[PERSONAL] Website Finished, ready to add Domain.

Every page is now finished, each page has a good amount of detail and information which I was wanting to get. I currently have a page with information and links to all of my animated videos; From finished videos, to animatics. I have a page dedicated to a variety of drawings; From character drawings. to background artwork. I also have a page dedicated to the commission work I have undertaken, animation and drawings alike. I have pages with information about my experiences, my videography as well as an about page which gives a short biography about me and my work. I have also added a shop page for when I finish the "The Making of When Dreams Became Data" book.

I will keep this website updated even after my Masters is finished, and I am hoping that once I have the money spare, I can create and add a domain name for the website.

[INSPIRATION] Hilda: The Animated Series

An adaptation of Luke Pearson’s graphic novel series Hilda, Hilda is an upcoming Netflix series which is set to be released in 2018. There is a lot of hype for this animation as the visualistics of the shows look beautiful. Mercury Filmworks are the ones who are in charge of the production and I feel they have a very similar style to myself with the think outlines and how they draw their eyes. 

The series will be animated using Toonboom Harmony and will be animated frame-by-frame with a combination of rigged puppets. The show is incredibly visually pleasing, it reminds me of Gravity Falls to some extent. Mercury Filmworks also animated the upcoming Tangled: The Series and the Mickey Mouse shorts, so they work closely with Disney.

[DRAWINGS] Drawings of the quartet

I have neglected to update my sketch book with drawings recently, I feel that I need to begin drawing in it as it is also part of my reflection. I wanted to try drawing all four of my characters again, as I never really draw Max and May too much as I am not animating them currently, however I am still happy with how I draw them very much so. I still feel like I struggle to draw the Young Animator, I need to keep practicing his design and perhaps make slight changes if I need to.

[PRODUCTION] Week 12 - Adding the drawings to the wall

Now we are in week 12 of the animation process, and I was finally able to get all the shading complete and got most of the pictures uploaded for the drawings on the wall. This means from week 13 on wards I can focus on scenes 3 on wards too. Hopefully I can get most of the animation complete in these scenes by the 09/04/2017 as this is when I start my fortnight off work and I can focus on traditional animation.

During this week, I made a few changes all around, I made the opening to the short slightly longer to add the text super imposed onto the screen, as well as fixed the error in the title. I also extended the time lapse by adding a few more frames of animation at the end, so it makes it seem like more time has passed, as well as added animation paper to his desk, to show the progression of time.

I may still need to come back to these scenes, as I still need to add traditional drawings to these scenes, however as long as I can get the majority of scene 3 finished by the 9th of April I will be happy with the progress I have made thus far. 

[PERSONAL] Feedback from my Lecturer and Candy Guard (24/03/2017)

After the lecture, we were given time slots with Sarah where we would present the work we have currently done to her and her close friend Candy Guard, a writer, director and animator who has worked on many different channel 4 projects, including Pond Life (1996). I presented my work to the two and the feedback was interesting, you never know what somebody is going to say about your work when you have never met them, but the feedback was both constructive and criticizing. One thing that stood out was the quote, "I don't understand what happened", I asked what she meant by the comment and she explained that she didn't understand what was happening in the opening and it should be much more clearer, so to do this we agreed that perhaps I should have some text on screen in the opening to explain where they are and when it is set.

Another comment was on the old animator, she wanted to make him look like he gets older throughout the animation, this is something I have previously discussed with Sarah, I will be making the old animator seem younger int he earlier shots by giving him a browner beard and maybe some strands of hair. 

The last thing she said was in regards to the soundtrack, she explained that she could visualize how it would sound, with old fashioned music in the opening with many different sound effects, then "grunge" music when the young animator emerges. This is interesting as I haven't really thought about the sound at all yet, which is something I need to delve into more at some point soon.

Overall, I feel that I needed this talk with Candy, as the animation is being seen from someone who hasn't seen the progression of the film and hasn't had me explain it first. If she didn't understand it, then my audience wouldn't understand it. It is something I need to address and will address in the future.

[BOOK] Animation 101

Animation 101 is a fantastic insight into the world of animation. Written by Ernest Pintoff, an Oscar winning filmmaker who has taught animation throughout the world, he is an animation innovator who has influenced many and will continue to for years to come. His book introduce us into the industry of animation with insights from animation legends, such as; Noel Blanc, Bill Hanna, John Lasseter, Nick Park and many more.

