Here are some selected stills from the film.
Saturday, 10 July 2010
Friday, 2 July 2010
Plans for refining Lilith's Second Chance
Hi everyone, I now have a vimeo account at this address:
vimeo.com/lewisanimates
You can see my videos in HD, particularly the version of Lilith's Second Chance showcased at the degree show. I have to admit that I made a lot of changes to it in the week between assessment and the show, so this one isn't the version submitted for assessment.
There are also may other changes or additions I wish to make to this film. I had to miss out some beautiful shots that would have been great fun to animate but also add a little spice to an animation which has been called slow and boring by one critic. This film should, therefore, be considered a work in progress.
Among the shots I would like to add are:
1) Before the shot cuts from the exploding Houses of Parliament to Lilith on the bridge, I would like to add a quick pan across to show the change in perspective - otherwise the point of view is unclear.
2) To do a proper 3D camera move in after effects with the bridge, so that I can add a cracked pavement texture to the road underneath Lilith, which is currently plain black. I had attempted a camera move before, but the bridge didn't move exactly in sync with the character animation. This will be very tricky.
3) When Lilith comes into view on the river, I would like to show her slowly emerging from under the water. This would be difficult because she is constantly moving, but beautiful and worth the trouble! It would also make it clearer that she is the same woman, as she looks so very different in her spiritual state.
4) My least favourite shot is when she turns to look at the wolves - it seems so wooden and artificial. I wanted to make her head turn slow to represent her stunned disbelief but instead it looks like bad acting, particularly since her body doesn't move. I would very much like to have her twist her torso and prop herself up on her elbows or something.
5) To add more movement and variation in the wolves.
6) After morphing to the bears, I want to cut to a side shot of the bears swimming, similarly to the shot with the fish. This will allow me to cut back to the aerial shot of the bears swimming out of sync with each other. It's difficult to explain, but morphing from the wolves to the bears meant that I had to have them swimming in sync with one another, which looks mechanical.
7) To drop the camera behind the last bear in the pack, to submerge the camera underwater and swim between the legs of the bears, before shooting back up through the water to meet the next scene, where the camera is looking upstream and then rises up to fly over the hills at great speed. This was a favourite point in my animatic but not essential to the comprehension of the narrative, so had to be sacrificed for more vital scenes.
8) To add more in-betweens over the hills, more form and more texture. At the moment, it looks like a rough draft, as there is no colour. I would like to make the river blue as in the other scenes, add some Celtic pattern textures to the forested hills, and add some sky with clouds.
9) To create a cathedral grove when she approaches the source of the river. This will then be taken out of context, changing to a symbolic space depicting the tree of life (e.g. Yggdrasil of Norse mythology) hanging over the earth before an image of outer space, smothered in a network of rivers and pumping like a heart. This will pull out to reveal the rivers forming a body of veins - a body matching Lilith's shape and movement on the river. Then I will probably cut to her being launched upwards by the last drop on water in the stream.
This final idea is a new one, actually, which came to me as I read a passage of Simon Schama's 'Landscape and Memory,' which never ceases to fill my head with ideas. I was just waiting for a friend in the library so I opened the book at a random page, read one passage and was instantly inspired! It was a discussion about the quest to scientifically explain the formation of rivers and briefly mentioned the ancient classical view of the earth as an organism with systems similar to those of the human body.
vimeo.com/lewisanimates
You can see my videos in HD, particularly the version of Lilith's Second Chance showcased at the degree show. I have to admit that I made a lot of changes to it in the week between assessment and the show, so this one isn't the version submitted for assessment.
There are also may other changes or additions I wish to make to this film. I had to miss out some beautiful shots that would have been great fun to animate but also add a little spice to an animation which has been called slow and boring by one critic. This film should, therefore, be considered a work in progress.
Among the shots I would like to add are:
1) Before the shot cuts from the exploding Houses of Parliament to Lilith on the bridge, I would like to add a quick pan across to show the change in perspective - otherwise the point of view is unclear.
