MAF Day 2 - Masterclass: Blue Zoo HooDoo

Speakers: Tom Box and Catherine Salkeld

#bzshorts

Catherine Salkeld pitched the idea HooDoo for the bzshorts project. Bzshorts, as the title suggest is a commitment for the Blue Zoo Studio to make a few short films throughout a year. The idea pitched for bzshorts are voted, and the one which win the voting will be developed for shorts. Consideration for bzshorts is a concept that pushes the studio forward.

HooDoo

Salkeld was inspired by the idea of tourist going on a holiday, breaking things. She imagined for  HooDoo to have a touristy feel, and its designs are inspired by vintage travel posters. Oculus is the VR goggles that they will be using so that people don't have to move around. The key to immersive storytelling in VR is having a few sub stories happening simultaneously in the whole setting in order to replicate reality; similar to a theatrical play with the player having first person point of view.

There are many challenges faced when making HooDoo. Here are some of them:

• Cues that help the audience focus on the narrative. For instance they deliberately made the section of the world break while the PoV camera was set to a fixed place to prevent audience from strolling away from the main set where the narrative takes place.
• Sound and music are crucial for the VR experience is to use sound to tease the viewers to make and do things for the narrative to progress.
• In HooDoo, they also attempt to use FMOD. A plugins to attach the sound of VR on different places in the scenes. WAV files can be attached to characters so that the volume varies in accordance to the position of the character. Procedural and sounds also follows where the viewer is looking, such that the music on the foreground reflects situation in the scene that's in front of us.
• Making sense of the simultaneous stories happening in the set for the viewers to not miss the important bits.

Conclusion

VR offers a more interactive way of telling stories, and it is a platform of creating a new and convincing content for animation. VR is its own niche in the world of commercial entertainment, and I don't think it can replace the method of existing animated films even when the basic principles of animation applies. This opportunity of trying out VR is a privilege for me as I can hardly get my hands into cutting edge gadgets in day to day life. I am fascinated by the development of VR technology throughout the years. The future is happening, and I got to enjoy it!! (couldn't be more critical than that)

MAF Day 2 - In the Frame: Women in Animation

In The Frame: Women in Animation

Leeds Animation Workshop

A feminist animation studio based in Leeds, established in 1960s. The intention of building a studio is because they feel that no woman is speaking for herself as a human. The Leeds Animation Workshop's purpose is to call for a change and fight back for discrimination of gender instead victimising themselves. They make animated films discussing about current issues through a feminist perspective, while considering ways to ethically represent woman in animation. 

Ethel and Ernest

Not a gender biased animated film, in the sense that it portrays Ethel's role as the pillar in the family realistically. A lead female character that is just a normal working class woman, and not a princess. Ethel also appears as much as Ernest (her husband) in the film.

The film is set at a period of social change and the narrative is how they cope with this social changes. Ethel is vocal about her opinion when discussing political issues and make political banter with her husband; a representative figure of the early feminists.

The portrayal of Ethel is also not exaggerated. For instance, she still has a more conservative mindset while Ernest is more leftist and open-minded. Ernest still make sexist jokes about Ethel's meddlesome attitude towards political affairs.

Joanna Quinn: Girl's Night Out

An appreciation of middle-aged women in comedy animation. It is also a campaign to stand up for sexism in the workplace. I like the expressiveness of Joanna Quinn's animation. The realistic representation of film characters is a change that the speakers expect on the TV animation in the future.

Conclusion

This talk has taught me more about the essence of making short films. I think all the films above has left a strong impression on the issue of female representation in animated films to myself as an artist. As a woman, I myself try to avoid discussing feminism in public because it is a touchy conversation topic. I definitely have respect for these women who use the animation medium to tell people stories that can influence opinion and changes the world's perspective on feminism to the audience regardless of their gender. The talks has also changed my mind on the feminist philosophy because more often than not the undiscerning public had the wrong conception of feminism as a threat against men, while in reality it is just to challenge the discrimination against female in animated films.

When it comes to having a female protagonist in animation, the stumbling block is the dilemma between the popularity of content and audience demographic. For instance, the older generation have the presumption that girls don't buy toys and how some animations are made to commercialise toys. On the other hand, the younger audience have the preconception that preschool female character is bossy and dominant like Peppa Pig. It is definitely something that I did not think of, but I want to know more about. Maybe it is worth analysing in another post?

MAF Day 1 - My Life as a Courgette

A stop-motion clay animation that touches on the issue of kids living in the orphanage. My Life as a Courgette does not appear like an emotional film, but it makes audience cry by the end of the movie. It a really beautiful piece, and I think that this film is a breakthrough in the world of animation because it does not sugarcoat the reality of the life of kids in the orphanage unlike some other Hollywood animated features that wants to advocate positivity yet fails to do so, and became superficial, because the positivity that they are promoting is too good to be true. Courgette, on the other hand, managed to use realism to evoke an emotional response from the audience, and hence is a more successful film in my opinion.

