Coraline

When it comes to the darker side of animation Coraline is one of my favourites. With it being directed by Henry Selick, director of Nightmare Before Christmas, there is definitely that same influence. What I enjoy most about this film is the combination of the magical and disturbing overview. Not only is it a very clever direction and a different approach to animation, I think the story is fascinating and I enjoyed ever minute of it. I am very keen on following this type of style for my final piece. I do believe that taking a more disturbing approach to animation (still at a PG standard) makes it more intriguing to watch. At the same time I do believe following a darker genre would be more difficult because to make a thriller work, it needs an excellent story, and with my final piece only lasting a few seconds, I need something short and sweet.

                           Spirited Away

When it comes to the work of Studio Ghibli there is no comparison. Not only are their anime feature films incredibly touching, the art is also unbelievable. Spirited Away was the first film to make me realise how amazing animation is.  Not only does the storyline go beyond a traditional start, middle, finish, as a viewer you also gain an attachment to the characters and really empathise with them. Myself, I would never try and follow the art of Manga, I believe it is popular due to a reason, that being the creators being the most incredible artists and animators in the world and I could not and would not want to interpret it, however I will always enjoy to watch it. 

                           Illustrations  

                                 'Alice in Wonderland'

Today we looked at illustrative art of Brothers Grimm's Tales. Above is an Alice in Wonderland illustration which I thought was very effective. From what has started off as a fascinating fairy tale can be interpreted in so many ways, and it is very interesting to view the many different opinions and views. Alice in Wonderland is one of my all time favourites. In terms of compositing it can be argued that there is a great variety of elements and images. There are so many parts to this story that make it a whole, for example the many characters and settings. This illustration has inspired me to go for something more artistic and quirky for my final piece. 

                           'Rhapsody in Blue' Fantasia 2000

In terms of compositing,  my opinion is that Fantasia 2000 is one of the most incredible and very effective films on the planet. Not only is the music amazing but each animation created for the music is fascinating and inspiring. My favourite being "Rhapsody in Blue'. The animation created for this powerful composition gives out one significant message amongst the lives of completely different people.
The story of this animation is based in New York in the 30's, presenting the life of four different people dreaming for a better life. The end of the animation presents the achievement of their dreams, inspiring us viewers to never give up.

Animating on After Effects 

Today we had the opportunity to try out animating on After Effects. The above photo shows the mannequin in which I animated. At the bottom left of the photo shows all of the layers needed in order to create movement. Once each feature of the mannequins body has been detached and made into a new layer on photoshop, and then opened up in After Effects the next step is to then parent each feature to its neighbour. The next step was to then rotate a body part from the pivot point and add new key frames. I chose to move the left leg back and forth to create a dancing movement.

I learnt a lot from this lesson, and really enjoyed bringing life to a plain image. I hope to learn more from After Effects and create something a lot more effective and fascinating to watch.

What is compositing? 

In the process of grasping the idea of compositing, we were introduced to After Effects. Above is an example of what we did in this session. First of all we were to think of two completely random words, where I came up with 'paper' and 'zoo'. The next step was to then type both words into youtube. For 'paper' the trailer to the film 'Paper Towns' came up, and for 'zoo' the trailer for the film 'Zoo' came up. The next step then was to open up After Effects were we opened both files for both videos where they then emerged into one video. We also sampled with brightness and transparency creating an effective looking video. 

The idea of this task was to understand the meaning of compositing, which is to create something e.g a video, or photo where it includes a variety of items and elements, this idea of layers and layers, to create an effective and protruding piece of art.

 composite

ˈkɒmpəzɪt/

verb

gerund or present participle: compositing

1. combine (two or more images) to make a single picture.

   "photographic compositing by computer"

PHOTOSHOP

Introduction to compositing:

To start off with the introduction to compositing we tested out photoshop by choosing an animal and a background. Here is my photo of a panda at a christmas market. This was my fist time using photoshop and I was very impressed with the outcome.

Step 1: Find the photos
Step 2: Cutting the background from the panda with the magic tool.
Step 3: Inverse the photo.
Step 4: On a new layer open the new chosen background.
Step 5: Copy and Paste the inverted photo to the new background.

LILY ALLEN ‘SOMEWHERE ONLY WE KNOW’

Lily Allen ‘Somewhere Only We Know’ Music Video Link

Here is a picture of the Bear and Hare in Lily Allen’s music video for the John Lewis 2013 Christmas advert; ‘Somewhere Only We Know’. This music video is one of my absolute favourites not only due to the storyline, but for the demonstration of how the advert was created. The music video presents the hard work that takes place in creating an animation, it also inspired me to become an animator myself.