Concept Art, Silver Jewel story

I have planned some Concept Art I will scan and draw digitally.

I don't like every idea I tried to draw but I love other ideas. I will try to clean up and draw the nice and bad images I planned. The scans of the drawings I drew didn't come up well so I will take a photo of them on my phone to show the plans.

Beautiful Baby Boy

I decided to do some drawings at home of a cute little boy at church.

I got permission from the mother before drawing him. I will be giving the picture to the mother of course. I am really happy with the drawing I have done in 3 hours work. He is so cute. 

 

BSA126 class brief

I have finished my class of BSA126. Here is a brief of this class

Class Time

ToonBoom Harmony

I was able to understand this program within the first day of learning but, due to the two week holidays at the start of this term, had to relearn the program. I like this program. It is easy to animate what I need in a fast and efficient way. It was only when I was able to download the program at home did I manage to get all the nearly work done within the set time I gave to myself and to keep up in the class task.

The Different Animations

I liked the many different animations I animated in class. My favorite was the lip-syncing animation. I did enjoy all the animations but it did take a long time to do them all. With every new animation, I had to consider new laws and rules when animation. One law that was always in effect was gravity. The animation I put the most effect into was the walking cycles, with 24 slides total with every view point seen. I am really happy with how it looks, even though it took many hours.

Self Reflection

Time Management

I was at the start not very good at working within certain times set for me. It was only when I got the program at home I was able to catch up. But already behind, I was doomed to have to try really hard to get the work done before the deadline hit. I put a lot of extra hours in my own time to get the work I had done. This was fine, I was happy with the work I was able to get done and the quality they were made at. 

Blogging

I was good at blogging different cycles I was and had done. I often updated what I was doing and how I planed to do it in my blog. I am happy with all the work I posted on the blog. I am just doing a finish up blog post now to show what I have done. 

What I am Proud of

I am proud of all the cycles and animations I have done. I am also happy what what I have learned in the program and principles of animation. I also got better at drawing the characters I drew. This was due to me having to drawing them over and over. I am still happy with everything done.

What I need to Improve on

I should get better at making sure that I have the materials available at home for me to do a lot of work at home. This will insure that I will not get behind in my work again. A good lesson to learn.

Storyboard class brief

This is the last day of Storyboard class. Here is a summery on what I achieved in this class

The Class Tasks;
Learning Storyboard Pro

I was introduced to the amazing program called Storyboard Pro. It took me a while to get the grips on how to use the program, and I was unsure about drawing on it at first, but as I had to use it more and more, I got the idea. With this program, I learned how to split panels, to change the camera angles by zooming in or outwards. The drawing aspect was a lot like Photoshop, but I could animate some panels. There is so much I could say more an what I have learned but I will move on. 

I would recommend using this program for any kind of animation of any sort. It's just amazing.

Script Writing

I found this part hard to start to do. Once I got started, it was hard to stop. I am happy with the story I made, and I am happy for my reader writer for helping me correct my grammar and spelling. I found it fun to image the story on what it could look like an animation in my head. It was good for me to learn how to set out the script writing professionally. 

Voice actors and sound effects

It was hard to get voice actors but really fun to create the music and sound effects. I created my own music with my sister to get my own unique music. Once I got the voice actors I was all good. I am yet to learn the programs my tutor used but its OK.

Drawing the animatic

This took the longest time. I was hard to just keep drawing and I did it. Once I had the drawings done, I was set. But getting them done took a lot of discipline and energy to do. I did find that when I was finished the drawings and doing camera angles and timing, others were still drawing.

Self Evaluation;
Time management
I made sure to use a lot of my own time to do the work I needed to do. During the entire class, I did most of my work in my own time, well still using the set time giving in class to work. I had very good time management skills in this class.

At the start of this new assignment, I told myself I would try harder to use my time wiser. I did. I avoided the mistake I made on the last assignment by not checking what was due and when. I knew what was due, when I should get it done by, and how (due to class time).

Blogging
I was very bad at blogging about what I was doing and when. I am updating my blog now, but I should have been updating it as I was learning new things. Because it is now a much larger task to try to state what I have learned all at once. Next time, I will put more effort into blogging about struggles or trials I had over came and how. I was to caught up with doing the project instead of documenting what I was doing.

