Day 7463

Animation feedback year 2

Group

TB1
Very clear and strong evidence of your production tasks and organisation of the group, as well as delegated tasks and feedback. A stronger focus on changes and updates to individual schedules over the year would have beneficial. Texturing work is of a good quality, and exploring other software to resolve seam issues shows independent learning. Other similar softwares that you might want to look into include Mari and ZBrush. The end result of the project is lit and rendered to a good standard, complementing the animated narrative.
The filmed acting reference has helped, but ensure that you yourself act out the performances too, this ensures that you have more reference and motion studies to use, and it also allows you to more easily step inside the mindset of the character and it’s performance. Some inconsistencies in the animation across the project, you need to work closely as a team to ensure that all scenes meet a similar standard to ensure a cohesive end project,
TB2
Initial concept of the project using animation to interact with filmed footage was very strong.
Some initial indication of the breakdown of roles and scheduling for the project, but you haven’t really elaborated on any adjustments or changes that were necessary over the production that would have altered the organisation of the animation production.
The filming of this project should have been completed first after scouting out possible locations. By retro-fitting the animations to the footage later there is disconnect between to two elements, with slipping occurring and the animation not conforming to the perspective of the footage. Ultimately the illusion of both elements existing in the same space is broken.
To assist with this all footage should have been filmed on a tripod to allow for smooth and stable camera moves, helping with the camera tracking.
Some advanced subjects explored including matte cleanup painting for backgrounds, camera and object tracking. The backgrounds should be created as a separate element and composited later using After Effects or Nuke, make sure the patches are camera tracked to avoid slipping. Additional research needs to be done in terms of Visual Effects and exploring what is needed on set to make the inclusion of VFX as easy as possible.

Sovis

PART1
Your work in this project is of high standards . The rotroscoping is well done and It has a strong style .it fits very well with the backgrounds. You have a lot of talent and have a great potential to make something very good next year .
I am also really impress with the self -directed After Effects studies .
Well done
PART2
The story works well .
You could improve it by changing the framing in some shots . You go from a Long shot to a Extreme Close up of the male character and this cut does not work .
It will work better if you go from a Longs shot to Middle shots to a Close ups . Cutting from one to the other otherwise the cuts are too abrupt . There are very rare occasion where filmmakers go from a LS to a Extreme Close Up and this rare exceptions have to do with the a particular point in the narrative which in your film is not the case.
Also in terms of composition you will benefit by using the rule of thirds .
Check this url to understand better these rules
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thirds
You could work more a bit more on the colour pallet and tone of the film and add depth by adding lighting in your backgrounds by having highlighting some areas .
Otherwise the story works well

3D (Not the tiger) 

The walk reads quite well. The intent is there in the performance. The posing is a little unbalanced at times. The feet posing also a little awkward. You’ve captured some personality in this walk which is good....obviously.
Sleeping animation reads quite well. There’s some nice little ear twitches and head shakes. However some movements feel isolated, e.g. when he rolls back a little, this movement is not really echoed in his legs. Use reference – if you act this out you’ll notice how every little movement will cause other movements throughout your body. Would like to have seen him wake-up too.
Lip-sync reads okay. Unfortunately the video loses the audio sync. The mouth appears to be well posed and timed. I would allow the mouth to stay open after some phrases as it takes in breath.
Also I feel the head movement could be more expressive to the dialogue.
Boy animation is quite nicely paced. Some movements are too rigid, needing some settle movement, rather than move-then-static. Like with your sleep animation, some movements feel isolated, rather than the whole body working together.
Overall, some good moments of animation. Always use reference to help your understand how the body moves – act it out before animating.

Visual research 

TB1: Where are the drawings you produced in the workshops? Upload them for final submission.
Project – fabulous and exciting visual research for ‘Owl and Pussycat’. Great character designs – many of them could be taken further in to Production. Explore backgrounds in the same way and finalise a storyboard – also a mood board which reveals which style you will use. You are very talented – make sure you attend regularly in order to receive as much feedback as possible – especially L6. I especially like the food colouring owl! Toilet roll invention – great – would like to see this in action. Well done ☺
TB2: Good exploration of a wide variety of media and materials. The Owl designs are particularly strong and appealing. Excellent research – I’m pleased to see you exploring the 12 principles and composition to consider the audience. It is not clear which is your chosen technique and process for a finalised animation however you have produced some wonderful work during this unit and I hope this approach continues in L6 for all your pre-production work. I suggest you continue with this project before L6 in order to have another finalised animation for your show-reel next year.

Cartoon 

I think your sense of kinetics is fair, and your ideas are good, but your drawing is shaky. And you'll need drawing even to work on a tablet.You need to be able to visualise your ideas with more clarity before you start a scene, and spend more time planning your animation instead of diving straight in. same for all media.Making story sketches is key. All animators do that before animation, including Pixar animators; I know because I've seen their drawings!Drawing regularly will help with whichever type of animation you do because it develops your sense of visual awareness, improves staging and composition and strengthens your character poses.

Essays (written up by me from the paper version. )

I found this to be an enormously frustrating piece of work. As you present a beautifully ordered, well researched and considered set of ideas and contexts deploying very useful sources set into an incredibly creative and intriguing primary example. I love, love, loved the way you worked with the brief here entirely and would have maybe like you to have expanded the research more into areas of how advertising imagery operates, image making, star signification etc. (After all, who is Audrey Hepburn? Why is she important here? What cultural connotations does she bear?)

My main qualm is that the question asks you to address Well's chapter but that you actually go nowhere near it other than an incredibly brief, skimmed and inconclusive set of opening statements that doesn't really take the ideas on with any clarity or indeed use them as the necessary intellectual drive for this narrative. You're basically not fully answering the question here as intensely as you need to - that, for me seeing the work and care that has gone into this, is so frustrating, as mining those very ideas, extrapolating and extending from them explicitly would have lent this a cast iron academic foundation and would have maybe lessoned the slightly fragmented narrative and this process also would have given the (excellent, but still slightly under-worked) primary analysis more meat. The ambition here is so very welcome, though, and I think by large you present here a pretty solid conception of academic practice overall, you just need to ensure you are really considering what the brief is fully asking of you. This really wasn't far off a first piece class of work at all. What was here was a joy to read and it reveals creative, thoughtful endeavour. The citation pattern still needs work, mind, but what was here was very promising and was a good start. Keep checking those slides on Moodle that were posted in support of this essay and around managing secondary and primary research and also on the Harvard APA referencing (Citations are missing or incomplete throughout)

1. Act it out - Something I'm finding a little worrying has come up, as more often than not I do act things out, so clearly I'm not seeing what I need to or rather, I'm not coming to the understanding needed from the actions to convey in the work.... Practice I guess? Perhaps drama/anatomy research... 
2. Group quality check - Perhaps have people working on things throughout the scenes or do a mini test at the beginning to see who is good at what to start with and play to the strengths. Or if continuing with person per scene making sure to split it at camera cuts. 
3. Technique research - Prior in depth planning needed when trying out a new technique, not just trying it out based on current limited knowledge. 
4. Composition - I guess for now having a mental check-list until it starts to become second nature... More planning as well would probably help and getting tutors to review. 
5. Colour pallet, tone, - Don't just judge from the cintiqs, and more research
6. Isolation - My 3D kinda just sucks in general.... I think more practice will probably help with this and perhaps some lessons on digital tutors..See above for act it out... 
7. Not clear -  Present in a more coherent and planned out way that doesn't make sense only to me. 
8. Drawing - Draw more!
9. Planning -  And plan more! 
10. Essays - Make sure answering the question and make it flow more.... and stuffs.