Now that the room is coming together and most of the rotoscoping is done, it's time to start experimenting with visualising the music like I did in the animatic. Here are a few things I came up with.
White and Black
Black and White
Strobe
On this one I decided to try alternating between black and white to see what it looked like. It creates an interesting strobe kind of effect that could possibly help to make some parts stand out.
After taking measurements of the objects, I made templates for each of them in Illustrator and began trying to assemble them in After Effects.
When I made the first templates, I was converting Feet and Inches to pixels, which didn't work out accurately because of there being 12" to 1ft instead of 10. Either way the first one wasn't too far off in terms of proportions. I managed to comp some of the rotoscope footage I've completed so far into this test to have a rough go at the beginning of the animation.
After finishing this test I decided to have a go at reworking the measurements on the templates. This time I converted them from Feet & Inches to centimeters and adjusted the templates to have 1 pixel for each centimeter, this gave more accurate proportions. Once all templates are finalized I will scale up the artwork to around about double the size needed so that when I import them into AE and scale down by half, it will create a super-sampling effect meaning minimal pixelation! The downside to this is that using such high resolution images can be very demanding in terms of computing resources but I shouldn't have any problems there.
Here's an example of the templates I created in order to make the 3D room:
Here are some measurements I took of the objects I want to include in my After Effects room to aid the building process of their digital counterparts. I did this mainly to ensure the proportions are roughly correct so that the rotoscope animation roughly matches the perspective of the room and therefore works well when composited.
Now that I'm confident I can create the rotoscope sections I thought I better do some experiments in After Effects to make sure I can create the 3D room. To save time I created the surfaces in Illustrator, keeping everything flat for now just to keep things simple. I layed it out like a box net:
Firstly I tried importing the Illustrator layers directly into After Effects but for some reason the layers don't display in the renders. At first I thought it was an issue with the 3D rendering engine in AE but after some testing I noticed it was only affecting the Illustrator layers. I then tried exporting each layer separately as jpegs and tried making the room again, this time it rendered fine. One noteable thing about this method is that high resolution (at least 4k) images are needed to avoid pixelation. The following video is a spin showing the basic set up with two lights. It works mostly as I imagined. Once I create the individual objects to go within the 'room' I think it will look much better. There will be more depth and the objects will also cast shadows making it all look much more convincing.
I then imported my rotoscope test into the composition and aligned it within the view of the camera, I'm pretty happy with the results of this:
When I create the final room with proper proportions, alignment, colour and possibly texture, the combination of these two techniques will look quite visually pleasing.
So now that I know what I'm doing and how it's time to start some technical experiments/practices. I recorded some footage from a first person perspective and I have to say this was harder than I imagined. It was very difficult to get the motion I wanted with the correct timing for the song.
After a few takes I went through them and trimmed down a take that I thought would work. One thing I have to note with this first attempt is that the footage I recorded is awfully noisy, this could simply be down to low light in my room in which case I'll redo it when there is daylight available through my window. Other causes could be the 10-20mm lens I was using or perhaps the settings. I will attempt more footage tomorrow during the brightest point and I will also use the kit lens to see if that's any better. Here's what I came up with from this footage:
To composite this animation with the 3D room in After Effects, I will need to export with the Alpha channel selected meaning I need to block the colour in for the hand. In order to do this I need to make sure I'm connecting the lines whilst drawing out the frames because it's a huge hassle to go back and fill in the gaps on each frame so that the paint bucket tool can be used. I think that this actually looks quite good as it is so I think this is pretty close to how the rotoscoping will look in the final animation.
As I've been developing these ideas I've had a general idea of the treatment I want to use but I now need to plan how I'm going to do each section.
The Room:
First of all, to create the room in which this animation is based I'm going to draw out the surfaces of the objects I want to include. I'll then scan and import these into After Effects, laying the surfaces out as 3D layers so I can essentially create a 3D room from 2D images. I feel that this will lessen the workload needed to create the background and allow for some interesting camera movements. (Mainly the pan around the speaker).
Another method I considered for this was to create a panoramic image of the room and use the environment feature in Adobe CS6 but this would limit the camera to one stationary position within the scene.
Here is the tutorial I watched whilst considering it:
As I've said in other posts I've been feeling quite inspired by the rotoscoping technique, particularly the style in Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly. My plan is to record video references from the various angle shown in the animatic so I can use this footage to animate the hand for the cough, the arm for the finger pointing, the close up of guitar playing, character standing up and walking to the window and finally the dialogue "Hey man it's raining".
