Rather Grim Productions

11 Second Club.

2011-03-24T22:02:00.001+11:00

Okay, well I haven't made any posts in quite some time now, though I decided to get back to posting more often, so I can see how far I come, in hopes of helping people by giving them information, and also to meet like minded people, as I live in a small town, not knowing anyone else who is interested in animation!

Anyway, to today's topic. The 11 Second Club. It is a monthly competition where you are given 11 seconds of audio, which you can not edit or add to, and you are to animate what ever you want, to accompany the audio. It focuses on character animation (character emotion, fluid movement, etc). It's quite good for working on your skills at creativity and animation.

I have entered this competition several times before, doing, to be perfectly honest, horrendously! Although, I don't do it in hopes of winning. When entering this competition one must keep in mind, you are facing off seasoned professionals, some of whom have been in the industry upwards (and at times over) of half my current life span!

Instead I do this competition in hopes of bettering my ability. Which I most certainly have. The first time I entered it, not knowing what the competition was about exactly, I spent about half the time on colours, and background, and reused my animations quite a bit. I got around about 120th out of 150. Later realizing that the competition really doesn't care for how pretty the colours or background is, there interested in emotion, and realistic portrayal of how the character would move and act, according to the audio. It's kind of like an acting gig, for your animation.

Since this first time, I had been a little disheartened, and thus it took my several months to apply again. I have now entered it 3 more times. All of which came in around about 100th-120th out of 150. The people rating generally favor 3d animation, so 2d animation needs to be particularly good to get a good rating.

This is my latest entrance, for the March competition, which will be judged in approximately 1 week from now. I am hoping this will have more luck than my last entrances, but if not, at least I learnt quite a bit while making it! :)

http://www.11secondclub.com/

Tim Burton Exhibition - Part II

2010-07-18T18:23:00.000+10:00

Absolutely fantastic! Pretty much summarizes my thought on the exhibition!

I got what I was hoping for, and then some! Seeing the long line, and waiting in it for over half an hour, let me assume it would have to be fairly good.

The exhibition was massive, and the curator and Mr. Burton did a fantastic job, creating a very flowing feel for the exhibition. Taking us from his early years, before he had found himself artistically. Through his time at CalArts, seeing some FANTASTIC animation he himself made. You are able to see his styles developing, slowly as he goes. Props and sketches from movies. Things he himself made, as well as ideas that professionals have worked onto of his. Up to some things which haven't even hit cinema's yet!

Now, I'm no Burton fan boy, although some of my posting would make it seem that way. I just believe he has done some very commendable work, pushing barriers not many have tried to. Although he has had some doozey's, which are not so great, admittedly.

But this exhibition was really great! Showing some great artwork. Taking you on a walking journey through a life time thus far of a great artist of our time, via an exhibition which in it's self was very magical!

Tim Burton Exhibition - Part I

2010-07-07T13:28:00.000+10:00

Tomorrow I will be going to the Tim Burton Exhibit, in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. And to be perfectly honest, I have no idea what it's about!

Generally, I prefer not reading movie reviews, or seeing trailers before seeing the movie. These days we're so flooded with whats going to happen in the movie, you pretty much know the ending before you've seen it. Which personally I don't like.

So I decided to not do any reading up on the exhibition, and allow it to be a surprise. So, at the moment, I have no idea what to expect! As a to-be animator, as well as in particular a fan of Burton's conceptual art, I am hoping the exhibit will include some!

If they allow it, I will take some pictures, and include them in a post summarizing my thoughts on the exhibition; in the coming days!

Vincent

2010-05-31T23:23:00.003+10:00

The short film, simply named Vincent; was one of Tim Burton's first artistic pieces which really allowed him to show who he was, and some of the fantastic things to come.

After graduating from the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in 1979, Tim went on to work as an concept artist for Walt Disney Animation Studios. Although, due to different styles, and not liking the structure of sitting drawing all day, he quite quickly found that this was not the right place for him.

Ready to leave, he was given the chance by Disney to develop an adaption of a poem he had previously written, called Vincent; into a short film. The film is a stop-motion animation, shot in black and white, depicting a young boy who fantasizes he is Vincent Price.

The short film was inspired by Vincent Price and Edgar Allan Poe films. It has resemblance to Dr Seuss, with it's poem style story telling. As well as 1920's silent films.

Tim's style, ideas, and thoughts are made quite evident in this 6 minute short, and shows a lot of what was to come!

Take Me On!

2010-05-28T17:26:00.007+10:00

Recently my partner and I were talking, and by chance the fantastic 80's song Take Me On, by A-Ha came up in conversation. Revisiting the video, I thought it would be a great chance to talk about this fantastic piece!

Take Me On was a fantastically 80's song by band A-Ha. It secretes the 80's at every turn, from their clothes, the gorgeous; yet very 80's drawing style, heavy synthesizer use, and the fact that 90% of both the males and females have hair that sticks half a foot above their head. But, not only is it a fantastic 80's song, it is also a very memorable and fantastically ground breaking video for the time.

What a magnificent piece of animation! It uses a style called rotoscoping, where they overlay film with drawn animation (in this instance, although you can also overlay film with film, to superimpose objects) frame by frame to create motion. It was animated by CalArts graduate Michael Patterson and his wife Candace Reckinger.

Rotoscoping was also used in films such as Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

This music video was parodied by Family Guy, and South Park, to name a few. The Family Guy parody being particularly memorable, as it is quite obvious they put a lot of time into this 50 second sketch, as it's style is almost indistinguishable from the real video.

