Seriosly... last post

This is my other blog as i was not sure at the time to split the flux 2 and design specialism blog in to separate one, so i made one for each, well here is my other blog link:

http://prostudiesxiii66.blogspot.com/

I tried uploading this link to gadgets but it didn't work for some reason.

My final post on this blog

This is the finished thing, with beams to add depth and reflections, very proud of it and it's great to see how far I've come since starting the brief, however i still have much more to learn and i'm looking forward to learning it.

It somehow took all day, but it's finished

This is my final idea, i rotoscoped a friend in separately performing different actions such as pointing reading and generally moving around. I make the people sky arts brand colour to make it more interesting and apart from that the people really stand out so i think it works well. I't is still a little rough around the edges, this is because i didn't have access to green screen or High Definition camera equipment due to the fact we haven't had inductions to them yet. This made using the rotobrush quite hard for the simple reason it was selecting pretty much everything around the person such as walls and carpet. This idea however is much more exciting and engaging than my previous "stage" idea which didn't have enough going on to engage the viewer. Overall i feel this has really pushed me to my limits for now, there were times i wanted to give up on using the rotobrush for the reasons previously mention but i persevered and got a great outcome in the end and this is what i believe animation is all about, persevering, taking it one step at a time so you will get the outcome you really want. The setting is a local gallery, instead of filming i took various snap shots of different rooms and animated them in such a way that mimicked being filmed. As i have a little more time on my hands i will hopefully add more to this animation to give it more depth, i also want to line up the animations at the start to change in time with the music.

Final idea concept moving

This is sort of what i want to film like, but not as fast, i would put rotoscoped people in but i have not filmed anyone on green screen yet.

 

Everything is coming togeather

My idea is to film a Art gallery and use my volunteers that have been filmed properly on green-screen so that i can make them look rotoscoped, i also plan to put the sky arts as a painting in the gallery but actually  rotoscope around that and then have it transitioning into the actual logo then having it pan forward slightly then everything else fading to black so you can only see the logo.

It was all going so well

I finally figured out a way to put in silhouette style rotoscoped like people, and for some reason at the end it went wrong, it would really help me to film this on green screen with a good camera, so that is what i am going to do next. Instead of painstakingly drawing out each frame i decided it would be fare simpler and far more accurate to first film my person, then use the rotoscope tool the get rid of everything i didn't want then use a fill effect to fill the person in, it think this is incredibly effective but i need to figure out how to put a outline on the person to still make it relevant.

All i need to do now is shoot my scene, shoot someone in green-screen and put the two together.

Filming and rotoscoping

A couple of days ago i decided to start testing, so i filmed a some people walking around and also a kind volunteer no names mentioned COUGH*Sophie Gibson*COUGH and then rotoscoped a little over the top.

More ideas

While i was thinking through my main idea, i started experimenting with performing actions, then drawing in what inst there, for example this coin flip, the coin was never their, i just drew it in... i find this really fun and i am starting to thin of just filming anywhere and adding random things is. I am also expanding my previous idea. Another idea is to take a nice public place and rotoscoping over it, and then using a sort of reverse roto for the people, so you will end up with a roto of the surrounding but the people are just a window into what is real.

rotobrush and camera tool

I forgot to mention in the earlier post that i shot this footage myself in the Graves art gallery but i had to shoot the hallway because the museum part was closed. I have once again used the rotobrush but this time i have created 2 layers on top of the text, then laying the text behind these 2 layers to give it more depth. I also played with the cameras settings to make the text look as blurry as my footage. However the text seems to jump around a little which almost ruins the illusion, but i am mostly pleased with my outcome, now i just need a good camera to film with so i can start making my final ideas.

Using the Roto Brush

For the first time i used to Rotobrush, it is surprisingly easy to use. The reason I decided to use it is because if i want to put the sky logo into live action, I defiantly need to know how to put things in front of it to give it depth without having to go into Photoshop and crudely cut layers.

Next i will trying the same technique but this time including a camera layer for the text and move the text further back. Maybe bluring and adding reflections to make it look like the text is part of the shot rather than being rendered into it.

Reflective Test

This tutorial i found quite easy as i had already previously experimented with 3D text, however it was nice to figure out how to add shadows.

