Animating An Animated Animator

EUFF 2011

2011-11-19T23:50:00.003+08:00

I thought I'd share my opinions on the organisation of EUFF 2011 for Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist with Great Expectation screening at GSC 1Utama.

In short what had happened was that there was a lot of mis~communication/organisation in the Ticket Availability and where to purchase/collect the tickets. The lack of advertisement banner display at the makeshift booth regarding Ticket purchase for EUFF screenings yet there were so many posters around but non at the actual ticket booth. Just by having the Seat Availability as Sold Out would have made potential general audience from asking any further questions regarding EUFF screenings when in fact there was a stack of free tickets to be given out if you had asked.

I was so very eager to catch Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist with Great Expectation film screening at GSC 1Utama this Saturday(19th/11) afternoon. To my surprise all the tickets were sold out in bold red letters when I got to the queue. I was already hesitating if I should just go home after being stressed out getting stuck in a jam just to catch this film which was sold out. To my luck they mentioned that it was redeemable for free at a counter at the entrance of the cineplex, apparently it was just a survey booth. I had to queue up a second time at the ticketing counter before they eventually pointed me to the right make shift table counter to redeem the tickets. Honestly it was quite an embarrassing sight; just a make shift table with no banners of any kind to advertise EUFF 2011, even though they had posters all over the place but non at this very important booth. A person passing by would have thought they were selling cotton candy as the booth was situated next to one. I was surprised again when the person in charge told me that I had printed out the wrong form to collect this particular screening, at that point I was pretty much about to just leave but since the screening has already started and I had explained to him that I was rushing to catch this screening that he kindly gave me both the screening tickets, for which I am grateful for. I was kinda irritated though that there was still a giant stack of tickets for those 2 screenings yet on the film time schedule display stated that it was sold out. True enough both screenings only had a handful of people, approximately a dozen which was maybe 8% of the hall seating and it was a small hall.

Anyway after all the fuss, I did enjoy both films as it's the first time I watched a Silent Black White and a classic Black White film. I was happy to have caught a screening of Sophie Scholl as well, it was a great film, one of the best films I've seen this year. Thanks for 2011 and I'm looking forward to EUFF 2012 but with better organisation.

Sophie Scholl is a must watch for facial and emotional studies, as well as a lot of secondary actions and small subtle gestures in a very stiff body motion. Lot's of slow intense interrogation drama with subtle facial changes which portrays the characters emotions.

Steven Paul Jobs

2011-10-09T16:05:00.007+08:00

If it weren't for Steve Jobs (1955 ~ 2011);

We'd probably not have Windows OS

We'd not have innovative user interaction and immaculate modern gadgetry brand designs.

There wouldn't be Pixar, we wouldn't have RenderMan thus most of all the awesome visual/CGI effects we have in films digital era.

Apple + Steve Jobs Tribute Logo design by Jonathan Mak

Steve Jobs Art Tribute

The HAND

2011-09-15T10:54:00.003+08:00

The very first 3D film (1972) created by Ed Catmull (founder of Pixar) and Colleagues.

Martha Graham

2011-05-14T21:51:00.004+08:00

Ryan Woodward animates Google's header sketch in commemoration of Martha Graham ~ modern dancer.

The Wanna Be Oddie Story

2011-05-01T14:49:00.005+08:00

A short film by my friend Ben Lam Jun Bin, check out his site as well!!

Website
Blog

MTV

2011-05-01T13:53:00.001+08:00

War Is My Destiny

2011-04-25T23:24:00.001+08:00

Teclopolis

2011-03-19T20:39:00.002+08:00

A stop motion short by Can Can Club, really interesting use of props and objects as characters and BGround.

Sylvain Chomet on Animating

2011-03-01T14:44:00.001+08:00

Sylvain who?

The External World

2011-02-09T14:30:00.001+08:00

This is just soooooo weird but A-W-E-S-O-M-E :)

The External World from David OReilly on Vimeo.

A David Oreilly Film

Happy CNY 2011

2011-02-02T18:17:00.000+08:00

Big Buck Bunny

The Red

2011-01-31T14:13:00.001+08:00

Tron 2.0 ~ Sound Design

2011-01-20T21:48:00.000+08:00

“TRON LEGACY” – Sound Panel from Michael Coleman on Vimeo.

YAY

2011-01-15T14:52:00.006+08:00

My DVD's and Manga have traveled a great distance into my arms :) Finally got my hands on a copy of Ashen Victor!!!!!

Go buy Waking Sleeping Beauty!!!!

George Carlin

2011-01-11T22:25:00.006+08:00

Check out George Carlin's body language, gestures, emotional beats and facial expressions.... or just enjoy his comedic expression on T I M E ;)

Machette

2011-01-04T16:21:00.001+08:00

A Lipton Ad + movie promo in CLAYMATION!!!!!!! Woohoooo!!!

Meeting People

2010-12-18T17:18:00.007+08:00

Ever wondered what it looks like if you accidentally throw your sketch book into an Xray machine? Anyway its great to go out to conferences and seminars, you get to meet artists from around the world and you get to pick their brains :)

People I've met from 2009 - 2010 end. Time to make more name cards....

The odd thing though is still the spiral which David Freeman drew in my sketch, I wonder what he really meant...

By the way, it wasn't thrown into an Xray machine, I just accidentally inverted the colors in Photoshop and ran with it, it just looks more interesting than black on white :)

Stuart Coutts

2010-12-11T12:53:00.003+08:00

Some really great stop motion stuff from Stuart Coutts, check out his blog for the making and more!

The 11 second club 5th Place Entry
Blog
Youtube

Ryan Woodward

2010-12-06T12:28:00.004+08:00

2D Awesomeness!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thoughts of You
Dir. & Animated by ~ Ryan Woodward

Thought of You from Ryan Woodward on Vimeo.

ryanwoodwardart.com
ryanwoodward.blogspot.com
vimeo.com/woodward

Don Hertzfeldt

2010-11-29T00:09:00.003+08:00

Was doing some research when I came across this, made me laugh :)

You've got to watch REJECTED by Don Hertzfeldt to understand :) Story is King!!!!

Merry BLOODY Christmas !!!!

Ray Harryhausen 90th Birthday BAFTA Tribute

2010-11-22T22:00:00.008+08:00

Unfortunately the embedding code has been disabled but click the pic to go to to the vid;

Should check out the other videos as well, its worth watching :)

The Illusionist

2010-11-17T00:46:00.003+08:00

Directed by Sylvain Chomet whom also directed Triplets of Belleville .

Passion Republic

2010-11-10T02:14:00.005+08:00

Proud & Happy

"When The One Academy honor me the Platinum Achievement Award and recognize my contribution to the 3d community and industry, the first thing that came into my mind is " I am lucky enough to have a team that is willing to go through all the hardship and challenges with me, always pushing the limits and most importantly having faith in my Vision. " Without you guys/girls , our Vision will never be emplify . The Award is belong to everyone that has contribute their heart and soul into Passion Republic and i am honor to work and grow along side with you guys/girls :) Cheers and Million Appreciations !!!"

~ Ng Aik Sern
Passion Republic

European Union Film Festival 2010

2010-11-09T17:07:00.004+08:00

European Union Film Festival 2010

Aren't you just sick of Hollywood crap? Why not try something new :) Tickets are ridiculously cheap at RM5.

Got Appeal?

2010-11-06T23:49:00.006+08:00

Apparently I don't, well not in my animation.... physicality polish means nothing if an animated shot is lifeless and uncharacteristic and just down right boring to watch. Need to go learn some appeal. Any way, got 12th place for last months entry, mediocre but you guys have got to check out The Winning Entry by Abraham Aguilar, it's really really really one of the best 3d entries I've seen on 11 second club and it sure has appeal.

Demoreel Mid 2010

2010-10-19T15:09:00.004+08:00

It's been a while I've updated my blog having taken a year off and then back to work for another 8 months to help up the guys at Passion Republic has really gotten me thinking about my own life career. Anyway here's a compilation of my works from 2006 till early 2010 and it's really my first Demoreel created, will probably recompile another one by year end.

Please feel free to give your comments what you like what you don't like and should be removed and how it could be better any feedback will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Very (x6 months) Late Submission.

2010-07-03T05:11:00.005+08:00

Hi!

After putting the Dec2009 entry on the shelf for a few months and finishing it off recently, I thought I'd just throw this up and see if I can get some comments, crits and opinions from you guys. Was experimenting 2d with 3d as well as manual 2d camera panning. The 2d character tends to go off model, didn't pay enough attention to my model sheet. I did however add in some subtle SoundFX and slightly adjusted the original audio track though.

Might take a while to load, its about 13Mb.

~~~

~~~

Will post the WIP breakdown soon.

Me

2010-06-13T22:00:00.010+08:00

Well it's been a while I've updated anything personal on this blog, so how much more personal can one get by updating a photo of oneself.

