Very nearly done....

An incredibly hectic weekend STILL editing but finally I'm pleased with the video overall. Until I spotted a stupid spelling mistake which took a bit of rectifying. Here's the final edit. I can't watch it anymore. My eyes hurt.
Compressors and their specific merits have been hot topics of conversation as well as 'is this straight' during the putting together of the exhibition today. I'm pleased with the images I have chosen to display - they are very bold and eyecatching. A weird feeling really that this year has flown by so quickly. Literally seems like 10 minutes ago when we all met and sat down to make our group animation. This return to education has fulfilled all the goals I had set in my mind initially and alot more besides. I have improved my design and technical skills and my work reflects these gains. I built a website, made a video, got some work comissioned and all in all had a very pleasant time back at The Norwich School of Art and Design (I'm not a fan of the new moniker though) I feel a sense of achievement and am quite proud of myself all round. There were many ups and downs within this intensive time and I just about kept my head above water.
So, what's next?

Finished Edit

Well, after a mental amount of long days and late night, here's a final edit for the video, very happy with how it turned out. Still trying to find a better compression for the web as I'm not too happy with the resolution here. The hi-res version looks great and I can't wait to see it on a big screen. Can't believe this year has flown by so fast! A long mental journey of ups and downs, lots of hurdles along the way and a lots of self-doubt, but I'm glad I stuck with it! Anyway, I think this video fulfills the slot for a Masters project and I enjoyed all the processes from start to finish. Even colour keying for hours!

New Rough Edit

Here's a rough edit of how it's going to look. I'm very happy so far - the first half is more or less o.k. and the second half is incomplete. Don't know about including the smoke on the end part or if it looks a bit shit or not, but I quite like it...I don't know ?

Goober Patrol - Mind The Gap New Edit (still incomplete) from Tom Blyth on Vimeo.
More soon !

This weekend.....

...was good fun, a nice change from being cooped up in front of my computer all hours day and night -I played a festival in Selestat, France withe The Toy Dolls. Was really hot and I'm really unfit currently so it was a bit of a killer.Managed to sling together a rough edit of my Masters project, lots more to do and time is rapidly slipping away....

Goober Patrol - Mind The Gap (Rough Edit) from Tom Blyth on Vimeo.

SHARK!

Here's a shark,

No Sun for me

Discovered the 3d capabilities of AFX, so all steam ahed with the literal add of a new dimension to my project. Must'nt go over the top with it though. Spent all weekend 12 hour days animated scenes with live action, spending hours with keying out the blue and watching the render bar slowly trawl along. Also been practicing a new set, an acoustic version of Goober Patrol, add to that remembering a huge Toy Dolls set.  Off to France for a festival at the weekend, so will work on the hop where I can. Getting edgy! Brain set to implode.

My dragon stuff and more

I had a meeting the other day with the NEN Dragon group who are organising all the festivities for next years 'Year of The Dragon'  They seemed keen to use my animation for the advertisement for next years events, so hopefully this will transpire. Here's a link to the animation. I'm pleased with how it turned out.

Currently trying to assemble the biggest jigsaw puzzle that is my Masters project - but getting there slowly but surely. Will post a link soon to a VERY rough mix of what I've put together so far.

Over and out!

Masters project

So far so good -getting to grips with the massive capabilities of After Effect CS3, especially the key light effect. Had problems with my footage as it seemed to be full of lines which looked rubbish and was informed I should de-interlace the footage. I checked out a tutorial to do this (cheers Graeme) but this looked like alot of hassle and time, so I uploaded the footage all over again and hopefully it will be better quality this time. I've been experimenting with editind the live action with animation and have now found a 'look' to the video which I am happy with and puts across the message well (above image) Still a long way to go, but glad I have a style in which I can apply everything too. have many ideas and am very self aware not to clutter the video up too much.

Also completed some work for The Student pocket Guide just a small edit with ex-Big Brother housemate Carole. She's the new agony aunt for the site/magazine.

Updated the Goober Patrol website and hopefully will sort out getting it online finally tomorrow. Or not, we'll see!

Have an interview this week at the Assembly Rooms with the N.E.N. about possibly using my dragon timeline animation next year for the year of the dragon celebrations. This means if it's used, then it will be shown on screen in the City Hall, Guild Hall and Assembly Rooms. Nice one!

Photos

A couple of pictures from shooting the live footage for the music video. Currently editing it together and having a go at keying out the blue. Final Cut proved not so good results and have been advised to key the colour out using After Effects.

Good News

Finally completed the project for the castle  '1000 Years of Norwich Buildings with Snap the Dragon' Had a good response to the animation from Suzie and the rest of the group (however I feel my presentation was a bit poor) This piece of animation has taken (surprise surprise) alot longer than anticipated, but well worth it. I had a meeting yesterday with the Norwich Heart organisation and it seems they may commission me to expand the animation to include more Norwich buildings and then they would like to put it on their website. Also it may appear on screens in such buildings as the City Hall and Assembly house as part of the 'Year of the dragon' festivities next year which is also a bonus. All these outcomes far exceed any expectations I had when embarking on this project! I'll post the full video on here soon when I have the internet back in my house. I have also sent the finished animation to the castle to see if they may like to use it too. 

Major Project Stuff

After the awkward and time consuming proposal organisation it's full steam ahead now with this. I had a successful time filming this and many thanks to all involved. So, all the live action is sorted. I will now edit it all together and key out all the blue and then start the animation part of the project. This project is exciting for me and I really hope I can produce something good rather than a cheesy protest style video (fingers crossed) Experimented in After Effects with the colour keying and the results were o.k. although I have been advised to colour key in Final Cut Pro. I have little knowlege with this program so it looks like I will be harrassing all and sundry to gain some understanding of this program. I had a go the other day colour keying out the blue and ended up with the band looking ghost-like. So, some attention needed there!

