BSA226, 3D character clothes, 27-28 April, 2016

I've been working on hair and clothes for my character.  This is my second, and probably not last, hair attempt.  I chucked the first one because there were so many mesh problems.  This version nearly got chucked when I finally compared it to a side view and saw how much fuller it needed to be.  I'd like to go into mudbox and give my alien's skin some texture.  Maybe I can do some more hair work in that program as well?  But unwrapping the figure, or at least spending lots of time learning about UV while working on the set is probably next.

BSA206, Film History resource, 26 April, 2016

100 Best Shots by the Year video

Fun to see how many I knew just on sight.

Birth of a Nation
?
Charlie Chaplin something
Charlie Chaplin something, again
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm? Mary Pickford
Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
Charlie Chaplin The Kid
Nosferatu
Harold Wilson/Lloyd?
?Probably Buster Keaton
Battleship Potemkin
Saw this in film history last year
Metropolis
Jeanne d'Arc
Surrealism film, Salvador Dali?
?
Frankenstein
?
King Kong
It Happened One Night
Bride of Frankenstein
?
Snow White
Robin Hood
Wizard of Oz
Charlie Chaplin great dictator
citizen Kane
Casablanca
the outlaw
?
?
It's a wonderful life
?
bicycle thief
?
sunset boulevard
sttreetcar
singing in the rain
Shane
rear window
Seven-year itch
seekers?fort apache?
?
dial m for murder
north by northwest
psycho
breakfast and Tiffanys
Lawrence of Arabia
La Dolce Vita
fistful dollar
sound of music
?
graduate
2001
easy rider
Patton
clockwork orange
godfather
exorcist
Chinatown
jaws
rock
poltergeist
superman
apocalypse now
empire strikes back
Raiders of the Lost Ark
et
scarface
nightmare on elm street
breakfast club
full metal jacket
dirty dancing
die hard
batman
Goodfellas
silence of the lambs
reservoir dogs
Jurassic park
Shawshank redemption
braveheart
mission impossible
titanic
Rushmore
fight club
gladiator
lord of the rings
spiderman
pirates of Caribbean
eternal sunshine spotless mind
brokeback mountain
300
there will be blood
dark knight
avatar
inception
?
avengers
gravity
boyhood
mad max fury road

BSA203, ProPrac, animatic work 23 April, 2016

3 more done, 8 more to go.  The aspect ratio of the animatic is wider than that of the illustrated journal, so each scene must be widened, and sometimes lengthened, to fit.  And because I want to animate bits, it means I have to create new backgrounds or create parts that never were before.  It's slow going, but maybe next time I can speed things up by choosing fewer bits to animate.

BSA226, character research, 23 April, 2016

From Doctor Who episode "Vampires of Venice"

BSA203, ProPrac, animatic work, 22 April, 2016

11 to go and 7 fixed up and ready for animation.  The mid page fold has been fixed in lightroom or photoshop, words have been removed, and each element I want to animate has been separated into layers.  In the above example, the figures have been separated from the bed and have parts, like legs, that can move separately from the main bodies.  I've animated a few entries, but I'm going to wait until they're all sorted so I can string them together in a logical manner.  I also need to figure out how to create a "pages turning" effect.

BSA203, ProPrac, Animatic work and talk with Deb Wattes, 21 April, 2016

Deb and I met this morning to discuss the project.  Deb has music and lyrics!!! I was working on the tree theme for the animatic yesterday, but now I'm considering going back to the book, like the US tv show "Reading Rainbow".  Each book segment features Levar Burton reading the book aloud while the camera zooms in on different illustrations on the page.  Deb can fine tune the music to hit the beats of the story or emphasize certain details.  I've got some very strong images that relate back to fairytales, myths and other stories:
Grimm's Fairy Tales
Greek myths
Origin stories like Adam and Eve
It would be structured like a children's book with adult themes, an idea that has interested me in the past.  This new approach will also simplify the question of what to do with the doll sculpture: her skirt will open up to show the pages of the book.  There will still be trees, because most fairytales end up in the forest, but I won't have to worry about linking them all with that imagery.  I'll finish fixing the images I like best in photoshop and then I'll cut them apart for animation.  THEN I will be able to see what's missing.  Could be pages with just the lyrics of the song, or new images to fill out the animatic.

