Matt Frodsham : Final Major Project

First screening: FACT Liverpool 14/05/2010

2010-05-15T07:20:00.000-07:00

As part of Sparkle VFX's launch event 'Enter 3D' at FACT liverpool.

(Note: the deadline for the academic aspect of this project was yesterday but as Mat and I develop this campaign I will continue to update this to keep any interesting info in one place)

Thanks to Sparkle and FACT
www.sparklevfx.com
www.fact.co.uk

Two Inches To The Right : Final Video

2010-05-13T16:15:00.000-07:00

Coming Soon...

2010-05-08T06:11:00.000-07:00

The final video will be released online soon. If you've been dropping in to see the development thanks & I hope it's been informative and maybe even interesting.

Cheers Matt

www.mattfrodsham.com
www.matlloyd.com

Final touches - audio

2010-05-08T05:55:00.000-07:00

After I sent Mat a draft render of the final video he was very happy with the video but felt his audio track sounded unpolished in relation to the visuals so he and I decided if it wasn't possible to get an engineer to clean up the existing track then it would be best to re-record it in a studio to get a more professional sounding end product. Mat was able to quickly source an old friend with a studio and in a couple of days we had a great sounding audio track.

He went through the original track and rerecorded staying as close to the original tempo and pronunciation which made it veryeasy for me to re-sync. I just had to slice the track during silences a couple of times in final cut pro and realign some of the wave forms using the original audio tracks as a guide and ensure the lip sync and edits were still in the corect place in relation to the sound.

Photo from studio

From matlloyd.com

Re-record, re-render, re-joice…

Posted by matlloyd on May 7, 2010

In the studio yesterday to re-record vocals for new video ‘Two Inches to the Right’.

Yesterday afternoon was all about green tea, roll ups, mini bites and vocals. OK I didn’t get involved in the roll ups but I did indulge in the mini bites, green tea (surprisingly nice) and vocals, as we re-recorded the audio for my next video release “2 Inches to the Right”. Having got my hands on a final edit on Monday I was pleased with the video but not with the audio quality of the vocal track. Luckily, an old friend from my days working at a Skate/Surf shop has a professional studio setup and came to the rescue. A take or so in the vocal booth and he got to work. The outcome is much tighter and should really compliment the final video. The recording has been sent over to Matt Frodsham who is working his magic to sync it into the video…good luck!

I actually wrote the piece about 8 years ago after I was randomly attacked and luckily for me, saved by a number of surfers and a now very famous front man of a well known punk band. Aaaahhh well it was worth it in the end.

While you wait for the new video to be released, check out my previous, and now award winning collaboration with Matt Frodsham on my official YouTube Channel – MatLloydPoet

More news soon….

Other type

2010-05-08T05:42:00.001-07:00

All the other small bits of type is tied in with its surroundings, for example the bold serif on the can is similar to the Fosters lager font and I chose a nice clean serif to represent the lawyers' lines. I re-used this typeface for the end credits as I wanted to use something nice and legible but not use too many fonts in the piece for copy. I think knocking the type back to lighter colour burned browns ties it in with the visuals well and

Hand made type

2010-05-08T05:28:00.000-07:00

I wanted to add some more real hand made elements to emphasise the organic look of the visuals and tie in the styles of the typography to the characters. I'm not a big fan of 'graffiti' being over used in design so opted for a more aggressive scrawled paint for the type tied to the chavs' shots. Because they would only be on screen for short bursts the words needed to look as if they had been lazily scrawled with a large brush but many of my experiments were fairly illegible when trying to create the style on an A4 sheet to scan.

Instead I painted larger letters one by one and created a 'bank' of straight and curved strokes and manipulated the marks within photoshop to refine the words. This means they have the energyin the lines that I want but also allow me to refine the letterforms enough so they are legible when read or glanced at in a quick shot.

Lots of mattes

2010-05-08T05:21:00.000-07:00

Using techniques mentioned before importing nulls and 3D cameras and layering up layers of the background plate masked with various object buffers I've set the hand drawn layer in 3D space and interacting with the 3D objects (ie end of bed in front of body, jail door in foreground).

Again using frischluft lenscare I can pull focus through the doors and replicate a real cameras DOF adding a bit of realism to the illustrative visuals.

2010-05-08T05:13:00.000-07:00

Quick sketches in photoshop built up into static frame to add detail to the background before Mat is composited on top.

2010-05-08T05:05:00.000-07:00

In cinema add 'external compositing' tags to the 2 benches and export 3D data to an after effects compositing .AEC file so the 3D cameras and tagged objects come in as replaceable Null Objects.

Added hand dawn plates as 3D layers with alpha so can be positioned anywhere in the scene and the 3D imported camera will move around them and sync with the 2D background layer (3D render). The null objects help position the new elements precisely in Z-depth.

Using a depth matte I can draw the eye to the foreground with depth of field blur using frischluft lenscare. This adds a surreal sense of reality to the sketchy hand drawn look of the image.

2010-05-08T05:02:00.000-07:00

Using 'foreground' layer with a hand drawn frame overlayed to line up the 3D camera angle and build the sound block in relation to the gavel.

C4D render
Colour burned onto texture, drawn plate composited and also subtle ink drop bursting from impact of gavel

Compositing, foreground layers

2010-05-08T04:55:00.000-07:00

C4D render background 'colour burned' into texture.

