Reflection On The Week (19): Starting Monday 3rd February

Week Summary

Overall I think my research work took a bit of a stumble this week, but starting to work through the abstract assignment, similar to last semester, has helped to organize the overall focus and structure of my research. Also filling out the ethics forms for the focus group assignment helped me break down what exactly I wanted to find out from my research.

My main project is more on track now I think, and will keep the momentum up with this to finish off the pre-production stage: finalizing character and background designs and completing and re-editing together the animatic.

Produced some character concepts, which included colours and textures, for Going Live. I think my next task should be to start looking at animation references.

Monday 3rd Feb
Programme Meeting - our class needs to start thinking about raising some money for our Degree Show and London trip in August.
Had a team meeting and preparing for supervisor meeting tomorrow.

Tuesday 4th Feb
Supervisor meeting - Link to relevant Blog Post
Research Crisis - felt like I lost my research question and spent some time reviewing my research work and trying to phrase together a question title for the project.

Wednesday 5th Feb
Research module workshops all day. I think has helped me a little to organize my research.

Had a team meeting in the afternoon. I had a look over the Dog's character design with Sheng to make some suggestions and she edited them into the design. The Dog wasn't quite looking young enough, but by adding some curves to the head, mouth and feet, and shortening the body, it instantly looked a lot younger. We also adjusted the dogs jumper to look more like a jumper by removing the back leg sleeves. Then many different sized eyes we tried out. The whole team then had a discussion about what to do with the dog's eyebrows and mouth. Should the dog have teeth is a question that hasn't been decided yet...

To remind each of us what we should all be working on during the next week:

Lilly:

• Storyboard and 2D animatic update, 
• Do sketches of the current dog design posed (to help inform the design)

Sheng:

• Edit and finalize the human character design
• Dog expressions
• Bird designs and concepts

George:

• Colour concepts
• Background Design Concepts and 3D model tests

Kirti:

• Begin 3D modelling a character
• Working on the 2nd animatic for her own research project

Thursday 6th February

Everyone's work was submitted for the first Going Live Milestone.

Belbin workshop - learn about my roles within my team and what I am most suited to. I learned that I am a 'Completer/Finisher', i.e. a perfectionist who will get the job finished and polished, and searches out any errors; although I kind of knew this already about myself. Afterwards my group for the film project sat down and looked over all of our roles and discovered that we cover pretty much all of a production line, so we should have a good working group dynamic.

Friday 7th February

3D workshop in the morning with Jin about Rotoscoping in Nuke. 

Bird character research and drawings.
Completed all the relevant forms for the Focus Group assignment and sent them off.

Weekend
Went to Camperdown Wildlife Centre to boost my observational drawing, since I haven't been able to go to any life drawing classes so far this semester. Relevant Blog Post Link

Camperdown Wildlife Centre

As I haven't been able to go along to any life drawing classes so far this semester, due to overlapping classes and meetings, I figured I needed to boost my observational drawing... with a trip to the wildlife centre! Also I thought it may be useful in my main film project as I will be animating a canine and a bird. It also aided to some observational references for the Going Live project, but I won't say what the reference is yet because it's a secret for now...

Completely lost the feeling in my fingers by this point because it was sooooo COLD!!

Pippa, Biscuit and Garden...

Took some photos in the back garden for reference and inspiration. The bird feeder was filled a few days again so I've been waiting for the birds to notice there are seeds back in there, only been a few visitors so far. Also gave my dog, Pippa, a biscuit for her to take outside, however then all she wanted to do was take it back inside the house :p

Birds of Conservation Concern and Winter Wear Discussions

For our bird character, originally we were going to go with the Bullfinch species, but after looking at photos of the bird I realized the black colouring around the head might make it more difficult to see the eyes and expressions. I then had a look on the RSPB website and found out the Bullfinch has Amber status for Conservation Concern. For our underlying message in the film, I thought it might be better for our character to be a bird from the Red list. I researched different birds on the red list and came across the Linnet:
Link to RSPB Linnet page

A quick colour study paint in Photoshop

Sketches of different poses of a Linnet

Linnet is the current favourite that I've found - really like the colours, think the orange brown colour on the wings fits in well with the autumn colours, it's grey around the eye so expressions will be easier to see, and the more pink-red hue on the front might be better than just a bright red (which would have blended it in to the background too much with all the autumn colours?...)
It also feeds on seeds and can be found in gardens which is suitable for the story.

Some other suitable species I found were:
House Sparrow
Lesser Redpole
Hawfinch

Had a look over the human character design with Sheng. Now that the owner will be out in the garden with the dog for the duration of the film, her clothes needed some slight adjustment. Such as making her sleeves longer. The scarf has been adjusted so we don't have to deal with rigging a scarf... but we did like the scarf. It was also discussed whether maybe she could have a woolly hat, with maybe cropped hair? Or maybe even earmuffs! Which maybe would help show that it's a colder weather season and also maybe explains why she doesn't notice anything that's going on because she can't hear as well with her ears cover... I think some sketches to explore some winter wear variations is needed...

