27/01/15 Deserted Village

Lit from underneath

Lit from underneath

Lit from behind

Lit from behind

Lit from behind

John Keying out the Green screen

Layering masking tape

Layering animation Paper

Layering Tissue

Meeting : Deserted Village 27/01/15

Meeting 27/01/15 

John, Eoin, Clodagh, Ian *All Present*

Team Roles

As of the 27/01/2015 for the week.

John : Chairperson
Eoin : Devils Advocate
Clodagh : Designer/Presenter
Ian : Scribe

*Rough Discussion Dialogue*

E: Did you see the Hunter video?

J: No

C: No

*Shows video*

J: I really like the video, we could do something like those shadows and silhouettes, if we film using green-screen and invert it to black.

E: I don't get what frame size?

J: We should try green screen today

C: I can start the treatment file today

J: I like also what Ian was showing me.
E: Ties in with what we were saying earlier on in the project, (in relation to ghost like figures)

J: We can animate a bird traditionally and duplicate to make a whole flock.

E: If we are going to experiment today what are we going to do?

J: We should green screen a walk-cycle and put it in an enviroment.

E: Can we also look at shooting projected shadows?

J: Lets definitely experiment

C: Todays our last day free to experiment

E: Lets try to use all the things we have. We need to talk about the treatment file.

J: Do we have images for it?

I: Yes we should give them all to Clodagh

E: Style?

J: Shadow Shilloeuttes, altered by elongating in AE? or we can animate them using paper cut outs.

I: Paper joint puppets?

C: How about drawing mannequins

I: I used one is first year during the group project, I don't recommend it

E: Are they definitely going to be elongated?

J: Slenderman like.

E: We going to do it live action?

J: We should try it out.

I: We will give all images to Clodagh for the treatment file.

E: Dave said don't give a lot but give quality.

I: Ah grand so give the best.

E: What's our concept?

*We then talked about our concept in buzzwords*

 Remembering past, nostalgic, memories, sentimental. People are shadow memories of what they once were. We want to portray the people as the spirit of the village but they are only a memory of what once was. So we will portray them as shadow silhouetted figures.

E: Instead of using green screen would we be better off just trying to shoot shadows and on white projected from behind and then keying out the white?

I: It's be much the same as we will still be keying out, and it would be more difficult to key out the shadow and to cast the shadow to the right size.

J: Right we get to it so.



*Meeting Over*

Minutes

• Eoin must bring in minutes book tomorrow.
• Setup Google+ Group again as first group isn't working
• Film person on Green Screen today and turn it into a shilouette.
• We are going to experiment with projection.
• Give quality images to Clodagh
• Discussed Concept
• Shoot projected shadows

Deserted Village - Group Project 25/05/15

I'm in Group 1 with Eoin, Clodagh and John. This week I took the role of group leader and divided up the other roles to the group. Eoin was the Scribe, John was the designer/presenter and Clodagh was the researcher. The week went well, the group seems to be getting on and we are communicating amongst ourselves efficiently. Everyone seems to be happy for the moment.

 We had a workshop with Dave on PaperCraft on Thursday the 22/01/15.  Below are photographs of a rough experiment I made.

John was cutting away

Clodaghs Research 

 On Friday the 23/01/15 I did contextual research.

Eoin as our scribe wrote the following :

"Proposal: Our Initial proposal was to read stanza 1 and to see what interpretation each of us took from it.. To investigate the themes and tone of the poem. We are going to experiment with making 3D models, 3D set design and using stop motion to create our animation."

"Each member of the group researched the poem its context and what they felt were the themes running through the stanza. We met and were in agreement that the poem was a lament for not just the village but for the people that inhabited the village. the poet remembers how the villagers worked,played and interacted with each other. we discussed this idea of how he the poet is remembering how things were but are no longer…so we thought about maybe representing the people and their activities.. as perhaps ghost like or stripped back versions of themselves…as they no longer exist….only in memory thats what they have been reduced to…..our aim at this stage was to investigate the form that they may take……and what the environment they existed in was like…we thought the environment should be somewhat bleak,surreal or ethereal….we didn't want to tie ourselves down historically ..and wanted to create a more contemporary background.. we each chose different elements to research…the figures/characters/environment…etc...we timed a reading of the stanza which came to 2 min to 2 mins 30 secs. we broke the stanza down into visual components and separated out what we thought were moods/emotions/reflections from real physical objects. we were also in agreement that we should not try and represent word for visual each and everything mentioned in the poem..we wanted to represent more so the themes….we had identified which we felt were melancholy, sadness,loss, and memory."

