Final Management Reflection

Final Management Reflection

Some of the management tools we used was a Gantt chart to distribute tasks equally through 3 months time we had to develop the project. The work plan was to divide the process in three stages: the first one, assets production. In this stage we create the models of the characters, environment, textures, rigging. This part was the most extensive of the project and in this way it was planned. The second one, animation, lighting and render. In this stage we introduced all the assets into the actual development process. The third stage, post-production we made the composition, sound and edition. We also have a fourth stage that is not complete yet which is the distribution of the short-film. We are planning to participate in different festivals that can give recognition to the film and to the directors, Daniel and I.

A management issue which was difficult to manage was the times of the project for accomplishing this stages. At the beginning we planned that the first stage, assets production only take us 1 month. However, the reality was that it took us 2 months of 3, which was the total time we had. The initial idea was 1 month for assets production, 1 month for animation and the third month for post-production. The timing issue left us short time for animating that we strongly needed that result also in shortening the time for post-production. This last stage we wanted to have enough time because we got external financial and expert support for music and sound effects. As a result, we could accomplish the short film in time but the music is incomplete. Somethings to improve in this area is have a backup plan, we should looked for a theme song that we can use freely and without any copy right meanwhile we can finish our final music. In this stage we also had to work with other artists like the composers, we tried to be on time for him to have the music, short time but it was there, however the composer got sick and he couldn't performance his job to the submission deadline. We are going to finish this issue in the coming weeks with the objective to have a very quality film short for the festival awards.

Some management issues as a group was the balance of ideas. we were only two people making all the short and we had to take a lot of decision. It was hard to take the decisions mainly because some times we disagree and couldn't reach consensus. In this way, it would be better to have another person in the group to define in number the decision. A management issue that could improve was the constant feedback in all stages. It's not enough with tutors and team matte opinions, It's essential during the process to identify the mistakes, shortcoming and hits of the project in order to improve the result.

Final Critical Reflection

Final Critical Reflection

Some of the most interesting learning outcomes of the course was the process of art and design and how it relates to inspiration artefact and forefront practices. This mixture really gives to the creative process a string methodological approach that can show results in the artefact. At the beginning we had a scrip but I as art and design director had to find a way to express with images the art concepts that we wanted to evidence. The use of reference was a very important technique to define the look of the short film and the personality of the characters. For example The Pink Panther was one of the biggest influencers that's not just help to define the look how also the characters move and interact in the short film.

In this way, you can see that the characters have long legs, this special physical characteristic gives to the character a funny, mysterious, non conventional way to walk as old style cartoon; very exaggerated in its movements. In the same way, The kid hair styles are a classic of cartoons like Dennis the Menace, which tried to evoke a rouge personality. All this elements from inspiration and undestanding of artistic artefacts contributed to each characteristic of the art and design of the film.

Other learning outcome of this short film was the understanding of the animation concepts. We have learned from class all the concepts and theory like weigh, overlapping, timing, spacing, however, you I only start learning when I have to apply it in the real animation. It's only practice the tool and technique to success in a well done animation. For example, in the rigging process of the Thief character we needed a lot of squash and stretch to achieve our goal of a more cartoon style which doesn't answer extrictly to physical laws. since we had a exaggerated look we needed a exaggerated animation in special in thief character. After, a lot of practice I achieved a very well done rigging with excellent performance that can performance a very smooth animation that express exaggerated movements but in a proportional way. 

One important learning outcome is how the communication of the story has to link with the technical development and movements that can contribute with the telling of the story. In this way, we didn't have dialogues between the characters, in result we used other techniques to communicate like the facial expressions. There is a big difference of techniques in these two characters: one is the use of controls to change the geometry and the other much simpler and clever is using 2d textures, which allocated a sequence of images of the expressions to a 3d object. The most interesting issue of using this 3D and 2D technique was that it separated the two main characters conceptually, It clarifies that they come from different worlds and realities.

Finally, what I learned is the importance of lighting and compositing in a short film. We had a final animation, however it couldn't reflect in many moments the atmosphere and the feeling we wanted the audience to feel through our visuals. In this way the lights and the composition are great tools to give the final look and feel that transmit emotions to an audience.

Inspiration Artefact and Forefront: Week 33

Wire Cutters [Animated Short]

It's the story of 2 robots that are looking for resources in an unoccupied desert. At the beginning they were working together, however something happens that show that these robots have a bit of human inside.