2) To do a proper 3D camera move in after effects with the bridge, so that I can add a cracked pavement texture to the road underneath Lilith, which is currently plain black. I had attempted a camera move before, but the bridge didn't move exactly in sync with the character animation. This will be very tricky.
3) When Lilith comes into view on the river, I would like to show her slowly emerging from under the water. This would be difficult because she is constantly moving, but beautiful and worth the trouble! It would also make it clearer that she is the same woman, as she looks so very different in her spiritual state.
4) My least favourite shot is when she turns to look at the wolves - it seems so wooden and artificial. I wanted to make her head turn slow to represent her stunned disbelief but instead it looks like bad acting, particularly since her body doesn't move. I would very much like to have her twist her torso and prop herself up on her elbows or something.
5) To add more movement and variation in the wolves.
6) After morphing to the bears, I want to cut to a side shot of the bears swimming, similarly to the shot with the fish. This will allow me to cut back to the aerial shot of the bears swimming out of sync with each other. It's difficult to explain, but morphing from the wolves to the bears meant that I had to have them swimming in sync with one another, which looks mechanical.
7) To drop the camera behind the last bear in the pack, to submerge the camera underwater and swim between the legs of the bears, before shooting back up through the water to meet the next scene, where the camera is looking upstream and then rises up to fly over the hills at great speed. This was a favourite point in my animatic but not essential to the comprehension of the narrative, so had to be sacrificed for more vital scenes.
8) To add more in-betweens over the hills, more form and more texture. At the moment, it looks like a rough draft, as there is no colour. I would like to make the river blue as in the other scenes, add some Celtic pattern textures to the forested hills, and add some sky with clouds.
9) To create a cathedral grove when she approaches the source of the river. This will then be taken out of context, changing to a symbolic space depicting the tree of life (e.g. Yggdrasil of Norse mythology) hanging over the earth before an image of outer space, smothered in a network of rivers and pumping like a heart. This will pull out to reveal the rivers forming a body of veins - a body matching Lilith's shape and movement on the river. Then I will probably cut to her being launched upwards by the last drop on water in the stream.
This final idea is a new one, actually, which came to me as I read a passage of Simon Schama's 'Landscape and Memory,' which never ceases to fill my head with ideas. I was just waiting for a friend in the library so I opened the book at a random page, read one passage and was instantly inspired! It was a discussion about the quest to scientifically explain the formation of rivers and briefly mentioned the ancient classical view of the earth as an organism with systems similar to those of the human body.
Thursday, 10 June 2010
Almost there!
There's now just one week left until the assessment of our National Gallery projects. Everyone has been working so hard and going a little crazy - some of us have been eating all of our meals in the studio and have completely cut out any kind of social life.
Luckily for me, everything has been going fairly smoothly from the beginning. However, this doesn't mean I'm on track at all -after having initially planned out all of the scenes for my project, I soon realised how much I would have to cut out if I had any hope of getting a coherent animation completed on time. There are so many symbolic elements that I had wanted to include but have had to sacrifice, which is a little sad because the conceptual research is what got me really fired up and passionate about my idea in the first place. I will definitely polish things up over the summer to include some of the cut scenes, which will help to make the narrative more comprehensive. However, it's a shame that I won't be entirely happy with what I have to show for assessment on the 18th and at the private viewing on the 25th.
Some of the clips in progress have been posted on my Youtube channel. Please check them out if you have the time, unless you don't wish to spoil the surprise that the final animation will bring!
http://www.youtube.com/user/JennytheNomad
It's hard to recognise how much you are learning whilst the process is ongoing, but I can feel how much more confident I am in the Ps, Fl and Ae programmes than I was six months ago. Even though everything hasn't gone to plan, it's a great feeling to know that I am learning so much along the way. Most of all, I have learned that I MUST be more organised with the planning of my animation projects from the very start, particularly with time management!
Luckily for me, everything has been going fairly smoothly from the beginning. However, this doesn't mean I'm on track at all -after having initially planned out all of the scenes for my project, I soon realised how much I would have to cut out if I had any hope of getting a coherent animation completed on time. There are so many symbolic elements that I had wanted to include but have had to sacrifice, which is a little sad because the conceptual research is what got me really fired up and passionate about my idea in the first place. I will definitely polish things up over the summer to include some of the cut scenes, which will help to make the narrative more comprehensive. However, it's a shame that I won't be entirely happy with what I have to show for assessment on the 18th and at the private viewing on the 25th.
