[INSPIRATON] Grim Natwick

Grim Natwick is an animator who worked for the Fleischer Studio and is best known for being the artist who drew Betty Boop. One of the main reasons why I am focusing on him today is because of the above video, Fleischer's 1930 Talkartoon DIZZY DISHES. Dizzy Dishes is interesting because of two shots within the animation, the Waiter Dance.

The Waiter Dance is interesting as it is animated by two people, the first time we see the waiter dance it is animated by someone who is not Grim Natwick, however the second time it is infact animated by Grim Natwick.

Not by Grim Natwick:

By Grim Natwick:

There is a distinct difference in the animation quality between these two shots, as Natwick used his imagination and mixed fun with animation. This was way before the principles of animations were introduced so alot of animators were still in the dark in the 1930s in regards to animation, so this is a fantastic example of true rubber hose animation, without the influence of other animations.

[PRODUCTION] Week 8 - Nearly finishing scene 3

I am nearing the end of scene 3, this is important as once I have finished scene 3 I will be going back through scene 1 to 3 and try to get the shots complete. Scene 4 onward uses heavy traditional animation in contrast to the earlier scenes. because of this I will be wanting more time for these shots, so until I get a chance to set up the light-box for a substantial amount of time I will be revisiting some of the earlier shots and colour them and finalize them.

I am hoping that once I have finished scene 3 I can get all of the earlier shot complete by the time Summer arrives, giving me much more time to animate using the light-box. 

[PERSONAL] The Poster Presentation

This is the finished Poster that will be presented during the poster presentation, I want to make sure that I got it finished early in order to receive feedback from my tutors. Although we aren't being marked on the presentation on the 10th of March, I want to make sure it is a good piece of work to look at. 

I wanted to get 5 pictures in the poster, one with the full background, and the rest featuring the four characters; The Young Animator, The Old Animator, Max the Cat and May the Cat. I wanted The Young Animator and May the Cat to somewhat match The Old Animator and Max the Cat visually, to contrast the difference in the animators.

The poster was created using inDesign, software I am not overly familiar with. Because of this I struggled with using it; importing pictures proved difficult at first as I didn't understand the quality control, as did actually writing in the text boxes. However, after using it for a decent amount of time I feel that I was able to actually get to grips with the software and finally get the poster finished. I am looking forward to presenting the poster as I am very happy with the finished outcome. 

[PRACTICE] Drawing May the Cat

Half way through scene 3, there is a shot where the animator begins to draw May the Cat for the first time, because of this I had to imitate a technique that I used with the Old Animator. The difference between the Max the Cat drawing and the May the Cat drawing is that because May is drawn digitally it is easier to erase the lines that make up her. I again used the ease in & ease out technique to create the fluid movement of a drawing pen, I feel that this makes the animation much smoother in contrast to just having the pen go from A to B.

Overall I enjoyed the recreation of May the Cat, as I find doing this technique fun and reqarding as it gives a fantastic effect of the character being drawn. I enjoyed it when animating Max the Cay and I enjoyed it equally as much when drawing May the Cat.

[INSPIRATION] Science Saru

Science Saru has uploaded a video into the animation process using Adobe Flash. They show footage of their involvement with Adventure Time as well as many different animations. This video is incredibly insightful as it shows the techniques they use in Flash to create their animations. They use standard techniques to create the Adventure Time opening as well as the Shin-Chan episode. I found it interesting to see how different a company like Science Saru animate using the software that I use in comparison to myself, as they focus more on line tools and frame by frame and only use a few symbols.

Overall I found this video a delight to watch as it shows me how other people in the industry use the software that I am accustom to, Science Saru are a fantastic animation company and this video is a fantastic insight into their animation world.

[PRODUCTION] Week 7 - Getting back into Frame-by-Frame

*NOTE* 

THE VIDEO ABOVE IS ACTUALLY WEEK 6, IT ONLY CAME TO MY ATTENTION DURING WEEK 8 THAT I MADE THIS MISTAKE, BECAUSE OF THIS I HAVE LOST THE ORIGINAL WEEK 7 FOOTAGE. HOWEVER, YOU CAN READ WHAT I ACTUALLY ACHIEVED DURING THIS WEEK BELOW, THANK YOU FOR UNDERSTANDING.

