DGA230 - "Lucid" Test Shot
Sunday, 3 December 2017
Saturday, 2 December 2017
DGA210 – Live Brief Production Report
Dang Kuan DGA210 – ShelterBox Live Brief Production Report
For the live brief, I decided to work on the ShelterBox project as it seemed more geared towards 2D. My group consisted of producer Amanda Chin, director Ting Ting Loh, Ross Kimber, Margarita Manukyan, Johana Mlichova and me, the last four of us working as animators, character designers, etc. The project started out relatively slow, as everyone was getting an idea of what we were going to do for the project. Ting created the initial idea of using toys as a stand-in for people affected by disasters, while Johana and Margarita incited the idea of using a beach with waves to serve as stand-ins for a makeshift tsunami. This light-hearted setting seemed well suited for a project aimed at younger children as the primary demographic.
I was given the task of creating thumbnails and character designs for the toy family that would be hit by the tsunami. After some feedback on my work, it was decided that the single toy family would be expanded into the idea of an entire village on the beach inhabited by various toys by one of the tutors. This would better establish the idea of entire communities bring affected by disasters. After this, we as a team decided to all work on some character designs for the villagers. We would later pick out the best ones to use in the final project. I also worked on character designs for the ShelterBox volunteers. Ting and Amanda would also work on the story beats and script around this time to help establish what happens in the animation. After working through various edits of the story beats and script, we were tasked with creating the storyboard. I created some reworked thumbnails alongside scenes for the storyboard as well. We all chose sections divided from the story script to create storyboard panels for, which would later make up as much of our first animatic. Ross came in as a volunteer around this time and he worked on creating 3D environments for a wave.
A lot of effort was also put into researching how the beach environments and sea would be, as well as the movement of tsunamis and how they were previously animated in other films. I was given the task of creating the keys and inbetweens for a test shot of a wave crashing down, while Amanda worked on the colouring. Some team members also went to visit ShelterBox in Truro to get photos of equipment for research in how to draw them for the animation. A colour scheme was also being developed at this time by Ting and Amanda. After some feedback, we needed to make several changes to the animatic with redeveloped scenes and shots, so I was tasked with recreating most of the animatic to better present our idea for the ShelterBox people.
Other than a select few scenes, I managed to create a new animatic for the project with improved scene composition and pacing. I also provided almost all of the cinematography and shot composition for all scenes. I also made various changes to the story beats and implemented several ideas such as how the grouped up boxes would morph into the ShelterBox logo in the final shot or how the family tent would come out of the box when it is first opened and how it morphs into the shape of a tent. We also established the finalised character designs around this time as well, and I drew up a character line-up of all the toy villagers we established would be in the final cut in order to give a sense of scale among the characters, while Amanda and Ting provided the colour scheme for the characters.
Ting also managed to recruit a member from an external party to do the voiceovers for the script when ShelterBox would be explained to the viewer. It was also around this time that the group hit its first major setback that I noticed. We originally pitched the idea that the animation would be a hybrid animation of 2D characters and stop-motion sets for the backgrounds. After Ross created a rough 3D model of the beach village for the stop-motion set, Ting and Amanda developed the set using clay, sand and cardboard. The end result would later be constructively criticised for not being as visually appealing or cohesive to the viewer. This made us decide to scrap the idea of using a stop-motion set in a hybrid, mix of animation to just straight 2D with 2D drawn backgrounds.
After this setback, Ting went on to create all the 2D backgrounds for the animation. Around this time, we were also given more standardised jobs for more visual cohesion and continuity in the final cut. I would be working mainly on scenes and shots that required water animation as I had the most experience with this type of animation with the earlier wave test shot. I did the keys, inbetweens and cleanup for the majority of my shots. The keys and inbetweens for the other shots were provided by Ross, Ting, Margarita and Johana, while the majority of the cleanup was done by Amanda. Ting also did the cleanups for all her shots. Despite the fairly good organisation of the team done by Amanda and Ting, we still had a setback in that Margarita became very ill around this time and required to hospitalisation, so we were a teammate down for a quite some time during production.
