Weekly Comments

     This week I learned a how to do frame by frame in Toon-Boom. It is pretty fun to do frame by frame in Toon-Boom because of the sketching brushes, it makes it feel closer to drawing on paper! Something I want to learn in the future is how to add proper anatomy to a character, because it seems anatomy is very important to understand how your character should move. This week I got pretty frustrated when Toon- Boom crashed on me, but the good thing about that is that it always reminds me to save often. This week I was pretty happy because we finally got into some actual animation, I just love seeing everything everyone makes!

     My link of interest this week is a tutorial on smears/exaggerated inbetweens by my friend Emrox! I really recommend that you watch this if you are ever going to do smears. Although this is taught in flash, the concept is still the same, he makes very valid points on what looks good. If you want to see more of Emrox's stuff he has lots of movies on his Newgrounds!

Animation Principles in Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs

     Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs contains prime examples of animation principles throughout the whole movie.
     Squash and stretch is possibly the most used technique throughout the whole movie, many times squash and stretch is overlooked by the audience, but it makes such a huge difference in the flow of the character. One of the more subtle moments of squash and stretch is when Flint goes to turn on the fuse box in the dark, thus startled that his father is right next to him, his head squishes into the fuse-box.
      Anticipation directs the audience to things that happen in the film, whether it is them reacting to something or pointing the viewers at something in the background. Anticipation is used in the Baby Brent Sardine commercial when the wagon falls over he looks and shows the audience what happened.

      Easing takes a big roll in the film because it creates a smooth flow of movement in characters, objects, and effects. When food falls from the sky you notice that it is slowly easing in towards the ground, it makes you feel that the food is accelerating and going really fast!
      Timing is key when animating the size of something, if something moves fast you could get the impression that it is small. But if it moves slow it can give you the idea that it is a massive object. This is relevant when the giant piece of corn falls on the great wall of china and it rolls slowly to make it look huge.

     Staging is important to give mood and atmosphere to a scene, to show what is going on and where the character is. There is a sense of danger inside the peanut brittle cave because of the camera angle and sharpness of the peanut brittle being staged.

     Exaggeration on the characters in the movie are used heavily. Expressions are exaggerated many times throughout, the dad's eyebrows are exaggerated to make him seem very stern, and when he raises them it gives the audience a comedic feeling when they see it.

     

Stop-motion with BoxTrolls

     Travis Knight is the lead animator and CEO at Laika a studio. Laika is known for their movies Coraline, ParaNorman, and its upcoming movie BoxTrolls. Their new movie takes place in a Victorian age town where the humans live above, and the misunderstood box trolls live down below. Travis says that with this movie will require "an artful balance of darkness and light, intensity and warmth." because of its story and atmosphere.
     What is very interesting about BoxTrolls and the other Laika films is that they combine stop-motion with some CGI to get effects they normally couldn't produce. What is also very interesting is that they use 3d printing to create the heads of the characters and mouth shapes rather than sculpting every one. Through the years animators have learned new things with every film, and then incorporated them with each one after, with what they learned from Coraline they incorporated into ParaNorman and from both they are incorporating into BoxTrolls!
     Travis described many of the deep insightful details of Laika's work process and the general work he goes through to make their movies a success. I find it very intriguing how different techniques like 3d printing are used to create characters. This shows that Stop Motion animation is still being practiced in this century and that new innovations are being created through  digital and physical practices!

Weekly Comments

     This week I learned color theory, principles of design, principles of animation, and the painstaking work of creating a flip book! I really enjoyed when we picked out principles of animation inside Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs! What I hope to learn in the future is how to incorporate feeling and emotion into the character of your animation. What frustrated me this week was how long it took me to make my flip book, it is very tough to get it to look the way you want it to especially when working on paper. What made me happy this week was when my character was put in the hallway because it was good!

     My link of interest this week is an animation test for an upcoming Popeye CG feature! I find this very exciting because it is very refreshing to see that Sony Pictures is bringing back an old animated character! What is really cool about this is that it is only a animation test of what they want it to look like, its not a sneak peak, clip, or trailer of the movie at all! Its nice how it pays homage to the old 2-d style of Popeye with lots of squash and stretch! Lastly the overall quality of it shows that this will be really good!

