Wednesday 23 November 2011

Almost

I recently made a new animation for the Red Bull Canimation competition. Please support me by watching and sharing the video with Friends, Families and Strangers!!


Red Bull Canimation: Almost from Hakeem Ladejobi on Vimeo.

Tuesday 3 May 2011

Research

Looney Tunes (Roadrunner)


Looney Tunes is a series of animated shorts that involve different characters in different scenarios. The comedy is very physical in most of the animations but the animation that resembles my idea is Roadrunner. Roadrunner uses no actual dialogue so the comedy is very physical and this was something I wanted to research.

Roadrunner is about a hungry Coyote that wants to eat a very fast Roadrunner. The coyote thinks up numerous manic methods to catch the roadrunner and every single one seems to back fire and inflict pain unto the Coyote.

Unlike my characters that have human attributes the roadrunner and coyote look very much like the animals they are meant to represent and the only humanistic thing that happens might be when the coyote walks on two feet like a human.

This allows the coyote to do things like carry a bazooka and this is not questioned by the viewers. The fact that the coyote is also a carnivore ensures that his reason for chasing the Roadrunner is justified. This is something I was missing in my animation and Roadrunner did not give me the answer to this.

Each episode lasts around 6-8 minutes and in each one they do 5-6 sketches some lasting 2 minutes but some last less than that.

The main aim when I was researching Roadrunner was to find out how they timed the sketches and through further research it turns out they did it to musical beats. The animation is timed to the music and the benefit of this is that the animation has a natural rhythm.



Mr Bean

At first I thought Mr Bean was slapstick but when I actually started going through the episodes I quickly realised the slapstick is limited to that character and they are not always snappy gags. A lot of the actions in the gags use minimal physical action. The comedy is very psychological and at times it is awkward comedy. It shows everyday situations going very wrong and this degree of wrongness, for lack of a better word, makes it funny.

The Slapstick was not the only thing that drew me to Mr Bean though. He has a unique way of reacting to situations and I wanted to capture this in my “Hunter” character. Mr Bean uses a lot of pantomime as there is rarely dialogue and this fits perfectly with my idea. When something happens he just makes a small gesture and his intentions are easily understood. I will be adding some of his characteristics into my Hunter character.



Pib & Pog


Pib & Pog is a series of stop motion animations, about two blobs that seem get placed in random situations and one ends up trying to inflict pain unto the other. It uses no dialogue and the comedy is very physical. Both the characters have quite evil intents and so the attempts at assassination are equally shared. This is unlike my animation though but there were plenty of gags in each episode so this made very good watching material to allow me to understand how gags are executed to make them snappy.



Boby Le Zombie

Boby Le Zombie is a French animation about a zombie going on a date with a human female. It is set in 2 locations and only includes two characters. It has a lot of simple elements. The story, characters and texturing are all very minimal and simple. This makes sure the viewer’s main attention is on the animation and the story. This type of movie was exactly what I was aiming to do for my fmp this year because I wanted to concentrate mainly on storytelling and animation and avoid all the technical things that tend to come up when working in 3D. Even the props in this animation are limited.

Monday 4 April 2011

Bad Week

So this week has been 1 of if not the worst so far with my workflow going walkies and motivation in hiding but i still managed to get some things done and here is the progress from last week.

Monday 28 March 2011

Audio

There is not that much Major animation left to do so very soon i would have to begin working on the audio for this project. I've been searching around for voice actors but i still have not found an actor with a voice that matches these characters. I also need to urgently find or create a piece of music which the animation is timed to. Usually the audio for the animation would have been done first before production actually begins, but it is not uncommon to animate first and then work on the audio (how it is done in the Eastern world with Anime). Each has its advantages and disadvantages but for me doing the animation first was more appropriate because I did not have the time to plan my animation in amazing details and as I have learnt from my past projects, the final outcome and the initial idea can be very different and so the piece of audio pre-recorded from the beginning might not sync with the final animation and could easily be the downfall of the project.

The downside to animating first is that it becomes very difficult to see what works and what doesn't because audio also plays a big part in timing, impact and mood. So some sequences just seem very dull without audio. To see to what extent audio affects an animation, I decided to watch some of the roadrunner cartoons with no sound and unfortunately i fell asleep 3 minutes into it. This does not mean some sequences were not funny, it just means the full potential of the animation is not realized without the audio and from this experiment I learnt that visual and audio should be thought of as 1 or at least as important as each other.   

Further progress

I found the list to be very effective and I got much more done on the animation, so this is the update which is just 1 week apart from the post below.


I did not add any transitions in this one but if you watched last weeks version (post below) you would know where they belong.

The changes that need to me made to this are:


Scene 1 ((Road))
Need to finesse the maps flying through the air.
Fix Hunters face penetrating through the piece of paper at end of scene.
Add facial animation as he is reacting and interacting with the map at end of scene.
Scene 2 ((Park))
Finesse Hand movement on map. Make it look more believable.
Add Facial animation
Give Reader Newspaper
Scene 3 ((Park))
Give Reader Newspaper and fix penetration.
Add Reader facials. Make eyes and eye lids move.
Scene 4 ((Park))
Add Jaw movement to hunter whilst he is prepping the pivot rig.           
Add Reader facials. Make eyes and eye lids move.
Scene 5 ((Park))
Hmmm…Discuss with Will
Scene 6 ((Park))
More work on Hunters turn to react to rocket threat
More attention on reader animation at end of the scene.
Add anticipation to rocket before it flies off.
More attention to hunters facials.

