Entertainment Design - Week 2

18.01.2018 (Week 2)

David Ho Ming Aun (0328394)

Entertainment Design

Cinematography, Animations. 

Lectures: Cinematography, Animation.

The week begins with a brief showcase of concept art and the role of concept art in relation to movies. The lecturer talked about a term known as mise en scène, which basically represents the framing and arrangement of a scene. Great efforts of classic filmmakers were also shown, showing the sheer amount of care (and trouble) that goes into composing a frame. Enter VFX—blowing the static framing out of the water with movies that are almost completely rendered in CGI, where the camera angle can be changed at a whim. 

Understanding the pipeline of an animation and seeing a showreel of great title card designs, we were asked—what is the difference between animation and motion designers? The answer, as our lecturer puts it, lies in the purpose. Motion design is primarily used to sell an item (of commercial value), whereas animation contains characters with storytelling at its primary core. A small history of motion graphics was explained, from Saul Bass' Anatomy of a Murder to the thousands of widely available templates today. This led to a discussion of how corporations perceive freelancers as a threat, as they simply use any downloadable template for their motion graphics, which typically leads to sub-par designs. "But if the client is happy, there's nothing we can do!" The one competitive edge that studios have against freelancers, the lecturer believes, is the ability to propose full, encompassing solutions to help their businesses, in contrast to a small freelancer doing a single promo video.


Assignment 1 Progress
As with all projects, I began with sketches. I first needed to get used to drawing a four-legged friend instead of a lanky human, so I did some preliminary sketching.

After roughly getting an idea of how things can be designed, I proceeded to attempt digital scamps. This includes making scamps, crafting the typography, and making more detailed drafts. 

I ended up enjoying the framing for the final draft, although slightly conventional, can depict a more structured look. The comments I received from my coursemates and lecturer said that the dog's pose doesn't look as dynamic as the first two drafts. I'll be tweaking the dog's pose to show a more action-orientated pose, perhaps a good boy jumping towards the camera!


Research Question:

Filmmaking is a craft, what are the stages involved from beginning till end and how does it differ between live action and animated films?

Although filmmaking and animation are essentially both moving images that function to entertain, there exist stark differences between the process of creation either one.  

The Traditional Filmmaking Process is usually broken down into three sections, pre-production, production, and post-production.

Pre-production encapsulates everything that occurs before any form of shooting,and can be argued to be the bulk of the workload. It represents the very important step of setting the foundation on which the production team will build upon. This involves ideation, scriptwriting, location scouting, prop-making, storyboarding, casting, and anything else that is required to prepare for the shooting.

If pre-production is the backbone of any film, production is the meat of the movie. This is where the actors will be filmed on the locations with the full props. Throughout this process, directors generally hope to allow what's set in pre-production stages to dictate the production, but it is not uncommon that serendipity can play a part in changing certain parts of scenes, such as actors ad-libbing certain dialogue, unforeseen coincidences, and so on. If the film has the need for motion capture, this is when it'll happen.

Post-production represents the last leg of the journey, where all the raw footage is gathered, trimmed, colour-graded, edited and evaluated. CGI and VFX will be thrown in as well, giving Michael Bay his thorough obsession with lens flares and explosions. After several passes and lots of edits, the film is complete and ready to be shown!

The Animation Process, however, presents a different challenge from traditional filmmaking as there are typically no real scenes or humans involved. Taking the example of a 2d animated film, all characters and settings are drawn/designed, and even the camera is a virtual one.

It begins with writing a script, where the story is ideated and crafted. Next, storyboards are created to give a rough visual outlook of the animation. Once it is approved, the audio is recorded, and an animatic is created. Once the animatics are approved, the layout stage occurs, where the lighting, camera angle is decided upon. Then finally, the actual animation process begins.

An animation is very different from traditional live-action films, and perhaps can be compared to illustration and photography. While filmmaking is about capturing real-life moments (albeit in a controlled setting), creating an animation is about creating worlds.

I believe both are beautiful forms that play with a very personal dimension that we treasure the most—time, and there are many films/animation that can only exist because of its unique format. Regardless of you being a motion designer/filmmaker or not, it is of worth to take notes from the creativity involved in crafting a story, and telling it through film.


References:
New York Film Academy: Student Resources. (2017). The Beginner's Guide to the Filmmaking Process. [online] Available at: https://www.nyfa.edu/student-resources/the-beginners-guide-to-the-filmmaking-process/ [Accessed 20 Jan. 2018].

Shaver, A. (2011). 2D Animation Process. [online] Multimediamcc.com. Available at: http://multimediamcc.com/old-students/ashaver/2d_process.html [Accessed 20 Jan. 2018].

B2w.tv. (2016). The Evolution of Animation: A brief journey through time. [online] Available at: https://b2w.tv/blog/the-evolution-of-animation-a-brief-journey-through-time/ [Accessed 20 Jan. 2018].