Painting

Strange how relaxing painting a huge area one colour can be! Re-painted the floor in the factory, got the camera and story-boarding for the shoot on Thursday. Lots to do!

Getting there with my Castle project - getting the images together of the buildings, will put it on  here upon completion. Think I will use the guitar music that was originally intended for my previous plan of 'A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings' as I think it will fit nicely with the animation.

Weekend

Just got back from Castellon, Spain - played a festival with Toy Dolls. Took my laptop so managed to get some work done for my castle project whilst traveling which was a bonus due to looming deadlines and rising levels of panic. All in all I have enjoyed my MA (which was my main intention) but it has thrown more stress at me than I anticipated. I aim to complete this project by Thursday so I can show the group and get a bit of feedback on my endeavors. Also I'd like to get it finished so I can fully concentrate on my major project. I intend to film the live action parts on thursday afternoon evening if it all goes to plan (fingers crossed!)

More....

Today and last night has mostly been getting my Masters Project proposal together. Putting my aims and objectives into 'MA' language - quite taxing on this brain!

Also been drawing backgrounds, animals and shrubbery for my Castle project. Here's a small movie which illustrates better what I am trying to achieve with this time line of 1000 years of historic buildings in the fine city of Norwich -

Got to make adjustment to the 'moonwalk' aspect but there's going to be extra things going on and 7/8 more historic building to add to the timeline.

Lyrics

Here's the lyrics for the Goober song - 

Verse One

A million undernourished faces staring from the screen,

While a million smug Westerners are living the dream,

A million swans are dying on a poisened lake,

While a million fat buisness men are on the take....

....and it grows....

 

Chorus

Theyre gonna fight that, fight back, fighting in a proxy war....

Theyre gonna fight that, fight back, fight the freedom loving hoards....

Theyre gonna fight that, fight back, we know what theyre fighting for....

Dont say you dont, cause I know you do....

 

Verse Two

A million pounds a second has us standing on the moon.

But a milion hungrry children havent got enough food,

a million hours debating the ethics of trade,

While a million desperate parents sell their kids to be slaves....

....and it grows....

 

Chorus

Theyre gonna fight that, fight back, fighting in a proxy war....

Theyre gonna fight that, fight back, fight the freedom loving hoards....

Theyre gonna fight that, fight back, we know what theyre fighting for....

Dont say you dont, cause I know you do... 

What have I been doing?

Right, a new direction as far as my final project is going -no longer the adaption of a narrative, now a music video. I have chosen to do this as I feel in the future I would rather go down this route rather than the other- but never say never as the saying goes. I intend to make a video for a band I play in, Goober Patrol. It's a song recorded a while back (see blog from last year) The song is a good old hearty protest song, so my intentions are obviously to do the song justice! The band is a punk band and by that I don't mean the insipid fashionable claptrap that parades itself about ,claiming they are 'punk' but being as acceptable as Wham or Travis-  but a band with a political agenda. My aim is to produce a video full of anti-capitalist imagery (as is the song content) Basically I would like to use capitalist networks and media to spread this anti-capitalist message. These networks being those dominating the Internet and T.V. The songs' structure is questions and answers and I aim to have these in 2 very contrasting graphic styles to reflect. Hopefully I'll come up with something original and not full of cliches, which is the risk with embarking upon a project like this. I am including the band in the video and intend to shoot in the shoe factory in the blue room. I scouted it out the other day and the location is great.

Animation For Exhibition - this project is going well, I've been trying to get my snap-dragon character to walk in a convincing manner in After Effects, it's proving to be a bit of a mission currently but not so bad I suppose. Here's a rough 'sketch' of what I'd like to achieve visually with this - 

I couldn't get the animatic or "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings' to upload - no great loss !

Animatic

Still not 100% sure of what to do for my final major project film - for the time being I have put together an animatic made up of the storyboard frames along with the soundtrack, here it is.....

....oh it doesn't want to load at the moment. I'll try again in the morning.

I have also completed an interview edit which you can find here. 

Working on an animation for exhibition project currently too. I am taking the Snap-Dragon as a character to walk along a time-line of  a thousand years in Norwich, walking past significant buildings and their time period.  

I'm Back

Well, been a while since the last post - been a very busy and  odd time for many reasons I shan't go in to; sufice to say personal life went haywire and college work took a back seat for a little while. Right, 2 projects ahead and this is the progress so far....

Self Negotiated final project- still undecided as to stick with the plan fror 'A very old Man' adaptation or go with plan B which is making a really nice music video for one of 3 bands I have the opportunity to produce one for. I may go with a video for a band I play in, Vanilla Pod as this weekend we record new tracks. I have many ideas for stop motion possibilities with the band (who are very up for these ideas and willing) Hopefully in breaks between recording I can make some test animations with them. I'd like to blue screen the band in the shoe factory and also have someone to film parts of the video which I will be in. It's still undecided as to which direction to go with this, I need to choose bloody soon. The external assessor told me I was too ambitious with my "Old Man' plan as it will take an age to complete. However, I do have the soundtrack to this written and recorded by Olga from The Toy Dolls which was a right scoop really. and would be a shame not to use this. I am confused.