Jusy another tiny Rotoscoping test

I had to do another rotoscope test as i have never done a rotoscope of someone walking around, it is incredibly effective and i can defiantly see rotoscoped people being put into my gallery idea, looking at paintings, walking around ect. I also came up with 2 new ideas while doing the roto, people will still be rotoscoped but when they walk past certain pieces of art, you will see some sort of change through their bodies.

This first idea starts off looking at a painting, then slowly zooms out revealing that the people observing it are in fact themselves art. Someone walks in front of the camera and it pans round their head to show a landscape blank canvas on a wall, when people walk past the canvas its reveals through their bodies the ARTS logo.

 This idea however is now my favorite, much more interesting than all my other ideas in my opinion. The scene will start off showing an art gallery, only there is no art in it, that's when the camera will pan to a person or a group of people covering a painting, the people are rotoscoped like white silhouettes and through them reveal that there actually is art in the art gallery suggesting art is in the eye of the beholder. I think I've finally found an idea i am truly happy with, now i just have to think of how im going to pull it off effectively. 

Back to the drawing board

Matt made me realize what  i already knew, the theater idea just isn't interesting enough to be submitted. I like it because it's nice but it just doesn't have much happening in it, this is why i have decided to fall back on my art gallery idea. Even though i have gone back a few steps i am overall glad i have because i feel like i have come up with a more interesting idea in the long run, the basic idea is a art gallery or possibly some other public place. Rotoscoping people into either my live shots or it could just be a still image, either way it will be much more interesting than a static stage. Then at the end sky arts will be contained in a painting or possibly floating kinetic type. The reason i want to rotoscope is because i really enjoy drawing and feel i must integrate it into a final outcome.

 I Thought this was fairly relevant as i too will be taking an existing scene and editing in someone or something who isn't really there. 

My final Idea

After much thought I've decided on my theater idea, only i have tweaked it to make it less chaotic, having actors playing out different scenes in 20 minutes would be confusing and more importantly give the channel the wrong focus, as it is about art and not history.

This is my idea, after sketching up a storyboard i put it into practice, i am proud of what i have done and the music fits surprisingly well, now i just have to tweak it a little, possibly add some people clapping and some roses being thrown onto the stage as the curtains open.

2D and 3D space test with text and sound

This week one of the tasks set was to listen to the audio we were given, and come up with a suitable text to use within the animation we were going to make. Once we had done this, we first had to import the piece of poem we needed into illustrator. After doing this we separated each word into its own layer we saved it then imported that file into after effects. I created 1 animation in 2D space. and one in 3D space, making use of the blur effects, aperture affects and focus effects. For the 3D animation, we had to make each layer 3D then create a camera layer to rotate around the words, I enjoyed both tasks and i think they will come in very useful when i decide to make my final piece.

This is the 2D composition i created, i thought black on white was the most effective so i used that.

This is the 3D test i did, i prefer working in 3D if im honest, i find it more interesting

I've seen Kinetic type before and always wondered how it was done. However even though i know i still think that some things I've seen are incredibly inspirational, some of my favorites are so simple yet extremely effective. For example the "MAD AS HELL" speech which uses kinetic type is overwhelmingly awesome. When i first watched it i could not stop watching it over and over, the speech itself is amazing but with the kinetic type it enters a whole new spectrum.

Another one of my favorites has to be a comedy one, it uses a review someone wrote about an online "game". The game mocks R.P.G. style games and has you pressing one button through the entire game, the person writing the review completely misses the point and retaliates with a poorly worded rant. I love this animation because it really captures the arrogance of the persons review yet at the same time makes the type illustrate what the person is saying into an amusing little skit.

I do think although it looks extremely easy to do it is also hard to make an interesting animation using nothing but type and audio, you really do have to examine what is being said, how it is said and why to come up with a relevant type face to give the animation a good feel. It is easy to overlook this. If you do overlook this, and many kinetic type animations do, you end up with a poor result.

First rotoscoping session

I only recently found my USB which i put my first session of rotoscoping on. I though i better upload it to show I was at that particular lesson and paying attention.

At the time of doing this session i was reminded of probably one of my Favorited rotoscoped animation, not Disney film, not loony tunes but embarrassingly one of my favorite music videos which is "take one me" by Aha, when younger i really couldn't figure out how they managed to make such a well presented video, i knew they had drawn if but it never occurred to me that they drew over a person. 