BSA225, BSA226, film review Zootopia, 19 April, 2016

I LOVED IT!!!!  Yay, Disney!  They're on a roll again.  Long may it last.

 Judy Hopps has a dream:  to be a cop in Zootopia.  So we get her origin story and a fantastic training montage as she finds ways to use her size, speed and special skills to good use.

 A review pointed out that this is the best movie to deal with racism that we've seen in a long time.  The animals may have become civilized, but they haven't forgotten and some of them haven't forgiven, either.  The link shows how the movie started out darker and then worked out the kinks.

 Nick Wilde is a street-wise hustler who has given up on the "utopia" of Zootopia.  None of the voice acting was unnatural or over the top and meshed with the character design.

As much as I loved the story, I really loved the attention to small details and the creation of the different environments that comprised the city and how they catered to the unique needs of the different animals living there.  From the rabbit-centric suburbs to the wee little mouse subways, every detail was spot on.

BSA203, ProPrac, Artist model: Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, 19 April, 2016

I read Persepolis 1 and 2 while on set this weekend.  I like the stark black and white lines, and the almost woodcut-like simplicity of Marjane Satrapi's lines.  Her use of repetition, in lines or objects, creates impact.

Satrapi, Marjane.  Perspolis (2000), publisher L'Association.  ISBN 2844140580, translation publisher Pantheon Books (2003, 2004, 2005), ISBN 0-224-080393.

Persepolis details Satrapi's life as a child in Iran during the Revolution and the Iran/Iraq War.  Her increasing resistance to the gender resistance of the Revolution force her parents to send her to school in Austria for four years.

The novel's autobiographical content relates to my work but not he linear storytelling.

"Confessions of Miss Mischief" www.theguardian.com  Simon Hatterstone's interview 29/3/8

BSA203, ProPrac, notes from class 30-31 March

What could research in art and design be?  Who has been published and what are their conclusions?  If they're not published, more research is part of it.   Research is part of my methodology.

How did other artists do their work?  Did they experiment and reproduce their results again, exactly, or change things up.  Testing, gathering materials is a type of research.
What was involved with the collaborators when graphic novels went to moving image?  Communications and conversations are part of research- detail interactions with Deb

Why might artists and designers do research?  Find out where they fit in the scheme of things.  Has it already been done and how, build on what's out there.

As an artist/practitioner, I will take up multiple roles through the course of a project: interviewer, academic, hunter/gatherer, maker

Research approaches
scientific
naturalistic
qualitative- study things in natural settings
artistic methodology
pluralist
multi-method technique
responsive
acknowledges the complexity and real experience and practice
writing to examine other fields and make sensible connections

heuristic approach is: an internal search to discover nature and meaning of experience and develop methods and procedures for further research.
connection what is out there and how I respond to it.

Phases

• initial engagement
• immersion
• incubation
• illumination
• creative synthesis

not objective form of research

indications of heuristic method

• discover, rather than prove, something
• can map journey and stuff that didn't work
• timeline not smooth

practice-led inquiry

keep research methodology relevant to practitioners

decide what is knowable thorugh research

how different from usual studio activity?

• disciplined approach and plans clear objective and aims
• work open to scrutiny
• employ active documentation

practitioner is the research

interaction of researcher and research acknowledged

methods include

• making
• sketchbook
• concept mapping
• interviews and questionnaires

co-researcher and collaborator

Read this book online

http://site.ebrary.com/lib/sitlibrary/detail.action?docID=11047456&p00=action+movie

The Fantastic Made Visible by Matthew Kapell

BSA226, unwrapping bodies, 14 April, 2016

Put all the seams where they are less likely to be seen- inner thigh for the leg, at the wrists and shoulders for the arms, etc.
chop feet to detach sole of foot from top and heel

BSA226, 3D, eyes, 14 April, 2016

shared Y drives- visual arts resources- school of screen arts-textures-eyes-human_eye_maker

Outer eye and inner eye.  Inner has two edge loops to keep concave eye from collapsing, iris has inner edge loops to stay together, too. inner eye is .9 on x,y,z axis so it fits inside outer eye.  In UV unwrap, select edge and double click on one edge to quickly select all of the edges, then cut uv, then right click on eye to select uv, then uv shell to select front or back so only front of eye is being taken into photoshop for texturing

AND FAIL.

