Brad Bird - Research (OUAN405)

Brad Bird is a great director of animation, one who I can look to for lessons on brilliant cinematography and storytelling, as well as lessons on why animation is important as a means of filmmaking. Though he has also directed live action films he was trained in classical animation, even being mentored by Milt Kahl, one of Disney’s Nine Old Men. I felt it would be important to research him as The Iron Giant and The Incredibles two of my favourite films, not just under the banner of animation, but of all time.

Being one of the few directors to frequently transition between live action and animation, Brad Bird uses a lot of techniques from both mediums in his animated movies in terms of how they’re shot. He often decides to move the camera from one object to another in a scene, rather than cutting between them.

Here, the camera pans from point A to point B to point C, directing the viewer's gaze.

I really like this technique as it means that every shot tells its own story. Sometimes the camera moves faster to emphasise surprise or a hectic moment, and sometimes it follows what the character on screen is focusing on. Sometimes it very quickly pans from one object to another to set up the punchline of a shot.

Setup

Punchline

Either way, I like how Brad Bird makes the camera an active part of his films. It gives a sense of joyful energy to the whole proceeding.

Brad Bird highlights well the importance of animation as a method of filmmaking, and is the guy who convinced me to stop using the term “genre” to describe animation. He says himself that “it’s not a genre. A western is a genre. Animation is an art form, and it can do any genre”. He is deeply respectful to filmmaking and doesn’t half-arse it. He spoke in an interview about dealing with the pressures of directing and how he resists the urge to strangle people and stuff like that, and as somebody who wants to learn to direct, I can take a lot away from his outlook to directing.

Len Lye is a Nice Guy (OUAN405)

I have developed some recent enthusiasm for Len Lye's films. He was a New Zealand animator who lived from 1901 to 1980 and looked to make art a full body experience that tingles and stimulates the senses with oscillating shapes and bright flashing lights and stuff like that.

His style was modernism, and I find it really transfixing.

In 1928 he joined the Seven And Five Society, Britain's most prominent group of avant-garde artists including the likes of Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore and some other people I assume. The society lasted 16 years before being disbanded in 1935, which is a shame because I am something of an avant-garde artist myself and I was interested in joining. I'd love to hang out with the corpse of Henry Moore.

I made this avant-garde sculpture thing

ANYWAY, Len Lye had a really awesome career that took him around the globe. He first came to be sort of successful when his movie "Tusalava" was premiered by the London Film Society in 1929. I say "sort of" successful because while he DID get to be premiered at the London Film Society, many critics of the time were unimpressed because they preferred films with more literal narratives and meanings.

Tusalava (1929)

I think that this film is bloody amazing. It's ten minutes long and uses 4400 individually drawn frames. Cel animation like in Tusalava was a process that Lye wouldn't really go on to use again.

Later on, Len Lye carved out an identity as somebody who drew directly onto the film cels, a technique known as "drawn-on-film animation".  It was a pioneering style that achieved some really cool visual effects.

A Colour Box (1935)

Kaleidoscope (1935)

Drawing on the physical film reel gave Lye's later films less of the thought-out elegance that "Tusalava" has, but the films had a tonne of frenetic, fast paced energy. To return to whatever I was saying at the top of this blog post about whatever it is I'm writing about, Len Lye sought to make art a full body experience, and I admire the way that he carved out such a unique approach to it.

There were artists before and after Lye who drew and applied effects directly onto the film reel, such as the American filmmaker Man Ray, who's movie "Emik Bakia" included sequences where the film reel was exposed to direct light for a certain aesthetic.

Emik Bakia (1925)

Also, there was Stan Brakhage, who's film "Mothlight" involved placing moth wings and bits of leaf onto the cels.

But, considering all the modernist abstract animators of the 20th century, I think it's pretty indisputable that Len Lye definitely was a man who made animated films and that he existed. That I will say for certain.

Mothlight (1963)

Shadow Puppet Theatre from the Ancient Orient (OUAN405)

Chinese shadow puppet theatre.

But what IS Chinese shadow puppet theatre?

The fact that every set and character is a black silhouette gives the art form a sense of detachment, intrigue and sometimes a sinister flavour. The principles of shadow puppet theatre are carried on today in certain places. It can be a nice way of hearkening back to traditional storytelling styles or symbolising the distant past with an interesting visual thing.

They emulated the shadow puppet style in the movie "Harry Potter 7", a very good film about a boy who goes to wizard school.