The book talks about Ernest's life through animation, the animation he has worked on previously and stories about his experiences. He also discusses how animation has evolved through the ages and where it is now.

Animation 101 was cheap, I bought it for 1p with £2.80 postage, however the book has inspired me greatly. Ernest talks about his remarkable journey and celebrates animation throughout. Ernest has won The Winsor McCay award for lifetime achievement in the field of animation, in  his book he talks about his experiences from that award. The Winsor McCay award is something that one day I hope to get, a sort of dream if you will. To hear Ernest's view point for recieving this sparks my dream even more than it ever had been. 

This book is a great read, and it is dirt cheap. I would recommend this book to anybody who is interested at all in animation, it's entertaining and enlightening.

[LECTURE] Lecture 8 - Jane Elizabeth Bennett

Jane Elizabeth Bennett is doing her PHD fellowship at the University of Central Lancashire where she is working with Fine Art. Her work is heavily influenced by dyslexia, autism and the failure of communication, as she herself has been diagnosed with dyslexia and autism. She has a rhizomatic approach to print, installations, photography and sound, she is very research focused and has gone from very visual to very research heavy.

As a print maker, she is interested in white on white sketchbook prints, printing on vinyl and layering her work. She had previously made animations and film. When she did her A Levels she wanted to be a painter and a print maker, for her foundation she studied painting, however she couldn't paint. Before starting her Masters she lived in Australia, where she was happy to get out of academia. However, once she started her MA, she shortly realized it wasn't for her, although she liked er lecturers and peers she hated the work she was making. She decided to switch MAs, she explained to us that it is important to know that you have the choice to switch MAs if you aren't enjoying it. 

She then explained about internet presence, which is interesting as she is the only lecturer to talk about this in this way. She explained that she only uploads work that she is completely proud of, and make sure it is all professional, you want to make sure when your name is googled it is all positive, you don't want things you don't like on google to represent you. She explained the importance of networking and explains to network with peers, lecturers and technicians as well as galleries, collectors and institutes. 

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

[RESEARCH] Getting contacts - Update #2

It has been just over a week since I did the last update in regards to my research, on my last update I had sent 35 emails to various animators throughout the world, as of now I have sent 64 emails to animators around the world. The new contacts include; Svend Rothmann Bonde, who worked in the animation department for both Song of the Sea (2014) and The Long Way North (2015), Aya Suzuki, who worked in the animation department for Wolf Children (2012) and The Illusionist (2010).

Currently out of the 64 emails, only 17 people have replied back to me and sent me a questionnaire. There are numerous people now who have contacted me saying they would get the questionnaire back to me, however thus far only one of them had actually gotten back to me after saying that they would. Getting contacts is very stressful, as I am now part-way through writing the essay now that I have four people that I can use thanks to their fantastic input, however I still need one more animator to give me enough information to I can use to finish off my essay. I was hoping to get the work done early and have it sent off to be checked, however it looks like I am only going to just get it all finished a week before deadline.

I am incredibly grateful to those that have gotten back to me, including; Mark Kilkelly, Adrian Hansen, Louis Morton and Isabell Gross to name a few. I am hoping that by the end of this week I can get more animators to get back to me and I will be able to finish off the work to get it submitted for checking.

[PRACTICE] Dust Particle Test - After Effects

After talking with Sarah a few weeks ago, it was decided that I need to work on the dust particle effects in scene 3 shots 1 through 3. I had done a few more attempts but nothing that I could call "dust" effects. So I decided to experiment with After Effects Software in the hopes of making a more realistic effect, the results are uploaded above. 

I had no intention of using After Effects to create effects, as I wanted everything in my film to be drawn by hand. However, through research and practice I came up with the conclusion that I just don't have the time to put into too much detail into effects like dust, as I still need to make the room look more decrepit. I am not unhappy with how the video looks, I am actually surprised that it turned out so well if I am honest. 

I will keep experimenting with dust effects, however I feel I should talk to Sarah about the test in the hopes that I can get feedback, I am hoping that it will be positive however even I can see that there is area for improvement when it comes to the effect.

