Yesterday's Pitch went Well

I say Yesterday went well. There weren't many comments about the quality of the pitch itself. Other groups got comments on their presentation skills, and I put that down to the fact that more and more groups are coming out of their shells. I think The Raven group, we are over coming a different challenge.



I figured keep the pitch short and sweet, so we blasted through the sketches and preparation stuff to get to the animatic.
And the comments we got were mostly that the Munin character seemed a bit redundant, like she doesn't have much to say thats relevant. In the script both Munin and Brans characters are asked the same question by the journalist and we wanted them to give two separate sounding answers so as to have some comedy and contrast. But mostly people felt Bran's voice was the stronger of hte two so we should ditch the Munin character. I think Sophie did a great job wit the script, I.E. tying in all these stories and anechdotes mixed with bird puns into their dialogue which is what we all wanted. So anyway that was pretty much it we got a solid thumbs up over all from everyone that the project is coming along very well.

Even though we dont even have productoion schedule done yet or shot list etc. as Sophie is still struggling getting the script handled, that didn't seem to enter anyones mind. Pretty much most of the other groups had a production schedule in the presentation. But i think the difference maybe that they are doing shorts that are completely in 3D with a few environments and we have to integrate 3D birds into live action, getting the lighting to match the backplates etc. We do have one 3D box for Bran's character, but it seems that the shot list and schedule haven't been done because we keep changing the script. SO it is a bit hard to know where to put our emphasis. For instance there was a reference to world war 2 in there, then we dropped it, now it might be back in, so we cant really commit to anything. So for me personally I just want to get on with it. I think this will definitely showcase my skills as an animator, so that doesn't concern me, trying to squeeze as much out of the narrative to make it a real good story seems to be where we are a bit unstuck.

So anyway, after the pitch I said to Sophie just sit on it until thursday, lets not decide anything until we have spent some time away from this thing. I think we need to decide on something soon, as term 1 is coming to an end and we are going to have to be pulling out all the stops for term 2 and 3. Plus we will have dissertations to be getting on with. Thankfully I have been onto that already, reading PLENTY, PLLLENTY of material on my chosen subject. So come term 2 when I have to write it out proper I am super confident I will get it done, as I have lots and lots and lots to talk about :)

Also I forgot to mention upon relistening, Mike Smith was saying we need to populate the ravens world with more props and things that will paint their characters as fully realised. So anyway that will be soemthing for the modelling department and the concepts, as we would like to come up with some props. They need to show that they have next to royal treatment.



Here is the Feedback from our Pitch on Monday 13th December. Speaking is Mike Smith and Dave Bull from Ardmund. they Just listen to our pitch and said what they felt could be improved. Like I say mostly possitive and they have given us some useful tips for more development.

Characterization of Bran the Raven's character

We were discussing how to flesh out his character, and being a bit of a jack the lad, we thought why not have him reading a playboy mag, and we did our own take on it and changed it to "playbird"

Even in his dialogue has bird puns dropped in. so we are going to be doing more of this, decorating the interior of his lodgings.

Notes for Leap of faith animation

Depa is pretty happy with the hand dragging animation I did. We discussed possibly doing 4 shots which lead up to the slip. Depa was saying she wanted both hands on the ledge shuffling along, and we see the ink pot come into view, knocking it over. I then do a shot of the ink bottle falling off, then a zoom in of the fingers loosing their grip and recycle the falling animation I have done so far. Also I need to add a shaft of light coming in through the window as it is important for later on in the story.

We were saying the animation could be shorter, and have the hands clambering for more grip only once rather than repeatedly, and have the old lady dig her nails in to keep grip.

So I will be getting on with a new test some time this week.

NEw hand dragging aniamtion for Depa's "Leap of Faith"

This is a new animation for Depa's pitch. After some feedback last monday. I have been working on this one for a while this weekend and the results are pretty encouraging.

I did the same thing, I filmed my hand dragging, used it as reference, animated the camera to zoom in 3d for dramatic effect. I keep noticing everywhere in like After Effects, Premier Pro, they keep entering the wrong frame rate , something like 29.03, and I have to keep going into the properties to turn it back to 25fps before a render.
Needless to say this gets a bit aggravating, but it seems to be the root of why so many renders seem to go badly. Usually the best way around this is to render 10-40 frames and see how you do. This helped me do a nicer looking shadow when the first looked a bit nasty and pixelated.

But I rendered it out finally and added some dramatic music on top. And that is kind of it. Nothing particularly new here, I just am pretty efficient and pragmatic as to what to do. i generally miss out some steps here and there which can lead to certain shots needing to be re-rendered. But we live and learn, I am picking up these things and reporting them as best I can.

Work in progress for updated falling animation

Here is a playblast for my work on the new piece of falling animation I am doing for Depa's group. I will be sending it to Depa tomorrow night to add to her animatic. I am hoping it wont be too big to email otherwise it will have to be send on yousend or dropbox.

Basically the first hand sliding aniamtion was pretty good, but Depa wanted the hand to be slowely sliding and stopping, like how when you apply weight to it. Also she wanted a bottle of ink to be knocked over, spilling the black ink. So this i represented with a cylinder. I have been working on it on and off for saturday. I think i will have it done for tomorrow night.

I will be sending it asap so they can add this.

some work for "Leap of Faith" new falling aniamtion

This video is up on youtube, I made this little test animatied for Depa's pitch come next monday 13th.
The music is just part of a pack of stock music I have. I animated this using some live action reference I shot of myself using a tripod. as this was a quick animatic the finished version would hopefully have a lot more polish.

images I used for reference

the are what I used for reference when animating Bran's Dialogue

first lip sync test for Ravens

I have been working on this all weekend,

Here is the playblast.

The model is rather limited but i managed to get some decent performance out of it. this is still pretty unpolished animation.
it could be better but at the moment i think its fine.



Here is the final render.



this is rendered at 25 frames per second. It seems all my software is not automatically remembering this and I have to go into the properties to change it manually every time. IT can get a bit annoying, But i am glad I finally nailed the problem which has plagued many a render of mine.

This was pretty fun to do, it took me pretty much the entire weekend and a bit of the week to do. And even though its a test and I didn't want to lavish too much detail on it, the results I am pretty satisfied with. Sure there are some glarring clipping issues here and there, which could be fixed with more care and attention,but for now I am very happy with it. I need to do A LOT more of these as about 75% of the film is lip synced Animated character Dialogue. So there will be plenty PLENTY of shots for me to get busy with.

I don't think I am all that intimidated by the task, it still is after all a showcase for my talent and this is just where I am at at this stage. I think Dan will be helping me out a fair bit fleshing out and critiquing the animation. Try and bring out the best results as we can.

Work Leading up to Lip Sync animation

I am doing a test lip sync animation for the Bird Bran. He is an elder Bird and wanted to practice a piece of aniamtion for him using the bird rig i have used so far.