They also used it in "A Monster Calls", a very good film about a boy who goes to regular school

In both the examples above, this visual style is used when a character is telling a story, which is super cool.

But what IS Chinese shadow puppet theatre?

This technique was allegedly invented in China over 2000 years ago, roughly the last time a good Ice Age film was made LOL. Emperor Han Wudi was saddened at the death of his favourite concubine. To lift the emperor’s spirits, his wisest advisor put on a shadow puppet show where he conjured a shadow likeness of the deceased concubine, which the emperor found incredibly impressive.

But what IS Chinese shadow puppet theatre?

The process is so simple, only a hessian potato sack wearing village moron would be incapable of comprehending it.  A stage is laid out with a screen stretched across it. The puppets are made and then the projection person will shine their Samsung Galaxy S4 phone torch from behind the stage, casting the shadow onto the translucent screen

But what IS Chinese shadow puppet theatre?

Shadow puppet theatre took China by storm. It became a means of entertainment for the everyman to tell stories, which I really like! The simplicity of it made stories accessible to everyone.

I read this blog on the topic that told me that in the 21^st century, shadow puppet practitioners are “evaporating at an alarming rate”. I wouldn’t call it “alarming” exactly. If you haven’t hopped off the shadow puppet bandwagon by the 21^st century then you deserve to perish in the art world, you cultural dodo. You can do the same effect digitally now anyway.

Shadow puppet theatre started its decline in popularity in the late 1800s as China fell into a long series of battles about who would have political control of the country. And in 1949 when the Communist Party took power, the art form was majorly suppressed. Being such a media of the common man to tell stories, it had an unpopular reputation amongst politicians as being too radical. 

The common man shouldn’t be able to get their message across, was essentially the government's ethos, and shadow puppet theatre was a good way of doing that as it was affordable, easy and unifying. Better scrap it.

Then, in 1950, walkmans were invented and that totally buggered Chinese shadow puppet theatre’s popularity.

25 Second Animation - Opening Shots

I am pleased with my opening shots so far. Let me go over them in order:

I’m really pleased with my opening shot. I used Adobe After Effects for the 3D camera which makes the crossing signal in the foreground stand out. This way, it’s the focal point of the shot. The pan is pretty bog standard. Now I’m wondering, though, what was the purpose of the pan shot in the first place? Did I even need to put it in? On one hand, I guess it gives a sense of the world outside the frame, although one does not always need a pan to do this. It’s not like I’m tracking anything across the screen. Perhaps I was a little wasteful in the way I used the pan. The zoom, I would say, is necessary.

I'm struggling to find a good way to use the second shot. At first I used a zoom, but that led to the crossing signal being too close to the camera for when it cuts to the third shot, an extreme close up. I would like have the shot zoom in from further away, which is why I wish I had made the canvas larger than it needed to be so I'd have more room to play with this kind of thing.

I ended up removing the zoom altogether. There is no purpose to it.

I like the third shot. I’m pleased with the way the background becomes more muted and loses some colour contrast as it brings the focus entirely to the two crossing light characters. Also, using a slightly altered colour scheme helps to differentiate between the regular world and the world inside the brains of the crossing signal guys.

The hardest part about the dancing shots is making sure that the characters’ movements are clear. Since there are no overlapping lines, the silhouette of each character must convey their dancing. I can only draw really exaggerated motions and I’m slightly limited in the amount of moves I can animate. Nothing too complex. I’ll check out the dancing scene in “The Millionaire” for inspiration.

25 Second Animation - My Backgrounds

I am rather pleased with my backgrounds in the sense that they draw the eye to the right place on screen (I used some sneaky rule of thirds for help with that). They also have a good sense of liveliness. I say that meaning that the backgrounds look as if there is more to the scene beyond the realm of the camera lens. I know that sounds pretentious, but I worked rather hard on this scenery, agonising over colour palettes and gradients even though it'll all be pointless when I'm dead and the sun burns out.

At first, I set this at daytime with a big bright blue sky. I was one step away from adding a grinning cartoon sun with big sunglasses to the top corner.

I set it at evening time, however, because A) it means I have fewer people to animate because they don't hang out in the evenings so much, and B) the evening is a more specific time of day. It helps set the mood for when the crossing signal men start passionately dancing.

Also, making it evening time rather than having a generic blue sky helps to add another layer of relatable-ness for the audience WHICH INCREASES IMMERSION I GUESS.

