or mythical elements into seemingly realistic fiction’ (The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica, 2014). This concept has always enticed me, I love to think that there are unknown elements in our lives that may one day reveal itself to you. So I thought this would be a good place to start when it came to brainstorming an idea for my short story. Initially, I struggled to think of a narrative based on or inspired by our set text because I found the language difficult to read, taking me out of the story and lacking to stir any ideas. However, in one of our lectures, the mention of Stevenson’s Little People, the ‘substantive inventors and performers’ (Stevenson, 1892,) of his imagination, instantly caught my attention. The author that I had instead been turning to for inspiration was Haruki Murakami, one of my favourite writers, who funnily enough also wrote about creatures by the name of Little People. In Murakami’s books 1Q84 (2009-2010), ‘no one knows for sure who these Little People are’ (Murakami, 2009, p.604), they are neither good nor evil, they are something ‘that surpasses our understanding and our definitions’ (Murakami, 2009, pg. 631). There are a lot of similarities between Stevenson and Murakami in both their writing and their personalities, both famous for their magical realism and with avid imaginations that Murakami described as ‘a kind of animal’ keeping it alive through writing (Bausells, 2014). Dreams are also a focal point in Murakami’s writing, acting as a gateway to an unknown world and allowing the Little People from that world into ours.

I combined Stevenson’s dream fabricators and Murakami’s dimension walkers with my own imagination and came up with this short story about these Little People. My depiction of the Little People are particularly uncanny according to Freud, they are both familiar and unfamiliar in their appearance and made visible to Stevenson when they ought to be a secret (White, 2018). Like Murakami, I didn’t plan my story extensively, I just ran with my exciting idea and started. I enjoyed writing about these strange creatures, I am always drawn to the macabre in my work but trying to show and not tell with words was a welcomed challenge. It did take several re-drafts to finalise my text, with most of my struggles deriving from my introductory paragraph, I just couldn’t find the right words for without describing too much. I was also conscious of being historically accurate with my portrayal of Stevenson and his life, a lot of this came from the project’s lectures and my tutor’s knowledge of the writer. However, Back In My Time: A Writer's Guide to the 19th Century’s article on the Victorian Bedroom (Huls, 2016) was extremely helpful in creating a clear picture in my head of what Stevenson’s chief place of living might be like.

Most fictional stories and day to day texts today, such as News and Media, are written in the past tense, so it is no surprise that we feel a sense of unfamiliarity when consuming writing in a present tense. Despite the fact that I found it difficult to keep to writing in the present tense, I exploited this foreignness to create a sense of disquiet within my story. The winding sentences phrased in this way also work to make the reader slightly uneasy, which I felt appropriately reflected my magical realist narrative. It was also important for me to have the little people coming into our world through Stevenson’s mouth as this is a clear opening for them to escape his mind, but also it is how the Little People do it in Murakami’s 1Q84 too, specifically through the mouth of a dead goat in one instance. I also wanted them to be in a group because of their namesake and Murakami’s own words which states ‘there is never just one’ (Murakami, 2009, p.624).

If I were to adapt my short story into an adult animated film, I would use a combination of stop motion animation and live action. The first sequence in Stevenson’s bedroom during the night would be in stop motion animation to make use of its innate uncanny qualities and create a dream-like atmosphere. This would be contrasted with the, undoubtedly real, live action sequence that follows the next morning. This technique is used in James and the Giant Peach (1996) directed by Henry Selick and The Cat with Hands (2001) directed by Robert Morgan, both to symbolise passage into a new world. However, I would have my sections reversed in comparison to these films, as I would choose to begin with animation and end with live action. To further exploit the uncanny sense provided by stop motion animation, I would animate the movement of the little people puppets with missing in-between frames to make their movement more jittery and unnatural. However, Stevenson’s puppet will be animated with smooth and consequently realistic movements. Because I can’t physically have the little people puppets climb out from Stevenson’s mouth, I would need to maliciously plan my shots in the storyboard phase and explore my puppet’s limitations, so that I am fully prepared to retain believability in the shoot.

