The Edge Picture Company: Day 5

Long awaited..it was friday and then the weekend...so yea, anyway here it is.
Last day was pretty calm so consisted of the usual runner duties of being the receptionist and getting the lunch runs. Really felt like i got to know the area and the types of jobs expected of being a runner at The Edge. Would have been exciting if i had got to stay on one of the shoots for a bit longer but at least I got good exposure of what is expected of me and how to achieve this. When it was busy, it was a very fast paced job. I enjoyed the aspect of not being stuck in the office all day, which was what was nice about doing the runs. I have a little album of photos from around London and the office so hopefully can upload those soon.

The Edge Picture Company: Day 4

It has been another busy one today, but it makes the day fly by! Firstly i got to sort out all the release forms from the last two days shoots, and arrange them into the correct folders on the computer. Everything is so organised for each job / shoot and has lots of different folders within each, such as risk assessments, call and logs sheets etc

There was a shoot happening today at Silk Studios where i dropped off a large roll of paper, think I knocked a few people out on my travels, never mind! I think this is where they were filming for the Disney channel. On my way there, I passed Studio AKA, well I wasn't supposed to pass it as I had gone around in circles for a few minutes! Studio AKA has always been a company that I have wanted to also get experience with, they specialise more in animation, something I feel I would know a lot more about, but at the same time it is extremely good that I am currently getting experience in new fields. 

I took a few pictures around the office today, showing where I have worked on a project and where the props are stored, may try take some more on my last day tomorrow. Also all week I have been playing the tourist with my camera as I have been passing sites. So I shall upload those at some point this week too.

Lastly today, i met up with the director Andy, travelled to the city airport to drop off some documents and also to collect some footage that they have been shooting in Rotterdam, Here is where I got introduced to the film producer and also the camera operator.

The Edge Picture Company: Day 3

Today has been so much more busier, so I have been doing lots of different things. First of all i did two runs, first one was to Evelina's children's hospital near waterloo. Thought I could use my train ticket to get me about places but turns out I can only use it to get to work in the morning and thats as far as it will let me travel! So had a bit of a panic how I was going to find the place but eventually I got there to drop off some release forms. They were shooting there for a charity film I think. I then made my way to victoria street and the strand actually, to exchange some money into Qatar Riyal. Never actually heard of that before so was quite interesting to see what that looked like!
In the afternoon I got to work on one of the projects. It's annoying that I forgot the name of the project but it was about all about Europe's economy. Not one of my most intellect subjects, but I was subtitling it, so had to pay close attention to it, so I definitely feel more informed on the U.K's current state! I used a software called DivXSubtitler 2.0.8. Apparently it's not anyones favourite job but I really enjoyed it. I liked the fact that I was using a new software too, which was relatively easy to pick up.

The Edge Picture Company: Day 2

Ok so not much to update on today as it was a fairly quiet day at work. Got to see a little more of the area when out doing a few more runs, so definitely starting to feel much more confident when out and about instead of looking like the most touristy person literally trying to get inside my google map!
Had an overlook at some market research that one of the other runners was doing, as well as getting to see what the call sheets look like, scripts, log sheets etc and what has to be done to edit/adapt them per shoot.
Was actually quite interesting to hear about one of the guys who had been to the world premier of Skyfall for free, as someone he knew was able to get a load of tickets who works for Radio 1, sounded amazing. Iv'e only heard good reviews so far so is definitely a film a i want to see when it's officially
released. He somehow managed to have the production notes for the film as well which was pretty cool.

As for tomorrow, I know I will be the note taker in the mornings meeting, so hoping I can keep up and make sense of what I write in that!

The Edge Picture Company: Day 1

I had a really good first day at The Edge, everyone was really nice and made me feel very welcome. First of all I got a tour of the place, this gave me a good insight into what everyone does and to know my where about a little better. There were 4 different levels:

Level One:
>Studio
>Casting
>Production
>Meeting Room

Level Two:
>Production
>Sales & Marketing
>Finance

Level Three:
>Edit Suites
>Post Production
>Production Services

Level Four:
>Production
>Interactive Media
>Boardroom
>Meeting Room

They all have the same sort of layout so was really easy to know my way about as I started some running jobs.
I learnt to work the phones and general answering and transferring calls. Nothing too complex for the first day which is good! I got to see a little of Soho too when I was sent to do a couple of jobs, which was actually quite exciting. Got a little lost on one of the runs but found my way eventually! Least Iv'e started to get to know my way a round a little better anyways.
In general was quite a chilled and calm day so was quite good in terms of feeling a little settled :)

Summer as a graduate

So, what has happened since graduation.....
JOB HUNTING!
It's not been easy! and i've still not managed to find a job that is relevant to my degree. I decided to create a new CV something with a little more depth about my skills what I aim to do, and just a general re-vamp to make it stand out a little! I have been researching lots of companies I would like to work for and sending out my CV, and just asking if work experience is available, paid or unpaid I would be willing! Any experience is good experience. And FINALLY!!! My time has come. I got a call last week to do a weeks work with The Edge Picture Company. I am a little nervous, but so so excited about my week ahead!!
I am going to get back in to blogging, and shall be posting hopefully a day by day blog post about what I'm getting up to.
Just goes to show I suppose, you just got to keep at it and work hard!

