One Day / One Minute Challenge

Hello!

With deadlines drawing in and the end of year looming, I thought it would be interesting to look at a way of generating new and exiting work, either to give you a break from your main projects, or to top up your portfolio ready for assessment.

The One Day / One Minute brief was something I set myself during a particularly long and busy production a few years ago. I was becoming restless and frustrated with my work and needed to take a break, so I decided to give myself a brief to complete in just one day.

Step 1 : Find an object...

Look around you now. What could you bring to life? Maybe a piece of paper / a child's toy / an item of clothing / a blinking cursor on a blank screen; anything that you could animate in a style you are confident in.

Step 2 : Get stuck in...

Get your head down, churn out some frames and head towards your 1 minute goal... Sound doesn't have to be a big part of it, but if you're itching to practice your foley skills or work with a piece of music, then factor that into your day.

Explore your medium.

You could take your object on a journey, give it character or just examine it's inner workings and subtle movements.

Most of all, enjoy yourself! Revel in the magic of breathing life into inanimate objects. Remind yourself why you decided to animate in the first place.


Here are 3 examples of of films I've made using these principles :

THE BIG DRAW : Beyond the Line

Object : A Post Office Form

SCREEN PRINTING MACHINERY LTD

Object : A Screen Printing Drying Rack

USELESS BEAUTY

Object : A Confusing Email

Film Watch - (Double bill!) The Pianist and Sucker Punch

As I will be away in Canada next week here are two films to keep you occupied! Both live action but somewhat different in tone... The Pianist and Sucker Punch.

The Pianist

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0253474/

Sucker Punch

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0978764/

Notes from the 23rd November session

Notes

• Technical development of final project pre-production:
  - Covered 'Time Remapping' techniques with Mary and how to use the basic key-framing of After Effects.
  - Ashley discussed illustration and animation mixtures of a selection of footage with Dan and gave an overview of some After Effects tools.
  - Discussed some small issues with Flash with Allison as well as her approach to the lead into the christmas deadline and next semesters projects.
• Matthew started work on building a new Stop Motion armature - thank you to Steve from 3D for assistance with the threaded rod cutting.
• We inherited a piece of history, a VHS video camera!

Task

Watch this fortnight's films The Pianist and Sucker Punch.

Also a challenge: find a short animation online that you have particularly enjoyed and post a link to it as a comment on this post.

Film Watch - The Incredibles

This weeks film is a CGI piece by the masters at Pixar, The Incredibles.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0317705/

Short Bites - Pixels and The Cat Piano

Pixels

The Cat Piano

Notes from 16th November session

Notes

• Trouble-shooting Photoshop issues with Mary.
• Matthew uploaded his T-Shirt design to Threadless - sign up and show your support with votes!
• Ashley discussed with Dan about his current illustration work.
• We watched the short films Lighthouse and Father and Daughter

Task

Watch this weeks film The Incredibles and, as usual, check out the shorts too!

Tech Cues - Premier Pro exporting settings

A quick post main aimed at Paul for outputting his Stop Motion animation today, but others may find it useful as a reference when doing their own quick exports through Premier Pro.

(Note that I've put this together using a Mac CS5.5 so some things may look a little different but the same general ideas will apply)

(Also, if any of the images are too small to read just click on them to see them full size)

Set your project up with HDV in the capture format, and use Frames as your video display (which makes it easier for animators to work out their timing I find).

Make sure you choose HDV 1080p24 as your sequence preset, this will ensure you dont get squashed video when you import your footage onto the timeline.

1 - You import your video footage and sound files into this area (Either: right click in this box and choose 'import' OR go to the 'file' menu and choose 'import' OR Ctrl and I)

2 - Drag your video files from area 1 into the timeline here.

3 - Drag sound files from area 1 into the timeline here you can then drag them forwards and backward (Right and Left) in time to align them. If sounds need to overlap each other then drag them down into the empty space below the 'Master' sound strack and it will create a new audio layer.

4 - Drag the blue playhead to move along the timeline.

When you are finished, go to the 'file' menu and chose 'export' then 'media'.