Hand drawn plate track matte to stencil texture out of BG

Hand drawn plate composited

'Object buffer' rendered matte to mask hand drawn plate and show texture through

Duplicate of the background and object buffer used again but inverted to mask out everything but the tree. The previous step allows this layer to be colour burned to retain the look of the rest of the background without unwanted transparency/blending with the character

Compositing Screens

2010-05-08T04:51:00.000-07:00

Cinema 4D with imported camera track keyframes.

Export render to After Effects, use track matte from hand drawn frame as a stencil to allow paper texture to show through the background.

Character plate composited over the top with transparency to allow texture to show through

Xpresso setup to track branch bend

2010-04-29T16:56:00.000-07:00

The raven is going to land on this tree so needs to bend with weight and attach position to the point.

Found a good scenefie on creative cow with the nodes set up to get the global parameters of a deformed geometry point and attach a null object to it.. (example above, xpresso below)

Null now sticks to the branch when bend deformer is used

Opening Transition

2010-04-29T16:53:00.000-07:00

Ink bleeds

2010-04-29T16:52:00.000-07:00

Hand drawn type mood board

2010-04-13T12:02:00.001-07:00

Type won't feature as heavily in this video as blokes, but I want to tie it in to the visceral hand drawn style, perhaps adding a bit more looseness to the shots. I'll experiment with brushes and inks to get a fairly consistent style. To add variety I think adding the quotes from the Lawyer in a different style, maybe a serif/typewriter style but still worn to sit with the visuals well.

Lawyer shot roto

2010-04-10T14:54:00.000-07:00

Roto performance shots

2010-03-29T17:27:00.000-07:00

Mat CU intro sequence done

2010-03-29T10:12:00.001-07:00

Closeup

2010-03-29T01:54:00.000-07:00

I left this folder until last as it is the first shot and needs to have visual impact. Its the only time this length of shot is used and I will add in quite a lot of detail to grab the audiences attention before it eases into the slightly looser style. I'm not using any different techniques or shading differently but the nature of the shot contains a lot more detail than the mid/long/super close angles. I plan to have this shot completed by the end of today including the sketch/build on from the first line 'There was a murder last night'.

It is this shot that transitions into the main piece through the newspaper vehicle. ie. start on Mat's face, pull out to reveal it on the front of a newspaper being carried past him on the park bench, this will be quite a quick fluid transition as it happens in the space of a few words. This should also grab the audience early on and show the constantly changing edit of the piece.

SCU mouth

2010-03-28T16:19:00.000-07:00

Mat's shots on track

2010-03-28T12:37:00.000-07:00

With a day left of the 4 day stint I've completed nearly all of the shots with Mat in. There's a quick super close up to finish off tonight and then I have tomorrow to create the 'build on' of the first shot. This may require some experimentation going back and forth between after effects and photoshop updating the PSDs to get a fluid sketching on motion in a good time frame.

(ps. to anyone following or dropping in on this blog live, I apologise for the lack of exciting behind the scenes stuff this week and next, it's all pretty much just tracing footage day and night, not much to see ~ Matt)

Mat mid walking

2010-03-28T04:41:00.000-07:00

Mid tripod shots

2010-03-27T12:58:00.000-07:00

Making good progress into the shots with Mat in, got into a flow of picking out facial expressions with failry minimal lines using eyes and mouth as main detail. Starting to notice similar elements in frames so can select and copy bits like eyes/nose across from a few frames as long as they're not directly after one another otherwise the animation will have odd looking blips in motion.

Folder list before full 4 days to draw

2010-03-25T17:23:00.000-07:00

Green folders are done, red are the folders to do that include shots of mat (orange = in progress). With a long weekend before I'm in work next (4 full days) I would like to be able to complete all these shots. The super closeup shots are fairly quick, the long shots are all done, and the mid shots are taking longest because of the full face detail

Mid shots

2010-03-25T17:10:00.001-07:00

I'm planning to get all the shots with Mat done first as they're the only ones with detailed faces to be drawn. This means the 'home stretch' of the illustration will be less complex and tasking as my hand gets fatigued in the coming weeks.

I'm using a cloth scarf tied around my wrist and resting fingers on the right hand to reduce friction but think with such intensive wacom tablet use for 12+ hours a day I should look at some exercises to combat RSI. I do feel I am settling into the drawing quite well and am getting quicker and more accurate. I have also set up a photoshop action to stack up the initial layers with consistent names (important for after effects) and a second one to create alpha matte layers using selections and fills. This cuts time down quite a lot on more mundane tasks with shortcuts set to trigger the actions based on content already on layers.

Tracing Screens

2010-03-23T20:17:00.000-07:00

Roto process

2010-03-22T11:20:00.000-07:00

Video capture of drawing a frame on wacom cintiq (sped up).

Made some progress with the wide park shots today, I want to do the drawing in groups of the type of shot so I remain fairly consistent with the lines I am drawing.

> Production

2010-03-22T01:51:00.000-07:00

Minus a few pickup shots/images I now have everything I need to start the main production of the video. There won't be a large amount to write about or show on the blog while I'm tracing the frames - the workload is absolutely huge and I need to get all the sequences ready for the final composite.

