Applied Production Diary - (20/2/17 - 26/2/17)

This week at our group meeting we were able as a group to establish roles so that we could begin pre-production properly. After each making moodboards and coming up with separate ideas, we were also able to come up with a rough storyboard. To the left is a list of the different roles and who was responsible for what and some roles were split between the three of us. I am going to be mainly responsible for designing and building my character which is the baby Orangutan (Louie) in our narrative. We made sure that things like animation and lighting tests were a group role so that everyone could be involved directly with the production process and how it was going to look.









Below is the rough storyboard that we came up with together, by coming up with it as a group this meant that we were all able to come up with the cinematography and shots before it was finalised. After seeing the rough storyboard I started to get more excited about our production as I can start to see it coming together!



First I decided to start drawing some designs for my character, which is one of favourite parts of production and below are some of my sketches I did. I want to make my character 'cute', however it still has to be able to be made into a puppet, which is something I will have to consider when I decide on a final design.




My next steps for next week will be to get a good start of writing the poem that will be narrated throughout our documentary. This is going to be quite challenging for me as I need to be able to add in facts to the poem as well as describe the narrative on screen. I want to try and make the poem quite metaphoric instead of plainly telling the audience what they're seeing on screen, this way it will hopefully have a greater effect on the audience.

Finally, I decided that it would be great primary research to reach out to all the different organisations that are trying to fight against Palm Oil and save the Orangutans are get some input and information from them. Below are all the different emails I sent out and hopefully I will get at least one response soon enough. I also feel that after this documentary is made it would be a great opportunity to send it out to these organisations to gain feedback and possibly publicity if they feel they want to show it.





I really hope to hear back from these different organisations soon as it will be really interesting to hear what they have to say about the matter directly.

Elephant Concepts - Thirsty Planet

The main character in the Thirsty Planet project is an elephant and I have been working alongside the illustrator in our group to form the character. As she hasn't really come up with a character design before, she came up with the basic design and I was able to expand on her idea and come up with different concepts. This was really fun to do as I really enjoy character design and exploring the different ways that the character shows emotion and moves.

Below is Hannah's initial design:

I then had to recreate her style in my drawings which was something really new for me, although I felt it was great practice as in the industry this is the kind of thing I will have to get used to. Below are all the drawings I came up with from Hannah's design.

 

Here was a quick watercolour concept I did for the scene where it's an upward shot of the elephant. I should have used watercolour paper here, but it was only a quick sketch.

Above are the emotions concepts and the different views of the elephant, trying to keep with the original style. I can now pass these drawings on to Hannah where she can recreate them in her style and make them more 'illustrative' rather than line drawings.

Finally, I started to look at how the elephant would walk, here she takes one step. Even though we will be animating using cut out, I still feel I need to look at all the ways an elephant walks as I have never animated a four-legged animal before.

Above is a quick concept watercolour painting of the scene where the women catch the water. I didn't recreate the style that Hannah has come up with for the women yet as I felt it was nicer to keep the concept paintings simple and expressive so I can start to get the feel of the animation. I have really enjoyed coming up with these different concepts and I feel my next steps are to pass on the drawings, and look more into the way that the elephant will walk so that it looks smooth in animation. 

Applied Production Diary (13/2/17 - 19/2/17)

I have started researching into Palm Oil trade, the products, the animals affected, the local people there and the overall damage being caused. As something that I didn't really know much about before staring this project, it's made me see how this is an issue that people are not aware of and companies are able to get away with the damage.

To get a feel for the animation I started to create some moodboards for the world, the Orangutan characters and the palm oil products. We decided as a group to all create separate moodboards so that we could come together and discuss our different ideas. I want to start looking into the organisations that are against palm oil and support Orangutans and possibly get in contact with some of them.










Here is my body of research and I want to keep this as a working document where I can look at it for writing my poem or coming up with the titles.

Ngorongoro Crater - Concept Research - Thirsty Planet

As part of this project I have been given the role of being the concept artist, which means I have to responsibility of coming up the the overall feel of the animation and the different aspects within it.

