The other day I managed to watch Montage of Heck - the documentary about Kurt Cobain's life. I've been meaning to watch it for a while and as a big fan of Nirvana, I was really happy I did. The film itself was extremely interesting yet very chilling, watching the struggles Cobain had to deal with throughout his short life. The animated component of the film, set to Cobain’s audio recordings, was led by Dutch filmmaker Hisko Hulsing. Hulsing confirmed that he and his crew of 18 animators made about six thousand drawings in a five month period, with Hulsing himself painting some 55 oil-painted backgrounds. It was a really nice art style which fitted really well with the mood of the film and the recordings.
The film also features some of Kurt's artwork brought to life by filmmaker Stefan Nadelman. These were very interesting to watch as it gives you an insight into his mind, which was clear was very disturbed.
I highly recommend this film for any Nirvana fan or someone who's just interested in music in the 90's in general. It's quite long at 2 hours but very interesting throughout.
I've mulled over doing a sequel to 'A Dream is a Fish your Heart Makes' (first year C&N brief) for quite some time now and I'm very tempted to get it started -and possibly finished- over the summer. I enjoy using quite old music (I say old, 70-80s) in my animations as people do seem to know them which helps them grasp the humour (I used Chris De Burgh's 'Lady in Red' for the first animation). I'm wanting to use the song 'Always' by Bon Jovi for the music as I'm hoping it'll add to the dramatic effect of the animation. I think the song really goes with the story.
The Bird and the Fish Sequel ‘Always’
SET THE SCENE
Fade in to the dingy bar (pan across, zoom in slow)
Possible Bar name: The Pigeon Hole
- At the time of this animation, Horatio and Payola have been separated for quite a while. Horatio is still taking it hard. -
- First verse of song- Slow fade in to Horatio sat at the bar slumped over his whiskey
(setting is grungy and dark)
- Reference: Spongebob movie at goofy goober depressed scene, Team America scene where Gary is depressed, Simpsons etc.
Perhaps reflection of him in the whisky glass (extreme zoom in)
atmospheric shot of them gazing lovingly at each other (running through a field?)
Picnic in the park or going out to dinner
(flashbacks last duration of the first chorus)
-Second Verse-
Gets second drink and looks in his wallet and finds a photo of her,
acts out the verses in the song at this bit.
‘i’ve made mistakes, i’m just a man…’ - show what he did wrong:
Hit her
silent argument of some conflict and she isn’t hearing any of it. Perhaps a selfish act and she leaves with her bags.
Door shuts on him then draws to a close up of his face distraught -
this fades back to his face with the same expression at the bar.
The bar man spurs him on as if to say ‘go to her’ (seen him looking at picture of her in his wallet)
-Bridge- Runs home (feet splashing through the puddles)
Dusts off his old snorkel gear, takes one look at the picture of her next to him and sets out to find her.
When it reaches the next chorus he is finally outside her house under the sea to see her with a new family doing up her husbands tie (who is also a fish) with kids etc. (Eldest child half fish half seagull? May be an abomination)<- unsure
He realises he is too late and begins to swim off, dramatically throwing his snorkel gear to the ground - smashing it.
Payola (the fish) see him swimming off to indicate that the story is not yet finished.
I think Scuttle from the little mermaid would be great reference to use to help me with lip syncing for the seagull. I'm a little worried how I'd successfully lip sync a beak to look like it's speaking but I think a lot of Disney clips would help me along in this area. Some of Scuttle's mannerisms are also great for helping me develop the character of Horatio further. He has a lot of exaggerated expressions that I'd love to try and adapt into an animation of my own.
I've made this business card for myself as part of PPP. I mentioned myself as a 2D Animator as it is my preferred style of animation I like to create. I've decided to call myself 'Cassandy' as I fell my name is a bit boring to put on a business card. I've chosen this name as I think it's a lot more eye catching. Its basically a play on my full name 'Cassandra' except I've just turned the Sandra bit into Sandy. I've chosen this colour scheme and this character from my Cbeebies ident as I feel it reflects my style of animation; very simple. I've noticed however, that my character looks a bit lopsided to me. I'll edit it to look more even should I develop my business card further.