All the handheld shots are tracked and camera data has been exported ready for taking into cinema 4D. I will start rendering out the environments on a per shot basis to tie in with the foregrounds, compositing these shots roughly as I go to keep organised within After Effects.

25fps vs 10fps

2010-03-22T01:29:00.000-07:00

I made the decision to keep the hand drawn elements to 10fps to allow the detail to be seen yet retain a fairly smooth animation. I've been experimenting with the background, rendering out a wireframe motion test using the camera data from the same shot this hand drawn shot is traced from.

There is a 25fps version (normal frame rate) which means the background moves with smoother motion than the hand drawn elmements, and adds some fluidity to the comp as a whole (ie it's not as noticeable that the sketches are running at a slow framrate). The downside to this could be seen technically that the camera moves don't 'stick' the character to the ground/background.

The 10fps version appears as if the whole scene has been shot at 10fps, so every time the camera moves the character moves and looks 'stuck' in the scene. This is technically more accurate, but the moving image as a whole feels a bit jittery and might be quite a difficult watch for 2+ minutes. (This would also have an impact on any ink flow footage, you would run into the same issues with the ink framerate clashing with the 10fps background plates & characters or reducing the framerate of those, reducing their fluid motion that I tried to capture.

I think the best thing to do is to render the backgrounds at 25fps and assume I will be using them at that framerate - if when the timeline fills up a bit it runs better at a solid 10 then I have the flexibility to drop it down in after effects. I think the more fluid moving background gives a much better look to the video as a whole, giving more implied movement to the sketched drawing aswell.

25fps

2010-03-21T16:53:00.001-07:00

(See post above)

10fps

2010-03-21T13:22:00.000-07:00

(see post following these 2 vids)

Roto process

2010-03-21T13:12:00.000-07:00

Camera tracking

2010-03-21T13:05:00.001-07:00

Batch exporting clips from fcp timeline

2010-03-20T08:53:00.000-07:00

Been trying to figure this out for a while, I need the clips as individual quicktimes to track in PFTrack but couldn't find how to batch export the clips from a FCP timeline. I came up with the idea of sending to Color via xml, not applying any colour corrections and re-rendering from color. This gives a list of new clips (usually colour corrected) for fcp to read back in so was a good workaround.

I just found you can drag the sequence back up into a bin so each clip is a copy of the master with its own ins and outs. These clips in the bin can then be batch exported, renamed and kept in an organised folder.

There are 20 shots to track - I will organise these into the types of shot (ie. Park Wide, Park mid, Attack etc.) so I can track and render the 3D scenes in groups.

Organising Shots

2010-03-20T05:41:00.001-07:00

Last night I edited together all the footage ready for tracing and tracking. I rendered out a sequence at 10fps as individual frames to open in photoshop and trace as described earlier - creating luma mattes within the PSDs to use wen compositing in AE.

I also rendered a 25fps sequence as a quicktime movie, I took this in final cut, re-edited to cut down to just the shots that need tracking for hand held camera moves. I need to export these individual clips, track them in PF track and then use that data in C4D to render out the backgrounds. The camera moves will then match the hand drawn sequences when brought back into after effects. I want the backgrounds to add a bit of fluidity to the slow frame rate of the hand drawn elements. The ink etc will also be running at full speed so the piece shouldn't feel too rough, although the interesting effect the mixed frame rates will give should add some more grittiness to the whole thing.

I split the hand drawn shots into folders, then into main sections. Roughly 50 shots split into 5 sections. Some will require every frame to be roto'd finely, whereas some will rely more on still elements and only animate certain aspects to cut down the load.

Compositing Night Park

2010-03-18T06:37:00.000-07:00

The introduction of the park set at night needs to fit in with the rest of the shots. Isolated I really like how the 'darken' blend mode picks up the original cool blue tones of the render and makes it feel like night through colour. However the rest of the shots are all only made up of tones of the background with the renders being colour burned into it.

I think with the all the solid black in he sky and shadows the colour burn mode is too harsh compared to the rest of the light pencil sketched look backgrounds and might be a bit jarring even though it will be introduced as a new environment as a new verse.

Again in isolation I think the experiment with the colour burned layer with a mid grey casting the sky a deep red bringing the tones out of the paper is really nice. The overlay of the render then burns in the shadows but highlights everything else so the contrast is massive. It does give a really nice feeling of night time being lit harshly and I may use this but it could still be a bit jarring.

I wanted to try and bring this more in line with the rest of the shots and knew using colour burn was the only way to get it looking the same but the blacks in the render were much too harsh.

I did a bit of colour correction on the toon render layer, pulling the Output black up on the levels to make the whole image much less contrasty and more mid grey. This gives the background effect of the overlayed version but gets rid of the over exposed highlights letting the paper show through as the lightest background element, allowing the subject to be the brightest object in the composition. I am happy with how this shot is looking now. I think it fits with the rest of the shots in terms of blending and transparency but has it's own unique look because of the rich night sky. I also like the slightly gritty noise at the edges where the vignette is blending with the cranked levels. This gives the night time shot a bit of reality as if the camera's iso is set high and making the dark areas more noisy.