This week, the one thing I wanted to do was to complete a shot which has a good amount of frame-by-frame animation, as the last few weeks has been severely lacking. This week I wanted to go abit further than the original animatic and storyboard with shot 9, I wanted to go into a lot of detail of the young animator setting up his Cintiq, or as it is known in the animation; the 'Sketchtiq'. I am actually really happy with the outcome, this shot is very important as it is a very distinct difference from the last shots, as it is the introduction to technology. Originally, the shot was to have the young animator place the Cintiq on the desk and then sit down and begin drawing the character, however now he plugs in the Cintiq and the Cintiq actually turns on. This to me makes the animation flow to the next shot very nicely.

I feel however I am getting very behind on my traditional shots, once we enter scene 4 the majority of the shots from then on wards are heavily traditional, I am toying with the idea of leaving all of the traditional shots until the Summer, as I will have a lot more free time to actually focus on them, as I am animating these digital shots with every moment I get spare while juggling the research side as well as preparing lectures and marking my students work. I feel that once Summer arrives, there wil be a drastic increase in the workload which is produced, and I feel that is when the quality of the overall animation will be very evident.

[PERSONAL] Blurb Book Update

As you may have read previously, I am currently trying to create an 'The Art and Making of' book about my practice work; When Dreams Became Data. So Far, I have created 77 pages of everything I have done so far, I am now up to the actual production of the animation where I will update the book once I have actually something to show in the production. I am really enjoying the creation process of this book, it is fun to recap and reflect on everything that I have created so far and it is even inspiring me to do a lot more drawings and concept art for the production.

I have estimated that the book will be around 200 pages long as I want to include the Production, Post-production, Inspiration, Acknowledgement and Bibliography. The book so far has a good amount of artwork in it, as well as a few photographs of the art work, I want to get a few shots of me animating using a light-box and animating using my drawing tablet. These will be the pictures I place before each section opens up.

I am hoping that with this book, people will see the creative process of creating a traditional and digital 2D animation and inspire them to try it themselves. I guess you could say this book is an alternative attempt at getting the audience to understand and appreciate 2D animation. Overall, I am thoroughly enjoying the development of this book and I hope to get it finished along with my practice.

[LECTURE] Lecture 4 - Pete Bishop

Pete Bishop is an animation director, designer and part time lecturer at UCLan and Royal College of Arts in London. He has worked at Passion Pictures for several years and founded the Film Garage based in London, he currently works from his studio in London where he directs animation. Pete never attended Art School, he actually studied Law, but he always drew. He began to attend evening classes in Brixton where he did his first animation commission in the 1980s, a commercial for Time Out. This commercial had no dialogue, but featured stop-motion robots and abstract frame-by-frame sequences. After explaining about this commission he expressed his views on how he works as an animator by stating; “Animation is a collaborative art form”. He will often work in small teams on his projects, a name that came up a lot was Steve Appleby who he works collaboratively with.

A lot of Pete Bishop’s work came from his experiments, how he said he works is; He has to draw to think, even though the drawings he produces are rough it’s where his inspiration comes from, he doesn’t consider himself good at form. After working on the commission for Time Out, he worked on many different projects; he created a couple of MTV openings, the Sci-fi channel Idents and worked on a few Turnpike Films as well. Pete then began to explain a series he directed, edited and co-wrote with Steve called How to Destroy the World in 2008. He was given a budget to create three short animations about how humans are destroying the world, however inadvertently made four short animations, blowing most of the budget. 

After explaining about How to Destroy the World, he then explained about the script he pitched for a Sanatogen advert, resulting him in getting a job for Passion Pictures. After a while he then was asked to create an animation which was to promote the Holland Animation Film Festival in 2008, Pete had previously entered and won numerous awards at this festival for his animations such as ‘How to Destroy the World’, ‘Mister Fister 2’ ‘Theatre of the Hands’. The film he presented to them was a recreation of an old recording of a bird he took years ago, him and Lee Wilson Wolfe edited and submitted it to the festival, in 2010, the short actually won the Broadcast Design at Brit Animation Awards. 

I wont delve too much into what else was said here, but I will explain how I have been influenced by his work during my research assignment at a later date.

[BOOK] Elemental Magic: The Art of Special Effects Animation

Elemental Magic is a fantastic book which explores special effects in animation and how to draw them. There are currently two books in the series and they each explore how animators recreated fiery blazes, rippling water, booming explosions, gusting winds, magical incantations, and magical transformations. This book is a must have for any animator who wishes to do more than just character animation, this is a book which can make the world you create come alive.