But wait!  My critter's eyeballs are black.  Black balls.  So who cares.  The end.

BSA225, more light, 13 April, 2016

 spotlights under the canopy

 too much red being thrown off from the wall sconces

 too much reflectivity on most surfaces

somewhat better... the shadows are back, the geometry of the walls is improving.  Needs more dark shadows towards the back of the scene and some red added back.

BSA225, lighting the scene, 12 April, 2016

Rather than spend lots of time perfecting objects that may just be in the dark anyway, I'm playing with lighting sources today so I know what can and can't be seen.  Vaughn showed me how to use a spotlight:

and a pointlight:

and when I render it in mental ray, I can see what it's doing to the scene:

I can see weird shadows that indicate the floor and walls don't meet very well, that the directional light is too bright and more shadows needs to come up from the floor, and the blinn is a VERY reflective surface on the table.  The little light could be even more bright, but right now, I can see a reflection of the Pet in it, which is actually very interesting.

 The spotlight is above, forward of the Peddler and pointed towards the bar

 This time, the spotlight is pointed back towards the table so more of the booths are in darkness.

light positions in red.  

It's now way too dark but I still need to add light coming through the windows, the bar and front door.

with a lambert panel in white with boosted incandescence to simulate the bright outside light.

To Do List, two week term break, 15 April to 2 May

BSA  make sure all blog entries are up to date and fully annotated.  If necessary, transfer notes from class journal onto blog.
Correct all photos for graphic novel.
Write story for graphic novel
Write story for animatic.
Load fixed pieces into computer program.  Maya?  Toonboom?  Storyboard Pro?
Talk to Deb Wattes about music piece for animation on Thursday 20/4.

BSA225 BSA226
finish base mesh
clothe figure
finish dressing the bar
install lights into scene
Fix polygons on character and props/set
make Pet figure
make 2D bar patrons in photoshop

3rd Year film
keep Friday, Saturday, Sunday plan-free for filming (no problem.  Except for skype call home.  Rearrange that.)

Watch Vikings, Madmen and ???? on Netflix.  Enjoy some free time!  Go see Zootopia at the movie theatre.  Buy Inside Out.  S2 UNBREAKABLE KIMMY SCHMIDT!!  Excitement.  Where is season 6 Walking Dead, season 1 Fear the Walking Dead?

Clean closet.  Fish or cut bait with that quilt.  repack dishes box.  FIND MY FAVOURITE WINTER HAT.  crochet baby blankets for Aatika, Leigh Anne, Lisa, Johana, Nikola?  It's like I'm surrounded by kangaroos. No baby blankets.

Shop for LCHF for two weeks.  Steaks, butter, bacon, eggs.

BSA203, ProPrac, gallery considerations, 12 April, 2016

We went down into the RAW gallery to scope out the space.  It's sparsely set up with the current exhibition and I'd like to see us really fill the space.  Lots of ideas on how to do that:  Anna and Morgan could display their pieces on mannequins and hang support material behind them, Ken and Reuben think setting up angled desks? covered in white table cloths will be nicer than plopping stuff on dirty tables, and the filmies seem very interested in the dark blue partitions that are in use as a "booth" for one display.  There are 6 filmmakers,  12? animators, and ? arts/media students.  Juliette has seen Otago University use their display spaces to good advantage.  I'm thinking about how great that Alexander McQueen exhibition was at the Costume Institute with each room telling a  different story.  Quite ambitious, and more than we can successfully handle, I'm sure.  Still, something to consider.  Because now that I look at it again, we do have a bajillion of those white cubes around the drawing studios.  And flat screen tvs.  And mannequins will be involved.  So, maybe not so farfetched after all.

Pieces need to be finished a week before set up to the point where we know how many and what they might be so we can pre-plan how the space will be used.  I may have a tree/doll with book, just a book, and an animatic playing on a screen.  