What I am proud of
I am very proud of my animatic. I can see how doing all those extra hours in my spare time was worth it. I am motivated to continue working in my own spare time with all my assignments now because of how well this went. I like the sound effects I have in the animatic and I like how nice the drawings are in it. I am also proud of my time management skills

What I need to improve on
I should improve my time spent on blogging. I didn't really do any of it until now which is a let down. I will improve this by next semester.

I will miss this class and I am happy what what I have learned and achieved. Goodbye BSA125.

Fancy animal cycles

Now the animals have a more, wow factor

Fancy :) 

The animals now look more interesting. I am happy with the result or the animals. Next time I will somehow make the dog walk cycle smoother. I now like the horse galloping cycle more than the other two cycles.This was an interesting study on how to draw and animate multiple legs.

Animal cycles

I have the basic's of the animal cycles done.

I plan to add fancy ties for decoration. Giving more sparkle.

 The head and body of the animals were the easier to draw than the legs. The dog cycle seems to be a bit to jittery and not smooth. But It just how dogs walk, not smooth. The cat was my favorite cycle to animate and then the horse making dog the lest.

The jump and lift cycle

I have drawn my character Silver Jewel's jumping and lifting cycle

There were ups and downs when animating. I was over all fun to animate. I had to consider some key things effecting Silver Jewel, center of gravity, squish and stretching the character, and also secondary motion. 

This was really fun to draw. I found the hair the hardest thing to animate as it bounced and flowed in the air. I even gave Silver Jewel an excited expression when leaping. It add to the overall movement of Silver, and also gives him more personally. Squish and stretch was applied to Silver Jewel's body.

This was hard to animate. I found animating the hair and the legs hard to do. This is due to the hair not being stuck to his face, but dangle down because of gravity. Also the legs were hard to animate because of the hard angles they are on. The center of gravity was really important when lifting a heavy mass. 

Making the booklet

I've learned a lot from making a booklet

What I did well
Getting to work:

Once I realized I should be working at home, I went straight to work, trying to maximize the little time I had. I made sure not to burn myself out by working non stop for hours, so I would take at least a five minuet break to walk around, go outside, chat to family. This was not only good for my eye sight, but it made me feel more relaxed and refreshed when working again. I asked my mum if I could borrow her laptop a lot and to buy Photoshop to use at home. This was a huge factor in me completing my assignment. I wasn't stuck at SIT twenty-four seven. It gave me a lot more time to work on the drawings

Planning work:

I made sure, before fine finishing the drawings, that I had planned every drawing I wanted. I planned all eight drawings so I knew what direction I was heading to. It helped me to see the idea and drawing I was doing before they looked very pretty. This also helped keep my work consistent with appearance, because I was refining and colouring all my work at the same time. It also helped me not to procrastinate on thinking about what to draw for a long period of time.

Plans:

< Drawing 1

Drawing 2 >

< Drawing 3

Drawing 4 >

< Drawing 5

Drawing 6 >

< Drawing 7

Drawing 8 >

Sticking to the brief:

The brief I created at the start stated that I was "I want to create artworks with Southland not being flat but instead elevated by futuristic methods like floating earth, or massive pillars." and "a low angle view of Invercargill’s city center and being able to see down to the ‘real earth’, which is a hot sandy desert. I also would like to capture the beautiful, colourful, southland sky we get to contrast against the desert. The buildings themselves won’t be different, so that they could be recognized as Invercargill’s buildings in Southland" I did stick to this plan, but I didn't include the pillars holding Southland upwards. I instead stuck with the floating earth idea. I did attempt to create the beautiful sky, but nothing can true capture the amazing sky. I also did draw iconic Invercargill buildings to prove it was Invercargill.

Open-mindedness:

Due to me, at the start, not knowing how I was going to draw this or not being to stuck on a curtain idea, I have a very open mind about what I was doing. If people gave me suggestions I wouldn't just brush it off. I would take it into account, consider it, and evaluate it. I would then adapted the new idea and create a newer, better drawing. This was a very good thing for me to practice. But I always made sure to stick to my original plan but with cooler changes/features.

Mistakes I made
Time management:

I did not use my initial time wise at all. I didn't start working on the real assignment until the end of May, last mouth. I didn't realize that we were suppose to do the drawings outside of class well learning the different software's like Maya and Mudbox. If I had used this time, I would have done a much better done on the last few artworks. Next time I have an assignment, I will ask all the obvious questions like if we work on our own time. 