The following photos were taken back in Dec'09 while working on my 11 sec December entry (which is yet to be completed). I was shooting my completed 2d frames at that time when I was suddenly zapped in the head and had this ridiculous idea of a 3rd person view self portrait. I was about to update it in Feb but came across the KL Photo awards which I thought I have a go at...... wished I'd spent the 80 bucks entry fee on buying DVD's instead.

Sita Sings The Blues

2010-06-06T16:05:00.006+08:00

Finally got around to watch "Sita Sings the Blues" directed by Nina Paley.

Found it very refreshing, entertaining and really different from any animated film shown in cinema's nowadays. It's an animated musical romance film roughly based off the Ramayana and interlaced is a small fragment life story of the director, Nina Paley. Stylistically its a hod~podge of 3 styles; 2d flash, 2d drawn on cintiq, and cutout animation. In some ways feels a bit like a Ralph Bakshi's film minus the vulgarity.

The 20's, 30's blues music used in this film was sung by the radio star ~ Annette Hanshaw (1901 ~ 1985)

SitaSingsTheBlues.com

Interview with Nina Paley on her film and copyrights;
QuestionCopyright.org

Light Headed

2010-04-25T22:43:00.003+08:00

Short film by Mike Dacko

Light Headed

Love the simplicity yet the value of the overall story.

Meet Meline

2010-04-10T00:41:00.007+08:00

A short film by

Virginie Goyons
Sebastien Laban

2009 Trailer

For the whole sha~bang of the 7minutes + making + diary + anything you want to know more about, go to MeetMeline.com

James Cameron giving a talk at Ted.com

2010-03-08T12:59:00.003+08:00

James Cameron : Before Avatar ... A Curious Boy

Logorama

2010-03-01T17:50:00.005+08:00

"Logorama, a stunning film by French collective H5 (filmmakers Francois Alaux, Herve de Crecy and Ludovic Houplain), is a violent, profane, action-packed caper set in a world comprised entirely of well-known corporate logos and mascots."

~www.thelogofactory.com

Nominated for an Oscar Animated Short
Animation Magazine Interviews Directors of Logorama

Devils Angels & Dating

2010-02-26T00:17:00.009+08:00

Got permission to take a week off from Passion Republic to join DAD animation team for a crazy crunch week!

~ Thanks Aik Sern!!!

Devils Angels & Dating Trailer

~ directed by Micheal Cawood

Crazy Electro Funk Animation

2010-02-20T17:17:00.006+08:00

Director ~ SUGIMOTO Kousuke
Music ~ MANABE Takayuki

T H E___T V___S H O W

Check out their Youtube channel.

80's "Western Anime" & Cyber Formula

2010-02-06T23:29:00.022+08:00

So... I was day dreaming childhood memories of cartoons I've watched when I was like 5 but never realized what they were about nor what they were called and they were just soooo cool!..... well back then. A pang of nostalgia hit me and I just felt like searching the intro to those "cool" 80's ~ **"Western Anime" cartoons such as Thunder Cats, Ghost Busters, Voltron, Saber Riders & The Star Sheriff, Robotech/Macross, Jem and Mask (the one's with big helmets and changing automobiles, not the green face guy). And the intros are still great to watch because most of the production money went into this 30 -40sec montage thus higher frame rate with cooler effects and opening theme song :)

**I don't really know what to call these cartoons because they weren't Warner Bros, Disney, Hanna Barbara nor anything similar to the limited Saturday cartoons and they do look and feel more like Anime, so I call them "Western Anime", was probably shipped to Japan to be animated anyway....

Getting back to point ~ back when I was like 5, I also remembered a cartoon which had really cool 6 wheeled racing cars which could transform (anything that transformed was automatically cool when you're 5), so went Googling and found the anime. Cyber Formula is an Original Video Anime (OVA) which means it was created originally as an anime TV series, usually Japanese anime series are either based off existing manga or stories.

The anime is about the young drivers, advancing technology in the cars and the racing sport which is similar to F1 except with really advanced technological vehicles installed with AI guidance and not forgetting the ridiculous Jet Boosters propelling the cars up to 600kph. The race cars themselves were cool but sort of strange and really outlandish to have a 4 to 8 wheeled steering/driving chasis and thought that it was just as a design appeal for the anime.... . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . .... then I found these;

Apparently 6 wheeled F1 cars actually existed back in the 70's, they were experimenting on traction and steering control, you can read more about it on Forix as well as the following wiki articles;

Tyrrell P34
March 2-4-0
Covini C6W

80's Cartoon Overload!

Enjoy!

Helpful Hints

2010-02-02T00:23:00.005+08:00

A really really really good animation article by Eric Scheur & his friend actor/teacher Chris Murray;

Acting It Out

Enjoy!

Ever Seen An Animation Paper Puncher?

2010-01-25T19:46:00.005+08:00

Tada!

Where you can go to get B4 paper to do some punching.

The Last Lecture

2010-01-20T22:55:00.003+08:00

I know this is a blog mostly about animation topics, but this is one lecture I'd recommend watching, especially if you're doing some soul searching and planning out your life. There are some related stuff about Virtual reality, Disney and EA though.

Randy Pausch Last Lecture ~ Achieving Your Childhood Dreams

Worse come to worse at least I hope you learned some expression, gestures and body language of a speaker at a forum.

P A P E R

2010-01-15T15:53:00.021+08:00

A4 B4 F4

Aaaaaaah, the essential thin dry piece of mashed bleached wood pulp we artist use daily for our sketches, notes and art. So, I was shopping around for animation paper the other day and so far the only 2 places where they sell actual B4 Size punched animation paper are at Vision Art (Sunway) and Venus Art (Petaling Street).

Unfortunately...... Vision Art sells a stack of 450pcs @ RM25, and Venus Art sells an old musty branded stack of 100pcs @ RM80 :|

Soooo, thought to my~self why not go hunt down a paper supplier and see if I can get my hands on a box of un~punched B4 and go punch it my self at TOA (owns an animation paper puncher), and found a place in Klang thanks to my friend Bryant :)

Lian Peng Stationary sells a box(5 x 450pcs) of B4 @ RM75, economically wise I could save half the price for a stack of punched B4 and double my quantity of animation paper if I had bought the paper alone and punched it myself instead of getting it from Vision...

So I did :)

Oh and I found an odd stack of F4 sized paper..... it's like A4 but wide screen :) I just couldn't resist and bought a stack to punch for experimenting for next time. It's fun prepping your own animation paper, its like prepping a magazine of ammo to be wasted by a machine gun. Helps to discourage me from wasting paper anyway :)

Parkour Real Time 2D

2010-01-04T13:47:00.003+08:00

Once in a blue moon I'd come across videos of these interesting and new experimental ways of utilizing the 2D medium. There was another one on a stop motion graffiti which I can't recall the name but it was pretty cool.

Enjoy :)

parkour motion reel
Uploaded by yom_. - Watch original web videos.

Kyle Balda Critic

2010-01-03T21:50:00.009+08:00

The other day during the Master Class I asked Kyle Balda if he could give some feed back on my animation for 11 Second Club Nov '09 entry, and being the nice guy he is ~ he said yes, so here it is for your learning pleasure :)

Hi Marcus,

Unfortunately this particular piece of dialog doesn't allow much in the way of subtext or changes. he says what he feels and there are not really any emotional changes. So in terms of acting, its hard to do anything REALLY interesting other then what is obvious. having said that,. the only suggestions I think I can offer on this piece is that the lip-sync feels just a little bit off. It might be a good experiment to make the audio play a frame or two later. I understand the filmic reason for cutting away to the other characters but sometimes when the principle character is NOT talking is the best opportunity for the acting.

I guess the main thing you could ask yourself with this piece or if you are moving forward on another is "what is it the character is NOT saying, but is feeling and thinking" And show THAT! It will be far more interesting. And I think for that you need context, a situation. I think your work is good, there is not much to say technically, just think of the "story" for the next one. and what is the un-obvious and complicated emotion or idea that you as the animator can simply communicate?

Hope that helps!

Kyle

Also check out his tutorial for 3D World;

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If you guys got anything else to critic just post it up in the comments, I'll be refining this entry.

Happy New Year 2010!

Roy Edward Disney

2009-12-18T13:07:00.009+08:00

May Roy Edward Disney Forever be Loved & Remembered

(1930 ~ 2009)

"If you don't tell a good story... forget about it, you know ~ it's like real estate.
There's 3 important things about it, about film that's story, story and story...
and if you don't tell the stories...
well they've got someplace else to go pretty quick."

~ Roy E. Disney

Archive of American Television
AWN Article

11 Second Club November 2009

2009-12-05T18:18:00.018+08:00

PAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAC MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!!!!!

Woot 6th, again. Thanks for the votes and comments !

Initially was thinking of animating an alien in a cocoon, so I did some character exploration sketches, the bandaged dog with the cone of shame was inspired by my own dog which had an ear infection and had to wear that cone, the other reason was to limit the animation to just facial.