"we found the famine sculptures by Rowan Gillespie in Dublin inspirational..we liked the way the human form was stretched and the figures elongated..the figures had ghost like qualities.. from another era or time forgotten..only existing in memory "

"we liked this idea that the figures/characters in stanza one had been eroded or forgotten…they only now existed in the memory of the poet "all these charms had fled" we discussed using stripped back/reduced characters in our piece as they had been reduced to mere memories..they were ghost like figurers inhabiting the landscape…eoin was to make a maquette with these elongated/stretched forms."

"experimenting w/paper as possible source for the backgrounds. we created from drawings paper cut outs of some of the environments that are suggested in stanza 1..then retraced these drawings and cut out three separate layers ..from different types of paper..offset them slightly…to see if it would make a 3d look..as an experiment..we also discussed about how if we chose to use this approach.. we could cut different amounts of paper from each layer and use lighting to reveal visuals through the layers…"

"we looked at the artist/sculptor Giacometti and the way he also stretched and pulled his figures…reducing his figures to the bare minimum…which we felt our characters in the stanza had been reduced to…the bare minimum…just a fading memory.."

Links of interest to our project

Motionpoems - 'Working Order' from Gentleman Scholar: http://ianbuckley.tumblr.com/post/108907607596/vimeo-does-anyone-have-any-idea-whatI'm a fan of how everything morphs into one another in a dream like fashion.

Animation - paper craft, by Hyundai card. : http://ianbuckley.tumblr.com/post/108907268196/animation-paper-craft-by-hyundai-card-i-like
I like 0:00 the way the paper uncrumbles itself, and I like 0:40 how the river was done.

http://ianbuckley.tumblr.com/post/108906723756/mayahan-rotating-miniature-worlds-silhouetted
Rotating Miniature Worlds Silhouetted Through Layers of Paper
Nermin Er,
360 degree environment is a nice effect, also i like how it is light from behind.

http://ianbuckley.tumblr.com/post/108906601731/paper-cuts-spoke-art
Hari & Deepti, I need to research this crowd more, they have some great work using light boxes to illuminate there scenes.

There's more on my tumblr so scroll through it. These are just the highlights.
 Tumblr : http://ianbuckley.tumblr.com/

Channel Branding : Syfy

Comparison : All You Zombies & Predestination

Today i will be comparing the short story All You Zombies (1960) by Robert A. Heinlein and the movie Predestination (2014) that was based on the short story. In the movie there is no snake (ouroboros) ring, like In the story, the bartender character wears a ring of a snake eating it’s own tail on his ring finger. In the short story Jane works as a family helper while attending the W.E.N.C.H.E.S. school at night. In the movie it is only after she has been kicked out of space academy that she becomes a family helper and goes to etiquette classes at night. In the short story Jane got kicked out of W.E.N.C.H.E.S. for being pregnant, whereas in the movie she thinks she got kicked out from fighting, however it is because she is a hermaphrodite. The short story benefits from the viewer having to form their ideas of the characters. The movie does not have this privilege. Both In the movie and book, the narrator John is explaining that she was not an attractive woman, in the movie this doesn't work to well as the camera is aimed at the attractive actress playing Jane. Another interesting difference between the movie and the short story was the decision to burn johns face off in the movie so that he would look different later on in life. The short story doesn't need to do this as it benefits from the viewer having to imagine the characters. It was necessary for the movie to come up with a way for the audience to not know that the bartender was just an older version of John. Different again was the introduction of the story line of the fizzle bomber, in the movie he was given more emphasis and ties into the story nicely, whereas in the books he is only mentioned.  He is becomes johns purpose in life, that meaning John exists to stop him. Later on we are revealed the the fizzle bomber is John himself. John confronted with his older self kills his future self ending the chain of life and birth that started with him and ended with him.

It’s great that in to movie we get more of an insight into the date between John and Jane. In the Short story the bartender blatantly draws attention to the song playing on the jukebox, the song being played is “I’m my own grand pa”. In the movie it’s much more subtle the other bartender tell the guy to turn it off and he say let him play it. The time machine in the short story is a case with a net attached to it. In the movie it’s just a violin case. When reading the short story the pace of the story is much quicker. 

Traditional Animation