kahani

Kahani was created by Meg Park, a final year student at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design. Styleish backgrounds and lighting with some great character animation.

Time tables

New Timetable

Here is the evaluation of my week 1

Timetable week1

This is my time table for this week. I shall evaluate at the end of friday.

Orange V Apple

A animation i made out of pure boredom. Starting to feel deprived of animation with all this research and stuff. Something to get me through the hard times eh.

Skill Set

Just a quick view on job prospects and skills needed for certain jobs. First of all i researched skills needed to become 2D Animator.

Essential knowledge and skills
Anatomical drawing can be less important than animation, acting and computer skills, combined with a good sense of graphic design.
Key Skills include:

• good level of computer literacy;
  
• good working knowledge of relevant graphics, animation and compositing software which, depending on the project, can include Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash and/or Cel Action;
  
• ability to demonstrate an understanding of Advanced Flash including how the library works, if required;
  
• strong sense of design with good line quality for Flash;
  
• good understanding of the principles of animation and film-making;
  
• knowledge of drawing and structure is an advantage but not always essential;
  
• self-motivation;
  
• ability to edit, if required, on some Flash projects, and knowledge of relevant software such as After Effects;
  
• ability to take direction and a willingness to address comments and make changes;
  
• ability to communicate clearly with colleagues and capacity to manage relevant aspects of production;
  
• ability to work both independently and as part of a team;
  
• a methodical way of working combined with an appreciation of accuracy and detail;
  
• ability to deliver on schedule, working under pressure if required;
  
• respect for the procedures and requirements of a particular studio or production;
  
• knowledge of the requirements of the relevant Health and Safety legislation and procedures.

I personally believe i have all these skills at a an extent. Easily practising and brushing up these skills would give me a great chance to get involved in 2D animation. Though this is my second option choice.

New Start

Fresh start two my second year in FDA Animation and were up to the boring stuff already. On the bright side we do get the whole year to produce an animation instead of one month or so.. Research has begun and i have been busy writing up scripts, drawing story boards and creating characters. Im just going to go through and show some stuff that i have been up too.

Heres a script to my animation thats in production, giving you an idea.

EXT. Route 64 Sherrington Forest – Noon

(BEV) The camera tracks an old red Chevrolet truck while it makes its way along Route 64 leading into Sherrington woods. The shot cuts to the road as the truck passes over the camera, it spins to see the truck drive of into the distance (WS).

EXT. Inside Chevrolet truck

(CA) The camera then snaps to an air freshener dangling from the mirror of the truck. (CU) It then switches to the front of the truck were sits an old man peering over the steering wheel, His long beard drapes down his chest gripping the wheel tightly, matching the expression on his face. To the right of him stands a small dog against the window wagging his tale gazing out of the window.

EXT. Outside The Truck – Passenger Window

(MCU) The small dog happily and joyfully gazes out across the forest, panting against the window causing it to condense.

EXT. Inside the Chevrolet truck

(OSS) The dog gazes the lushes green of the passing fields and forest, almost as he was there himself. (mcu) The old man turns his head in disgust at the dog.

Old Man

Hmmph..

EXT. Outside the Chevrolet truck

(Cut-in) The camera switches to the wheels of the truck pull up to a gradual stop.

EXT. Inside the truck

(OSS) The small dog spins his head from the beautiful field of green to the man. The dog’s expression was full of energy and excitement. (MCU) The old man looks down at the dog, he takes a few seconds to stare and frown, he chews his tongue and exits the truck. (MCU) The dog spins in a circle and jumps up to the passenger window again looking into the field. (CI) The door lock pops up.

Ext. Outside Truck – Field – Cottage

(MS) The door opens and the dog jumps out of the truck, he takes a couple of strides towards the field. (CU) He is suddenly yanked in the opposite direction causing him to fall to the ground. The shot flips to the back of the old man holding the dog lead, he looks over his shoulder down at the dog and grunts.

Old Man

Hmphh..

(TWO-SHOT) The old man begins to walk away from the field causing the dog to be dragged until he gets his footing. The dog sulks while looking back to the field and follows the old man. The camera spins behind the man and his dog walking towards a small cottage. The camera focuses on a signpost near the path leading to the house that reads (cu) No Trespassers!

EXT. Outside Cottage – Evening

(VWS) The forest is dark, the only source of light coming from the front window of the cottage that flickers in the distance.

EXT. Inside Cottage – Evening

A tracking shot passes the interior of the cottage showing old dusty painting’s hanging. Small shelves are displaying
various ornaments and photo frames.

As the camera circles the room it passes the fireplace, the fiery logs and burning embers lighting the room, then switching to the old man sitting in a tall armchair. Next to him is a small table, which lays a chess set on top. (ECU) The man sits with glaring eyes towards the chessboard. (POV) the camera glances over the chess bored, then back to the man as he struggles to make a decision on his next move.

(WS) Across the room is an archway, the small dog slums in looking sad and disappointed. As the dog looks up in front of him hangs his dog lead. The dog then turns to the old man slowly, (CA) The old man sits oblivious to his surroundings and the dog, he continues to concentrate on his chess board. The Dog slowly stands on his back legs towards his lead; slowly he dismounts the lead form the hook that is holding it on the wall.

(MCU) The camera moves back to the old man as he continues to play his game, his expression beginning to grow ever so sharper. (POV) The man stretches to pick up his chess piece. He makes his move ever so slowly until he is shocked by the break of silence in the room of a loud thud clashing against the floor. Causing him to nock his chess pieces of the board. The man lifts out of his chair (CU) staring down gritting his teeth.