The character designs of the animation tells a lot about each of the character's background story, and makes it easy for the audience to follow the trait of the characters. Also, there is no obvious villains in the story. The whole animation is a journey with situations and obstacles for the main character, Courgette, to overcome which makes the story more personal, and make the audience empathise him better. Despite the depth of the issue discussed in the film, My Life as a Courgette is also a children-friendly film because all the tragedy that happened in the film are subtly communicated in terms of visuals, and is more heavily discussed in the narration.

MAF Day 1 - Short Films Highlight

Fox and Whale

Visually stunning shorts about an epic journey of a fox to find a whale. The film is a pure eyegasm, with advanced visual effects of the environment, while the fox character is 2D animated. Yet another sucessful combination between 2D and 3D medium.

Kaputt

A documentary animation about the life in women prison. It has an interesting animation technique, by not totally rubbing off the previous drawings, giving the animation a surreal look.

How Long, Not Long

Expeimental animation made based on Martin Luther King's speech with the same title. It is a compilation of unrelated footages with Martin Luther King's recorded original speech as a background sound. A propaganda piece that pitched the idea of social change, and advocating a social revolution of the future. The rotoscoping technique used really works well with the message and the aesthetic says it all about social revolution through the use of bold colours superimposed to a white background similar to the colours used in protest and propaganda art. 

MAF Day 1 - Joanna Quinn Life Drawing Workshop

A workshop run by veteran animator Joanna Quinn, whose work I adored. It is a 2 hours life drawing session, but it is not just a normal life drawing session. Despite the fact that I have been regularly attending life drawing sessions last year, I learned a lot from this workshop because Joanna Quinn puts life drawing into the context of animation. She emphasised the importance of capturing the gestures and movements, instead of focusing on 'replicating the life drawing model', or in other words the aesthetic of the drawings produced.

The workshop focuses on getting effective information from the poses in a short period of time because a fresh pose does not last for long. Each of the poses last for 30 seconds to 1 minute.

I am a slow drawer so I struggled a lot to keep up with the timing. I tend to take my time to think of where to put the lines, and from the session, I learnt that it is not good to do so. A good practice, as Joanna Quinn has taught us based on her experience, is to finish up the rough first and go back at it once the rough is done to start to add on details and clean up the drawings.

Another useful tip that I have got is that drawing by looking at negative space would help to get the proportion right. By doing so, the person who are drawing will see the model as a whole, and not just focusing on getting some specific parts of the body right.

Joanna Quinn emphasised the importance of the line of motion and weights in drawing for animation. When working with rough of the character, she suggested that we can start to make spaghetti rough (parallel lines which bends according to the line of motion) to focus on the squash and stretch aspect of the movement. After when we got the bend and twist right, we can add more details on the character so that it is more believable. Interesting gestures consist of overlapping shapes and their movements around 3D space when the character is moving.

Lastly, we studied how lines could convey energy and emotions of a character to the audience: happy, sad, fear and arrogance. Sometimes we overlook the power of lines in a drawing, especially in conveying the energy of a character in an animation. I learned that gestures that are emotionally positive consist of lines that faces upwards, while the emotionally negative gestures have the lines facing downwards, putting more weight on a character.

Q&A:

Someone asked whether she animates on ones or on twos, Joanna animates on twos and she talked about her recent visit to Walt Disney Animation Studio with Richard Williams, and how Richard reanimated a scene of Milt Kahl's animation on ones, and make them look better than the original ones. She acknowledged that animating on ones are better than animating on twos. It makes the animation smoother, but not always feasible due to having to produce work with limited resources.

We are the Universe

A looping animation that I made for Leeds Light Night which took place in early October. It is based on the theme Elements. The element that I chose is air, and this animation is about the process of breathing in and breathing out. It is a never-ending process, which makes me think that it is a good concept for a looping animation. 

Why the swirls? We often overlook the most fundamental interaction between human and their surroundings, breathing. The swirls is a visual representation of this interaction which serves as a reminder that we cannot live without the element. 

The animation is a combination of animation techniques including pixilation and hand-drawn with ink, with a little bit of editting on Photoshop before they are compiled together in After Effects. It is an experimental process, which is currently what I feel passionate about because it gives a kind of aesthetic that cannot be achieved by solely relying on one medium.

PPP2 Collaborative Session

For PPP today, we are working with some Graphic Designers and Illustrators on a collaborative project. It is a fun and eye-opening session, which makes me feel really productive from the usual PPP session for last year. We had lots of laugh and there is no formality in this session. It was overall a good riddance. 

At the start of the lesson, we, the animators were separated into groups. My group was designated at the Graphic Design studio, in which we met the graphic designers and illustrators. It was a nerve-wrecking experience to just go to another studio that I don't usually work in and seeing new faces.