Final Edit

Better late than never....Reference footage for Artefacts

Artefact 1:
I chose a number of different scenarios to reference here as I wasn't sure which one would work best in animation




Artefact 2:
This one was hard to see if you would actually stop, stand still, turn as you're walking if someone calls your name, especially when you know whats going on! I think the last take got it....


Artefact 3:
Such an exaggerated dialogue...it was difficult to seem realistic!


Artefact 4:
There is an actual fall in in one of the takes....Can't get much more realistic than that!!


Artefact 5:
Definitely works better in an animation...

Client Project - Animatic

Client Project Animatic from Hannah Gregory on Vimeo.

Client Project - EDIT 2

Client Project - EDIT 2 from Hannah Gregory on Vimeo.

Client Project Full Render TEST

I presented this today and recieved some good feedback. Generally it works quite well, although there are a dew minor lip syncing errors that I need to refine better. I think a lot of it could be exaggerated more, especially in her facial animation, just to emphasise the scenes where not a lot is happening. Also I need to credit the morpheus rig in my next test render.

Test render of client project edited so far...

Artefact 5 Evaluation - Creating believable characters through the key principles of animation : Anticipation, Secondary Action, Exaggeration & Timing

My fifth artefact concentrated on a combination of each principle that I have previously researched and experimented. Therefore I had to consider Anticipation, Secondary Action, Exaggeration and Timing. Although generally the principles of animation are not used individually, I attempted to show each of these clearly within this artefact. I animated this artefact to another sound clip from 11second club.
Anticipation is awaiting and predicting the next movement. As the character first rolls in shot on a chair, he is not facing the camera. I felt the anticipation was used here, as we are anticipating when he turns to directly face the camera. Anticipation was also used at the end, where his head leans towards the other chair, his head moves backwards before leaning forwards. Bearing in mind what I had learnt from the research project, anticipation is best used with a backwards movement prior to a forward movement. However, after presenting this, feedback suggested anticipation was the least obvious principle. Therefore to enhance this principle in my artefact, I am going to make these movements more noticeable.
Secondary action adds more life to a scene. To show this principle, I had my character sit on a chair throughout the animation. The leaning back and spinning of the chair was the secondary action that was used to make the animation more realistic, without overpowering the primary actions of his body and facial animation.
Exaggeration is used to emphasise an action. Throughout the whole of this animation I exaggerated most movements and facial expressions. This worked well, especially considering the dialogue used.
Finally timing establishes a characters mood, emotion and reaction to something. Timing was used when animating with the dialogue. For example, when the dialogue was sharp and blunt, so was the characters head movement. Feedback from this artefact overall suggested that the animation captured the point of what I have been researching well and that it ran smoothly.

Run through of cameron

This is the entire animation run through of the second character. Next one up should be edited in with the first!

Brainwave

I been meaning to change the skin and eyes for cameron and I just remembered how to do it! This looks more like her...

Squirrel!?

Animating Cameron!

So I have started to refine my second character, who I am calling Cameron to make it easier, as she plays this character in this film. I've used Camtasia again for now to show what I have done for quickness, so again there are parts where she won't be doing anything, but this is where I will edit in the other character speaking. I will render out more of what I have done properly tomorrow to show in tutor on Thursday what I have been doing.

Artefact 5

This artefact is a combination of all the principles of animation that I have been researching and studying in my research project. These are: Anticipation, Secondary Action, Exaggeration and Timing.

Refining the eyes

I've noticed I haven't animated the eyes as much as I should. The eyes are what I believe give away the emotion and mood being portrayed. I will refine the entire clip eventually but this is a quick test of refining the eyes/brows and seeing the believability in the character.

Reference Film

Ok so this is just a rough reference film of my client project. I have been using the clip from youtube as my reference, but a lot of it you are unable to see when the film cuts to the other character whilst the main character is still speaking. I will be editing my final clip slightly differently so therefore needed another reference clip for me to be able to animate. It's obviously not entirely accurate, but there are a lot of natural movements that Charlotte has portrayed in this film that have actually really helped. As a lot of the youtube clip the main character is standing still, in an animation is doesn't make it seem realistic. So such things as adding a hand on the hip for example definitely adds more life.