All puppets would be made from scratch with wire armatures and animatable with pins. However, the little people at roughly 6” puppets, would be considerably smaller than the Stevenson puppet at 12”. The little people’s ill-fitting skin would be made using silicone or latex to achieve the fleshy quality, taking inspiration from the puppets used in the animated short film La Ballena Escarlata (Figure 2). Whereas the Stevenson puppet would be put together with old second-hand doll parts, and his bedroom set would be dressed with equally used and old-fashioned objects. All these materials would be collected from vintage and antique fairs to be in line with the Victorian aesthetic. This is the process of filmmakers the Brothers Quay (Figure 3), who start both their stop motion projects in this way, working around the details of the chosen objects. However, some props will be difficult to find in the right size to compliment my large puppet, for instance, Stevenson’s nightshirt and four-poster bed, which I would have to instead make myself.

The night scene will have a cold grade to bring out the blues and beiges in the set, contrasted by the morning scene that would have a warm grade to emphasise the now new world full of oranges and yellows. The main light source in both scenes would be from the moon or sun through the window, using minimal dim lights only where it is necessary but otherwise I would want to create as much shadow as I can. Yet, the little people I created will lack shadows, so to get around this issue without it implementing the lighting of the set, I would mask out the shadows in post-production using Adobe After Effects. Finally, the soundtrack would consist of mostly ambience Foley sounds, for example, the ticking of the clock, which is very prominent in my story, to add to the sensation of unease.

Through this process, I have learnt that creative writing isn’t as scary as I thought and can be a really satisfying way of bringing my ideas to life. Although the set text wasn’t a hit with me, I have found it to have very interesting narrative themes that I enjoyed exploring in my writing and research. What I would do differently is start my research and essay earlier, I am someone who comes to writing last in a workload as I really struggle to formulate my thoughts into words, it never gets easier but I am determined to improve my attitude in order to complete these tasks to the best to my ability. On a whole, this project has been insightful, giving me the confidence to start writing more short fiction and encouraging me to pick up reading on a regular basis again, allowing me to grow not just as an animator but a storyteller too.

[doodlewash]

I’m Mahboob Raja. ‘Elham’ is my pen name which I use in my poems as well as in signing my paintings. I was born and raised in Ranchi, but lived almost half of my life in Mumbai. I am 41 now. Art comes to me from my mother, so natural. She was very good at drawing and into calligraphy also.

I started drawing portraits and human figures in my primary school days. When still a kid, I used to draw portraits of Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan on the back pages of every one of my exercise books. In my high school I was quite famous… I was called an artist and the one who draws Amitabh Bachchan from his memory.

My family was a little conservative… nobody had ever encouraged me to go into art. They still tell that it is forbidden to draw or paint living things and I should change my profession.

So by the time I passed my 10th I had a portfolio of portraits of film actors which I used to show everyone proudly.

I remember I started writing poems, Ghazal and Nazm in Urdu at that time only. At the same time, I was introduced to transparent watercolor by our art teacher Tarak Shankar Das and I had just fallen in love with it. In that period, I painted a number of portraits in watercolor.

In Mumbai, I did lots of things like writing songs and screenplays, directing shorts and feature films, storyboarding, illustrations, caricatures but never got the chance to do watercolors. I had gotten totally digitized, but deep in my soul, I was missing those stains of colors on my clothes and that deadly fragrance of turpentine. I wanted to work in traditional medium so badly.

Watercolor is always like a first love to me and while in Mumbai, working in animation or in advertising and design agencies, I did nothing but long to do watercolor. I had missed these beautiful watercolor splatters and effects so much that every time when I was making a caricature, I tried bringing that look digitally. Since it was my favorite medium and in my early days I had practiced it a lot, my mind was very much acquainted with watercolor’s behaviors, its looks and feels in details.

So I had started experimenting with all those different softwares… and with different digital brushes. I collected many brushes to paint watercolor digitally and even designed some myself. It was a success. Even today my fans and close friends get deceived with these faked watercolor caricatures. After making every caricature I have to tell them, make them confirm that this is done digitally. I think it became my signature style in caricatures lately. I have won many national and international caricature contests.

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Sharing with you some of my digital caricatures where I faked watercolor.

After this entire struggle, I found myself at more unrest. It totally failed to bring that real pleasure, that bliss or satisfaction to my heart which pure transparent watercolor on a tiny piece of paper used to give. So one fine day, I finally decided to return back to my hometown and do only watercolors.

After shifting my base here, in Ranchi, and doing watercolor, it’s like coming home in a very real sense for me. Now I feel more like me. I feel very much alive after two decades of being dead.