In the export settings make sure you make the following selections:

1 - Format = Quicktime (or if this is not available use WMV also known as Windows Media Video)
Make sure the 'Export Video' and 'Export Sound' check boxes are ticked.
Clicking on the 'Output Name' will let you name the file and choose the location it will be saved to.

2 - Video Codec = H.264

3 - Width = 1920
Height = 1080
Frame Rate = 24

Then just click the 'Export' button at the bottom.

Good luck!

Are you a Brony?

Topics discussed today..!

Film Watch - Les Tripplets de Bellville

This weeks film is the strange and disturbing world of 'Les Tripplets de Bellville' a brilliant 2D drawn feature animation directed by Sylvain Chomet.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0286244/

Short Bites - A Sheep on the Roof and The House of Small Cubes

A Sheep on the Roof

The House of Small Cubes



Notes from 9th November session

Notes

• Technical development of final project pre-production:
  - Working with combined tweening and movie clips in Flash with Allison, how to use keyframes to controll paths and add slow in and slow out to add detail to animated movement.
  - Discussion of use of After Effects instead of Flash with Matt, multi layering and lighting as well as faking globe rotation. Ashley also worked with Matt to work out asset lists of backgrounds, character faces etc.
  - Ashley introduced the use of a JPEG sequence within Flash to Mary for her hand to tree animation, as well as the process for exporting an image sequence out of Photoshop and image cleanup.
• Jess set up her blog Eagle Town !

Task

Watch this weeks film Les Tripplets de Bellville and take a look at the shorts too.

Two Excellent Shorts on a similar theme

Manipulation by Daniel Greaves

Rejected by Don Hertzfeldt

Short Bites - The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello

A bonus extra film to make up for the gap over half-term, this one is a dark and brooding, half hour, silhouette animation from Australlia.

The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello

You can read a brief overview of the blend of CGI, 2D cutout, miniatures and effects techniques used here:
images.autodesk.com/adsk/files/JasperMorello.pdf

The Conet Project

Some interesting discussions in the classroom today. Matt has been listening to the sound of the cosmos to research the soundtrack to his (as yet) untitled space epic.

This led us to talking about the Numbers Stations and the Conet Project...

http://www.irdial.com/conet.htm

The Numbers Stations were / are a fascinating series of seemingly unintelligible broadcasts on shortwave frequencies, which were supposedly used by spies in the Cold War to communicate with each other.

The sound of these broadcasts, which are often just srtings of numbers and letters, are deliciously distorted and full of texture. And the names of the different stations are a wonderful collection of obscure and evokative titles.

The subject has intreagued me greatly and I'll be looking into the history in greater detail. Hopefully I'll be able to track down a Conet Project boxset for us to use as a resource.

Also in our discussion about science and sounds, the 1971 film 'The Andromeda Strain' cropped up. It's a masterclass in spare and dramtic sound design and I would recomend the film to anyone!

Short Bites - Tango, The Monk and the Fish and Heartstrings

Tango

The Monk and the Fish

Heartstrings

Notes from 2nd November session

Notes

• Viewed Matt's space animatic. Great use of highly atmospheric sounds (including the 'sound of Jupiter' to underlay the visuals).
• Covered further technical topics for production:
  - Introduction of cutout technique and tweening in Flash with Allison and use of Photoshop layers.
  - Rotoscoping and masking in AfterEffects with Dan, linking these techniques to the moving photography work of Jamie Beck and Kevin Burg.
  - Aspect ratio choice and overlapping cycled layers using boils with Matt.
• Briefly covered website layout using tables within dreamweaver and html with Katie.

Task

Watch this weeks film Hero and check out the short bites Tango, The Monk and the Fish, Heartstrings and Jasper Morello also.

Keep up with the blogging too. Try and get one or two published each week!

Film Watch - Hero

Another live action film for you this week, Hero; one from the easten director Zhang Yimou. Take particular note of the way colour has been used to symbolicaly indicate elements such as mood, scene seperation, time differences, attitues and the 'spin' of the storyteller; all particually bold and magnificent in this film.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0299977/