Design For Society Friday 14th October

'Charlie Says' Public Information Films

On Friday we were shown a DVD called 'Charlie Says' that have a number of public information films on it from the late 50's through to the 70's. There were a range of subjects such as being polite on the road as a driver, when to call the coastguard not to leave old fridges laying about as child could lock themselves inside, safety when skating on frozen over ponds, the country code and telling parents to make sure that their children go to see their careers advisor. I found this very interesting to watch, from the design used to the content of the films. Some were quite morbid and others really funny. This helped me see what sort of thing was expected from the brief and how I could possibly structure my animatic. Here are some stills...

Jobs Advice, I love the style of this and how simple it is!

Politeness on the road. Again very simple style...black and white as there wasn't any colour when it was made. I also love this style.

'Charlie Says' childrens information films, for example - 'Don't go anywhere without telling your parents, even if it's  with someone you know' Not as fond with this style but the cat 'charlie' was very funny just through the way he acted and moved.

Coastguard film. I liked the style of this one and lighting was quite moody compared to the others.

Careers advise officer for young women. This one was full of fun which complimented the serious message at the end.

Another careers advice film. 

I don't know what these particular films were called but there were a couple about  the coast guard and one about the countrycode. I didn't like this style at all, I felt that it was quite and 'ugly style' but the films were quite funny at times.

Safety on a frozen over pond. This was funny, and I liked the style but at one point it was n't very sensitive about the possibility of someone falling through the ice and dying.

This film was about remembering to make sure that the home owner goes round the house at night before going to bed to make sure that all the dangers of  a possible house fire are stopped. 

This is another film about being polite on the road.

And finally this one was about making sure that you learn to swim and if you can't that you stay in the shallow part of the sea.

Overall all of the films were straight to the point and simple when it came to giving information. 

Contextualising Design Wednesday 5th&12th October 2011

"Beautiful Losers"

“Beautiful Losers” is an urban themed documentary of a group of contemporary artists who talk about what they do, why they do it and who they are as an artist. Ed Templeton is an artist and photographer, and paints graphics on skateboards. Thomas Campbell is an artist, filmmaker, surfer and all round general craftsman, Margaret Kilgallen is a printmaker, painter and graffiti artist whose work has a great influence of folk art. Chris Johanson is an artist who expressed in the film that makes art because he feels a need to. As well as doing graffiti, Stephen powers is also a graphics artist, he believes that for graffiti to be an art form it has to have meaning and a message. Barry Mcgee is a painter and graffiti artist, when younger he created his ‘tag’ for his graffiti of which was ‘Twist’.  Mike Mills is a graphic designer, film maker and artist and Jo Jackson is an artist who works primitively on canvas. Shepard Fairey is a contemporary graphic designer and illustrator who was known for putting ‘stickers up in the streets of ‘Andre the Giant’. Geoff McFetridge is an artist, graphic designer and animator; he created all of the animations for the film. They are all ‘do it yourself’ designers and artists that have a history or influence of either street art, skateboarding, graffiti and underground music.

This film is very refreshing to watch and shows you a variety of different approaches to art and design. All of the artists in this made art not for money or business or profit but for some sort of love or need to do it, which makes it a very inspirational and touching (at times) thing to watch. 

The Message

Walk Cycles and Walking with Meaning

Now that I have tried out a few walk cycles from 'The Animators Survival kit' I have decided to have a go at doing the first walk cycle for my character. The first thing I did was decide what sort of walk my character would have. 

So I drew the character out on a piece of A4 and then draw over it with simple shapes and put small circles at the joints. This made it easier when animating as I then knew the pivot points for the joints. 

I then drew key frames of the walk cycle...this is how I learnt to do it through 'The Animators Survival Kit'. After I had drew the basic frames I then looked through the book again and came across a page in the walk cycle section of a fat man walking - this was all about counteraction and the use of exaggerated counteraction in the fat man's walk. The rule is as the body mass moves down the stomach mass moves up and as the body mass moves up the stomach mas moves down and so on. Then underneath him was a lady with the same rule but with different parts of he body - she was drawn with large breasts and large buttocks and so Richard Williams (author)  counteracted the body mass with both the mass of the breasts and buttocks. Which is where I then had the idea of doing this to my character... to counteract the mass of the body wit the mass of her stomach, buttocks and breasts, and so added these to each key frame..

Body mass up, buttock, stomach and breast mass down.

Body mass down, buttock, stomach and breast mass up.

Body mass up, buttock, stomach and breast mass down.

Body mass down, buttock, stomach and breast mass up

After I had done this I decided to give the character a bit of a lean backwards because of the amount of weight she's carrying on her stomach and to make her look like a laid back but confident person. 

These are the modified and final key frames..

I also added a little counteraction with her hair too.

I kept the leg movement and arm movement quite simple - nothing like the ones I did from 'The Animators Survival Kit' I didn't feel that it needed it. I may try it with one of the other two characters if I get time!

Anyway, here is the final film of the walk cycle...

Overall I am very happy with it. I managed to give her a slow walk that showed that she was laid back but confident. However if I did this again I would try to give her more of a waddle than a walk as such. I feel that this is a good first attempt!

Life Drawing Session Two

Wednesday 12th October 2011

For this life drawing session we started off looking at the cycle of a man getting up out of his chair, walking around it and sitting back down again. We started off with a 5 minute drawing of the life model sitting in the chair and followed with 2 minute poses of the cycle. The life model must have had strong muscles to stay in some of the positions for 2 minutes!...I couldn't do it. And then to finish off we did quick 30 second to 1 minute drawings of the walk cycle. 

Overall I am very happy with this session too! I did the man standing up out of a chair, walking round it and sitting back down last year, will be interesting to compare the two of the them!

The Message

Walk Cycles and Walking with Meaning

I have experimented with another walk cycle in 'The Animators Survival Kit'. I did this last Monday but kept forgetting to share it on here. This one is like the first one I did - it's side on. This time I felt that I should show you the page from which I worked from in the book...

And this is the video I made from it

I love this walk cycle, it's full of character. Even though the arms aren't animated I feel that the legs do enough. I f I was to animate arms to this I would keep them quite simple otherwise it may be a bit too much for the eye to cope with. Again there were some more cheeky 'broken' legs placed in some of the inbetweens but it works! I hope that when it comes to animating my own character I am brave enough to try the 'broken limb' effect!

The Message

Walk Cycles and Walking with Meaning

I've done another one! This one is like the last...walking towards the audience (on the spot). Its the same sort of thing as the last but with a couple of thing altered and changed. Just by doing that the walk has completely changed!

I like this one, it less of a strut. I feel that this walk has a lot of character to it. The animation is a little jumpy and I think that maybe I should have put some more frames in. Again in this walk cycle some 'broken' leg poses have been used!..I quite like the 'broken' limb effect and may try it when doing my characters walk. 

The Message

Walk Cycles and Walking with Meaning

I've done another walk cycle, based from my book 'The Animators Survival kit'. This time the character is walking forwards on the spot. Again Richard Williams has added a few 'unrealistic'element to this walk. This is what it turned out like..

I wasn't too sure about it to start with, I thought it was too fast and too unrealistic but the more I watched it the more I liked it. Yes its not as realistic as a normal walk you or I would do but its very visually interesting, and I would say that its more of a strut than a walk..which does give the character some personality. 

Here is an example of an 'unrealistic' element:

The right leg is pointing in the wrong direction! In this one the arm movements are pretty simple and realistic unlike the last walk cycle I did of the angry walk.