After Effects Induction

Here is an example of the classic pendulum experiment that I did using after effects. 

Love Recipe

By: Felipe Pizarro S.,Frédéric Bajou, Morgan Bourdon, Jiun Yiing Mow, Loïc Paoli
This is an example of computer animation using CGI. I love the transitioning between scenes, I think that's done really cleverly- especially the one on the scales and the nail polish- icing part. 
The part where the man trips over the dog and the cake goes flying is really well done, the anticipation is built up before the incident as we all know what's about to happen and the slow motion makes it more humerous, especially when the dog goes flying!
I also like how, even though we know it's an animation and not real, the cake looks so tasty!

The Colours of Evil- Phillip Simon and Alyse Miller

This animated short is done using CGI and computer animation. I love this animation, the story is really clever and humerous. I like the different use of camera angles to tell the story and the surprise that the fluffy "demon" that is adorable can actually take revenge on the mean girl.

The lighting at 1:06 I think is really well done and it really looks like a lot of smoke and red lights and builds up the idea that something huge and terrifying is about to appear/ happen, which makes the appearance of a pink fluffy adorable creature even funnier.

I also like the way it flicks through the pages of the book when she's trying to teach the creature how to do the evil things she expected it to do.

Food about you -Alexandre DUBOSC

This is another beautiful example of stop motion by French animator Alexandre DUBOSC, using a mixture of materials (or ingredients). I like the thought that has gone into it and how none of the objects are how you'd expect them to be, for example the egg yolk in the syringe and the cake bar made of a card cut out.  I like the stop frame approach to the rabbits on the side of the cake as well, I think that is done really smoothly.

Studio Brief 4: Apply

For our final brief of this module, we've been 'let loose' and allowed to do make a 5-10 second animation using any of the processes we've learnt so far on this course. It can be about anything we like as long as it responds to one of the key words: Surprise, Lateness, Love, Hate, Longing, Happiness, Fear. 
I thought about the words and came up with a few ideas for Surprise, Love and Fear and storyboarded a couple of them before finally deciding on 'Love'. I did some character designing and worked out how my characters would spin in circles.

 The animation was to be 5-10 seconds long, but my idea for Love in the storyboard seemed to take a lot longer than the length of the animation in the brief, so I cut the story short a bit while making the animation, and my animation was still a bit longer than suggested. My animation tells the story of a girl in a music box who is bored and sad because she's all alone on the shelf, then a second music box is placed on the shelf with a boy spinning in it and the two fall in love and spin together. Originally one of the music boxes was meant to break and then the girl would be fixed onto the other music box so that the two characters spin together forever, however this would have made my animation closer to 30 seconds+ and that was too long for the brief. 
I used music in the background of my animation, because they're music boxes and it seemed silly to not have music in it... The song is the opening of an acoustic version of Alter Bridge's 'Wonderful Life'.

Originally, I had wanted to make my animation using photoshop, and I created a couple of scenes on it at the beginning of the week, however I found that this took a long time, as well as it not always being easy to find a computer and tablet in the mac suites at uni, and as my deadline was quickly approaching, I decided to create my animation using a light table, a peg bar and animation paper, as I had enjoyed doing this in the pendulum project, and it would be a lot quicker and meant I'd actually be able to get it done on time for the deadline as it meant I could work anywhere with a table. 

If I did it again, I'd put in different camera angles, like I'd wanted to in my storyboard, and I'd try to add more personality to the characters and maybe make the girl try to reach out to the boy in some way... 

Magic Water

This is a stop motion animation by youtube user Guldies, done using plasticine, among other objects. I love this animation, I think it's got a really clever use of physical objects and plasticine and I like how the animator has given the properties of water to plasticine. I think it's really well done. I also like how the sound effects reflect the shape of the object at the time, like it fits what the plasticine is meant to be. Overall it's just a really clever use of stop motion and effectively shows what you can do with it.

The Sky audio description advert

Sky Audio description advert.

This advert is on telly at the moment and I think it's a really nice use of typography and animation. I love the way the words and names of objects form the images. I particularly like the "whispers of smoke" coming out of the chimney. I love the way the words take on the characteristics of what they are for. It's a really beautiful use of computer animation.

Pixilation

Our class was set a pixilation project, that was to create a pixilation based on either 'Predator and Prey', 'Parent and Child' or 'Host and Parasite' relationships.

I chose to do a predator and prey style relationship and set about storyboarding a situation where my flatmate was attacking my friend Alex, from my course.

The story goes: Alex is cooking in the kitchen when she hears a knock at the door. She goes to open the door and Adele is standing there looking furious. (We don't know why she is so angry but I'm sure she has a valid reason! perhaps Alex forgot about something important, or maybe Adele and Alex just really don't get on.) Adele then chases Alex around the kitchen and the living room before catching her, pushing her to the floor and dragging her out of the room.

The actual pixilation wasn't that hard to do, and it didn't take too long, but I re-shot it a couple of times to work out camera angles to get the approach I wanted. I think the hardest part of the pixilation process was actually just getting the people to be free to help out.. it's surprisingly hard to get students to stop doing their own work for an hour or so when a deadline is close... 

Overall I'm quite happy with the final animation, although I would like to add some sound in if I had time, as you have to interpret that Alex has heard the door.

Rollin' Safari

This is a CGI animation that humerously explores the idea of what the wild would be like if animals were round. It's the advert for an animation convention in Germany. I watched this for the first time a few days ago and could not stop watching it's absolutely hilarious. I like how they've given the animals extra bouncy floaty characteristics and made them move so much slower as if they'd been blown up like balloons and gravity doesn't affect them as much.