I ended up going for Pac Man because I had one week to play around and I wanted something simple to animate as well as practice more on facial animation especially the mouth area, so what better character than a round sphere with his jaw half his whole body mass.

Also wanted to experiment gesturing with a simple sphere, it's limited but you'd be amaze with just some squash, stretch, tilting and timing of the sphere, one can portray some simple body expression of deflated, disbelief sadness and directness, add it with a pair of eyes and a mouth and viola, you have facial gesturing.

Also experimented on full motion distortion and distorted eye darts, I thought it would go horribly wrong but it came out quite alright I guess, except for some places....... but that's for you guys to find out :)

Crits & Comments are most welcomed.

Enjoy!

Final Animation for now....
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Break Down!
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By the way the collaborated Pac Man skeleton sculpture is created by;

Le Gentil Garçon
François Escuilié (paleontologist)

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Some of the more constructive comments & critics by 11second club members;

Kashif:

"Haha Packman addicted to the cream. Wow. Great concept and wonderful lipsync. I love the weight shifts on Packman. In fact, after noticing this I wished you made the Ghosts shift their weight when they looked at each other. Either way, tops in my book."

Ryan Hayford:

"The expression in this is excellent, and the reveal is great. I thought this was gonna be a talking head facial animation excersice and then the ghosts jumped in... maybe you could have given more backround, like more dots or part of the maze so we know right away it's pac-man."

Justin West:

"Wow, that's some really impressive 2D! Very bouncy and expressive! The only thing that didn't look quite right to me was the sobbing at the beginning. I'm not sure what it is. Maybe there's movement in the mouth, I don't know. Sorry I can't be more specific. Great work, otherwise! I won't be surprised if this wins. The ghosts are a great touch, btw!"

Robert Holmen:

"No cliched arm gestures in this one! extra star for that.

This is a great study in just "face"

Some of the gestures seem not to be timed quite right, like the last one for "whipped cream"

Jett Atwood:

"Finally! Something original! Great idea, well drawn. My only suggestion would be to layer the ghosts blinks a little bit. It's jarring to have them blink at the *exact same time.*

Great stuff and shows that good character animation can be done with something as simple as a sphere."

Emmanuel Vergne:

"The lipsync seems off."

*Note; I'm not 100% sure if the name links are linked to the right people, if it isn't please let me know immediately, thanks!

Thanks again for all the C&C you guys gave, I've read them all and just posted these selected few for readers and me who want to learn more on what works and what not.

Till the next round, December's clip sounds WILD!

Pogo

2009-12-04T00:04:00.010+08:00

I don't think I've posted this on here before but it was something I came across a few months back, music created by Pogo.

So, for all you Animators who loves chillout lounge music;

Alice

Expialidocious

White Magic

Pogo Youtube
Pogo Blog
Pogo Last.fm

P A N T U R A L

2009-11-26T03:11:00.003+08:00

Some wicked stuff by PANTURAL.

Ford SHELBY vs CAMARO vs JEEP vs VAZ 2107 vs HELICOPTER

Get the 720 x 405 version here.

A Town Called Panic

2009-11-22T22:42:00.004+08:00

A film by Stéphane Aubier & Vincent Patar

"A Town Called Panic is one of the rare full-length animated films ever to secure the honor of a coveted slot in the Official Selection (in this case, Out of Competition) at Cannes."

A Town Called Panic

Wonder if it'll ever be screened here.....

6 Degrees of Separation

2009-11-13T00:33:00.005+08:00

Here's a question;

Bambi
(1942)

The Banyan Deer
(1957)

Hikayat Sang Kancil
(1978)

?

They just might have more in common than you think....

A Train of Thoughts...

2009-10-31T17:33:00.033+08:00

Was watching Hustle the other day, great BBC tv series about con men. Anyway the thing that caught my attention in the Designer's Paradise episode was the antagonist fashion designer reasoning about Charles Saatchi and a tiger shark in a tank which sold for 8mil. The name Charles Saatchi rang a bell as I recalled an ad agency named Saatchi & Saatchi wasn't sure if they were related. So what did this guy and a tiger shark in a tank and $12 million had to do with fashion/art.

Charles Saatchi was co founder with brother Maurice of the leading global advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi. He is also known as an art collector and established the Saatchi Gallery in 1985. Charles Saatchi developed a strong interest in US pop culture during his early years in secondary school and had a strong enthusiasm for collections of Superman comics to Jukeboxes.

In 1991 Charles Saatchi commissioned Damien Hirst for whatever artwork he wanted to create, thus the creation of "The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living" ~ a 14ft Tiger shark preserved in a tank filled with formaldehyde, total cost of work was £50,000. On December 2004 Charles Saatchi sold it to an American collector for $12 million (£6.5 million).

Damien Steven Hirst dominated the art scene in Britain during the 1990's, world renowned and reputed to be the richest living artist to date. His career in the 90's was closely linked with art collector Charles Saatchi whom commissioned him to create;

"The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living"

...which evidently became an iconic work of British art in the 90s and Brit Art world wide. Death is one of the themes in Damien Hirst's work, in which he was famous for a series of dead animals preserved in and sometimes dissected in formaldehyde.

Although he physically participated and the making of his earlier works it came to a point where the volume of work produced would require a factory setup where assistants will execute his ideas like a film director molds a film with the help of actors and a crew. Damien Hirst work philosophy wasn't much different than of Andy Warhol's that a legitimate art piece isn't the execution but the ideas and subject matter envisioned by the artist himself whom his assistants could execute it even better for him.

Andrew Warhola more so known as Andy Warhol was leading figure in the Pop Art movement in America of the late 50's. He had a successful career as a commercial illustrator and was later recognized as a painter, filmmaker, record producer, author and a public figure. His studio dubbed The Factory was a place where he worked and to setup an assembly line for the mass production of his silkscreen works as well as a place a where prominent people hung out and the setting for most of his film making with the workers who doubled as actors.

Though more known as the Pope of Pop in the pop art movement for his works of Marilyn Monroe silk screen prints and Campbell Soup Can paintings, he was quite an underground filmmaker due to the controversial, explicit, abnormal films he made and the reason why it remained underground as non of the theaters wanted/could show them as for those that did usually got raided. Of such films, his 1965 film ~ Vinyl was a BWhite experimental film early adaption of the novel "A Clockwork Orange" by Anthony Burgess.

John Burgess Wilson (pseudonym Anthony Burgess), an accomplished musician, author and linguist. Most known for his novel "A Clockwork Orange" which was adapted into film by Andy Warhol in 1965 and later in 1971 by Stanley Kubrik. The title of the novel came from an old Cockney expression, "as queer as a clockwork orange" and thought he could use it punningly to refer it to a mechanically responsive human due to his time in Malaya as a teacher and education officer for the British Colonial Service in 1954.

John Burgess Wilson was stationed at Kuala Kangsar, Perak and taught at the Malay Residential School, established in 1905 the first fully residential all boy all Malay prep school dubbed Eton of The East, founded by Mr R.J.Wilkinson and headed by then the headmaster of Penang Free School, Mr W.Hargreaves. Besides the languages German, Russian, French and Spanish, John Burgess Wilson was fluent in Malay speech and Jawi writing. In addition to his teaching duties he had responsibilities as a housemaster in charge of the students who were housed at a Victorian mansion known as the King's Pavilion.

He devoted some free time to creative writing during his stay in Malaya and published his first novels ~ Time for a Tiger, The Enemy in The Blanket and Beds in The East was known as the Malayan trilogy and later published under a single volume The Long Days Wanes. In 1956, John Burgess Wilson composed the symphony ~ "Sinfoni Melayu", which draws on many musical styles he encountered while he was in Malaya, he described is as an attempt to "combine the musical elements of the country into a synthetic language which called on native drums and xylophones".

...End of the Line

What if they were real?

2009-10-30T14:11:00.002+08:00

An article I read from my cousin's twit on Michael Paulus and his anatomy studies on cartoon characters.

6th Place, Thank You!!!!!

2009-10-07T20:23:00.013+08:00

Woot! I was not expecting to get anywhere near top 10 with this entry, but thank you all for your votes critics and comments for 6th place!

Thumbs and sketches

Last months entry took me about a month to complete, I haven't done a proper 2d for so long that it took me a while to get use to the x sheet and all. And true to what I found out is that the x sheet really helped out in the timing and the lip sync as well as reduce that overwhelming feeling of endlessly drawing frames, the more you draw the less empty frames left to draw which you could visually count on the x sheet :)

Most importantly what I learned is that the amount of exaggeration you could pull off in an animation, well in 2d I felt that I wasn't restrained to rigs which felt liberating and just draw out where and how you want the character to move. And the more exaggerated I made the animation the more lively and fleshy it became. When I started off for the first half of the process most of my posses were very very stiff to the point of limited animation and animating just the head, during the second half of the process I decided to just go all out and apply more SQST all round and really squash that face and then stretch it in a way that it's grotesque and imagining it to fail miserably...... that part of the animation came out to be the best stuff of the whole clip.