I saw this video was suggested for me after I watched a video on a new trailer for the new series of Digimon, celebrating their 15th anniversary. This video drew me in as I saw it was featuring Joshua Seth, who I knew was the main character Tai's voice in the original series. A part that interested me in this video was when Seth was discussing how much the original Japanese anime of Digimon has been Westernised for non-Japanese speaking people. One of the enemies in the video was drinking Saki in the original but that got changed to 'soda' for the English dub. I think it's strange that they even bother to change details like this for the English audience, why don't they just dub it with the details the same so kids/people who may be watching can learn a bit about the country the anime is from? At the end of the video Seth states that if he were to be asked if he wanted to voice Tai in the possible English dub of the new series, he'd do it. I find this very exciting.
The Japan Exchange and Teaching Programme is an official Japanese Government scheme which sends graduates to Japan in order to promote international understanding at grass-roots level and to improve foreign language teaching in schools. I've recently had a friend from Leeds Met start the programme which landed her in Tokyo (you can be put anywhere in Japan) and she absolutely loves it. I've been asking her loads of questions about it to get as much information as I can as I'm strongly thinking of applying. The website is pretty informative but I wanted some information from someone who's from a similar background as me who's actually experiencing it.
It's something I'd really be interested in doing and it's definitely spurring me on to stay for 3rd year. After visiting Tokyo in 2012, I've yearned to go back. I absolutely loved it. I know living and working there would be a hell of a lot different to a weeks holiday in the summer, but it would be something I'd love to try - even if I just stay for the year (you have the option to leave after a year or sign for another if you're doing well).
Since the application process starts in October, I'm going to have to think strongly about finding something to support my application; be it taking a Japanese night class to help me learn a bit of the language or perhaps setting up some sort Japanese society at uni as I'm sure a few people would be interested in attending that.
They're all things to be thinking about over summer and I'll definitely be applying come October.
I didn't have many ideas for my PPP presentation this year as I don't feel as though I've produced enough work to put in it. I've used a movie trailer template on iMovie to create the opening of the presentation which gave me an idea...
I chose a thriller template from iMovie and cracked on, The template gave me the music, and text in-betweens and I provided the clips. I've had to include a bit of my first year work to pad it out a bit but I've made sure it fits in with everything. I decided to make the clips in black and white and zoomed into them to add to the dramatic effect. It's completely over the top but I think it's worked quite well.
The second part of the presentation does actually reflect on my year and has a lot more sensible theme.
I've reflected on my lack of passion for the year and what I have learnt. I couldn't really put what I would be doing next year in it as I'm not sure myself that I'll be returning.
I've added little bits of animation into the second part of the presentation the indicate feelings I've had during this year. They were all created using Paint Tool SAI.
I think a definite downside to my presentation is that I keep showing the same pieces of work over and over again as I didn't have much to put in. Perhaps people who are watching it wont notice but I feel as though I keep reusing clips.
I decided to use the website 'Carbon Made' to use for my my online portfolio. This is because I find it to have a very professional design with very slick features yet very easy to set up. The only downside is however, with a free membership you can only have 5 projects on there at once (which was fine for the amount of work I wanted to put on it in this moment in time) and it doesn't support videos. I've worked my way around this by putting screen grabs of the animations into the project with the video link in the url.
I think it looks quite professional and should I want to use this website more for next year, I'll strongly consider paying the upgrade fee.
I came across this series of animation on the website Stumbled Upon. Don't Hug Me I'm Scared is a Vimeo channel run by 'Becky and Joe' who don't tell you very much about themselves. I really like the design and materials of their characters and the sets are put together to a very high quality. They use a lot of 2D animation alongside the stop motion which I think works really well. Everyone of the episodes turn incredibly weird after starting out relatively normal, they're great.