Not only is it instructional on how to create these effects, but it explores the theory and philosophy behind the creation of these special effects. Joseph Gilland has worked in the animation industry for over 30 years and has worked on feature hits such as Lilo & Stitch, Mulan and Tarzan and explains the entire process from blank page to final animation and also provides a website featuring videos where he creates these animations himself. The book breaks up each effect into chapters; from natural effects to man-made effects.

Overall the book is fascinating to read and a great book to study, it is filled with niche animation techniques that aren't normally addressed in other animation books, I hope these effects will aid me into the creation of my future animations, including the animation I am creating for my Masters.

[PRACTICE] Scene 3, Shot 4 Tests

During scene 3, we are introduced to the Young Animator who emerges from the door, however during the animatic he just sort of teleports from the doorway into the center of the room. I didn't think much of it until I actually started to animate it and it just seemed to not fit, so to fix this issue I had to animate the Young Animator entering the room somehow, to do this I thought about having him actively swoop into the center of the frame, as you can see in the test below:

This to me seemed really unnecessary, nor did it look right to me. What I really needed was a reference, however because of timing I don't have that at my disposal right now, so I decided to do a simple walk cycle into the center of the frame, then zoom into the Young Animator and then proceed with the original narrative, this is what I ended up with:

As you can see it flows much nicer, however it would have been nice to actually animate the Young Animator walking, however because of time restraints I will complete any unfinished animation once the video is fully fleshed out. I might have to do something similar with shot 6 when the animator is looking directly at Max, I had an idea where I just show his eyes looking at Max, then zoom out and proceed with the original narrative, however I will see what I do with that in due time, as this is the next thing I need to animate. 

[PRODUCTION] Week 6 - Losing Quality Over Time?

Since last week, I have not done much in the way of animating because I am strapped for time due to me still working at a college. Because of these time restraints I am finding it difficult to find time to actually animate anything, and during the times when I do animate, it feels very rushed. The shots I have done this week to me, feel very rushed. I am not only falling behind my schedule by one shot, but I also haven't even got full bodies in one of them -it's just a walking pair of legs! After next week it is the holidays and I get a week off, during this time I feel that I will get myself back up to speed and the animation quality will hopefully improve. Because of my hours and the work I also have to do in my spare time, I lost track of the things I need to do for my Masters, also the research assignment is slowly creeping up as is the InDesign poster work too. I will be able to get everything finished in time, but so far it is a difficult battle with me and the clock, and this week I feel that time got the better of me.

[LECTURE] Lecture 3 - Adam Evans

Adam Evans is a cultural theorist who specialises in Urban Design, he studied Architecture at the University of Greenwich for his undergraduate and at Kingston University for his Masters. Now he is the subject leader for History, Theory and Culture at the University of Central Lancashire. He is heavily influenced by all elements of hip hop culture; Rap, DJ, graffiti, beat-boxing and production. His presentation was split up into three separate parts, the History of hip hop, how hip hop was brought into the UK and how hip hop has influenced his practice.

Adam first explains about a series of events which he believes was the first start to hip hop- which was graffiti. He explains about how a troublesome character known as Robert Moses, a city planner based in New York had a vision; the vision was the bring money into Lower Manhattan. To do this, he had to bring people in from the suburbs, and to achieve this, he built the South-Bronx expressway through the suburbs and ghettos of lower Manhattan. Adam explains that because he built through their houses, Robert had to rebuild houses for these people to live, so became Charlotte Street, an area where the houses were built with no structure, randomly arranged with a complete disregard for the environment. Robert wanted to build on as much inhabitable space as possible. Soon a woman called Jane Jacobs put a stop to this and saves her neighborhood; Greenwich Village from being transformed by the developers.

After this, a new phenomenon grew which was people tagging walls. An unknown man known as Taki-183 had tagged a wall, and because of this it was published in newspapers and more and more of the public began to known his name. 183 was his street name, and soon more and more people wanted to get known just like him. By 1972, the impact of graffiti had become evident. Jon Naar had created a book showcasing graffiti in New York, and over a 14 day period he had already photographed over 200 photographs. Over time, Graffiti started to become fatter and more colourful, people started fighting for space and wanted to stand out more than the last person who tagged the wall. People then began to target moving vehicles, such as trains for tagging. Soon, people were tagging the whole train, which then became known as block buster graffiti.