The thing that made it so fun to watch was not because you could see the really squashed and stretched face but the overall feeling of it being really elastic and fleshy in sequence because of the exaggerated posses or shapes of a character. After all, those frames passed by 1/25th of a second each. It felt really squishy and pliable giving it more realism in a way to the character that her face was a real fleshy face.

Could have worked better with the overlapping of hair and cloth as well as volume and on model control, if you go frame by frame you can see the chin grow bigger and then smaller when she stands back up. Could have explored more with facial expressions as well. The second bang SFX in the clip was added in after and not from the original audio clip. I just felt like animating her slam her fist on the book and didn't really cared if there wasn't any audio for it.

Final Animation
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Work Progression
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It was a fun month to animate, killed 2 blue pencils though.

Insight of A TV Show

2009-10-06T00:26:00.005+08:00

Was surfing The Tube, and watching interviews of cast members of House.

Then I came across this channel ; The Paley Center for Media, which has tons of on stage interviews with TV related shows and the directors, script writers, producers and actors, discussing about the process and behind the scenes, what goes into the writing scripts, character build up, acting choices and how it's delivered.

Below are just some of the stuff available for your viewing pleasure.

Prison Break - Robert Knepper on T-Bag

House - Hugh Laurie & Jesse Spencer on Inflections

2D

2009-10-03T23:07:00.010+08:00

Last month I decided to take out my really old old old old old old old old old old old old old old old old old old old old old old old old ...... old .... stack of punched B4 animation paper and have a go at it, was wondering if I still knew how to do 2d after working on 3d for so long. The other reason was that I was too lazy to mod Norman into an old hag for Septembers 11 sec competition and thought ~ "Hey, here is a great opportunity to see how badly I'll fail in 2d" :)

~Mee make shift light table, got a back ache after a few days of hunching over it....

Anyway it took awhile to work out the work flow and how to tie it to the x~sheet and a while longer before I got used to drawing . Used Premier to get the audio timing using frame count instead of the usual time counter, jotted down the audio on to the X~sheet and worked on the Roughs.

Took a month to work things out, a wee bit too long but it was sure fun and for some reason relaxing inbetweening those drawings though really tedious.... but relaxing. Also found out that you could really get away with very exaggerated posses Squash and stretch, crazy distortion poses which I would never/couldn't have done in 3d, I should look into that and see how far I can push Norman before he breaks.... sounds sadistic.

~What a 150pcs stack of B4 paper look like :)

Anyway will go through the whole 2D Shabang in a few days time once the 11 sec results are out. Finally my hard~earned~manually~punched~half price~stack of B4 Animation paper put to good use. Still 2 boxes to go......

Aleksandr Konstantinovich Petrov

2009-09-12T17:04:00.003+08:00

Animated pastel oil paintings on glass shot for IMAX. The following 20 minute animated short was adapted from the novel, "The Old Man and The Sea"

Aleksandr Konstantinovich Petrov

AmbiGram

2009-09-11T14:30:00.005+08:00

Created by my Bro, so proud :)

11 Second Club August 2009

2009-09-06T18:12:00.004+08:00

Great works this month and BJ Crawford won first place again with his amazing 2d work, check it out.

My work stands at 28th, average. And watching it now it just feels so dead, I need to find ways to inject it with some life...

Lady & The Tramp

2009-09-01T22:12:00.013+08:00

Just watched Lady & The Tramp and I thought I'd share some thoughts about the creation and the wide screen format it uses on its original showing.

Some historical facts from watching the DVD making, the very first initial idea for this film during the early stages of story development was really conceived by Joe Grant inspired by his family pet dog a Cocker Spaniel. Unfortunately Joe Grant had a falling out with Walt Disney and left. By then the story still wasn't solid and Walt Disney got Ward Greene to write a novel treatment for it and adapted it for the feature. Joe Grant was not credited.

Lady & The Tramp is also an original story for a Disney animated feature. The previous features were either based from Fairy Tales or Novels.

Following up from watching Peter Pan, personally I believe the production quality for Lady & The Tramp was a step up not just from the animation point of view but from the layouts and Bground paintings. Having two dogs of my own it felt natural watching the dog characters of this film even though they talked like humans. The really strange time when it felt wrong was when the tramp imitated human facial emotions and motion but besides that the characters were still very believable as dogs. The Spaghetti Scene would never have made it in the film if Frank Thomas hadn't push for it, animated it and proved to Walt that audience would watch two dogs eating spaghetti in a romantic sincere setup.

During the 50's, TV sets were starting to be sold. The film industry thought TV was going to kill the cinemas, so.... wide screen and Cinerama formats was a way to give the audience a unique visual experience home TV's can't. Same reason for Stereographic films which nowadays we know it as ~ "Watch it in 3D!"

Lady & The Tramp is the first Disney feature to be shot in wide screen, probably the first animated feature in wide screen.

Due to the choice of shooting this film for Cinerama / wide screen, the panoramic landscapes just enhanced the mood and environment for the characters to play in. Even though the Bground is full of details it never did pull my attention away from the characters, using light and dark areas to compose and frame actions and situations.

Although the wide screen format enhanced a lot of the shots most of the time, there were some when the character was surrounded with a lot of empty dead space, it felt that the left and right field of screen wasn't utilized and were there just to fill the wide framing. One of the reason was because not all the cinema's during that period had Cinerama setups and still used the old full screen format, so during story development they had to re~plan the shots for both wide and full screen, thus some of the side framing in the wide screen versions felt unused. On the other hand in the full screen version, there would be elements and even characters cropped out of frame.

Great film to study layout designs.

Iron Man

2009-08-26T14:30:00.002+08:00

What happens when you have a collaboration between Marvel with Mad House (One wicked Japan Anime Studio).

Was stumbling around Digg.com

2009-08-21T16:41:00.003+08:00

.... and found Timon & Pumba

Hakuna Matatah

I'm Still Alive ..... if you're wondering

2009-08-21T16:10:00.003+08:00

I know I haven't updated my blog for a while :) been reading and watching a lot of animation, and I was in a rut for a while (excuses), anywhoooo...

Uploaded some Old Old works I dug out from the past whom a friend asked for and to keep this blog alive for the next few weeks. Finishing off this months 11 sec. Later...

REX Turn Table

Walk Cycle

Stair Walk & Snap Exercises

Pot Luck Practice 03 ~ Norman Gets Excited!

2009-07-26T16:27:00.006+08:00

Had some animators block with this, I was going from one theme to another and back again but finally decided to stick to the TV one if I ever wanted to get this done.

Just To Fill In the Gap

2009-07-23T17:15:00.008+08:00

Haven't posted for some time so I thought I'll post up some imaginative creative works by other interesting mammals while surfing around till my next post.

Alex Trochut

A freelance artist into both Typography and Illustration, great use of graphical shapes as typo as well as the silhouette of a type for illustration and a jumble of both to create some of the most awesome graphical illustrious typography.

It's amazing how just by using black you could create depth and texture through graphical lines and shapes, example for "10 ways", it's smooth and slick with oil like vinyl records, pieces of plastic layered on top of each other the flow of energy.

Vlad Artazov ~ Nail Series

Photographer from Czech Republic.

Actually crossed through his work through Victor Navone's blog, and like Victor said it's a great thing to study the staging, lighting and just the kinds of personality and character which a regular nail can portray.

Strange thing though, I find that the BWhite photos evoke a stronger emotion and believability that the nails are alive compared to the Coloured photos, maybe the colours just made it too realistic and not as impressionistic compared to the BW.

Anyway enjoy, till my next update.

Pot Luck Practice 02 ~ Norman Moonwalks

2009-07-09T15:19:00.006+08:00

It's strange how somethings come around in a odd karma~tic sorta way. Before going down to Singapore for CGOverdrive last month I picked out MJ Moonwalk from my pot luck practice and come 3 weeks later MJ passes away.

It was going to be such a cliche animation but either way it would be great to study MJ's illusion of walking while gliding backwards, so I pulled out my Double Gold Disc MJ History album and MJ's one and only Moonwalker the movie. Things I'd had to take care was to make sure it looked convincing and that Norman was doing a sliding walk and not just floating backwards and the other thing was to make it look as though it had the illusion of weightlessness while trying to maintain some sort of weight to the animation itself, which in a way is an oxymoron for animation principles.

Anyway here it is, any feed back would be appreciated.

11 Second Club June 2009

2009-07-07T14:24:00.004+08:00

I just wanted to get my hands back into 2D and break away from 3D for a while. It was refreshing and interesting. Firstly, I'll admit that it's horrible, it's off model, lack of frames, generic posses etc.... but it was sure fun and a hell lot of work :)

Oh got 34th/137 position with an average vote of 5.38. June's competition has a lot of great 2D entries, check out the excellent 2D animation winner ~ BJ Crawford.