The first 5 minutes, we are instructed to list down our skills, interests and some things that we want to do in the future. Yes, I have not got a clue of what I want to do in the future as you can see from the photo below. Most of my interests revolve around feeding myself intellectually with new information and experiences. Well, I think, at the very least, it is good that I have an open-minded attitude to explore new things because it propels me to progress in my creative practice.

We work in pairs for the second task. I got Josh who is an illustrator as a partner, and we came up with the idea of an app called the Book Jukebox. This app serves as an instrumental backing tracks that enhances reading experience, and works in partnership with audible.com and kindle. For instance, if the reader is reading a horror themed book, the app will automatically generate a playlist of eerie and mysterious ambient music to set up the mood for the reader. We considered the subscription fees and offers for this app based on the price that have been set by spotify. (i.e: cost a tenner for monthly subscription fees, fiver for students and one month free trial) Josh and I think that this idea was brilliant and feasible, but sadly we did not win the vote. I enjoyed working with Josh because he makes really quick decisions and he has a friendly character, so it does not take a long time to break the ice and start to crack on working.  

Task 2 - Working in pair

The one that made it through the vote is this game show called Oink Jump made by Ollie and Joe. It is basically Takeshi Castle combined with Wipe Out with pigs participating in it. It came across as a joke, which is why we decided to proceed with this idea. The funnier it is, the better. I did not participate much in this one because Joe, who came up with the idea, clearly know where the idea is going, so he assigned tasks for each of the group members to make posters and present a summary of the challenges in the show for the one minute presentation. I got to make poster for the stage called Pig Soapbox, simply a soapbox racing competition in which contestants have to build a soapbox with some materials provided and race towards the finish line. Although Oink Jump is a crazy idea, people were more intrigued by the kinky Dog Latex project which won the class vote.

Poster for Oink Jump

The final task is to make a 30 seconds advertisement for the winning product, which is the Dog Latex, in the span of time of 2 and a half hours. This is where the animators play a big role because they need people who can edit videos and animate some assets. The technical skills that we learnt in class comes into use when we are grouped with people from different disciplines to make their idea comes to life. This seems like a simulation in a professional studio, in which we work based on our strengths with the sole purpose to resolve a brief given by the client within a limited time frame. I can feel the adrenaline rush, and I learn to be steadfast in responding to a given task and make quick decisions so that I will not hold back the other group members' work. We came up with a dodgy Television Shopping style advertisement with obscure elevator music, like those done by the company called Muzak, tacky sound effects and lots of Comic Sans and horrible colours. This whole experience made me learn some other thing: designers poke fun by intentionally fucking up their own designs and the design rules that we learnt meant to be broken.

P.S.: Video will be uploaded once it is up on YouTube

PPP1 Evaluation

In this module, I learn to develop my personal skills such as reflecting, researching for the things that interest me, and doing oral presentations. I enjoyed this module because it engages me with the up to date information about the animation industry, and helps me arrived to an informed decision of what I wanted to focus on in the future. I found that I am keen to do animation that is experimental in nature, and does not have a definite outcome, and that I am interested in the art of communicating messages to the audience. Although I enjoyed slapstick animations, I don't think it is right for people to just narrow down animation as slapstick entertainment.

I was not a reflective person, and I just go with the flow without thinking of the things that I have done. In fact, I am always on the run, keeping myself occupied even though I am not doing college work. The PPP module helps me to make time to reflect on things that I have done. Through my research, I also learnt that artists often keep journals and derive project ideas from the thoughts that they have written in their journals. This evidenced that a good artists generate ideas from their thoughts on big and small issues that happen in their day to day life.

A major mistake that I made while doing this brief is underestimating it. I always think that I have a year to finish this brief, and as usual, I procrastinated. As a result, I am still typing out this evaluation at home 30 minutes before the deadline. I would like to address this problem next year, and force myself to be more disciplined so that I can produce a work that I am proud of, instead of making a rushed product that does not satisfies myself in the end.

Understanding Copyright

Copyright

• Depends on the scale of its usage
• Authors have the right to object the use of their materials
• In the UK, copyright is automatic, and there is no registration system.
• Who owns the copyright? The one who made the work, but sometimes contents posted on social networking sites and image hosting sites might have terms and conditions regarding this. So, as artists, we should not be indifferent to these terms and conditions and read it prior to posting any content to avoid future problems.
• The duration of copyright in general: Life + 70 years
• Duration for sound recordings: 70 years
• Copyright is a sensitive issue in the commercial business, such that we should respect the owner of the intellectual property that we want to include by getting the owner and the organisation/company's permission if we were to use it for commercial purpose.
• How to prove that I originated a piece of work? Solicitor owns it, prove when you made it, authenticity, and the easiest way is to just post it to yourself.
• How to set a copyright into your work? Simply put ©Your Name and year of publication

Fair Use

• To make a statement based on a pre-existing content
• Educational purpose

Copyleft

• Non-profit
• Author may give every person who receives a copy of a work permission to reproduce, adapt or distribute it.
• Something that is freely available

Creative Commons

• Share, remix and reuse, even for commercial purpose as long as artists are credited
• Simple, standardised - straightforward (opposite to 'All Rights Reserved)
• Non-derivatives - not changed, gets credits
• Non commercial

Reflect Presentation

What have I learned?

