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Day 22 - Reflection and different ways to approach the industry as well as summarizing research  (freelance or big companies)

For essentially the last blog post of the project, I thought I would look up some articles regarding to work as a freelancer or working in a studio. Whilst I have kind of covered this in my lectures already as part of the new ‘Media Roles Project’ with Dan Kelby’s really valuable info on life as a freelancer, I thought I would do some more research myself to see what other people thought as well as seeing the pros and cons for each one. 

The general perspective that I’ve seen from these websites comes down to four factors: flexibility, control, security and stability and motivation. With flexibility as a freelancer, you definitely have a lot more time to yourself compared to a salary job as you can organise your own working hours and spend your time do the tings you like although, it’s really easy to fall into the habbit of stock piling all your work at the end same goes with controlling yourself to work and having the right motivation to get it done as well. With something like stability, it can be good as a freelancer if your work becomes well known enough to get multiple clients lining up in your emails although at the same time, you might not have any client work at all at the start or have long periods of time where no work is coming through the door. I feel from reading these articles, I’ve definitely gotten a lot more knowledge on the balancing weight between the two as i might start off working in a studio for experience and might develop towards freelance afterwards so I have the most experience possible for any kind of situation.

Whilst the sources I’ve looked at are a very general way of looking at freelance compared to working in a studio, I wanted to look up the comparison in regards to the animation industry rather than be very broad to the stuff I’ve looked at. This is where I bumped into ‘Howard Whimshurt’ and his journey as a freelancer working as a 2D animator from home. His video discussing what’s it like to work the way he does was really interesting to learn about as well as understanding both the positives and negatives that come out of it as it’s a particular lifestyle he’s made cater for him as he works 7 days a week where he’ll work from 11am in the morning to 3am. In addition to these points, the video shows what a typical day looks like for him as well as talking about one of the more important factors of working in freelance which is communication with not only his clients but also the people in his normal day to day life as well.

The Truth About Freelance Animating - A Week in the Life of a Professional Animator

Reflecting back on the research done today, I definitely think I will still stick to what I’ve said and pursue with working in the industry first just so I can not only get a taste of what it's like to work in a professional environment but also having that experience and chance for future career plans to get too higher levels of work despite not being the biggest necessity with some companies.  

Looking back on the entire project all together, I’m really glad of what I’ve managed to achieve in the project as there were definitely some hiccups that I did in my research like repeating some info and losing some unfortunately but despite all that, I feel I’m definitely more informed about the potential roles that I wanted to look at then I was at the beginning. This for now has made me decide I want to pursue with 3D/CG work as I feel much more passionate about the medium than I was before the project as well as knowing there’s definitely a lot more opportunity to work in both freelance and in a studio. In addition to that, I definitely think it’s gonna be challenging for me at first to understand as 3D/CG is still really new to me but at the same time, I love changeling myself and I feel 3D is gonna really test myself with working towards becoming a 3D animator and rigger (and potentially modeler too) with learning how to animate the human form, rig and program.

However, I don’t say these words with absolute certainty as I still have an enormous passion for stop motion and more so treating it like a back up plan for the time being if I start to not enjoy 3D/CG as much as I planned to in Year 2. In addition to this, I also plan to home my skills a lot more for both stop-motion and 3D respectively to prepare myself not only for Year 2 but also putting together a small portfolio of work for roles like a runner so that I’ll have a showcase of work to show and hopefully will get me motivated to do it on a regular basis.

Sources:

Freelance Work Versus a Salary Job: The Pros and Cons

https://business.tutsplus.com/tutorials/freelance-work-versus-a-salary-job-the-pros-and-cons--cms-25052

Freelancer vs Employee vs Independent Contractor: What Are The Differences? https://www.flexjobs.com/blog/post/difference-freelancing-employee-contractor-v2/

What is better, to freelance at home or office work? Why? https://www.quora.com/What-is-better-to-freelance-at-home-or-office-work-Why

Freelance work: What you need to know

https://www.reed.co.uk/career-advice/freelance-work-what-you-need-to-know/

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Day 21 - Stop Motion Rigger

Similar to 3D/CG rigging, stop motion rigging involves creating a metal armature of the puppet to make it potable and ready for animating on for the animator to tackle with. However in stop-motion since it’s all physical, there’s so much more to rigging than just the puppet as you have to find ways to help support your puppets and props up if you either want them to stand in shot or have them animated across the screen. Things like base rigs that connect to the back of the puppet allow it to freely float in the air which the animator can determine which parts of the puppets body should be touching the ground or not. Something like jumping in the air is the perfect example of using a base rig to keep the puppet in the air for a frame and the lowering the rig down so that it can move back down to the ground. 

For application research on stop motion riggers, there weren't any positions available at the time of writing this post due actually needing to be there in person to do the job. Annoying as it is, I did however find one bit of info on a really old job application for a stop motion rigger which it was saying about how ‘Autodesk Inventor’ was one of the main software of uses that I wanted the person to have experience in which upon further research, I found out it was a CAD software used for making tools and mechanical items in 3D which could be printed and made into a plastic or metal object if you had the right printer which was interesting to know about although I’m not sure if it links into the kind of stop-motion I’m looking into.

However instead of that, i decided to revisit some of my original research and went back to the rigging video that I looked at earlier in my research. From watching it again there were was something I didn’t realise at the time that being the riggers also serve as model-makers at LAIKA and not just Riggers as they go into how for ‘Paranorman’, they created the toilet paper zombies that overshadow Norman when he’s on the loo. This made me realise that rigging in stop motion is very differently mechanically it works in 3D rigging as in stop motion, they more or less share the same role as a model maker as they do almost the same stuff except that model making is a lot more artistic where as a rigger is a lot more technical but both of these roles are needed to help the animator out to make the shot.

LAIKA | ParaNorman | Rigging the Game 

The very last thing I looked at was that from me trying to research job openings for rigging, I actually came across where you can buy and look at the different components that are required to make the rigs in the first place for stop motion as there were several different pieces and kit that I didn’t know about that being ‘Winders’ as these are the parts that are used at the base of the rig to allow a floating puppet like ‘Norman’s Grandma’ to be suspended in the air and can be placed along side the device.  