This animation for exhibition project has me wanting to either project a 30 second piece onto the side of an historic building in Norwich. Thoughts go with the castle, Cow Tower or pieces of the old city wall in the Cathedral Close. I also had an idea yesterday whilst having a tour of the castle to go down the Tim Hunkin route and make a 'ride' this being a re-make of the Snap Dragon which resides in the keep, to make one of these that a child can sit in, with a animated tour of the journey this took through medieval Norwich. Would be brilliant also to have the 'ride' move and sway as it walks. Maybe 'too ambitious' again, but an idea none-the-less. Lots to do there. I would like to incorporate a woodcut style to this.

I have completed some private work for the Student Pocket Guide website. Check it out, I did the bits with Danny Dyer on the TV and also edited an interview with him too. Was a mission as the client was very particular with his needs, but all in all a good experience, check it out here

see you 

Crab !

Very Old Man

Web desgin out of the way now, was enjoyable and the presentations today were good. So, met Suzie and had a tutorial, showed her the storyboard I put together and there's a few inconsistencies which I need to iron out, for now it's o.k. assessment-wise. Also she pointed me in the direction of relevant work to research, 'Peter and The Wolf', 'Harpya' adn 'Ubu'. I aim to bulid the wings (at least) for the Angel puppet over the Easter break and if that's possible I can then move onto the rest. There's a fair amount of pre-production left to do before I can start with my final film. Never a moment without anything to do!

End in sight

Currently getting together the evaluations for my web-design elective and my sound project. I tidied up the final mix this evening and am very happy with the results. Gathered all the materials needed or all he relevant portfolios and starting to plan for the looming presentations. Have to complete the story board for 'A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings' and before I can do that I need to finalise the character design. Also I have to edit the animation I filmed a couple of weeks ago. Still a fair bit to do but there's an end in sight.
Just stumbled upon a piece of information on the internet -apparently R.E.M.'s video for their biggest hit 'Losing My Religion' has a character in it that's an old man with enormous wings inspired by Marquez's story. Here's R.E.M.'s video

Sound Design

Here's the near enough final sound for 'The Wooden Leg' Since getting this home and not listening to it through the mega-wattage of the sound room and little computer speakers instead - I have noticed a few things need to be brought up more in the mix which I'll sort out on Monday. Also there's a couple of timing issues with footsteps and a couple of other things to sort out. Anyway, here it is......

Getting there

Catalogue of success with all projects yesterday -

managed to find out the problem why 3 out of the 5 movies didn't work, due to them being corrupt files with no sound. I had to dig into my archives and import the videos again from my Dv camera. However I experience the same problem with a video that was previously working-it disappeared, but after re-locating it to another layer, it worked again. It doesn't make any sense, but will be content that they all work (2 videos have a little pixelation which pisses me of, but will go with those for the time being) So the site is FINISHED! But not online yet which is the next step.

A couple of evening ago, John gave me a guided tour around all that is Logic and after my initial computer crashing problems, last night I made more headway to the point of near completion. Tom advised me on a couple of things which was really handy to get another point of view. The computer was still crashing all over the place, but my frustration with it was kept at bay with the progress I made. We had part presentations of our work so far and everyone's stuff is great and very varied. Mine went down well, causing a few laughs which made me chuffed as I intended to try and add comedic elements to the clip via the soundtrack. Actually during the group tutorial I sussed out the website problems. Maybe a little rude to tap away on a different project whilst discussing another, but you've got to get it in when you can! Strike while the iron is hot and so on with the sayings and so forth.

Whilst waiting for the MA sound room to become available I was mucking about with my crab animation in After Effects and literally stumbled upon the colour key effect (maybe this is obvious to some, but not to me !) So, I managed to line up the animation with a seaside background. I experimented with obvious scenes where you can totally see it's animation and real film, but also not-so-obvious blends worked well. Here's one of the tests  below

Also been experimenting with making feathers solid (to make some enormous wings for the old man puppet) I tried varnishing a few, but they turn out sickly yellow and look crap (amazingly enough) so will  try other methods over the Easter holidays. Also a little further with the new improved story board, but that need quite alot of attention over the next few days, along with the character design. Last night I spent a few hours collecting the work I have done for this project research-wise for inclusion in the portfolio.

Pulling my bloody hair out

A successful and very unsuccessful day in many ways. But more frustrating than anything. First up was a tutorial for my Web Design Elective - 3 of the movies on my videos page don't play for some unknown reason as I applied the EXACT same methods putting them on the site as I did the 2 that worked. Shaun didn't know why they won't work either. Great. Also I kind of got answers for my questions concerning putting the mp3s on but had to find Ella again and she successfully showed me how to make them play and how they can be downloaded too. She couldn't work out either why the movies don't play. I tried re-compressing the movies into Flash files and put their source folder right next to the Flash project file thus limiting the path; but this doesn't work either. It's driving me fucking bananas so I predict I will link the movie buttons (of the ones that don't work) to YouTube. not what I want at all and ruins the design of that page. But what else can I do as I've explored every possibility and I need to focus my time on the other projects. I definatly have spent far more time than planned with this project and I have literally touched on the VERY basics of Flash. The next question I have is now it's built, what do I do with the site? I have the domain name - which is the best server to utilise? 

I had a tutorial with Suzie concerning my Self-Negotiated Project and this was the definate highlight of the day for me. We stripped the story I am adapting right down to 3 main characters (I will build these 3 puppets) also crabs and chickens too. She had some brilliant suggestions and together I feel we achieved a working narrative still keeping the essence of the tale with many oppourtunities for many nice visuals. All I have to do is realise this! But for the deadline I'll storyboard the new improved version, edit the animation I have produced and show the character design. i started the storyboarding this afternoon whilst waiting to gain access to the heavily booked sound room.

