Character Design

I think i'm pretty much set on the narrative for my animation and the method by which I want to do it (illustrated cel) so I thought I would conceptualise some characters and junk.

This was a response to Quentin Blake's style of animation depicting the flautist in my animation and one of the men.

This attempt is almost a direct copy of Scarfe's Mugabe piece just altered to fit one of my characters.

Thin man 1 concept

Fat man 2 concept

Flautist 1 concept

Possible frame 1

Storyboarding

I have started storyboarding my animation, here it is.

This is the time sheet that tells me when and where pretty much everything I want to happen in my animation will happen at the precise timing and frame.

This is a simple mock up of what will essentially be happening in my animation.

2 Men talking 0-3.3secs 40 frames

Slight Zoom, look of disgust at bum note 3.3-6.8secs 41 frames

Transition pan from men to buskers 6.8-8secs 15 frames

Buskers playing music (flautist & trombone) 8-10.2secs 26 frames

Back to men pointing and laughing at buskers 10.2-14.4secs 51 frames

Buskers playing on regardless. Holds up sign "casse toi" (fuck off) 14.4-16.3secs 23 frames

Instruments & music notes accumulate 'magically' 16.3-17.6secs 15 frames

Transition to men with musical notes 17.6-18.8secs 15 frames

Music 'consumes' men and makes them disappear with a pop 18.8-21.3secs 29 frames

Background from previous - nothing after men 'pop' 21.3-23.3secs 24 frames

Last trombone ditty 23.3-24.5secs 15 frames

Finish 24.5-26secs 20 frames

The Wall

After watching Pink Floyd's The Wall I was interested in incorporating some more abstract images in my animation. I particularly liked how shapes morphed and mutated into other things. This is something I would like to some how emulate in my animation.

The Dali-esque surrealism of Gerald Scarfe's illustrations were very interesting and I would like to try and emulate some of his styles if not in my eventual animation at least in experimentation.

A piece by Scarfe depicting Robert Mugabe.

Animation featured in The Wall by Scarfe.

Illustrative styles

After researching cel animation I was pretty interested in creating an entire animation from individual drawings. I realise the workload this implies (approx. 300 frames for a piece just over 20 seconds) but whatevs patience is a virtue and it would look pretty boss. So I took a look at some illustration bad boys.

This is standard Frank Miller a personal favourite of mine, would be pretty hard to maintain this style of illustration throughout a 300 frame animation however I thought his work was worth a mention.

This is obviously the work of Quentin Blake who's work is indelibly associated with Roal Dahl's tales. His scribbly almost care free styles, I feel, would be much easier to emulate over an entire animation. Also I feel the randomness of 'scribbliness' would be a rather interesting effect when introduced into an animation. Similar to how the characters are coloured (in simple felt tip) in the children's programme 'Roobarb and Custard' I like how the scribbled aspects of the piece moves in individual frames.

Obviously if I am to pursue this method when creating my animation I will have to choose a method of animation that will be simple enough to repeat many many times and also hold my interest for the duration of the process.

This is an animation I found while searching online. It effectively uses the stop motion method of animation and incorporates some lovely illustration. Worth a watch.

Back to Babel

Thought I'd mention that I considered watching 'Babel' the movie from which the music for this project was extracted. Then I thought 'nah!' Didn't want the movie to influence what I got from the music. I haven't even checked it out IMDB how's that for artistic integrity lol. 

Cel Animation

Ah this is just the grandaddy of all animation ain't it. Old uncle Walt gave us some right pleasures using this method. 

This is probably the most basic forms of animation where each individual frame is drawn by hand (usually at around 12fps compared to the usual 25-30fps of modern day to reduce the sheer amount of work involved in creating so many individual images) 

The method isn't dissimilar to any other form of animation, draw one image, draw another in a slightly different position etc. until an entire animation is built up, standard. 

Due to the sheer amount of drawings that have to be produced in order to create a good animation using this method instructions were often created to build individual characters such as 'Mickey Mouse' or 'Bugs Bunny' so many artists and designers could create the images at one time using the same character.

Often the artist in control of the production would only draw the key frames and leave the rest of the 'tween' frames to be drawn by the production team.

Thought I'd just quickly chuck this in as a self confessed marvel geek. It shows the painted acetate spiderman which would then be placed over a separate background. This meant that the background did not have to be drawn and painted in every single frame and allowed individual characters animations to be built up at the same time.

Stop-motion and Claymation

This is quite a nostalgic bit of research for me as claymation was something of a teenage hobby for me, I was obsessed with the work of internet claymation big man Knox and his funnies inspired me to create my own little animations. Unfortunately this was before the age of freely available digital cameras and I filmed mine on an old hi-8 vidcam otherwise I'd post some of the immature crap I made. Here's a link to knox's korner.

Can't really research Claymation without mentioning Aardman Animation's and Nick Park's Wallace and Gromit. So...

Also being a bit of a Star Wars fan I wanted to point out that Taun-tauns (hairy camel horse things on Hoth) AT-ATs and AT-STs (chicken walker robot things) were all shot using stop motion.

Here's a couple lovely little animations using stop motion. They communicate the music they are set to really well.

The Music

We have been tasked with creating an animation based on a short music clip. I'm not sure if its possible to post the clip I will do later if I can find out how. 

The clip is a short exert from the soundtrack of the motion picture 'Babel' starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett and directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu. 

The musical piece was created by the 'Nortec Collective' an electronica/norteno group based in Tijuana, Mexico.

I am particularly interested in the beginning of the extract. It features the most diverse aspects of the piece comparative to the main body of music that follows which to be honest, whilst I enjoyed, did become mildly monotonous and boring. 

The beginning of the piece contains what I believe to be a flute and trombone track, coupled with some dialogue.

Several words and ideas came to mind upon first hearing the track.

Europe - The dialogue appears to be european perhaps French or Spanish or maybe more eastern. I quite like the idea of a squalid parisian backstreet as the setting for my animation.

Busking - The free melodies that the instruments dictate forced images of street musicians to the fore front of my mind, already I was playing with loose narratives as I listened.

Alt. Jazz - This was my initial response at trying to find a genre as the  beginning of the piece appears to have little musical structure and uses traditional jazz instruments. (After listening to the piece a few times I realised that this part of the music appears to be a tuning session of some sort however that's kinda boring)

Oppression and subsequent Freedom - This is perhaps a more lateral view of the piece that I am not entirely sure how I came to. I felt that the dialogue had a somewhat mocking tone as the music began its messy and out of tune intro then the voices become quieter and eventually trail off as the music finds its structure and strength. 

I have searched for a couple of images that best represent the things I visualised as I listened to the piece.

This is a fair representation of the european street view that came to mind.

Buskers.