Rigging & Tie-Down - Animation Supplies

https://www.animationsupplies.net/rigging-and-tie-down.html?limit=all

Kinetic Armatures Shop for Rigs and Armatures

https://kineticarmatures.com/

Because of the lack of positions available to research for, I think overall it’s really opened my eyes to what’s needed to become a rigger in stop motion animation as essentially if you know how to model make puppetry, you’ve pretty much got the right building blocks in working towards that role. 

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Day 20 - 3D Rigger

For the role of a 3D rigger, they essentially create the digital skeleton to a digital puppet that the modelers would make you for you and it’s your job to make sure that the model is able to move to the animators liking so that they can achieve the pose needed for a particular scene or certain change in the character. It’s not just body movements as well as a rigger would also also have to put mini skeletons into characters faces to express emotion or if its for a singing character, make it so that their tongue is animated too. Riggers are also not just limited to character as well as inanimate objects and ships often use rigging as well to help move various parts of the at property to make it realistic if something was to touch it or you wanted to bring life into it. As mentioned before in the previous blog post, riggers often talk a lot with the animators in trying to get the character just right with them as sometimes it can be a really long trial and error process.

Software that’s most commonly used for rigging normally tends to be both Maya and Blender as they’re industry standard in that line of work. However when I was looking at the job listings online for the role of a rigger, apparently there’s quite a lot of use in ‘Python’ (coding software) used which when I was reviewing Rooster Teeth as part of my research had mentioned in the lecture that they wished they would of learnt how to use python as early as possible. This led me to researching a bit about how Python works in software like Maya and Blender upon watching those videos, really confused me to how the coding process worked having never coded before. However, I still found the whole process really interesting to me as whilst I’m not that experienced in python coding, I would really like to explore it a lot more when it comes to rigging or even animating to a certain extent as I like being challenged. On top of that, most professional companies that are looking for riggers require you be well versed in Python coding in Maya or Blender which is something I might want to try and learn over the summer in addition to the other roles in 3D.

Creating Awesome 3D Animations With Python In Blender

From learning about Python Coding, this linked me towards learning about learning the different terms in rigging a character as I wanted to see if there was anything else that I might of not known about 3D rigging before as the coding to me looked really complicated but fascinating at the same. I came across this website on ‘ScreenSkills’ and it talks about the key terms used when you are a 3D Rigger such as ‘Inverse Kinematics’ and ‘Forward Kinematics’ which are essentially choosing if you want the points to follow the others or not as with forward kinematics, this makes the points independently move whereas inverse kinematics react to the changes you make. 

Key 3D Rigging Terms to Get You Moving

https://www.pluralsight.com/blog/film-games/key-rigging-terms-get-moving

Overall, I think I still like the whole idea of 3D rigging but learning about the Python coding as really thrown me in a loop again as whilst I would love to learn how to use it, I’m not sure if it really resonates with me as I don’t see it as really creative in my eyes compared to animating a character or model making as those roles I prefer over the more technical side of animation. However that’s not to say I wouldn't want to do it neither as it would be really useful to the type of industries I would want to get in like the film and games industry so it’s definitely gonna be something I want to experiment with.  

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Day 19 - 3D animator

Today, I began looking at the role of 3D animator a lot closer through looking at the ‘ScreenSkills’ website for what’s required for the job as well as analyzing one of my favorite 3D animated short’s that got me into 3D animation in the first place. 

As a 3D animator, the role is pretty much the same as a stop motion animator except it’s done through digitally as apposed to the physical articulation to a puppet. With a digital puppet, a rig is laid out in front of you where you can adjust each value as far or wide as possible that you the animator feels is right for the character your expressing. Something that 3D animators will have to do is often do a lot testing with the rig before they even start animating the puppet just in case there’s either a pose they can’t make or a joint doesn't quite work the way they want it to be as this would all be such a hassle to sort out if the animator got to the middle of a sequence and would have to lose all of his progress and time because of one tiny detail. Speaking of sequencing, 3D animators when they animate a scene is very similar to 2D aniamtion as they both use pose to pose animation to structure where the puppet will be from A to B and fill in the in-betweens to help create an animated sequence. 

When looking at potential jobs to work as a 3D animator like with many of the roles I’ve looked at, places want to see if you can understand human anatomy in your showreel as if you have a really well versed knowledge to how you can a human as well as having a good sense of Maya, your pretty much golden for any kind of 3D animation role. Obliviously depending on the place you apply to, they might want you to have some industry experience but with my previous post, you just have to go for it. It’s also worth mentioning that many of the job listings had included that they would want to see if you could rig a model or it was part of the required skills which I’m kind of feel glad about as I wouldn't necessarily want to just be stuck with one role.

Speaking of job-seeking, there was this interview I found with a senior character animator at ‘Blizzard Entertainment’ that talks about his experience as an animator growing up in South Korea before moving to Canda and eventually working at ‘Blizzard Entertianment’. What this relates back to job-seeking is that he describes the interview process to be really lengthy as it spanned across two days that being his day of showreel and the other day was you talked to the entire staff for the entire day. This is so they can test weather you’ll be able to communicate really well with your co-workers as well as getting a sense of what your character is like. This is how the company could source out the true people that felt passionate about the workplace and role and the ‘grumblers’. 

On top of that, the main part of the interview was mostly going into what it was like for Kyongho to animate two characters from the game ‘Overwatch’, Genji and Bastion and how they were probably one of the more trickier characters to animate due to Genji being a ninja who really likes to flail their arms around which was really hard to make look realistic when animating them. For some of his actions, he had to push the model just a little bit further than what’s humanly possible to achieve the look they wanted to get. Since the animation is happening so fast, it’s really hard to see these imperfections in game.