This is a very small attempt I made of rotoscoping, earlier this year.

Flash CS5 - Animation Users!

2010-05-27T00:27:00.000+10:00

Flash seems to be shying away from the animation user crowd, with its new Flash CS5, leaving quite a bit to be desired. Although if you use Flash for web authoring, I'm sure you will find it to be incredibly useful.

At $699 US ($850 AUD), we (animating users) get:

Improved Inverse Kinematics. With the ability to constrain the join points in the bone structure. As well as being able to create a 'spring' type effect, causing the object to sway around, as though it were a spring. The spring effect was very welcomed, though the constraining tool really should have been included in the first Inverse Kinematics, which first appeared in Flash CS4, although once again, a welcomed addition to the tools for fellow animators.
"Semi-scripted animation for rain etc. that uses tween instances" - Well, we already have this, although it's fully scripted, you'd really have to use it yourself, to be able to access whether this would be useful or not. Either way, we can hope, and and presumably assume that with this it would be easier and faster. Also welcomed, but nothing to amazing.
"Random animation: random ease and brownian/organic movement" - Circumstantially useful.
"Movie Clip buttons" - Seems more useful for web authoring, though worth mentioning.

And that's about it for us. A little there. Though not enough to get overly excited about.

Toonboom seems to be quite quickly stealing away a few of the animation users of Flash, like Chris Georgenes and Adam Phillips, to name a few (high profile) Flash users. Toonboom has been around for a number of years in the form of other programs, which they then bought and incorporate into their program, and recently had the spotlight shone it's way, with it being used on shows/movies such as the children's cartoon Chowder (personally I really enjoy this show), and movies such as The Simpsons movie.

And, unlike Flash, they are renown to listening to users, admittedly to more high profile users. Though, I was quite surprised, when I had commented on one of their videos, blabbering on about how Flash seems to be loosing their animation market, to have a representative for Toonboom actually reply to my comment. To think they actually have people to monitor their Youtube comments, and take the time to reply to blabbering comments such as my own, goes to show a lot about a company! But, Toonboom is destined for it's own post, another time!

Conclusion: If your a web author, you will find Flash CS5 to have many welcome changes, making creating web content much easier, and fun! Though, if like me, you were hoping for improvements on the animation side of this program, you may find it falls short, and like me, may be thinking of finding another program, which focuses on animation alone to fulfill your needs!

-Grim

Drawing Continuously

2010-05-24T13:07:00.005+10:00

"Do not fail, as you go on, to draw something every day, for no matter how little it is, it will be well worthwhile, and it will do you a world of good." ~ Cennino Cennini.

This quote, by 14th Century Italian painter Cennino Cennini, could not be more true.

The past few years I have been drawing less and less. To the point, that while in High School, I would only draw when I had to for an assignment. And the year following High School, I almost didn't draw at all ...

This may be somewhat due to the fact I did a lot of art on the computer, and drawing with a mouse does not in anyway replace drawing with a pencil.

I used to think that drawing well was an acquired skill, as in, once you know how draw, you will always be able to draw at that same level, but have now found this to certainly not be true. I have now noticed how much this has affected my drawing, my understanding of shapes, and ability to correctly render what I see, be it in my mind or visually in front of me.

Although, this year I have decided that I will continue drawing, as often as I can, a belated new years resolution, of sorts . This is much easier now that I have my Wacom Intuos 4, a drawing pad for my computer, so I can draw; directly in to the PC. Already I have noticed a large improvement in my drawing, in the past few months, but understand I still have a way to go.

I thought I may as well take this chance to post a little work I've done for the animation I had said I was working on, previously.

Here's the sketch:

After a bit more developing:

First Post

2010-05-23T20:51:00.007+10:00

Hello! Well, I suppose I should use this first post to introduce myself, to anyone who happens to come upon this blog, by mistake or otherwise!

Ever since I was 8 years of age, I have had my mind set on what career I wanted to pursue! Either an animator ... or a baseball player. Although I quite quickly found out that sport wasn't really my forte, so I decided upon being an animator, and haven't looked back since!

In primary school, I spent many many hours, at a desk, drawing with my two friends, who were twins. We'd draw everything from animals, to Disney characters.

In years 9 and 10, where I was lucky enough to have animation taught as a class in High School. I excelled in every assignment, getting the highest marks for the class (perhaps, because most people saw the class as a chance to sit at a computer, talk, and not do a whole lot of work?).

In year 12, I won a statewide Animation Competition held by Monash University Caulfield; for High School students. Which, at the time was the most prestigious competition I could enter, considering my age and experience.

Now, a little over a year after having completed High School, I have been using this time to save for money to move to Melbourne, practice the art of animation, and discovered the course I want to enter at University, being Animation and Interactive Media, at RMIT in Melbourne.

In the mean time, I'm spending my spare time learning what I can about animation to help my chances of gaining a spot in the course. While doing so, I thought why not try creating a film for Tropfest (an Australian short film festival, as well as the largest short film festival in the world). Sort of, hit 2 birds with one stone. Although I'm not overly confident I will complete an animation in time for this, and doubt I would come anywhere near close to winning anything, if my ideas come quick enough, and I'm able to complete it in time, it would be fantastic!

Anyway, there's all the boring parts out of the way. This blog will be used for me to vent some ideas, news relating to animation, as well as trials and tribulations I come against while trying to make myself in a career as an animator!