Benjamin Mansur
benjaminmansur@gmail.com
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“Nyles” Devil 2D/Live Action:
– character design
– character animation
– composite
“Daydreams” 2D Train Backgrounds:
– matte painting
DRIPTYCH Title Transition:
– 2D VFX
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“District Four” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Independent Research Project:
Unfortunately I haven’t had much of a chance to tackle this project as our group project, “Daydreams” ended up falling off the rails a bit towards the end. I only had enough time to finish animating and composing Nyles into one live-action shot, and it didn’t involve any interaction or camera movements like I had originally planned.
On the plus side, I did manage to integrate the character into the scene quite well, even if I do say so myself. I’m still getting a grip on how to utilise Nuke properly, but I think I’ll get the hang of it eventually. Admittedly, the rotoscope node plays up for me a fair bit, but that’s likely because I still don’t understand how it operates. I’m going to have to find an explainer video somewhere.
Nyles and his little satanic circle have been tracked into the shot, so from here I think I have the building blocks to get a character into a moving shot. Looking back at my plans and the footage I took, I think I wanted to move the camera around too much for an animation test. I would like try out a tracking shot and implement a walking character into the shot, and then move on to a dolly in/out.
Introduction:
Despite being involved in many group projects throughout previous trimesters, each project is different, and thus an opportunity to improve skills when it comes to project execution and management.
This trimester I undertook the role of producer for our main group project, “Daydreams”, and although our final piece is quite appealing, in hindsight, there is an abundance of things that we could have, and should have, done differently, particularly handing in the project on time. That said, there is still a good handful of positives drawn from the project, and the entire experience should be taken away to help us plan and execute future projects that we will encounter.
What Has Worked Well?
2D Scenes:
Description: The 2D scenes featured in the film came together very well and even received praise from lecturers outside the project. Elements in the scenes blend together within the set style and are arguably one of the more aesthetically pleasing parts of the short film.
Cause Analysis: The 2D scenes were a lot easier for me to manage compared to the 3D scenes as there were only three people, myself included, working on whole sections by themselves. Effective communication also meant that people knew exactly what work they had to produce and how a lack of produced work would affect all parties involved.
Future Lessons: It might be interesting to see if more work is produced when sections of projects are tasked to small groups of two or three people as they are more reliant on each other’s work and are constantly required to produce work for immediate team members. I would also like to make a stronger effort to make sure individual team members are aware of the work they are to produce and see how they are managing their workload.
Collegiality in Final Weeks:
Description: In the last few weeks our team was able to band together quite well to achieve a large quantity of work before the deadline, despite unfortunately missing it in the end. Most team members were coming in early and staying back late on campus throughout those weeks, showing a renewal in work ethic and time management.
Cause Analysis: This was largely due to the looming pressure of trying to meet the project deadline and fear of letting both our facilitator and ourselves down. As a result, we were more willing to make time for the project and put in significantly more effort in an attempt to finish the project.
Future Lessons: It was interesting that team members who had not previously been available openly realised that working together after campus hours was far more effective than working alone. In the future, I will try to produce this feeling of collegiality earlier on projects by trying harder to arrange group work sessions as these proved high beneficial.
What Has Not Worked Well?
Project Management:
Description: Project management was quite a wreck this trimester and I feel largely responsible for this as the producer. While there were plans and outlines for procedures such as naming conventions, these were largely overlooked my team members and I was unable to effectively get members to utilise this information.
Cause Analysis: People weren’t looking at project management files as they probably weren’t interested in them and didn’t feel the importance of having them. This is also partly due to me not pushing how vital the documentation was and for not being strict as on procedures as I should have been due to the friendly atmosphere of the team.
Future Lessons: I will ensure I am far more vocal and strict in regards to project management when in charge to make sure team members know the rules, standards and how these affect the overall project. I will also make it 100% clear how to name files.
2D to 3D Crossover:
Description: The transition between the power lines in the 2D scene and the spheres in the 3D scene didn’t sync as well as we initially planned. Aside from the variation in scale, the frame rate between the two pieces of footage made syncing the animation far more difficult and problematic than it should have been despite my attempts to solve this through referencing the 2D animation in Maya, adjusting the frame rates in Premiere and manually removing frames from copies of the footage.
Cause Analysis: The crux of the issue was the change in frame rate between the scenes, with the 2D scene in 15fps and the 3D in 25fps. Unfortunately, this issue was overlooked earlier in the project and thus not tested. I was also relatively sleep deprived late in the project when we faced this issue, meaning I wasn’t able to properly think through how to overcome the issue.
Future Lessons: Frame rates should be kept consistent throughout the project unless specifically required for unforeseen reasons. If footage with mixed frame rates needs to be smoothly transitioned, this should be tested before it is required to be implemented.