I learnt that animating is a tedious process, that I have to associate an animator with a hermit. Not being familiar with the software used to make an animation might be a contributing factor for this tedium. For instance, I tend to do things the hard way because I have no clue of how to do it in the fastest way. Fortunately, many people in the class gladly point out my mistakes, and help me figured out how to use the tools that could make the process even faster.

Outside the course, I learnt some basic survival skills such as cooking and getting a place to stay in for the night when I got locked outside my place (and my phone died when I was just about to ring my flatmates) after a night out. I never cooked in my whole life before I came here mainly because I spent the past 5 years living in a boarding school and food had always being served three times a day. Although I am far from being a professional chef, I am happy with what I cook. Moreover, cooking has become a ritual for me to unwind after a busy day of animating in the studio.

Here goes the long story of me getting locked out for a night: I was out with some people in the course, and apparently I dropped my key at one of their place (oh lucky me). So, I went back to my place without knowing that I dropped my key. I arrived at my place without my key, but my phone died when I tried to call my flatmates. So, I went to a nearby takeaway place to take shelter like a hobo ,but unfortunately, they were closing at that time. Luckily, there are these two guys called Issac and Dinko who were still waiting for their food to be served. I was reluctant to ask them to let me stay at my place, but I had no choice. So, I decided to go for it, and they both treated me well, lend me a charger and let me sleep on a couch in their living room after a little bit of friendly chat. I went home the next morning with my phone fully charged. Ultimately, this incident reminds me to check on my key every now and then and restored my faith in humanity.

What I Want to Learn?

I would like to learn how to use lighting which can influence the mood of my animation and make the flat 2D characters look solid, which has been done really well in My Family and the Wolf and  Disney's Feast. Despite the latter involves modelling and animating the character in 3D, and having the final outcome being painted over so that it looks 2D.

Although Mike told us that comparing our work with Disney animation and those made by professional animators is toxic, I still think it is a good to aspire and work towards making a professional-looking animation. From the graduate films that I watched in Manchester Animation Festival, it could be observed that their films have the quality of professionally made animated films. Hence, I still think that having a high expectation of myself when making a project is important, even if I have to figure things out by myself.

I would also learn the process of making my own audio for an animation. I've not taken much consideration of the audio that I put into my animation because I often leave it to the last minute. I took a small step forward by helping Tom (Hallgarten) with the sound effects for his E4 ident.

What Have I Enjoyed?

Model Making

We had an induction on plasticine model making last January. I really enjoyed the induction because I am doing other things apart from producing an animation. Initially, I made my character, Diedre, out of a joke that I made up with Natalia (Eristavi), but I ended up enjoying sculpting her butt and breast, and managed to make it perfect!

Manchester Animation Festival

Apart from events, MAF gave me the opportunity to get to know the second years and get along with my classmates.

Visual Language

Environmental Storytelling

Perspective drawing has always been my weakness because it looks complex, and that's why I don't usually draw backgrounds, or rather made them flat if I have to make one. However, the study task have changed my perception of background drawing. I considered portraying the same environment in 5 different styles, although the process is rather experimental, I am really satisfied with the outcome that I get.

Life Drawing

I've never got a chance to do life drawing back in my home country because they usually cost more than 20 quids per session, whereas it is ten times cheaper to do it in college. Hence, I took the chance to train my observational skills by attending them regularly. Life drawing drastically changed the way I draw, and it makes my drawing more solid. Also, it keeps me mind of the solid shapes of the characters that I'm animating.

Pixilation
I really enjoy making my pixilation at the beginning of the year. Although, it is simple it has vast benefits. One of the time when pixilation saved my life is when I could not find a royalty free footage online for my Hallmark ident. I decided to make my own pixilation of a teapot pouring tea into a cup. The benefit of recording a pixilation is that it can be tweened on Photoshop to create a more fluid looking movement rather than slowing down the speed of a video.

Motion Graphics
I made a motion graphics (mograph) for my Context of Practice animation, and again, I decided to play around a software that I am unfamiliar with, After Effects. I was highly motivated to try out and make a mograph when I saw Elliot Lim's the Wire title sequence, which I did for my PPP Disseminate presentation. The process of making the assets on Adobe Illustrator takes a long time, but animating in After Effects is really quick, even quicker than making an animation on Photoshop as it has more varieties of tool to play around with to make a good animation.