This animation will be exported from Flash using the Alpha channel to allow the animation to be composited in After Effects with my 3D room. I think that this will create quite an interesting effect that bares some reference to the Waking Life style.
The idea is that using first person perspective and rotoscoped arms will create an immersive effect on the viewer making them feel as though they're watching from within the animation almost as if it's their own experience/dream.
Sound Visualisation:
I plan to do the sound visualisation in Flash in a similar way to how I did it in the animatic. I will most likely create an alpha map from this animation and use it to animate the colours within the shapes. I would rather paint each frame but it would be far too time consuming.
I decided to create my animatic in Flash using a graphics tablet as I find it's too difficult to plan out when drawing on paper. Here I was able to plan out my camera shots, character movements and audio visualisations.
I've decided to go with the 'Rainy Day' idea because it's one I keep going back to and it inspires me much more than the others songs/ideas I proposed. I drew up a rough storyboard of how I imagine this to play through but some aspects may have to be changed slightly depending on how well my planned treatment/process works for this animation. I've planned for the first 40 seconds (up to "Hey man it's raining) as a minimum length but I'd like to complete more if I can.
This animation looks to have been drawn frame by frame in with 2D animation software and I think this is a great way to create this type of animation but it can be extremely time consuming.
Another method of animating to sound/music would be to create the graphics in CAD software such as Adobe Illustrator and then mask these graphics in Adobe After Effects to create the impression of movement.
A group that have recently made use of music-syncopated animation for their music videos is the Arctic Monkeys. This video begins using a line like you'd see on a heart rate monitor, it eventually develops into other shapes that morph into each other. This work reminds me of Anthony Schepperd's animation style except much simpler.
I recently came across the work of Anthony F Schepperd and have found his style to be quite inspiring. His work is detached from the rigid confines of reality but retains enough just enough reality to maintain an interesting balance. Much of the animation is in time with the music which gives the visuals an immersive and powerful impact. The vibrant colours, shape morphing, distortion and bizarre visuals conjure thoughts of psychedelic/hallucinogenic experiences. This particular animation was created for Blockhead for their song The Music Scene. This shows there's a commercial viability for developmental animation such as this.
I began looking for inspiration for the visualisation of sounds in my animation and came across this animation.
The sequence from 2:00 - 2:15 is almost exactly what I was imagining for my animation. The use of vibrant colours and fluid shapes against a black background moving in time to the music works very well to create an interesting dynamic visual experience. I think that this could be used very effectively in my animation.
More inspriation came to me from Disney's Ratatouille. The film touches on the concept of Synaethesia with the visualisation of taste. Here is a compilation of the artist's work for this movie:
Here's how these animated vignette's were incorporated into the film. I really like how the background fades to black creating a sense of inner thought as though you're now inside the character's head:
After watching Waking Life I felt quite disturbed and provoked in a strange way and it's not a feeling you normally get when you watch an animation. I think one of the main reasons it had the impact it did is down to the way it was animated. I looked into this and found that the animation was directed by Bob Sabiston. He created a piece of software called Rotoshop specifically for this film. This software makes use of interpolation during the rotoscope process meaning the software will add the in-betweens, this greatly reduces the amount of time it takes to rotoscope the footage. http://www.flatblackfilms.com/Flat_Black_Films/Rotoshop.html
"Rotoshop is the name for our proprietary rotoscoping software. Despite some appearances to the contrary, this software does not use filters, image-processing or any kind of motion capture technology. Rather, it is an advanced application for hand-tracing over frames of video. The program will interpolate between brushstrokes to save time and smooth motion, but the process is user-driven and can be extremely time consuming.
At this time, Rotoshop is not available outside of the company, and currently there aren’t any plans to market it. The software was developed in order for us to make animated films, and currently that is still the plan."
I really enjoy the style of animation created with the use of this sofware so I looked for other films created by Richard Linklater and found A Scanner Darkly. I found this to be fascinatingly put together and enjoyed it thoroughly. Unfortunately the Rotoshop software isn't available outside of the company but the techniques it employs can be applied within other software packages.
"A Scanner Darkly is a 2006 American animated science fiction thriller film directed by Richard Linklater based on the novel of the same name by Philip K. Dick. The film tells the story of identity and deception in a near-future dystopia constantly under intrusive high-technology police surveillance in the midst of a drug addiction epidemic. The film was shot digitally and then animated using interpolated rotoscope, an animation technique in which animators trace over footage, frame by frame, for use in live-action and animated films, over the original footage, giving it its distinctive animated look."