Same as everybody, I also believe that watercolor is a delicate and very impulsive medium just like a playful, careless and a stubborn girlfriend (beloved). It demands patience, constant attention and continued practice. You will have to date every single day or else it will get offended.

So after a long separation, this is like a new beginning. I am trying to study watercolor again, very seriously.

Life is not like what it used to be when I was doing watercolor twenty years before. I am married now and have two kids so I keep doing freelance caricatures and animatic works in between. I never forget my responsibilities.

I’ve a very simple formula which I had borrowed from Vincent Van Gogh in my student life.

“Not a day without a line!”

Since I am in the mood for watercolor at present, I have altered this quote a little…

“Not a day without a watercolor!

I like landscape painting but, to be honest, I fear it. Though in the past I had done so many landscapes, this is not the thing I feel very much passion for. From my childhood hours, I am more attracted towards people, characters with stories, interesting gestures and postures, beautiful pauses and actions. I love expressions, innocence, different fascinating faces. I study people and their faces.

I don’t have any particular way or method of doing watercolor. According to my subjects I approach afresh every time I start it.

Earlier, I used to go out for a lot for plein air painting and I loved that. It used to be real fun and I must say plein air painting always gives a great learning experience. I’m planning to start it and will definitely go for it again soon.

These days, I generally work in my studio, from reference photos. I get requests from people around the world to make their portraits. Girls offer to become my models often. Sometimes, I charge my remuneration but many times, they inspire me to paint and I ask them to be my models. Sometimes, I ask people on Instagram if I can use their photos.

I collect photos. I have my own library of reference photos. I click, take pictures with my mobile camera whenever I travel or visit someone.

I have always used local materials, local handmade or cartridge paper, Camel Artist’s Watercolors and some natural hair round and flat brushes. But, recently I got Mijello Mission Gold pure pigment watercolor tubes and Art Secret 20RQ handmade mop and Mont Marte goat hake brushes from an International watercolor festival that I attended.

I also got some Chinese calligraphy brushes. I loved all these brushes. I am enjoying working with different watercolors, but didn’t find a major difference in colors except some reds. Our local brand Camel is simply great. There is a huge difference in price as well. Mission Gold is way too expensive.

For watercolor, I think paper is very important. One should spend some money in buying good quality papers. Sometimes, I use Fabriano paper and it is really great.

I’ve been using my newly acquired watercolor supplies and I love the results. I’m enjoying it!

“Not a day without a watercolor!

Mahboob Raja ‘Elham’ Facebook Instagram

#WorldWatercolorGroup - GUEST ARTIST: "In The Mood For Watercolor" by Mahboob Raja Elham I’m Mahboob Raja. ‘Elham’ is my pen name which I use in my poems as well as in signing my paintings.

[acutecoral]

One of the animators I follow, had released an animatic about Bluestar called Little Pistol, and the song really...struck me. Also it was beautiful, the art style and composition and everything else. Just glorious. Besides that, it's my boys' day today with me. They were still busy with working on the warning system for our home, and I didn't want to bother them. But earlier I couldn't help it. My mind was distracted and energetic, I couldn't help but play an SU song and waltz into the lab and pull the boys into singing with me. Not that they minded. We sang Peace And Love On The Planet Earth, and it was nice. Later, when I watched the animatic and my mind is still both energetic and the cusp of falling into visualizing something dark and moody...like fighting, kidnapping, drama and death. I tried to ignore the feeling. The boys visited me and I think they realized it was their day with me and wanted to take a break on their work. Apparently Rick had been missing me, and had sought me out in bed sleepily last night according to Gywn. He got all flustered but confirmed it, and Gwyn said he was on the same boat. They noticed my predicament, and they went to hold my hand and said that I should explore my imaginations. I'm just worried that I'd accident make it come true, but Rick and Gwyn gently assured me that they'll keep me grounded and to help separate my imagination and the truth. It helped a lot. They gripped my hand when I was slipping too deep, and helped keep me calm. I imagined the three of us being caught by someone who wanted my powers, and I got stopped because my boys were taken hostage and I got knocked out. I would wake up in an anti-light field that wouldn't allow light inside so I couldn't escape, since they knew I could manipulate light. Not really the extent of my abilities. I could control dust, and gently and subtly manipulating it to short-circuit the machine controlling the field and freed me. And I pretty much went on a rampage and went for Rick and Gwyn. When I got to where the big bad was holding them, they got killed off and I went into a shock and broke down. Causing a ripple of power that was destroying everything. But the spirits of the two were still there and saw through my grief and anger, calming me down and holding me, enough to wake up and cause a rewind of everything wrong that happened. The kills I made and their deaths. I was still tired over the whole thing, and Rick portaled us out of there while Gwyn held me close. That was my imagination, and after that we just chilled in the couch in the tv room.