The only thing I think is the best part of the whole animation is the sleeve drapery, even then it's lacking on frames, on 3's mostly :) Lip Sync is out of the window so is the lack of expression and jaw. Because I was just going to do it without thinking too much, I didn't bother with an X~Sheet and just churned the whole thing out. Now I know why the X~Sheet is like sooooo important for 2D, without it it's just so hard to plan the amount of frames for motion and lip sync, you're like groping for the timing and just guessing where the mouth shapes should be placed. With an X~Sheet it would feel less work too I guess, there are just so many frames you have to draw locked off and its all planned out in the sheet compared to straight ahead the whole thing and wondering if you will ever get it done, it's like a never ending flow of empty frames.

Anyway enjoy my crappy 2D :)

Stop Motion from Space

2009-07-01T21:06:00.003+08:00

A really interesting perspective of a volcano eruption from space.

Michael Jackson (1958 ~ 2009)

2009-06-26T16:10:00.007+08:00

Sad and shocked, MJ have been a big part of my early childhood memories, the MTV's, music and dance moves. Many of his songs and lyrics have influenced me to be who I am today.

MJ, may you rest in Peace, Loved and Remembered.

Portrait: Michael Jackson, Textportrait von Ralph Ueltzhoeffer

Movie Studies - Joe Wright ~ Pride & Prejudice (2005)

2009-06-22T23:44:00.022+08:00

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SPOILER ALERT

Study notes consists of spoilers and story plots.

Overall a comfortable drama romance period film.

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Based off the romance novel ~ Pride & Prejudice written by Jane Austen (1775 ~ 1817)

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Elizabeth's Ignorance Guilt Scene
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I chose to breakdown this scene mainly because of the dark gloomy mood created by a series of well planned and framing camera shots. There was also a very disturbing/uncomfortable shot with time lapse which was really a well used contemporary cinema photography, to create the dark mood.

Most of the camera angles used were profiled to a wall or down a corridor, it wasn't unti lthe turning point was a 3/4 framing used, the profiles helped create the solemn, lonely mood and flatness.

SH01 ---> SH04, Total length 1min 34sec, averaging 23sec/shot. Usually when you have long takes it's to heighten the sense of drama or to reveal a series of continuous events. In this case the 4 shots comprising of only Elizabeth and her slow moody movements was to create the sense of lost, loneliness, sadness and distraught. A very moody scene of nothingness and emptiness. The angles used just made the scene even more atmospheric solemn , the use of profile angles, corridors and shallow focus. From SH01 to SH04, the camera was always tangent to wall behind Elizabeth or shooting down a corridor, everything was flat and linear. Even the movement of the camera was flat, either tracking left right front back, crane up down, the linear movement from point A to B, it just flattens out Elizabeth's senses like there was nothing left for her to feel or do. The use of anti framing Elizabeth made the composition less balanced.

SH02, Elizabeth walks down the corridor with a shallow focus camera which enhanced it more with rack focus. It made the shot dreamy , as though Elizabeth was walking down a tunnel of a dreamy thought and then fading deeper and deeper, engulfed in her thoughts.

SH04, At first impression it would give out a slight shock for the audience as Elizabeth seems to be staring straight at the audience, but actually its the point of view shot of Elizabeth looking at herself in the mirror. The initial shock was in a way to create an eerie feeling as well as set the emotional mood as Elizabeth looks at herself, studying her own emotions and thoughts. This kind of shot also allowed another contemporary cinematography to be added; Time lapse. After the initial shock, the audience will notice the sudden shift of shadow and lighting as though Elizabeth is in a state of suicidal lost of life, distraught and despair falling deeper and deeper in her emotional breakdown..... and then suddenly Mr. Darcy walks into screen. It's as though this was the wishes of Elizabeth to see Mr. Darcy there in her mind, to explain and comfort her. Even Elizabeth was doubting herself if what she saw was her own imagination.

SH04, Maybe for general audience the shock was of Elizabeth staring back at them but for some they might be more baffled on how technically possible it was to have shot Elizabeth at that angle without having the reflection of the camera in the mirror. My theory is that the camera was situated behind the mirror Elizabeth was facing and shooting through a duplicate frame from behind the wall. After that the negatives were mirrored in editing and viola, invisible camera.

SH07, I'm not sure if this shot could be considered as a 180' flip or just a cut shot, either way I'm going with 180' flip. The use of the mirror to create a sense of inner reflection and then cut to a frontal shot and breaking the 180' line was in my opinion a genius use of the 180' rule. On one hand you have Elizabeth looking at herself and studying her own emotions, deep and psychological unnerving and then cut to a shot of her contemplating what she thought she heard and saw when Mr. Darcy left. It's a sudden change and contrast of the unsettling emotions and the realization of Elizabeth and what she had done to Mr. Darcy.

SH10, Up until SH10 all previous shots have slow motion and slow energy. On contrasts SH10 is fast paced, high energy and the rush of Mr.Darcy riding vigorously through the forest, the camera itself tracking Mr. Darcy is blazing past bushes and trees. The main reason for SH10 was to setup a turning point not just in this particular scene with Elizabeth but a main turning point for the whole story line of Pride & Prejudice, a mid peak and climax. It's to reveal whom Mr. Darcy truly is, the protagonist and how the situation of all the characters stand. The emotional guilt of Elizabeth and how she had dishonor Mr. Darcy from her own ignorance, pride and prejudice. The rush and speed of the energy in this shot also portrays the emotions of both Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth is going through; for Elizabeth the revealing of how wrong she was and Mr. Darcy's fury, anger and sadness. It also helped to setup a very strong contrast for the following shot of Charlotte Lucas walks into the room while Elizabeth was reading her personal letter.

Overall the film was enjoyable to watch, the use of words and language, the fashion and societies of the Georgian era with a pinch of drama and romance. Best part was that there weren't tons of mushy gushy lip locking scenes, through out the film there was only 2.

Pride & Prejudice Complete Study Notes

Enjoy!

CGOverdrive 2009 ~ Part 02

2009-06-21T22:40:00.017+08:00

So, its Day01 of the character animation workshop lectured by Victor Navone, an animator from Pixar, his famed short; The Alien Song. Lectured about his work flow from reference to thumbs and constructing the performance with selected gestures and posses. Also lectured alot on how to analyze reference videos and what to looks out for. All in all an easy lecture to listen to and learnt a ton about prepping for a shot or scene.

Left the conference and went to Bugis to yum cha and to meet up another friend and what he's been up to the past few months. Hanged out at a dessert shop and chatted about the CG industry there in Singapore. Last call for drinks and went back to PoW to rest my overloaded brain.

Day02 ~ Character Animation Workshop, Jonathen Collins, though not as lively as Victor's lecture but non the less a very in depth look on the Polish level Pixar animators have to achieve and the importance of the characters eyes in character animation. Lots of Indiana Jones references and lots of slide notes which I couldn't finish jotting down.

After a long day of important facts crammed into my head, it was time to say bye bye to CGO 2009 and headed for an indoor stadium somewhere in Kalang, I had no idea where it was exactly but it was south of Kalang MRT Station. So got off at Kalang and headed south, it was dark and I was rushing and lost. Fortunately I made it a few minutes before it started.

Video Games Live Singapore 09, is a concert with a small symphony and choir playing music of video games past and present, PC and Consoles, games including Pac Man, Tetris, Metal Gear Solid, War Craft, Final Fantasy and everything in between. Between performances there was a few programs, one included an audience to play Space Invaders live on stage backed by the orchestra. Others include live stage Guitar Hero Battle, Sax performance by Norihiko Hibino (Snake Eater).

There were 2 retro adventure games which caught my attention; Dragon's Lair (1983) and Space Ace (1984). Did some research and generally, it's a simple story driven arcade game, 1 joystick, 1 button but a breakthrough visually driven by quality character animation at its time. It was produced and animated by Don Bluth Studio, hence the animation quality. Though ancient in terms of gaming, it is highly seeked after by nostalgic collectors. Both game titles spinned off two animated series based on the games itself.

Dragon's Lair
Space Ace

It was a great way to end my last night in Singapore.

Saturday, went to Bugis Junction and got me KT Tunstal's album and James Cameron The Abyss double disc DVD special, had my Turkey Bacon at BK and headed for Tanjong Pagar KTM train station for home. Four days of fun and learning.

Victor Navone & Jonathen Collins lecture notes (mostly messy personal writing of the character animation workshop)

CGOverdrive 2009 ~ Part 01

2009-06-21T17:09:00.019+08:00

~~~~~~~~~
Day 01
~~~~~~~~~

Like usual took the night train all the way down to Tanjong Pagar, Singapore. There's just something about taking the train than the bus besides the 8 hour journey, it just seems more adventurous and relaxing, less of a hurry of getting from one place to another. The puffing engine pulling 8 or so carriages along the cool iron tracks, some parts smooth as silk and others like a raging river wobbling the cabins left and right, the click clacking sound of the iron wheels switching iron rails, grinding and pounding onto the tracks and the screeching sound of iron brakes, the forward and back motion jerks as the cabins compress to a stopping halt.