My day took a turn for the worse when attempting to sort my Sound Design Project. I had previously emailed John to ask for technical help for this and he kindly showed me around the working of Logic. I now know how to eq a sound-quite handy considering the project requirements. Tom had shown us this, very well I may add -but returning to apply this knowledge days after being shown as a group, the information tends to get lost (with me anyway) The best way I find I take in information is if somebody is literally sat next to me guiding me. This is what John did and I really appreciate his input. So, after his induction it was down to me to get editing and processing. The computer started freezing all over the place and the image wasn't synching with the sounds at all. So, I thought, compress the video clip, that will help the computer a bit-which I did and in doing so managed to shut down Logic in the process and 'do not save project' was pressed therefore losing the hour of processing. Nice one, an hour lost. The computer then took an age rendering the compressed movie and when I applied it to the project I realised my time was up and college is shutting. Very frustrated with how shit and slow the computer is in that room, how booked up it is and the lack of time. Will be incredibly lucky if I can achieve what I want to with this project. Fingers crossed. From something that I originally was looking forward to and ready to embrace, this sound design project has really pissed me off, basically due many factors, mainly my lack of knowledge and the rubbish computer we're all working on. I'm not the only one sharing this point of view. Anyway, better go as I have to get to band practice. What a long day. I need a drink. A large one.

Update

Sound Design

Had a very good tutorial with Barnaby Templar on Friday, he had a couple of good suggestions for the sound design of he clip I have chosen. He showed me a good method for use at the start of the clip, how I can turn the musical score into diagetic sound for the first scene. The work I showed him was very, very rough yet he saw what I am trying to do with it and was encouraging of my efforts. Quite stressed that I will have trouble realising what i want to do with this project due to my lack of technical knowledge of the software. 

Web Design

Over the weekend I added a news section an an MP3 page. Also spent many hours trying (once again) to add video to the page alloted for this. Still to no avail. I also Completed the links page, which took hours1 I designed it with a leather jacket covered in badges and the badges being the buttons for the links. Doing this I discovered that a photoshop .psd transparency file can be imported to the stage which was a tiny 'eureka' moment for me as I initially was under the impression that only .jpeg files could be imported. With this in mind I am tempted to re-do practically the whole of the site due to the fact that all of the other buttons on the site are .jpeg fils and not transparencies, therefore they are al blocky in shape and in places you can tell they are on top f the background. But, due to the looming deadline and the amount of work I have to do in other areas I will leave that job for now and attend to it at a later date. But it's still annoying for me knowing I can make it just a little bit better. So once again I have a tutorial with Shaun this week where i will be asking the same advice for the same problem I had 3 weeks ago! 

Self Negotiated

Won't say too much about this as I really have to get on with it. So what is left to do? Finish the storyboard (hopefully get the first draft completed today !??) From that the animatic and hopefully the 30 second bit to follow that. Seems like I have done alot of work or this and not much to show for it. I have to edit together the small test animations for this and compile a coherent folder for this project. So still tons to do and I really go and do it now. Still not 100% sure which way to go with the final film of this puppet of drawn or 3d? Probably one of the first two as my knowledge of the third is negligible. That is zero to none really (but wouldn't mind finding out) Also do I still want to produce an animated adaptation of 'A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings' or undertake a completely different project?

Not quite panic, but nearly

Self Negotiated

After one more day in the puppet room, I am quite happy with the results I have achieved and decided to pack up and concentrate on the other ares of the project which need quite alot of work (animatic, finish storyboard and he 30 second feature) I also need to spend time with the other 2 projects as time is rapidly running out. All in all the return to stop-motion was initially very frustrating and a nightmare, what with the first puppet breaking and my crap timing and lack of patience -but in the end I really enjoyed it, wanting to achieve lots more with this medium. The second puppet I made was far superior to the first (both structurally and visually) The results gained are incredibly rewarding and well worth the massive effort involved.

Web Design

Once again had to seek advice from Ella as I'm still not getting it with adding movies to the site. In between I have polished up the design and as I look back (even though i isn't yet finished) I can see how the site has grown both in design and function as I understand the program a bit better. There are more pages than earlier anticipated and I'm really having to put the brakes on and not add any more pages as I fell I have spent more time with this than I thought I would and time management is of the essence with deadlines less than 2 weeks away. All (!?) I have left to do is... build an Mp3 player, add the Mp3s and add the movies. I am, also encountering problems with getting links buttons to work. I so far have spent the most time with the discography section, had to alter the design countless times so it would all fit on the page- at points I am cursing myself for undertaking a band website due to the enormous content, but am very pleased with the results and glad I bothered! It has been handy too liaising with the other members of the band to get their opinions on the design and function; also group decisions regarding the songs for inclusion on the site. Hopefully I can badger one (or all of them) to write an evaluation of the site. 