Main Park Layout

2010-03-18T06:20:00.000-07:00

The main attack takes place at night, I think to create the right look and some contrast in the shots it probably makes sense to make the night sky black/dark. I just positioned some set elements in the backgrounds of the shots to create this as the scene is already being lit using a 'sky' object.

I need to test out the renders with this night sky in photoshop layed up with the texture and experiment with blend modes to get a nice look that fits in with the rest of the shots.

Park layout

2010-03-18T06:13:00.001-07:00

Top view loosely based on initial sketch. Sparse treese surrounding the toilet block to give appearance of more dense 'forest' around it while keeping a light composition.

I think I will keep the raven hand drawn rather than build and rig in 3D - the shots it is in whether wide, mid or close would seem to benefit from the more visceral drawing style than the technical 3D/pencil look of the backgrounds. And wider shots like this look really striking just in a silhouette

Prison Modelling

2010-03-15T14:18:00.000-07:00

Reference images

Modelling

Spline for sweep nurbs (bed)

Light source from outside casting shadow and blown highlights

Compositing

End shot, good place for credits

Nice example of forest

2010-03-15T03:09:00.000-07:00

Very few elements, sparse detail but it looks very rich. Good example of creating a background with restraint

Ink

2010-03-13T07:42:00.000-08:00

Uneditied shot - quite a lot of colour so as not to over expose

Black and white
Can mask out noise at the edge of screen

Applying CC Vector blur to the footage makes it look even more smooth and some interesting distortions can be added to it.

I'll render without the blur so i have original black and white clipped movs for use in the animation but a combination of blurs, warps and distorts will increase the variety further..

Shooting Ink

2010-03-13T06:09:00.000-08:00

Sealed lightbox, soak paper in water then drop indian ink. Shoot at 50fps to capture slow motion as the ink spreads. The lightbox shines through the paper illuminating more detail in the ink as it spreads and ensures an even light source.

Trees

2010-03-12T07:44:00.000-08:00

Using extrudes and simple transform tools to build out simple trees. Also picked a few free 'stock' models up for use in the backgrounds of the park just to add some bulk and detail variation without wasting time having to model too many.

Park scene sketches

2010-03-12T07:25:00.000-08:00

Opening Shot:

After initial shot on plain background, the transition is from Mat speaking on the newspaper carried by a passer by to Mat sat on the bench in park. The scene won't need much building as the shot is static after the reveal. There is close up of a tree with the introduction of the raven also.

Main park scene:

This is where the majority of the action will take place. I used the footage of Mat reciting the poem walking through the park to get a rough scale of the journey. I need to keep the park enclosed because of the multiple angles in the storyboards. So wherever the camera is positioned needs to have some sort of background even if it's fairly sparse.

C4D view of court

2010-03-12T04:46:00.000-08:00

Court composite test

2010-03-11T11:49:00.000-08:00

Colour-burned into paper texture

Alpha matte
Original drawing composited

I think these backgrounds are looking really nice and the style fits with the hand drawn elements much easier than I imagined. I thought I would have to do a lot of hand texturing but overlaying the sketchy detail over the background keeps the backgrounds nice and sparse and knocked back in the shots.

Court Room build

2010-03-11T11:37:00.000-08:00

Using this reference image I first modelled a bunch of elements for use in the court room build. The wood panels are a single object in a mograph object allowing me to quickly alter the amount of clones and size of a grid.

Used an Illustrator drawn spline as a lathe nurbs object to create the top of the stand - takes the lathed shape and wraps it around a circular path.

Building the room. Simple cube with the objects placed and duplicated to build up detail. Use a human figure primitive to get the scale roughly correct.

Sketch and Tooned...

Compositing & blending modes

2010-03-11T09:01:00.000-08:00

With a quick render of the elements I took it as a single image into photoshop and used the original style frame to composite mat over the bench with an alpha mask.

I tried out a few different blending modes to lay the backgrounds over the paper background to see what would look good in terms of contrast. It's actually good to review them as thumbnails as seen below rather than full scale. I think multiplying it makes the whole frame very dark - the overlay and lighten type modes look a bit washed out but colour burn I think looks really nice.

It could do with a bit more contrast (all I did here was change the blending modes, didn't try any colour correction) but I like the different shades of colour that come out of the background rather than deep blacks. It also stops any white areas appearing which keeps the character as the main focus clearly.

All these objects can be rendered out with seperate mattes so when I need to composite the 3 hooded characters behind the bench it will look as if they are in the scene. I will need to track all the handheld shots first to make sure the camera moves match up.

This scene isn't fully built yet but I quite like the sparse background without too many trees. The paper texture means it doesn't look blank and only the key elements have been 'drawn' on the page but it doesnt need to be as dense as this reference I found for the forest trees.. I think the characters would get lost in that amount of detail and I want the hand drawn elements (characters) to take centre stage as they are the subject of the poem.

Environment 3D

2010-03-11T08:58:00.000-08:00

Some simple park elements modelled. Bench, toilet block (for first shot), tree trunks, bins

Set up with basic sky light to add some soft shadows
Sketch and toon - sketchy pencil lines around geometry outlines and creases

Animatic

2010-03-02T15:22:00.000-08:00

Storyboards roughly set to the audio track

Shell behind the scenes: Watercolour/ink

2010-03-02T13:59:00.000-08:00

http://www.fxguide.com/article557.html

fxg: Can you talk about the elements shoot for the ink?