I first wanted to look at the landscape and concept behind the environments as this is a really important part to the animation. I found a website: http://www.inaturalist.org/guides/467 where it goes through all different plants in the Ngorongoro crater in Tanzania, one of the sub saharan African countries which PumpAid provide for. I wanted to focus on one location for concept inspiration so I could get an overall look to the different plants and trees there.







The main tree that's very famous to Africa is the Acacia tree, which looks like the image below. I really love the shape of this tree, so I began painting and looking into it's shape so we could use the silhouette of it in the final animation. I also looked at the leaves on this tree as they had a very interesting shape to them and this could also be used as an abstract shape in the animation. Below are the paintings I came up with done in watercolour and pen.

Applied Production Diary (6/2/17 - 12/2/17)

For this week we were able to meet up as a group and get our idea solidified, we decided that we wanted to go with the sustainability theme and this was great for me as that was the theme I most wanted to go with. This was because there were so many different topics and directions we could go with this theme! We began by looking at the different issues surrounding environmental issues and what was current in the news until we came across the issue of Palm Oil. There are countless articles in the news about this issue and it's something that none of us really knew that much about. This was good as it meant we were able to learn about it ourselves and teach others about it too with our documentary. I personally feel passionate about the environment and deforestation, so this topic is going to be easy for me to stay focused on.





I decided that it was important to get a schedule going asap, so that we wouldn't fall behind as we only had one session each week. Below are the calendars I came up with, and after talking to Emma and Amy they agreed that the calendar seemed reasonable. However, if it needs to be changed in the future due to falling behind or complications I will do so.











We also set tasks to start on before our next meeting on the 21/2/17.






So, my next steps for the next week are to start gathering research and creating moodboards so that we could come together in the meeting and see who's ideas are better and what direction we want to go. I also want to start doing some initial sketches so that I can start to visualise the idea.

Applied Production Diary (31/1/17 - 5/2/17)

This week we were briefed on the animation documentary brief, where we had to team up and make an animation that tackled one of these themes: Sustainability, Science, History, Politics

I have teamed up with Amy & Emma, as we all have an interest in stop-motion and want to take it further in this module. So far we are interested in the themes history and sustainability, however the next steps are to get together and discuss the different ideas for each topic and which would be the strong choice. I feel that this module I will be able to work completely on my strengths as I will be able to create a better animation with a group than on my own!

Examples of history themed stop-motions:

History Channel "Evolve" Commercial from Jesse Fleece on Vimeo.

The History of Zapatismo (in Stop motion Animation) HD from Whackala on Vimeo.

Examples of a sustainability stop-motions:

Plastic Shores: 'Micro-plastics' Animation from Alice Dunseath on Vimeo.

Back to the Start from Johnny Kelly on Vimeo.

APPLIED - Euthanasia is Good

Our first task of this module was to get a random subject and make a 5-minute presentation on it, so I got the phrase 'Euthanasia is good'. My topic, is something that is quite hard for a lot of people to talk about and I knew that my presentation would have to be sensitive and make sure not to offend anyone. Personally, I agree with the statement so this presentation won't be very hard for me to make and find the relative points to explore.








I have currently decided on creating a little story to follow in my presentation, so that people will be able to see the subject from a different way and I also want to use a animal character so it's easier to talk about.









This above will be my character, I didn't really plan out what he would look like, I just drew him up on Photoshop. My next plans are to go through a real-life story and recreate it with my little dog. I have found a story exploring motor neurone disease, something that has no cure, and I want to look into writing a short story about that.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/real-life-stories/heartbreak-sisters-who-held-mum-8386028

Above is a link to story that has inspired me to write my own version. I wanted to use a story that was inspired by a real one so that I could get better facts and opinions around the subject. I have currently written a script of what I want to say in my presentation and my next plans are to draw a series of images to accompany my words.

I have now drawn all my images and I think that by doing this I have managed to tackle the subject in a way that is relatable to more people than if I'd use a human character. I feel prepared for my presentation on Tuesday! All I need to do now is go over my presentation before then and make sure it's all polished and I know exactly when to click for the animations as I read the story.



Sources:
http://listverse.com/2014/11/15/10-heartbreaking-right-to-die-cases/
https://www.dignityindying.org.uk
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/euthanasia/infavour/infavour_1.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/euthanasia/overview/forms.shtml

LoopdeLoop - Responsive

For this months Loopdeloop they have released the theme 'cute' and I thought this would be a fun idea for an animation. I've never created a looping animation before so I wanted to keep my idea simple.

