Final Film|VFX

Finished one minute video done for this brief:


Few days after posting it on YouTube I got a message via Google+ from Incredibly Short Film Festival to consider submitting it to their festival. I had a look on their website and kinda like the idea of showing this film to larger audience. Maybe not to that specific festival (as they ask for small fee), but there are many others.

After Effects Puppet Tool|VFX

 For this project I've looked into a puppet tool in After Effects. Help section on Adobe website have a quite section on this tool. I've looked on YouTube for some tutorial and found this one particulary interesting.



I prefer to play with a tool rather than just watching what it does, so after I got a basic understanding of how it works (and it dead simple, just pin in the points you want to move around). I did a quick test on my alien before approaching VFX edits.


I've treated above video as an exercise, which helped me understand the tool better. I really had a lot of fun when making it and I will use puppet tool again in future projects.

Star Drive Aliens|PPP2

I've came across this amazing video while browsing around Behance. It's an over minute long set of illustrations nicely animated in After Effects.


Star Drive Aliens from Matthew Oswald on Vimeo.

I'm not going to talk about how detailed are these creature/characters, as they were created by Nick Wiley. I'd rather concentrate on animations, which were done by Matthew Oswald. He stated using only After Effects in this project and posted a 20secs loops for each section (can be viewed here). Maybe these animations aren't that complex, but definately requires a deep understanding of how AE works. It also gave me idea of another way in which I could animate more complex illustrations.

Synthesis|Lecture COP2

Notes from Synthesis lecture.

Tracking with Mocha| VFX

For the title sequence I've decided to add text into the already filmed footage. As mentioned before, I was after making it look like it's part of the set, instead of making it separeted sequence (which, with the time constraint of one minute, would be quite hard).

After shooting my sequence I had a bit of trouble with placing text in the correct spot. Footage I worked on was a bit shaky and it was impossible to solve the problem with just few key frames. I've tried to use a tracking system that is already in After Effects, where you place a little square on the corner of the object you want to track, but it didn't worked. After that, I've reasearch to the thing called 'Mocha', which is a motion tracking system. It worked perfectly in my case and I was able to make my title stay in one spot. The whole process was also were straight foward and simple. I just had to mark the section I wanted to be tracked, let the software analyse it and then copy a bit of code from the clipboard and paste it into my footage layer. I can see it being an useful piece of software in the future.

500 word essay|COP2

In this task we were asked to compare two pieces of animation, The Hand (Ruka) by Jiri Trnka (1965) and  Ersatz (Surogat) from Zagreb Film (1961) by Dusan Vukotic.

The key information to look at, before comparing these two pieces, is understanding a political situation of these two countries in early 1960s. Both, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, were communist countries, under the opression from USSR. However, as it's visible in Ersatz, Yugoslavia of 1961 weren't experiencing as much poverty of other countries, yet was still controlled by regime. Moreover, Czechoslovakia of 1965 was suffering a lot more from USSR. Nethertheless, both animations serve as a visual representation of social atmosphere from that time. 
 

Ersatz (Surogat) is a colorful 2D hand drawn animated short, created by Dusan Vukotic. It shows a story of character that lives in an inflatable world. Everything in this world is packed neatly and can be inflated - from blankets and umbrellas to women and cars. The life of characters seems to be quite carefree and financially secure, however it's still controlled and can by quite shallow, empty. In the end all characters dies - deflate. Also title, Ersatz (Surogat), can inform viewer of the actual message hidden in this short. Music in this piece is quite cheerful and light, there are no dialogue, which is covered by expressive characters and exagerrations of movements. Color palette contains mostly yellows and blues, animation style similiar to Cubism with characters being made from basic shapes and with think lines for arms and legs. Also animation for particular elements, like water, is very well done and match the overall style of animation. Ersatz won Academy Award in 1962 and made it's author first non-American winner.

Jiri Trnka is a Czech puppet maker and animator, creator of The Hand, which was made 4 years after Ersatz. It portraits pressure, censorship and control of artists by USSR. It is a stop motion animation made with puppets and have quite grim style. Artist is presented as a slave of ideals, that he have to present and do what he is told by leading political party. He is oppressed and unhappy, gets medals for not breaking rules, which requires a much more bigger sacrifice. He is controlled by Hand. Also, interesting is the use of lighting to present the emotion of the Artist puppet. Color palette is quite cold and subdue. It's a very sad and powerful story. Music in this piece is darker and quite derpressing. This short could be intrepreted as a protest against opression and call for freedom in creativity.
 

