Our task was to do some key frames to represent gestures or moves, one of which has to be a walk cycle.
1) I went to watch the recording of Benedictus in Capel Jerusalem, Resolfen last week. Didn’t realise that the audience were being recorded as well singing all sorts of Welsh hymns. I did my best at singing, but also, in between the filming, I did some sketches of Mr Madoc the conductor:
2) I work in Cardiff Bay, and often go for lunch with Lucy down to the water where we watch the pigeons.
3) Walk Cycle. This is Eira walking through the field in her wellies. She doesn’t normally have this kind of limp, or the lump on her back!
We were experimenting with inks this week which was really hard! They make such bold marks on the page that you can’t rub out! So I didn’t do Juliet justice unfortunately!
Consequences. We had to create three 3 second animations – of a head, a body and legs. Later we’ll use After Effects to mix and match them with other people’s animations – like consequences.
I’m not happy with my legs! I didn’t have time to do them as I wanted, so I’ll redo these before we splice them all together.
I’ve just done a websearch on poetry and animation. Trying to get started on this essay we have to write. There are no books in the library that look specifically at poetry and animation. The main bulk of entries on the web are a series of animated photographs of poets ‘supposedly’ reading their own poems. They’re pretty creepy. Other than that – I’ve found Billy Collins’ site: http://www.bcactionpoet.org where he’s posted about 12 animated poems, and so far the only written piece I can find is “Dicht/Vorm: animation meets poetry” a Dutch project where animators were asked to select a poem and animate it, either modern or classic.
I expected there to be much more written on the subject. If anyone has any possible links – please let me know!!
We’re looking at timing, slowing down animations to look at frames in detail, and comparing different styles.
I chose three animations that have inspired me, all very different:
1) This is an animated poem: The Dead (poem by Billy Collins)
Animated by Juan Delcan.
2) Long time favourite of mine: Pink Floyd: Goodbye Blue Sky
3) The piano duet from Tim Burton’s fabulous Corpse Bride
I realised after I had selected all these animations that there is a definite common theme going on – Death! not sure what that says about me at the moment! So, on initial analysis, these three animations are very different not just in the construction and creation of them but in the timing of images:
The Dead, simple line drawings with jerky movements, fast transitions and lots of metamorphoses. If you slow down the animation and watch it frame by frame the moves are made across fewer frames, for example the arm moves with the cigarette over 24 frames (12 different images). The poem itself is dealing with abstract ideas; it is concept driven as opposed to being a narrative.
Goodbye Blue Sky, beautiful Gerald Scarfe drawings with much smoother transitions. Still a lot of metamorphoses, but these tend to be at a slower pace generally, and there is a flow of ideas which feel as though they follow more of a narrative than ‘The Dead’. It’s still quite abstract but grounded in a reality that we can all appreciate. The arm movement of that big creature takes 70 frames (each a different image).
The Piano Duet from Corpse Bride is even smoother. 3D animation with no metamorphosis. This is a narrative, relationship based, much more like live action. The camera moves in the way live action camera moves. The movement of his arm takes 90 frames just for a slight gesture.
It feels as though the ideas behind the animations help to dictate the nature of the animation. The dead is intellectual, abstract and concept driven, and lends itself to an animation with lots of transitions, metamorphoses and changing images. Goodbye Blue Sky is more shocking and laden with messages about war and death; the beauty of the images and smooth transitions works on our emotions. The Piano Duet is a narrative, part of a larger story, exploring the relationship between two characters, and the live action feel works to make the characters real for us, and enables us to identify with them.
Immersed in animation concepts – timing, meaning, kinetics, keyframes, walk cycles, stop motion etc etc…. Feeling a little out of my depth….
First day – 50 images – putting together a set of images that demonstrates a stream of consciousness or associations. I’ve used images from Pembrokeshire:
This is my starting point! Here are two short animations using cutouts with Stop Motion Pro. I made these last year.
The first one, dusk chorus, I made during a 3 day taster course in Bristol. It’s based on a poem called Dusk Chorus. It needs sound!
The second one is called Mrs Cheveley in the Conservatory at Tenby. I was experimenting with the idea of animation as a backdrop to poetry. It’s pretty rough and messy but was great fun to make! The poem is from a collection I’m writing at the moment, based on the Pembrokeshire Coast.
My interest in studying animation at the moment is to explore how to use animation in the context of poetry. How well they complement each other, and how well animation can be used as a backdrop in a performance context.
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