I'm so tired.
This week I relearned the camera in Harmony. With just a view short sentences and a messed up keyframe sequence, I had it. And then I relearned how much I hate Harmony's camera. The only thing I miss about Maya is the camera. Maya's camera and I got a long way better than Harmony. Is there any way I can use a Maya camera in a 2D animation?
There isn't much animation stuff left that I want to learn in the future. I do however want to learn how to get a four or five on an AP exam because I refuse to get another two. I think I have it in the back but also English is a tricky device to learn in an advanced setting.
Just animating frustrated me this week. I know it is mostly my fault because I won't just get voice recording done so I can properly time things, but also I don't really want to voice record. But there is like a month left so I gotta get this done.
Something that made me happy this week was the realization that there are only 101 days left before I see Hamilton. (By the time you read this 100...or 99....or 98....August ninth). I am so excited because I get to see a new city and also see the musical that has taken over my life.
Normally I plan a link ahead but this time around I have not. I don't wanna give you anything animation related or an animation sooooo.....here's Drag Queens. (But also guys I think Jason animated this.)
Sunday, April 30, 2017
Creature Animation Advice
Most creatures in movies these days are animated. Like dinosaurs and gigantic apes. We don't just have them laying around domesticated and alive to use in movies. Monsters are also animated, as well as things like the Hulk or Groot and things with many arms. Creature animation is a big deal.
Alvise Avati didn't start animating until he was 32. He had originally decided he wanted to work with computer graphics, and while some of it had animation it wasn't solely animation. He has animated scenes in movies such as King Kong and Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol No. 2, and focusses on creature animation mostly. If you watch his showreel you will see a ton of creature work, all ranging from different quality. You can watch his improvement just like that.
He tells about how he got to where he was, and how he changed his mind a lot before settling on wanting to animate. One of the most challenging movies he has had to work on was Avatar. He had to animate a six-legged creature, which was difficult in itself seeing as any James Cameron movie is hard to work on. He learned that the big picture always comes first, that chunks of animation may be cut because they are details that are not necessary for the story. he also learned that research is important for any multi-legged creature. He went in to animate the thing with only a fraction of an idea of how it worked and wishes he had spent more time researching and understanding how it would move.
Avati says that creature animation means a large variety of wide variety of animation techniques. There are many forms of creature animation, from photorealistic like in Life of Pi or giant alien monsters like in Pacific rim. No matter what there needs to be a grasp of body mechanics before animating whatever your creature is. There also needs to be little attentions to detail, special touches that really give it an oomph. But that only comes with time and experience, or else it would not be as special. He says that students must know body mechanics because it is the most important in creature animation. If they don't look almost 100 percent believable they will be distracting to the viewers. The shot you are making also has to look interesting, entertaining, and appealing. So spend a lot of time on body mechanics and performance.
Creature animation is a difficult art, but grasping certain dynamic can really help you out. So get out there and get knowledge of body mechanics and appeal and make the best possible animation you can to stand out.
I liked this article. It was interesting to see talk about just one certain field of 3D animation because I do not see that often. Avati gave some good advice that was short and sweet and easy to understand.
I also really enjoyed his show reel. I have seen a lot of movies that he's had bits in and never realized. Especially Waterhorse. I know that Waterhorse doesn't have the most realistic animation, but it is cool to know about someone who did some of the animating for it. Creature animation seems like such an interesting art to pursue, even if it is difficult.
Sunday, April 2, 2017
im free the evil is defeated
I am so tired but I have eighty years of homework still. Why do teachers have to do this to us during musical weekend?
This week I learned that I have forgotten all about Harmony. I also learned more than I wanted to know about Tim Burton. And the words "cat-themed gift shop" will forever make me cringe. I also learned that four shows in one weekend leaves no time for anything but maybe eating and sleeping and I am going to physically fight our director if he does it again next year. I have limits and they have all been reached.
Something I want to learn in the future is how to do eight hours of homework in one hour because I just want to sleep. It is all I ask for. I also want to learn how to win at raffles because they are 100% rigged. And I need to relearn the art of cameras in Harmony because I am drawing blanks.
Something that frustrated me this week was: the musical. We did great things but I do not think a majority of us were ready for it. I witnessed a cast member straight up leave just because she was not feeling well, even though there is always at least one person who is throwing up off stage at some point during the show. I am also just frustrated at my lack of sleep and my lack of time to do work. I thought there would be downtime during Saturday but it was basically just an eight-hour play because we had no breaks in between shows.
I am happy I never have to touch that stupid pound of foam that is my role ever again. My knuckles are purple, my ankles are purple, and my body hurts. I was also gonna be happy to finally get some sleep but that does not appear to be happening tonight. Woe is me.
I feel like I'm missing something. I probably am. But I have another like four things to write so I'm not even going to think about it. Here's something: I have watched it every time I was feeling upset this week.
This week I learned that I have forgotten all about Harmony. I also learned more than I wanted to know about Tim Burton. And the words "cat-themed gift shop" will forever make me cringe. I also learned that four shows in one weekend leaves no time for anything but maybe eating and sleeping and I am going to physically fight our director if he does it again next year. I have limits and they have all been reached.