Dislikes?

Presentation
I gets nervous really easily, and therefore I often go off script. It does not seem too obvious when I have to present about myself, but the problem comes when I have to deliver a presentation about factual information to the audience, which is why I screwed up my PPP Disseminate presentation. Also, as strange as it sounds, I feel insecure if I had a script with me, such that I kept on referring to it as I am presenting, even though I know what I am talking about. I have not found a comfortable way to do a presentation, and that's why I dislike it.

Unfinished Animation
I did not manage to finish my animation 'The Other Side' brief, which upsets me and discouraged me to continue making an animation. It took me a while to recover from being disappointed in myself, and force myself to get back on animating for the next module. This is also contributes to my decision in making Idents for the Applied Animation module because I felt overwhelmed as I saw the requirements in the other briefs to produce 30 seconds animation.

Mistakes

Unfinished Animation
My diligence only last up to the pre-production process because I felt the instant gratification of finishing the pre-production, and do not feel like jumping into the production of the actual animation, often not being aware of the fact that I am in an animation course, and I have to present a finished animation for the final outcome. This resulted on a bad mistake of not finishing an animation for 'The Other Side'.

Planning Great Things but Ended up Not Doing It in the End
Sidetracking is a bad habit that I always made. I always came up with an interesting idea, which I simplified to the extent that it does not seem extraordinary to me anymore. This is makes me unsatisfied of the work that I produced.

Strengths

I like to Experiment

I could not say that I am Jack of All Trades since I have no prior knowledge of industry standard softwares, but I process and apply new skills quickly, which is why I like to try out new things and explore the possibilities that I could achieve from learning to use these softwares. If I am interested in a medium, I tried to go beyond what have been taught in college, and challenged myself to learn new skills made available in online learning platforms, such as tutorials on YouTube. 

Affable Personality

Coming from a foreign country, I settled down and fitted in to the environment pretty quick because of my chirpy personality. I like to engage myself with productive and unproductive conversation, and respect my classmates' opinions. 

Perfectionist

A strength that I have to compromise most of the time because of my bad time management, but I still has it in me. Instead of incorporating this strength to my work, it helps me to be critical of my other classmate's work when they asked for feedback. 

Weakness

Bad Time Management

Time management is always an issue in every brief that I do. I tend to leave things to the last minute and succumb to the cramming culture. I can't escape from the adrenaline rush of chasing the deadline even though I tried to make work commitments because I am a rebel, and I like to deviate from my schedule.

Get Nervous Easily

It is hard to maintain eye contact with people, especially during a presentation because of this. Having an eye contact intimidates me, and resulted on forgetting the information that I am presenting.

Not Planning Ahead

In the beginning of the year, I made schedules and targets to organise my work. It does not work because I often deviate from the original plan, so I am not doing it anymore.

Goals

Achieved

• Make an animation with different medium
• Improved my drawing skills

Not Achieved

• Work-life balance

Manchester Animation Festival: The Remaking of Danger Mouse

Why reboot the Danger Mouse now? Would it lives up to the expectation of the audience who have seen the original series? There are many other questions that we raised when it comes to making a remake of classic animated series. At Manchester Animation Festival, the production team of the new Danger Mouse came to talk about how they remake the films and make a fresh image of Danger Mouse that caters to present day audience.

Their reason for rebooting the series is to look for new content based on the what they remembered from the old show. Furthermore, it could potentially encourage the audience to look back and re-watch the original series. These forward looking incentives gave confidence to the team to bring back the comedic superhero series back to the television screen.

In the production stage, they took a more careful approach developing the script by having minimum 4 writers to revisit the script and make some changes to get the best outcome. The writers also need to take vulgarity and adult contents out of the film so that it is appropriate for younger audience. Main characters in the series have been redesigned and given more structure so that their shape could be consistently drawn by the animators which is necessary especially if they outsourced labour from another country.

Manchester Animation Festival

We went to Manchester Animation Festival (MAF) last November, where we attended some master classes and watched the some animations that is nominated to be given an award. Coming to MAF is an eye-opening experience for me because, initially, my knowledge of animation is limited to mainstream animated films and the videos of animated films uploaded by CGBros, but now I am aware of the independent animation which shows that an animation artist can do so much more rather than working on 3D CGI animated films. This gave me a relief since I am not a tech savvy person, and solely working on 3D seems overwhelming. Also, I figured that I would like to make animations which focuses on the building up of suspense more than the character because I am impressed with an animation titled 'Teeth', one of the short film entries that made into the festival. Without exposing the face character, this animation effectively builds up the horrific suspense throughout the film. 

teeth from holbrooks on Vimeo.