The Smurfs|VFX

Although I've already talked about few movies that inspired me during this project, I wanted to include The Smurfs as it's a good example of family movie, that combines life footage with characters created in 3D software.
The Smurfs movies (2011 and 2013) are loosely based on comics created by Peyo, and were produced by Sony Pictures Animation.
I've attached an interesting video on how the Naughties (a naughty version of Smurfs) were created - from storyboards and basic 3D models to final look. There is also a part, which shows how their walk cycles were made and how they supposed to reflect on their personalities. Rich Hoover (VFX Supervisor for this movie) talks about the changes they had to do to make it all work and how some of the shots were composited.

What is Critical Analysis|Lecture COP2

Notes from What is Critical Analysis? lecture.

Finished alien planet|VFX

Finished painting of the alien planet asset, which I'm going to animate and composite into the final shot. It was a very challenging task, as I don't paint environments often.
I've learnt a lot from this painting, mostly about importance of planning and getting a correct perspective first.

Film/Edit Challenges|VFX

Few weeks ago I've borrowed equipment and managed to get filming done on the same day. Luckily, it was one of these rare, sunny days, and only problem was quite a strong wind. However, frame I had portable green screen installed on, was sturdy enough to stay in one spot.

I'm not a 'film' person, I get quite stressed when it comes to filming. Even with storyboard and animatic I still struggle to get the right shots. One of the biggest challenges was keeping track on shot continuity - it's easy to overlook little things, like in which hand my actor is holding keys. I think the walking shots were the most difficult ones, as I've wanted do include few close ups of feet. Unfortunately, I haven't paid enough attention to the way my actor was walking, which let to quite a painful editing (and getting rid of most the takes).

However, there are shots I'm really proud of, like the one of the right.

I've also done a rough cut few weeks ago (straight after filming basically). It fits the time constraint of one minute, although I'm planning to get rid of few shots, that I feel are unnecessary and replace them with a longer green screen sequence. Therefore, I've spent more time on painting a very detailed environment.

Cyclop - character development 01|Responsive

First batch of rough sketches of Cyclop for this brief.

I've tried to make them as different from each other as I could. Personally, I prefer the one in the top right corner (which reminds me of Sulley from Monster Inc.)  and bottom left one (a bit goofey and not scary at all).

Script|Responsive

In this brief I wanted to continue developing story based on Greek myth. I've decided to go with simple, loose interpretation, rather than following the exact text from Homer's Illiad. Moreover, I've added a little modern twist into the plot, mostly because I believe it will make story more interesting and memorable (also, I'm slowly planning other videos within these settings).

Below is just a very rough script which I will use to produce my storyboards and animatic. Basic idea is that Odysseus is a self confessed selfie junkie and ready to use any methods to obtain the best/most rare ones (which leads to many likes on social networks).

• Odysseus and his soldiers in a boat; Cyclop (C) with his sheep walking down the hills;
• Odysseus team (OT) (5 characters) reaches Cyclop island, leave the boat and start moving into a jungle/forest (Odysseus takes a scroll out and have his journe goal/mission explained);
• OT sneaks to the mountain region and to the C cave;
• Meanwhile C and sheep goes back to the cave;
• OT waits in front of the cave and stops C from entering (soldiers are taking sheep as prisoners while Odysseus explains his missions and shows a bottle of wine);
• C shakes his head and agrees to do it;
• O takes few snapshots (selfies);
• END / credits;
• O encounters a massive problem - no broadband connection on this virgin island.

I need to remember of the time contraint of one minute, as well as the fact that I'll have only around 2 months time to animate it.

How to train your robot|VFX

How to train your robot is a short film created by team of 16 students as a part of part time VFX course organised by Platige Image and CD project RED.



Storyline is quite simple (to me it's basically RealSteel told in 2 mins ;) and well, it was actually inspired by that movie), but model of robot and animation looks very good.


Platige Academy posted also a 4mins long making-of video. It's nice to see how this video was done, from storyboard to compositing final scenes.