The Jo Show

I think to spare her either vomiting or just getting properly creeped out, I'll do my best to restrain myself from heaping more sycophantic praise on my main assistant animator Jo. It needs to be said however that having her take the reigns for the character animation of the Prospective Lay (who I now wish had a better name) could not have been a better decision. My plan as I outlined it previously was to ensure the character had her own personality and style of movement to distinguish her from the uncouth Hunter and Duck duo. Looking at the line tests Jo came up with while I was out of the country there is a level of fluidity and attention to detail that is able to break through the murky webcam resolution. My concern when I left was that by concentrating her attentions on sequences that lasted only a few seconds at a time there might have been a temptation to over-animate. This turned out not to be the case, as she also demonstrates a fundamental instinct for keeping it all reigned in. Here are a few tests to show what I mean:

I must've tried this cycle six times and never came up with anything usable. The main hurdle at which I would stumble was getting the bounce on the boobs right. My follow-through would either be off or the secondary motion would be too minimal to register. Worst would be the issue of too much bounce which came off as gratuitous.

While you need the accompanying dialogue to fully appreciate the movement here, there is a lot going on that demonstrates a real flair for body language and acting. I especially like the childlike way she waves.

This is another shot that I took several stabs at that never felt right to me (in fact, one clunky version made it into the trailer for a few frames). The accusatory point always lacked something or other when animated as a single movement. Here Jo has resolved that issue by lifting the arm pre-emptively.

In this shot I gave her free reign to animate the character being visibly bashful. The animation is timed to the dialogue for the shot, where the Duck puts the moves on her.
These really met my expectations and even went a little beyond them. I feel more of Jo's input would be beneficial, not just to my film but in terms of my personal understanding of animation processes. The animation BA that Jo graduated from taught her a lot more about the fundamentals, while my MA kinda leaves you to work it out on you own. If I can pick up more bits and pieces of animation technique I could make the film a great deal more visually interesting.

Face Time & Skinless People! Mostly Skinless People...

Here's another entry being written on a plane to be eventually transcribed once I'm settled on terra firma. I'm leaving the US today, the very evening as it cruelly turns out that Maria Bamford, one of my favourite women in the world is going to be in New York. All in all though I couldn't have asked for a better first experience of the city, and by a miraculous feat of willpower I was able to stick to the work hours in the hotel room and am still on schedule. I can't say I was able to stick to a diet that suggested any modicum of self-respect, there being about a billion Dunkin' Donuts scattered around the island. But screw it, something had to give.

This morning before I headed on down to Newark airport I decided to crowbar in one last jaunt down at the seaport and see the current exhibition being held there. While the supposed intent of 'Bodies' is to document the more urgent functions of all our lovely gooey inside-bits - along with the numerous ways each organ can get messed-up and kill you - my fascination stemmed less from an eagerness to learn than a childhood awe of the visceral...viscera...and such. I recall vividly how alarming yet strangely compelling the visual of a skinless body was when leafing through one of the most potentially-traumatising pop-up books a six-year-old child could receive:

"The Human Body" Produced by Intervisual Communications, Inc. Published by Jonathan Cape Ltd, 1983

Years later, perhaps my favourite movie as a pre-adolescent was Clive Barker's Hellraiser, which featured a typical love-triangle premise - the wife, the cuckold and the brother-in-law - with a typically Barkerian twist of making the latter party a reanimated, skinless zombie.

Hellraiser: I know what you're thinking. Those oversized star earrings really are horrifying...

In it's first* sequel Hellbound one scene which carried particular resonance depicted a morbidly obsessed doctor at a loss for words as to a similarly revived woman's appearance. "Strange?" She offers, "Surreal? Nightmarish?"

At twelve I found all terms to be apt, so in seeing an exhibit of genuine (if preserved to the point of resembling sculptures constructed of wax and smoked meat) flayed cadavers at twenty-four, I found this morbid curiosity reignited. I have been meaning to take up life-drawing as by all accounts it is an ideal and essential supplemental skill to have as an animator. But beyond nudity, the full glory of human anatomy and weight could surely be studied to a greater and more beneficial degree with these as subjects? If it's common practice I have never encountered it, though procuring the corpses would be tricky...
This entry has so far been a little detached from 'House Guest', although it's strangely coincidental that the focus of the last week's work has been on a scene in which the zombified Hunter is in a not dissimilar state of excoriation. In the spirit of the previous 'Face Time' posts, albeit with a slightly macabre twist, here are some pencil tests for the final scene's expression changes.