Something I want to learn in the future is how to do eight hours of homework in one hour because I just want to sleep. It is all I ask for. I also want to learn how to win at raffles because they are 100% rigged. And I need to relearn the art of cameras in Harmony because I am drawing blanks.
Something that frustrated me this week was: the musical. We did great things but I do not think a majority of us were ready for it. I witnessed a cast member straight up leave just because she was not feeling well, even though there is always at least one person who is throwing up off stage at some point during the show. I am also just frustrated at my lack of sleep and my lack of time to do work. I thought there would be downtime during Saturday but it was basically just an eight-hour play because we had no breaks in between shows.
I am happy I never have to touch that stupid pound of foam that is my role ever again. My knuckles are purple, my ankles are purple, and my body hurts. I was also gonna be happy to finally get some sleep but that does not appear to be happening tonight. Woe is me.
I feel like I'm missing something. I probably am. But I have another like four things to write so I'm not even going to think about it. Here's something: I have watched it every time I was feeling upset this week.
Messages
Everyone wants a movie to have a larger message to it. Not just "hey watch this movie its cool", there is always a bigger picture. Zootopia is just a feature film about a bunny cop and a con-artist fox. There is a lot of animal stereotypes used, but people also want to make the central message about prejudice. There are ways in which this could work, but also there are some flaws to that idea. Like how the dynamics of Zootopia and the real world are very very different.
Zootopia is a movie centered around little bunny Judy Hopps. She faces a lot of struggle in her life for being a bunny with a desire to be a cop. But while she is a minority in her line of work, she is a majority of her place of inhabitance. With the concept of predator and prey, Zootopia is 90% prey. When predators are found to be savage, some simple miswording during a press conference instills fear in the majority. It may seem that Zootopia could be sending a message about prejudice and the likes, but also this movie has such a broad statement that it could mean anything. It is targeting young children mainly with a message of feeling left out, not with a goal to teach them about prejudice and police brutality like some want to argue.
Zootopia's core metaphor is hard to make sense of. They want you to believe that predator and prey went from a relationship of predator eating prey to them coexisting happily in their world unless say a chemical imbalance happened. It is easy to see why prey could be scared of predator on some level. But applying this idea to our world makes little to no sense. Because then who would be considered the prey or the predator? Trying to mold the Zootopia message into one about the prejudice in our world is rather difficult because there just is not enough cause and correlation.
But in there is a general message about prejudice in this story, just not one that can directly fit our society. Reading into the timing of the release of the movie could lead people to try and connect it to contemporary issues. It could be if you follow the heavy editing that happened before the release of the movie. And still, Zootopia's overall metaphor is open and elastic for anything you want to fit in it, instead of having just one solid meaning to it. Using animals for general metaphors has always been our thing, we understand them just enough to mold them to us then throw them into the world for a metaphor. Like Animal Farm and Babe, Zootopia follows a metaphor, but it is just a broad metaphor for one subject. It is not solidly about one single subject.
Animals in movies always guide us to make some form of way too in depth metaphor that we did not think about before. In reality, however, these are often children's movies just trying to teach a small little lesson like "do not judge a book by its cover". We may see specific metaphors, but we are really just pulling our own legs.
This article was interesting to read because it talked about something I have thought about Zootopia. A handful of people I know also believe Zootopia is about prejudice and police brutality and the whole works. It really is not, in my opinion.
I see it for the broad metaphor of do not treat someone different because of who they are. Sure there is a lot of stereotyping and sensitive subjects in this movie. I do not see the way someone could pinpoint this all as just police brutality and prejudice however. I mean, they are just cartoon animals, what do you want out of them?
Zootopia's core metaphor is hard to make sense of. They want you to believe that predator and prey went from a relationship of predator eating prey to them coexisting happily in their world unless say a chemical imbalance happened. It is easy to see why prey could be scared of predator on some level. But applying this idea to our world makes little to no sense. Because then who would be considered the prey or the predator? Trying to mold the Zootopia message into one about the prejudice in our world is rather difficult because there just is not enough cause and correlation.
But in there is a general message about prejudice in this story, just not one that can directly fit our society. Reading into the timing of the release of the movie could lead people to try and connect it to contemporary issues. It could be if you follow the heavy editing that happened before the release of the movie. And still, Zootopia's overall metaphor is open and elastic for anything you want to fit in it, instead of having just one solid meaning to it. Using animals for general metaphors has always been our thing, we understand them just enough to mold them to us then throw them into the world for a metaphor. Like Animal Farm and Babe, Zootopia follows a metaphor, but it is just a broad metaphor for one subject. It is not solidly about one single subject.
Animals in movies always guide us to make some form of way too in depth metaphor that we did not think about before. In reality, however, these are often children's movies just trying to teach a small little lesson like "do not judge a book by its cover". We may see specific metaphors, but we are really just pulling our own legs.
This article was interesting to read because it talked about something I have thought about Zootopia. A handful of people I know also believe Zootopia is about prejudice and police brutality and the whole works. It really is not, in my opinion.
I see it for the broad metaphor of do not treat someone different because of who they are. Sure there is a lot of stereotyping and sensitive subjects in this movie. I do not see the way someone could pinpoint this all as just police brutality and prejudice however. I mean, they are just cartoon animals, what do you want out of them?
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