Some other animations that I liked from the festival (which I'd like to go through but I don't have time to do it):

• Guida
• We Can't Live Without Cosmos
• Klementhro (Skwigly)
• The Moustache

Rilla Alexander

The Best Book in the World does live up to its name as Rilla has successfully incorporated innocence and fun into an illustrated children storybook that even adults can enjoy. In an interview, Rilla said that all the books that she made revolves around a character called Sozi, which is inspired by a doll that her grandmother made for her when she was little. Sozi represents Rilla in all her books, who travels in a wonderful fictional world. The unique storyline made the reader want to read the book all over again as the story does not end on the last page. Instead, at the end of the book, Rilla encourages the reader to read it again and again. The illustration in the book is also fantastic as they seems to be in a continuous movement despite being still imagery, which reminds me of Dr. Seuss's storybook. It is because the Rilla drew the characters when each of them is in the middle of doing an action. 

My Family and the Wolf

A teaser of an animated film by Headless Production about a boy on a summer vacation with his family. The golden lighting in the film gives off a nostalgic feeling to the audience, and the narration also enhances the vibe. I really like the environment design with rough textures on objects, such as those on the trees and houses. Textures and lighting in the background made the whole animation looks solid, despite having flat characters on the foreground.

The lighting plays an integral role to the change of mood in the trailer, and foreshadows something mystical that is going to be revealed at the end of the trailer.


"MY FAMILY AND THE WOLF" teaser from Headless Productions on Vimeo.

Scratchy Scratchy Scratch Like Steven Woloshen

At first glance, abstract animation seems weird to me. The first abstract animation that I watched is Scribble Dub by Ross Hogg, and after finished watching it draws my curiosity towards the making process of the scratchy aesthetic in his animation, and figured out that the artist scratches on top of a film, and is 'scanned' into a machine that will process it into a film. I'd like try some experimental things like this just because it looks fun to make.

I saw this banner earlier when I opened up Skwigly's main page and looked up the artist who made it as it reminds me of Scribble Dub. Apparently, the animator, Steven Woloshen, has been a pioneer of this abstract animation movement since the 80s. His work shows coherence between animation and sound as if he made the animation as he listens to the music, but that might just be my own speculation. Also, the scratching over used films worked really well with the beat of the music.

Steven Woloshen Tumblr: http://scratchatopia.tumblr.com/


Absolutely Monstra from steven Woloshen on Vimeo.

Jean Jullien

Jean Jullien is an illustrator based in London who drew funny characters that communicates his opinion on small and big issues in the current society.  I still enjoy browsing through art accounts on Instagram that showcase elaborate and polished work, but I could appreciate his work better because of their simplicity. Jullien's work inspires me to keep my work simple yet meaningful for the target audience. I used to think that details contributes to the audience's appreciation towards artwork, and I tend to neatly draw elaborate pattern so that my artwork looks 'completed'. (which seems frivolous after I think about it again)

I found this excerpt of Jullien's sketchbook on his portfolio blog that contains his daily illustrated journal. This is pretty similar to Ross Hog's animated sketchbooks in which both artists took down notes of what they did or what do they think of in a day. From what I observed based on these artists'sketchbook, making a daily journal makes the things that happens in a day count, and might possibly be an inspiration for future projects. I've been diligently filling up some observational sketchbooks this year, but maybe I should record down my personal life and thoughts more because it might be interesting to look at in the future.

Jean Jullien has proven that an illustrator can also be an animator by collaborating with his brother to make some animated shorts on Vimeo. The storytelling element in illusration and animation is closely related,and there are some illustrators making their own animation. This combined with the fact that animating took a long time to finish often give me the dilemma to change course to Illustration. I could safely say that I have resolved this problem now as I could extend my talent in illustrating to make animation that stands out because of its unique aesthetic quality. 

the phone from Jullien Brothers on Vimeo.

Edinburgh College of Art Print Fair (24/03/2016)

During the Spring break, I went to Edinburgh and visits different art venues, one of which is Edinburgh College of Art as they are having an Open Day and Print Fair that is open for public. 

Me and my friends talked to some of the artists who are selling zines and prints, and they passionately explained their artwork to us. Coming to the print fair encouraged me to have more enthusiasm for the work that I am doing. Although I don't have any physical product to be showcased, I could use online platform such as Vimeo to create an online portfolio to talk about my work.

I gravitate to alternative culture, such as collecting zines and admiring contemporary installation art, which many thinks as pointless and pretentious. It is an eye opening experience to see artists' work as each of them informs different beliefs held by the artist. Hence, made me aware of and able to appreciate other people's opinion. Also, it gave me a food for thought on the subject matter incorporated in the artworks.

Motion Graphics Animation

An animation that I made for Context of Practice, and my first attempt to make motion graphics. I am really satisfied with how it turned out as I managed to overcome obstacles that prevails, big and small, without much assistance. This also encourages me to make animations with After Effects because it is easier to get work done rather than relying on just one software to animate, which I used to do with Photoshop. I learned to become an active learner by looking up video tutorials online, which are really useful and easily accessible for beginners, although I need to spend more time on the software to get better at it.