In fairness my cartoonist license allowed for tenuous (at best) fidelity to actual human anatomy. Or, come to think of it, duck anatomy for that matter:

*They ended up making eight Hellraisers in the end. I'm not kidding. Each godawful straight-to-DVD sequel crushes my precious childhood affection for the original anew.

"Monkeyjammin' til the jam is through..."

This morning I was able to slap together some pencil tests at my sister's apartment here in the city, using a nice little freeware application called MonkeyJam. It doesn't boast much but the price is right and it's ideal for these types of tests.
As I've been doing all my work in the hotel room without access to my beloved Photoshop or After Effects I hadn't had a chance to test any sequences once they were done, which is usually the way I prefer to do it as I can then work out whatever corrections need to be made on the fly.
A part of me was dreading the way these would turn out, but I was pleasantly surprised. As the shots didn't include anything too complex the only visual problems can easily be amended during cleanup or by replacing the odd frame.

Here the zombified Hunter loses his rag with the Duck, who responds in kind.

The above test is my favourite of this particular bunch. After several scene's worth of bitching and moaning the Hunter's jaw finally dislocates, to the Duck's visible delight:

I've edited these next two shots together to check the continuity is okay:
This is for the penultimate shot in which the Duck laughs until his brittle neck snaps from the movement. Good times.
It's been an ideal change of scenery to be out of Bristol the last week-and-a-half or so, but I'm starting to itch for my real studio again. Good timing I suppose, as I'm leaving tomorrow.
Well, better shove as much crap as I can steal into my suitcase while I have the time.

Outsourcing, A.K.A. 'Passing The Buck'

I'm writing this entry on a plane, having determined that neither 'There Will Be Blood' or 'I Am Legend' are best viewed on a 4" by 3" screen with piss-awful sound. So to pass the time I'm scribbling on what would have to be the most ridiculously overpriced notepad I've ever owned. For £13 it ought to come with annotated and illustrated instructions on how to convince Molly Parker to leave her family and acting career to shack up with me. Instead it has a little leaflet with some hogwash about why it's supposed to be so grand and pricey. Thieving scallywags.

I bet it isn't even made with real moleskin...

I'm headed to New York for what is more a change of scenery than a holiday. My production schedule doesn't really allow for a two-week break at this point, so I've brought my mini-lightbox with me and a whole mess of layouts and dope sheets. That being said, it would be a ridiculous waste to not see some nifty cultural shit, and my sister (who voices the Prospective Lay in 'House Guest') is in a play over there. Fortunately I still manage to take great personal satisfaction in the work required , even at this later stage of the process. I could with no embellishment attribute that largely to my main assistant animator Jo, the quality of whose selfless and consistent hard work is made even better by the fact that she never complains when I put on a Mike Patton-heavy iTunes playlist. That uncharacteristic arse-kissing actually has some relevance, as I'd have long since abandoned the project if it had seen me having to work alongside somebody with whom I didn't get along.

Jo off-duty

While personal opinion of character can be a fairly treacherous impairment when assessing skill and ability, I've admired Jo's work since before we met and have faith that outsourcing a number of key animation sequences to her will benefit the film. During the earlier part of the MA I was fascinated to learn of how animation studios commonly recruit specific animators to work on specific characters, 'casting' them essentially. As a consequence you theoretically wind up with an end result that sees the body language and movement of each character as distinct in relation to one another as the voices recorded for them. Think of all the animated feature films where the hero or heroine (or villain in some instances) move realistically and elegantly to match their idealised designs, while the wacky cohort will carry themselves in a far more 'cartooney', over-emphasised fashion for the sake of comic relief or juxtaposition. In a way the 'subversive' (a word chosen by our course leader which I think was, in the instance, a tactful word for 'amateurish') animation I have so far produced for the Kid, Duck and Hunter is appropriate when considering their characters. They are all, in their own way, minor sociopaths so the jerky and/or theatrical styles of movement fit them well.