Refining Test

I think I could tweak and refine animation forever. The more I play it back the more I can keep changing. So I know this will be refined even more, but just to show a small part of some changes made and the bigger impact it makes. Just with a few small hand gestures and eye blinks and squints, it automatically give the scene more life, making it more realistic.

Camatasia

Due to having no editing software to render out my client project to see the progress being made, I remembered reading about CamStudio on someone's blog - a software that records your desktop to show your work which saves any rendering time. I couldn't get this to work, not sure if it works on macs or not so had a little browse and came across Camatasia. I've got a free trial at the moment to see how easy it is to use. I've found it really useful and it comes with some useful tutorials. You can add all sorts of effects, animations, transitions, annotations and play around with cursor, audio and video FX. Don't really need to experiment with those for the purpose of what I am doing but nevertheless is a very good software. 

So, this is a recording of my client project. Obviously this isn't the finished product, as I will be using cameras and editing in the other character so in places my character may look like she's not doing anything but they will be the places where the other character is speaking. Also as this isn't finalised, this will be very much refined throughout all of it when its finished.

Premiere Pro FAIL

So a few months ago my Premiere Pro decided to not work any more and have since used different versions on the 30 day free trial download. As I've never downloaded the CS5.5 before I thought I'd download that last night as I have no access to the software as its easter break. Managed to download it successfully late last night and started to import my latest render of my Artefact 5. When I exported this I realised again that the sound was out of sync, and went back to edit this when it then decided to tell me that my free trial had now expired. Hmm maybe I have had that version before, pretty sure I haven't but ah well was worth a try. So this is my only test I managed to render before I lost the software, and am fully aware of the syncing issues! I have a few more test renders that are just going to have to wait a few weeks!

Client Project Classroom

Started to add some colour to my scene to so I can start to see what it's going to look like as a final piece. Kept the textures simple, so I didn't want any realistic textures, as they need to tie in with the type of characters I am animating. Quite pleased with it so far but the actual animation and getting that realistic instead is my main priority!

Client Project Update

I've just started to bring in a second character to my animation, the more glamourous teacher. I think I will change her eye colour still and maybe change the skin file to have make up. Still animating the scene , so I will render it out soon to see where progress and development can be made.

Artefact 5 Test Render

I've started on my final artefact which is a combination of all 4 principles of animation studied in my previous artefacts. This is slightly easier to portray as generally a combination of principles are considered in animations, and not just one. I've rendered out what I have so far as its much easier to see what needs improving upon. The sound I think is just slightly ahead by a second so will change that so the lip syncing matches a lot closer. Keeping the background simple for now, but may add a basic environment in nearer the time of presenting. But for now, I need to complete the rest of the animation.

Artefact 4 Evaluation - Creating believable characters through the key principles of animation : Timing

My fourth artefact concentrated on timing. The aim of timing is critical when establishing a characters mood, emotion and reaction to a situation. Timing also gives meaning to a movement, as the speed of an action defines how well it will read to an audience. For this particular principle I decided to focus on creating an animation to show timing through a reaction. To do this, I created a scenario where a character is slowly walking backwards, as though he is trying to escape from something or be unobserved. The character then slowly goes to turn around as though the coast is clear, and then hits his head on a 'Mind your head' sign, who then falls flat on the ground. I originally presented this artefact with no movement to this sign once the character had bumped into it, almost as though it was acting as part of a wall. After receiving feedback on this, it was suggested that I could try animating the sign as though it is free hanging. I then developed this artefact so that the sign swung slightly as the character hit his head on it. However, at certain angles the sign looks as though it swings quite rapidly at some point, therefore not looking completely realistic and believable. However, the main focus of this artefact is the principle of timing and the character. Other feedback commented on how this principle was conveyed quite well, and that on one of the angles you could almost hear a 'bump' as the character hits the sign. I am quite pleased with this as I feel this achieves the purpose of the artefact. And for this reason, I also feel that even though the addition of the swinging sign doesn't take any focus away from the main animation, it possibly works better with the sign remaining static.

Artefact 4 Developed

After presenting this artefact I received some good feedback. The concentration of the principle timing worked relatively well. There was only a suggestion to animate the 'Mind Your Head' sign, to see if this had any real impact on the animation. Iv'e added in the sign swinging slightly, but i think in some parts or camera angles it doesn't look very realistic. However, this just adds secondary action to the peice, and doesn't take away from the main purpose of the animation - timing.

Artefact 1 - Working Process

I realised I havn't really been posting much about my working process, on how iv'e got from start to finish. For Artefact 1 I looked at anticipation. Below is a viideo I found really useful when creating Artefact 1, and also reminding me of many points i wrote about in my PRP.

This video talks about motivating a character's actions with thoughts and emotions, as well as physical anticipation.
I looked at many reference images and then sketched out my own.