On 15/5/15, our class had a screening of our Applied Animation animations in the lecture theatre at college. I thought this was a really nice opportunity to invite people from outside of college to come have a look at what we've been up to over the past couple of months. Everyones animations were to a really high standard and I'm very proud of everyone on the course for what they'd produced. I didn't loose interest during the screening at all, it was very entertaining. I showed 'Cooking with Keith' at the screening and I was delighted with how well it was received. I initially didn't even want to show it at the screening as I'd had very little time to do the animation and thought it would turn out poor, but I had people coming up to me telling me how funny it was. I was really happy with the screening and very glad I showed my animation. My tutor pointed out that on my animation when Keith is prepping the chicken, it says on the screen it said to cook it at gas mark 5, whereas my dialogue said to do it at 6. I'd completely missed that so I will definitely correct this for before it shows next. Also it was mentioned that the font used in the animation didn't really fit in with the tone. I can understand why however, I've just used Arial Italic. I guess I just wanted to use a font that was legible but I shall change it to one that will fit better.
Here is the showreel I have edited together as part of PPP. I think it looks okay considering the lack of work I had to put in it. It's only 1:20 long so I'm hoping it comes across as short and sweet rather than just lack of work. I've decided to make it mostly 2D animation based as that's the field I'm most interested in. I've added in my 3D animation however to show that I've used Maya. The music is called 'Andy Murray's Mum' by Vik Sharma. I decided to use this as it's quite a quirky tune which I think compliments my animations without taking the focus away from them. I've edited it all together using iMovie.
We've been asked to put together a professional showreel to show what work we've done over the past two years. It shouldn't really be over 2 minutes long and it's recommended that we have 10 pieces of work in it. Unfortunately, I don't actually have this much animation to put in it but heres what I thought could go in: - A Dream is a Fish Your Heart Makes (First year: Character and Narrative) - E4 Ident - Cbeebies Ident - Discovery Ident - Cooking With Keith (Second year: Character and Narrative) - It's All About Me (Second year: 3D Project) These probably wont add up to two minutes but I'm sure it'll cover at least a minute and a half. They're all very colourful animation which I feel reflect my style so I think they'll edit together nicely. I've selected a calm piece of music composed by Vik Sharma to have in the background.
These are the points I have to consider when making a presentation: What have you learned and also what do you want to learn? - I've learnt that 3D software is a lot harder than I initially thought it would be. - I still haven't learnt the art of time management unfortunately, but I do work very hard under pressure. What have you enjoyed during the year and why, also what have you disliked and why?I wouldn't say I've enjoyed this year at all to be honest. I feel like we were thrown in at the deep end a bit with the 3D module and I can't come away saying I've particularly learnt much if I'm honest. What mistakes have you made (in and out of college) and how have you learned from them? This year I've made the mistake of not attending college as often as I should have. I much prefer working from home due to the lack of distractions. Because of this, I feel as though I may have lost quite of bit of information I could have had. Perhaps this is why I don't feel as though I've learnt much. Has this made you consider how you do thing or will approach things in the future? I'm not 100% sure I'll be returning for level 6 at this moment in time. But should I, I will be attending every scheduled session. What are your strengths and how will you develop them further and begin to apply them? I think my strength is still thinking of a good story - more so under pressure. I will be putting a lot more time and effort into making them a higher quality if I return next year. What are your weaknesses and how do you intend to address them? I'm very anti-social when I'm doing work, which is why I don't like to attend college when I'm animating. I'm very easily distracted. I'll have to get used to working around people should I want to get into the industry. What did you want to get from the year? Have you achieved this? I wanted to give 3D a bash, it didn't go great. So I've found a path of animation I kind of want to avoid. I'm still very 2D driven, and I think I have produced a fairly good 2D animation this year. However, I don't have nearly the amount of work I would have liked to have.