Extended Mid-Production Slump
Description: There was an extended period of time during the middle of the project where work output was not efficient or up to standard at all. This essentially caused a chain reaction, affecting all areas of the production and didn’t pick up quick enough to allow us to meet the project deadline.
Cause analysis: Many team members were confused and therefore less invested in the project due to its vague concept in the beginning. Although we had many discussions in attempts to clarify the concept, this ended up being too late in the project to really get a strong feel of commitment from all team members.
Future Lessons: I believe that arranging group production sessions would be highly beneficial in minimising mid-production slumps, as would getting team members to express what aspects of the project cause them to lose interest. These may not always be as achievable or effective as I may like, but I think that has a lot to do with the context of said projects.
Conclusion:
“Daydreams” has been a valuable experience for me in regards to Project Management, particularly what not to do. This is all something I must take in my stride should I take on the role of producer again. However, now that the project is over I’m pleased which what our team was able to finally produce.
In future projects, I will try my best to promote collegiality earlier stages of the project and encourage group work sessions to get team members in a better frame of mind for production. I would also like to maintain clarity amongst team members and try to mediate this more effectively in areas such as concept and work expectations by being more involved with individuals when possible. Hopefully, this goes well.
Main Project:
Now that we’ve finalized most parts of our group project (some parts were still being tweaked over the last few weeks), I’ve finished off my Cultural Analysis. I’ve also put together an online, in-depth gantt chart for the project on Smartsheet now that we have defined parts of our project and thus a better scope of the roles we need to fill to complete the project. This also helps since Asana doesn’t give a visual display of when tasks are due compared to each other, and only has end dates for tasks.
I’ve begun work on one of the 2D backgrounds seen where the elderly man looks out of the train window at the powerlines. I’ve made the shot a little wider than what was in the rough storyboard so that we had a little freedom to move the camera in the shot around if needed. I’ve been looking into the photo references Mitch put up on the drive as well as The Illusionist (2010) backgrounds that everyone liked the style of back when we put forth concept art for the backgrounds.
Independent Research Project:
I’ve been a little behind on working on my independent research project, but we’ve been looking into tracking live action shots in Nuke in class recently, so at least I’m still getting some good information, skills and techniques that I’ll need for the project. I don’t think I’ll need any tracking for my still shots, however my moving shot will require 3D tracking.
I’ve drawn up a storyboard for my sequence, although I might shoot some different angles for my second shot when I’m filming. I’m also unsure as to whether I’ll be able to shoot clearly from inside the fridge considering fridges aren’t very deep. I want to film using a university camera, however, if I can’t fit a camera in the fridge properly I could try using a phone’s camera instead.
From here I’ll need to film my shots and collect video reference for Nyles soon too. I should probably throw together a model sheet for Nyles too, although he does have a pretty simple design.
The ANM230 group project, working title “Daydreams”, is a short and creative animation that explores escaping a dull humdrum reality through the use of imagination. Daydreams utilises themes of surrealism and escapism, making considerations to cultural issues such as representation of gender, race and sexuality.
Genre & Themes:
At its core, a daydream is a means of escape from a present situation, whether this be for entertainment purposes, to disconnect from aspects of daily life or simply due to the mind wandering. Daydreaming is a relatively common experience, with people’s minds wandering 46.9% of the time (Lopatto 2010), meaning that the majority of audience members will likely be able to relate to our main character drifting into a daydream with a similar experience they’ve had in the past.
Furthermore, Daydreams expands into the theme of escapism, where our elderly main character fantasises about a dream world that is far more vibrant and pleasant that the lack lustre environment he is in. This comes across as a healthy form of escapism that helps him to maintain a positive outlook on life, something which should universally resonate with audience members who also find themselves daydreaming during lulls in their daily life.
In terms of cultural relevance in regards to an Australian audience, by having the elderly man a passenger on a boring train ride, we hope to Melbourne audience members will be able to easily relate to this experience, as Metro Trains commutes over 415,000 customers each day (Metro Trains, n.d.), an estimated 10% of the Melbourne population. The ties to Metro Trains should also help associate ideas of a humdrum city life without having to directly convey this to the audience.
Narrative:
Many aspects of Daydream’s narrative will be open to interpretation, with the idea that different people will be able to project various meanings into the short film without their interpretation being ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. For example, the backstory of our main character is unknown, with what little is known about him being understood through his character design, environment, emotions, solitude and our insight into the fantasy daydream in his mind.
Although the narrative is open to interpretation, Daydreams still puts forth ideas that the audience should be able to read so that there is indeed a story being told without relying on pure whimsy. While we never know exactly how or why he has come to view his reality as dull and disinteresting, the audience can still draw conclusions that this is indeed how he feels about his reality, and that he uses his imagination to escape these feelings be analysing his isolation, boredom and the contrast between his real world and his vivid daydream.