The look, story and the characters are pretty similar to WALL-E from Pixar, even how they communicated with each other is  the same. The aim to bring this short film as inspirations is that the distribution mechanism is something that my group wants to achieve. They used a very good network of student awards and art festival to make their work recognize, which is the same mechanism we are hoping to use. It that way, I think is important to see how the work from other students that have been in different Festivals get recognized and finally released to the public view. 

Inspiration Artefact and Forefront: Week 32 Stop-motion & 3D printing

One very interesting trend in 3D world is the mixture of traditional animation, stop-motion and 3D printing. In this particular movie of Boxtrolls produced by Laika they used stop motion to make most of the movie but used VFX to make more complex animations and environments. I think this kind of interesting techniques where 3D is used also as a support to traditional gives to the production new perspectives. It makes some processes easier and faster however keeping the charming of traditional stop-motion features. The main characters are Trollbox which are part box, part troll and live in the fictional town of Cheesebridge. This funny creatures are hunted in its fictional town for being evel by a wolf vigilante. In the middle of this background the Boxtrolls raised a child which they saved from the street.

The making of the movie involved the building of Cheesebridge in a very small stage and the citizens were hand-made puppets controlled by actors. The faces changes all the time which involved near 400 stuff in Laika Studio. The movie keeped the same traditional stop-motion however 3D printing was introduced to help in the creation of every possible expression, first modelled in computer and the printed out. This was a very complex process but it achieved a outstanding level of perfection in the mechanical of the faces. In this way, Laika pushed the boundaries of animation and innovate to be in the forefront.

Evaluation and Reflection: Week 31

I finished this week with the walking sequence of the generic character for our short film which is a variation of the Thief but with different customs and expressions. In that way we had the basic movement. The evaluation of the week was very good, however I took a lot of time learning how to make the walking sequence look good, in that way I will have to improve my timing to have the short film done in time. At the beginning, I had clear animation concepts, overlapping, weight, posture. However, when I started animating, I used them all in one sequence. Causing the movements as walking to look exaggerated. This fact made me think and realized that despite all the concepts are very important it doesn't mean that every concept should be obvious to make look good an animation, each item must be used in a good measure to have a natural and perfect outcome. Animation movements as jumps or shock expressions have clearly evidenced all these concepts in its actions, but when the character needs for the history a more normal, more relaxed performance is no need to make these concepts exaggerated. Before I undestood this, I had to re-done the movements using the animation concepts in a less notorious measures to achieve a better animation shot. To conclude, learning how to do something for the first time always takes time and you have to be prepare to learn and apply it in the most effective way.

Creative and technical process: Week 31. Recording References

I already had the tools, the rigging process perfectly done, books as I told before the "The Survival Animation Kit" , documentation. However, something that it's not written or documented anywhere is the personality of your own characters that also impacts how they move to really connect with the story and its feelings, the animation is not complete without this guided personality movements. We recorded ourselves acting as each character and thus give that touch of personality that needed our animations. Based on that, we tried to reflect it on 3D character animations to give a human fluid motion but also to reflect on their feelings in its movements. Another way to guide my work was my own corporal movements, I guided myself with the movements of my arm bending or my legs to understand fully the human anatomy. The image above shows the walking sequence of the character the Kid, we were trying to run as our character, a very happy child which see the world as a big game; having this in mind, we make very jumpy movements and dancy movements to denote the Kid's hapiness and attitute.

Inspiration Artefact and Forefront: Week 31 Art Station

This week I would like to talk about ArtStation www.artstation.com. It's a platform to showcase the best 2D and 3D artists. The platform was created in Montreal due the need fo artists to showcase their work in an easy way and contact with potential recruiters and companies for jobs. It has very interesting tools as you can see the best artworks chosen by the community, they are features for the quality and originality of the piece. However artists also can be selected to be featured the Trending category, which are the works that are more viewed by the public. It also has filters to see works in Traditional and Digital 2D and 3D. In that way, It also works very well as an inspiration tool to enrich the creation process due its easy and very visual way. The platform also has a Jobs category when you can see the latest jobs offered in the industry. I also works very well to create your own Portfolio open to see to all the public and you can have followers of your work and follow other connecting your work with others in the community. In conclusion, I think what is important of this kind of tools for an Animator and a 3D artisit is to always be in the forefront of what tools are leading to showcase your job, it's not enough to be good you also have to do a hard work promoting yourself. This process can be difficul to artists that don't hav a very commercial or marketing ideas but thanks to this platforms is easier to connect with potential clients.