Old Man
Grrrrr!

(MCU) The camera switches to the dog that sits shaking in the corner of the room. The dog holds the lead in his mouth. The Camera switches back to the old man who loosens up and falls back into his chair lifting his head then takes a deep breath.

The man stretches to the arm of the chair to pick up the TV remote. He switches on the TV and slumps into his chair.

[News Report]

(OSS) The dog lies down turning his head away from the man and closes his eyes gradually. After a couple of seconds of silence a large blur smashes through the cabin, within a split second the room is filled with debris and the room trashed. As the debris falls the old man is gone. There is a gaping hole in back of cottage filled with smashed wood leading to the forest. Still in (OSS) the dogs head is now raised in shock, he turns his head slowly towards the wreckage.

EXT. Outside the back of the cottage

(Birds-eye) The camera views the rear of the cottage and destruction. A large mud trail leads from the wrecked cabin into the dark of the woods. The small dog slowly appears from the hole in the cabin. (CU) The dog cautiously looks around. The dog takes his first step out of the cabin, then continues to move into the forest, following the large mud trail until he disappears into the darkness.

Also to not piss about, heres a rough up model board of my character of the old man. Im not 100% sure if i am happy with the look of him and may want to have a more simplistic approach to it.

Being unsure about the style of my animation yet ive been bashing about the net looking at 2D animation to get some inspiration.

Adam Phillips – Prowlies At The River

Adam Phillips has a distinct style in which the colour schemes are pleasant and contrasting. He layers up his shading with similar colours giving depth to his environment, which can be more efficient method than painting in detail.

I believe his animation was created in flash or ToonBoom. Process of building up visuals like this is simple and can be less time consuming than the likes of Photoshop. Straightforward frame-by-frame animation has seemed to be used, maybe built up from roughs then gradually coloured into detail.

His style of character animating is much like pose to pose. His movements of his characters are not too fluent but the time-lapse sense of movement works great with his style. And with the detail he has used the visual and animation evenly measure out. This shows me that my animating does not have to be perfectly fluent to pull of a nice animation with a clear natitive.

Cyanide and Happiness – Beer Run

Cyanide and Happiness is a webcomic hosted on Explosm.net and written by four authors with occasional contributions from guests. In the animation beer run has a simplistic style. With the background made up of vectored gradient shapes and characters up off black lines. I like the simplicity of the characters facial expressions and the way they arms move giving different gestures by just using lines. This is a great technique I could consider using in my final animation as it could save a lot of time animating and make the project easier with my art skills.

I believe the aniamtion was created in flash. Posibly the backgrounds were first created then addind over the moving objects and characters in rough then finaly colouring them. The movement of the chatacters are smooth but physics not easing. I think motion tweening may have been used at times, but also frame to frame animation for the more dynamic movements. Most background movements are pose to pose, for example the car crash. I like the naritive style of Cynadise. The timing of punch lines and little humours gestures are executed at perfect times. All in all its very clear and this proves that by not using a complex animating technique it is still a contemporay powerfull process of animating.

Studio AKA – Barclay’s commercial campaign

A sporting series of indents for Barclays Commercial in which blue Barclays team outperform their purple opponents and give them a run for they money.

Another simplistic animation I really like the way the characters are designed. The different shaped characters bring a lot of dynamics to the feel of the animation. Distinctly staying close to the Barclays colours surprisingly worked well. Using bold colours and the odd gradient for shading the characters stay very basic.

During the animation he uses liquid splashes for impact of the characters when they collide which I thought was creative. The characters move with simple stick legs that change in size and they seem to be shape tweend when sharing expressions. They also seem to be moved with heavy physics with fast movement and sharp changes. I really like the humorous style and way the characters have been animated and again starting to be reassured about my opinion on simplistic styles of animating.

Happy Trail Animations – Winter

Winter is a traditional animated short by Happy Trail Animation. With the typical traditional style this animation showed some positives and negatives. I really like the animation layout and the use of ink. The detailed ink markings worked nice, with some crosshatching on the animated characters and thick lines working nice to give the animated characters a bit more fluent movement. The background all pencil drawings were a significant part with the animated character nicely blending in without any blurriness or markings producing an excellent fluency. I believe the animation production was built up of simple pencil drawings then ink drawings over the pencil work, or maybe scanned in and traced in Photoshop. This seems a very time consuming process with all the drawings, and seems to be a tad out my reach with my drawing capabilities. Though I could take some of these techniques into consideration, like the movement of the small dog and environment style. I was not to keen on the narrative and didn’t seem to clear in my opinion, maybe a bit more detail spent on the narrative like the characters and backgrounds would have been the cherry on the cake.

Happy Tree Friends- See You Later Elevator

Kenn Navarro, who co-wrote it along with Ken Pontac and Warren Graff, directed See You Later Elevator. HTF is the most watched series on the web, all-time. The animation has a clear sense of Flash animation style. The characters outlined with the comparison body colour . The characters are simply made up of rounded of lines and simple shapes. The background environments are built up over similar colour palette shapes giving it depth and proportion. If this animation was created in flash which is a possibility. I believe the characters would have been animated as movie clips or graphics then shape tweend to act as simple actions. Character movement could have also been motion tweened, though frame by frame animation also used, for example the expressions can happen very suddenly. The narrative has been kept very simple and basic, giving an easy to follow humorous enjoyment to the animation. Something I will definitely consider in the production of my animation, as simple clear narrative carried by humorous activities works extremely well.