[PERSONAL] 'Everybody can draw' picture update #1

Currently I have acquired 21 drawings for the Everybody can draw project I am working on, however I cannot use 1 of the drawings as it features a copyrighted character. I have tried to make the drawings as diverse as possible, ranging from the students that  I teach myself, to my fellow course mates to my family and friends. This is giving me a wider scope of the different art styles and variations that people are giving me.

Some of the people who have drawn in the sketch book are; Francesca Amy Daniels, Callum Borysenko, Kate Elizabeth Allman, Sam Bond, Yiming Wei and Colin Gray. I am hoping to get more people to draw in the book in the hopes that I can get at least one of the walls in the video complete, below are a few examples of what people have drawn for me:

[PRODUCTION] Week 11 - Halt on production to focus on Research

As I anticipated, this week I only had enough time to do a couple of things in my animation, nothing new to really update with. I spent most of the time focusing on the research side of the course, this includes writing up the responses I received from the animation contacts, however I will delve a little more into this soon in a separate blog post.

As stated, I have only really done a little bit of animation this week, including more of the shading in scene 1, because of this I only need to do a little bit of traditional animation and then scene 1 will be fully complete. I am hoping that by next week I can at least get scene 2 fully shaded and perhaps get the drawings on the walls.

[LECTURE] Lecture 7 - James Battersby

James Battersby is influenced heavily by Gothic and science, he opened up his lecture by asking us "what is Gothic", explaining that Gothic is a typeface, interior design, games, literature and film. He then leads onto discussing Gothic Horror and how this inspired him in many different ways and put him where he is today. He beings talking about Gothic Literature and where they all came from, ranging from Dracula to Frankenstein. He then goes onto discuss science of designs; the ergonomics, the anthropometry, and material science. Ergonomics is the study of people and their working conditions and looks at how the body works, Anthropometry is the average measurement of man and Material Science is the study of propertied and applications of materials of construct or manufacture.

James then goes onto discussing "science inspired designs", he talks about when people thought radio was a disease killer as radioactive materials were not understood. Radium, the dangerous element used to create atomic bombs were used heavily in design. Radium heaters were created to keep food warm, radium cosmetics, soaps and medicines. There were many things about radium that was completely misunderstood, such as how people thought radioactive water was good for health. People would use radium in clocks and watches, because of this many people died from radium poisoning in the 20th century. Uranium was also used in ceramics, dinnerware and glass.

Soon he then began to discuss his own practice, where he originally started with Stained glass, however he then began being inspired by different stained glass based on old alchemy. He then started designing cabinets and spice racks based on chemists. 

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] Toonami – Exquisite Corpse

Normally I wouldn't write about something like this, however as I grew up with Toonami I felt it necessary to talk about this animation. The clash of art styles is so fascinating to watch as it just oozes with nostalgia for the old Toonami that I grew up with. You can really tell that the animators put a lot of effort into this 20th anniversary short animation, the short was created by the team at Titmouse which I have discussed in an earlier post, I feel that I might need to delve deeper into the Titmouse studio, as so far they are the leaders in short traditional animation in my eyes.

The animators who animated this short include; Henrique Barone, Sean Buckelew, Jesse James Dean, Ryan Gillis, Miguel Jiron, Alicja Jasina, Sean Glaze, David Reilly, Yawen Zheng, Katie Tamboer, Louis Morton, Edward Artinian, Kris Merc, Brian Smee, Grace Mi, Katrina Ruzics, Joe Bennett, Quique Rivera, Einar Baldvin, Peter Millard, Jeanette Bonds, Shoko Hara, Grace Nayoon Rhee, Lee Hardcastle, Robertino Zambrano, Alex Grigg, Guilherme Marcondes, Simon Wilches-Castro.

[BOOK] Chuck Amuck: The Life and Times of an Animated Cartoonist

Chuck Amuck is an incredibly fantastic book, the way it is written is as if it is a script taken from one of the Looney Toons shorts. Chuck Jones is an American animator, filmmaker and cartoonist who is best known for his work with the Warner Bros. Cartoons on the Looney Tunes series.

The book is an autobiography on Chuck's life, it delves into his entire work and the characters he not only created, but also contributed to. The book isn't only an autobiography, it is written in such a way that also aids animators understand character development. It is sort of a biography into the development of Looney Toons as well.

The book is very fun to read, and it is enlightening and entertaining filled with images and drawings from early production, fully drawn and coloured cels and even photos of the animation team in production of one of the Looney Toons shorts. The book discusses each of Chuck's directed Looney Toons episodes and how it made an impact, how it was produced and what the response to the animates short was.

