LAUAN503 - Weekly Update

Over the last week I have been colouring in the scenes of our animation in preparation for submission. I have taken time to carefully pick out what colours work and which ones don't against the background. I have used the stop-motion fish model as a reference for what colours to use.

Scenes so far:





Reference:


For these scenes I am only strictly responsible for the backgrounds and colouring of the animations. The animation itself is done by the director of my group.

What went well?

- Good colours that fit in well with the environments.
- Good contrast of colour between the fish and everything else.
- Diverse colour schemes for each human character.

LAUAN503 - Weekly Blog

I have begun my animation scenes of the characters I created. So far I have made the close-up scene animation of the astronaut and I have begun sketching the animation for the CEO.

I need to develop these sequences, however I am pleased with the outcome of the astronaut scene. I will focus on improving upon these sequences and fleshing them out a bit more. I will also be focusing on colouring my partner's animations.

Reference:





What went well:

- Good posing and timing between poses.
- Good sense of scale.
- Good use of colours that fit with the background.

What to Improve:
- Body proportions.
- Tidiness.

LAUAN503 - Weekly Blog

In this past week I have been working on more of the backgrounds and fleshing them out in order to look good for our animation. I have been focusing on the city landscapes and the office scenes, and colouring and shading them.

Office Backgrounds Completed:

For these backgrounds I have tried to keep the art style, colours and shading consistent while also trying to get a sense of contrast between the warmer and cosier office and the cold and polluted city. I did this by keeping the saturation levels of both different.

City Backgrounds Completed:

These two background scenes are among the last backgrounds of the animation. They will both include the fish scenes.

What went well:

Well coloured and shaded backgrounds, including vivid colours and dirty and polluted colour schemes.

Good consistency with previous backgrounds.

What to improve:

Line art and perspective needs improving.

More diverse building types and shapes.

LAUAN501 - Study Task 9

Evaluation

For my project I intended to create a video essay that would illustrate my points, findings and research. My first Idea was to create video essay in the style of a music video, where I would include a short animation accompanied by music to visually compare how animation can improve a musical piece. However, I discovered that it might take too long to combine a short ‘music’ video along with a video essay in the style of a music video. Instead, I have approached it in a different way, after researching the 1980's era of MTV and how they advertised and how creatively they used animation for their title cards.

I began by researching and looking at many different music videos, both animated and live action, and gathered clips of them for my eventual video. After this I began researching on various different articles and some interviews to give some context and to show how animation has been used in music videos.

After enough secondary research, I created a survey as primary research that would help me gather results and information that might help me to show that animation can indeed improve music, and do it better than live action music videos.

I found that this survey helped quite a lot in my research, as it implied heavily that animation did improve and / or change music.

From this, I began to write my essay that I would use to construct my video essay. After writing my essay completely, I recorded myself reading them and then edited the voice lines to suit an essay video. After this, I began sketching my title sequence for my practical.

After some planning, I began animating a logo sequence similar to that of MTV, linking my topic area, research and practical together. I created a sketchy version, originally intended as a transition sequence, but I instead used it as a concept for my final title sequence.

I used this sketch to create a title sequence similar to an MTV title sequence, which further emphasises what my topic is.

Research

In my research, I looked at several articles that might help to prove that animation can help, improve and change a piece of music. For example, on one blog on Dozmia, it stated "One of the biggest reasons why music videos are so useful to artists is their ability to provoke or further provoke the emotions that the song is meant to portray. Using animation can further demonstrate this emotional element of the music.”. This quote in particular backs up my point that animation can be used to improve music more than live action, as it highlights how emotion can be used visually to give a greater impact.

Conclusion.

Overall, I think I did rather well considering the time I had to create my practical and theoretical response. While I feel that I needed more contradicting evidence to challenge my own beliefs and the research I found, I think that my survey portrayed my points rather well. My practical response was an almost monumental task to complete, but I managed to complete as much as I possibly could. I believe it is a fairly entertaining and informational response overall.

LAUAN501 - Practical Response

My final practical response essay video:

Below is a list of sources used to create this video:

LAUAN501 - Final Written Essay - Study Task 8

Since last time I have updated my essay and added a bibliography, reference list and overall finished writing.

This is my final written outcome for this module, and it has been used as a basis for my practical.

What went well?

Very well structured essay.
Clear points backed up by research.

How can I improve?

Focus on the question more.
Find conflicting evidence that might challenge my ideas.

LAUAN503 - Weekly Update

Over the week, I have been working on more background art. I have fully rendered one city background and created more city-scapes for the animation.

Completed City Background




City-scape Line Art


City Scape 3



City Scape 4

LAUAN503 - Weekly Update

Over the last week, I have been working on my backgrounds for my group project. I have created various new backgrounds and created the line work for them. I have also completed the main city scape background.

Finished City Scape

I have added some shading and slight Gaussian blur in the backgrounds to make the city feel full, as well as make it seem grimy and filthy by using brown and a lot of grey.

I have used my mood board as reference to create this city background.

Office Line Art

I have created these office backgrounds based on the animatic and storyboard given to me. I have used different references to construct these backgrounds:

  

What Went Well?

- Well drawn and stylised drawings.
- Decent colour palette

What to improve upon?

- Clean up
- Higher Quality and Resolution Artworks

LAUAN501 - Script

For my written outcome, I have written a script essay for my practical - an analytical video into music videos. I have structured it specifically so it will be easy to read and replicate into speech, and numbered the different paragraphs so I know what dialogue lines to put in certain parts.

Now that I've completed the written section, I will now focus on creating a video for my practical outcome.

- What Went Well?

- A lot of research and findings displayed.

- Structured Well

- Easily identifiable quotes and research.

- What to improve?

- Less waffling.

- More precise information.