Tim Regan: We used many methods to control how the inks mixed into the white of the paper. A light box was built which allowed us to incrementally change the following variables: the angle of the paper, the source of light, the wetness of the paper, the amount of ink poured on the paper, the weight and tooth of the paper. While the smallest change in any of those variables led to extremely different results, the light box's design allowed us to really fine tune the speed and spread of the ink into the paper.

Aaron Maurer: We also used a grease pencil on the paper to control where ink would or wouldn't go. This came in handy when we had certain shapes from the live action footage we knew were going to be filled in with color in the the animation. We could draw out the general shape of a car or the Shell logo and have it fill in with ink naturally.

Storyboards

2010-03-01T16:11:00.000-08:00

These are somewhere between storyboards and style frames - some elements of the proposed final look are present but no background elements have been mocked up yet. The colours and typography will definitely change and the ink elements will look much more fluid and subtle.

Click the images to view full size:

Plainme on deviantart

2010-02-25T07:32:00.000-08:00

I saw this on ffffound and loved the simplicity in the design of the forest but the textures really work

Thumbnailing

2010-02-21T10:01:00.000-08:00

These thumbnails are mainly visual reminders for myself as I start to flesh out the storyboards/animatic this week giving rough indication to shots relating to lyrics

Roto stages

2010-02-21T09:44:00.000-08:00

Use multiple layers to aid compositing/colouring in afer effects (in this case photoshop). Image sequences can be imported based on layer/file name so I can use the luma/alpha of the black & white layers to cut out ink or backgrounds rather than colour in with texture on each frame.

Start with the video frame, this is a sceenshot from QT - I will obviously export the movie frames as a sequence out of After Effects first as PSDs and organise them into shots.

Using the Cintiq and a simple pencil brush in photoshop trace the facial features and some basic shading.

Using a quick lasso and athe Cintiq make a rough selection to be used as the black areas, fill with black on a new layer. This will mask out any ink texture or footage that will be used to colour the areas.

This adds a lot of texture to the heavy areas with a very quick workflow. Making a selection takes seconds whereas hand shading these dark areas with varying texture/shadows would take a very long time. This also allows for experimentation during compositing and the fleibililty to vary the blacks.

In a similar manner a selection is made (in this case just using the magic wand - roughness is not an issue) to create a luma/alpha mask for the entire character. This won't be seen but can be used in compositing to stop the background showing through the muliplied layers and make the foreground pop. This could be a different texture that's lighter or pure white like here but as before this workflow allows for flexibility in later stages while working quickly in these production stages.

This will allow me to drop backgrounds back in focus just by using contrast - blurs etc. can also be used to create depth of field but the most dynamic element to consider is light and the subject must either be the lightest or the darkest element of a composition referring to photography rules. As the majority of the poem is set in a park at night then the general rule is going to be the narrator and characters will have a lighter layer behind the pencil lines

Mat roto tests

2010-02-21T09:39:00.000-08:00

Examples of 3D ravens

2010-02-21T08:09:00.000-08:00

This is available to buy fully rigged from turbosquid for $75, unfortunately its only for lightwave not cinema 4D.

Example of simple bird rig

This crow is £25 unrigged available for C4D - after storyboarding I will assess whether it's worth just buying the model and rigging it or go down the entirely hand drawn route for the raven. If it doesn't need to fly then I think almost sillhouetted or only the head crowing would be more efficient hand drawn. I initially had visions of the raven being used a transition flying in front of the camera but this could only be used once and I could possibly use that slow motion footage on google video as a basis to draw from.

Raven images

2010-02-21T08:06:00.000-08:00

Crow flight/movement

2010-02-21T07:49:00.001-08:00

I'm planning to use 3D to create the raven animations to retain control - rigging this is going to be a challenge not to mention modelling but I have found some interesting videos to use as motion studies. I may end up hand drawing the raven animation depending on time and if the rigs look natural enough. The Psyop crow animations in an earlier post are brilliant but they obviously have some of the best 3D artists in the world working for them.

http://video.google.com /videoplay?docid=2594773814207562897#docid=-4253674915036639228

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1811803/japanese_crow_take_flight_slow_motion/

http://stockfootage.wildlifehd.com/video_clips/DZ13_055

Ravens

2010-02-21T07:27:00.000-08:00

"In many post-conversion Western traditions, ravens have long been considered to be birds of ill omen, in part because of the negative symbolism of their all-black plumage and eating of carrion. "

"As a carrion bird, ravens became associated with the dead and with lost souls. In Sweden they are known as the ghosts of murdered persons, and in Germany as the souls of the damned."

A carrion bird eats from the caracasses of dead animals like vultures - in a similar way circling vultures are an omen of death the Raven also symbolises this. Obviously a Raven is a more suitable metaphor than a vulture taking the setting of the poem into consideration.

I like the idea of using a slightly more metaphorical element in admidst the human characters - as ravens are seen as omens of death then the link to the events in this poem are clear that death is imminent. I want the Raven to appear at various points during the video

Hoody/Chav images

2010-02-21T07:21:00.001-08:00

£3m campaign - failure

2010-02-19T14:00:00.000-08:00

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/video/2008/may/29/knifecrime

A £3m advertising campaign devised by teenagers to warn young people of the physical and emotional consequences of knife crime is to be launched today by the Home Office.