The Animation Industry from Brenda Christie Muliawan on Vimeo.

Studio Ghibli Animated Films

Source: ​exploring the international appeal of japan’s studio ghibli

As a child, I always prefer Studio Ghibli's films over 'educational Western cartoons', such as Disney films, and my parents are always worried about this preference. I remembered I borrowed some DVDs from a friend and have to watch these secretly from my parents (as if it was porn haha). This is because my parents often overthink that there is some demonic elements in Japanese Animation. However, I found that Ghibli films are more interesting to watch as they portray each characters realistically as compared to heroes and heroines in general who have extraordinary attributes. Also, the plots in Ghibli Films takes into account the development of other supporting characters as well, which makes the audience appreciate the characters'contribution to the storyline, even the villains.

Animation Exercise

Ross Hog, creator of Scribble Dub, made a thing called 'Animated Sketchbook' where he created a simple looping animation weekly and post it on his Vimeo channel. The animation is made based on what he observed or imagined during a day. I want to do this weekly over the Summer Break so that I can easily animate from my imagination more because most of the time I relied on online footage or self-recorded footage to refer to when animating the desired movements. Recalling sequence of motion and translate it to an animation has always been my weakness, and I want to work on this weakness as I hate relying on references because the animation that I produce seems to be restricted to the reference that I use. I think through observing and using my imagination to make an animation would incorporate a more personal tone of voice to my animation.



Animated Sketchbook - page 23 from Ross Hogg on Vimeo.

Monster Stains

Source: Aardman Sells Persil Laundry Detergent With A Short, ‘Monster Stains’

I like this advertisement because it uses animation to communicate message which represent the brand's tone of voice. In the professional level, animation is not just a mere slapstick entertainment but it is a medium to communicate a message, be it representative or presentative in nature. The appeal in Monster Stains is the making process of the animation reflecting the idea that 'every stain tells a story'. The animators from Aardman took an unconventional approach to make this frame-by-frame animation by painting with 28 common household stains on white shirts, and wash them afterwards with the detergent.

Another way to look at it, is that they demonstrates ethical practice by reducing wastage, such that instead of drawing on paper, the animators reuse shirts in the making process. (although you might counter argue that the detergent is causing water pollution, but that's another story for another day)

Run Baby Run

Recently, I've been reading Juztapoz's website, which reviews contemporary art and culture. I found this peculiar animation of baby running as I was browsing the page. Initially, I thought it was just a dodgy CGI animation, such as those on YouTube where people make a model with Maya and contorted it, but the people making this actually went for the extra miles of 3D printing the baby figures and took it outdoor to make a stop-motion animation. 

Going back to the old way of making animation while still utilising cutting edge technology has become a trend in the animation industry. It gives back the fun in making animation and adds more value to the film itself because of its unconventional making process. I would like to engage myself in this sort of process because it gives me the opportunity to creatively combine different medium instead of restricting myself to solely rely on cutting edge software to make an animation. 

Elliot Lim's The Wire Title Sequence

I have recently found this title sequence animation by Elliot Lim as I was browsing some animation on Vimeo as a part of my research for the upcoming Disseminate presentation, and I will do my presentation based on this animation because I love it so much. For the presentation, I will analyse the animation to find out the things which I think are important to make an interesting motion graphic animation. My point of interest in The Wire is the minimalist graphic style which comes together perfectly with the seamlessly smooth movements of the animation. Unlike many motion graphics animation which aesthetic usually has only flat silhouette and/or 2D basic shapes in them, this animation has intricate illustrations, like those in graphics magazines, that came to life. The most interesting thing about flat vector illustrations is its unique perspective, not based on the realistic point perspectives which is really technical and difficult to grasp especially if the projection lines are not drawn on the paper. In The Wire, Elliot shows that motion graphics enables him to creatively experiment with rather surreal transitions, such as when he makes a follow through movement as the buildings slides out of the screen swiftly. The Wire inspires me to learn more about the process of making a motion graphics animation and to come up with the idea of doing some experimentation in After Effects in my own free time.

Skype Interview with Glyn Dillon

Today, I sneak into the illustration studio for a Skype interview with the guy who is one of the concept artist for Star Wars: The Fore Awakens costume department. During the interview, he talked his career and gave us some advice along the way. Dillon started his career as a comic artist which lasted him for a short while, and then he jumps on to television and magazines where he worked with Jamie Hewlett to do some of the storyboard for Gorillaz's animated music video. He thinks that working with Hewlett in this project involves more to and fro interaction between artists, which makes it more enjoyable as compared to his previous job. Now, he works as a costume designer and shares a studio space with his wife in London.