Now i know how it was done, and having done it myself it makes me appreciate the time and effort that must have gone into the video a whole lot more. I cannot even begin to imagine how much time it must have taken to draw over every frame with such quality especially at a time where it was more than likely traditionally done. Now you could probably play with some effects on a video and edit it in such a way to make it seem like you've hand drawn each frame. Ever since i was younger i have always had a large amount of respect for people who do things like this. I have always preferred hand drawn animation such as loony tunes and Disney (classic Disney) to today norm of computers. Hand drawn animation always seems to flow better and have more movement whether it be over exaggerated or not.

This may not be rotoscoped but i still stand by my point that hand drawn animation looks far better than the stiff movement you see in some of the more recent cartoons.

Sky Arts 3D text

I decided to try making some 3D text after making the 3D cube, this time i using lighting, i think it worked very well. I certainly pushes me more towards filming live action and importing things into it involving arts, i like the idea of turning either a boring art gallery or photo shoot and making it much more entertaining with integrating 3D objects into live space. I've always wanted to do it and admired people who can, now i have the tools and the constantly expanding know how it may become more of a reality for me to accomplish this myself.

Playing around with 3D animation

I decided the look at some tutorials online and learn how to make a basic 3D cube, then i experimented with light effects to give it more depth. I also added motion blur, i know this has nothing to do with art, but i have decided to upload this just to show that i am trying to expand my skills within after effects. I found it hard at first but it is overall quite easy to do. This will be useful if i decide to film live action and import a 3D logo into the live space because it would be much more interesting and overall look more professional that a flat Sky Arts logo.

Art gallery idea in motion

This is my art gallery idea, i used photo shop to draw everything except the paintings. I quite like this idea but i feel it's missing something.

Expanded theater idea

This Idea involves the same finish as the last theater idea I presented except it has an entirely new start. I decided to change the start because I've learned 20 seconds can seem like a very long time when you're watch a slow moving logo traveling up a screen at a snails pace. The idea is that it is a short yet sweet timeline of theater, however the actors (drawn in red) carry on performing the same act except everything else around them changes including their costumes. The only thing that does worry me now is having too much going on fora 20 second window, however i will try doing a crude quick animated video to get more of an idea. If i don't have enough time i may have to revert to just having 2 actors from modern day performing.

Art Gallery idea

The idea behind this concept is the viewer is being taken through an art gallery containing some of the world's most recognizable and popular art, the reason i have chosen such recognizable art is because when someone views the channel when channel surfing they will instantly know what the channel is about. The animation ends with a framed picture of the Sky Arts logo, which keeps the idea in the realm of the gallery but at the same time informs the viewer that they are watching Sky Arts.

Fixed

I realize I've already uploaded this, but It was sped up for some reason previously. I have since worked out how to time stretch and make compositions longer with a simple mouse click.

A bit more Rotoscoping

I really enjoy rotoscoping, so for one last try I wanted to rotoscope over my mouth and the the sound back in i was miming to, i think it works pretty well but at the same time looks a bit clunky.

More Rotoscoping

This is a clip i filmed on my webcam, just moving my hand around randomly.

I use Photoshop to draw over each frame of the video in 3 different video layers, one for the outline, one for the colour and one for the highlights. I think this is very effective, i just now need to think of a use for rotoscoping within my ideas.

Theater Idea

When i came up with my early ideas, one of them was my logo on stage idea. I quite like the idea so I've been thinking of how to expand upon it to make it much more interesting. One of my idea's is to still have the logo on the stage rising up, but to have the text and stage itself changing through time. So for example, in 20 seconds it will go from ancient Greek theater to modern day theater but also using fonts from the time. I mainly got this idea from when Matt showed us stop frame animation on Monday by Barry Purves entitled "Next".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3dQFR8oWb4
What inspired me was how it seamlessly switched from scene to scene.

Animation Tracing Test

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXpGaOqb2Z8
This is a film tralier that Matt showed us that uses rotoscoping, it looks incredibly stylish.

This was my attempt at rotoscoping on After Effects using my tablet, i used red so that the lines would stand out more, i think it's a start. However this 3 second clip was very time consuming and would make me consider starting an idea extremely early to give myself enough time to perfect it.