Sound Design

So after gaining access to an incredibly booked up resource, I 'got down to business' with adding my recorded Foley sounds and finding sound effects for 'The Wooden Leg'. Logic to me has the most ironic name of any computer program I have had the pleasure to work with and anyone even vaguely familiar with its working will know what I'm talking about. I know that with my senior shriveled brain it's going to take me a while to get the hang of new technology, but this has been a right mission! As programs go, it's incredibly intimidating for me (scared of the digital?) Things happens when you least expect it with this and once you have got a tiny grasp, the bloody computer crashes! These have been my problems with the project so far - hard to get access to the 'MA' sound room, lack of knowledge with the program, the mixing desk changed (it took a while to get used to the old one) computer crashing regularly - and once I had synched together sound and image meticulously, the bloody film timeline had moved (or the computer is running slowly?) the technological problems have been taking up more time than the actual process of editing and processing the soundtrack. Hopefully a tutorial with Barnaby Templar will help me with some of these problems. However all of this aside, we had a a group tutorial yesterday and the group agreed that the sounds I had used and the soundtrack all worked well together giving my chosen clip new depth. Tom initially advised me against a soundtrack, but I tried it anyway and I'm glad that it works with the image. My thoughts for the choice of track (Herb Alpert) was to start the film with the viewer in high spirits, then changing the soundtrack completely to mirror the tragic elements on screen. I want to also add more humour (sound effects) as obvious or cheesy as it may be, but it's always nice for something to be entertaining and not so much puzzling for the viewer (even though saying that I am also drawn to the latter) My initial idea for the sound design for this clip was to add a new dimension to it, as in its original state it's very flat and two dimensional, the soundtrack itself doesn't do the animation justice and my first impression was that more could be added to hopefully add depth to it. I also saw that 'The Wooden Leg' had lots of opportunity for Foley and sound effects which I wanted to practice as for my final film I will be using both of these. 

Blink and you'll miss it!

The second of 2 attempts. And it didn't break,nice one.

The Second Puppet

A bit quicker to build than the first and defiantly a more robust design. Another major change is with the claw design. There's a hinge in each claw allowing it to open and shut. Pins have been added to the end of each leg providing a more rigid stance. I've also added an 'in-between' set of eyes for blinking. Hope the stronger design leads to a longer 'life' of the crab.

Round Two

Self Negotiated Project

The second attempt nearly finished, just needs its 'skin'. Got a few more days booked in the puppet animation room to animate the crab, fingers crossed this one stays in one piece! Encountered a couple of problems making this one so far, in-particular Milliput not setting as it should (the claws) - so substituted it with Fimo.

Disaster

Self Negotiated

Pre-booked the puppet animation studio at college - set up on Tuesday, took a few hours to arrange everything, sort the lighting out and with the aid of Sam became familiar with the software for shooting. Tried a couple of little bits of animation and realised the puppet needs better anchoring so it won't shift whilst I manipulate it. Wednesday morning I glued pins to the end of a few legs and then attempted to make the crab 'walk' It is an age since I have tried stop-motion and no surprise that the movements between frames were too big making for a very cumbersome, lightening quick result. Back into the studio Friday with the aim to make a definite improvement on my earlier efforts and to hopefully produce at least 3-4 seconds of walking. You tube has been a handy resource to view crab movement - very complicated with 6 limbs moving simultaneously. Initially before even setting up and making the puppet I had grand plans to animate the crab and another character interacting with each other-but due to the complexity I thought it would be bette to focus initially on making it walk. However, a few frames into attempting this goal, disaster struck and all of a sudden one of the legs felt a bit strange, looser and then just fell off onto the set. Brilliant, just what I need! As rubbish as it is it did remind me of trips to the beach where you occasionally see random singular dried out limbs of crabs laying in the sand. 'Art' imitating life (albeit in a rather 10p way) With circumstances being beyond my control, the Friday shoot was called off at the first hurdle. Thoughts of different forms of animation for my final project are now in my mind. I'm not sure if stop-motion is for me. It does require an enormous amount of patience and incredible care (I forgot the joys of bashing into the cameras tripod or knocking the puppet with your elbow for instance) but saying that it is fun and satisfying once you have a nice result (but not in this case). I have the studio booked for next week, so this weekend I will see if I can salvage the puppet. Sam advised me on different techniques for wiring the puppet, so I'll give that a go.

So, all that's left to do is re-animate, finish the storyboard, make an animatic and the 'Very Old Man With Enormous Wings in 30 Seconds' film. 

Had a look at a couple of good websites (here and here) with hints and tips for building armatures for puppets. Next time I will twist wire together, making for a stronger longer-lasting result (hopefully)

Sound Design

Did some re-recording with Catherine on Thursday and spent the rest of the afternoon choping up my sounds and putting them in the relevant areas of the film. Still alot to do and the presentation deadline is looming up incredibly quickly! I got a bit sidetracked as I was attempting to record some background music for the start of the film with my stylophone plugged into the mixing desk. Didn't sound too pleasant and I doubt I'll use it. I need to borow recording equipment and gather some 'pub' atmospheric sound. Booked in next week so hopefully I can see that to completion.

Web Design

This was going well but have hit some bumps in the road over the last couple of days. After a tutorial with Sean (showing me once again how to apply Mp3s to a site) I then took this knowledge home an proceed to do it all completely wrong! So I then spent 6 hours trying to work it out, then tried to finish off 2 empty pages only to find my meticulous deign and hard work was for nothing as when I tested them in the internet browser the text couldn't be read in the 'discography' section of my site. Quite dis-heartening as it took ages, but of course I now know what NOT to do (hopefully).

So a busy weekend all round!

Progress so far....