This links into how the very same company has made one of my favorite 3D animated pieces of all time and one of the reasons that have gotten me into the medium so much. The animated short is known as ‘The Last Bastion’ and I mainly love it for it’s use of animation and how the characters interact with the literal environment around them. The robot Bastion demonstrates a very mechanical and robotic look at the start of the short but this quickly develops to become more human overtime just trapped in a human’s body. In addition to his, the bird that follows him is animated really realistically to the point where it’s hard to tell that if there wasn’t a mocap suit on the bird. Overall, the animation itself helps to narrate the story through both the robot’s and animals movements so effortlessly as it also doesn't involve any dialogue so the animation really has to rely on the movements being done just right so you are easily guided to what’s happening. In addition to the short I’ve linked below, I’ve also featured a breakdown video I watched that helps really detail the aspects of the short and how some things were achieved. 

Interview with Kyongho Hong, Senior Character Animator for Overwatch

https://www.invenglobal.com/articles/235/interview-with-kyongho-hong-senior-character-animator-for-overwatch

Overwatch Animated Short | "The Last Bastion"

What "The Last Bastion" is REALLY about || animation breakdown

Overall, I felt really happy covering the 3D animator role the most so far as I felt I was so passionate learning about what people’s experiences have been like to get into the role as well as job listings and expressing my passion for one of my favorite pieces. Doing this post has made me realise how much I really enjoyed the 3D/CG medium as well with the work that goes into it and the story-telling aspect behind it.  

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Day 18 - Dreamworks

Today whilst I was researching towards the 3D animator role, I stumbled across this video of Dreamworks and what their pipeline process is like in the industry when it comes to making a film. I found the video so interesting to me that it really deserved it’s own post as at the moment, I’m feeling more inclined to go towards the 3D avenue to specilise in over stop motion however I don’t know if that will be the case or not.

CGI Dreamworks Animation Studio Pipeline | CGMeetup

For the video itself, I found it to be incredibly useful as someone that isn’t too familiar with the industry other than the blog posts I’ve made for the project as you see how they work and communicate off each other in the company. One role that I was surprised to know about was a crowd artist which essentially design crowds for scenes in the film. This consists of create small bits of animation like walking, talking and jumping and then storing them all into a program called ‘brain’ which selects what’s the most appropriate action to be taken place in the scene which the crowd artists can mask over the character and perform that action. Because of this, it saves so much time compared to animating each individual character for a scene. 

In addition to that, there was another small bit of info that I liked that being with 3D modelling as you first need to create a wire frame of the character first before you can start sculpting so that the riggers can easily articulate the character. Overall, this was definitely a nice surprise to bump into as it’s definitely shown the scope of animating for 3D/CG as well as knowing a role that I never knew about.

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Day 17 - Stop-Motion Animator

Having already gone over the skills and aspects needed for the role in a previous blog post, I thought I would focus this more on how you can get to role of becoming a stop-motion animator in the industry. As a stop-motion animator in itself, it can come in different forms as it could be either paper flat-based animation or 3D puppet designed animation which is the one I plan to pursue with if becoming an animator. Regardless of which one I chose, both would require small bits of incremental movements since it’s all done frame by frame which make the process very pain-painstakingly long. However despite that, watching back on it makes it all the more magical as you essentially gave something inanimate new life breathed into it which is what fascinates me about stop-motion in the first place.

If you were to look on somewhere like ‘LAIKA’s’ website for their jobs and careers, you would of have been able to see that you normally would need at least 3 years of industry experience as a stop-motion animator or something equivalent in the stop motion industry like working as a puppet artist. Although having said that, there was one lecture at the ‘ANI WIP’ talk that talked about how even if jobs list out how many years that person is required to do that job, just go for it anyway as they advised us that no matter how long you've been working in the industry for, they just want to see your portfolio and see if it’s suitable to them or not as that what tends to be most important for a stop-motion career due to all the puppets and rigging are already done for you. As mentioned before in stop motion model making, animation is another role that tends to share some overlap with other roles in the company like how you can be both a model maker and animator for the production or you could be going in for a rigging role but ended up being an animator too. This tends to happen a lot if a company is smaller as lots of lots of animators will often have to share additional roles when to fully maximise their employees however with a bigger studio, they’re able to specilise people a lot more so as often you’ll get people that only work n that department or might eventually becoming something like a lead animator, art director or potentially a full blown director for your own production. The stop motion industry I would say is a lot different to the 3D/CG industry because of how technical in 3D it can be whereas in stop motion, it all depends if you truly understand how character works on a physical scale which isn’t as demanding.

In addition to work experience, you have sure your a good animator too as well as understanding what makes something still believable. Leading on tto that, something I learn’t is that having a wide array of different types of objects you use to animate not just because your try new things fro creating characters , it ‘s experimenting with tons of new materials showing your experimentation. One good example that comes to mind is Kevin Perry’s work as whilst he’s an animator at ‘LAIKA’ studios and known for his work working on the moon beast for ‘Kubo and the Two strings’, he’s always doing personal projects which involve stop-motion like slicing fruits open layer by layer for each frame to create a really satisfying and smooth piece of animation. In the video, he also shows how long the process takes as well as showing how he films the fruit as he uses a software called ‘DragonFrame’ to take each shot and then slightly altering it.

Hidden Patterns Inside Fruits and Vegetables

For something that’s more character based stop motion that i found today was this animated film series by ‘Animortal Studio’ that goes by the name of ‘Chuck Steel’. I first heard about it when I was watching the documentary that I watched from Carla’s task as Michael Mort is the person behind the whole series as a director, animator and model maker. A big main appeal of it is how smooth and effortless the animation looks as there isn’t a stiff moment in sight to the point of looking not stop motion at all which in top of that is paired with multiple different models being animated at the same time all effortlessly animated. This at first looks like an impossible feat to do in the hands of traditional stop motion which is why they use green screens to animate different areas of characters interacting with each other all to make the film that much more alive which I had no idea you could do. ‘Animortal studios’ actually is very similar to LAIKA in terms of not just using stop motion as they both involve visual effects to help enhance the films they are trying to make.

Chuck Steel: Night of the Trampires - Official Behind The Scenes

Overall, I felt like I’ve found out the right kind of info needed if I was planning on going into stop motion as a career which I felt would of been a lot easier to see if it wasn’t for the virus making finding job openings and their list of requirements a bit tricky to do as you have to be in the studio in present. Despite all that, I’m really happy with the research I did on both Kevin Perry’s work as well as Michael Mort’s as they both incredibly good reasons to why I really enjoy the art form. 

