Bots and Bananas

Second year, first project, first post of a new academic year.

In this project the general idea is to make a robot slip over a banana with the duration of the video being no less than a minute and no more than 5 minutes, but there is more to that than just what it says in the project brief. This project is more to do with slapstick comedy. We started the project by looking at classic slapstick comedians like Laurel and Hardy, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and so on. Looking at these comedians and studying their style of comedy will help later in the animation process of this project.

What makes a good slapstick formula?

Looking at what makes a good slapstick formula will help in the writing/storyboarding of my idea for this project, in class we worked in groups then shared out ideas to the class to try and get a list of words and sentences that sum up a good formula for slapstick comedy, this is what we got; repetition, being in outrageous yet believable situations, the exaggeration of pretty much anything for example violence, timing and delivery is crucial, taking jokes to the limit without crossing the line and jokes that exceed common sense. Having an understanding of what makes a good slapstick joke will make it easier when it comes to creating my plot to my animation.

Robot Designs

From the start of this project I wanted the animation itself in this short film to be fluid and as real as possible, having the animation and motion telling the story. With this in mind I wanted to keep the design of my robot pretty basic, so it would be easy to model, easy to rig and then hopefully be easy to animate.

I eventually decided that this next sketch would be my final design, although there’s still a few things here and there that I will change once modelling it.

 
Storyboard

I had an idea for my story and I went for it, and when I gave my presentation Andy said that it would work fine, which I was happy with. The basic story is that a cleaning robot walks past a zoo where a monkey has thrown a banana over the wall, the robot picks it up and he’s like ‘yeah!’ Then as the robot is about to walk away another banana hits him on the head, he looks up with an annoyed face, before turning to walk away, but forgetting about the banana peel he slips over and falls to the floor. Un suspecting to hit a monkey hurls some faeces over the wall which in slow motion goes towards his face, before it hits him in the face its goes to black. Finish. With the use of Foley and sound editing I am hoping to make the monkeys an audio character, being one of the main characters in the story but only being there through sound. 

More blogging soon!

Moving Image

This was by far the most difficult project to execute, mainly due to lack of team management. Due to the fact we are all close friends we didn't have a clear leader to it was hard to organise ourselves. We only had our actor, Matt, for two days as he had exams to revise for, which was fair enough, but on our second day of filming we were getting good shots but we needed to get some outdoor shots, this is when the weather took a turn for the worst and we had to do with the shots we had. All in all the edit came out rather well, due to good editing and I really think the sound/audio/music goes with the video very well and sets the scene (I'm not just saying that because I was the audio guy). Matt was a very willing and able actor, and when we did get around to working we didn't work too bad as a group.

I'll will be adding screen shots and the final edit a bit later.

Super Mario Quiz

Hey hey, well the quiz is almost finished now, just needs to add the final bits and bobs to it. Haven't had much time during this easter holiday as of yet as I've been busy working. I'm pretty happy with what I've created, although I might make some changes to the AS at some point, but for now, have a butchers at my loading screen.

Flash Quiz

For my flash quiz I was doing some research into one of my all time favourite games, Super Mario Bros. The only online flash quizzes I found were drab, boring and uninteresting texts and images, answering easy questions with the standard click and go sequence. So my flash quiz will be a trivia game based on the Super Mario Bros. Franchise. I’m going to incorporate many more things into my one than I have currently seen on the Internet such as video clips, animated sequences music and graphics. I’ve got my list of actually challenging trivia questions, time to get planning, sketching, drawing and programming!

Virtual Environment

I didn’t really know what my direction for the virtual environment was going to be, but I had a vague knowing that it was going to belong to someone menacing, so with that in mid I started modelling weapons.

I started by using a sourced image from the internet and modelling from that, I would model half then use the symmetry function to make it whole.

I then did a quick UVW unwrap and use the sourced image for the detailing on the gun.

And then did the same process for the other gun

I then created very simple rooms, relying on lighting and texture to give a sense of realism. This, the first room only consist of a simple cabinet, table, a few ‘toxic’ like barrels, stairs and some sort of electricity wires, by adding light I was hoping for an ominous feel throughout the rooms. The second room is far too basic for my liking, it’ pretty much just a circular room with some sort of ornament in the middle, but it is unknown to the viewer what it is. The last room is the lab, full of ‘aliens’ in a sort of cryogenic tube.

Here are the final results:

Evaluation of my own performance:

Although I am happy with my first attempt at a virtual environment, I know I could have done much better. I didn’t push myself, imaginatively or artistically during this project due to my lack of motivation I guess. I know I want to do this next year, so I need to pull my finger out and crack on, so during my spare time during the year and summer I shall go on to create 3D works. Here are some I’m playing around with at the moment,

Peace out, 1x

5 Q's to make someone talk about their development

Myself and Kalenn spoke on how this course has influenced the way in which we work, and develop our work. We both came to practically the same answer. Whereas before studying this course we may have been more reluctant to use different software in order to create something, staying within confined boundaries of using software that was familiar to ourselves, but now we use a range of software in order to create something to the best of our abilities.

Practitioner Development

Virtual Environments, 3D Modeling - This is the path that I am more than likely to take, not because I'm good at it, but because I'm really interested in it. Comparing to James I have to develop my skills in much different way, most noticeable the fact that I'm pretty much starting from scratch. James wants to go down the interactive narrative and web design route, this is because this is what he feels comfortable doing, hes interested in graphical layouts and web design. Me on the other hand I want to be a 3D modeler. I have been doing a lot of reading and researching, varying from how to tutorials to video blogs and trying to create 3D models myself. Similarities between us is that we both have little knowledge in the specific programs we will be using, so both of us will have to get to grips using and becoming pro's at our specific software.