This is an animation that someone has created that i found online. I may improve my Anticipation Artefact and use this animation as reference. Although to enhance this, I would add an obvious upward movement before bending over to pick up the TV. This would show an anticipatory action more clearly, and takes into consideration everything i have learnt about this principle of animation.

Wild Dogs

I came across this whilst doing some research, and really quite enjoyed it, have a watch!

Artefact 3 Expressions Sketches

These are the range of expressions that I encorporated into Artefact three. The dialogue used was quite angry, and therefore no happy expressions were used. The characters expressions ranged from fear, anger, shock, surprise, confusion, sadness, upset and dissapointment.

Artefact 3 Evaluation - Creating believable characters through the key principles of animation : Exaggeration

My third artefact concentrated on exaggeration. The aim of exaggeration is to help make the scene more realistic, by exploring the essence of an action, so the audience can relate to it. It is used to emphasise an action, consequently making the scene more entertaining. As this artefact is answering how to make characters more believable through the key principles of animation, I had to remember to take an action and exaggerate it to give the scene more life, but not so much that it destroys the believability. For this particular  principle I felt it was appropriate to create an animation to a piece of dialogue. The dialogue chosen expresses clear emotions. I was able to pick out areas that sounded like they had more stress and importance, and exaggerated poses and expressions that fall at that time. I kept the environment simple again so that the focus was on the character animation and exaggeration. The dialogue is a character expressing how unhappy he is with his appearance, so therefore animated the character talking to himself in the mirror, although there was a second characters voice in the dialogue, which was made out to be a character off screen. After receiving feedback on a completed version of this artefact, it was agreed that the exaggeration was shown quite well through the use of the exaggerated tantrum jump, and the throwing of the mirror to the ground. However, it was suggested that the second character could be his reflection speaking back to him as though he is going mad. This fits really well with the dialogue so I added in this extra clip on animation of his reflection speaking. I really like the whole idea and concept on this, I would just possibly change the last frame of the reflection talking facial expression, as though it looks more of a questioning face, to suit his dialogue line better.

Render test - Client Project

I know a lot of work needs to be done, feel I am slacking slightly on this project compared to all the artefacts but I am getting into swing of things with this project and Maya now so hopefully a lot of progress will be made. I sent these clips off to my client today so hopefully I will receive some useful pointers and some helpful criticism!

Client Project Update

Finally decided on the design of my character for my animation! Resembling the red head character from Bad Teacher, quite pleased with the outcome, lets hope my client agrees!

Artefact 2 Sketches

Artefact 4 : Timing

Artefact 3 Sketches

Updated new and improved Artefacts 2 and 3

Client project - Storyboard

Client Project - key poses of the animation so far

Artefact 3 - Test 1 Complete

Artefact 2 Evaluation - Creating believable characters through the key principles of animation : Secondary Action

My second artefact concentrated on secondary action. The aim of secondary action is to add an action that would create more life to the scene, without overpowering the primary action. I thought the best way to do this was with a simple walk cycle, with the secondary action being a few head turns, as though curious where he is or what is around him (even though I used a plain background - the focus is the actual animation!), with the addition of a hand wave towards the end - as though he has spotted someone he knew or someone called his name. To enhance this artefact, I think more facial animation could have been added, especially when he waves. However, due to this being an already rigged character, there was no animation available for his mouth.
The general outcome of the test edits for this artefact included pausing the hand wave for just a second or so longer, as it was a very vague wave. For my final edit I added in just a normal walk cycle at the beginning so it was clear to define the difference between what the secondary does to the scene.
For this artefact to become more successful, different passes could be created, so the secondary action is bought in slowly, and the action is noticed. Each pass could be a different action, such as a whistle, looking at the time or a scratch for example, to see how much this adds more life to the scene.
From feedback, it might be an idea to possibly add sound, so his actions are more readable. As I have been keeping the background plain so the concentration is purely focused on the animation, it was questionable as to why the character is waving as he is walking, as of course there is no other character in the scene. The sound could just quite simply be his name being yelled. However for the purpose of this project I feel it worked quite well and was a definite improvement from my previous artefact.

Artefact 2 Final - Secondary Action

Client Project progress

So I've been very indecisive on what character to use for this. Ideally I wanted to use a female character in 3ds max, but there wasn't much of a variety, that had both body and facial rig. I've always been keen to learn maya so have been with a few rigs on there. It is quite similar to 3ds max so have been getting on with the morpheus rig quite well. I have modified the character a bit so it looks more like the red haird character from the scene 'bad teacher'.
I did consider modelling my own character at one point but then figured it was just taking too much time up when I am only interested in focusing on the animation.
Here are some images of what I had modelled:

I think after I modelled the head I knew I should give up!
Here are some stills from my actual animation..theres not many as im doing a section at a time where the full lip sync etc is near enough finished :)