Some of the clips in progress have been posted on my Youtube channel. Please check them out if you have the time, unless you don't wish to spoil the surprise that the final animation will bring!
http://www.youtube.com/user/JennytheNomad
It's hard to recognise how much you are learning whilst the process is ongoing, but I can feel how much more confident I am in the Ps, Fl and Ae programmes than I was six months ago. Even though everything hasn't gone to plan, it's a great feeling to know that I am learning so much along the way. Most of all, I have learned that I MUST be more organised with the planning of my animation projects from the very start, particularly with time management!
Monday, 17 May 2010
Final Project in progress
Here are a couple of clips from the first scene. Again, these are templates to be traced so that you will only see a few brushlike highlights of the forms against a nighttime backdrop.
Thursday, 6 May 2010
Tuesday, 4 May 2010
Swimming Wolves
This is the pack of grey wolf spirits that will carry Lilith for the first part of her journey. I have changed Eve's name to Lilith because she is a far more interesting and obscured figure from the same mythic tradition.
As with the bears, I will rotoscope the form of the wolves and the ripples with painterly effects.
Monday, 3 May 2010
On Friday, the class had a meeting at the National Gallery to show our animatics and get feedback, and hopefully approval, from the tutors, visiting professionals and gallery representatives. It was fascinating to see everybody's work and made me extra excited to see the finished products; some of the plans look like so much fun to animate that I was even a little envious that I wouldn't have the privilege!
I am pleased with the feedback I obtained. The critics were merciless but seemed interested in my ideas and the themes I am exploring. Most importantly for me, they have convinced me to cut out all ancient motifs that aren't clearly linked to the river Thames or English culture. I had wanted to include many interesting mythic figures and symbols from ancient civilisations across Europe and back to the Sumerians at the dawn of civilisation, as I belief these ancient worldviews have trickled down to inform the foundation of the Thames's cultural history. Although I was most interested in ancient English tribal culture, I wished to be as diplomatic and politically correct as possible; to claim ancient English traditions as the source of the Thames's history might seem too anglophilic/anglocentric in a BNP-paranoid climate and exclude all of the citizens of London who are not of English heritage. However, I was persuaded that the ancient English culture I am interested in exploring and expressing has been sidelined by a distortion of what English culture stands for and that I should play a part in redressing the balance.
Today, I visited the British Museum for the first time for some visual research into ancient Celtic imagery and did some sketches of the oldest artefacts with any discernable pattern, some of which came out of the Thames itself! Perhaps I can incorporate the circular motifs into the setting sun and the linear motifs onto the barks of trees.
Here are some of the patterns I have chosen to be most appropriate:
I am pleased with the feedback I obtained. The critics were merciless but seemed interested in my ideas and the themes I am exploring. Most importantly for me, they have convinced me to cut out all ancient motifs that aren't clearly linked to the river Thames or English culture. I had wanted to include many interesting mythic figures and symbols from ancient civilisations across Europe and back to the Sumerians at the dawn of civilisation, as I belief these ancient worldviews have trickled down to inform the foundation of the Thames's cultural history. Although I was most interested in ancient English tribal culture, I wished to be as diplomatic and politically correct as possible; to claim ancient English traditions as the source of the Thames's history might seem too anglophilic/anglocentric in a BNP-paranoid climate and exclude all of the citizens of London who are not of English heritage. However, I was persuaded that the ancient English culture I am interested in exploring and expressing has been sidelined by a distortion of what English culture stands for and that I should play a part in redressing the balance.
Today, I visited the British Museum for the first time for some visual research into ancient Celtic imagery and did some sketches of the oldest artefacts with any discernable pattern, some of which came out of the Thames itself! Perhaps I can incorporate the circular motifs into the setting sun and the linear motifs onto the barks of trees.
Here are some of the patterns I have chosen to be most appropriate:
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