Handing in the assignment:

I lefted handing in the assignment way to late. I was going to try to hand it in eight minuets but the computer froze. I would have been prepared for this, but I (full of disbelieve and stress) stared at the screen waiting for it to load. When it loaded, I had to transfer the images into a flatted image for the booklet, import the images into the booklet, position them to fix, and finally sent it though blackboard and student drop box. By the time I did all of this, it was six minuets over due. This was stressful. But I made sure to email the tutor what happened, take a screen shot as evidence, and apologize for it being late and understanding if I get a automatic fail.

Taking or asking for feedback:

When I realized that I might not finish on time, I asked my tutor for help. This was a very smart move, but I should have done this much earlier that I did. But something I didn't do which, I see I should have done was get some advice from other student and look at what they are working on. If I had done this, I could have presented my booklet a lot better than I did. I could have realized the true potential of the booklet. Next time, I will ask and look at some other students works to see how I could improve my own.

Blogging:

I didn't blog much at all. I am blogging now but I should have been blogging as different problems arose, because now I do not remember all the problems I encountered and overcame. I remember most of the problems there could have been more. I am now catching up with the blogging I didn't do now. It's better than never I guess.

New possibilities
Type of drawings:

I now know the true possibilities of what I can draw. I can draw a comic, a photo-shot, a themed short screen play, portraits of characters, locations, and collages. This is just some new ideas I can achieve and do next time. I do not have to stick with just landscape drawings. I can do abstract, realism, cartoon, digital, and many more ways to draw, colour, and style.

Cover sheets:

The cover sheet should be the drawing point that makes views want to look at my work. I do not have to draw more artwork to cover the front and back. I could have done a completely different type of work to show an idea you want them to think of as they look at the work. There are so many way to present a booklet. Next time, I will research or look at how others have presented a booklet to that I can know how.

This was the first time I had made a booklet before. I have never really seen one ether, but now I have more experience on what to do for when/if I create another booklet in the future.

My finished booklet

I have handed in my assignment

This what I drew and handed in

Sadly, due to poor time management on my part, the art work I drew has not light effects due to running out of time. I plan to clean up and finish the artwork, even though it won't be marked.

Post-Production

Planning the production I will create

The Pioneer and Technique I'll be using

Lev Kuleshov

Lev Kuleshov was a pioneer film theorist. He studied the film techniques of the Hollywood directors, like D.W Griffith. Lev introduced crosscutting and montage into Russian films. Lev found that people responded differently to different shots, depending on the images they have seen before and after the shot. He could create a new meaning with two different shots, even though one image was repeated. Lev Kuleshov showed and proved the effects of juxtaposition.

Style of technique used

He then created the Kuleshov effect, where an actor would stare at the camera with a black expression. Then they would add different forage of different things/objects before and/or after the blank stare forage. He would add the image of a child in a coffin, or a bowl of food on a table, and many different images. Different moods and meanings were created with the same expression. When Lev Kuleshov showed an audience thought the actor had seemed unhappier or hungry, depending on the image before/after.

Brief overview of experimental work

I propose an experimental piece of works based upon the Kuleshov effect, where I create a close up on an animated character, looking expressionless off towards a side of the screen. Then the next image that follows will give the expressionless character an emotion, like sadness or excitement. The animated character will be a character I have already created in another class called Silver Jewel. The focus of these experiments will be to see if the viewer’s can identify an emotion the character Silver Jewel is feeling due to the images before/afterwards.

I will be using many different images to ‘change’ the character, Silver Jewel’s emotion. One image will contain some sort of food product. This will create a hungry emotion. Another image will contain some sort of death; e.g. a grave or a ripped picture of family. This will create a depressed emotion. The two different emotion introduced images are just two of many I can experiment with.

I could also show what type of personality Silver has is by showing an image before Silver, then showing Silver start emotionless but then having him smile, or frown. This could make Silver change from just feeling an emotion but having a kind or cruel personality. An example of this is having an image of an old man looking out, then showing a mother with her kids and then the old man smiling. This makes the old man a kind and sweet old man. But if you change the image from a mother and her children to a woman in a bikini, still with the old man smiling. It makes the old man creepy and sick.

Story/Script

Silver Jewel is actually mute, so this sort of production suits him very well, with him not specking but images used instead to create his mood/emotion. So for this production, the story behind Silver will be given to him via the images/objects he is looking at. No script needed for Silver Jewel. 

