Final Assignment
- Landscape
2. Tinted Colours
Final Assignment Submission + Class Assignments
Final Assignment WIP & Class Exercise Submission Update
Class Exercise Submission Update
I’ve updated my earlier post with the ‘Interior Space’ class assignment
Final Assignment WIP
The topics I’ve chosen are:
- Landscape
- Tinted colours
I’ve started by doing the colour blocking digitally.
For the landscape piece i’m referencing the colours fromĀ a piece by Sargent
For the tinted one I’m trying to stay away from dark tones, and also using a wider range of colours which hopefully works
Week 2 – 9 Submissions
Week 2-4 Trees
Tonal Exercise
Master Studies
Texture Paintings
Night Scene
Interior Space
Week 5 – Tonal Design Exercise
Project 3 – Animatics (Part III)
Link to Part II (Storyboards)
A Turtle’s Journey
“A baby turtle born with an abnormally large shell has to reach the water before itās too late.”
Process
All assets were created in Photoshop and then put together in Premiere Pro.
Elements that needed to be interacted with were created in separate layers and then composited in Premiere Pro. Below is an example of 5 elements which were composited in one shot.
Example of different frames in a particular shot.
Water was animated by looping two frames.Ā The ripples in the water had to coincide with the previous frame to make them seem like they are moving. The white reflected lights were re-drawn at roughly the same position as the previous frame to give it slight motion.
Wide shots were used in my film to portray two things:
- How small the turtle is as compared to its environment.
- How far/ close the turtle is to its goal.
Improvements
- Add a little music, to enhance emotion/ dramatic effect.
Conclusion
My animatics followed my storyboards very closely, in terms of compositions, angles, etc. Hence, storyboards have to be done well so that creating the animatics will be easier.
It will take a lot of timeif you follow the storyboards to create your animatics,Ā realise that the angle doesn’t seem right, then scrap everything and re-do the entire scene.
Assignment 04 – Self Portrait
Final Video
I own an electric unicycle and I ride it wherever I go, the only time you will see me without is when it is spoilt, or when it is spoilt.
Javon Goes to Class (ft. Erwin Lian)
Music – ‘My People’ by GRiZMATIK
P.S This is not a promotional ad for electric unicycles.
Riding through different locations is a metaphor for riding around places which I have never been to in Singapore, or just lazy to visit because it’s too tiring to walk there. At the end of the film, I crash into the classroom where the presentation for this assignment is happening :p
Storyboards
Process
Environment
Every individual elements had to be separated, for those that I needed to animate at least. All assets for this project were done in photoshop.
Environment Animation
The animation for the environments were fairly simple, they appear and exit out of the shot with ease-ins and ease-outs to give that bouncy effect. Basically, I animated the scale parameter from 0%-130%-100% when they enter, and then the reverse for when they exit.
Character
Every body part had to be separated, and then parented together and rigged in after effects.
Character Rigging & Animation
I used a plug-in called DUIK for my character rig. I began by manually placing puppet pins on the character’s joints, and then used the plug-in to link them together and to create the controllers for the respective body parts.
Below is the tutorial on character rigging using DUIK that I referred to, by Matt Wilson.
References
I was inspired by a previous film I did a few years back. The particular scene I wanted to reference was the scene of a character cycling in a stationary position with backgrounds panning across the shot.
Conclusion
One problem I faced was definitely the rigging part, although it was fairly simple, I struggled for awhile figuring out how things worked and how to parent puppet pins to bones to controllers to limbs.
Another problem was the spinning wheel of death, the pre-comp for my character was so ‘heavy’ it was impossible to play the animation, and I had to view the animation on my main composition whenever I want to see my character move. If I forget to switch to the main comp, I had to restart AE, which was why I literally saved every 1 minute.
Nonetheless it was a fun project and I have sort of re-familiarised myself with the prowess of AE, and Erwin, I only used AE ONCE BEFORE, and it was self-taught, for that one particular project. So please don’t overestimate me regarding for this assignment š
Project 3 – Image Sequence (Storyboards)
Link to Part 1 :
Premise
A baby turtle born with an abnormally large shell has to reach the water before it’s too late.
Reflections
- Did the storyboard/ story turn out as you hoped?
Yes.
- What would you do to improve it?
Add more dynamic camera angles and lengthen the duration for intense scenes, for example, when the turtle gets kicked around, and when the wave crashes onto the turtle.
- What skills do you need to improve?
More ‘clean’ and fluid line work to show a more organic character and sense of movement.
- What are the most significant things you have learned so far?
If you stare at your small thumb-nail sized panels for hours and hours, you will not be able to visualise the actual composition as a full screen image. Take a break and re-look at your storyboards in full screen, you will have a better judgement on composition
Assignment 3: A Short film about Dreams
A Day Out
Synopsis
‘A Day Out’ is about a character who comes out of his owner’s sketchbook whenever the owner opens it to draw. The character, intrigued by the real world, spends his time out of the sketchbook admiring all that’s around him.
Music: Chopin Nocturne op. 9 no. 2
As my film is about a sketchbook character, I wanted to keep his drawing style loose, as well as a relatively rough animation style to further separate him from the real world. I decided to have my film in black and white as I wanted to accentuate the sketchbook ‘theme’ of the film.
Towards the end of the film, as the owner closes his sketchbook and leaves, the character from the sketchbook vanishes. His desire, or dream, is to some day be able to explore the real world, without being bounded by the sketchbook.
Storyboards
Two-Column Script
Animatics
As I planned my shots according to the music, I had to gauge how long each scene and animation sequence will be.
Music: Chopin Nocturne op. 9 no. 2
MOOD BOARDS/ STYLE GUIDE
Inspiration
I was inspired by the 2007 Taiwanese film ‘Secret’. The story revolves around a school girl who travels back and forth between the present and the future by playing on a ‘magical’ piano.Ā She walks around her campus, admiring the future world and intrigued that no one can see her. This was the basis of the inspiration for my film, to have the character who came out of the sketchbook explore the real world, unseen by others.
Also, the film heavily emphasises on music, mainly the piano, which is why I got inspired to use a classical piano piece.
Movie Shots
Project 2B – John Takes a Drink
John wakes up in a daze and takes a drink…