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Day 16 - Model Making in 3D

Similar to the model making post I made yesterday, I wanted to take a quick interest towards 3D modelling for the research project as I am fascinated to what goes on and much it compares to traditional model making in stop motion. 3D Modelling is similar to stop motion modelling but instead of making multiple models just in case one breaks, you only need to create one model for the scene as that model can be reused over and over again. Because of this, model makers can make the model as perfect and detailed as possible due to not needing to interchange the model for scenes compared to stop-motion. However that’s not to say modelers have complete reign to what they like to model as they still need to communicate to the director, animators and riggers their development with the model otherwise a rigger might find some difficulty trying to make the skeleton for it, animators might struggle if there’s too many loose or unnecessary bit’s dangling off the character that would also need to be animated as well keeping in line with the directors vision. 

Whilst working as a 3D model maker, there’s a variety of software that can is used within the role which are; Maya, 3D’s Max, ZBrush, Blender, RenderMan, Cinema4D and Sketch Up. These all serve different process when it comes towards modelling as for the ones that I am familiar with (that being Maya and ZBrush), Maya helps to import the model and help refine and tweak the model ready for the rigging artist and ZBrush is often used to help create the puppet  from scratch. Maya can be used as a sculpting tool instead of ZBrush and is definitely the more cost effective way, however ZBrush provides so much more detail and refinement compared to Maya as you have a lot more options and possibilities compared to Maya as well as being so much easier to use. However, sometimes model makers will have to also retopology their models in Maya so that they have something ready for the riggers to work with. With the other types of software like Blender and Cinema4D, I’m definitely less familiar with them although from my research, Maya tends to be the most introductory software out of them all as if you know how to use Maya, then those skills are very easily transferred over to the other software as it normally takes about a week or two to adjust to the new software.

As for the modelling itself, you fundamentally start off from a block or sphere and you just keep on adding to it like you would normally do with a piece of sculpting clay just done digitally. One of my favorite pieces of media that really displays model-making real well is the video game series ‘Overwatch’  as the character designs that the model makers bring to life through using ZBrush is truly mesmerising to watch as well as feeling really inspired to do go with the 3D/CG route due to the amount of opportunity to work in either film, games or advertising through modelling, animating or rigging. 

Overwatch Mercy - Speed Sculpt - FREE MODEL DOWNLOAD

Official ZBrush Summit 2016 Presentation - Blizzard Entertainment

One last bit to mention with 3D Model Making, is that I looked at LinkedIn to what some studios would require a 3D modeler to have if they wanted to work in the industry. One spot I saw was a bit on the high end was at a games company called ‘2K Games’ where they’re requirements were much higher than expected as they wanted at least 5 years of experience in 3D Modelling in Maya or 3DSMax, experience with ZBrush, experience with some other software’s like substance painter/designer that I never knew about as well as the usual stuff of being a team player and having good management skills. This honestly surprised me when I first saw this as I didn’t expect that there would be this many pieces of software to become just a model maker as it was a really eye-opening moment for me. Comparing this to a low-end modelling 3D job, at most they would want you to learn Maya or an equivalent software.

Full List: 

5+ years game experience in 3D modelling in Maya or 3DSMax

Experience working with Zbrush or Mudbox

Experience with Substance Painter/Designer & PBR workflows

Expert knowledge of Photoshop

At least 1 shipped AAA title on current gen consoles

Strong UV unwrapping and mapping skills

Ability to effectively communicate and collaborate across multiple locations and time zones in a clear and efficient manner

A team player with strong communication skills, a positive attitude and a high degree of self-motivation and initiative

Strong technical skills and understanding of modern game art pipelines and methodologies

Good time management skills with the ability to prioritise tasks & communicate clearly & constructively with production

Overall, I’m really happy that I did look into 3D modelling as another potential role as it might be something I consider if I plan on going more the 3D route than Stop Motion as I feel there’s a whole lot more work opportunity within the medium. In addition, model-making in 3D is very different to stop motion career as the job as a 3D modeler is something you stick with rather than having multiple different roles stacked on top of each other. However having said that, I still like that idea of multi-tasking like that which is why i’m still unsure between the roles.

What is 3D Modeling & What’s It Used For?

https://conceptartempire.com/what-is-3d-modeling/

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Day 15 - Model Making

Model making in Stop-Motion is a role that i don’t think I’ve talked too much about specifically other than then the times i talked about it alongside the companies I looked in depth to like ‘LAIKA’ and ‘Tippet Studios’. With this blog post, I plan to look closer in the role in how i can apply to get a job in the industry as well as going over the specifics in what materials and types of puppets are used in the industry.

The role of a model-maker is the transfer of taking concept designs and character design drawings and making them into reality weather that be 3D or Stop Motion however for this post, I will just be refereeing to Stop Motion Model Making. For Stop Motion, you have to be able to make multiple different puppets as puppets regularly get used over and over again and depending on how they’re made, they will bee very susceptible to damage which is why for stop motion, you have to make multiple models, pieces of clothing and props for that character so that the animators animating the scene can animate the scenes as much as possible. With making the physical puppet, there are many different ways you can approach to making as mentioned in a previous post like sculpting, casting etc. However something I didn’t mention is that part of model making involves a lot of inside roles within a model maker like you’ll have a team model maker who works the same as an art director but just for the model-making department which they report back to the art director on their current progress as well as any changes that need to be made like if a puppet is too tricky to be made one way. 

The website ‘A+C’ has both a really nice article on the different types of models that are made in Stop Motion as well as an interview on a stop-motion model maker to what it’ like to be working as one. Starting off with the different types of models, it was really interesting to see the different types of puppets that there were in stop motion as I never knew they were all catergorised like this. The one that really surprised me was the felted wool puppets as I’ve never seen them before and it was surprising to hear they were starting to become more and more popular now. It involves stitching felt together on a ball and socket armature through stretching the wool through separating, tangling and re-locking fibers together to create these really aesthetically pleasing soft looking characters. The rest of the different puppets you could make I was more familiar as they were claymation, geared clockwork and replacement puppets which were both puppets that I researched in LAIKA studios.