Dillon shared his day to day practices as a comic book illustrator during pre-production stage. He started with some rough ideas of the story, and put them into treatment. He specified that the first page of the treatment should refine the rough ideas, the next four pages should lay out a detailed plan of the setting of the story and the characters (concept art), and the rest 11 pages should have every single thing happens in the story. After finishing the treatment, he made a few sample pages of the comic strips, then he went to his editors who will read the script. If they like it, the project will commence. These practices are quite similar to what we do in college during the pre-production process of our animation which we learnt on the Process and Production module. However, there is a clear difference between comic book and storyboard as he told us; comic book and end product while storyboard will be further processed to produce film.

Transitioning from traditional to digital medium was not easy for him either, he got his friend, Rob Bliss, who worked for the concept art of the Harry Potter film, to teach him to paint digitally. He is much better now in terms of using different brushes in Photoshop, but he told us that he is not that familiar with the digital medium still, and that he learnt what he needs to know. I do see the need to prioritise in this as we do not have the luxury of time to be good at everything, but sometimes I do get jealous of people who can do something that I can't, and I challenge myself to try it out.

Being a Star Wars fan since a really young age, Dillon always aspires to work in the production of Star Wars film. How did he get the dream job and how did he manage to live up to the expectation of the spectators? He told us that years of experience in the relevant industry made him get the job, while he's happy with the job, he also felt pressure as a concept artist as he needs to redesign the costumes for a giant franchise like Star Wars. He told us that it is not a one-man job, he highlighted that communication is important in such big projects. For instance, he sought advice from expert in the fields of military outfits and consulted with his friend who worked on the costume design for Kingsman by showing his sketches and ask for their opinion about it. While creating a new villain for this new Star Wars movie, he also took into consideration that it should be as good as the iconic villain in the preceding Star Wars film, Darth Vader. It took the concept artists 8 months to independently develop designs for  the new villain to get a design that is really captivating for kids, and less of dark elements.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens Costume Concept Art

At the end of the interview, Dillon gave us some food for thought like being persistent and trying out new things. In the end, to be successful an artist needs to be persistent, and he can't just rely on his talent alone. Make relevant good work, present them to impress the people we want to work with so that we have our dream job. Getting a dream job is not the end, it is always good to take on the challenge of doing something that's out of our comfort zone.

Some specific advices:

• For those who aspire to be a comic book artist: make zines, show your work at comic festivals, also show ability to draw different range of poses from extreme poses to neutral poses like sitting in a cafe.
• For those who aspire to be a storyboard artist: Be fast, be clear, know the 180 degree rule, learn cinematic knowledge, have a drawing bootcamp once in a while or, for starters, draw out some scenes from your favourite movies. 
• Getting a job: Find list of names of people from IMDB, contact them, present relevant portfolio and give them a concise CV, be proactive.

I think it is the most inspiring talk that I've went to since I get into the college, I'd be glad if the Animation department can invite a speaker like Dillon to our class.

Dillon working on his comic

A Brief Insight from The Coup

I saw The Coup earlier on Skwigly, it is a comedic commercial short with classic slapstick humour content that reminds me of The Grand Budapest Hotel which is a film by Wes Anderson. The quirky background music also resembles those classical action films like The Man from U.N.C.L.E and Mission Impossible. What a nostalgia! Films might be different from animation, however in these film the actors act like characters in old-school cartoons as they make a lot of exaggerated movements.

I am amazed by the directors of this film as they creatively incorporate what is not real into the realistic world with no budget. The ease of access of technology that is used in the present animation and film industry gives hope for anyone to start making their own independent films and animations.

The Coup

The Grand Budapest Hotel by Dir. Wes Anderson

Kitty-in-Boots

Source: Beatrix Potter story Kitty-in-Boots discovered after 100 years

Totally unrelated to animation, but this news really got me excited! The raw manuscript of Kitty-in-Boots by Beatrix Potter were found just recently, and it has been decided that the production of this book will resume as Quentin Blake, a children book illustrator, is keen to illustrate the book.

Quentin's Illustration in Roald Dahl's Fantastic Mr Fox

I am really passionate about Quentin Blake's work mainly because he made illustrations with ink and watercolours, which are my favourite drawing media. Some of my illustrations are heavily influenced by Quentin Blake's rough drawing style as I love the spontaneity in the practice. As I did more research, I figured that the process was much more complex than just immediately scribbling on a paper, inking and colouring as Quentin wants his drawings to be consistent from one page to another. So, he made roughs, then did a few proper ones on a watercolour paper until he is satisfied with his drawing. In this sense, illustrating storybooks is similar to animating.

Quentin Blake: How I Draw

This inspires me to make gif animations that are illustrated with ink and watercolours like Quentin Blake's or Beatrix Potter's books which I might do during my spare times. I feel like starting small because I know the process will not be easy as it is hard to keep the lines and fills consistent in different frames with traditional media.