Michael Moore's Manifesto

      At the Toronto International Film Festival’s 2014 Doc Conference Michael Moore tells us 13 points that make a good documentary. He makes it especially clear how in a documentary how to bring a personal side to your film and engage your audience, with tips like not using facts people already know. Additionally he expresses how certain elements of film really helps to bring forward the meaning of a documentary. Especially that sound is key, because no matter what you are doing sound can always immerse the audience and bring fourth the story.

     Overall Michael Moore's list really does show what makes a documentary good, honestly for me Michael is not one of my favorite people to listen too, but he makes valid points in what people want to see. I really agree with him when he says that you should “Make your films personal” because when you enjoy what you are making other people will too, and it show you have dedication towards your project. This is all relevant in the digital media industry because it helps creators know what the audience thirsts for.

Hullabaloo

     Hullabaloo is a 2-d animated film with a female protagonist and steam-punk undertones. CGI is now one of the most preferred methods of animation in the film industry today. On the other hand Hullabaloo hopes to show people that 2-d animation is still strong. James Lopez is a former Disney animator and founder of the indiegogo. The team is comprised of nine artists, one composer, three voice actors, one producer, and one composite.
     All together they have crowd funded over 314,000 dollars over thier 80,000 dollar asking goal. One of the really interesting points is one of the perks that James offers. For 500 dollars you can get a animation class with him, which is really great considering you get to fund a great film and learn as well!
     Hullabaloo could be great way to show the world that 2-d animation isn't dead, because it has already shown success with how much its been funded! It could possibly bring back 2-d animated films to the big screen.  This could be very good for digital media jobs because this might encourage more studios to make 2-d films thus reopening a job range for 2-d animators.

Weekly Comments

     Wow week one is over it went by faster than expected and I am really enjoying class! This week we got to dive in to animation history, techniques, jobs, and process. Additionally we learned on the Macintosh how to navigate, and some of the features of Toon Boom Animate Pro 3! I am really hoping to start and get into some basic animation fundamentals and understanding of color! What is kind of bugging me this week is getting used to Toon Boom, since I would consider myself rather good at using Adobe flash, some of the interface, tools, etc are confusing me. What made me happy this week was realizing i like Toon Boom better than flash, I mostly feel this way because it has so much more to offer now than flash does!


     Here is an Animation that won NATA an animation tournament hosted on New Grounds. It was created by Stejkrobot, and the objective in that part of the tournament was to animate in the style of your opponent! Stejkrobot's opponent was ButzboPrud! I thought it was extremely well created and had a variety of effects, its absolutely stunning! I feel Stejkrobot is very well deserving of his win, I have had the pleasure of talking to him, and he is a very well spoken person! I recomend you check out his other animations!

Six tips for making a solid demo reel

     According to animation recruiters there are six things you can do to show them you have a solid demo reel. First and foremost do not waste your time for an impression with a fancy title card, just have the information needed and that is it.  Secondly make sure to have strong preforming shots of your animations rather than a mash-up of everything you have made, because you will surely lose their interest all together. Third, the acting of your character is one of the main things they look for, especially popular studios like Pixar because of how acting takes a huge role with how they produce their movies.
     Fourth and foremost is to direct your demo reel at places where you want to be hired, so gory films would not be the best thing to show Disney. Fifth make sure your reel is easily accessible, with video streaming. Finally be aware of dialogue and scenes other reels have used, so you show you can animate in different beats.
     All of these tips provided in this article by animationmentor.com looks like alot to do for a demo reel, but overall it creates a solid showcase of your skills toward the studios you wish to be hired at. The tips generally oppose what I thought demo-reels should look like, and now I have an idea of what I should be aiming at with a showcase!

The Use of Cinematography in "The Order"

      Ready at Dawn has a new trick up their sleeves when it comes to making video-games more immersive. The Order was shown at E3, and the developers are very proud of the incorporation of "camera-lenses" in the game. Ready at Dawn feels that adding the details of a camera lens like dirt, smudges, and the curvature of a lens will make a game seem more life like because of our association with common movie . “And what we’ve done with this game is what we coin as filmic … We’ve used [techniques] that are very movie-like … to build the game.” says  Ru Weerasuriya the creative director at Ready at Dawn.
     I think that this could be a great enhancement for video-games today, because many games are lacking a physical visual sense. The whole idea of using movie shots and movie lens could set a standard as for mixing movies and games together as well as possibly create a new job range as for video game graphics.

source: http://time.com/2896528/cinematography-the-order-1886/