Overall, the book is incredibly insightful, a fantastic read for anybody who loves Warner Bros, Animation as much as myself. It is great to read about the life of Chuck Jones and how he contributed to animation, I would recommend this book to anybody who has an interest in animation and to anyone who enjoyed early Warner Bros. animation. 

[RESEARCH] Getting contacts - Update #1

I feel that I should update my whereabouts on the whole research side of my Masters, that being getting animation contacts to help me with my essay. I currently have sent off 35 emails to animators with varying backgrounds, from various countries and with various skill sets. Some of the animators include; Ed Skudder, the lead animator for the web series Dick Figures, who recently created the Dick Figures (2013) film. Jake Ganz, the creator of Studio Yotta, a Flash based studio which specializes in frame-by-frame animation and have worked on numerous projects such as Smash! by Starbomb and OKKO: Let's Be Heroes! on Cartoon Network. I also contacted the animators who worked on Ethel and Ernest and animators who worked on Jay & Silent Bob's Super Groovy Cartoon Movie.

Currently out of the 35 emails, only 10 have replied, these include Yotam Perel, Max Collins, Haakon Ziegler and Steve Stark to name a few. However, after checking through the replies that they all sent, I unfortunately will be able to use 3 out of the 10. The reason behind this is because most of the answers were either to short or too ambiguous. However, the 3 that I am going to use are incredibly insightful and will help me greatly. I wont use the 3 names but I am very grateful for the amount of effort they put into helping me.

So far, I am realizing how difficult it is to get people to email you back. Many people said they would get back to me in a few days, and never got back to me, which can be both stressful and disappointing. I am hoping that over the next week more people will get back in contact with me, I will send out more emails over the course of this week in the hopes that people will get back to me.

[PRODUCTION] Week 10 - Finalizing the first two scenes

The main purpose for me this week was to get as much of the first two scenes done as possible, once they have been fully finished I can focus on scene 3 to finish allowing me to focus on the traditional drawings. I unfortunately did not finish some of the shading on some of the shots, however the first two scenes are now fully coloured. Once I have finished the shading I can focus on getting the "everybody can draw" drawings completed and scanned, to make the walls filled with drawings.

I am hoping that I can at least finish all the shading by week 12. I would have liked it completed by week 11 but I feel I need to focus more energy on getting my research completed, once I get the essay underway I can come back and get scene 1 and 2 completed. I am happy however that I got most of the shot done in scene 2, as I was beginning to worry that perhaps I would forget to add the Old Animator moving around the room, or it'd be too long and I would end up drawing him differently.

I am anticipating to not get much animation done next week, however I feel that I should be focusing my energy on something that is getting left behind. I believe that it will be worth it in the long run, and once this essay is complete I wont need to worry about any more writing assignments.

[LECTURE] Lecture 6 - Halima Cassell

Halima Cassell is a Ceramics Artist born in Kashmir in 1975, she moved to England at a very early age and became a student at UCLan in 1994 studying Ceramics. In 2002 she returned to UCLan to study her Masters and then went to study for her PDQ in 2004. Halima’s presentation focused on all the work se has produced and what has influenced her into becoming to designer she is today. Her creativity and work is heavily influenced from her Asian roots, the multi-cultural background is the basis for most of her work being influenced and inspired by; Islamic and other intricate architecture aspects such as church, mosque and synagogue architecture, her other main influence is mathematics and artists who use mathematics in their arts such as Bridget Riley.

Halima then proceeded to talk about her early work, she worked with simple designs such as rectangles, triangles and squared to produce work such as; Moss Ripple, Reverberating Segments, Gold Cross Hatch and Coliseum to name a few. She then explains how she began to see influences in structures of the past and contemporary building styles, she was intruded by how internal space and the construction articulate together, she then focused her work on this creating; Blackburn on the Hill, Concentric Flower, Chain of Diamonds, Marmor and Citadel to name a few. Through this she created Tsunami, her first piece which was curved and had no edges, like all of her previous work, this then influenced her to create Mag, Harlequin Shift, Carapace & Magma, Voluta and R.E.M to name a few. As her work began to develop, it began to become more complex and each piece of work began to become more detailed, soon she was using comments and observations by people at exhibitions to develop her work.

