Another Month

I find myself returning time and again to the 11 Second Club site, checking with eager anticipation for next month's competition clip to be announced, so I can set about attempting to stave off disappointment in myself once more. I start each month like this now - feeding off the buzz of a new project, and the infinite possibilities it represents.

All too soon though, I will be wallowing in a stagnant mud pit of self-loathing as I realise for the umpteenth time that I am not equipped with the right connections between my imagination and my hands.

The dilemma I have is whether to attempt a 3D or a 2D entry. The former option will allow me to use the crutch of a CG character so I can concentrate on making interesting acting choices, resulting in what has the chance of being a nice piece of animation. The latter involves me wrestling with my inablity to draw moving images, preventing me from doing interesting things because I can't multitask.

In the end what it boils down to is whether to do an entry that has a decent chance of being good and learning a little along the way, or to do one that stands a good chance of being utter crap but hopefully learning a lot along the way.

What do I do.....?

Unknown Magic

I don't know about you but special effects animation is something that I have never really thought about much. It's not really something a character animator would think about I guess. However now I do think about it, it is something that anyone making their own films might need to consider.

I started thinking about it when I discovered a blog called Elemental Magic, all about a new book by effects animator Joseph Gilland. I'd really like to get hold of this book to educate myself about the art of effects animation as it looks a very in-depth subject.

Lego Indy....The Movie

Well it's a cartoon of a game of a toy of a film, but it's great fun to watch. A company called M2Film, who it seems makes adverts for the toys, has made a Lego short, based on the four Indiana Jones movies, called 'Raiders of the Lost Brick'.

It was fascinating for us at Traveller's Tales to watch, having made the video game. It was particularly interesting for the cutscene animators like myself (although I arrived too late to work on Indy), to see how a different company would approach animating this kind of thing.

I'd love to know how long they had to make this in. We have about two weeks to animate each 30-60 second scene, which isn't long at all compared to film animation. I loved the rendered look of the animation, which of course we can't replicate with in-game graphics. Actually, that reminds me of something I have been thinking about for a while regarding games - how long will it be before game graphics look completely real? If you listen to most people in the industry, they will tell you that it's just around the corner. However I have my reservations. It's true that video games have come a long way in the last 30 years or so, but I think they still have a long way to go yet. You just have to look at movies - CGI in film is still quite a long way off being convincingly real in terms of characters. I remember seeing a scene in the third Matrix film where Neo is fighting a zillion Agent Smiths and I was cringing at how fake it all looked. More recent films aren't much better though. If movies aren't there yet, then there's no way games are.

You'd think that making little Lego minifigs look like actual pieces of plastic would be pretty easy. I'm sure it is possible in film, but if you play a Lego game on an Xbox 360 or PS3, you really can't honestly say they look remotely real. I think even if the game artists had all the time in the world they wouldn't be able to do it.

Anyway, that had absolutely nothing to do with animation so I'll shut up now!

Finn-ger Lickin' Good

Okay, maybe I don't want to lick him, but I would like to thank Will Finn for writing a post on his blog about forcing himself to simplify his personal work. In his case he's talking about simplifying the animation to save time, but it has inspired me to really simplify my drawing in order to be able to animate without worrying about the look of it.

Five minutes after that, a comment on my last post from Bitter Animator made me think even more about it. My biggest hurdle in learning traditional animation is my constant obsession with my inability to draw to the level that I want to. That's not what animation is all about I guess. It's something that I have to trust will come with time and practice.

But for now I have to let go.

I Can't Animate!

Can someone explain to me why I can draw things to a decent standard when they are a simple still drawing, but when I try to animate them, my drawing ability reduces to that of a 5 year old?

I've spent the last couple of nights getting extremely frustrated at this month's 11 Second Club entry. I'm attempting it in 2D, but I just can't draw the damn characters in any sort of sequence. I stop seeing them in three dimensions and flatten everythin out. I can't figure out why I do this. At this rate there's no way I'm going to finish on time.

SOOOOOOOOO ANNOYING!!!!!

