My new idea for idea collating

So for my next project - narrative project (Two Characters and a Setting) - I've decided to see if I can bridge my grade gap which is in development. One of the reasons I believe I have a problem with this section is I always begin to document my work after I've considered and eliminated several other possibilities which makes my development work look ill-considered. On top of that I'm not going to ignore the obvious possibility that I just don't look deep enough into the possibilities of my ideas. So I am also going to do that.

To aid me in both of these outcomes I have set myself up a pinterest board to collate my initial ideas into one big online mood board. This way none of the ideas in my mind escape before I have documented them. This way I hope I can more thoughtfully develop my ideas and not loose those valuable grade points.

Here it is because I know my course leaders will need to look at it.

ALAN, JARED!!! CLICK THIS LINK, IT'S IMPORTANT!

http://uk.pinterest.com/Abimation/two-characters-a-setting/

Day 10

Sorry to keep you waiting for day 10. Since I finished this I've managed to catch the beginning of a cold and I can actually feel my brain turning to mush.

So day 10 then. The end of the project. Well as all Scottish people will know Sunday was Burns night so my day 10 animation was about burns night. Before I talk about it you should watch it other wise I'll ruin it.

https://vimeo.com/117603440

The biggest problem I encountered with this project was actually designing the wild haggis himself. He was very difficult to design. Especially as I had originally intended to draw him in photoshop and make him really basic cartoony and adorable. However this failed miserably as he didn't look like a believable creature. So I decided instead to use photographs and cut them together to make the haggis. And thankfully this created a style for the whole film. The background is a royalty free computer wallpaper. All this did leave me with very little time to finish my animation which is why the whole thing has minimal movement. But looking back I don't really feel that it needed to much movement anyway.

And then the project was over!

Day 9

On to day 9 then. We're so nearly finished! Only one last day to go. And I have my concept. it's not cheating!

So this one I was hoping to make to music however no one made me any and all the things in their dropbox's were for other peoples animations so there was no luck there. I have openly asked if there is any chance for music and we'll just see how this goes. However I do have an offer from outside the project and I have just taken him up on it. Very nice of him I might add. considering he only knows me through my animation facebook page which I just made 5 days ago haha.

So this film is made with copper coins obviously and the intention is that they are like little bees. I had hoped I could use the music as punctuation for the narrative but in actuality I just made what I could before I felt like passing out in the 3D studio. I did not feel great today.

I'm still hoping it turns out somewhat similar to the idea I have in my head. But really I'd like to give my composers complete creative freedom especially if they want it. If they don't I have a mild idea.

anyway here's the super short day 9 -

https://vimeo.com/117497067

Days 7 and 8 and a bonus too

Next up days 7 and 8! Yey!

Ok so yesterday I did a lot of experimenting with oil paints on glass. I've never used an oil paint before on anything never mind glass. However I sent a lot of time watching my classmates Alison paint on glass. And actually it didn't turn out to badly. I really took to the 10 films 10 days ideology here of not thinking to hard about things and really just let the picture lead me to another picture and so on. Then I looped it for a little while. I've been trying to play a little more with the general ambience like the way the title and end credits appear and while I haven't got it down to the fine art vera has I have been learning a little. So give that film a little watch.

https://vimeo.com/117296166

And today I did something I'm determined I'm going to perfect sometime soon. Maya! And if I do say so myself it looks pretty good. I shall be re rendering it one day when I can be bothered sitting waiting forever on it finishing rendering. As the time constraints meant I had to compromise on quality a little bit. I feel this film stayed pretty simple and actually the movement kind of ruins the beauty of the planets but all in all I feel it's a great use of animated software. 

https://vimeo.com/117412964

In addition to the videos here's a better quality still I saved while checking to see how the animation would render out. I am pretty much in love with it and I'm putting it up everywhere I can.

It looks even better the larger you can get it btw.

Days 5 and 6

Oops it seems I forgot to give you the link to day 5. So today you can have both film 5 and film 6!

Here's film five. To be honest you nearly didn't get this one as I had some technical issues but thanks to Neil and Lewis the I.T. guy they were resolved and a film was possible at the end of the day. So this film is a film about me making a film... and the problems that come with bringing your actors to life. You know they haven't agreed to this film. We've just picked them up and jammed them in there!

http://vimeo.com/116995108

And here's film six. This film is about the moon landing obviously and how if the moon was sentient it might not have liked being stabbed with a stick adorning the American flag. Really I had this idea sort of in my head from the beginning of the project and today I got around to doing it. I wanted to make an attractive animation and for me attractive means colours! Yey. It actually looks kind of similar to a painting I did a little while ago and that was completely unintentional. Anyway here's the film.

https://vimeo.com/117180276

Day 4

DAY 4 - We're nearly half way there! I am so looking forward to a decent sleep tomorrow night. Oh bed how I miss you... Erm excuse me.

Here's my film from today. This was the hardest film for me because I knew I wanted to do a silhouette at some point, just in general not really for this, so I thought this would be a good day to try it out. I also got to try out some new character design. Which in actuality worked really well for me as I tend to spend a lot of time thinking about how to design something different. For this I just knew I wanted her to have thick childish limbs and cut outs to represent her socks and a stripe to break up her clothing. All in all I ended up with a film I'm almost 100% happy with. I could have made her slightly bigger but that's really a very small matter. She's in proportion, I just feel like there's a lot of white spaces.

Check that out here:    

https://vimeo.com/116892432

Day 2 and Day 3

Sorry about the delay on yesterdays film. So I decided to teach myself how to use photoshop with this project as I could not do it again tomorrow if I wanted. Which I do, good bye photoshop. Bye bye. Needless to say I suck at it. Here are the two films i made with it. Yesterdays and todays.

Don't expect good things.

Yesterday -

https://vimeo.com/116698575

The music is by Luci Holland

and today-

https://vimeo.com/channels/10x10x15/116781062

I had such a cute idea for this one and it turned out just generally a lot crapper than I would have wanted but that's what happens when you only have a day I suppose.


In addition I wanted to show you the new versions of my first film as it has had a few pieces of music written for it:

https://vimeo.com/channels/861673/116710242

https://vimeo.com/116709501


Clearly day one is going to be my only successful film... As soon as I can get my hands on something other than photoshop I will have a good go at a better film, I swear!

10x10x15 - 1

I have returned from my christmas break, well rested and quite frankly rather bored. Well ok so not returned, I haven't gone anywhere but I haven't posted in a while either so this is my return to this blog I suppose. 

Today was the first day of Edinburgh college of art's animation department's 10 films in 10 days project. Where we gather together as many film makers, composers and sound designers as we possibly can and we make one film, or sound bank or composition a day and through collaborations we make lots of films by the end of the year. Each year this collective grows and this year its open to anyone.

Anyway here's my film for day one:

https://vimeo.com/116563582