Here are a few quick sketches exploring some ideas for the first few shots of the animation. I want to make use of first person point of view and fluid tracking shots in order to create an immersive and dream-like experience.
Here are a few thumbnails to explore some of the ideas I have for the introduction of the song. Due to the length of the song and the time available for this module, I'm proposing to explore the first 30-60 seconds of the song.
So now that I've experimented with some animation techniques I've begun developing some ideas for the second part of the brief.
As my interests have generally been rooted in animation created for use with music, I thought it'd be a good time to realise some of the ideas I've had in my head for some songs I love. I want to explore these ideas in a way that relates to the exploration of the mind, disregarding the need for believable and realistic elements and opening up opportunities for fluid and spontaneous experience-style animation.
Jimi Hendrix - Rainy Day, Dream Away
I have been developing visual ideas in my head for various parts of this song, some general and some specific to certain instrumental sections.
The song (and dramatic moment) is all about all about a rainy day and how you should simple 'sit back and groove on a rainy day'. The song could incorporate various dramatic events that are possible during a stormy/rainy day such as flooding and falling trees. As my time is limited for this module I will probably work on the opening section of the song up to around the 40 second mark where the dialogue establishes that it's raining. Character 1 Character 2
"Rainy Day, Dream Away"
Hey man, take a look out the window 'n' see what's happenin' Hey man, it's rainin' It's rainin' outside man Aw, don't worry 'bout that Everything's gonna be everything We'll get into somethin' real nice you know Sit back and groove on a rainy day Yeah Yeah I see what you mean brother, lay back and groove.
Rainy day, dream away Ah let the sun take a holiday Flowers bathe an' ah see the children play Lay back and groove on a rainy day.
Well I can see a bunch of wet creatures, look at them on the run The carnival traffic noise it sings the tune splashing up 'n' Even the ducks can groove rain bathin' in the park side pool And I'm leanin' out my window sill diggin' ev'rything And ah and you too.
Rainy day, rain all day Ain't no use in gettin' uptight Just let it groove its own way Let it drain your worries away yeah Lay back and groove on a rainy day hey Lay back and dream on a rainy day
After working on my animation to 'Teardrop' by Massive Attack I decided to look for examples of animations of a similar nature. One particularly interesting piece I found was created by a student: Kasabian - I.D (stage visualisation)
It seems a few bands/artists have made use of music-synced animation, using it for music videos and stage visuals. I found this example particularly interesting and feel it relates to my animation in some ways .
Gnarls Barkley - Crazy
This animation to me seems inspired by the Rorschach inkblot test. This has some really nice ideas in it and seems to be a mixture of rotoscoping, and digitally animated ink brushes, with the use of a vertical mirror effect in the centre. I'm becoming increasingly more interested in this style of animation as the opportunities to explore ideas and events with fluidity and spontaneity are much greater.
Born in Christchurch, New Zealand in 1901, Lye developed a style of art based on 'doodling' from an early age, which stirred his interest in the 'pre-rational'.
He was deeply interested in movement and wanted to portray kinetic energy within artistic works; he also drew on aboriginal art, which for Lye again represented a 'pre-rational' artistic tradition.
Tuslava
Walther
Ruttmann
A German film director, an exponent of both avant-garde art and music, he became a practitioner of experimental film.
Ruttmann studied architecture and painting and worked as a graphic designer. His film career began in the early 1920s.
"Opus I" (1921) and "Opus II" (1923), were experiments with new forms of film expression, and the influence of these early abstract films can be seen in the early work of Oskar Fischinger Ruttmann and his colleagues of the avant garde movement enriching the language of film as a medium with new form techniques.
Opus I:
Opus IV:
Stuart Hilton
Born Preston in Lancashire 1965. Studied Graphics at Liverpool Polytechnic and then went onto a Masters at the RCA, Graduating in 1990. Through Arts Council Funding he made Argument on a Superstore (1992) and then “Save Me” in 1994.
His work echoes experimenters from the past in the pre-occupation with sound and image. He is not interested in conveying a ‘different world’ .His drawings are not meant to possess their own sense of life, as he states, “through the process of tracing”. Sound is integral in his work. Seemingly random yet with a sense of drama the sound disparately interacts with the images – “the space between what you see and what you hear is full of possibilities”.
Save Me 1994:
Clive Walley
An artist-filmmaker whose work in animation is understood to be some of the most beautiful and purest expressions of the form.