As the Prospective Lay is the only 'normal' (if dim) player in the film, I've been dissatisfied with the animation I had produced for her thus far that retained this same style. Having Jo take over the handful of shots which feature essential animation for the character it should remedy the issue by giving her a style of movement and presence all her own. Admittedly it's an experiment, but I'm optimistic as to the outcome. My only concern is whether or not the materials I've given her to work from in my absence are sufficient or even comprehensible. As far as I can tell I've covered all the major bases, having broken down the character design into construction lines and key poses (each accompanied by a more detailed sketch for reference) and isolated each sequence from the animatic so that they can be transcribed onto dope sheets. Lastly I threw together some notes on what type of end result I'm going for.


I'm excited to see how these sequences pan out and am looking forward to incorporating what Jo produces into the final film.
Well, that's eaten up some time. Just looked back at the screen and Will Smith seems bummed out. I hope the dog didn't get eaten by one of those Mike Patton zombie mutants.

"You'll find a note, then you'll see my silhouette..."

In character design, a rule of thumb which has more or less fallen by the wayside is that cartoon characters should be identifiable even in silhouette. When you think of the most legendary icons in animation this is clearly apparant. Because of their distinctive designs you could easily pick out Mickey Mouse (for example) from his outline alone. This extends to the entire Looney Tunes ensemble, The Simpsons (this was, according to Matt Groening, the main reason they all had such bizarre hairstyles) - even the kids in South Park, probably the most basic designs ever in animation, have distinguishing hats.
In more modern animation it seems that these considerations aren't made, or perhaps in today's CGI era they might not be considered necessary.
When I was going through the character design stage the silhouette rule didn't occur to me, being an absent minded dumbass. Fortunately there are only four players in the film, all of whom unique to themselves - the decomposing Duck, the Creepy Kid, the slovenly Hunter and the well-coiffed Prospective Lay.
I've been musing on this chiefly due to a handful of scenes in which the characters are only viewed in silhouette, and my concern that they pan out alright.Two early shots of the Duck are not indicative of the eventual character design. While not proportionally realistic, I wanted there to be no ambiguity that the creature we were dealing with was a duck and nothing else.
Later on we get our first glimpse of the reanimated beast, taken from this layout drawing:For the sake of atmosphere I decided to keep the character in silhouette to begin with, briefly illuminated by lightning but just for long enough to get an impression of his appearance. The subsequent shot from behind the Duck makes use of the slower flight cycle created for the penultimate scene, which works just as well in silhouette.On the whole I feel that these shots work visually, as the audience has been given enough information to connect the dots and let the silhouette speak for itself.The Creepy Kid, who we first see fully illuminated, has one brief silhouette shot in which he picks up the dead Duck's corpse on the beach. The distinctive hair and the character's prominence in the scene help to sell the shot.Although there was one somewhat dodgy realisation. While the line test seems innocent enough, an indication of the character's arm and hand visible, once it has become a full-on silhouette in cleanup his thumb could be misconstrued as another appendage altogether. This is why it helps to have a fresh set of eyes around the studio (cheers to my ever-observant and apparently one-track-minded cleanup assistant Jo for spotting this). In the finished shot we decided to resolve this issue by making the index finger visible as well.The Prospective Lay has only one backlit shot, when she stands with the Hunter in the doorway. Given that the Hunter is not as readily identifiable (in this scene he's wearing a suit and his hair is pulled back into a ponytail) without the voice work there could be some potential for confusion.The shot quickly cuts to a close-up of both characters properly illuminated thought, and when the two run together in sequence said potential is negligable.The penultimate scene features some of my favourite shadow animation, in which the Hunter (having gone nuts) quivers and babbles like a lunatic. I wanted to convey his madness through having his hair in disarray and indulging in some crazy eyeball acting. Keeping him in the shadows also contributes to a sight gag in which it is revealed that the Hunter is, once illuminated, stark bollock naked.
In the end I think it's safe to say that the characters are more or less identifiable as silhouettes, but possibly only in contrast to one another being of such varying proportions. When I started this project I came up with character designs that were in keeping with my drawing style, flat and lacking in depth or consistent proportion. I didn't foresee that my project would extend much beyond limited animation. As a consequence I had to create the illusion of depth and a third dimension afterward. With my since-accrued knowledge of animation processes I imagine the designs for my next project will be the other way around, beginning with an awareness of depth and shape and having that be the foundation for the way the characters turn out. I would speculate that the reason the 'classic' characters can be identified by their outlines alone is that they were also constructed with a skilled knowledge of space, geometry and fine-art principles. Having never been schooled in either I have frequently found myself with some catching up to do in the making of this film. It is, however, always a fascinating process.