Web Design

Since last time I sought advice and much needed help from Ella at college and she showed me again  what I had previously been shown, but this time I got it a bit more. Returned to her for help a couple more times and am happy with my progress so far. The website is nearly finished I'd say with the results I'm after. The next 2 missions i have to undertake is how to embed Mp3's and short films  - I have been shown this process but again it's all trial and error! Looking good for deadline and presentation (fingers crossed)

Self Negotiated

Good amount of zero feedback from the people who I asked to read the story - Suzie has mentioned I should draw up a questionairre to give to them, but I fear this may be a waste of time. Anyway, have recently built a crab puppet (crabs feature heavily in the story) and also sought advice from Barry Leith concerning building a very old man with enormous wings puppet. Got a bit of advice, so will act on it! Had plans to set up and animate today, but Sam was busy, so first thing tomorrow will get going with animating. My plan for this is to storyboard it, have some test animations and also produce 'The Very Old man With Enourmous Wings in 30 seconds' for deadline. I also collaborated with fellow musician Simon Sandall (who I play in Goober Patrol with) to start creating some form of a soundtrack for the 'feature'. We came up with a nice steady tune and also an incidental piece of music which I will apply to an aspect of the story which is now (hopefully) going to be a small dance routine in the middle of the tale - to lighten the mood a bit and to be entertaining (also fits in with he themes of Magical Realism) May be hugely ambitious, but we'll see.  Anyway the test puppet animation will help me with the decision of how I'm going to realise the story, be it puppet animation or otherwise.

Sound Design

So far so good, got my clip, got it on the computer machine, so that's the basics. Have a plan to record some atmospheric pub/bar sounds, but think I can re-produce this in the studio. Recorded Foley today with Catherine, hopefully it turned out o.k. More to do Thursday (as well as animate-oh dear, double booked myself) The mixing is gong to be a different matter. Constantly aware and studying animation sound, sound on films/adverts. Good to be this aware of what's going on, just a bit annoying. I hope I don't ruin all of that for myself like I did with music! 

Also joined another band. A folk band called The Tanktops. It's a folk band doing folk versions of punk songs and folk versions of folk songs. Our best song is 'sex and violins' (so far) I'm playing uklele (sort of) and bye bye bass and normal guitar, the uklele is what it's all about! We'll be playing a harvest festival near YOU soon!

Technical troubles and other such fun

Sound Design

After much watching, I've settled with a nice animation entitles 'The Wooden Leg'(1994) by Darren Doherty and Nick smith. Not on YouTube so no link I'm afraid (an animation only YouTube would be handy...) Anyway, trying to convert it into an editable format for the best part of 2 days and it's proving a complete mission. Working out mpeg code breakers and whatnot is quite boring and time wasting (when time is of the essence currently) So I have the clip, but not in an editable format. That's frustrating. However I have studied it and worked out what to do with it.

Web Design

Of course this was never going to be easy. Started literally at the beginning again, printed off 'how-to' notes for Dreamweaver from the internet, which proved useless, so did the maximum that I'm able to do with this project (ie. notalot) Laid out the pages (in Flash) I intend to use for the site and all I need o do now is 'simply' link them together so it's a working website. We'll see! A shame I cannot design this more in the way I want, but with the time and my lack of knowledge I'll have to make do with what I can do really.

Self Negotiated

With my battles with computers and their 'fantastic' 'straight forward' software, I have neglected this project and may have to cancel my booking of the puppet D.A.R. due to the simple fact that I have no puppet to test animate. What a nightmare and a big panic. In hindsight, I wish I had all of this taken care of over Christmas and not concerntrated so much on the collaborative project. I'm also sure I have missed a tutorial concerning this project too which isn't much good either. Sort of walking in the dark with this one and hope I can find some kind of direction with it soon as time is running out. Thinking I should've stretched this MA over 2 years as I seem to be unable to fit it all in -3 projects, 2 days a week job, 2 active bands, not to mention a somewhat neglected private/social life. Ho-hum, 'onwards and upwards'. It doesn't help when talking to fellow students about their stuff and seeing their progress it makes me panic with my somewhat lack of progress. Safe to say it's time to write a new timetable.

February and time is running out

Self Negotiated Project

Continuing with character design- also working on the storyboard. Haven't made a puppet yet, hopefully I will construct something by the end of the week. I have printed out copies of the story and given them to so far 4 different people to see what their thoughts and ideas would be if they were to adapt the story and what media they would use. I am yet undecided as to if I will use stop-motion and puppets or hand draw frames due to the amount of characters (however if I built many puppets it maybe less work in the long run)

Sound Design

Eventually allocated a clip for the presentation a great animation entitled 'Home Road Movies'(2000) by Roger Bradbrook. The sound design in the short film fits with the image perfectly, very well though out and varied. The film is made with computer animation, photographic images and moving image. In a nutshell it's a real life story of a shy and awkward father who desperatly wants the family car to make him a better parent. Set in the 70's, the soundtrack reflects this period and the son is the narrator of the tale. Unfortunatly it's not on YouTube so no link I'm afraid, but it's on The Best Of The British Animation Awards 4 dvd.The other examples of sound design from the others were all good, each quite different. I trawled through lots and lots of short film before I made the choice I settled on, in hindsight a great exercise in itself as I watched tons of animation that I probably wouldn't have. Same again now as I try to decide which short piece of animation I will record my own soundtrack on for the imminent presentation. I've been going through the British Animation awards dvds and the Stash dvds. Found a great film which I may pick a scene from 'Flat World'(1998) by Daniel Greaves. Great mix of media and fantastic ideas throughout the very funny story. Here's some of it. The cat is brilliant.

We also recently had a sound workshop, showing us around the workings of the not-so-straight forward Logic sound program (which program IS straight forward on first use?) Good fun and we recorded some good Foley sounds. I bet it won't be as 'easy' when it comes to the 'real thing'!