A lot of my shots took a lot of time due to the amount of work needed to make them look authentic. It was difficult at first, but I managed to create fairly authentic water/wave animations for the final cut in the end. The large wave shots also needed to show the sand castles being destroyed, so this was slightly challenging for me to animate due to needing to keep the crumbling castles, toys washing away and wave impacts/wave in synchronisation. After the completion of all my shots, I was later tasked to add a water filtration system and mosquito net pop up during the scene where the tent is first formed. I provided the keys and inbetweens for the smoke effects and particles when the objects ‘pop’ on screen. I also provided the light glow for shots in the tent interior. I also later decided to add shadows to the tent during its morphing phase to add more depth to the shot.
I would say that despite the setbacks and minor difficulties during the pre-production and production process, the project went as well as it could. On my end, I believe we had fairly good communication among the team and the director and producer managed to organise us really well, considering the setbacks, as I never truly felt that we were ever behind schedule.
For the live brief, I decided to work on the ShelterBox project as it seemed more geared towards 2D. My group consisted of producer Amanda Chin, director Ting Ting Loh, Ross Kimber, Margarita Manukyan, Johana Mlichova and me, the last four of us working as animators, character designers, etc. The project started out relatively slow, as everyone was getting an idea of what we were going to do for the project. Ting created the initial idea of using toys as a stand-in for people affected by disasters, while Johana and Margarita incited the idea of using a beach with waves to serve as stand-ins for a makeshift tsunami. This light-hearted setting seemed well suited for a project aimed at younger children as the primary demographic.
I was given the task of creating thumbnails and character designs for the toy family that would be hit by the tsunami. After some feedback on my work, it was decided that the single toy family would be expanded into the idea of an entire village on the beach inhabited by various toys by one of the tutors. This would better establish the idea of entire communities bring affected by disasters. After this, we as a team decided to all work on some character designs for the villagers. We would later pick out the best ones to use in the final project. I also worked on character designs for the ShelterBox volunteers. Ting and Amanda would also work on the story beats and script around this time to help establish what happens in the animation. After working through various edits of the story beats and script, we were tasked with creating the storyboard. I created some reworked thumbnails alongside scenes for the storyboard as well. We all chose sections divided from the story script to create storyboard panels for, which would later make up as much of our first animatic. Ross came in as a volunteer around this time and he worked on creating 3D environments for a wave.
A lot of effort was also put into researching how the beach environments and sea would be, as well as the movement of tsunamis and how they were previously animated in other films. I was given the task of creating the keys and inbetweens for a test shot of a wave crashing down, while Amanda worked on the colouring. Some team members also went to visit ShelterBox in Truro to get photos of equipment for research in how to draw them for the animation. A colour scheme was also being developed at this time by Ting and Amanda. After some feedback, we needed to make several changes to the animatic with redeveloped scenes and shots, so I was tasked with recreating most of the animatic to better present our idea for the ShelterBox people.
Other than a select few scenes, I managed to create a new animatic for the project with improved scene composition and pacing. I also provided almost all of the cinematography and shot composition for all scenes. I also made various changes to the story beats and implemented several ideas such as how the grouped up boxes would morph into the ShelterBox logo in the final shot or how the family tent would come out of the box when it is first opened and how it morphs into the shape of a tent. We also established the finalised character designs around this time as well, and I drew up a character line-up of all the toy villagers we established would be in the final cut in order to give a sense of scale among the characters, while Amanda and Ting provided the colour scheme for the characters.
Ting also managed to recruit a member from an external party to do the voiceovers for the script when ShelterBox would be explained to the viewer. It was also around this time that the group hit its first major setback that I noticed. We originally pitched the idea that the animation would be a hybrid animation of 2D characters and stop-motion sets for the backgrounds. After Ross created a rough 3D model of the beach village for the stop-motion set, Ting and Amanda developed the set using clay, sand and cardboard. The end result would later be constructively criticised for not being as visually appealing or cohesive to the viewer. This made us decide to scrap the idea of using a stop-motion set in a hybrid, mix of animation to just straight 2D with 2D drawn backgrounds.
