Second Assessment Video draft script 01/03/23

Second Assessment Video draft script                                                                                                     01/03/23

Figure 1: Assessment video: https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Flearn.solent.ac.uk%2Fmod%2Fbook%2Fview.php%3Fid%3D1270730&psig=AOvVaw0bNtRnqDoaPttrhWKn0L2P&ust=1677749911388000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CA8QjRxqFwoTCJDx_823uv0CFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE

My name is George Salisbury and this is my assessment video for the modules Going Live and Advanced Production.

For our client project in Going Live, we were assigned to create a pitch for a children's television series for the Stirling-based animation studio Wild Child, a project that they could easily put into production and produce a successful series. To save time on development, it had to be based on a pre-existing property in the public domain.  After much discussion and debate, we settled on developing a spin-off story based on L Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz, taking place after the departure of Dorothy, the main protagonist. The two main characters we agreed to move forward with were a revised version of the Tin Man, whom we called Tinny, who in this version was younger but still well-mannered, compassionate, moral and helpful.  This also contributed to the title we agreed on for the show, Tinny Adventures in Oz.  A glowing heart feature was added to indicate the lessons taught and the journey that an episode displayed. The other character we agreed to focus on was the winged monkey Nikko, who originally was a servant of the Wicked Witch of the West but is now a more independent figure.  Whilst he is the usual troublemaker in the pitch's narrative, he is not irredeemable and can learn from his mistakes and improve himself, making him an essential reflective figure for the show's audience Philip even created a brief animatic of an example episode that demonstrated the character's purpose in the series, with Tinny  The age demographic we decided to aim for was between four and seven years ago, and so the characters had to be aged and proportioned to resemble said age group, with short statures and rounded body elements.  It was a team effort, and we all contributed to different elements of the process.  I volunteered myself to be involved in the concept art alongside Sachien, as well as the animation stage. My concept art was more suited to reference material rather a direct basis, but it was valid input nonetheless.  The main contributions I made in this field were a map of Oz and some maps of the Munchkinland set piece that could be used to plan how to block out and place assets in a scene.  I had some experience with animation previously in 2D with TVPaint and After Effects, but this is the very first time I've tried animating in 3D, and so a lot of practice became necessary.  I tried animating with different models, but I always acknowledged that I would be working with short characters.  The main rig that I could find that was best for the task was a character called Kayla, a young child close to the age demographic with a simple stature and movement capability that could be recreated with Tinny and Nikko, especially with the latter who stature was to be more humanoid than monkey-like.  Even though the rig's flexibility was more exaggerated than our main protagonists, it did put me in good stead for animating them.  The movement in the animation had to be engaging but nothing melodramatic, so I couldn't just do a simple walk cycle. The best walk cycles we agreed on were a strut for Tinny to indicate his confidence and mannerism, and a double bounce walk cycle for Nikko to indicate his relatability and more childish nature.  It is also said that the double bounce walk is said to be essential for a person to walk comfortably and how humans have evolved over time.

So what we found is that it is really crucial in order to walk economically, to load your ankle joint, to then release this torque really explosively like a catapult to shoot your leg forward. - (Renjewski, 2023)

Here is an example of our production pipeline on Tinny (insert pipeline motion graphic here) 

Figure 2: Animation pipeline: https://www.google.com/search?q=animation+pipeline&rlz=1C1GCEB_enGB1047&sxsrf=AJOqlzVGIRZlqBZpEJ6F7qnnKsaOeEAnEQ:1677666331252&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjThOeNwrr9AhVQXsAKHbCkDasQ_AUoAXoECAEQAw&biw=1401&bih=932&dpr=1#imgrc=pmd72jXCmehwlM

The Advanced Production module was mainly centered on developing our final project in stages such as storyboarding, scriptwriting, crafting an animatic and other pre-visualisations for the final module in the last semester, as well as refining practice with 3D.  This involved sessions developing skills in Maya and Zbrush with techniques such as rigging and sculpting.  These sessions were slightly more troublesome at times than I would prefer, but I still kept persisting with them as much as I could, and led me to conclude that I definitely prefer Maya to Zbrush at this point.  I could adapt to Zbrush over time and I know how to import models from Maya into it, but it will take a lot of practice and persistence.  It was during this time that I filmed the live-action footage (over several days as opposed to just one as I had originally planned), so I had a basis for my animated footage.  I also discovered during the crafting of the animatic that several shots really did need the effects incorporated to serve a purpose.  I was aware of several faults going into this stage of the project, such as an overlong treatment and runtime, and some deeply flawed shot structure, and a very rough live-action cut that lasted over ten minutes in length and a narrative flow that just didn't quite work.  The main takeaway from the tutor is that static shots simply will not do in a professional shoot, so I had to go back and redo the footage where the camera wasn't moving but still focused on a still object for the 3D motion tracker to work on.  The first showing of the rough cut was, in hindsight, a rather poor performance.  At this point, I began to consider making a showreel of animation for my final output, but because we still have some salvageable assets, I will continue forward with the production.  I was also in a place where I had too much footage, which all things considered is like a safety net.  The animation stage of my project was certainly distinct from my colleagues, with a greater emphasis on 2D as opposed to 3D.  The animation was consistent of rotoscoping, and 2D animation characters, with a distinct focus on rustic styling and linework to resemble the Pictish carvings that were the basis for my film.  Admittedly, you can tell that this is my time doing animation to this extent, with some minor issues with timing and movement here or there, but nothing that cannot be refined over time.  In terms of compositing the animation, I had originally starting out with importing the animation from TVPaint into After Effects, adding an invert filter and practising with different blending modes.  Upon feedback from the tutor, I knew that these shots needed more visual flair to make them more distinctive from reality, such as a glow effect, an expression on the transform filter to make the camera movement more engaging, or an additional, surrealist video filter with mist or grain. It was from this experience that I learned the main difference between compositing animations in After Effects and using After Effects to make motion graphics and graphic designs. The final cut of my project will hopefully have a greater emphasis on the animation and VFX elements from my work, as the degree was originally focused on.

  

References

Rascoe, A. (2023) New research finds why humans walk with a 'double bounce', NPR. NPR. Available at: https://www.npr.org/2023/01/08/1147737212/new-research-finds-why-humans-walk-with-a-double-bounce (Accessed: March 1, 2023).