Behind The Model-Making – Puppets For Stop-Motion Animation

https://www.aplusc.tv/blog/puppets-for-stop-motion/

With this article going through the artist ‘Hetty’, I found it to be really useful in terms of her experience as a model maker as well as the current project she was being interviewed on which was a ‘Trivago’ advertisement. This required model making the props for the hotel rooms in the ad making them half-realistic as they were all designed to fit within the style of the scene. In addition to model-making, she also had some experience with rigging the puppets too which was nice to hear and further encouraging the idea that in stop-motion, your kind of expected to learn multiple different skills in the medium. In addition to her work on the ‘Trivago’ ad, she also went into a bit about she go into the industry and where she started off first on a model making and character design course (after A-Levels) which led her to get her first big job set dressing for Isle of Dogs. Reviewing her journey whilst I am still at uni, I can definitely reflect that I might take a short course like that to gain some specific experience for the role if i end up choosing model-making in the end. 

Behind the scenes: meet stop-motion model-maker, Hetty

https://www.aplusc.tv/blog/behind-the-scenes-meet-stop-motion-model-maker-hetty/

One last bit of research I did was looking at what was needed if i planned to get a job as a model maker as a main keypoint of getting in is essentially having a portfolio of work that you can show to the company what your capable of when it comes to model making. In addition to this, they also wanna see other skills as well besides your model-making ability as they wanna see if you can be flexible in the company other than just model make especially if it’s a small studio. In addition, most studios are going to want to see you have some prior work experience before going into to it to see if you’ve matured. One more thing to add is that the role can be very competitive as depending on the production, the model making department often is on a low budget as well as not having long periods of time to create in something like a smaller studio. With a larger studio, there’s more popularity when it comes to the role as there’s multiple stations in the department as you have your puppet hospital people as well as the head model makers too.

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Day 14 - Art Books - SPOILERS!!!

Today, I thought I would take it easy and read through some of the art books that I have as I felt they could contribute towards the roles that I’m looking at as well as the one-off roles I’ve looked at especially after doing all the lectures all in one day. 

The first art book I looked and read was the ‘Spider-man - Into the Spider-verse’ art book which was the only one out of the three that I hadn’t fully read before so it was really pleasurable to go through it all today looking at the various potential design ideas and looking into the director’s notes from the film to why he made certain decisions in the film. This was really nice to read as it contributes to the potential role of directing once I get enough expereicne in the field as well as creating my own story-telling ideas. One particular bit I enjoyed reading was the scene where Miles visits Spider-Man’s grave at the 

‘The Art of Big Hero 6′

‘The Art of Kubo and the Two Strings’ 

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Day 13 - Lectures research

Today I decided I would commit to researching some lectures online, taking notes off them, and breaking them down to help complete this section for the media roles project. For the lectures I chose, I went for; Louis Hudson, Dan Kelby, and an assortment of ‘Rooster Teeth’ and ‘Full Sail University’ professors as part of my research and development. Both Louis and Dan’s lecture were both available on the NUA website/login for me whilst the ‘Rooster Teeth’ Lecture was available on their website ‘Rooster Teeth’. 

Going through each lecture, I had a word document beside the lecture on my laptop so I could take notes at the same time which I’ll make sure to include alongside the media roles project to show I have done some bullet points as part of the task. For Dan Kelby’s presentation, I actually did most of the notes when he came to talk to us at the ‘ANI WIP’ event which definitely gave me a head start with some of the main points he went through like how to get yourself out there in the industry as well as tips on wanting to become a freelancer. But at the same time, I still wanted to watch the presentation again as there were some points like his art journey that I wanted to jo down to add to my research as well as refreshing myself with his presentation. 

Once I had completed my notes from the presentations, I went through them all and started to condense it for the task as part of the new media roles project. Overall, I felt really satisfied going the ough those lectures as they definitely felt inspiring for me to watch going through how people in the industry have gotten to the place they’re at and what tips they would give to their past self and others. 

Note Taking done through watching the lectures I chose to write about :

Sources:

Louis Hudson, Dice Productions Interview

URL: https://web.microsoftstream.com/video/e079fa71-b56f-4a00-a606-89268ca6ffb7

Artist Name: Various artists from ‘Rooster Teeth’ as well as two professors at Full Sail University. Rooster Teeth - Chris Kokkinos, Paula Decanini, Dustin Matthews and Asha Bishi. Full Sail University – AJ Viviani and Shaun Foryner (not to sure if it’s his real name as speech was blurred)

URL: https://roosterteeth.com/watch/rt-extras-2019-full-sail-live-stream-rt-talks-animation-process

Artist Name: Dan Kelby

URL: https://vle.nua.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=27462

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Day 12 - Directing

Like I did with researching the ‘Runner’ role as a potential role after or during university, I thought I would do something similar with directing as it’s always been something I’m interested in and maybe something I could hopefully build myself up towards if I work in the industry long enough. Looking at the ‘ScreenSkills’ website, a director is someone that helps guides the creative vision of the production and often acts as the leader and organiser to how things are shot, made and look for the final project. This has a lot to do how the piece is filmed and look, the overall tone and how it will all sound for the viewer and because of this, a director has to do a lot of multi-tasking to make sure aspect is as close as possible to his vision of the film. Often this requires a director to be in charged for the casting process to get the right voice actors, the design and animation team through talking to them how they should create and animate as well as being a large part of the editing process to make it so everything lines up together perfectly for the production.

To become an animation director, you could come from many different backgrounds that all help work towards the role like being a; long-term animator, designer, story boarder or someone that has nothing to do with the animation industry as they could come from live-action as film-maker. Skills that are normally required when it comes to directing is definitely a sense of imagination as it’s crucial that you have some set idea to what the production is going to look like before you make it and understand the building blocks that go towards that vision. Speaking of, you need to have leadership to guide the team to how they should create the production for you and as close to your vision as possible.  However unlike other roles I’ve so far looked at, there isn’t exactly a clear path that you can take to get to becoming a director as it isn’t really a job that you can find and apply on the internet compared to a animator role. I feel this video best describes why that’s the case from ‘Bloop Animation’ as they talk about how becoming a director is something you either get noticed by from your good story-telling skills through personal films or your long-term experience in the industry which is really competitive to even get a chance for the opportunity. His best advice is to always be showcasing your story-telling skills as much as possible so that you can fully express your ability to tell a great story. 

