Sketch Time!!

Class 3 - Week 2 ( Blocking To Final )

I am really Taking a Lot of time to update my Blog regularly.. The Last Few Weeks got a lot more busy..  Actually Its Current the End of Week 4 Now… and I am still working on my shot..

 But let’s get back to Week 2.. In weeks 2 we had an Another Blocking to Final Lecture from by Dave Burgess .  In this he showed up his workflow of animating an entire shot from start to finish. Every animator develops his/her own way of working, and 'looking over their shoulder' as he/she animates is always a great learning experience. Like Always he Also showed us How he would think of his Idea, record Reference, Draw thumbnails and then Start Blocking.. This is Like Basic of Everyone’s Workflow.. Think about your Ideas\shot, Record some Reference, Draw your Thumbnail’s, and then Blocking, blocking Plus, Polish etc….

Another Imp thing tip that he too suggests that we should always Set and Fix out Camera before we actually start Blocking in Maya..  And another thing would be we should also always Remember that we are Posing our Characters properly.. I mean.. Even if I'm just turning the head, I will also rotate the neck and upper spine joints a bit. I also try to add small foot movements as well.  Many junior animators often forget to rotate the neck and just keep on rotating the Head without rotating the neck or it effect the rest of the body... And Well it almost Impossible for you to move your head without it affecting your neck. And the rest of the body a little. We Have to Keep stuff like this in our head when we are posing our characters so that we can make our shot organic and Believable.. The same thing with the shoulders Also.. It sometimes also often gets forgotten by young animators..  

Well it’s really heard to write down the experience that we get by actually Watching an Animators animating… but I will try my best..   It’s Basically That We have to Remember to add those little Changes that happens and a Body moves and those Tiny things really adds life to your Characters..

And For this weeks Assignment We had to submit our Blocking My.. here's my Blocking Pass assignment...

Class 3 - Week 1 [ Intro To Staging And Composition ]

Awesome Term 3 has Started!!! And this Term is Got Jason Taylor Another Awesome Animator guide me Through My journey in Animation Mentor... He Got Some Great Reels.. U'll can Take Some time and Check it out if u'll want..

http://www.captainkeyframe.com/index.htm

In This week Lecture Carlos talked to us Abt Staging and Composition. Abt Camera how we should stage out Shot to Make out Shot Clear. We stage things So that the Story is clear to the Audience using all the Elements Available. Lots of things are involved in the staging process, Characters, Props, Set.. etc., Camera Angle/lenses, the action that will take place in the shot.

We should Always Keep our staging clear And Simple.. DON'T CONFUSE THE MEDIUM WITH THE MESSAGE... The most important thing about staging is clarity, you should make sure that the idea & the point of the shot is very clear to the audience while staging.

Keep it simple, and keep your full concentration on the message that you're telling the audience; Staging (with its simplicity) should help conveying that message.. Not confuse it!

SHOT: - Shot is a Continuous view filmed with one Camera Without any kind of Interruptions.

There are different Types of Shot Types used in Cinemas some of the Most Common among them are...  

• Establishing shot (usually used at the opening of the scene)
•  Long shot
•  Medium shot
•  Close-Up shot 
• High Angle shot
• Low Angle shot
• Over the Shoulder shot (used when having two characters in the scene)
• Point of View shot (to show what the character is looking at)

Takes:- Multiple Versions taken of the same Shot to Find the Best Fit for it.

CUT:- How one Shot Related to another Shot.

Scene:- Place or Scene where the action is Taking Place. A scene can be One Shot or a Series of Shot, Showing a Continuous Event.

Type of camera moves: Pan, Track In/Out, Dolly, Crane, Boom, Tilt Up/Down.

Type of camera lenses: Long Lens 100-200mm, Normal lens 35-50 mm, Short lens 10-20mm, Normal lens are the most appealing to the human eyes.

We should ask ourself while staging our shots; what I'm trying to tell the audience with this camera angle? Why I'm moving my camera? Some great animations that gets messed up by un-necessary camera movement.. The camera should move only for a purpose.

Good reasons for animating the camera would be: following a character, emphasizing on a character's reaction, revealing an important element in the scene, or maybe creating a sense of action.. But avoid camera moves that are pointless, or will distract your audience from the main subject.

You can Also Check out this Site which has Some Awesome Info Abt Staging.. Would Surly Recommend u'll to look at it...

 http://sevencamels.blogspot.in/2012/04/flat-funny-and-depth-dramatic.html

http://sevencamels.blogspot.in/2012/04/contrast-can-be-enough-to-tell-story.html

I love this One from that Link. It’s really great...In this One it’s So Clear that That family head off to the Church, and the Dad elects to Stay at Home..
 It’s a very Simple Staging but it tells us the Story just by looking at this One Single Image.....  Now we should try to get Staging like that in our shot so that It makes our Shot clear and Helps our Audience to understand the Goal of the Shot easily and they don't have to guess what’s Happening.. If the audience are guessing what’s happening in ur Shot then that means Ur Staging is Not good enough..  

And For this Weeks assignment We had to Submit our Planning For our Shot..  Here's My Planning.. 

Term 2 - Class 12 [ END of Class TWO ]

After All the Fun,Sleep Less night and Having Fun on Google Hangout.. haha.. Term Two is Finally Over!!  It was an Awesome learning experience with Jon Collins. 
This Week I also Got A few Notes from My Mentor abt on wht Areas He thinks I should work more on to  Improve Myself...

Areas of strength: Anuj was an awesome presence in class this year! He was an all around great student, in both his animation work and his involvement in our weekly Q n A's. He was consistantly one of the few students to actually bring questions to ask every week. Animation wise, i really like the stylized approach Anuj has to his animation. His posing is very strong, and he really looked to push the contrast in his timing and spacing. His planning for each assignment was above and beyond the base requirements, with really nicely executed thumbnails, and sometimes even 2 D animations to flcuh out his idea. His blocking was always very clear and concise, and the level of work completion for each step of the animation process was always nice and refined, culminating in nicely polished animation.

Areas of improvement: The things Anuj did well this term far exceed the number of things he really needs to focus on improving, but here are a few specific things to try and refine. Squash and stretch - At times, Anuj went a little overboard with how often and how much he was stretching limbs. Remember Anuj, we want to feel squash and stretch, not see it. This is especially evident in his work when watching IK legs that slowly continue to grow for 6 plus frames after locking out. Moving holds - Really look to increase the naturalistic feeling of your moving holds so the character doesn't freeze or robotically continue moving when in a moving hold. Also, be conscienscous of how you are easing into and out of all your poses Anuj, at times there were hard hits and sudden starts to your moves. Overlap - Although there were definitely times when you used overlap, look for instances to loosen up your torso transitions a bit more by increasing the amount of overlap you layer in as you move up from the root. Polish - Although your level of polish is already really good for class 2 Anuj, you're good enough to start really plotting and nailing every single little detail and arc, so start using that arc tracker as much as possible!      

This week the Lecture was a Review of all the Lecture we had Till now.. its Like a Short Version of all the Lecture we had in this Term...It was  Very helpful.. To review at once again before We move on to the Next Level of Animation.. :P lol..

For this weeks Assignment.. We had to Compile all our assignments Till now and Make Our Progress Reel...