Adam then moves onto how hip hop culture spread to the UK, he stated that “something very similar happened in 1984”. Channel 4 featured a documentary known as Style Wars, which show cased New York’s subway system as graffiti writer’s public playgrounds for them to express themselves. After this, people started to try it, and soon urban culture started emerging in various places in the UK. Adam then raises a question, “is it an urban culture, or is it counter culture?”

Adam then begins to discuss his research agenda, after his Masters he worked on a project known as Cabinet, 20 artists were asked by the Plymouth Museum to interoperate an object into art, and while he was in a taxidermy room he triggered a memory- and because of this he wanted to create a narrative collage from his experiences. This collage featured the Electro 10 cover, which featured the song ‘Johnny the Fox’, which he was listening to in his memory.

I wont delve too much into what else was said here, but I will explain how I have been influenced by his work during my research assignment at a later date.

[INSPIRATION] Dirty, Dusty old room

As stated previously, I want to recreate the room in scene 3 to make it look a lot more decrepit and dusty. The room will be untouched for 50 years, so I need to make sure this gets across through the look of the view. However, I need to find a balance, as the Young Animator will live in this room as well, so it's can't be too decrepit. I will look at perhaps some wallpaper being off the wall, as well as some holes in a few specific areas, rot should be in a few places as well a variety of long and short cobwebs.

I will be experimenting with a variety of different room designs, but I will also need to dust particle effects to coincide with the room, because of this I will need to reanimate the dust particles as well as redesign the room, however, because this change isn't an urgent one, I can wait until later to implement these changes. I am going to continue to create a variety of different room styles, perhaps one room which is super destroyed, old and decrepit, and after try and take specific aspects of this and tailor it to my final room.

[PERSONAL] Website Running (Without Domain)

As you can see, I now have the website up and running, however I do not have a premium account just yet, nor do I have an actual domain name. Over the upcoming months, I will save up the money to pay the £7 a month fee to get rid of the advertisments on the website, as well as give myself a domain name, preferably; jackalexandergray.co.uk. 

For the time being however, the website will do what it is intended to do, which is to promote the work I am doing as well as link to my blog. The website has every piece of work I have done, as well as a contact sheet, and a filmography of every animation I have completed since 2008. To visit this website, please use the link below:

http://mrcurlypanda.wixsite.com/mrjackgray

[PRODUCTION] Week 5 - VFX and Scene 3

Scene 3 is a long scene, consisting of various shots of the young animator, however i have yet to get to these shots. Currently I am working on the panning shot at the very beginning of scene 3, this consists of 3 shots of different angles of the room, before the Young Animator opens the door. These 3 shots are very important, as they must convey that the room is abandoned, dusty and old. I feel like I could make these shots much more dustier, as I have previously said after seeing my tutor, as well as making the overall room older, and full of cobwebs.

I have just started to animate the Young Animator opening the door, when the door opens the room is filled with light once again, so I need to make sure a right amount of light comes through the room, but not enough to make the room too bright. I am juggling with the idea that the Young Animator will turn the light on in the room, revealing how old and decrepit the room actually is, however I don't have to mess with the lighting details just yet. 

Next week I will hopefully get the animator in the room and setting up his equipment, I have put the traditional animated scenes on hold for the time being as I want to make sure everything in the animation is timed perfectly first, however I will pick them up again shortly once the Animator leaves the room again at the beginning of Scene 4.

[PERSONAL] Feedback from my Lecturer (03/02/2017)

I have seen Sarah regarding where I am up to with both my practice and my research, I showed her my animation so far and what I plan to do the following week. The feedback I got was to be expected, however one thing that I did take note on was her opinion of the dust particles VFX. This was something I was unsure about myself, Sarah explained that it didn't look like dust as the particles seem too big. I have taken this into consideration for when I try a second test.

The second thing I was told to take a second look at is the overall state of the room, the room is untouched when the Old Animator passes away for around 50 years, but the according to Sarah, "The room still looks too clean", she suggested that I take a look at Miss Havisham and explore the set design in that film, which I have posted pictures below:

Practice work aside, Sarah also suggested some contacts for my research assignments, I was suggested to contact Kevin at Robbersdog.com, as well as Joris Van Hulzen, an animator for Elf Factory. I will be contacting these two over the course of my research assignment, until then I will continue with the research of my practice.