How to Become an Animation Director

Adding onto to getting a job as a director, there are still other ways to improve your chances of getting a job as a director other than creating short films to express your story-telling skills like taking a short course to help specilise your skills towards a director or working in areas like live-action to help with your film knowledge. However whilst these avenues are good to go for, it all comes down if you feel passionate about the role as it’s incredibly hard to get right as you really need a calm and collective mindset in addition with your knowledge of filming.

In addition to watch the video done by Bloop animation, there was this video going over one of my favorite directors in film that being Jenifer Yuh Nelson’ as it goes over how she thinks and works as a director. 

Creative Spark: Jennifer Yuh Nelson

Whilst I would definitely have the ambition to work as a director as the whole process to me is something I feel fascinated about, my research today has been really valuable as I understand what it takes to get to a directing role like it as it essentially requires a lot of hard work in one particular area (like animating) as well as your overall experience in that field to know what you are doing (in addition to having film-making knowledge). I feel for myself, I would like to keep the idea of becoming a director open but I think I should more focus on my individual skills or go into a role that’s more entry level like one of the four roles I’m looking at before I head into the role head on as I would get a wider knowledge in the industry. 

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Day 11 - Runner

Instead of researching into the chosen roles I’ve wanted to look more into, I decided I look into a role that I haven’t done both that much research into as well as the most potential role of looking at as my true start into the industry that being the role of a runner. In it’s most simplest terms, a runner is someone that helps and assists a production and they are the most junior members of the department as runner is also known as an intern. Their role in the production is varied where you go but to generalise in the animation industry; they often grab coffee and tea for staff, take notes in briefing for the higher up roles, test equipment in the studios, clean rooms, house keep as well as ordering new materials and supplies for the company when they are about to be out of stock. If good enough as a runner, you might also have the opportunity to work on board with the production like assistant animating if you’re good enough of course in that department.

A video I watched to get a feel what it was like was this one below of the role as a production assistant (which is almost the same as a runner) that I saw on the skillshare website:  

Danai Katopodi, Production Assistant at Lupus Films

As a runner, you have to be able to multi-task and very organised as you have to plan out how you’ll carry out your day and what tasks need doing by then otherwise you won’t last long. In addition to that, you have to be very upbeat and a good listener when it comes to the role as you have to make sure what people exactly need at the time as well as being someone that the staff can also chat too if they want to cool off or something to take them away from their normal work. Speaking of, the more you talk to the actual staff on the job, the more so you can build contacts in the industry if you make a good impression on people which is essentially why you do the job in the first place as it helps you ti build links and will make the job process later in life a whole lot easier. 

The job itself can range from different lengths depending on how long the production is going on for as well as how much they’ve progressed with the project but the rough length is about 3 months for the contract. Looking on ‘LinkedIn’ for runner jobs, there were quite a few applications open for the role which listed off qualities that I’ve mentioned before as well as well as talking about the certain things you’ll be doing as previously stated. These open runner roles that I saw were from the studio ‘Technicolour’ which would be super useful if I chose 3D/CG over stop-motion. Another thing to mention alongside my research, you’ll also be required an interview if the CV is successful for them to get a feel what kind of character you are. I learnt this from the ‘Animation Apprentice’ website that went into depth to what it’s like to be a runner as well as going through some nitty gritty info like how much you’ll get paid as well as hours as they are very flexible to when you would need to come and help out in the studio.

Overall with my research, I’m really happy to have looked this extensively at the runner role as it’s reassured me to what I should do for 2nd year summer holiday or something after I go into after graduating.

Sources:

https://www.screenskills.com/careers/job-profiles/animation/production-management/runner/

https://www.animationapprentice.org/blog/it-worth-working-runner-henry-fenwick-reports-soho.html

https://digitalhorizons.org.uk/job-role/animation-runner-film/

https://www.indeed.co.uk/Studio-Runner-jobs?vjk=fe7a3ed9123f6d87

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Day 10 - Nicolas Ménard

Whilst I was researching different artists, I came across this director and animator by the name of ‘Nicolas Ménard’ that a friend recommended to me I should look into as part of my research project. Whilst Nicolas doesn't share the four roles I’ve been looking heavily into, his directing and 2D animation is what really interests me about his work especially his latest project with it being a stop-motion commercial for ‘Corona’ beer. Something I really enjoyed about watching it all was the level of technicality and craftsmanship that went into the making of the commercial as whislt Nicolas was a director on the film, the design aspects he envisioned were really interesting to me as they all paid homage to the Mexican artist ‘Pedro Friedeberg’ which I found really amazing by how inspired by his art had the vision to create this style of block filming for the commercial. And this isn’t even talking about the stop-motion that’s the involved in the film too as if you watch the behind the scenes video on the commercial, I was really invested and fascinated by how it was all put together as there were some techniques that were really cleverly implemented like using shaving gel to animate waves and use broom brushes to crate corn fields and being able to easily animate them to suggest a light breeze all of which Nicolas imagined for the film.

Corona’s History (2019)

BTS: The History of ‘La Cerveza Mas Fina’ - Nexus Studios & Corona

One of Nicolas’ other works that i found interesting was his own 2D animated short ‘Wednesday with Goddard’ which was animated through Photoshop which he animated and directed for. I really loved the art direction that Nicolas took with it as it’s a multimedia combination of both hand-drawn pencil sets and digital art combined together to show the contrast between the characters and the sets so they don’t mesh together. In addition, the whole narrative is something I really enjoyed as it has both elements of expression and story-telling involved in the film as there are moments where it’s non-nonsensical as well as having an engaging story at the same time. 

Wednesday with Goddard (2016)

Overall, I’m super glad that I managed to bump into this artist as part of my research as I really enjoyed of what I saw as well as understanding how Nicolas’s head works as a director as I plan to look further more into it later on in the project. 