No Joke

Last week at work, we all got given little tokens of appreciation for our hard work over the past year, consisting of specially made Lego Batman or Lego Indiana Jones ornaments. I thought it was a nice gesture. Mine had The Joker inside:

A Lick of Paint

I thought I had better show some evidence that I'm still working on this month's 11 Second Club scene! So here's a photo of some artwork I'm working on. As you can see above the Cintiq, I have thumbnailed out my animation of the talking policeman (which also means I have storyboarded the scene and filmed reference footage).I'm perhaps wasting time in painting the environment before animating the characters, but I just wasn't in the right frame of mind to start animating tonight.

Bad Cop

A quick update to my last post. I've redesigned the police man on the right to better contrast the guy on the left.

What You Gonna Do When They Come For You?

UPDATE: The guy on the right has now had a redesign.

Well I'm still on with my 2D entry for the 11 Second Club March competition. My ideas have changed several times, but I've finally settled on one. While I don't want to reveal it yet, I thought I'd show two of the three characters involved in it:I've just done a rough animatic to try to decide on camera angles, which still needs a little work. I'll hopefully get some reference material filmed in the next few days, and then it's onto the animation!

A Sad Result

Well voting for February's 11 Second Club is over and my entry came a lowly 45th! I expected not to come high up in the rankings on account of how the voting works, but I had hoped for higher than that!

Hopefully it won't seem like I'm bitter, because I'm not, but I have added a post to one of their forums addressing the problems with the system. Here's what I put:

"There were some great entries to the February competition that have ended up being pushed out of the high rankings due to the inconsistent voting system.

"It's nice to have voting open to anyone, but it results in rankings based largely on the opinions of people who know little about animation.

"Could I propose changing the voting so it can only be done by Animation Mentor people? I personally want to improve my animation every month and value the opinions of people who are kind enough to give it, but it is increasingly difficult to determine whose opinions are based on experience. If limiting the voting in this way is not possible, maybe the Animation Mentor people could have a "top ten favourites list" held seperately to the main rankings?

"I'd also like to encourage people to avoid entering animations that are far from complete. It's difficult to get a finished scene in a month, and those of us who do our best to achieve it are dwarfed by those who have only spent a few hours on their entries. If people want critiques on their inital posing, they can post it in the forums, where they will get lots of useful help. 182 entries is an awful lot to get through when voting, and the system is only at its most fair when each voter votes on EVERY entry.

"I hope someone listens to this, along with the other posters who have mentioned the inherent problems with the otherwise fantastic competition."

My own entry aside, there were some great entries that were better than mine that got pushed far down the rankings because of these problems. I hope someone takes some notice of me (and the other people who have brought it up).

Live Action in Wall-E

I've noticed several people on the net talking about how Pixar's use of live action on Wall-E was a mistake and I thought I'd give my opinion on why it most certainly was not.

Specifically, I'm referring to the segments where we see Michael Crawford singing or the great scene where Captain McCrea learns about the world as it used to be. These scenes are a celebration of how great the world really is when you stand back and look at it. The Captain sees clip after clip flash up with different aspects of human culture and the natural world popping up left, right and centre.This little barrage of live action footage amongst the CG really makes the point hit home with the audience. Well it really hit home with me anyway. I strongly believe that if this scene had been entirely CG then it would never have had the same impact.

Personally I think Pixar were pretty brave in doing this given their stance on mocap and everything, and I think it is a risk that payed off big time.

So there it is - not a long point, but one I thought should be mentioned!

It's 12 Seconds This Time.....Another One Louder!

Well the March 11 Second Club competition is now underway (while I wait nervously for the results of the February one) and I have to say I like this month's clip a lot more.It's from "In the Heat of the Night", which I'm pleased to say I have neither seen nor heard of. I'm pleased because it won't compromise my choices in acting or setting.

I have an idea of what I'd like to do, and I'm actually thinking about attempting a 2D entry this month - a tall order.

Gimme More!

So there's news floating round the net about Disney aiming to create a traditional 2D movie every 2 years or so.I have only one thing to say.....WOOOHOOOOOOOOO!!!