A big problem when I designed these backgrounds was adding details to it. Even now I feel like there is more I could add, such as bumps on the road surface of general wear and tear to the buildings and pavements.

For the shots where the camera zooms in on the crossing signal characters, I added increasing levels of desaturation (or I guess you could say I removed the saturation if we wanted to avoid speaking in double negatives). I did this to put the focus even more on to the crossing signal men and draw the audience into their world. That way, when the camera cuts back to the confused man on the street and the colours return to being brighter, it gives that transition more impact.

The above background is my favourite. I like the distinct shading on the buildings and the muted colour scheme that doesn't distract. There's a slight amount of detail, but not too much.

25 Second Animation - Research into Backgrounds (OUAN405)

I've never animated with proper backgrounds before. They've either been very minimalist or just white, like my characters are floating in the aether of purgatory.

I was struggling with questions like "how much detail is appropriate?" and "how can I IMBUE this world with a sense of liveliness?" and "what shot framing should I use to draw the eye?"

But my most VITAL question was "how can I make these backgrounds not look gross?" One of my biggest fears EVER and one of the greatest issues mankind faces today is trying to understand how some backgrounds look less appealing than others. A great example of this is to compare "Finding Nemo" to "Shark Tale". Both are set in the ocean but one is far more pleasing to the eye.

The Finding Nemo scenery above is SO much nicer than the Shark Tale scenery below, which is important because it makes me happy to spend time in the world of Finding Nemo. The textures are well thought out and the colour scheme is exciting and full of life! The scenery in shark tale looks murky and uncomfortable. Even if the characters are supposed to be setting a funny mood, the backgrounds still make me feel sick to my core, which I assume isn't the tone the film is trying to accomplish.

Despite this, there are a gazillion animated films I can turn to for lessons on atmospheric backgrounds. The hard part, I suppose, isn't just in giving the establishing shots and scenic panoramas power. I have to learn to fill every single camera angle with personality and charm, no matter how small.

Kung Fu Panda does this really nicely. It showcases a large variety of environments and pays the same amount of respect to each of them, whether they're packed with props or quite stark and empty. If the shot is of something as ordinary as two characters talking in with the camera quite close up or as impressive as a grand mountainous landscape, a lot of thought has been put into the mood the scenery is trying to convey.

I think that the weather plays a really important part in what makes the film's sets so tactile and authentic. Kung Fu Panda really likes to accentuate the shadows cast by the setting sun or the mist that lets everything else blend into the background. This is important as it allows the audience to ascertain the time and what the temperature would probably be like, which makes the scene more relatable.

25 Second Animation - Animatic and Critical Feedback (OUAN405)

It was really handy to present my animatic and I'm pleased with the feedback I got. It gave me some lovely ideas and was even very flattering!

Here's an overview of the criticism I received. The animatic is well timed and the jokes fit well into the short time span. The soundscape is downplayed when it needs to be and energetic when it needs to be, which balances the tone well! The use of the faint traffic noises and the tweeting birds makes the world feel tactile and the ticking of the crossing signals turning on and off contrasts nicely with the loud jazz music to humorously show the different perspectives of the man on the street and the crossing signals dancing with each other.

I can work to improve the final shot. That's the one that needs the most attention. I will add an extra second of footage to allow more time to establish the wounded man crossing the street after he gets hit by the first car. That final gag feels a little rushed right now. I was told I could better draw attention to the waving green man at the distant set of crossing lights by playing with elements like a camera zoom or by focusing the camera on that section of the screen, blurring the foreground. I will also reposition that distant set of lights to coincide with the lines laid out by the golden ratio, as that is instinctively more attractive looking. I'm not so keen on using a zoom, though, because that would mean the camera would be much closer when the man gets hit by the car a second time. I think there's something inexplicably funnier about that collision when it's further away, especially since the first one was up close.

I was given some really nice ideas about character design. I was advised to go more exaggerated with my dancing crossing signals. For instance, they could reach out of the circles they occupy and pull into the frame some canes and top hats, an idea I really liked and definitely want to apply to my final product.  Environment design is also something I need to do more research into. Should I go very detailed with it? Should I make it quite stylised or abstract? 

"The Phantom Boy" had awesomely stylised environments

Shall I make the buildings less detailed and more loose-y goose-y as they fade into the background? That's what I'm thinking of doing, using lighter and lighter shades on different layers to convey a sense of the buildings fading into the background.