Children. They're All Little Bastards Really.

Not a big entry this time, but I wanted to show a couple line test/end result comparisons from a scene that actually features very little by way of animation. This is the sequence in which the Creepy Kid has brought the Duck home and is in the process of stitching it back together. One of the shots has already been discussed in a previous post with those that remain featuring far less extreme animation.

The first appearance of the Kid in the scene is simply his rising into view.

When offscreen, sound effects will imply his rustling about. To punctuate his emerging from beneath the table we see and hear lightning from outside (fairly crucial to establish its presence as later in the scene it strikes the dead Duck through an open window).

The tricky thing with this shot was getting the secondary motion of his head settling into place right. With the accompanying flashes of lightning I feel it's more or less there.
Here's another shot featuring the same backdrop and composition. All that really occurs is the Kid, having been called to dinner, contemplating the Duck before he decides to leave any further taxidermy until later.

This is done entirely through facial expression, one of my favourite things to animate as I have documented previously.
Here's how it looks with the backdrop (and to show the compositional arrangement with the Duck silhouette).

One more to end on, and my favourite of the three. In this shot the Kid, having supped, returns to his room to find that the reanimated in absentia Duck has buggered off.

This makes for a nice reaction take, and some facial expressions I'm really happy with that convey the Kid's subsequent fear and bewilderment.

With some post-effects (and eventually a soundtrack) the overall shot nicely caps off the scene.

The character of the Creepy Kid is probably the least explored of the ensemble. He has no dialogue and little screen-time, but the audience should hopefully pick up bits and pieces from the glimpses of his behaviour and the environment in which he dwells. My intention was for the viewer to know enough about the character to know they don't want to know any more. Y'know?
Actually, I don't know. I'm starting to smell the potential for a Creepy Kid spinoff. Yep, tons of mileage there...

RAMming It Home

This week saw the completion of our group collaboration with the Royal Academy of Music. While we were all granted the clemency of an extended deadline, I found myself having to move to a new apartment during the project's final week, which made for a fairly hectic post-production process. With perseverance it came together in the end, and while there is still room for some tweaking before it is shown in June for a London screening at the RAM, it's a neat little film.Using Abbie Davies's illustrations to create a simulated paper cut-out set, I timed the animation and camera motion path to James Williamson's (of the RAM) score. While it is technically an abstract film, a narrative of sorts could be interpreted. The viewer becomes the film's main 'character', floating ethereally through a landscape that incrementally grows more and more frustrating as the search for an exit bears little fruit. The one other presence in the film is an occasional ball of light which entices the camera's POV to follow.To accompany James's score and give the minimalistic visuals a bit more atmosphere I created a soundscape to heighten the mood. Combining a variety of wind effects for the exterior forest sequence and a hollow, distant rumble for the interior 'doors' section, the end result hopefully contributed to the film's overall sense of unease. For the shots in which the mysterious beam of light appears I added some layers of long-wave radio static to give it a distinct presence when onscreen. What really sells the tone of the film is James's strings/percussion/vibraphone score itself, which intermittently punctuates the piece in emulation of a varying heart rate as the POV 'character's frustration mounts.On the whole I am satisfied with the outcome, and interestingly my personal issues with some of the sloppier camerawork weren't shared by others when the film was shown along with the other projects. There was some discussion however about the lighting for one section and the suggestion that we opted for an ending which provided further resolution. I think that to aquiesce the latter point would undermine our original intention to have the film come full circle. There may well be a better way of achieving that though. As I mentioned previously, the film will be part of a later screening in June, and so once time has passed it may be worth it to watch the film more objectively and determine what fine-tuning needs to be done if any.
Meanwhile here's a little clip to give you an idea of how it turned out:

Threesome On A Sofa

Just wanted to throw up some line tests to demonstrate how the production speed has changed, In about the same time it took to create this hop cycle several months ago...
...I’ve managed to get three sort-of-nifty line tests done this afternoon. They all take place against roughly the same backdrop, the Hunter’s sofa.

