Wednesday 28 January 2015

Adaptation Part A: Infographic Script & Storyboard

Wake up.
Morning feed.
Morning walk.
Chase.
Squirrels.
Cats.
Birds.
Get home.
Sleep.
Wake up.
Snack.
Play.
Evening feed.
Evening walk.
Poo.
Play.
Love.
Get Home.
Sleep.
Repeat.


Tuesday 27 January 2015

Adaptation Part A: Infographic Title Sequence

 
I'm hoping to keep this style in my animation, I'll be using the same font and colours and want to have the letters and images appear in order but come and go quite quickly - so it would be like following the trail of a dog's paw prints on screen and they can slow down when the dog is tired or sleeping in the day, then pick up pace again. This title sequence needs finalizing by having the paw print disappear before the end, adding the apostrophe on 'DOGS' and making it fill up more of the screen. 

Mudbox: Class 2 - Bell Pepper





Adaptation Part A: Font & Colour Choice


I've chosen this font and these colours as it's upbeat and fun like a dog's personality. You also often get lots of yellow and blue on dog food packaging. 

Film Review: Mary & Max (Australia)


      Mary and Max is a stop motion clay animation created by Adam Elliot and released in 2009. Australian born Elliot, is also known for his animation 'Harvie Krumpet' which is also stop motion. Along with some other animated shorts he certainly has rustled up a pretty unique style. His stop motion technique most probably arised from his combined studies of painting, photography and pottery. The film's style is really interesting and I like the use of tonal environments; Mary lives in Australia and favourite colour is brown so when the animation is focusing on Mary, everything has a slightly warmer hue than when the viewing is targeted at Max. When film is interacting with Max's life, everything is more washed out and dull. This is because he leads a very monotonous lifestyle working in factories where it's the same boring routine and he doesn't socialise. The audience learn that Max has Aspergers syndrome and high anxiety which makes it harder for him to live a normal lifestyle and engage in new situations without becoming stressed. The greyscale colour scheme could also come from the fact that he lives in New York with many intimidating building that make him feel uncomfortable or vulnerable. Elliot keeps quite a morbid sense of humour about the film, there is lots of attention to detail and characters the audience have empathy for.
      Mary struggles with making friends at school in Australia, she gets bullied for the birthmark on her face that is "the colour of poo" and has a hard life at home with her alcoholic mother. When she is at the library she picks a name at random from the book to write to and hopefully make a friend. She chooses 'Max Horowitz' who lives in New York and starts to write him letters along with other miscellaneous items. When Max receives the letters he gets really nervous and starts to have a panic attack as his mental condition doesn't allow him to react normally. When he calms down he manages to write back to her. Viewers follow their journeys through the exchange of their letters, becoming strangely attached to each story and their unlikely relationship.
     I think Adam Elliot was trying to raise the awareness of many things including bullying, alcoholism, anxiety disorders and cultural differences. He did achieve this, some themes more subtle than others. The stop motion technique was definitely well put together as it runs smoothly and you can watch it with ease, very well thought out script and editing. I thought it was successful and well worth a watch! I give 3/5 stars.  



Tuesday 20 January 2015

Mudbox: Class 1

This is the sculpture I came up with in the Mudbox introduction class:




 

Adaptation Part B: The Red Room By H.G. Wells


I'm thinking of adapting 'The Red Room' By H.G Wells for my Part B. In Year 1 I did three digital paintings for the short story, which I thought were quite successful, the vibrant reds and greens really gave a toxic and haunting feel so hopefully I can recreate that same kind of atmosphere in a digital set. These were my final three paintings for that project:

 
 

 I think the splitting beams of light and the strong, bold mark-making really brings them to life. After my tutorial with Alan, he showed me Alex Edmond's work from his adaptation project last year which has a similar style to mine. We discussed how I could use some of the techniques he did to create my desired effect. Here's some renders of Alex's set:






I really like this style and would aim to have camera movement / small aspects of animation in my set as well.

Monday 19 January 2015

Wednesday 14 January 2015

Adaptation: Infographic - Title Font Ideas


I found a few fonts to inspire the typeface for my title and put them together on a page so I could see what works and what doesn't. I think my favourite is number 3 on the list, followed by 8 and 9. I think I would edit the design a bit and maybe turn the 'O' on DOG to a paw print, I like that one because it's bold and fun, the letters are rounded and look a bit like dog's bones.

Tuesday 13 January 2015

Adaptation: Infographic, 'Mock-Up'

Here's a quick animation I made showing my idea for my infographic about the average dog's day. It doesn't have all the information I would like to put but it's just a start. I will not be using that font and there's no true facts or statistics included but I just added some text so it's a little more easy to understand and follow. I will do research into the real facts and figures later on, this is just my sort of 'test animatic' ? 

Adaptation: Infographic - Brand Research


Here's some popular dog food brands that I've found to inspire my title font. They are all with bold and friendly lettering with thick lines and rounded edges, soft like a dog would be. IAMS has the dog's paw print and Pedigree has the rosette from a dog show. Now I have some good inspiration to create a typeface.

Adaptation: Infographic Influence Map


I'm choosing to do my infographic based on 'The timeline of a dog's day'.  It's based on graphic design so will be clean silhouettes transitioning from one to the other telling the story of what a dog might get up to in a day. I've chosen this because it's fun and could talk about things such as how far the average dog might run in a day, how long they might sleep, get bathed, how much they eat, poo, chase animals, and any other antics or characteristics that will add to the infographic.