... and it's cheap, 64 bucks from KL - Singapore and back.

The other fun factor was that I didn't book any rooms for my stay :) So there was that exciting sense of urgency to find a bed at Prince of Wales a great backpackers hostel in Little India, Singapore. Designed with a pub downstairs and performances every night, its run by a helpful Australian host. It felt a bit awkward as I was the only Asian guy around, but I guess it's just that strange feeling of being around a group people from another culture, you try hard not to step on other peoples toes and stink up the place. It was an interesting experience.

Well, got a bed, took a shower and went straight to the Singapore Expo to register and check the booths out. Unfortunately like what my friends who had visited CGO the previous 2 years mentioned that it was getting smaller and smaller, and true enough this years' just seemed so .... dead. I've been to the first CGO in 2006 and that was a blast, people rushing to meet others, crowded and the air was full of festivity, maybe it was the first kind of CG conference in SE Asia region. Well, this year it just seemed dead, small pockets of people walking around 10 booths and the lack of lights just made it feel like a sinking ship. Either way, went around and check out the booths and chatted with some recruiters. Bumped into my friends who'd reached 2 days earlier for their "Track" ~ Workshop. Had lunch and discussed about the dying conference. Left after lunch and headed for city center.

My annual Pilgrimage to the Mint Museum of Toys situated right next to Raffles Hotel. About a year ago I found out that there is an authentic Bugs Bunny there autographed by Tex Avery, Bob Clampett, Friz Frelang. You read books and articles about the golden era of animation, Warner Bros and Disney, countless photos of famous directors and animators but it just doesn't have as an impact as actually seeing a stuffed plush Bugs from that era signed by these great directors, something tangible and not just of words and pictures but history infused within an object of the past. Besides, Mr. Richard Tan the curator has an extensive knowledge in tin toys and memorabilia of the past, a nice guy to chat with.

Well, after visiting Bugs and all, I went over to the end of the town to meet another friend. Along the way I spotted this road side ad for Burger King, and honestly I'd never expect to see such advertisement in conservative Singapore, well I had to take a picture before they take it down :)

UPDATE : While browsing Digg.com this article came up about BK's Advertising, read the comments at the bottom of the page, specific~ly haysoos' comment.

On the way back there were these wicked cloud formation, it looked like Water Colour utilizing wet on wet technique.

Went back to the PoW to shower and come back out to meet up with my friends from CGO for dinner, finally had a chance to meet Jose Cua. Also had a chance to meet up with another friend of mine who's been staying in Singapore for the past few months, brought us go makan at some kopitiam next to a stadium somewhere, and had some nice fried seafood. Chatted, walked back to the hostel and crashed for the night.

The wonderful thing about Singapore is that I feel so safe walking around in the dark alone, maybe its just me being fool hardy but you just don't get that feeling in Malaysia.

That was it for my first day when I arrived in Singapore, lots of walking and by the time I got back to my bed my toes were aching and blistered. Slept like a log.

By the way I've set up a Flickr account, so if you want to see what I saw when I was in Singapore go check it out. Dick if you're reading this, the photo with the title Dick is not regarding you :)

Name Card

2009-06-15T23:50:00.006+08:00

Well, I was required to bring 2 name cards to CGO 2009 and I didn't have any. So...I just couldn't help myself but to create some name cards :) My hands were itching to work on some handicraft, did some sketches, rough layout, minimalism designs, and a template for de~bossing the cards.

Materials and stuff;

A4 300gsm Beige Card x4
4"sq Yellow Memo Paper x4
A dozen photostats
5" x 12" mounting board
1 flat head screwdriver
1 flat head chromed screw
1 hammer
Blade
Metal ruler
UHU glue
Cellophane tape

Direction was;

Type Writer + Animation Elements = Beige Paper + Courier + (Peg holes + Time Chart)

Wanted to have a minimalism design which played a bit with the typography and layout. After reading about Business card designs and comments, the conclusion was ; "it looks awesome but I'm going to throw it away at the end of the day". So minimalism was just the choice to go. Besides my liking for minimalism, I didn't have time to do anything more to it than I already have ..... and budget costs :)

1 dozen worth of photostats + no carbon = Fail

....... Was planning to ink transfer photostatted mirrored copies with lighter fluid to create that type writer texture, unfortunately the photostat machines didn't transfer enough carbon in the first place, even at the darkest settings the transfer was vague. So did the next best thing, photostat it directly onto the 300 gsm Paper which almost jammed in the machine.

Anywhoo, got it done and now back to animation studies....

The Votes Are In!

2009-06-06T16:12:00.003+08:00

Just barely reaching 10th place with a rating of 6.59, guess have to try harder. After not watching it for the past 2 weeks and seeing it again with a fresh eye, I could see all the mistakes and wish I held some poses longer here and there to give it a bit more snappiness and added some subtle gestures etc. Currently it flows too linear from one pose to another which is one of my weak points in animation.

Well what's done is done, move on to the next one and try not to repeat the same mistakes....... like being hypnotized by the previews and believing that its the best work eva! ... because its never, there's always something to improve on.

Below are some of the more interesting critiques to consider, the Break Downs and Final.

Daniel P. Lane:

Great subtleties! Nice, clean motion. Very, clear staging and silhouette. Feels like he might be missing an antic before "and better still" I like how he interacts with the prop and the hand gestures. It might be cool if he does a little extra somewhere maybe thumbing the plane back and forth while he looks at it and thinks. Also, maybe at "well it's..." he could to a little side-to-side head shake as he finds the words to describe the experience. Over all I think you're matching the energy of the scene and character very well. Good job :)

~(Did do subtle thumbing in the beginning, guess not clear enough)~

Sam Caudill:

Very good! My only critique (and this is really nit-picky) would be to make the left hand arc for "see 'em fly" snap on fly instead of flowing into it.

M. Strohbehn:

Well done. His expressions appear genuine. From 80-120 it gets a little busy with hand motions. Love the juke box in the background and the setting.

~(I was afraid that was the problem, tried to hide it and some one caught it, proves that you can't get away if something just isn't working right)~

Richard Vaudrin:

Nice! I like the psychology of the character, great poses all the way through.

~(This would be the deepest critique I've gotten, thanks!)~

And to the rest who commented thanks for the feedback.

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Break Down
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Final Animation
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Funny that nobody commented on the Eye Dart at frame 167. Initially there wasn't any but I decided to add that in just to add some small antic/details to break that monotonous head turn from looking at the plane all the time to the bar tender with the Front Profile, it also gave off a bit more mystery to the character like to question if he was really sincere or not.... maybe that's what Richard Vaudrin's comment was about.

Pot Luck Practice 01 ~ Diving Into ...

2009-06-05T15:56:00.006+08:00

Randomly picking a piece of yellow paper with something written on it to practice animation. Time taken about 5 days on and off. Overall I still feel its a bit floaty..... :(

Oh it's also my first time animating majority with Forward Kinetics (FK) arms and switching them to Inverse Kinetics (IK) when they contact surface, I still feel much more comfortable with IK arms being an IK animator from the begining. With FK arms I had to change a bit of how I usually animate, had to really start with the body and then work my way too the tip of the fingers, make sure the body animation, including shoulders, is more or less there if not you're just wasting time and going to have to reanimate the arms from shoulders onwards caused by FK.

Critiques and Comments are welcome.

Movie Studies - Quentin Tarantino's ~ Reservoir Dogs (1992)

2009-06-01T11:55:00.022+08:00

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SPOILER ALERT

If you have not watched Reservoir Dogs before, you should watch it first if not the surprises and twist that is the main focus of revealing the characters in the movie will be ruined.

Its a great movie so go watch it first, trust me you'll blow the movie experience once you've read the studies below.

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A bit About.....

Quentin Tarantino is the director of some of the most controversial films and carved a name in the world of film making. Some of the other films directed by QT are; Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill 1&2 and Grind house : Death Proof.

Was a Special Guest Director on Frank Millers ~ Sin City (2005)

Reservoir Dogs is Quentin Tarantino's director debut film at Sundance Film Festival, before this he worked as a video store clerk in LA. Initially QT was planing to shoot it on 16mm film with his friends on a budget of 30,000 USD, with some help from Harvey Keital managed to raise the budget to 1.5Mil, the movie grossed about 3Mil.

Reservoir Dogs is a Indie Cult Classic and hailed as one of the best independent films ever.