BSA206, film history, surrealism part 2, 11 April, 2016

Eraserhead
Impressions of the film:
My viewing of the film was informed by a synopsis I once read that said it was a man's long freakout about fatherhood.  I kept trying to make sense of the film, then had to stop myself because it isn't supposed to make sense.  But then those long "noodles" COULD have been sperm, and that "moon" could have been an egg... so even in a surrealist film, the mind keeps searching for connections and meaning.  Was that baby puppet made from a skinned lamb body?  Did those actors realize film students would be watching them and trying to figure it out for the next 40 years?  All unknown.

 

BSA203 , ProPrac, Project feedback and what to investigate next, 7 April, 2016

What about putting it back into an accordion book, like the illustrated journal, or concertina or in a configuration like the decorations that fold out to create bells or balls of tissue?  What about making the whole skirt of the doll like that?  Experiment with putting paper together to create the shape you want.  Project could go from being a graphic novel to a sculptural object that people interact with.  Each page may not be readable by itself but be cut in the silhouette of a tree or leaf...






Lightroom tutorial with Chris McDonald
Keep the catalog at all costs- it lists all the moves and edits to the photos
keep all photos, no matter what in one folder so lightroom can find it.
folders
harddrive- photos (original and new)
harddrive- catalogues-project-output(finals or print)

create new catalogue when lightroom asks.  use library and develop tabs the most copy across from camera to proper folder

*Add* to move new photos to catalog import to bring it all in
folder is folder greyed out and can't be read, right click and update.
folder location and point to where it is.
f=full screen
flag photo so you only look at what you want to work at
x=reject
p=pick (flag) white
choose filter to only see
can also rate by number or colour
preview in library
develop to edit

radial filter
click to delete it
invert ot make inside of circle
effect= choose preset

graduated filter
right click to create virtual copy

heal and clone tool to fix (in lightroom) the fold lines

lens correction: check correct chromatic aberration

Don't bother with detail or camera corrections tabs

develop-sync setting to all if wanted not crop or spot removal tool

export to new outpost folder then open in photoshop

BSA203, ProPrac, Project critique #2, 4 April, 2016

My current research question is "What developments does a memoir undergo when it morphs from static to moving images?"

With Chris MacDonald's tutelage, I've been photographing the existing pages of the journal and fixing them up in Lightroom and Photoshop.

The journals are currently in accordion form.  Should I recreate this for the final project or print them as a more traditional booklet? People are loving the accordion, so will explore integrating that with the doll sculpture.

Expression studies for "Boxed Up".  So many problems: cartoony, oversize eyes, and an insistence on drawing in bed while watching Netflix makes these studies insufficiently impressive.  Will keep working.

Lots of tree imagery in the books that I want to expand on, so I've done a weird study of a tree.... the roots look like a hand reaching out to crush or cradle the figure on the ground.  But really, that's just after the fact puffery.

What do I need to finish this thing?  What seasons are full and which need to be filled out?
Summer
gannets at Muriwai
Buzzy bee umbrella
 auditions
Mr. Goodly/Dr. Who
I feel Something I
Double-face
super-guide for dating pioneer
BettyArchie/Veronica
Medusa
Need:
summer pohutakawa
super-date with Stephen
Summer of Love
I LIKE you, sir! (man on pedestal)
Mr. K, my particular friend

Autumn
chocolate trap
wormy apple
flaming tree
bed
locket
knife
shrine
Need:
Super-Traci v. The Shadow!
Lady of the Tiger

Winter
tongue on pole (tree)
phantom limbs
tattoo
golden bubble
rose-tinted glasses
boys paper dolls
Bird in Thicket
Need:
Boxed Up
Super-Traci v. The Fog

Spring
Pricks and Perserverance
I Feel Something Again II
Poison Pen
seed in hand
perfect man list
speed date
parents?
good fruit tree
Need:
ashes into gold roses
Super-Traci at the dance
paint by numbers panel discussion
press conference-retiring from competitive dating
Status updates- serenity and green dress with gold heels
swaying bed at the Nunn

BSA226, 3D, head and clothes, 7 April 2016

Chateau de Sable ESMA short

What a great short!  Sand knights fight a giant crab to protect their castle and the giant pearl at the top of their spire.  In the end, neither can fight the ocean.  I loved the clever use of seashells to create the knight's armour and the subdued colour palette.