Monday the 3rd's lesson and research

Monday was extremely helpful, it thought me to take a step back and think about why i am doing what i do rather than just doing it, this has made me consider why i have chosen my early ideas. I was asked why i chose the ideas i did, and to be truthful my family has had sky in our house for over 10 years, so it's almost been nailed into my what skys theme is always trying to portray. However i cannot get through this brief just by saying that, i need to evidence and use examples. I asked Matt where he thinks i should start my research and he replayed with this website:

http://www.redbeemedia.com/work

This website is amazing and packed full of research. I've watch all their videos and it's clear to me that the adverts designed for say Children are very laud, bright, in your face, more often than not contain silly jokes and what is popular to kids at the time weather that be action games or TV programs. Channels more catered for adults on the other hand usually have slow panning cameras with either something completely random happening like BBCs theme, which is a circle with either hippos or deer moving to create it, or it's something you have to look for like in channel 4's branding where bits of buildings are floating and you have to look for the logo. Channels also seem to change their approach in different seasons of the year. Looking at these videos it gives me many more ideas to play with.

More tests

This is the same animation as before with a slight tweak, just to see which looked better. The tweak being making the logo smaller and adding Sky and HD that fades into the animation in white. I prefer this newer version to the older one.

This other animation I've made is a photo shoot, i would have a camera noise to make this more clear but i kind of like the "what is this" factor and then you find out at the end what is going on. The only fear i have is this type of advert not being safe for epileptics.

Research

http://projects.skycreative.tv/skyartsstings/video.php
I've Started by watching all of last years submission, I cannot believe the professional quality of some, and the simplicity of others yet they're all extremely effective. I now have to decide who the target audience is, young, old, middle aged, upper class, middle class, lower class, enthusiast or casual. I presume that two of these questions i already know. The first being that it will be mainly art enthusiasts that pay for this service as you have to pay exclusively for the service as well as the sky charge. The second is that this channel must appeal to all age groups as anyone can be interested in the arts, it isn't limited to old, young, rich or poor. The 2 main points i must achieve are:

1.Appeal to most if not everyone.
2.Has to involve some form of creativity and randomness.

I love channel 4's randomness, this is what i think really started off channels putting a high budget on their identity, before this i can't really remember any TV channel spending quite so much money on such a small intro to every TV show.

This intro from the 90's still makes me cringe to this day, i think it's awful this may be because of the fact that i associate this with old school sex education or science videos or the fact that it just looks old but i really dont this was aimed at any age group or interesting person.

 I much prefer BBC's new family orientated fun look to the old bland one.

Even though sky is one big brand it has differentiated all its channels with a separate identity so well. Sky 1 being for the more hardcore mainstream TV lover who watches all the up to date programs so the channel has to almost conform to the trends of what is in for a younger/middle aged group of viewers. Sky 2 and 3 however do not have this problem as most of their programming is older repeats of programs so it gets to let its hair down more and have more of a own identity but still has to appeal to the same market as 1. Sky arts branding (in this video) doesn't really seem to have anything to do with the arts, however it is incredibly creative more so than sky 1 so will still appeal to the art lovers. 

For my animation i want to remember that it must include art. So what is the art? 

Well it is an expression of culture creativity and imagination so my animation must have this in order to succeed, not forgetting originality. There are many different ways to express yourself creatively, not just by drawing. Singing, dancing, painting, writing, photography, film making are all forms of expressive art, so i must think carefully when choosing which one to use for my final idea, however as the Sky Arts present identity shows it doesn't have to be purely about art, it could be more playful and fun.

We have been asked to design a 20 second animation to go between advert breaks I started thinking about what the channel involves and how what market to aim for.

First draft idea, very quick but i wanted to get a feel for how some of my idea would look in a moving image rather than just written down on a piece of paper.

This is a first idea but i wanted to see how effective it is to take ordinary photo's from the internet and introduce them to After Effects, i think the end result looks surprisingly polished. I know it is only early days but i am already pushed more towards taking my own pictures of whatever the final outcome may be, and incorporating them into a moving image.
This is the stage i used: http://mkmiku.wordpress.com/2011/04/03/sucker-punch-analysis-all-the-world%E2%80%99s-a-stage/
This is the Logo i used part of:http://ucarochester-cgartsandanimation.blogspot.com/2011/05/dan-sperrin-cgaa-graduate-shortlised.html
This is the Rose i used: http://www.hollambys.co.uk/rose.htm