However, there can be two more characters featuring in this production. Oliver Moore and Gabranth Shadowend. Both these people could very well influence Silver's apparent emotion. They could provide a voice over or speak to Silver. So they could need a script. Meaning I might need voice actors. If this is the case, I already have a voice actor for Oliver set from another class project. The voice actor is called Chris Haymond. I would need to find a voice actor for Gabranth.

The story could be based upon the backstory of Silver. I could extend the experiment by using the other main characters as the main characters, instead of just Silver. This would capture multiple backstories and provide extra meanings and depth to each character. I will finalize this further as the experiments begin to take more shape.

Characters - Backstories

Silver Jewel

Silver Jewel is a 19 year old male, whose real name is unknown but given the nickname Silver Jewel because of the necklace he always wears. He is a shy, obedient, playful, and optimistically naive young man.

Silver was orphaned at 3 years old, given to his main foster parent Gabranth Shadowend. Silver never really had a real home but when given to Gabranth, made into a personal servant and sworn to be forever silent. Silver never went to school but taught himself to read and write. Silver ran away from Gabranth when he was 19 years old and now lives with his best friend Oliver Moore.

Oliver Moore

Oliver Moore is a 24 year old man that is the manager of the biggest company in the world. Oliver is a serious, apathetic, intelligent, sarcastically overwork young man.

Raised with an alcoholic father and an overworked mother, Oliver always had pressure pushed onto him to be the best at everything. Oliver is recently divorced from his high-school sweetheart. Oliver has a son called Stefan Moore, aged 3, but is not allowed to visit. Oliver ran into Sliver Jewel and let him stay a few nights, but now cannot get rid of Silver. Oliver sees Silver as a hassle to have.

Gabranth Shadowend

Gabranth Shadowend is a 68 year old man who started fostering Silver Jewel when he was 56 years old. Gabranth is a grumpy, serious, traditional, intimidatingly short tempered old man.

Gabranth has never liked children, ever since his own child at the age of 6 died due to cancer. He took Silver as a foster child because of Silver's sweet and caring voice, but in anger, made Silver swear to be forever silent. He, due to frustration and grief, made Silver his personal servant. When Silver ran away, he was outraged and still hunts for Silver till this day.

Software

The different softwares I could and will be using to create this product are Adobe Photoshop, Toon Boom Storyboard and Adobe Premiere-Project.

Bicycle Thief review

The Bicycle Thief

Year; 24th November, 1948, Italy

Statement; I think that this film is a good film, but not the absolute best in the entire world. It's a good film to show how things were in Italy in the 1940's and has a good story line, but at some points, did seem to drag on for no reason and have no real point to it. Like the scene by the river when the child is dragged to shore from near drowning. How did that scene change the feel of the movie?

Actors; The acting was amazing for unprofessional actors.

The Bike; I think that the bike could represent the happiness we want to achieve in life, but thief's or society takes it away from us.

Characters in the film;
Father; He was a good honest man who, when his bicycle was stolen, did the right thing and went to the police for help. But by the end of the film he, due to desperation for survival, changed in to a man willing to steal others things to make his situation better.

Son; At first thought highly of his father, because his father had gotten a job and was a working man. By the end of the film, he didn't think very nicely of his father. His father had hit him, tried to steal from others and was acting very mean. He doesn't respect him any more.

Animation 1930-1950

Animation History 1930 to 1950

France and Russia

Ladislaw Starewicz

Created the film 'The Tail of a Fox' in 1930, witch took 10 years to make. It's style was stop motion animation of stuffed animals dressed in clothing. This is what Starewicz was best known for. This film was based on a Dutch/French folk tale. The first sound track was funded by the Nazi regain and shown in Berlin in 1937. Re-released with a French sound track in 1941.

France, Czech Republic

Berthold Bartosch
Moved to Berlin in 1919 and meet with other animator: Lotte Reiniger, Viking Eggeling, Hans Richter and Walter Ruttmann. Bartosch the  moved to Paris and created the film 'The Idea' that was based on a book of stylized woodcuts, written by Frans Masereel. The film was made by cutout drawings on multiple levels of glass and created the soft lighting effects by back-lighting and smearing soap onto the glass. The film is about a man who thinks of an idea that takes shape as a small female character with no clothing. The film was not very well known or seen. Bartosch was making an antiwar film which was stopped and destroyed in WW2.