An additional interesting and subtle idea that runs through the narrative is the notion of not being afraid to explore the unknown, or to forge a path in the darkness. This is seen throughout the dream sequence, where the dream characters explore their world in a curious and playful manner without hesitation. As these dream characters are in the mind of the main character, this theme could thus be projected onto him, leading the audience to draw conclusions that he reminisces about times gone past where he explored the world with vitality and vigour, or perhaps his regrets of not having done so, allowing the audience to also reminisce on their own past actions and ways of life.
Aesthetics:
One design choice which I was personally pleased with was the natural progression of design choices that lead to our main character being a non-White. This preference stems from the lack of representation for people of colour (POC) characters in western media, with 73.1% speaking roles in films in 2014 being held by White actors (Media, Diversity, & Social Change Initiative, 2014), showing a clear bias for race preferences.
When designing the dream world characters, many team members were adamant about trying to keep the characters as gender-neutral as we could. As our goal was to produce a spectacular dream sequence where there is no ‘preferred’ reading, having both characters similar in design meant we could avoid audience members instantly assuming the gender of the characters and what they are ‘meant’ to be reading from them. It was important for us to have the characters relatable to a wide audience without favouring any specific demographic, and to steer away from gendered stereotypes and heteronormativity which have been historically prevalent in the media (Bond, 2011). By keeping the dream characters’ designs minimalistic and practically identical, we’re hoping to ensured that multiple readings and ideas can be projected onto the characters by many different audience members of different genders, sexualities and walks of life.
In order to visually distinguish the mundane real world of the character and their daydream world, as well as to play to the strengths of all team members, we have decided to utilise both 2D and 3D animation in our final product. The beginning and ending sequences of our short will feature 2D animation, giving the character’s real world a rough, saturated and lacking dimension to depict how dull the character perceives it to be. This will contrast heavily with the dream sequence, which will instead feature 3D animation with the use of both dark backgrounds and bright characters, appearing more rich, vibrant and dimensional, depicting how his fantasy escape is more appealing and captivating than the world he lives in.
Proposed Modifications:
The progression of the project in regards to detecting and considering cultural concerns has been quite pleasing. Going forward with the project, I feel addition elements of wonder and curiosity, as well as the elderly man’s overall reaction to his daydream should be reconsidered to draw further meaning from the final product. These elements, while small, can still work to evoke more emotions in our audience, and to also add extra appeal to the narrative.
References:
Bond, B. (2011). SEXUALITY IN THE MEDIA AND EMOTIONAL WELL-BEING AMONG LESBIAN, GAY, & BISEXUAL ADOLESCENTS. Retrieved from https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/26199/Bond_Bradley.pdf?sequence=1
Lopatto, E. (2010). People daydream almost half the day, Harvard study finds. Retrieved from http://www.nola.com/health/index.ssf/2010/11/people_daydream_almost_half_th.htm
Media, Diversity, & Social Change Initiative. (2014). Inequality in 700 Popular Films: Examining Portrayals of Gender, Race, & LGBT Status from 2007 to 2014. Retrieved from http://annenberg.usc.edu/pages/~/media/MDSCI/Inequality%20in%20700%20Popular%20Films%208215%20Final%20for%20Posting.ashx
Metro Trains. (n.d.). WHO WE ARE. Retrieved from http://www.metrotrains.com.au/who-we-are/
MIKE. (n.d.). Daydreaming, Escapism, and PTSD. Retrieved from http://anxietypanichealth.com/2008/08/13/daydreaming-escapism-and-ptsd/
Main Project:
During the week our team had a lengthy Skype meeting in order to get a better understanding of the visual style of the animation. This issue rose as many of the team members weren’t really sure of how Steve, our now appointed art director, was visualizing the animation. Most of the issues and concerns were raised and discussed thoroughly though, so at least the air was cleared with that.
The sequence of scenes has been finalised now, and although I initially though there would be a lot more scenes with the light characters, the scenes we do have will be relatively slow so that we don’t have an extremely short animation. Tim and I began work on a very rough colour script, although that will need to be further worked upon.
Mitch and I also produced a second round of light character concept art, with mine focusing on some of the designs that everyone in the class preferred. I also played around with different colours that could work together well, although I think Steve is leaning more towards just having a blue and white character. We decided upon one of Mitch’s light character designs.
Independent Research Project:
I’ve been looking at some tutorials on integrating 2D animation with live action, with the most in-depth tutorial focusing on 2D Photoshop animation. I’ve played with a bit of Photoshop animation in the past, but I’m pretty against using it for animation as it’s not animation-friendly. I think I’ll stick to what I know, and animate my character in Flash. Although motion-graphic animation could work, I’m thinking about using limited 2D hand-drawn computer animation.