[LECTURE] Lecture 2 - Jim Thompson

Jim Thompson is a lecturer at the University of Central Lancashire teaching Games design, he as a keen interest in Play in society. During the lecture he explained the history of Play, he wanted to know who in the lecture plays games, only a handful of people said they never play games, however he explains that "everybody plays". 

He delves into the different ways people play, be that playing with their children, playing with their pet, playing chess or crosswords, or even playing bingo. He then talks about the history of play, from the very first game ever found in an Egyptian tomb 5000 years ago, to medieval toys. He then explains how games were invented to help win wars, such as Kriegsspiel in 1812. He then explains th history of more modern games such as Monopoly and Snakes and Ladders, then delves into the history of Computer games.

Jim then delves into why Games are addictive and popular, he believes that "you get a god like overview of the gaming world - it's our world, it's believable." After, he talks about violence in video games, and how gender is portrayed in videogames.

Jim had a very insightful view of games and the term "play", however I found it very difficult to relate his practice to my own, I tried to link it to my work by asking the question; "Do you think that in a few more years, toys like building blocks will be completely replaced with video games like Minecraft?". This was to link it back to traditional animation methods being completely overtaken by digital animation methods, however he completely went into the opposite direction I had intended by saying that "toys are becoming digital, we have VR and soon everything will be electronic".

Overall, the lecture intrigued me, but again, very difficult to relate it back to my own work. I will more than likely leave Jim out of my essay as I don't fully know what I could talk about and how I could link it to my own work.

[PERSONAL] Everybody Can Draw - Update 1

As you may have previously read, I am underway with my experimental side project called "Everybody Can Draw". Although I am finding this task much more difficult than I had imagined, the plan is to get as many different people to draw in a single sketchbook as possible, these drawings cannot be NSFW, nor can they be already existing (e.g. Pikachu or Mickey Mouse). 

I have accumulated six drawings from Friends, Family and Students, these drawings vary in styles, directions and pencil pressure. These might seem like insignificant things, however the more I looked at them, the more I could tell they were drawn by different people, two of my students had both drawn dragons, these dragons are completely different in styles and shading, it is fairly evident that they are drawn by two completely different people. I understood before I decided to do this task that this would happen, but after seeing how different each drawing will be it puts it into perspective on how evident it will be that the Old Animator didn't draw these.

I am going to continue this task, however the process is very slow, I will hopefully try to get a few more of my students to do some drawings as well as more of my friends and family.

[PRACTICE] Experimenting with VFX

During the first 30 seconds of scene 3, shots 1 through 3 will feature the animation room, dark and very dusty. Something I have never tried to animate are VFX, particle effects especially. I have experimented with fire and water in the past, but never dust. I attempted to recreate dust using visual references, below are a few examples of the references I used: 

As you can see, there are many blurry balls of different shapes and sizes, animated versions of these images show them moving at varying speeds and shrinking and expanding in sizes. Now for me to animate this, I'd need to create many different tweens in it's own tween, however, it would have to be a motion tween rather than a classic tween. The reason why this is important, is because I have only ever used motion tweens once during my animation career. 

"Motion tween is a type of animation that uses symbols to create movement, size and rotation changes, fades, and color effects. Classic tween refers to tweening in Flash CS3 and earlier, and is maintained in Animate primarily for transition purposes." - Copyright © 2017 Adobe Systems Incorporated.

Motion tweens allow me to tween the mage around, changing the sizes and how they flow, rather than just a straight "A to B" movement. Through this method, I created a test which features many different dust particles floating around the screen. Below you can see the outcome:

Overall I am happy with the first attempt, however I will continue to test the dust particles VFX, I will get feedback from my tutor on the upcoming Friday and hopefully with some feedback I can try and improve on the dust particle effects.

[PERSONAL] Creating a Website

I am currently in the process of creating a website to advertise myself, and this blog. The website is currently being created using the web developing software Wix, a web development platform which allows anyone to create a website using a simple drag and drop mechanic. I am hoping to get a premium plan with them to get my own domain name, and have my website hosted on Google search. This is still the early stages of the website, but I am hoping to put everything I have ever created onto this website, and have it as a form of online portfolio. 

I am hoping to get the website set up for around the end of February, however I am in no rush to get it done fast, similar to the book I am currently trying to create using Blurb. Creating a website is something I have wanted to do for a long time, and hopefully it will be seen by many different people and get my name known, even slightly.