Project Dance LAVS

Today we spent most of the afternoon recording LAVS (live action videos) for reference for Project Dance. Lets just say we all had fun recording ourselves, acting out the scenes so we can use them as references for pre-production and production. These will be the shots I have chosen to animate for this project.

The first shot I will be animating on is the slap scene.

The second shot is the dance scene.

I am very excited and nervous about animating the dance scene. The reason for this is because I have never animated two characters dancing. Even though the pace of the dance is slow, it will still be a challenge in which I am looking forward to.

Cat Chase Pre-Production Animatic

Today I managed to get some animatics done for some of the shots. These are only really, really rough ones as my drawing skills are still in need of improving big time.

Well we have scene from shot_04

Scene from shot_02

Scene from shot_01 Cat run cycle

Scene from shot_01 policeman run cycle

These animatics have been very roughly drawn to get the idea of how the characters in the scene will roughly look like, animation wise. I have also been given the production schedule for this project and I will try and see if it will fit nicely into my schedule. That there are no collisions with my other projects that I have going on. 

Cat Chase Pre-Production Research

Just an update from my last post for the Cat Chase Project. Today I have only collected research and I have yet to start doing rough animatics for my shots. But here are some of the research that I have collected for me to use in my pre-production and in my production stage.

Here are some internet images of cats in various jumping poses and angles. This will help be get a better understanding of how their body is positioned and structured when producing sketches and animatic for my shots. As well helpful when it comes to the production stage.

As well as collecting images I have also found videos from Youtube that will help me reference wise with Shot_04.

The drifting of the cats will help me get an idea on how they turn corners when they are running. Also the way the cats turn and are sliding across the floor gives it that cartoon look and style which is very helpful reference. Here are more videos that will also be helpful.

The next blog update for this project I should have by then a few rough animatics to show.

Cat Chase Project Director's Animatic

Today I have received the first rough animatic for one of the two collaboration projects that I will be working on throughout my 3rd year final major project. This project is called Cat Chase Project. I will be an animator on this project and will have 3 shots to animate. Here is the animatic for the Cat Chase piece;

I will be working with a small team who are mainly 3rd years that who are my course friends and know very well, We have 

• Alistair Hopkins - Director/Animator
• Natalie Knight - Generalist
• John Benson - Generalist
• Julia Britton - Artist
• Me - Animator

In this project I will be animating these 3 shots shown below;

Shot_01

Shot_02

Shot_04

These are the shots that I have chosen to animate on and I am looking forward to start animating on this project. The style of animation for this project is about it being cartoon style. More exaggerated and stretch poses/animation, it'll be the first time I'll be animating in a cartoon style so hopefully it'll go well.

Now I will go away and start my pre-production for this project by doing some research and some sketches and animatics for my shots. The next update for this project will hopefully have all the research/sketches/animatics ready to show.

Project Dance Director's Animatic (rough)

Today I received an update on the Dance Project. Josh has uploaded a really rough animatic of the animated short he is directing. He has suggested to the team that we watch the rough animatic a few times and pencil down what scenes you would like to animate. The team at the moment consists of;

• Josh Doyle - Director/Animator/Rigger
• Natalie Knight - Animator
• Charlotte Mosey - Animator
• Me - Animator
• Louis Browning - Artist

After watching the animatic a few times to get the story and feel for it, I am interested in animating a few shots in this project. So I will write those shots down and take it with me to the next meeting we have to discuss the shots.

Here is the rough animatic for Project Dance.

Finally, the start of Final Major Project

First post wooohoo! Finally onto my final major project of my final year of uni. In the past 2 weeks I have been collecting research for my pre-production for four of the projects I have chosen. More to follow in the next couple of days.

Pre-Meeting for Project Dance

Today me and Josh had a short meeting about him directing an animated short film about dance. We discussed what animated shorts that are already out there that might have a similar gag or storyline to project dance. We searched through Youtube and found an animated short that is similar in a story wise. It is Pixar Studios One Man Band

We also had a copy of the project schedule showing us the dates of when each project will start in our third year. We decided to roughly pencil in what work would be be scheduled in on certain weeks. Here is the scan of the document.