He has successfully bridged the divide between the commercial and art world with his award winning body of work. He works with a multi-plane rostrum technique combined with oil paint on glass.
Life Study:
Love Song:
Synaesthesia
What is it?
"What colour is the letter
"A"? What does the number '1" taste of? Does listening to music,
speaking or eating food produce colours, shape or texture? For most people,
questions such as these will either yield a look of bewilderment or an emphatic
"No!"
Synaesthesia is often described as a joining
of the senses. Sensations in one modality (e.g. hearing) produce sensations in
another modality (e.g. colour) as well as its own. Synaesthetic experiences are
often driven by symbolic rather than sensory representations, such as letters,
numbers and words. It is also often experienced in the absence of external
sensory input, such as one's "inner speech"." http://www.uksynaesthesia.com/UKSAWHAT.html
Here's a great animated video that explains the condition
of Synaesthesia:
For a while now I've been inspired by the idea of
Synaesthesia. Specifically in regard to interpreting music as colour, shapes
and other imagery. For the sound-based animation task I decided to experiment
with this concept using the song Teardrop by Massive Attack.
I began
experimenting in Flash with shapes and colour in time to the beat, the acoustic
guitar and keyboard, here's my first try at testing the ideas:
Once I had the ideas together for each element of the track I
decided to have a second go at it with better alignment and timing.
To make
sure the alignment was better on this one, I created this alignment template in
Illustrator:
My final attempt:
My second version turned out a lot better than the first due to the alignment template. I created the layers in Flash and exported them separately with transparent backgrounds for maximum control. I then imported them into After Effects. I created a solid object for the background which I was able to animate for the colour changes. I quite like the ideas in this piece and I hope to develop this idea further at some point.
Here is a music video that makes use of a combination of rotoscoping and cut-out animation. It's a simple but effective style of animation that takes this catchy song and turns it into a story about the care free journey the band went on to create the song. This is a nice example of how you can enhance a song with characters and narrative.
A example of an artist/music collective that are well known for using characters and narrative to create a music-animation relationship that works well together is Gorillaz.
Clint Eastwood
On Melancholy Hill
They often experiment with a combination of techniques and treatments to create an interesting and original look to their videos. They mostly use a mixture of 3D CGI, Traditional 2D animation and live action. I'm really interested by animation created for use with music as it's a brilliant middle-ground between the commercial and experimental sides of animation.
Cut-out animation is pretty much exactly what it sounds like: cut-out shapes arranged on a flat surface, and manually moved and repositioned to simulate animation. Cut-outs can be colored paper, white paper with drawings on it, even photographs, and can be completely flat or can sometimes be 3D objects, though this ventures away from cut-out animation and into stop-motion animation. Many often use cut-out animation to make photographs of people and animals to make it seem as if they're talking or moving, often resulting in a 2D marionette effect.
The actual step-by-step process of cut-out animation is somewhat related to the process in stop-motion animation, and can be just as tedious because it requires manual intervention. First the scene is created using cut-out objects, laid out flat against the background image. This scene is created on an animation stand, with the rostrum camera positioned above the animation stand and positioned to pan or zoom over the scene. The camera is used to capture the scene created with the cut-out shapes. Here are the examples we looked at in class:
Lotte Reineger - The Adventures of Prince Achmed 1926:
Yuriy Norshteyn - Tale of Tales 1979:
Hedgehog in the Fog 1975:
The Overcoat:
A modern example of this style of animation is the famous cartoon show 'South Park'. Despite their incredibly simple animation style the show is a huge success and is currently on it's 17th season. They have recently made an attempt to modernise their iconic intro by incorporating 3D techniques along with the cut-out style to create an interesting new look:
It's been met with mixed reviews but I think that the mix of cut-out and 3D works really well to create a modern take on a dated technique.
My Attempt
I created this character in Illustrator, keeping each part of the body on separate layers. I then imported the layers into After Effects and moved the anchor points of each limb in the appropriate place to mimic the joints of the character. The body parts were then parented to keep them together. For example: Hand to Forearm - Forearm to Upper Arm - Upper Arm to Torso, this is essentially like pinning the pieces together.
I found this quite difficult due to the limited movements possible with this method. Once I created a fairly smooth walk cycle I decided to create a quick background in Illustrator to make the test more interesting. I also added a camera in After Effects to track with the character just to make it more believable. I'm reasonably pleased with what I came up with but I'm not fond of this technique as I find it too limiting.