I started off by brainstorming cute things and what actually makes something 'cute'.





























I then created different mood boards to start my ideas flowing for what I wanted my animation to look like. I decided that I wanted to use a panda as mr 'cute' character for this animation and I wanted to look at the different colours I want to use. I looked at different colour palettes that represented the 'cute' feel, although I still wanted to keep it natural colours in keeping with my Panda.

Below is another mood board that I made around sleepy pandas and I started to come up with an idea of animating a sleeping panda.



I wanted to have my Panda lay out quite funnily like the video above so that it makes the animation a little comical too. So I started sketching characters and different positions I wanted my panda to lay in, I didn't actually feel I needed a storyboard for this animation and it was a very simple loop of a panda sleeping with little movement. The animation goes that the panda is sleeping, blows a snot bubble which wakes him up before snoozing off again.

Here are my sketches:

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Here are some of my Photoshop drawings:

You can see the similarities from my sketches and I used a certain brush to make him look fluffy.

I put little specks of yellow and green on his fur so that he blended a little into my background and it looked like reflections.

This background I created was informed from my mood board on colour as well as looking at digital artwork that included the glow lights effect. These are a couple of tutorials I followed that I found from Pinterest.

Final Animation:

Sleepy Panda - 'Cute' Loop - Loopdeloop from Stacy Straub on Vimeo.

Overall, I quite like my animation that I produced and it met the deadline way ahead of time and kept with all of the requirements. However, to challenge myself I could next time go for a little more complicated narrative rather than little to no movement. I mainly wanted to try a different digital style with this animation and I do feel that I achieved this. Although I am interested in stop-motion and other types of animation, I think that it's necessary to keep up my digital animation skills and carry on developing them so that I can have knowledge on all the different mediums. As Loopdeloop is quite a simple brief I don't see why I can't try on a regular basis to enter the challenge as it's great practice for trying out different mediums. Within this animation when the Panda breathes I feel it's a little too fast and to tackle this I could have added more frames when animating, this is due to my own learning within timing and spacing and creating little animations such as this allows me to figure out the common mistakes I make. I do however think I've developed my digital painting a lot more with this project, which helps when thinking about the different styles I could use for future animations.

Responsive - Picking a Brief for Collaboration

This was the first brief I chose for this collaboration project as I really loved the idea of getting to illustrate and recreate characters from the amazing roald dahl books! If I don't settle on this for collaboration I think I might give this brief a go on my own anyway.

'To illustrate iconic characters and scenes from your favourite Roald Dahl children’s stories. The illustrations should appear as if they are part of a published series.'

Above is the brief outline, which basicaly states that I would have to illustrate a collection of characters/scenes from my favourite books (The Twits!!) all in the same style. I feel this would be challenging as a group as we would all have to adapt our own style and create one we could all follow. The target audience is also 5-11 and this appealed to me as I would love the chance to try and follow a brief with a younger audience in mind as I love to create cute and colourful things.




Thirsty Planet is another brief that I really liked as it suits the kind of message that I support about being healthy and caring about the Earth. The task is to create a campaign for 18-24 year olds (which I fall into), so this would be quite an easy age range to tackle. I think this brief would be really great to work in a team with as it seems to be quite a large brief to make a campaign.

'Thirsty Planet chose to partner with the charity Pump Aid, which provides clean water solutions in sub-Saharan Africa. An efficient, relatively low-profile charity; 90p from every £1 goes into direct delivery.'

I really loved this part of the brief too as I feel that if I took this brief on I would also be using my creative skills for good!



Finally, this was the last brief that really caught my eye, again for the cause that it is supporting!

'Create a content campaign for Respect for Animals that will change the minds of people buying or wearing real fur' 

Again another campaign, so I feel like this is the kind of brief that really needs a team of creatives behind it. The only concern I have with this brief is that the subject to so heavy-hitting and hard for people to understand and this will be the challenge behind it. I picked it because I am someone that completely backs this kind of message, so spending and committing my time to it I feel would be worth while.