The campaign, which will run over the next three years, will feature national radio, website and mobile phone adverts as well as print and "viral ads" to be distributed via social networking sites such as Bebo and mobile phones.

The radio commercials feature teenagers talking about the emotional impact of a knife attack on their boyfriends and girlfriends while promotional postcards feature a thumbless hand, with the message: "If you carry a knife you're more likely to get stabbed yourself.

This idea to stop knife crime was a slightly obvious one, using shock tactics and showing graphic images of wounds on ads. The guardian ran a story in the run up to its launch and then the following year to report its failure as crime grew. What is unfortunate is that the campaign was devised by teenagers not people in power, so even ideas from within the target audience are falling on deaf ears/the converted.

One of those who took part, Khadijah Murchison, aged 18, from Bristol, said: "All the young people that went to the creative summit have been affected by knife crime, so to share our experiences and come up with ideas and adverts that will help reduce knife crime was great. Hopefully it will make a real difference."

Unsuccessful campaigns

2010-02-19T13:45:00.000-08:00

A selection of typical 'anti-(anything)' websites. These knife crime sites are either missing the target audience by being too corporate (itdoesnthavetohappen) or just awful (droptheweapons.org). I don't want to get too deep into solving these problems with a single video but if I can keep the style and content relevant to the target audience this in itself coupled with the lyrics of the poem will achieve that goal.

'Choose a different ending'

2010-02-19T13:36:00.000-08:00

Anti Knife Crime from steve and martin on Vimeo.

Successful campaign by the met. Utilising a format that the target audience would use every day (youtube) a series of interactive films were released without branding, spreading virally through mobile and social networks. At the end of each scene the viewer is presented with a choice to make and the story unfolds based on those choices. The stats speak for themselves when the campaigns are aimed at the right people the right way. The campaign was followed up with placement in more youth oriented platforms reinforcing the message and tag line on MTV etc.

Putting the viewer in the position of the victim/aggressor is a well used technique that I think works well. I will most likely include first person shots in my video to take from this but due to the narrative nature of the poem then a step out of the action to view the consequences and observe needs to be the main focus.

I think there's a more conceptual link between the films and my animation which bypasses problems in a lot of typical films to illustrate subjects like this - which is alienating the audience. People may find it hard to empathise with a badly acted character playing out a horrific scene.. in this film they are the character, but in the animation the characters are more blank canvases. While they will be drawn realistically to a certain degree they are not photographic so are detached from reality - encouraging the audience to use their imagination more and put themselves in the position in a more subtle way.

Performance Shots

2010-02-16T15:06:00.000-08:00

Interior/static:

• Mid
• CU
• Super CU

Exterior/walking:

• Mid
• Long

Sketch and Toon experiments

2010-02-16T14:27:00.000-08:00

Although the vast majority of the character work with be hand roto'd there are some elements I want to incorporate using 3D animation. Using sketch and toon shaders/renderer I can make 3D models look somewhat hand drawn - these are the result of 20 mins playing around with settings having never opened the module before so with some experimentation and reading of the manual I could create some really nice organic effects.

The model is from a royalty free collection of birds that I should be able to manipulate to create my Raven and rig for animation without having to start from scratch and box model. Any time I can save for this project means more effort can go into the more hands on sections.

A very quick run through photoshop (roughly 10 seconds adding some extra hand drawn pencil marks to liven up the CG pen lines) and a bit of texture/ink compositing (that would be done in after effects all in one go). I think there is definitely something worth pursuing.. possibly for an extra pass to roughen up the background 3D scenes that would be textured with hand made effects, but definitely for some key elements such as the raven

Sherlock Holmes End Titles

2010-02-14T12:22:00.001-08:00

The animated portions of this are actually a freeze frame and a step out of the action. The motion is provided by filmed ink bleeds filling in the shading and thre lines are quickly 'drawn' on.

Planning

2010-02-14T12:09:00.000-08:00

Because of the range and amount of work that will be completed over the next few months my time must be planned quite well, but can only be done so properly once certain factors are decided and techniques have been exerimented with (mainly - for hand drawn elements, how many frames per hour will I be able to complete using certain techniques).

While I want there to be a level of experimental work, because of the nature of the piece and the deadline the majority of it needs to be strictly storyboarded and carried out to a timeline so obviously the first thing I need to do this week is to keep experimenting and familiarising myself with my new drawing tools but also flesh out a fairly final plan & atleast a thumbnailed storyboard.

Aswell as the primary hand drawn character animation/rotoscoping, each scene needs to be built in 3D and textured with more hand made elements. These need to be started fairly soon so I can concentrate on the more hands on aspects of the project. During the rough planning stages I will work primarily in my sketchbook before working up some style frames. I can then produce a rough animatic to begin the editing process before any animation is done. This will save time not wasting hours drawing frames that will be cut.