Between Rachel and Doug helping me today, this is what I've got- geometry is starting to define the eyes and mouth and the jowls will be formed by doing a soft surface form on the corners of the mouth.  I need to have this finished and cleaned up (no 3 or 5-sided shapes) with attached fingers and feet by next Thursday.  Then I'll be ready to start working on the clothes during break.  Right?  Fingers crossed.

BSA202, audio, re-mixing the audio for Guardians of the Galaxy, 6 April, 2016

I get to be Gamora!  But then I have to listen to myself deliver the lines over and over again...

choose "playlist" instead of "waveform" to see all of the recorded audio options for that character.
hit S (solo) highlight section you want and then use arrow key to move it up so you can listen to it with another part.  fade in and fade out and then cross fade over join areas.

BSA225, UV mapping and texturing objects in Maya, 6 April, 2016

In my big tidy up this weekend, I threw out a file that we still needed... "room" is where we're practicing textures.  Ooops.  So, I just opened up an extra cantina environment file and put some new things in.

We practiced UV unwrapping and checking the shape of the object by covering it in checkers.  If the checkers match, the texture will look good, too.  These textures were created with provided files.  I have a lot of photos of textures that I would like to utilize in my animation.  That would be a very good project for this weekend, or definitely for the break.

BSA225, 3D animatic, audio, 4 April, 2016

I've borrowed clips from the free sound fx library and I've got the basics in.  That would mostly be background chatter, aliens talking, and some movement sounds for the Pet.  I've loaded them into Storyboard Pro because I'm still most comfortable editing sound in that program.  I need to write and record some dialogue for the Peddler, too, but I'm not sure how I'll do that.

BSA206, Surrealist film, 4 April

Surrealism began in Europe in the 1920s, and was prominent throughout the arts.  It evolved out of Dada (1916-22) which was a commentary on the stupidity of WWI, a protest against everything, was shocking and anti-art, as well.

Surrealism was founded in 1924 by Andre' Breton, a major member of the Dadaists.  The Surrealist Manifesto in 1924 said: "pure psychic automatism, to express true functioning of thought"

Used shocking and absurd imagery and Freudian dream symbolism.  Filmmakers rejected conventional narrative forms, attempted to distupt narative conventions of time and space, of plot, character and causaltiy and hten mixed them until nothing made sense.  aimed to derange meaning, upset and shock. emphasis is on image rather than word, feeling rather than thought.  The surrealists wanted to liberate western culture fromthe tyranny and represion of reason and reveal true nature of reality.

Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali made a short film with dreamlike sequences that violate conventional narrative schemes.  Bunueal stated the script was sparked by images from their own dreams.
Un Chien Andalou"

Salvador Dali

Luis Bunuel

Un Chien Andalou

common themes: repressed sexual desire and death

Jean Cocteau:  in addition to being a director, a poet, novelist, painter, playwright, set designer, actor.  "When I make a film, it is a sleep in which I am dreaming"

They're trying to uncover the unconscious.  "Blood of a Poet" trailer

Man Ray:  only American to play major role in both Dada and Surrealist movements.

one of Man Ray's famous photographs

Emak Bakia










Spellbound (1945) Alfred Hitchcock
Salvador Dali designed the dream sequences for him
He wanted the publicity of working with Dali and for the  dream sequence to be sharp, like his paintings, and not fuzzy the way dreams were typically portrayed in films.

Destino by Walt Disney and Salvador DAli.  originally commissioned in 1946, but ended due to money issues after 8 months.  years later, the project was rediscovered by Roy Disney and finished in 2003.

Walerian Borowcyzk, using characters from 1962 film "Mr. and Mrs. Kabal's Concert", he made "Mr. and Mrs. Kabal's Theater" in 1967.  Terry Gilliam cites him as an influence.

still from Gilliam's "Brazil"

still of a Gilliam animation for Monty Python's Flying Circus

Jan Svankmajer
Czech surrealist filmmaker "Dimensions of Dialogue" 1982

David Lynch has been heavily influenced by surrealism
Rabbits

still from Lynch's "Fire Walk With Me".  A prequel to "Twin Peaks", he continued to delve into the nightmarish dreamworld of Laura Palmer

The Cell (2000) Directed by Tarsem Singh is full of imagery inspired by surrealist painters such as Odd Nerdrum and H.R. Geiger