Web-Design

After a whirlwind session showing us the 'basics' of Flash, it's now up to us to construct a website either in Dreamweaver or Flash. Personally I prefer the freedom which Flash affords with the design process and interactivity - but I prefer the simpler technique for building pages and linking them together in Dreamweaver. I have designed 80% of the pages and since that want to re-design the whole thing and have my website read like a scrapbook, where the visitor literally reads the site like a book. A good example to show what I'm on about can be seen here.

However, due to recent problems I will scrap that idea as it's getting incredibly ahead of myself. For the past 3 days on and off and for the last 10 hours I have been trying (and completly failing) to build the most basic of sites in Dreamweaver, which didn't work out at all. Then I moved onto Flash with the thoughts that I'll be learning from my mistakes and well, that's a wrong assumption! No luck at all and very frustrating with this computer nearly flying out the window! Stupidly I believed this would be straight forward, but I don't think that after literally ONE brisk run through each of these programs that one is aptly equipped to pull off a website using either programs. Hopefully I'll laugh at these initial teething problems (and it's not through lack of trying) There's millions of websites about for some of the most pointless things, it surely can't be THAT difficult(!?!) Lots of questions for my tutorial Wednesday afternoon. I've also been looking at websites all over the net and a particularly nice piece of design is here. A good straight forward personal animation website.

Private Work

I have been asked to produce 2 music videos for a friends band called 'Bonzer'. Quite exciting as both videos are for inclusion on an upcoming release (cd tracks on one side of the disc and dvd on the other) Looks like it will have a worldwide release too. For one of the tracks 'Oddball' I've edited together a whole load of train clips from a cine film from the 40's and it goes really well with the track. Unfortunatly since I had this idea I was exposed to The Chemical Brothers train video by M.Gondry in which very similar sound/image synching is used. Recently whilst I was in Japan I filmed every underground journey I took, even the whole of a Bullet train journey from Tokyo to Nagoya plus trains all over the place. I may use this footage for that track but not sure if I'll have the time to completly edit something from scratch. The second video is my BA film 'The Mouse, The Bird and The Sausage' (as requested by 'Bonzer') and I've really edited it down (still keeping the narrative structure) it fits pretty well with 4 good points of synchresis. Rough edit to follow.

I've also been asked to edit footage of an interview of movie 'hardman' Danny Dyer (star of Human Traffic and many other films) for local publication The Student Pocket Guide. It was a 2 camera shoot and the finished article will be on the website in all its glory. Hopefully more work will come from this as the owner of the magazine wants to go more in this direction. I have been associated with this magazine or over a year now contributing band interviews and designing layouts or the last 6 issues. Check out the website here.

Stuttgart, Germany

Back in Deutchland but there's no rest 'round these parts....


Self Negotiated Project
Been sketching and painting bits and pieces for 'The Very Old man With Enormous Wings' (which from now on I shall refer to as 'Old Man') very confused as to how I shall actually 'do' it. There are so many characters pertinent to the story that it may be too much to create if I am building upwards of 10 puppets. Ideally I would like to keep my initial aim that it's a puppet animation as I would like to see the visual of the wings in motion so-to-speak. I'm not sure if it would work visually if I could build a puppet for the central character and draw the rest. I have also been story boarding and have achieved around an eigth of the tale. I am researching the place in which G.G.Marquez was born - Aracataca, a small town in Columbia for ideas for the backgrounds and settings (also with a colour palette in mind). Yesterday afternoon was spent walking around a cemetary in Wagen, Stuttgart taking photos of angels, in particular their wings for visual references. Alot of work to be done and I hope I don't have to shorten the story to achive my goals within the time set.

Sound Design
So far no good luck with finding a suitable example to analyse or the presentation on Thursday. so far looked at 'Nightmare Before Christmas' which I remember (although being beautifuly animated) drives me 'round the bend with it's musical aspect. So I've ruled that out and had a look at Watership Down (this being one of my favourite films) but no suitable scenes so far. I have the Quay brothers collection at home and will have a look at those too (even though an example we were shown was from this particular collection).

Web design
Checking out many many websites for research - particular standouts for ease, functionality and interactivity (in a band/art and design context) are -
www.lodger.tv (great!)
www.thetoydolls.com (simple, easy, packed FULL of info)
www.guillemots.com (nice flash interaction - BUT annoying as it's not obvious enough to get around)
www.rosinenburg.de (artists website, nice feel and interaction)
www.indenemy.de (nice design,simple)
www.deep-roots.de (good interaction)
www.gestaltbar.de (bit daft but good)
www.fatwreck.com (label website, simple, much info)

In the past week designed a home page (see above), compressed photos and flyers to a smaller image size for a website I'd like to put together. First thoughts are ideally I'd like to have the band website as html and my personal website in flash for interaction and design purposes. Have to keep them simple too!

Also written out a set timetable for all 3 current projects with realistic guidelines (?) now, just have to stick to it and not go off on tangents all over the place. It's all about the focus!

The New Term Begins.....