[pa0231michelletsang]

evaluation

In order to create an idea that is conceptually strong and engaging to the audience. It’s crucial to learn and understand the key fundamentals of story creation. These of which were themes, stories and genres that had been summed up by author Philip Parker, it allowed us to understand the true definitions and how they connect to each other through the three acts (Syd field 1984), known as exposition, conflict and resolution that all classic narratives follow.

By using the knowledge obtained from the lectures that followed Philip Parkers understanding of film concepts, we were required to use this to generate a strong idea that could work for a short film lasting 5-10 minutes.

Brain-storming the idea consisted of selected themes that I particularly enjoyed the most and what I felt would be much more captivating to the audience. The following themes I decided to focus on were “Injustice” “Desire for Order or truth” and “The pursuit of self-validation”. All of which involves the character to deal with personal conflict and over-come either themselves or the world around them. This made me come up with the idea about self-validation about a character who may appear threatening from the exterior that has caused them to be isolated from others, however they want to change this as they are more than what they look. With self-validation he would then be able to break out of isolation and therefore be accepted into his society.  Other stories that I’ve created followed the same narrative, “A girl is cursed by her mother’s spirit and is unwilling to let go and therefore controls her”. However with these stories, I felt like they were cliché and finding a resolution may be hard.

After research on Paul Wells and his articles about symbolism and metaphors, I then start to think about how characters may not necessarily need to be a person, that they could perhaps be an inanimate object in which could be the protagonist,, that perhaps the world could be a character who is an external force to the protagonist. I found that this was quite similar to how society can be today in certain aspects, whether we like to be aware of it or not. We as citizens are quite helpless and can feel controlled when major negative changes are happening in the world and we are unable to make a strong positive difference. By connecting today’s society with exaggerated antagonists, I would be able to create a world that is mundane, dull and emotionless. After several drafts and help from my peers this helped me come up with an idea that I worked.

“A violin awakens in a black and white world futuristic world with people who are controlled by a “system” and their freedom being taken away, they are brain-washed to believe the money and success are the way to evolve. The violin and its’ bow that this is wrong and wants to make a difference, she uses her traits (her passion for music) to change people’s hearts and for them to realise that having fun and leisure is okay.  Her side-kick, the gramophone comes to life and goes to the centre of town with her, plays music together until the tallest building known as the system awakens, and it then alerts the crowds of people to confiscate her prized possession. Saddened by this, she then attempts to find her partner in a scrap yard shop, who she then finds other instruments that could help her break the system. They then climb on top of the system building, sing and play music on the top of their voices. Spreading both music and colour to the world”  

I was very much inspired by the visual style and concept from the Pixar short inner workings, which focuses on a man who goes to work every-day, disconnecting himself from the happy and outgoing world to a workplace that’s very robotic and emotionless.

The system character in my story is inspired by the book 1984, a novel that focuses on a futuristic world where citizens are under heavily surveillance and controlled by bringing this inspirations together to form the message that I want to put across to the audience is that.

The message that I want to put across to the audience is that “By having the passion and will to change the world, having one voice may not be enough. However by coming together with a group of people, the voices will therefore be heard.”

 After writing the plot out, I began to build the story together by identifying the genre and its’ story, finding it’s’ connections to the theme. I found that a personal conflict is evident as the protagonist’s has the desire to escape this world, in which they try and bring happiness into it, however this fails and realises that not all things can be done solo but in a group which allows them to work together and changes the world. The story is very much the gift being taken away, we watch as the character mourns but becomes stronger as they find the power to bring them back and is able to bring colour to themselves through the power of friendship.

However, the story was not always about a violin as it was originally about a girl from the 1970’s who woke up in this world and had a gramophone as a side-kick, following the same acts and narrative.