In the news

2010-02-14T11:51:00.001-08:00

'Salford Souljers'

2010-02-14T11:30:00.000-08:00

Caught on CCTV: The moment a drunken gang kicked man unconscious

2010-02-14T11:27:00.000-08:00

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1039758/Caught-CCTV-The-moment-drunken-gang-kicked-man-unconscious-girl-rifled-pockets.html

The video at the above link is a horrific CCTV capture of a gang jumping a man with a blow to the back of the head. They kick him on the ground and the most disturbing part is at the end, while the girls rob his pockets one of the lads casually kicks and lifts his head with his foot as it falls lifelessly to the floor. I think a recreation of something along the lines of this would have the impact I'm looking for in illustrating the fight scene

Hoody/Chav - Humorous portrayal

2010-02-14T11:24:00.000-08:00

E4:

Paramount Comedy:

BBC3:

Dad's Dead

2010-02-14T11:17:00.000-08:00

Featured on onedotzero_select dvd

A disturbing mixture of animation and filmed footage illustrating memories of the narrators friend Johnno. The detail and reality in the story with the claustrophobic crude shots and animation make it quite a difficult watch, especially the chilling conclusion.

Two Inches To The Right

2010-02-14T08:16:00.000-08:00

There was a murder last night, because it was two inches to the left
No you would not have heard of last night, but it was two inches to the left
You see they blame it on boredom, this getting drunk in the park
And they blame it on boredom, terrorising people in the dark

And on this particular cold dark night, they had chosen their usual path
They were stupid, drunk, and bored, and someone was gonna feel their wrath
In the dark they chose their victim, it was easy, a random choice
Because they were stupid, drunk, and bored, and someone was gonna hear their voice

As head idiot swung his instrument he had all his friends running in tow
Now he wasn't quite sure why this was cool, but at least his mates said so
And as he struck the head of random he stumbled to the floor
He was dead before he hit it, they didn't need to kick him more
Witnesses they screamed and hollered, but idiot just ran off into the night
While random up and left this earth, and walked calmly into the light

As the judge handed down the sentence, it sounded a lot like life
He said get this idiot shackled and in a cage tonight
His lawyer said 'if you hadn't killed him you probably would have been alright..
You probably would have got community service, and been in your own bed tonight'
Now idiot, still an idiot, realises it's not quite so cool to fight
Sits there in his handcuffs and chains and wishes he'd gone two inches to the right

Wacom speed tests

2010-02-12T13:44:00.000-08:00

I will try a few different brushes and line techniques over the next few days and experiment with styles that would be feasible to draw frame by frame. I will be drawing the FbF animation at 12 frames per second, for blokes I was able to average a second per hour with the slower workflow of tracing using a regular wacom but now I can draw directly onto the image I can get a lot more detail and dynamics into the illustration.

This fairly rough pencil style took about 5 minutes...
This rough darker style is probably going to fit the poem best, the looser lines allow for faster drawing also and the heavy shaded areas obviously create a more dynamic composition..

This light pencil style is really quick to do and easy to be accurate when tracing but it wouldn't stand up to the backgrounds I am imagining.

This rough pencil style looks fairly realistic, I will incorporate the brush used here into the darker style above but I will stay away from using light shading like this because when animated I think it will jitter about too much and distract from the main lines.

I was just practicing quickly drawing in main details here, each took about 3 minutes, the darker more stylised lines and fills could be built up on top.

Takom

2010-02-12T12:29:00.000-08:00

Ida Walked Away from takcom™ on Vimeo.

Firstly I like the device of the straight down shot of the shoes, which may be a useful one for me to be able to cut to now and again as a transition. Takom's workis generally more experimental, 3D and generative like the second half of this, but to see it mixed with more organic shapes and movement is really interesting for me. I think they achive something nice with the fading of certain strokes at the right time to give a certain fluidity to the flashing frame by frame strokes of colour.

Wacom Cintiq

2010-02-12T11:54:00.000-08:00

Because of the amount of hand rendering I will be doing in this project I have bought a new tablet. It is unfeasible to rotoscope the video frames by hand with actual pen/pencil and paper so I'm trying out some brush sets in photoshop where I can quickly trace each frame.

For blokes I used a single brush throughout that had quite rough but solid line but have recently found some fairly realistic marker and pencil brushes so below are some line experiments just to get a feel for the Cintiq. I am used to drawing with Wacom tablets and use them day to day instead of a mouse but the benfit of having a screen to directly draw on with the Cintiq rather than the Intuos is brilliant. The speed with which I'll be able to trace and draw will save me a lot of time and mistakes.

The large painterly brush is quite nice in this set.

The way these 'copic' brushes handle the pressure and angle is great, they feel like brush markers and could give some great simple line effects if used with careful choice of detail.

Nothing too special in this set, the brushes look very computer made.

These pencil brushes are my favourite so far, the roughness of line is really realistic in a few of them.
The water colour brushes are mainly meant as 'stamps' as they are scanned in images but a few at the end, particularly the one used for the line at the bottom have a really nice quality for detailed flowing lines.
Photoshop's default caligraphic brushes, the thick to thin rough lines in red feel nice to use and give a nice singular line with a lot of detail and flow.
Wacom's brush pack they ship with the tablet, some of them are awful but there's quite a few really interesting and nice feeling brushes.