Yaaay..im back

I did not have the internet for about for weeks but a few days ago it all got sorted out and I am now back online (with very slow download speeds).

During my 4 week break from the internet I managed to make progress on my animation and in this post I will upload the progress from last week.






After I had finished this I showed it around and also showed it to my tutor and received feedback. Whilst working on this I started to notice my work-rate seemed to have diminished even though I was still spending a very long time working on it. To counter this i decided to start writing down all the high priority changes that need to be made in each scene and then implementing them in the order they have been written down. I hoped this would stop me from straying from one part of the animation to another and thus leaving important parts of the animation incomplete and confusing to the viewer.

The changes i decided to make for the next week were:


Road scene:

After dodging the last piece of paper, maybe he should look back at it before the piece of paper lands on his head. This will add some anticipation.

Park1:

Map needs to be clearer and maybe have him point at things in the scene that are also on the map.

Make the map in ¾ view so it is clearer.

Park2:

When he arrives at the bench maybe have him point at the bench on the map so the viewers know that is where the treasure is.

Park 3:

When he goes back down into the bush, make it snappier. Add some stretch.

When he brings out the hammer and then the other weight, there should be a visible change in weight, so make them heavier (not bigger)

Maybe I should avoid using the fade to black after he arrives with the baby but maybe if I had the audio of the baby crying whilst he goes off screen then this might make it plausible.   

Need more anticipation before he drops the baby, so maybe he lifts the baby above his head.

Lay them out in a diagrammed manner so its hunter, baby, lever then reader from right to left.

Maybe make it so that we can see the Hunters body upon impact.

Drop the bench first and then when the bench settles, drop the reader unto the bench, make him pause, look around and then continue reading.

Park4:

Slow things down.

As camera moves away, it should stop before the explosion.

Park 5:

At close up of him aiming the bazooka, have him shaking and sweating to show his anger

Missile hits floor and dies, (within the screen space) then it reawakens as man goes to look into bazooka, and flies up into the sky (sound helps to build up anticipation as it comes back to land)

Monday 21 February 2011

Animatic redone

There are a few props still missing so some parts might not make sense unless youve read some of the older posts, but here it is.

Friday 18 February 2011

Attempt 1 redo

This is the latest process on scene 3. The pram is supposed to have an overweight woman guiding it, but I wonder if I even need that

Thursday 17 February 2011

Walk Cycle

This is a walk cycle I was working on a few months ago but i forgot to post it up so...here it is.

Tuesday 15 February 2011

Uploaddddd....

So ye, heres another upload and this one is of the last scene.Just to clear up a few things, after the hunter gets blown up, the reader actually gets maps similar to the ones from scene one out of his pocket and throws them up in the air. The explosion and maps are not included in this upload as it is mainly so i could discuss some things with my lecturer tommorow.

Saturday 12 February 2011

Another Iteration, Scene 3

I've changed this scene too using the information from the review and also trying to make it clearer.


Sunday 6 February 2011

Animatic revision

So on the 3rd I had my midterm review with my tutor and got more feedback. The more I worked on my animatic, the more unhappy with it I became and in the end i pretty much hated it every scene.


The feedback was focused on the narrative of the story, establishing characters and consistancy in behaviour, characater and abilty. The hunter lacked consistancy from scene to scene. The way he comes out of the bush is very out of character from what we saw from the other scenes. There had not been anything telling us the characters in this universe were able to deform like that. So Will (tutor) adviced me to either show this ability from the first scene we see him waltzing down the road or just not have it at all and I agreed with him on this and I will be taking out all "major" deformations. This is also a good thing because the rig is very limiting when trying to do smooth arched deformations.

The Animatic did not make complete sense and the timing in a few scenes was very wrong, especially the "behind the tree" scene. This was mainly because the animatic was not completly finished as i was waiting for feedback before doing further work on it, but I realise now that i should still have spent more time on the timing so the idea and story would communicate much better.

In the scene where the hunter is trying to get the readers attention, it does not look like he may have exhausted all of his options and it kind of ruins the story because his actions later on do not seem completly justified.

I made notes of all of these and started remaking the animatic. The video below is one of the scenes which I have redone.


Tuesday 1 February 2011

Progress....Overdue

Its been a long time since ive updated this but i recently put together my animatic and this made me realise a lot of shots that i would need to insert into my animation so that it flows correctly.




At the begining I need to have a shot of paper flying through the air and past a bright sun showing how great the day is, before we see the character walking

After he looks at the paper, I need to show him walk off.


A few scenes need to transition with the use of a fade to black.

The Dynamite scene needs to be redone. The part when he goes behind the tree and looks at his watch, then comes back out is too fast.

A suggestion from a class mate:

The scene where he tries to get the Readers attention needs to be edited. There is a part where he goes on top of the reader and instead of the "Jump" it may be better to have him climb on top of the reader. This would show the hunters inferiority.