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

[INSPIRATION] Titmouse's Betty Boop 2017

This is a very interesting animation, Titmouse Inc are responsible fortelevison shows such as Home: Adventures with Tip and Oh, Moonbeam City and Son of Zorn and are also responsible for the feature film; Nerdland. This came out of nowhere as the last time Betty Boop was featured in new animation was around 30 years ago, now she is the new face for M·A·C Cosmetics. The entire premise of these three 30 second long shorts are simply to advertise a new dress collection designed by Zac Posen and a new M·A·C Cosmetics lipstick shade "Betty Boop Red".

This for me is interesting, as for me this is possibly the most recent use of mainstream rubber-hose animation since Futurama and The Simpsons parodied it, they then bring the animation back into colour at the very end when showing off the products, however the use of rubber-hose through out the animation is visually pleasing. The animation is clearly not done using traditional methods and is created using Flash I would assume. I personally found it a fantastic attempt to recreate rubber-hose animation and was very inspiring to watch.

[PRODUCTION] Week 9 - Finishing Scene 3 and going back to Scene 1

I was able to finish scene 3 this week and now I can focus more on the finalization on every unfinished shot thus far. I have currently finished off shot 6 and 8 from scene 1, I still need to try to get shots 2, 10 and 11 finished, shot 11 shouldn't be too hard to complete however, I feel that 2 and 10 will eat up a good amount of time as the majority of these shots are just a floating head. I still need to animate the body rotating and moving, this will take me a few hours to complete.

I am hoping that throughout next week I am able to get a few more shots finished, perhaps complete all of scene 1.

[LECTURE] Lecture 5 - The Brothers Mcleod

The Brothers Mcleod are made up of two brothers; Greg Mcleod and Myles Mcleod. Greg is an award winning illustrator and animator who has worked on a variety of projects using his distinctive hand drawn art style. Myles on the other hand is an award winning writer who has written for children’s television, animation, lyrics and music for songs. The two brothers are directors and set up The Brothers Mcleod in late 2006 after working at their family company Spark Zoom. Spark Zoom focused on creating eLearning material, and although the brothers were working for themselves, the job wasn’t their primary interest. While working at Spark Zoom, ther used the facilities to record silly voices and try animating over them, through this they began to bend the work they had to do into something they wanted to do. Soon they were contacted by the BBC to produce 10 x 5 minute animations, and through this their business The Brothers Mcleod set off.

The two brothers began their presentation with a show reel, they explained that students would often ask them what a good show reel was, however they had never actually produced a show reel before, so this was their first unveiling and interpretation of a good show reel. Once they showed their show reel they began to explain their creative process; they explained that they both think visually to develop characters, narratives, stories and worlds. They did everything themselves in the beginning, and because of this they had control over everything, however now they outsource their work to freelance animators. Now when working on a project, they design everything, write everything, and then use a team of freelance animators who don’t work within their studio to animate the video. The brothers explained that this is one of the ways they have survived 10 years, because they don’t have to budget for an in-house animator, they can pick and choose who they want on each project making everything much more flexible. 

They then began to explain a project that has been in the making for some time, ‘Marfa’, a animated documentary about Greg’s trip to Marfa in Texas. While Greg was in Texas, he wanted to get as much information as possible for inspiration; photographs of various areas, audio recordings of different settings, local live bands and of course varieties of drawings and doodles. They were unsure about what style to go with for this animation, however they didn’t see this as a problem considering it is a personal project and they don’t have a deadline. As they were developing the idea, the style began to look visually similar to their previous animation ‘365’, one of their most successful animations. ‘365’ is an animation in which they drew a second of animation every day for a year, the Brothers Mcleod tried to push 365 as much as they could on Social media and they built up a huge following. They posted clips on Vimeo, kept people updated on Facebook and Twitter and accumulated a very large following, once released the film was seen by a large number of people and was sent around to many different festivals. This lead them to working for their biggest client; Disney.

Disney wanted the Brothers to create a bumper for Disney XD in a similar style to ‘365’, they gave the brothers a very tight deadline, however out of all the companies that were working for Disney at the time, the Brothers Mcleod were the only ones to actually submit the video by the deadline. From this they then started working with the shorts department, where they produced ‘Pranksgiving’ and a separate project where they were asked to pitch and produce a short series, once the project was finalized they were given two years to develop the animation.

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