Premise Project
For my premise project, My primary goal was to explore different aesthetic animated interviews, with conflicting visuals and tones. The first is a more serious, darker and atmospheric idea, which is a reference to police interrogation rooms. The second is a more abstract and personal stylisation which pushes more performative and fantastical elements of subjective accounts.
Showreel
Below is a short showreel which goes through the different steps to create each project, particurarly breaking down the process of creating the 2.5 D and the layers it required to create.
Critical Reflection
Over the past 10 weeks of this premise project, I was able to get an understanding and apply old methods and learn new ones to see where I want to expand my visual identity as a documentary filmmaker. I think my main successes lay in the personal adaptation of ideas, particularly in the visual stylisation of the 2.5 D tests. However, Since this is only a premise, I can largely see and understand the various aspects that need improvement in order to be a completed film. Firstly, regarding the first interview, I feel that if I had adequate time, I would have improved the animation to be much more lifelike and fitting to the visual surroundings. I particularly feel that the lower body animation was much too stiff at points, and did not flow as naturally as the facial movements. Going forward with this in mind, I will allow more contingency time for these styles of interviews, or opt for a simpler animation style.
The secondary issue I noticed was the quality of the blend between the 2D and 3D assets in the second interview. I feel the AI toon shader creates a much cleaner and smoother line which evokes a much more computer-generated stylised look to it than the rougher lines of my Tiff image. I also feel that the alpha channel cut some of the detail from the edges, causing the lines to look clipped at parts. I think going forward with this idea it will be important to consider aspects such as 3D modelling all aspects of the scene but creating a 2D-looking render, upping the quality of my line drawings, and applying hand-drawn textures to the 3D models using brushes that are consistent with my 2D assets.
Taking these two visual explorations forward, I wish to pursue finding a middle ground between these two ideas and create a coherent and fixed visual identity that uses the more clarified and detailed facial expressions of the first design, with the stylised and abstract nature of the second.
Project Schedule Plan
Below indicated my project schedule plan for creating my short animated documentary film, including time over the summer which will be essential to get a kick start of animatic creation and character modelling attributes. My main goal is to finish all pre-production, modelling and main aspects of rigging by mid-September so I can really focus on character performance from that point on.
I have also laid out and indicated a technical pipeline for myself, so I can consider which order things will need to be completed in for the most efficient time management going forward.
Relevant Blog Posts
- FMP Proposal: https://esmeduncan.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2022/06/22/final-major-project-pitch/
- Week 1: https://esmeduncan.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2022/04/23/week-1-premise-project-idea-and-execution/
- Week 2: https://esmeduncan.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2022/05/01/week-2-premise-project-research-and-preparation/
- Week 3: https://esmeduncan.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2022/05/07/week-3-character-animation-development/
- Week 4: https://esmeduncan.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2022/05/17/week-4-dcoumentary/
- Week 5: https://esmeduncan.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2022/05/18/week-5-character-animation/
- Week 6: https://esmeduncan.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2022/05/25/week-6-2-5-d-animation-test-development/
- Week 7: https://esmeduncan.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2022/05/31/week-7-environment-development/
- Week 8: https://esmeduncan.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2022/06/14/week-8-2-5d-animation-design/
- Week 9: https://esmeduncan.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2022/06/17/week-9-animation/