Life Drawing PART FOUR - Rhythm Is A Dancer

This was the hardest of all the life drawing tasks we were set. I absolutely see the point of it, which was to learn how to very quickly capture the essence of a pose. I would genuinely like to try more of this to improve at it because I think the idea is really cool! It's the principle of a long exposure photograph but if it were drawn.

In practice I fell behind on drawing the poses really quickly. Everything became a crazy crazy blur and I don't think that a good sense of rhythm had been established. What I need to work on most when doing something like this is my spacing. Either the figures were too close together and it became an incomprehensible mess, or I placed them too far apart and ended up drawing off the page before the sequence had been completed. Another thing about the spacing of the drawings is that they give an indication of the timing of the pose. If the drawings are too far apart, it's hard to see a sense of rhythm in the final sequence, whereas when the drawings are spaced perfectly they draw the eye along the sequence and the brain sort of fills in the in-between frames.

I enjoyed doing this as it could be quite cathartic, but I need to make sure that I can capture a strong shape in five seconds. The most important thing I could’ve remembered when I was drawing this was a line of action, but it slipped my mind.

Life Drawing PART THREE - Squash and Stretch (OUAN404)

Drawing squashed and stretched poses helped to solidify my understanding of one of the twelve principles of animation for the same reason that drawing pushing poses helped solidify my understanding of animation. I can apply what I've learnt to my cartoons, thus making them more dynamic and lifelike.

I drew these poses in five to ten minutes (not the jumping ones, the other ones). I like some aspects of them, such as the mark making which I think is nice and bold. I wish that I had taken some time to consider the emotion of the pose and tried to embody that through my drawing. I drew the poses and they look alright, but they are a little bland and stark. I wish I'd thought about why the characters are so stretched out or squashed in on themselves. Are they full of joy? Are they feeling particularly confident? Could I have exaggerated certain elements of the drawings to convey these emotions to the viewer? I guess I will never know.

This sort of ties in with the series of ten second drawings I did, where I had to sketch a lot of very dynamic poses in quick succession. I quite enjoyed this and found that since I didn't have the time to think too much about the pose, I immediately drew the figure very exaggeratedly to capture the general feel of the stance, though the drawings may not have been correctly proportioned.

Life Drawing PART TWO - Pushing and Pulling (OUAN404)

Looking at drawings that involve pushing and pulling specifically, it was beneficial to observe how the body applies force, how people plant their feet on the ground and what positions in which to push and pull feel the most comfortable.

Cartoons may look exaggerated, but they only work if the physics are grounded in reality. Momentum and the fact that with every action comes an equal and opposite reaction (nobody quote me on that) are important because otherwise the audience has no connection with the character and the impact of the slapstick comedy means nothing.

It's the application of the twelve principles of animation, like the squash and stretch and the ease in and out that make the contact of the frying pan with the head so powerful and cathartic.

Drawing from real models pushing and pulling helps me capture the sense of weight that goes into every interaction a character has with an object. For later drawings, I used my flatmate as a model who was wearing a big baggy coat. I wished that he hadn't been, because in this instance I would have liked to focus on the specific shape that the body itself makes when it is exerting force, then I could've added clothes around it if I were designing a character.

I'm pleased with the defined mark making in these drawings. Everything looks like the thing that it is meant to look like which is also good I suppose.

Life Drawing PART ONE - 30 Minute Sketches (OUAN404)

Life drawing was particularly peaceful and therapeutic. I am absolutely improving at getting a model's proportions right consistently which is great for my practice as a crucial part of animation is making sure that characters are drawn with exactly the same proportions on every frame.

For the longer studies of 20 to 30 minutes, I tried to push the boat out a little with my method of mark making. I started out using a 0.8 mm fineliner, but then I thought that the 0.8 nib was the nib of a coward, especially since I was drawing on A1 paper. I switched to a big black marker pen and was pleased with the distinct lines I was producing. The bolder lines communicated the image to the viewer far more clearly, which is something else I should consider when animating. No feathered lines or any of THAT craziness. Just bloody big, bold strokes that give my drawings LUSTRE.

I have also begun drawing the circles, lines and rhombuses that make up a figure, before filling them out. Before I would just start at the head and work my way down, but I've been considered character design recently which has led to this new approach. I'm improving at it and it is getting waaaay easier.

I have to work on my shading, though. I'm assuming that between now and my death I'm going to have to apply shading to clothing, so I would like to do some life drawing where I focus on what the figure is wearing and how it drapes.