So, a little over a week into the new term and it's already a bit panic stations 'round these parts! Handed in my storyboard, animatic and time lapse experiments for the collaborative project; which I was quite pleased about the outcomes (apologies if the previous blog sounded grumpy) The reason for the panic is that on last count it's a full 55 days and a bit until the deadline for 3 different projects. One is the self negotiated project, a web design project and also a Sound design project, details of which to follow. Until then a little feedback info from a tutorial earlier today from Suzie concerning 'The Fox's tail'. It seems I covered the collaborative aspect successfully particularly with Paul's evaluation of the project, so I passed as far as she's concerned. She liked the drawings, animatic and the time lapse experiments. Criticisms were that the storyboard was too literal and too much of it, when a smaller chunk of the story would do. Also my personal evaluation was a bit threadbare. I kind of expected this kind of feedback but was glad to get it handed in so I can think about my self negotiated project which I have neglected all Christmas due to the time consuming aspect of storyboarding 'The Fox's tail'. During the tail end of the tutorial Suzie mentioned an upcoming project where will (in her words) "actually animate something"....between then and now this has played on my mind a bit as I actually haven't animated anything in particular (certainly not of any worth) My initial aims and goals for undertaking this course was to learn how to animate nicely have a solidly constructed sound track, working in conjunction with the animation to produce something superior to my last attempt at having a go at it. So, with her words and the previous incredibly long sentence in mind it's time to bloody animate something...anything...to see if it's actually at all still possible, or, if not time to cut my losses and stop putting it off and return to jolly old Colmans Mustard Factory. All of his brings to mind a 'graffiti in the toilet tale' from a friend; in a U.E.A. toilet he saw these words scrawled 'This is the only place I know what I'm doing!' I know the feeling. Anyway, I'll (literally) dig out an old puppet I made from my BA days and see what I can animate. If it's o.k. I may post the outcome on here, but if it's crap I won't (like my experiments with animating on a white board)

Self Negotiated project
The plan for this is to storyboard 'A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings' to build a puppet (with enormous wings) and to animate the puppet as tests for the final project. as mentioned earlier this project has been somewhat neglected, but recently I have started making a little headway. I've storyboarded the first third of the tale and through this it's made me panic a bit. My initial plan was to use puppets for the characters and as I overlooked quite stupidly at the very beginning is that there's quite a number of characters in the tale. Fot the time span as it is I shall adapt the tale into a shorter version, yet even with this in mind the characters are still plentiful! The opening scenes see large numbers of crabs as the focal point ( a solution to this is to maybe make 2 differently designed crabs, animate them separately and many times against a blue screen, then merge them together to increase their numbers on screen. I could try to create the whole thing in a 3d package, but I'm not so familiar with that method and if I didn't get the hang of it, I would have wasted valuable time. Also a first big problem and I'm sure a total nightmare, is that the weather is torrential rain in the opening scenes...that's going to be quite problematic to animate! I've also been thinking about the sound design of the tale, ideally I'd like to have some incidental music (opening and ending, also with an association with the main character) The tale is set in South America, so it would help if I had some traditional music from this area to sonically place the setting to the future viewers - I would like to collaborate with a couple of my musician friends to compose a soundtrack reminiscent of the traditional yet with a contemporary feel (like I mentioned earlier in an ideal world) If I could make a bit of a move with that I think it would be highly enjoyable as much as it is a challenge. I should get my time management down too. After all there's 55 WHOLE days until the deadline!

Sound Design
Was very eager to get this part of the course started and the first session was very enlightening and very enjoyable. Our task for next week is present for 15 minutes an analysis of a soundtrack from an animation. So, in time honoured fashion I got the wrong end of the stick - this evening I hit upon the best piece of sound design (in my eyes) that is, from the 1975 classic 'Jaws' I wrote a whole load of initial notes, a little bit of Internet research, then realised upon reading the course notes, that we should analyse the sound design from an animated film (which makes sense given the name of the course). Gonna check a few film out later (along with the animation, storyboarding and website building)

Web Design Elective
Very chuffed to be doing this part of the course -for years I've wanted to know how to ACTUALLY build a website that you see so many of nowadays. Previous attempts have involved opening Dream weaver many times and looking at the labyrinth of absolute and total confusion, then shutting it down quite promptly and pretending that it never existed in the first place. Well, it's amazing how beneficial it is to actually sit down and be walked through the intricacies of this particular piece of software! The goal is to have actually designed and get together a live website for assessment. I'd like (again ideally) to design and produce a personal website and also a Goober Patrol (band) website that I've been wanting to get together or ages. With the latter in mind I constructed 3 pages for our 'homework' criteria to look at in our session today. We didn't actually have a 'show and tell' with our pages, in fact they weren't shown at all - but got to grips a bit more with the software in the process. I like Dream weaver, yet it seems a bit 'blocky' and websites which use Flash seem more interactive and as 'organic' as is possible on a computer screen. From the research over the last week I have concluded this. The 2 websites I'd like to design are quite different in who they are aimed for, so therefore how they will be designed. One is for Animation and Graphic design so obviously the design should reflect that i'm actually any good at what I'm trying to promote; the second is for a punk band and we all know how discerning music fans are, so the design for this should be in keeping with the band aesthetics and hopefully for people not familiar with the band, draw them in to investigate further. All the staple aspects will be intact, yet I aim to try to make these areas different. I'd like to incorporate interactive areas, but for the main parts (music, video, news) keep it simple. It needs to load up in an instant and hopefully encourage the viewer to spend some time on the site. I have bought the domain names which was quite lucky, so at least that's sorted.

Christmas Holidays drawing

.....was spent mostly drawing and storyboarding 'The Fox's tail' due to time restrictions I had to chop a few bits and pieces from the text,which I feel doesn't affect the narration too much I hope. Had another meeting with the author to show my intial sketches and ideas, I recieved more research material of a woodcut kind to aid with the design and look the story. My time management hasn't been too good, leaving the biggest bits of this project to last- and the usual huge jobs coming from an idea seemingly simple. Nearly every day of the break has required a few hours of drawing. A few technology problems with computer freezes and other joys helped the process! Spent the last day scanning in the images and editing together an animatic of the tale, with a rough soundtrack. Previously before the Christmas break, author Paul Knight recorded the narration for the story which turned out pretty well. Animatic to follow once I've compressed it.