I began to reconsider whether my character should be a monster or a human. A human could make it easier to interact with real world objects as I could get an actor to stand in for the animated character and thus remove the need for puppeteer work. That means I’ll basically be rotoscoping in a character over the live actor though, and not animating the character from scratch. While this isn’t bad, it does restrict the actions of the character to a degree.
On the other hand, a monster character could be more appealing and fun to work with as I wouldn’t have an actor standing in for the character in the footage. It might require some backplate cleanup and creative use of puppeteer work depending on what shot sequence I go with though. I think I’ll going to go ahead with a monster character, and at this point I’m leaning towards a little devil character. I did a more refined design of said character, which I named Nyles.
My shot sequences have also been narrowed down to my top three in order of preference:
A:
B:
C:
Main Project:
Everybody revised their project documentation so I only had to make minor adjustments before I began compiling the documentation. There are still some minor parts that need to be tweaked, but we still have a week before it’s due.
Mitch an I started working on character designs for the light characters. I tried to keep my characters looking fluid and elegant, looking at a lot of ballet videos and ballet poses to help pose my character concepts. I really like my first design as it conveys elegant movement with a really nice figure. Plus, the flame on it’s head would be really nice to animate as a 2D visual effect. I’m also quite fond of the texturing inside my fifth design, with the idea that the lines would appear to be rushing through the character, although that might be difficult to make visually appealing as the characters are probably going to be moving around relatively slowly and could contrast their actions.
Independent Research Project:
I’ve started to plan out some ideas for my shots that I’ll be using for this project, mainly considering using locations at my current house and area since I’ll likely need plenty of time to set up for shots by myself. I’ve mainly come up with ideas such as having my character getting ready for work, watching tv/planning video games, walking down the street, etc. as these won’t be too out of scope to animate, especially since I’ll be using a moving camera in at least one shot. I’ll have to keep coming up with ideas though.
I’ve played around with a few character designs and got caught up on designing a bunch of little monster characters. I think they could be really fun to animate and are basic enough in design to be achievable. I’ve also had a look at more human characters, although I’m not leaning towards them at the moment.
Main Project:
I’ve gone through all the uploaded project documentation and given feedback to everyone with things to fix up or consider since our project idea still hasn’t been finalized yet. Everyone’s documentation is on track though, so there aren’t any real concerns there.
We’ve also now decided on a director – Jacob, so I’ll be working closely with him from here on.
We came into class on Wednesday with a moodboard each in order to help us figure out what we like and want to strive for visually in our production, with a lot of us leaning towards dark blue backgrounds and light blue characters. I ended up going through a lot of Adult Swim ‘Off The Air’ videos, looking at some really surreal and trippy films and animations. I don’t think our animation will get that bizarre though.
After discussing the likes and dislikes of the moodboards we were all tasked with coming up with some concept art for either the characters or the environment. I came up with some rough 2D character designs since that’s my preference.
Independent Research Project:
I’ve done some research into how animated characters were composited into live action shots in films such as Who Framed Rodger Rabbit (1988), Space Jam (1996) and The SpongeBob Movie (2015), and it’s some pretty impressive stuff if you want to make it looks believable. The author of The Animator’s Survival Kit, Richard Williams, worked on the former, and stated that interaction was the key to making the toon characters believably exist in the real world. It was also interesting to see the mechanical structures and use of puppeteering that went into making real-world object move that would later be covered up by animated characters.
Although I would like to try out having a character interact with real-world objects, unfortunately I don’t have a strong background in mechanical engineering, so I’ll have to stick to simple puppeteering.
Main Project:
This week begins our main project for this trimester, which involves the whole class working towards producing an approximately 5 minute animation. We began work quite quickly, with myself being appointed producer, and therefore the scribe for brainstorming ideas.
Our team came up with a list of keywords, genres and culturally relevant topics that could influence our project, then came back to pitch a couple of ideas each to the class. Unfortunately, my ideas were slightly preachy and more narrative based, where our executive producer/facilitator was wanting us to lean a bit away from this. We’ve decided to follow an idea where a person begins daydreaming and escapes their dull reality, which is a more creative and imaginative route to take instead.
As the producer, I was in charge of creating a Slack group, Google Drive folder system and Asana project. These will be used by the team to communicate, store project files and assign tasks to be completed. I also had to assign team members to parts of project documentation to complete. At the moment we can only produce drafts for some parts of the documentation, since documents such as the Synopsis and Project Overview rely on our idea being solidified, and we still need to decide how we want our animation to unfold.
Independent Research Project:
For this project, I’ve decided to learn how to compose 2D characters into live action shots. To do this, I should probably start with composing a 2D character into a still shot first to get a feel for it, before trying to go to the next level to a moving shot.
Some of the things I’ll need to keep in mind are:
I’m sure this will be an interesting, practical and potentially complex project to complete.
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