Christmas Over

Okay, so this is just a little update to say that unfortunately, work is beginning again. So, nose to the grind stone and off I go.

However before I do so, I just saw a story on sky news where a calf was trapped on a frozen river, but the ice was too thin to make a rescue, how ddid they save it? blowing it to the edge with the wind from the helicopter :) good day.

Graham's Bane 1.1

Gangsters what up. Hope your all well and excited about the upcoming few days! I am currently plugging away at this digi so I thought hey, why not show some progress. Here is a screen shot of my work in after effects in a near finished state, and a comparison as to what i wanted it to look like.

So yeah there it is, I'm very happy with it despite it not being built in 3D space like... nearly all of my previous projects but those took alot of time to do and were used multiple times in the project, however this is sort of a one shot type thing so, I think it has the desired effect so thats what I need.
If you've got any thoughts or just fancy saying hi, drop a comment.
Take care people and have a great christmas!

Quick Update: 1.2

Hey guys, so I'm at home now for the christmas holidays and all is well. I have been having some nice early mornings to cram as much work as I can in before I'm needed to do jobs or I get the need to punch my computer in the face/screen. As a result I have already finished 90% of the photoshop files for Graham's bane, each with 2 different colour schemes to avoid the town looking too samey. I am very happy with how it is shaping up and by the day am coming up with cunning schemes to avoid animating the rabbit running too much whilst still keeping the animation running smooth and looking sexy. By the end of it I should have something looking very crisp and clean which to me mean professional and if i can achieve that then I will be muchos happy. So since I'm in a good mood, here is a cool little song I found a while back. Much love x

Graham's Bane

Hey peeps, so I've been doing some odds and ends in after effects and photoshop and thought I'd sketch out a mock up of the Shanty town for my end sequence, thats pretty much all there is too it, here it is.

Much love.

Rabbits....WOW

So I've been looking around for something to help me animate this rabbit hopping, but on this journey, I found this. I did not know rabbits were this god damn cool.

YouTube...God Damn It....

Safes, here is the link...talking to my future self... yeah, link to the video you made Noah, well done! Hope this works.... also here is the screen you were looking at for 5 hours, just to plague you a little more. You love it you tart.

Hide your kids, Hide your Wife.

Captains log, star date..... a Saturday of some description.
On monday (two days away) I am required to make a presentation to my tutors and fellow digital media students. I think the expectations are of a "near finished product." Yikes!
The little clip that I posted a few, days? ago has now been worked on to a ridiculous level and is now about 40 seconds long, with a rain particle system on it, and a vignette (thank god for spell check). I am immensely happy with the results or my work, however it does now strike me that i have about another 2 mins of footage to animate, which doesn't fill me with Christmas joy.
Looks like a push to get maybe another 10 rough seconds done for monday, maybe more it depends on how it turns out, and then a long long long christmas, spent majoritivty at a computer. Win.
To keep you guys going here is a video which if you haven't seen, sweet jesus you need to. We got a rapist in Lincoln park...

Quick Update 1.1

Hey guys, so I'm on about 40 seconds of my animation now, I'm really happy with the way its going, but I am slightly concerned with timings later in the animation, however for now, life is good.
In other parts of my life my ice hockey team the Nottingham Panthers had a bench clearance brawl, epic.

Teaser Type Thing or T.T.T. ^.^

Here it is peeps! Enjoy!

Soon To Be Up

Hey hey, just a quick update, I a) now have a title which i shall reveal with b) the uploading of the first few seconds of my animation, which a like will be up very very soons. Watch this shit peeps.
Much love.

Rabbits Rabbits Rabbits

Yo Yo Yo, I'm back now and with me i bring photoshop tastiness (thats actually a word?!) so yeah, check it out, hopefully a little snippet will be coming soons. Love Love Love.

Quick Update 1.0

What up gangsters, so i was thinking of ways to pretty much make this idea awesome, and what I did was look on the webternet to try and find out what the world looks like to a rabbit. What I found was that from their point of view, everything is an obstacle, think about it if you put your head on the floor and look around your eyes are probably still higher than a rabbits!?
Also I found that their vision is quite poor, and the only reason why they aren't scared of thier owners is because they can recognize the shape and way they move. So if they owner was to jump over with a big coat on the rabbit would get well scared. Also their vision has very poor depth perception (20% of what they see has depth!) so the way the try and see depth is to bounce their head and then that way they are able to see which things move faster or slower and are therefor closer or further away.
So these things I can incorporate into my animation in subtle ways, eg a ho-bo could be nearby, but due to his shape he could look like some crazy monster, things like that.
I also found that there a zombie rabbits! Well, they sure as hell look like it. Its a disease called myxomatosis and it makes them look well sketchy. So I might throw in a rabbit that he could meet, but it really freaks him out because he's kind of pretentious due to his having and owner and all. So yeah, thats how the idea is progressing right now, and I'm about to start sketching some test into photoshop and stuff and see if i can put up a nice little animation for ya'll.
I shall leave you with this.