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Opening Round Table Diner Scene
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One of QT's trademark in his films is the chit chatty gossips and rambles of a group of the characters at a diner or in a car. Most of the time the gossips and chattering are about social issues and current/past events and not really related to the movie but it does give an insight of the characters habits and mind set, example; Mr Brown is a pervert. In the Opening Round Table Diner Scene, all the main characters are seated at a diner having their breakfast while chatting about the following topics;

(1) "Like A Virgin" by Madonna
(2) "The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia" by Vicky Lawrence, Reba McEntire.
(3) The social ethics of tipping.

The thing I like about this scene is the use of the camera tracking around the table behind the characters back, while they idly chat on about stuff. The use of the FGround characters back as a transitional effect and framing/anti-framing. Like some thumbs I've drawn above, the backs of the FG character would block the focus of the other characters at the opposite end, there is even one time the screen went black for a while because the camera was tracking behind the characters back. The use of it as a transition when they needed to cut to another track they waited till the backs of one of the characters covered the screen black and then cut, making the transition seemed seamless and smooth. The use of framing like when the character talking was framed in between two of the FG characters back at time 3|12.

The idea of using a track instead of cutting from one person to the other was that it didn't make the audience feel edgy/constant need of changing focus and restlessness from the continuous cuts. The tracking helped made the scene light, relaxing and enjoyable, the slow tracking left/right was smooth like silk, it made it comfortable for audience to enjoy viewing certain faces of characters at their own pace instead of constant changes caused by cut, like a waiter serving you food after you're done with one plate and not just shoving food in your face when you're not ready.

The other reason from my personal opinion is that what you see isn't as important as what you hear. I felt that the director wanted the audience to listen to the issues the characters were chatting about and not really at the characters themselves and when the director wanted to he could single out anyone of the characters to emphasis a reaction at a point of the topic. Besides that the tracking created a sense of unity among the group because of the semi circles it would be tracking around them. Most importantly it eliminated the use of constant cutting from one angle to another to show all the characters. And when it did make a cut, the cut was sharp and focused at a single point of importance like when the camera suddenly cut to Joe who said "Wong" and Mr White snatches the address book away from Joe out of irritation, that was an important and sudden reaction.

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Mr Blonde's Torture Scene
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The infamous Torture Scene, when people talk about Reservoir Dogs, this scene would be one of the most talked about especially the brutality of the ear cutting despite the fact that you don't actually see the action of cutting off the ear, and the unforgettable rendition of how Michael Madsen plays Mr Blonde as the psycho maniac dancing to the song "Stuck in the middle with you" by Steelers Wheel before slicing Officer Nash's face.

Just going to Breakdown the shots and describe some of the more important shots like Shot 07, as well as comparison of the 180' flip between Shot 05 and Shot 23.

So.....

Shot 07; Having the choice of not showing the audience the gruesome act of cutting off Offc. Nash's ear by turning the camera away but remaining in the same take in actually makes the scene more disturbing, not disgusting and gruesome ... but very disturbing. This is because though visually we don't see the torture happening, we as the audience knows Mr.Blonde is slicing something on Offc. Nash's face, and the audio of him squirming just helps ignites the audience's wild imagination on how brutal and gruesome the torture is.

The director is tapping into the audiences power of imagination to portray the brutality of the torture scene. The depth of our imagination is always deeper and livid than what is shown to us, besides each of us have a different threshold of what gruesome is. Example; some people might imagine that Mr Blonde is slicing Offc. Nash cheeks (some might find it bearable), while others imagination might be Mr Blonde slicing the tongue off or worse still skewering the blade into one of the eyeballs of Offc. Nash eye socket. You see we all have different levels of what gruesome is in our imagination and how effective it was to this torture scene.

Besides that, Shot 07 also reminds me of a similar take in the film Scarface (1983) played by Al Pacino. There was also a torture scene where one of the gang members were using a chain saw to dismember a person in the bath tub, similar situation similar camera move of shifting the camera away from the actual torture sequence but remaining in the same take. Quentin Tarantino being Quentin Tarantino I'd bet he would admit of lifting this camera move from the torture scene from Scarface (1983).

Comparison between Shot 05 and Shot 23; Breaking the 180' line is used in cinema photography to create a sudden change/to confuse/an exchange of power to the situation. In this case, Shot 05 was breaking the 180' to give a sudden jolt of confusion to the audience's vision, to throw us off balanced of the situation as Mr Blonde splashes gasoline onto Offc. Nash, the sudden impact of the gasoline splashing the face, the shock Offc. Nash would be facing that he's going to be burnt alive.

As in Shot 23, the breaking of the 180' was gradual as the camera started off on the correct side of Mr Orange base on continuity issues and gradually the camera started to track Right and around Mr Orange till it's facing his back while he continues to unload his gun at Mr Blonde. The use of this camera movement was great for mainly two reasons;

(1) It's a cool way to portray Mr Orange gunning down Mr Blonde instead of a cut here and a cut of dead Mr Blonde, the audience gets to watch the action uninterrupted.

(2) The shift of "Power" of the characters and situation from Mr Blonde to Mr Orange.

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Conclusions & After Thoughts
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A damn good movie, especially if its the first time you've watched it. Utilizing one main stage setup as a primary location to slowly unfold the turn of events while using chapters to reveal the truth and back story of each characters and how they got in the current situation.

After re~watching Reservoir Dogs a few more times and assuming the events in the film Reservoir Dogs chronically happened after Pulp Fiction, I can't help the fact that this movie and Pulp Fiction is related in characters, so below are just a few interesting debatable points.

Time 5|30 ~ Mr Pink played by Steve Buscemi debates on the issue of tipping and is against it, Mr pink mentions that he has worked minimum wage before and never had the opportunity to get tipped. His points of debate is why people are tipping waitresses in diners but not waiters at fast food joints or franchised restaurants. In Pulp Fiction, Steve Buscemi plays a young waiter in Jack Rabbit Slims dressed as Buddy Holly.

Time 38|04 ~ The character Mr Blonde aka Vic/Victor Vega is a stone cold egoistic sadistic thief/killer. In Pulp Fiction, John Travolta plays Vincent Vega an egoistic drug addict henchman. QT also admits of having wanted to do a film called "The Vega Brothers".

Time 27|15 ~ During Mr White's interview, Joe asked "What happened to Marsellus's Spy, didn't he always move your ice". In Pulp Fiction, Marsellus Wallace is an underworld Lord, Mr White played by Harvey Keital also played The Wolf (cover up agent) working for Marsellus Wallace.

Time 1|00|00 ~ After Mr Orange guns down Mr Blonde, you can subtly hear the radio in the BGround playing "... the traffic report is brought to you by Jack Rabbit Slims...". The phrase "Jack Rabbit Slims" is repeated 2 more times after that. In Pulp Fiction, Jack Rabbit Slims is a franchised steak house with fancy theme decorations and dressed up waiters and waitresses as famous people. Steve Buscemi plays a young waiter dressed as Buddy Holly.

Time 1|15|30 ~ There are some specific shots in Reservoir Dogs where Mr Orange looks for his ring to wear. Mr Orange played by Tim Roth also played Pumpkin aka Ringo a small time British accent thief who thinks of quitting and holds up a diner with his wife but fails. Mr Orange and Ringo wears a similar ring on the same finger. Personal opinion; after an emotional and psychological failure at the diner hold up and given a second chance to live at gun point by Jules, Ringo turns a new leaf to become a cop, wife leaves him. The scene of Mr Orange putting on the ring is a remembrance of his past life.

Other characters played in Pulp Fiction;

Mr Brown played by QT also played Jimmie Dimmick in Pulp Fiction, a spoilt opinionated proud house husband who has links to the underworld. Mr Brown complained about his colour code.

Reservoir Dogs Complete Study Notes

WaWa Chi Bears

2009-05-26T16:06:00.008+08:00

So... when the fire in your inspiration and passion is lit, use it to work it all out before the flame withers out... which led me to postpone working on the 11sec May for the time being.

I started the first idea sketch on Wednesday night if I remembered correctly after listening continuously to Hirasawa Susumu's ~ "Shizuku Ippai no Kioku" the whole day while working on 11sec May competition, which I will be posting up soon.

Anyway, animation wasn't that hard to do after all it's pretty loose and scribbly and initially was just planning to do like 4 drawings for each character to play around.... ultimately I couldn't help myself but to make it a bit more smoother than the constant cycle *on 8's. Because of the minimal drawings ~ 5 to be exact ~ for lipsync~ing "UP^" to the vocals, I found it interesting to play with the timing of the mouth shapes to create certain visual interpretation of the sounds, example; "What" by using a combination of "mm" "too" "aah" "eee", creates something more like "Mooaahht" and by using a combination of "aah" and "eee" you could create a sentence :)

The process that took the longest was not the animation which took about 2½ days, it was the endless cutting and splicing images while composting it into a clip.... the endless hours of listening to the track over and over and over and over over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and again..... just to pinpoint where to put the drawings to lipsync as well as the instruments, no to mention tweaking the frames and waiting for the time slider to shift caused by the lag of what looks like 100 000 individual drawings, saving took about 3 mins.