Ponytails And Fringes...

Been looking over the character designs with Sheng for the 'Tug of Biscuit' film. As the character is going to be modelled in 3D, we changed the hairstyle to a ponytail, as long hair down would just add difficulty to rigging and moving it, or even using dynamics. With a ponytail, we can just use one rig in the hair to add movement and bounce when she moves. However then we tried to decide what the fringe would be like, so I suggested we print off some blank heads of the character and draw some different variations. These are the ones I drew out:

At the moment we've gone for 'The Elsa Wisp' one on the bottom row. One strand fringe which would need a little rig to add some slight movement.

Research and Reflective Practice Module Day

Today we had two workshops for the Reflection On Practice Module, 'Presenting Your Partner's Research' workshop with Jeanette in the morning; and 'Writing Abstracts' with Sharon and Anna Notaro in the Afternoon.

Last night I hit a slight crisis point where I felt I had lost my research question/focus. I think my confusion began because I was trying to relate my research to/link it to my main project work, as I would like it to help better inform my practice-led work. We also have to carry out a Focus Group or Interview in the very near future, (with ethics and participant consent forms to be handed in asap) and I started to think what do I actually want to find out, and what could I find out from doing a focus group... If I know what I want to find out, maybe this will help me word my question.

All my notes from yesterday - trying to figure out my research...

Started to take notes and references from Paul Wells The Animated Bestiary.  There are some interesting thoughts and theories explored in this book, from anthropomorphism, empathy, crossing the line, and how animals are portrayed in animated film and what they represent on a societal and cultural level.

I took all my notes and confused thoughts to the workshop this morning. I was paired with Fraser, who is researching some similar subject areas to my own research (anthropomorphism). I attempted to explain my current research question, methods of research and possible outcomes to him.

My research is looking at how to create a convincing and believable performance of an animated dog character, by giving the dog human characteristics and emotions which allow the audience to empathize with.
As I have learned from my research last semester, one essential method that contributes towards a convincing and believable character performance is empathy: to empathize with a character is to relate to their feelings and therefore to care for them; this results in an audience that is engrossed for the duration of the film.

Another aspect I would like to investigate is the difference in empathy with dog owners and non-dog owners, is empathy dependent on the audience?  I wondered if dog owners would connect with the character more because they would recognize traits in their own dog(s) and that would be their way to empathizing with the dog character. Are they recognizing behavior and seeing their own dog, consciously or not. If they watch films like 101 Dalmatians and Lady & the Tramp, do they watch it with different eyes compared to when they weren't dog owners. For the non-dog owners, do they empathize more with the human characteristics in the dog character because they aren't as familiar with dog characteristics.

Slight historical context could be explored: how relationship between dog and man have developed throughout history. How have cartoon dogs developed throughout animation history.

Need to explore methods: Dogs can talk or express emotions like humans, therefore we have to constantly work out what they might be thinking. To animate a dog, we need to find a more expressive and clear way to express what a dog will be thinking, in order to communicate a story and character performance to an audience.


I think writing the Abstract is going to further help me to summarize and structure my research.

Supervisor Meeting - Tuesday 4th February 2014

Talked through the storyboards that each member of the team contributed to.

George drew panels: 1-7, 25-27, 37-38, 54-60
I drew panels: 8-24, 39, 53
Sheng drew panels: 28-36
Kirti drew panels: 40-52

Myself and George arranged the storyboards in a storyboarding program called 'Shotbox', I then added descriptions to all the panels:

I then put the panels together into a roughly timed animatic:

Some ideas that were discussed and generated from the meeting included:

• Do we need the INT. environment? The human could be outside in the garden as well, gardening, hanging out washing, raking leaves. First this would save us time having to model, texture and light another environment, and it might also make the scenes more funny, because the human is also in the garden but is completely oblivious to what is going on.
• During the 'tug-of-war' scene, the humorous situation of this could be heightened by having the small bird pulling the dog along the ground/through the air (Bird appears unusually strong - could show how much it wants the biscuit)
• Zooming out at the end to leave on a similar shot that the storyboard began with at the beginning could round off the film nicely.

I've also typed up the script (yes the girl's name is 'Lily', I did not initiate this decision! :p Decided to differentiate this character from myself by spelling it differently from my own to avoid confusion):

Tug of Biscuit

03/02/2014

Director and Script Writer: Lilly Durrant

EXT. House and Back-Garden – (DAYTIME – AUTUMN/WINTER)

A young dog, named PIP, plays in the Garden and runs towards the back door of the house.