Tasty right? Much love.

Two Minds

So I've been talking to my tutor as of late, and am quite frankly confused as to what I am going to do regarding my digital media project. On one hand I have an idea that I loved, but have grown slightly apart from due to a couple of peeps putting a bit of a downer on it. On the other I have a sort of fresh idea, which though I do like it I'm not sure if I'm behind it.
I think the one I'm going for is the original (yes I have changed my mind again) despite my lack of faith in it. I think I am going to keep in the lights guiding the rabbit, but will be talking to friends and family to see what they think about it and where they see it going. Perhaps this will lead to a more rich story, though I do still intend to have a town run by animals, and I am hitting this mother bitch with a train :-)
So whilst I try and make this better by monday her is an wickedly funny animation for your chops, enjoy.

Re-Do

Right so after presenting pure crap to my tutors and group I cam to the realization that my idea has no description of narrative, story or development, and was quite frankly shit. So, heres what I cooked up, knowing I wanted to keep the rabbit, and keep some kind of animal run town.

Storyboards!

Thats right I have finished the first major sequence of the animation in storyboard form, and since I'm a smart cookie I also made the photoshop files suitable to be animated, so after this a animatic should be on its way. So without further delay here they are.

So I hope you could follow that, any thoughts etc let me know via comment or whatever, but yeah, its moving on. Noah out.

Quick update.

So there hasn't been a new post for a while, various reasons including tonsillitis and other general illnesses, humans are so crap. So anyway, my story has developed into a sort of merger, I am sticking with the concept of the rabbit trying to find its place in the world which ends up being the shanty town for pets, but I can confirm that i will be incorporating the idea of guiding lights. This idea has been put into story board production, some of which shall be put up soon for your eyes to see. In the mean time sit tight and enjoy some awesome music. Thank you Toto.

Development.

So after proposing my idea to tutors and group, it would seem that people thought the pets shanty town to be a bolt on accessory, so, here is my defense, or justification maybe...

The shanty town is supposed to be symbolic of the rabbits home, as though his owner doesn't want him, so now he has to find his place, and when he finds this place, he is welcome to live with all of the other animals that are without an owner. Hence why when he is brutalized by a train its quite shocking.

An idea which was given to me however was that maybe the rabbit is going from light to light, like the phrase "caught in the lights" like a rabbit. So I didn't want to ditch the shanty town, but I did want to incorporate this light idea. So heres what I was thinking: maybe the rabbit keeps finding these fairy lights and such things, with paw prints on the walls leading him to the shanty town. This way the story becomes slightly more light hearted (until the end) and I can cut the majority of crappy story in the middle out.

Back to the Future!!! Bunnies....

So since my project (which pretty much got given the all clear!) is based around a rabbit character, I should probably look at the rabbits from our childhoods and see what I could take from them, or how they could help my animation in general.

1. First up, Alice in Wonderlands White Rabbit. The reason why I put him at number one is that he does remind me of my preliminary doodles, just a bit fatter. The White Rabbit walks like a human in the animated film, and is very fast... because he's late....

2. Numero dos! Peter Rabbit. This rabbit has to be one of the most famous ones in the world, surely. What I think I can relate to my project here is the complete stylization of the drawings, and I want to have that same principle, just a different style.

3. The rabbit from Watership Down. I have yet to watch this film again since my childhood, however will be ordering a copy very soon. From what I can remember this is a very dark film, and the rabbits are animated beautifully. My animation would also share some of the dark elements, maybe more black humor that darkness though....
          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZcHLpjiEdw

Idea Advancement

So, I've been considering what idea I would like to take forward for my project. My preliminary ideas were split between an artsy, pretty, depth-of-field manipulating cut out voice over story of what it takes to be an ice hockey player. The other idea was a very simple but stylized take on a platform video game, a light hearted animation.

However I am very aware that many 'first ideas' can be a waste, and otherwise throw away thoughts. So i progressed on and found several animations, sayings etc that I liked, and came up with this idea.

The animation would follow a small rabbit along his journey, as he is left by the side of the road, in the rain and he takes shelter in a near by train tunnel. We follow him through the darkness with scary happenings along the way, spiders, bats, eyes in the dark etc, until he eventually finds a lit-up oasis of other pets that have been abandoned by their owners, and have set up a shanty town and live in happiness, then the rabbit is hit by a train. Fin.

So yeah, I really like this idea and am heavily considering taking it on as my project, though I am keeping an open slot for other ideas, I'm pretty hooked up on this one. Now if I can figure out how to get images up on here you can have a gander at some of my doodles for this...

Introduction.

Hello,
         I am a third year media production student specializing in digital media, and here is my blog, where I will be posting updates on my work, including previews and renders, and links to things that have inspired me. Thankyou for visiting and I hope you enjoy.