Anyway, by the time you read this hopefully I've done uploading the clip to YouTube.... which is taking forever..... because it's about half a Gig :) *Reuploaded a 50Mb version with better audio sync, watch In HQ... the default compression is crappy.

Enjoy!

A small "problem" was that the actual song started to faded off near the end. Thus after brainstorming about it for like 3¼ of a sec, I stupendously added in the "Volume Reduce Gag", ain't our brains useful...

*The term "on 8's" is a traditional 2d animation lingual for a drawings shot on 8 frames instead of the usual "on 1's" (1 drawing perframe) or "on 2's" (1 drawing on 2 frames). To put it in perspective, movies are usually on 24 frames persecond, your TV if it's NTSC format is 30 frames persecond and 25 frames persecond for PAL format. Other related thing to read up on; "Persistance of Vision"

P.S. Kinda sick of listening to it already for the past 6 days, but still a hypnotic song non the less. Yah I'm brain washing you guys....... bears ...... bears ...... bears ....... bears......

Parade Bears

2009-05-22T03:08:00.000+08:00

I just suddenly felt like starting a new project... something fun and funny at the same time very loose, besides I haven't done 2d animation for a long long time... besides my crappy flip note pads.

I think, it's because I set one of my mp3's on loop while I was working on the 11sec May competition. It was looping a sound track from the anime; Paprika. A very catchy tune at that.

It kinda brained wash me to see odd teddy bears suddenly playing in a band to the beats of a marching song on stepped animation..... strange how inspirations materialize from strange people....

Way Behind.

2009-05-21T01:12:00.000+08:00

Lots of excuses and procrastination, besides that had to send dog to vet a few times the past week as well as make a round trip down to JB and back on the same day.

Anyhow, I've still got 50% of animation to be done for 11sec May competition in the next 10 days, another scene of Reservoir Dogs to study by this week and my monthly animation practice to be done, not to mention reading up more and doing more figure studies. Looks like I have to study overtime the next week.

Just some rough sketches and thumbs for 11Sec May :

Will be posting work progress at the end of the month.

House is still in one piece, changed a living room light bulb if anyone's interested.

Movie Studies - Ralph Bakshi's ~ American Pop (1981))

2009-05-11T18:12:00.002+08:00

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SPOILER ALERT

Before you read onwards, this post consist Spoilers from the film American Pop (1981) directed by Ralph Bakshi.

So if you haven't watch it, go watch it first, it's a great movie especially if you like life movies and eclectic music genre.

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Well... Saturday was "Watch A Movie" day ~ watch a movie, dissect it and study it. Compiled the studies into 14 pages and could have gone more for a few more scenes, but times up, maybe will write a part 2 for it in the future. The other scene which I didn't but would love to write about would be "Tony and Pete Bench Scene", a great scene to study character and subtle drama acting, twist and turning point.

Please pardon my un~grammar~ness hand writing with horrible spelling, was writing it on the fly as ideas, thoughts and opinions randomly pop into my head about the movie, so enjoy it if you can....

I won't be posting everything about the movie here, it'll just flood my blog if you want there's a link at the bottom of the page where you can go download the full movie study notes :) .... What I would be sharing is a scene, "Benny's Piano Suicide Scene". Especially about the characters behavior and thoughts during this scene as well as the importance of it.

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Benny's Piano Suicide Scene
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I chose to break down this scene because of the quiet, slow and subtle but powerful dramatic ending for Benny. Soft and subtle because through out the scene is mainly focused on the ruined abandoned interior and Benny playing the piano, for most of the time you hear him playing the piano and some shuffling of feet and furniture and then ending with brutal punctuation of the machine gun.

Besides the mood it was set in, the main reason I chose to this scene was the compelling characteristics of both characters and it's subtle deep underlying ~ well it's WW2, one of them a Nazi, the other a US soldier, face to face and at gun point, yet they don't start going berserk killing each other off, how much more irony can that get?

The scene a calm one, scene fades in and fades out when it's done, it's as though to showcase the last performance of Benny, the song he plays is like a lure for someone to look for him, an announcement to the surroundings that he is here and he is doing what he loves doing, playing the piano.

The dramatic power of how music could change a person, to make him take a different course of action. When Benny found out a Nazi soldier was behind him, he decided to play *"Lili Marleen". This song stopped the Nazi soldier from Acting on his primary objective ~ to kill Benny. Why did he stop? Why didn't he just killed Benny off? By procrastinating his actions he could have been shot by a US soldier, the song Benny was playing could have been an alert that Nazi was in the vicinity. So why risk blowing the cover? From my point of view, I believed that the Nazi Soldier knows Benny will one way or another killed by him, he knows Benny knows that too, the Nazi also knew he's not going to survive much longer either, injured and once he guns down Benny the other US soldiers will come swarm and surround him. So, he lets Benny finish the song before finishing him ~ in a way a gesture of appreciation, he even wishes thanks too.

Benny being Benny the person he is, he's cool, mellow fella, never really surprised or shocked maybe due to the upbringing of his mafia family but never followed their footsteps, just being him, alone in his own world of music. I feel that this scene plays an important role in Benny's life episode, not just to end his story in the movie but also to play out his true character and who he really is and why he really joined the army. The reason Benny gave his father was that he wanted a real job, as well as just married and going to be a father to Tony. But in truth, Benny just wanted to get away from his father, his wife and "The Family", he wanted to be free ~ even if it means dying and this scene proves it, it was suicide not execution that killed Benny.

When Benny found a piano in an abandoned house, he went to it and started playing... who in the right mind would start playing a piano in the middle of a battle field, it gave out his location and not only expose him but his comrades to the enemy. This shows that he doesn't really care for his nor his comrades life when it comes to music, that's all he cares about. When a Nazi soldier came out of hiding and sneaks up to Benny just to be foiled by a chair, Benny doesn't reach for his gun or tried to escape or begged for his life, he turned back to the piano and played "Lili Marleen" a German love song ... WHY?! Why even a German song? Why not just continue playing the same song.... As surprised as Benny could ever be, he cared less if he was killed or not, in a way he got what he wanted ~ freedom, freedom to live his life, free of the corrupt. he never wanted the luxurious life of the Mafia nor the burden of other peoples issues, forced to marry a Mafia's Daughter for his father as well as the responsibilities of a father to the child that was about to be born. All he ever wanted to do was play the piano, that's all. So when faced with the Nazi soldier, he knew his time has come, he also knew that the Nazi soldier wasn't going to last much longer as well. Being the eccentric prodigy pianist, Benny decided to play "Lili Marleen" for the success of the Nazi's kill ~ Benny. He knew that it would be meaningful both to the Nazi Soldier because would most likely be the last happy moment in his life to hear this song and to Benny the appreciation and opportunity to play it. Benny knew both of them are going to enjoy it and both of them are going to die and this is the last joy both of them are going to feel.

This scene had a simple setup, one word dialog (danka), maximum drama in characters minimal action performance and the choices they make, the underlying of the scene.

Mood studies, water colour on ink. Deep values of cool hues, purple, blue, slate blue, D.maroon, D.olive, D.brown, shades of grey.

* "Lili Marleen " Wikipedia

ww2 Lili Marleen (1939) Youtube

Well I think that's more than enough for now... go watch the movie it's a good one but might not be every one's cup of tea. It was certainly for me :)

Expiring 90 days as of 11052009, First 10 downloads.
Download the Full American Pop Movie study notes :)

Linking The Links

2009-05-10T00:54:00.000+08:00

Yop... if you're reading this and you happen to personally know the egghead guy typing this please drop me your blog link to be added.

Thanks!

By the way, just finished watching Ralph Bakshi's American Pop, will have some sharing soon.

Kick Starting My Bumming Butt

2009-05-08T01:01:00.000+08:00

Firstly, Hello to my first official Bulletin Log Post ever!

This will be a short introductory of me and why I started this blog in the first place.

Being the person I am and the person I am is a lazy procrastinating one, I decided to take a leap of faith and stop work and live off my savings for a year in pursuit of training myself in the field of art and animation as well as my personal life of setting goals, chores and dreams I'd like to achieve within this one year span, starting off with waking up early, like before lunch and hopefully by 8am ....... which I have yet to achieve.

So...... that's a bit about me and you'll know more as the months roll on.

As for the Blog, I started it to force myself to document my studies and in short, to humiliate myself based on how well or horrible my progress is coming along. As well as share what I've learnt along the way.

(Daffy Duck Imitation)
As of now, it is truely and utterly despicable!

Why? Because I've yet to get into gear and according to my study schedule it's already 4 days in and I've only followed it half heartedly.......... which brings us to the creation of this first post.

So, welcome and thank you for reading this far! Grab some drinks, pillage some snacks, sit back and enjoy the this boring ride about me.

Test 01

2009-04-20T18:59:00.000+08:00

Youtube Link

Enjoy