INT. Kitchen – (DAYTIME)

A young woman, LILY, is doing chores in the kitchen. Pip comes in through the door; Lily greets Pip,

1.                                            LILY

“Biscuit?”

She then throws a BISCUIT out into the garden for Pip.

EXT. Back-Garden – (DAYTIME)

SFX sounds of kids playing in neighbour’s garden. Dog approaches biscuit, sniffs it and then opens mouth to eat it.

SFX loud kick sound! A BALL flies over the fence and past the dog, immediately grabbing Pip’s attention. Pip excitedly runs out of shot after the ball.

A BIRD swoops down, picks up the biscuit, and takes off with it.

Pip happily pads back into shot with the football in his mouth. He looks down at where the biscuit was and is shocked and confused to find it is gone! Pip looks around the ground and then looks up. Pip spots and focuses on something O/S and looks angry.

Camera zooms out to show the bird sitting on the fence with the biscuit. It then swallows the biscuit, which upsets the dog, and then flies away. The ball pops and deflates in the dog’s mouth.

INT. Kitchen – (DAYTIME)

Pip begs Lily for another biscuit; she throws one outside for him and gets back to work.

EXT. Back-Garden – (DAYTIME)

Dog runs up to biscuit and looks around suspiciously for the bird. Thinking maybe it’s best to save and hide the biscuit, Dog begins to dig a hole for it.

Meanwhile the Bird swoops down and creeps towards the biscuit.

Pip is alerted to a sound and turns around to see the Bird with his biscuit in its mouth. Bird then engulfs it whole and takes off, leaving a stunned Dog.

INT. Kitchen – (DAYTIME)

Pip begs Lily desperately for another biscuit.

2.                                            LILY

“Last one, ok?”

She throws a biscuit outside for him and gets back to washing dishes at the window, which has a view of the garden.

EXT. Back-Garden – (DAYTIME)

Dog runs towards biscuit and then stops. Camera pans up to reveal the bird standing opposite. The biscuit lies on the ground, at equal distance between the two. It’s a standoff.

C/U of the dog and bird, both look angry and determined; each glance between the other and the biscuit.

Both then suddenly race towards each other and the biscuit. Camera cuts just before they collide.

INT. Kitchen – (DAYTIME)

Lily is busy washing dishes. The view from the window shows Pip and Bird in a tug of war with the biscuit. Lily looks nonchalantly up, then back to the dishes, then double takes back to the chaos outside.

3.                                            LILY

Exclamation of Surprise!

Lily throws down what she was washing and runs O/S. Still looking through the window at the sink, Lily can be seen running towards Pip and the Bird, arms flailing and shooing.

4.                                            LILY

(Sound is muffled, as camera/audience still in Kitchen)

“Stoppp! Shoo! Shoo!”

EXT. Back-Garden – (DAYTIME)

As the Bird flies off past the camera, Lily picks Pip up along with the biscuit. She looks at the biscuit, and then O/S.

Bird is sitting on the fence looking very sad; its little stomach wobbles as it grumbles.

Lily looks back at dog and biscuit, an expression of realization crosses her face. She looks thoughtful and then has an idea.

SFX of DIY and building with a montage of C/U’s.

Pip watches with anticipation as Lily finishes constructing something. Camera dollies out to reveal a new BIRD HOUSE/FEEDER. Bird flies to it and looks joyous!

Bird happily munches on the bird feed as the Dog finally munches away on his biscuit.

THE END

The script is currently 2.5 pages long, meaning our film is roughly 2-3 minutes long, so a lot of editing is required. Ideally the animatic needs to be edited to under 2 minutes.

Lastly we went over some Moodboards, these are the ones I put together, wanted to find examples of simple 3D designs, followed by 2D and more illustrative designs:

I've started putting some reference boards together on Pinterest,

Cartoon Dogs: http://www.pinterest.com/2illybean/cartoon-dogs/

Garden Birds: http://www.pinterest.com/2illybean/garden-birds/

There are still designs, styles and colours to finalize. Originally we thought of having a 2D background with 3D characters, the more this project is developing the more inclined we have been to go for a 3D background instead. It will probably be a lot less trouble for us, not having to try and convincingly composite a 3D character into a 2D world.

We also discussed what everyone is working on at the moment and what we should be working on next. I will continue Directing and overseeing the whole project, including the designs, and I will be updating the storyboard and 2D animatic. Sourcing some free 3D rigs to use in the 3D animatic and creating the 3D animatic; this will aid background designs, give an idea of camera moves, and allow me to start animation tests.

For our next Supervisor Meeting in 3 weeks time:

• Have a new updated 2D animatic (fix storyboard)
• A 3D animatic (used with simple models and free rigs, having a 3D animatic will help with what backgrounds we need to help influence those designs)
• Background and character designs - start modelling a character