Presentation

I received some good feedback after presenting my ideas for my 'Of Bots and Bananas' project.

Ideas:

These were my initial sketches and ideas for a slapstick scenario. These included a tug of war competiton - big robot vs small, where the small one takes revenge, crossing stepping stones, where he falls and lands and then falls and sinks and finally a repetitive falling robot from a hanging loop. I produced a thorough storyboard for this below:

From feedback, I now know I need to come up with a reason to why the robot wants to jump up to the loop - maybe its magnetic or it's a branch on a tree for example. Once this is established I can therefore consider environment settings.

Robot designs

Iv'e been thinking of possible comedy gags for our one minute animation, but not yet come up with anything final. I have however been sketching up a few initial robot designs that I could possibly use to create in 3ds max. I still need to consider the environment setting - this will be easier once I have decided upon the 'gag'.

I drew this out on Illustrator quickly, but really need to see how it would look 3D. Going by todays seminar creating the planets in order to animate...not so sure it's possible. Need to start getting the practice in!!

Developing my network report

As this essay is designed to get me thinking about how i might approach getting work experience, I looked at some companies in London, as it's not far from me. From our Visual Essay last year, I came across a London based animation studio called Studio AKA. I was really intrigued by their work so have decided to do some further research into it.

Studio AKA

Known for idiosyncratic and innovative work. Along with a range of commercials, AKA also produce short films and series. Their best known work is the Lloyds TSB campaign, featuring an ever expanding cast of characters.

AKA also created these idents of ITV's 'I'm a celebrity get me out of here'.

Guest Lecturer

Skywhales: a 1983 animated short film, depicting a fictional society of alien creatures.

I'm not entirely sure I understood this short film, the alien language used wasn't subtitled, leaving us the viewer to determine the meaning from the visual context alone. By researching more into this, it sums the film up as the 'aliens dwelling in the atmosphere of a gas giant'.

We also watched a short 2D animation for the film 'The big I am'. This was a lot more current and something I found interesting. There didn't consist much animation, yet the quality of the sketches and the way it was shot and put together made it flow really well.

This seminar made me feel slightly better about the sketches we have to produce for our presentation, and to obviously help us when designing our robot. We managed to look at a variety of images, some of which were just rough sketches. Therefore there is no need to go all out and spend too much time on these as its just a basic start to get ideas flowing.

I've learnt there are 4 different ways to produce a story board / display sketches:

1. rough thumb nails

2. working board

3. presentation board

4. animatic

I'm going to start off by creating rough thumb nail sketches and see where I go from there.

Context 2: Essay!

Assignment 1: Work Experience Sub

Title: Developing my network report

Task: Research and identify 3 companies that you will be following. Write a 2000 word report explaining considerations, describes the companies identified and discusses the types of companies researched and rejected.

Can't believe we have an essay already which we only have a month or so to do! But anyways, I went to the library after this lecture to grab the suggested book for this as apparently there is only 3 in existence, although there were 5 in the library at the time. Only managed to flick through it so far but hopefully this will be useful and I can get stuck into it and not leave it to last minute as per normal.

YEAR TWO: DP3

Title: "Of Bots and Banana"
Task: Design, build and animate a model of a complex bipedal robot that can walk, trip, slip and fall.



We looked at some slapstick comedy videos, such as Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy and The three Stoogers, in order to see what makes a good slapstick comedy.

1. Are there any identifiable routines?
>>Falling over / stumbling into objects
>>Exaggerated reactions
>>Getting hurt
>>Repeating the gag
>>Series of unfortunate mishaps
>>Chase
>>Intention never occurring (not the obvious)
>>Fight

2. What are the settings / environments like?
>>Realistic / believable
>>everyday / normal / outside
>>cities

3. What kind of props are used?
>>Pies / water / ropes
>>Surrounding buildings / street

4. What does the sound track tell you?
>>When the incident is occurring / about to happen
>>Emphasises the chaos

5.What sort of costumes are worn?
>>Clown boots / shoes
>>Everyday outfits

6.Are particular camera shots used for certain effects?
>>Close up of what will cause the accident / gag
Wide shots of set - what might happen / scenario

7.What time of day are they set in?
>>Day

For my one minute animation I need to be thinking about articulation, timing, camera shots, compositing foley, texture, mise en scene and lighting. I also need to produce sketches and layouts for characters, key poses, environments and shots essential to making this animation and a full story board.