So at its’ earlier stage feedback that I received for the story pitch was generally positive, as the character is seen to be strong willed and positive and is exposed into a world that reflects our current society and that music was a good plot device to lure the audience into the musical journey that can change the world. The most helpful feedback was to change the side-kick to something a bit more related, perhaps have something that is more tangible compared to a gramophone. In which I have exchanged for a violin, something that is small, curvy and has a counterpart in order to play (the bow).

I was asked a few questions during my feedback and had made me realise more about the world, about which parts I would exaggerate that would make the contrast stronger between the character and the world. I was asked how I would be able to portray success and money in a bad light and how what they look compared to humans. I decided to go for a much more futuristic approach and made research about the negative impacts of success and money and change the concept of the citizens into robotic humans with angular shapes. While doing this, I began to think about the environment and how I would be able to capture the dark and evilness and put this into contrast to the pure character that will change all of this. Another strong question that was asked from my tutor was, why is the girl there? It wasn’t until then that I realised that the violin has the exact same characteristics as the girl. Strong willed, musical and wanting to change the world. This caused me to re-write the story, replacing the girl with the violin. So instead of the girl losing the violin, the violin could lose its’ bow. This is a strong reference to the idea of anthropometrism (Paul Wells 1998), as the violin is being given the same human characteristics as the girl did in the previous draft of the story.

Happy with the feedback I have taken, along with the adjustments made to the story I was motivated and looking forward to creating this into an animatic.

The hardest parts I found during the creation of this module was not the story-creating, I believe it was how I executed it, especially with how the acts were introduced. At times when I was working on the animatic I felt lost finding the transition between the acts as these frames were blank-fillers. In which has made me wished I worked the key-frames better with act 1, act 2 and act 3. I do feel like the beginning and end worked well but I was missing a dramatic effect between the world and the protagonist. Which many agreed in the feedback I received. Act 2 was the weakest act as it was hard to tell if the bow was dead or just taken away, I also feel like there wasn’t enough conflict or drama , this might be due to because the system character wasn’t well developed or translated well from the story to the animatic.

I admit, I felt like I was being a bit over ambitious with the world development and trying to allow the main characters to have room to breathe, again I feel like it was translated incorrectly

Despite these flaws, the animatic has been somewhat successful in my eyes. I was able to bring these instruments to life through anthropometrism and bring a metaphorical meaning into my work as we see the violin progress as a character, it produces music but not enough to change its’ surroundings and not enough to make it have its’ own kind of life as it continues to remain black and white. However with friends, they provide a power to all of them as they whisk through the city with their musical powers, enough to bring him to rescue his friend. It goes back to the meaning of the story that I wanted, that one voice may not get the message fully across but a group of voices can make a difference with support and positivity. I feel like using music was a good drive, it allowed me to visually show its’ power and its’ colourful effect to the dull world.

Acts one and three work out well enough I feel, as the character was well exposed to the dull world attempts to play music, loses its’ possession whilst not strong I feel the resolution allowed the character to realise life lessons.

What else I could have done in my work, is create stronger acts and spend more time planning the animatic rather than jumping straight into it. I feel like this was my weakness, I was too involved in the work and not looking at the bigger picture. I could have also made the contrast stronger between the characters, such as planning the shot when the creature building awakened and make this obvious to the audience.

What I thought I could have done better was consciously be aware that I am making the acts obvious in the story, perhaps as well make the contrast stronger between the protagonist and the antagonist. Make the antagonist appear much more threatening and make the audience feel the danger the violin is going through and therefore the loss would have been a lot more effective. With these being the things I could of done better are how I feel towards to what I would of done to make the animatic better.

If given the chance to redo this, the things I would change in the work done in this module is making the acts more obvious, perhaps be a bit more experimental as I feel like my work wasn’t powerful enough when displaying the evil-ness of the monstrous building, I may have held myself back while working on this. I’d also put more time into the environment as this plays a big part in the story. However despite all this, I am happy with the work I have created and whilst not perfect, the module has taught me the key elements of story-telling, how it is structured and how all of these devices are crucial. With the mistakes I have made, I am glad that I am able to look back at them when making my new ideas and see myself progress. It has inspired me to learn more about the art of story-building and enabling me to make a story much more effective and emotionally moving to my audience.

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