Esra Roise - Illustration

2010-02-12T09:28:00.000-08:00

I saw Esra's work in Grafik July 2008 and has been one of my favourite illustrators since, the pencil work is quite efficient a lot of the time, only detailing what needs to be shown without the images looking too light which I want to come across in my hand drawn animation. Obviously the less lines used the quicker you can animate but a lot of hand drawn animation falls into looking very light and unfinished. The water colours obviously add a lot of dynamics to the images through very subtle use and filmed water colour bleeds could be composited with black and white line to keep the fluidity rather than paint each frame. The pitfalls of this are shown in the watercolour painted swimmers in a previous post.

http://www.esraroise.com/portfolio/selected-work

Wood - McBess

2010-02-12T08:49:00.000-08:00

WOOD from mc bess on Vimeo.

The visualisation of the 3D forest is great and the black and white colour scheme is something you don't see often with this style of clean 3d animation. The adaptation of the illustration work he is well known for is seamless:

This timelapse video of him drawing is great also..

stripes from mc bess on Vimeo.

Space

2010-02-11T06:55:00.001-08:00

Cool images via fffffound.com (no credits)

2010-02-09T13:46:00.000-08:00

I visit ffffound.com every day and grab inspiring images that I like, because of the blog format the images could have been taken from second third or fourth hand sources by the time they reach ffffound so as they are usually only for personal use I don't spend time trying to track down the creators so these have no credits.

The ones that incorporate a little colour into the mainly greyscale images I think work really well and are perhaps more dynamic.

Cool images via fffffound.com (no credits)

2010-02-09T13:43:00.000-08:00

I think the illustrations with simple line choice and interesting background textures are probably most relevant to me. Obviously to hand draw very detailed pencil sketch style images 6000 times would be unwise but there could be more detailed sections.

Cool images via fffffound.com (no credits)

2010-02-09T13:38:00.000-08:00

Playgrounds festival

2010-02-09T13:20:00.000-08:00

Playgrounds festival from Rogier Hendriks on Vimeo.

One of the most interesting parts of this for me is the technique used to create it. Rather than film with high speed cameras they have used still photos projected onto 3D geometry - which allows the very slight movements and camera moves in the slow motion shots to add depth. This wouldn't be possible by simply cutting out selections of the image in photoshop and animating the flat plane because the elements wouldn't have 3D geometry to wrap around and fool the viewer into a sense of space and depth.

On a more basic level in centext with this project - the super slow motion almost static shots add a lot of tension to the imminent fight which would be a good technique to use for sections of this poem.

'let yourself feel'

2010-02-09T13:17:00.000-08:00

let yourself feel. from Esteban Diácono on Vimeo.

Just to contrast with the 'water colour animation' I posted earlier -

Using only trapcode particular, Estaban Diácono has created an incredibly fluid organic motion. Everything is driven via sound and the particles created react to dynamics set up by him. I've posted this just to show how digital work can sometimes look more fluid and organic than hand made work - if a little sterile (if looking for faults) - but a combination of the two can produce something much richer overall.

LA times - Ink transitons

2010-02-09T13:15:00.001-08:00

Los Angeles Times from Isaac Woodby on Vimeo.

100 hands

2010-02-09T13:14:00.000-08:00

100 hands from Harry Teitelman on Vimeo.

I really like the sense of depth and correct anatomy despite the simple stylised lines.

Stairs

2010-02-09T13:13:00.001-08:00

Fun with Stairs from themachobox on Vimeo.

Very detailed backgrounds - first person view. I like transitions to different locations through the doors

loop - crow

2010-02-09T13:12:00.001-08:00

Bird from Snejina on Vimeo.

roto - pencil style

2010-02-09T13:11:00.000-08:00

Rotoscoping from Kat Clark on Vimeo.

roto - colour on black

2010-02-09T13:09:00.000-08:00

Rotoscope from Noella Borie on Vimeo.

Not sure I like the thin clean lines as much as other styles but the simplicity of the details chosen to trace give it a unique style over some of the more sketchy examples.

Cool rotoscope portraits

2010-02-09T13:07:00.000-08:00

rotoscoped portraits from lucy fahey on Vimeo.

I like the bold strokes, very distinct style. Looks like it was definitely drawn on paper with graphite rather than photoshopped.

pencil style roto

2010-02-09T13:06:00.000-08:00

Ben from Semih Vardar on Vimeo.

Lighter and more pencil-like strokes in the detail of this short.

rotoscope face

2010-02-09T13:05:00.000-08:00

rotoscope from Albert Vila on Vimeo.

Great facial expressions and detail. More realistic than most in terms of facial recognition in the eyes etc.

Detailed Roto

2010-02-09T13:04:00.000-08:00

RotoExport21 from Teesside Alice on Vimeo.

Rotopaint - graffiti style

2010-02-09T13:03:00.001-08:00

Rotopaint from Benoit Paris on Vimeo.

The Toutists

2010-02-09T13:02:00.001-08:00

The Tourists (2007) from Malcolm Sutherland on Vimeo.

'Preggers'

2010-02-09T13:00:00.000-08:00

Preggers. from Model Robot on Vimeo.

The animation is very basic but the crudeness fits the theme.

Psyop - Ink

2010-02-09T12:59:00.000-08:00

TRowe Price Ink from mate on Vimeo.

I watched a behind the scenes video for this spot but Psyop seem to have taken it down now but it showed the process from storyboards through finshed video and the compositing of 3D sketch lines and filmed ink.

By the time I get to this stage I will have a new video camera to film organic ink etc effects to composite with the other elements and tie everything together.