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Day 9 - Individual Artist Roles for both Stop-Motion and 3D/CG

For today’s research, I thought I specilise it to looking into the four roles I’ve chosen to pursue with for my project by looking what is required for those roles as well as potential artists that share those very same roles so that I can research them for the media roles project. 

Before I did any major research on my own, I went back to the sources of information that Carla had given us for the one project we had to do as they’res still a lot of useful resources that i can use to research the roles specifically and for finding my potential artists and animation companies to look into as well. I first started off by going back to ‘ScreenShare’ and looking at the Animator, Model Maker and Rigging Roles to see what the website I had to offer. Whilst I would research into how these roles work by themselves and how to get into them, I plan to do just a brief version today as I’ll do a more detailed look into how to apply and get into those job roles in the industry when I talk about them a lot more in depth later on as I want to research into artists from those roles for inspiration.

Animator for Stop-Motion and 3D

Starting off with the role of an ‘Animator’, the basic role of an animator is to follow a visual brief off the storyboard which the director helps to give a verbal brief to that same animator in order to make the scene just right in the film or production. In order to be successful and knowledgeable as an animator, you have to make sure you have a good understanding of the principles as well as being familarised with weight and timing to make the character and scenery as realistic as possible to the point where it seems seamless as your watching the performance. This however depends on how many frames you’re animating on as the more frames a second allows for much smoother animation with lesser frames making it slower but more stylistic. You also need to be organised and be able to communicate in this role effectively with not only exploring your ideas to others, but also effectively meeting deadlines to when a scene needs to be animated on time. This goes the same for both 3D and Stop-Motion based Animators although I would say deadlines for animating are probably more important in the stop-motion industry as they have a much tighter schedule when it comes to animating since it takes them longer to make a frame compared to 3D/CG.

Rigger

With the role of a ‘Rigger’, they’re the digital puppet-makers of the 3D animation department as they control how much a puppet is articulated and moved for a certain action like how a character should walk from A to B in a scene or how their body will morph and change as their feelings are expressed. Essentially, they help to create all that is needed for the animator to fully play around with the character. Whistl it’s their job to make the skeleton of puppets, they have direct involvement with the animators on set too as they pass back onto the rigger what would need changing about the puppet order to achieve a certain pose or look for that character. This could vary from slightly loosing up a characters joints to make the job of animating a lot easier in stop-motion or adding more points in a digital skeleton to get some freer movement. Whilst riggers specilise with character, they are essentially responsible to anything that is seen that is movable as objects also provide a skeleton to perform certain actions like thrusters moving off a car. In addition to working with the animators, they have to also work with modelers too to see how they will pan to put the skeleton into the model and understanding if some areas are possible or not for movement.

Model Maker

Model-makers can be approached either as 3D modelers or stop-motion puppet makers but I’ll be focusing on more the stop-motion aspect of the role. Having said that at some point in my research, I would still like to look into 3D modelling as there’s a particular artist I like that motivates me going along as a 3D modeler as well. With stop-motion model making, there’s a lot of the same knowledge as an animator and rigging that goes into puppet making as all three of these roles have to communicate with each other in order to create a successful and poseable puppet for the scene as well as having the same kind of skills and intuition that goes into the other roles. Because of this, Model-makers have to make several different puppets that are the same and for their clothing and accessories too which I learnt from LAIKA Studios. In addtion to making the puppets in stop-motion as a model-maker, it’s also consists of creating models for the background of scenes as well like making the tiny little prop’s that all add to the realism of the set in addition to the main set pieces to the scene.

Something off the ‘Skill shares’ website that I found interesting was that in smaller studios in the industry, model-makers are more of a general role that are taken as they need people working in the studio to have multiple skills rather than just one. This is definitely reassuring for me as I‘m very unsure to what I should specilise in for the future as I like doing many roles at once.

3D Animator and Rigging Artists I would like to Look at:

Alexey Zakharov

Audri Phillips

Dreamworks

Blue Zoo

JellyFish

This was a bit tricky to research and find for as there aren’t too many famous 3D animators out in the wild that i could find and research on compared to something like Stop-Motion. Having said that, there are still a ton of companies that I find interesting to me that I might choose to really research into how specifically what it’s like to be a 3D animator which goes the same for rigging too. 

However for the ones I did find, I found both to be really interesting to me for different reasons as even though they both aren’t to do with character animation and rigging, they still show how these people work as well as well as having different ways of showcasing their skills as animators. The first artist I looked like was a 3D artist by the name of Alexey Zakharov who creates very photo-realistic set pieces and test shots such as his take on the show ‘Futurama’ if it was to be in 3D. Obviously something really eye-catching with his work is by how visually stunning it all is to watch as everything has been made from the ground-up through Alexey’s work in four different software's that being:  3dsmax, Nuke, Photoshop, After Effects. These all help to light, model and animate the scene which we see below. Because of this, I might plan to look at the different types of software used for both 3D animation and rigging as this would help me with my industry knowledge.

Futurama 3d (test shot)

Through his making of video where it shows the steps to how each element was made for the test shot, there was one aspect that I found interesting to me that looked at the rigging side of the project which was the ‘Planet Express’ ship and seeing all the different modelled parts used to construct the model as that’s the main ship that’s animated in the test shot. This is why there are multiple tiny bits of the ship that you both see and don’t see on the ship as they all contribute to the little tiny bits of the ship that move as it flies in the test shot which was done through rigging. In a way, it was cool to understand that rigging isn’t just limited to character.

MAKING OF “Futurama 3d (test shot)”

The different parts of the ‘Planet Express’ put together 

One of the other artists that I looked at other than Alexsy was ‘Audri Phillips’ who isn’t your conventional artist so to speak as she animates in a very expressionistic style rather something at face value with a simple character animation that meets a brief. Instead her work is all to do with dance and how animation can help to visulaise the thoughts she gets from listening to the music as well as watching the performance too as her work is often played side by side with a performer on stage. This kind of animation is something I really haven’t seen before but it’s something I could really get behind as I love doing dynamic animation so to see something like this being used is really inspiring to me. Whilst the models you see in her pieces are done through CG, all the other supernatural events that occur in the performance are all created using 3D elements to help make enhance the journey through animating really large faces as well as objects floating in the air. Whilst I may stick with more character-based animation, I really enjoy how she express meaning through movement which something to think about when it comes to animating my characters and rigging them.

