Idea 3

So for this idea I was inspired by the short we used in the visual analysis, The Dog who was a Cat inside, what I was thinking is that you could do this with a robot and a man.

And then the narrative could revolve around this unlikely friendship.

However I felt that this idea, although relates to the essay and the visual analysis and I could make it link to the written text piece by having the characters be blase. The man could be addicted to creating little wooden sculptures and this over stimulates him till he needs to do it all the time and the robot could have to have an intervention for him before he stops reacting to everything around him and wasting his life and then they could skip off into a forest in the sunset with all the whittled forest creatures dancing in the sunlight behind them as they leave.

But on second thoughts, I think this idea is too similar to the cat and the dog, which is why i didn't spend a lot of time illustrating it because I knew it's not unique enough. So I thought of way to develop the idea further, by having just the robot character, but instead of having an inner personality he could be made of wood and every now and again in the narrative you could be able to see the inner workings all the mechanical details. But at the same time you could have a craftsman as his maker and he whittles the other creatures too but the robot one is the only one that comes alive and saves him, and this magical technologically advanced character could make his life all worth while. I think if I was to do this it would be a long story, and I'd rather work out the details and do a good story board rather than animation.

I started off developing this idea by drawing sketches of robots.

I'm not sure if any of these will stick as they all have flaws, but I think they will merge well into one good design if I choose all the best qualities.

I said in Idea 1 I would experiment with the parallax background and a walk cycle, merging this character with the passage of time really emphasises the points of hybridity in the essay. But because I already know how to do this, I think it would be a waste of my time, when the idea I've had for a narrative is quite long, I think I'd rather push that further. If i was to do this test, I know what I'd say, I wouldn't be happy with the background, because there wouldn't be enough detail in it, and I think it would take more time than its worth to develop this. However if I was to, I already know how to develop it further and push more out the idea to make it a longer a worthy animation. I would make the character interact with the surroundings as it gradually becomes more futuristic, representing how technology has developed more and more people(studios) have embraced this and have created animations with hybrid techniques.

I also thought about merging this idea with idea 2 because I could do a test with a live action background to get to know the character better before doing the storyboard. I started this idea because I was really excited for it, I took photo's of my terrarium in RAW and was going to do a 2D animation on top with the robot watering the cactus, but when i got the imagery into the scene, I just didn't know where to start.

I don't want to force it. I'm just not in the mood, so I'm going to go with my gut instinct and follow the narrative. I think that's my strongest skill is coming up with stories, and I really enjoy storyboarding and I'm not feeling inspired and I think that this module is all about how we interpret concepts, so the concept of the animation is okay with me.

Idea 2

For this second idea, I looked into the hybridity of animation and film. The congress is an example of 2D animation combined with film, I don't think this is as directly related to my essay though, because the 2D animation is primarily computer generated, it's not classic traditional techniques, so I looked into other types of live action combined with animation.

Rob 'n' Ron is one that my blog has covered before as inspiration, but the combination of 3D CG (Maya to be precise) use of character animation with homemade sets, mean that there is a craft in the sets, so I feel this may be more prevalent to this module. However realistically it is a lot of work for this module. But it is definitely something I would like to try.



Rob 'n' Ron - Making of from Tumblehead on Vimeo.


This advert for a festival combines, live action, stop motion and 2D animation and it's so beautifully done. I think this would be something achievable in the time frame, but I'd need a good narrative so I think this idea would be a good one to merge at this stage with a narrative. To develop this further I'd need to work on that.


 
Dockville Trailer 2011 from robert loebel on Vimeo.

Idea 1

For each of my idea's I have considered the use of both traditional and digital hybrids.

So for my first idea, I wanted to think of something really simple yet effective to do within the timescale we have for this module.

I discovered Walt Disney's Multiplane camera which involves using painted backgrounds on big sheets of glass and they winch them left and right at different speeds on several layers. This invention led to major development in animation terms and now a days we can recreate that quite simply with 3D layers in after effects.



So this one is from a tutorial we had in applied animation which shows how we could add depth to a scene by separating an image on photoshop through layers and being able to move sideways and in and out of the scene effectively.

My attempt with the example layers:

[INSERT MY ATTEMPT HERE]


Common uses in industry include in the sky movies pack advert, where it goes from a snowy scene to the western genre to a scifi scene and ends on a waterfall.


I then looked into another way of doing a parallax background because I thought I could merge it with a traditionally drawn walk cycle, like the character is walking into the future of animation techniques with this hybridity.





So to develop this idea, I think I'd the character from Idea 3 traditionally drawn and I'd develop the background to show the passage of time.


NB: Here is another example of parallax if I was more into illustration I could explore and show the development of time and technology in a massive image that zooms in.

http://www.creativebloq.com/web-design/parallax-scrolling-1131762

Initial Response

For the practical aspect of this project, I have initially had four trains of thought on what to produce. So in the next few posts I shall explore each of them.