I'm currently a second year Illustration student at The Arts University College at Bournemouth (UK), and this is a blog of my work, thoughts and doodles for the 'Convergence/Divergence' unit.
Sam Grogan.
Other pages:
www.gniniar.wordpress.com
www.3182001.tumblr.com
www.inochi-zero.deviantart.com
Parrots
Illustration of a ‘Aeronautical Parrot’*… in response to a University brief. Drawn by myself in Photoshop.
*I couldn’t resist adding goggles; it seemed like an appropriate addition to the parrots ‘wardrobe’, considering they are aeronautical animals after all.
Final Animation!
Here is the final animation for my university project, based on Convergence/Divergence.
It is a short narrative animation, focusing on the childhood of a young boy, the unknown reasons for his fathers callous actions, and the evolution of a family dream.
It is an original concept, with design and animation done by myself in Adobe Photoshop.
There is also some post production done in After Effects, with help from my housemate Phil Andrews. The musical score was composed and recorded for the animation by Stuart Blakeledge. I give my thanks to both of these people for their contributions to this project.
Enjoy!
I looked up what sort of film silent movies would’ve been filmed on, as I wanted to add a ‘projector’ click to the animation, which I wanted to be as authentic as possible. The most common film for motion pictures during the decade was 35mm Film, so taking in this information I was on to projectors, and the type often used during the 1920s.
From this I knew what sort of sound I should look for, so after talking to my friends on the film courses about foley art, and a search on Google for projector noise I was led to a site called Sound Dogs. I found quite a nice sound for the projector, which is free to download/use for non-comercial use, which can be found here.Soft focus Aesthetic
Some examples of Victorian portraits with ‘soft focus’, and some screenshots of the animation with soft focus applied.
In photography soft focus is where the lens creates a aberration that give the image a blurred look, whilst still retaining the sharp edges; however, it is not the same as an an non-focused image.
It is technically a flaw in the lens, and many older lenses suffered from this, which is why a lot of early photographs and films are slightly blurred (as well as degradation over time).
I wanted the animation to have a soft cinema blur look to it so that it fitted more with the distressed look, and luckily there was an option to add cinema blur within After Effects’ Tinderbox plug-in. I think it suits the aesthetic a lot more with the addition of the blur, as it looks in place with the noise, grain and hair flickering on the screen.
Icarys MkIII - by Stuart Blakeledge
I had some trouble syncing up the music to the animation after I redid the titles, which was something entirely my fault as I should have communicated better with Stuart over the music. I managed to re sync the music to an acceptable state by making some adjustments to the timing of the animation, but he offered to re-score it if he had time.
I am very very thankful to him for doing this for me, as I already feel like he’s gone out of his way to score the animation to start with, and I feel like I’m being a pain considering it was me who synced the music incorrectly!
Anyway, I am very grateful to Stuart who has now provided me with a newly revamped score for the animation, based on the adjustments I had made to the visuals.
I am now pleased to say the animation is complete!
Pairbond - BioShock 2 Theme by Garry Schyman.
I had some sort of idea for what kind of sound I wanted in the animation, as I knew I wanted the sound to be quite ambient, as well as have a sort of ‘vintage’ sound to fit with the silent movie/film noir aesthetic. I also wanted it to be quite moody, as well as creepy; something along the lines of Garry Schyman’s work for the Bioshock games. Other than this I had no idea, so I wanted to get the animation done so I could hand it over to Stuart Blakeledge as far as musical composition went - as he knows best!
I also knew that I didn’t want any voices in the animation, for a lot of reasons. I don’t think they would have really suited the animation or added anything to it, and to get a good voice actor would have been quite difficult given the time span. It would have also bought about a lot of complex issues such as recording, and getting the right voice and mood. On top of this it wouldn’t have fitted with the silent movie look to have sound, and I wanted to include the use of the title cards.
I think the one main reason I didn’t want to include voices however, is that I am unconfident in my writing; and to have effectively written a ‘script’ is something that is very daunting to me. An actor can get away with saying things in a tone that doesn’t quite fit, but if the writing is bad it really stands out.
One of the only things I wasn’t sure on was wether to include foley art or not. I didn’t want to originally as I wanted it to be a ‘silent’ movie - and therefore there would have been no pre-recorded sound synced to it. It came up in the crit though and I felt like I should do some, such as creaks when the door opens or sound effects of the steam hissing.
After the animation was finished however, I played it back and the story comes across fine (to me, at least), and I asked my housemates/friends what they thought of it, and whether or not it needed the extra sound effects. They agreed with me in that it didn’t, as it wouldn’t have made sense with the title cards.
Also, once the powerful musical score Stuart created was added, there was a whole new level to the animation, and it tied it all together nicely without the need for additional sound effects or narration.
After Effects - Tinderbox3
The Foundry’s software has been used in a lot of blockbuster films, such as Iron Man 2 and Tron Legacy, as well as a lot of commercials.
Tinderbox has an amazingly professional looking plug-in, eloquently called ‘Old Film’. After creating my badly made filters in photoshop, my housemate Phil Andrews introduced me to the Tinderbox plug-in and I knew that I wanted to use it when the animation was complete!
With Phil’s help in After Effects, I now have a lovely filter over my animation, as well as a vignette to hide and soften the edges of the animation. I’m really happy with how it came out and with the music I think it’s the ‘sprinkles on the cake’. I think the filter really suits the animation, and the slight tone and blur it gives it really synchronises all of the different scenes together with the title cards, which to me looked a bit out of place and stark compared to the rest of the animation.
Some examples of Tinderbox3’s ‘Old Film’ filter on my animation!
Border Designs
I also wasn’t happy with the borders in my animation - I felt they could be a lot more inventive than just a white line. I went back to the Title card screen to try and give the border a look of grandeur, and here are a few examples of the process and alterations I made.
I quite like the deco look/design on the corners, and also the nouveau pattern - but I think including both of these on every panel would be a bit excessive. I am therefore going to add them into the ‘titles’ such as Act 1, but not onto the normal dialog scenes.