France, Russia, and USA

Alexandre Alexeieff and Claire Parker
They came up with the uniuqe idea on how to animate by building a pinscreen machine that consisted of hundreds of pins that slid in and out of a grid. This created showed images when lit from the side. They created the film 'Night on Bald Mountain' in 1932. This film was most likely a big influence on the Night on Bald Mountain scene from Disney's 'Fantasia' in 1940.

France, UK, and USA

Anthony Gross and Hector Hoppin
British born Gross and American Hoppin partnered up in Paris to create the film 'La joie de vivre (the Joy of Living)' in 1934. This film's happy feel was for many a way to escape from the reality of Europe's fascism rising and war right around the corner. The two animators were also creating the film Around the world in 80 days, but was interrupted by WW2 and the work was lost. Only some of the stock was rediscovered in Britain and restored as a short film called 'Indian Fantasy' in 1955.

Russia

Aleksandr Ptushko
He created the film 'The New Gulliver' in 1935. This story was an adaption of Gulliver's Travels, but with a cast of 3000 puppets. Russia's policy at the time was aiming to get soviet realism and Russian film makers were encouraged to create moralistic work. Traditional children's stories that often contained pro-soviet propaganda.



Ivan Ivanov-Vano
The general policy in Russia was that animation would be a public service to provide traditional folk stories and educational films for children. Russian animators were told to use a rotoscope and live actors. This was disgarded in favor of a rigid system of a factory-like cel animation. Ivan Ivanov-Vano created 'The Humpbacked Little Horse' in 1947, along with many other famous films.

Germany

Oskar Fishinger

In 1933, the Nazi party put a ban on modernist or abstract art/animation. Most artist/animators stopped working or worked in other fields but Fishinger contimued his work by claiming his work as 'decorative' instead of abstract.He created commercials for Murratti tobacco and moved on to make an abstract film called 'Composition in Blue' in 1935. Fishinger says that he was attempting to express joy. Fishinger then for a short period of time, worked for Paramount, MGM, and Disney.

UK

Norman McLaren
McLaren used similar techniques like drawing onto film as New Zelander Len Lye. A short piece of work he created was a piece of music with shapes expressing how it could look like like dripples running across the screen or splats of bass on the screen. The film is called 'Dots'.



Larkin Studio
Bill Larkin started his own studio in London in 1940, producing training films for the army during WW2. Larkin Studio lead the world towards a stylized, and simplified form of animation. Larkin Studio only created informative films and no entertainment work. Larkin Studio created the film 'T for Teacher' in 1947, giving instructions on how to make tea with permitted rations. The animation style used angular, jagged and graphic extremes that were just developing at the time.

UK/Hungary

John Halas and Joy Batchelor

Halas & Batchelor was founded in 1940 by the married couple John Halas and Joy Batchelor. They made animated information and propaganda films as part of Britain's war effort. The married couple believed that animation was an art form that could be used for good. The studio lasted 50 years. Within that time, they experimented with different animating techniques, from low tech paper cutouts to pioneering computer animation. They produced over 2000 films, ranging from propaganda and information films to TV series and films.

China

Wan Brothers
Wan Laiming, Wan Guchan, Wan Chaochen and Wan Dihuan were
China's first animation pioneers and created China's first animated short film called 'Uproar in the Studio' in 1924. In 1937, then the Japanese invaded Shanghai, the Wan Brothers created several politically-motivated films in protest of the invasion. When the Wan brothers saw Disney's famous film 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs' they were inspired to created China's first animated feature film called 'Princess Iron Fan' in 1941 which became very popular in China.

Japan

Keczo Masaoka

Kenzo created the first Japanese animation with sound in 1933 and first made with just Cel animation in 1934. He established his own studio, but consolidated with other small studios into larger companies and pushed to create propaganda when WW2 broke out. Kenzo created 'The Spider and the Tulip' in 1943. The Japanese government then rebuked the film makers for producing a film with no propaganda angle.


Momotaro Vs Mickey
Toy Box: Picture Book 1936. Momotaro was a popular folk tale character who appeared in a lot of propaganda cartoons. The government created propaganda, attempting to motivate the Japanese public towards building up military resources against America in WW2. The propaganda featured an evil Mickey Mouse from Disney, attacking the innocent children in Japan.