Progress Presentation Reflection DayOne

Progress Presentation Reflection

Last Friday I present my project progress to a group of my peers and Lecturers, Though for this presentation all I could really talk about was where I thought I was going and the reading material that I was examining. While attempting to pitch my project I felt it went horrible toward communicating what I was thinking and generally what I wanted to say was not said. However, The lecturers feedback reflected around the areas of what I wanted to establish which was more reassuring. At this time the project was focused on using a character to tell a story without dialogue and was leaning toward a comedy approach and the lecturers gave me suggestions of areas to look at such as slapstick and silent film along with emotion and story can both mean the same thing in this context. I was also given advice toward methods of reading journal articles in this field because this was an area i mentioned i had trouble understanding and now will hopefully be able to include as research material.

After showing my first media test we discussed keeping facial animation and body animation together because at the time of this animation test I had focused more on body movement and forgot and stumbled when I came to facial animation.  Though at this time I only had a brief idea of what my research question or aim could be both lecturers reassured that it was a safe area to be in at this time because there is still scope for change and this was very much true this following week when my project has began focusing toward using character performance and character personality as a second subject.

For the next presentation I am aiming toward having a stronger idea on the direction my project will be going along with being able to describe what I have been doing to justify this area of interest. I will also be heading toward prioritizing conducting media tests of this subjects theory's  due to the majority of time having been spent reading over creative work which my project was lacking during the presentation.

The Slides

Brief Idea of Aim (Character Performance and its Ability to convey a story through body language and emotion.)

Moving Illustrations Vs Character Animation

Music Inspires Ideas

Japaneese Animation/Books  Inspires Characters and Story Development  

3D Animated Films/Cartoons Inspires Comedy and Memorable Characters

First Idea =  A Comedy with an inventor and their boss or pet

Second Idea =  A More serious setting involving  a Character who doesn't know who they are

Third Idea = A Trailer Featuring Two Characters Discussing What its like being around the other

Concept Art Generated before Deciding on Using a Educational Rig

Current Research - Acting for Animators by Ed Hook's As a baseline - Power Centers - Status Transactions - Micro Expressions - Eye Accessing Cues - Comedy & Farce -

Acting Theory & Techniques  applied from a Animators view - Animation Techniques and Principles - Exposing Thought

Books: Thinking Animation – Chuck Amuck – Action: Acting Lessons – Animators Survival Kit – Animated Performance – Stop Staring

Animation Tests Planned

One Rig Two Personality’s

Breaking Joints Test

Clayton Meets Buck – A Bridge Between Power centers and Chain of thought

More Depth into Planning out Scenes, Timing, Stronger Posing ect.

The Topic’s I am Reading are being covered multiple times but said in different ways

Journal Articles i have uncovered are beyond my current Level of Knowledge (COLOSSAL HEADACHE!)

Stone Walled While trying to research Animation Aesthetics/ Style which would be relevant for my study (Not Even Sure what is)