References

The NatWest advert shoes a pig run cycle. It's well done and includes everything- they have thought of timing and spacing, and added the bounce. What makes it more interesting is it doesn't appear to be moving from location when it's running.

The latest advert from Barclays is used to promote how hard it is to keep track of money. Although I imagine everyone has used it, it is a good representation that it can easily escape you. Quite like the coin ambient noises you hear from time to time, think it helps bring it all in and add to the realistic quality of it.


I really wanted to stylize and gives something extra to my character. In order to do this, I animated and looked at the reference and timing for how they did Yoshi.

I did a few tests which can be seen in a hope of achieving something similar.

This was the very first animation I saw and what made me decide that instead of having a pig with the normal walk cycle, I wanted to have it bounce. I really like the squash and stretch and the humor behind it. Overall it's simplistic yet depicts a story.

I wanted to make my pig move like a dog. The only video of decent quality that contained what I was aiming for was this. I am keen on how his hind legs work and the way he drags the object. Very useful for incorporating into my scene.

Money Reference

Used for the reference of money and how it moves.

Once again, just something quick to do with the money and the way it moves and falls. Good thing is it's piles similar to my animation which aids in pulling it together- making it more realistic.

Video Support

This is a quick video I did in order to find out how the character would move.

This is me getting up.

I used this as reference for my animatic as I sometimes add too much information to them.

I also wanted to back it up with some research that I have done, into how the industry goes about doing real animatics. I see they skip a lot and it works just fine so I hope to achieve a similar effect.

Story Structures

We had to analyze a film called Joyride and do some tasks to follow that.

Below are the tasks and answers:

Activity 1:

Story Structure:

Write, in list form, the things that happen in Joyride

• Broken Device
• Undressing as he goes home early
• Notices body in the middle of road
• Attacked
• Wakes up in back of car
• Hands tied together
• Discovers flashlight and turns it on
• Kicks off panel to destroy electrical (rear break light)
• Police notice and pursue
• Stop for police
• Man kicks and screams
• Hear screams
• Police officers get killed
• Blood drops on his face
• Threatened to get killed if he tries anything again
• Chase by police again
• Fuel can spills, sparks from broken circuit threaten to start fire.
• Electric fail and car crashes into tree
• Gets out, Staggers towards police car
• Threatened by man to cut throat
• Alarms go off drawing police attention
• Ends where he starts off
• Sets alight?

Where one thing happens because of another link them with the word because:

Because he screams and panics, causes death of two police officers.

Activity 2

Describe the main character at the beginning of the film

At the beginning, he talks on the phone and decides not to fix the final 'late' job.

Describe him at the end

He is able to adapt to the current situation, when in the trunk. He seems grateful/ironic to be back where it all started

Write a single sentence which sums up what this film is 'about'

Two strangers joyride an unsuspecting mans car, holding him prisoner- escaping finds himself where he started off.

Activity 3

Consider the Three Act Structure in relation to Joyride:

Act I Set Up

Act II Confrontation

Act III Resolution

Describe the set up

The moment he decides to abandon his job, he finds a 'dead' person laying on the road. They hit him on the head and he appears inside car boot.

Explain & Describe where Act II starts

The victim of this 'drama' wakes up and struggles to free himself causing the death of innocent people along the way, without intention. This all happens in the hope of escaping the confrontation ends when the car crashes into the tress.

Explain & Describe where Act III starts

The victim fights back against his captor, coming to an end where the story began. Transformer sparks and sets alight in the end. This completes the 'circle'

Looking At Scripts

Today we began to analyze what makes a good script and what doesn't.

Here are what we went through:

Looking at a plot and subplot

What's plot and what's sub plot?

Plot- Goal/Purpose

Subplot- small stories running parallel.

A1---2---3--B -> this is known as the highway mindmap

3 Act Structure

Act I : Ask Question

Act II: Answer Question

Act III: Resolve Issue.

-----------------II-----------------

--------------------------------------------

--------------------------------------------

I-----------------------------------------III

(above is a 'graph')

Life lessons- All stories are character driven.

Stereotype- localized to cultural conditioning

Archetype- universal character recognized in any culture.

Theme

Life Event- Volcano Eruption

The task was to write a 200-500 word summary of something interesting that had happened in your life. It was also aimed at how it had changed you, making you what you are today.

The thing I chose was the volcanic eruption from back home in 1999.

The story and video can be found below:

I remember like it was yesterday, let me take you back to 1999. My family and I were watching the news around the dinner table a few days prior to the incident. There had been previous warnings that the volcano Guagua Pichincha was active again.

We lived in Quito, the capital of Ecuador where the skies plummeted into darkness that morning. It was 7am, I had just woken up and was getting ready for school when we turned on the news. The volcano had erupted for a second time that week. That day however, at 7:12am when the city was coming to life, a huge cloud of ash formed in the sky. It was a spectacle of a different nature, fearsome yet impressive. The cloud formed a Giant Mushroom, something that until then, I’d never seen. Eight minutes later there was a second explosion, followed by the last one at 8:07am.

As the country was put on Yellow alert, schools & businesses were closed. We had to use masks when stepping outside, due to the falling ash. The city went into panic and chaos. The grey substance that fell was like snow (something we don’t really have over there). I recall a spec falling onto my hands; I rubbed it between two fingers and watched how it spread and disappeared. Later on, we were advised not to go out unless necessary and to bring any pets indoors. The ash continued to fall during that day. My family and I stayed inside and gathered around the lounge to play games and things to distract us from reality.

This incident made me realise that anything could happen. It made me eager to take control of my life, and appreciate what I have achieved and done so far. Looking back, there was probably some kind of horror aspect to it, though at the age of 9 I was probably naïve and didn’t really understand how serious it was. I’ll never forget what it looked like, and thanks to modern technology I can revisit photographs of the incident as many times as I like.

Tests

This was my first test animation. Just a quick camera animation to understand how it works.

This was just to see if the glasses fell properly... I realize that it too slow and doesn't work well.

My second animation test on the 'soap' ball to see how to make it move/rotate

In order to understand how things fell, I decided to attempt to create my own little test animation using real objects. Glad it worked well, I was able to learn a lot from this.

I had the utensils, which I based my design from, however- it didn't animate quite as anticipated. I will defy some rules in order to successfully accomplish my set design.

Dynamic Animation

In order not to have to create all the individual movements and change angles of the Dominoes, I have used Dynamic Rendering to make this animation happen.

Enjoy...

(Excuse the Bad quality as it was only a quick Playblast render.)

To make the dynamic animation, I used Rigid Bodies on the floor and the cube( that sets off the dominoes). Then, I placed them slightly higher than the ground and applied a Gravity Field on them. Once everything was done, I keyframed the cube, at the start of the domino, then passing the domino and keyframed yet again 1-15.

The results can be seen above.

Overall I am pleased.