After this setback, Ting went on to create all the 2D backgrounds for the animation. Around this time, we were also given more standardised jobs for more visual cohesion and continuity in the final cut. I would be working mainly on scenes and shots that required water animation as I had the most experience with this type of animation with the earlier wave test shot. I did the keys, inbetweens and cleanup for the majority of my shots. The keys and inbetweens for the other shots were provided by Ross, Ting, Margarita and Johana, while the majority of the cleanup was done by Amanda. Ting also did the cleanups for all her shots. Despite the fairly good organisation of the team done by Amanda and Ting, we still had a setback in that Margarita became very ill around this time and required to hospitalisation, so we were a teammate down for a quite some time during production.
A lot of my shots took a lot of time due to the amount of work needed to make them look authentic. It was difficult at first, but I managed to create fairly authentic water/wave animations for the final cut in the end. The large wave shots also needed to show the sand castles being destroyed, so this was slightly challenging for me to animate due to needing to keep the crumbling castles, toys washing away and wave impacts/wave in synchronisation. After the completion of all my shots, I was later tasked to add a water filtration system and mosquito net pop up during the scene where the tent is first formed. I provided the keys and inbetweens for the smoke effects and particles when the objects ‘pop’ on screen. I also provided the light glow for shots in the tent interior. I also later decided to add shadows to the tent during its morphing phase to add more depth to the shot.
I would say that despite the setbacks and minor difficulties during the pre-production and production process, the project went as well as it could. On my end, I believe we had fairly good communication among the team and the director and producer managed to organise us really well, considering the setbacks, as I never truly felt that we were ever behind schedule.
DGA210 – Crew Project Production Report
Dang Kuan DGA210 – “Papa Poule” Crew Project Production Report
For my crew project, I decided to focus on working on one third year film project. This allowed me to be more flexible with work on other modules and projects while also providing a greater output of work for the crew project. I decided to help out in the production of the third year film, “Papa Poule”. I chose this project because I thought the animation style was relatively charming and was all supposed to be done in 2D.
During the pre-production stage, the director and producer gave me my first task of drawing 10 dynamic poses for the main character in the short; Paul. I believe this task was given to help provide some practice in drawing the main character many others would be animating during production. While referencing the character design, turnarounds and expression sheets already created by the director/producer, I managed to finish the dynamic poses. While they definitely looked like dynamic poses, the director noticeably pointed out that my style of drawing the character was slightly off in terms of facial and bodily proportions in her feedback. After practicing how to draw the character a bit more, I managed to adapt to the art style and proportions relatively quickly.
I was given a production task to begin animating the key frames for a shot in the animatic. The shot in question was from a scene in which Paul puts a cap on his head. While the task seemed simple at first, as it was a close-up shot of the character, there were some areas of the animation where I ran into some problems. The first, being that I didn’t have an idea of what the cap looked like as a three dimensional shape. When I asked the director about this, I was given a general idea of what the cap was supposed to look like and I tried to draw it in the way it was described to me. The end result was serviceable enough to the director and would later add turnaround sheets for the character wearing the cap. Another problem I came across was animating how the hair gets tucked into the cap after it is put on. It was strange to animate at first, as it would not have been physically possible in real life, but I managed to fix the shot after animating the hair ‘shrinking’ while putting on the cap.
The next shot I was given would be a lot simpler, as I was to draw the key frames for a shot where Paul looks confusingly at an egg and taps on it. I was told there weren’t any problems while animating this shot at first, although much later I would need to make the shot more exaggerated and less stiff.
At this point in time, the last shot I worked on was a shot where Paul reacts to a lizard popping out of the egg and sneezing. I was supposed to just draw the key frames of the shot but I managed to do the inbetweens as well, as it was a shot without much movement. There weren’t any problems while animating this shot.
As of this point, I certainly wouldn’t mind continuing to help out in the production of this project, as I believe most problems I had with drawing and animating the character had been mostly alleviated after some practice. It has definitely been a helpful experience working on a third year’s film.
For my crew project, I decided to focus on working on one third year film project. This allowed me to be more flexible with work on other modules and projects while also providing a greater output of work for the crew project. I decided to help out in the production of the third year film, “Papa Poule”. I chose this project because I thought the animation style was relatively charming and was all supposed to be done in 2D.