Here we see the Prospective Lay unsure of how to react when faced with the Duck for the first time, giving a little cringe and looking around nervously.

In a very short space of time they’ve grown close and here we see the Duck react with horror when told to leave.

From earlier on in the film, this is my favourite test of the three. I didn’t think the yawn would turn out this well, but probably by fluke the timing came out spot on. Okay, that’s a lie, I had to take a few frames out. The end result works well enough though. When I watch it on a loop like this I almost feel like I need to yawn myself.
So this afternoon was pretty productive. Yay, I say!

Trailer Trash

Well, I've cemented my fate. There's no backing-out now - my film has a trailer and I'm gonna have to follow up on it.
As I mentioned previously, the full-time students on my MA showcased their finished films today, and with their permission I hope to link to them if at some point they go online. Frankly I'm in awe of several of the films produced - the bar has been dramatically raised compared to the output of prior year-groups' and it's going to be no small feat producing a film of my own that amounts to the same level of quality.
The best thing is that there isn't one film that's remotely similar to another. The range of genres, methods and styles is huge. To have gotten the chance to study (and, in some cases, work) with this particular group has been a real privilege.
Well, nobody likes an asskiss so I'll just get on with showing the trailer:

An excuse to leave the attic

On the 16th we have a screening in which the full-time students will showcase their films. As a part-timer, 'House Guest' isn't due to be finished until June, and at the time of writing is still in bits and pieces. I'd like to include some indication of my progress as part of the screening and figured that a trailer would be an ideal way of cobbling said bits and pieces together. This has motivated me to get some footage completed for scenes other than the attic/trophy room sequence that has dominated the last couple months. Going through the animatic I decided to focus my energies on some shots that would look good if thrown in the mix for my trailer.

The above are shots that aren't especially difficult to animate and don't necessitate line tests as such. Their execution is fairly simple through limited animation and a lot of the work is in the editing. Here are a couple other shots that require somewhat fuller animation:


A fairly simple reaction shot, for when the Prospective Lay first sees the Duck. This is only a handful of frames but to sell it in terms of convincing acting (and to refine the secondary hair movement) it's worth doing a pencil test first.

After a few passes to get the hair and mouth action right I ended up with the above shot. Here's how it looks inked-in and coloured:


The following shot is also dependent on facial expression, although it's a little longer:

In this one, the Creepy Kid prepares to finish stitching the Duck together, guivering with eerie glee, only to be snapped out of his unsettling reverie when his offscreen mother calls him for dinner. Here's what I came up with for the pencil test:

I wanted him to switch from docile to anticipatory quickly, and then to snap back just as fast. To emphasise this I used a mild 'smear' transition going in and an extreme one coming out.

With a slow zoom and some moody lightning applied to the colour version I'm really happy with the end result:


The remaining shot requires some full-body acting, from a scene in which the Duck melodramatically unveils his partially-decomposed body.

The body acting in this shot is determined by the dialogue, which means the movement has to be specifically timed and lip-synced. Here's the test animation after all the dope-sheet transcription was done:

After tweaking the lip-sync a bit (that's another reason these tests are so crucial - the erasability of pencils can really save some heartache) I wound up with one of my favourite shots in the entire film so far:


Special mention has to again go to Jo Hepworth who did all the inking-in for these shots and thus ensured their completion. As I've said before, her line work is far smoother than mine, and if I'd worked on these shots on my own they would not only have taken far longer to do, but also wouldn't have looked half as professional.
Knock wood by the next entry I'll have the trailer finished. Shazizzle!