During the pre-production stage, the director and producer gave me my first task of drawing 10 dynamic poses for the main character in the short; Paul. I believe this task was given to help provide some practice in drawing the main character many others would be animating during production. While referencing the character design, turnarounds and expression sheets already created by the director/producer, I managed to finish the dynamic poses. While they definitely looked like dynamic poses, the director noticeably pointed out that my style of drawing the character was slightly off in terms of facial and bodily proportions in her feedback. After practicing how to draw the character a bit more, I managed to adapt to the art style and proportions relatively quickly.
I was given a production task to begin animating the key frames for a shot in the animatic. The shot in question was from a scene in which Paul puts a cap on his head. While the task seemed simple at first, as it was a close-up shot of the character, there were some areas of the animation where I ran into some problems. The first, being that I didn’t have an idea of what the cap looked like as a three dimensional shape. When I asked the director about this, I was given a general idea of what the cap was supposed to look like and I tried to draw it in the way it was described to me. The end result was serviceable enough to the director and would later add turnaround sheets for the character wearing the cap. Another problem I came across was animating how the hair gets tucked into the cap after it is put on. It was strange to animate at first, as it would not have been physically possible in real life, but I managed to fix the shot after animating the hair ‘shrinking’ while putting on the cap.
The next shot I was given would be a lot simpler, as I was to draw the key frames for a shot where Paul looks confusingly at an egg and taps on it. I was told there weren’t any problems while animating this shot at first, although much later I would need to make the shot more exaggerated and less stiff.
At this point in time, the last shot I worked on was a shot where Paul reacts to a lizard popping out of the egg and sneezing. I was supposed to just draw the key frames of the shot but I managed to do the inbetweens as well, as it was a shot without much movement. There weren’t any problems while animating this shot.
As of this point, I certainly wouldn’t mind continuing to help out in the production of this project, as I believe most problems I had with drawing and animating the character had been mostly alleviated after some practice. It has definitely been a helpful experience working on a third year’s film.
Tuesday, 11 April 2017
Title sequence group project final
The final version edited and compiled by Noah Serafin (additional animation credit to the former, Jessica Wright, and Zoe Early). Full production report below.
The title sequence project was a rather challenging prospect
since the beginning, as being grouped together with people I didn’t know was
slightly difficult to adjust to. I took the initiative in setting up the group
chat to help everyone introduce themselves (Noah Serafin, Jessica Wright and
Zoe Early) and organise meetups. Although our group had a slow start, we
decided fairly quickly early on that we would be choosing the “Yesterday’s
Tomorrow” task as everyone agreed it would the most interesting to do. Although
our group consisted of 2D students, there was some debate as to whether we were
going to implement stop motion and/or live-action segments.
Getting the people in the group to decide on who would be
doing what for the first few weeks was difficult as one of our members was
absent for personal issues in a few group meetings, although it didn’t put any
major detriment to the project as a whole. We also set up Google drives to make
access to our work easier. I can say that our group managed to get along fairly
well and didn’t have that many disagreements on how to do the project.
Our group got a fully realised idea of what we were going to
do around midway through the project after I created a rough animatic to show
how the sequence would play out. We had each contributed ideas in rough draft
before this and I attempted to compile their ideas as well as mine to create
the basis of the sequence. There were points during the making of the project
where we debated using colour or black and white for the whole sequence.
After a few group meetings, we were able to conclude on how to
split the workload and decided who would do what. Everyone had a clear idea of
what they were supposed to do, and this made it easy for everyone to
concentrate and focus on their segments. I decided to do more of the animated
2D segments and design the intertitle borders as I believed this was what I was
most comfortable with to produce. Everyone else also managed to be in a
position where they would be comfortable with what they were producing for the
project. Editing and sound in particular was handled nicely by Noah as we were
all confident he could do it right.
In conclusion, the title sequence project was certainly a
challenge at the start but over time became easier to get into once everyone
settled on who was going to do what. Luckily for us, this was a simple matter.
I learned a lot from this project, as I went into it thinking I wouldn’t be
able to get much work done due to miscommunication with unknowns. Providing a
clear explanation through animatic helped clear these doubts and problems. If I
could change anything about the project, I would put more detail into the
animated sections, as I believe at least my sections could use have used more
colour, lighting and detail. If anything else I’d say I managed to bulk up my
team-building and communication skills.
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