Heart Dance

https://vimeo.com/394248256

Stop-Motion Animator Artists 

Nick Park

Adam Pesapane - PES

Len Lye

Michael Mort

Having already looked at two different stop-motion companies before hand, I’ve covered a lot of info on the that part of the industry to have a nice enough grasp on it all. Because of this, I really wanted to research some stop-motion artists that either share multiple different roles like animating and directing as well as looking at the more independent stop-motion artists. From the documentary I watched from Carla’s research, Len Lye was a really early British animator which his work doesn't seem like stop-motion at first as it consists of etching paint and prints into 35mm tape. But the way it all comes together and how he’s creating a painstakingly frame by frame animation is hard to say it’s not as if you were to watch his films, so much time would have been invested in making sure each frame matched up to the last one on such a small scale at the time. But the main reason why Len’s work interested me is through his persistence with the art form as at the time, he was struggling to have something unique through his previous attempt at animating a monkey puppet. This determination is something I wanted to take from Len’s work as something that should be highly valued in the industry no matter what role I end up specilising in due to their drive to keep going on makes will definitively help you to stand out.

1935-1937 Len Lye - "Kaleidoscope" + "A Colour Box" + "Colour Flight" (highlights mix)

Model Making studios I like to look into:

Kerry Dyer - Model Maker

Hetty - Model Maker

Roos Mattaar - Model Maker 

Astrid Goldsmith - Model Maker

For researching on stop-motion model-makers specifically, I was really surprised to see that there was a lot of info on how they work and what they’re career journey has been like much more so compared to the other roles I looked at today. One that I felt that really stood out to me was Ross Mattaar due to really going into depth to how she creates her puppets and armatures by the different materials she uses and how she isn’t just limited as a puppet maker as she also specilises in armature making and as an animator as well. These included various different processes to how she makes her puppets like mold making, casting (silicon, resin and plaster), needle felting and brass tubing.

http://www.roosmattaar.com/about-me/

Overall, I’m really happy with the research I’ve done today as whilst it was a small explanation of each role that I’m highly interested into as well as a small bit of research towards some artists I discovered, I plan to go into more depth into at a later point in both areas later on in my research as i want to also look into some additional roles that I hadn’t considered yet until doing this project.

Sources:

Top 30 Animators That Really Know Their Stuff

https://sageanimation.com/top-30-animators/

Alexey Zakharov - Art Station

https://www.artstation.com/seccovan

FIND A JOB IN ANIMATION OR VFX https://www.animationuk.org/subpages/find-a-job-in-animation-or-vfx/?section=skills

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Day 8 - Research from Carla

For today’s research whilst some things are up for debate with how the project is going with the virus, we were advised to complete some research tasks to complete for the media roles project which looked into building our knowledge of the UK Animation industry. To get my thought-process going for today’s tasks which were to find something we hadn’t know about beforehand and an artist that interests us, I watched a Channel 4 documentary that Carla suggested which went into the history of animation as well as looking at Britan’s UK-Based animators over the years from the start of animation to where we are now. The documentary went into several different types of mediums like 2D, 3D and stop-motion and whilst I’m only covering the 3D and and Stop-motion sections of my research, I still took a large interest into the 2D section of the documentary. 

One particular element that I was really interesting to me was the artist Joanna Quinn who is a 2D animator, artist and director who is known for the films ‘Britannia’ and ‘Girls Night Out’ having been films shes animated and directed on. I find her wrok to be really inspiring to me through the style of her drawings as whilst it’s done in the style of a cartoon, there’s a sense of realism behind the drawings as they’re gritty to look at with the dark lines of black around the characters as well as the backgrounds looking very scruffy looking to watch. Whilst her work doesn't really link in with the Stop-motion and 3D roles that I’m planning to look at for my research, I love the way she directs and visualise ideas onto her sketchbook before it all comes to reality in the film as shes an artist that gives me a lot of inspiration through her work flow as well as directing as i plan to come back to her later on in the project.  

Example of Johanna Quinns Work:

Secrets of British Animation (2018)

https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ondemand/index.php/prog/1274C5D9?bcast=131792483

After i watched and looked further into Johanna’s work, I then looked into the other sites that Carla recommended which two really caught my attention that being the Screenskills website where you can see all the different types roles in animation and how you might apply to them as well as an articles site where I found some interesting info on rigging from a Toon Boom and Harmony animator/rigger. I first looked at the ScreenSkills website which showcased all the available roles in Animation which was really nice to got through and read further into the qualifications and level of work you would be required to do each role in the industry. In addition to this, It was nice to also show which roles are more entry level than others showing which are more accessible than others if your thinking of coming out of Uni. Whilst this was nice to know for the future, I still plan to develop my skills, projects and portfolio towards the skills that i really want to focus on for the research project. Having said that like with Johanna’s work, I plan to use the website ScreenSkills when I go more into depth with each role that I’ve already chosen to help decide what specialism I would like to specialise in.

ScreenSkills Animation:

https://www.screenskills.com/careers/job-profiles/animation/

After looking at the ScreenSkills website, I then moved on to a website called Skwigly where it’s an animation based magazine that publishes articles of individual artists as well as what’s going on in the industry. Something that really interested me on their website was an article about a 2D rigger in ‘Toon Boom’ and ‘Harmony’ software named Oli Putland and it discusses his long animation journey from the start to all the way to present day. Initially before clicking on it, I thought it was all going to be about 3D and expanding my knowledge on software like Maya. Because of the article, it was the first time that I saw rigging wasn’t just limited to both 3D and Stop-Motion as it could be used for 2D as well as I had no idea until today that you could rig in 2D as well. In addition to this, there was also a tutorial linked in the article to how Oli rigs in Harmony with a 2D character as it’s a lot more complex as I thought it was going to be by how a rigger in 2D would have to be good at drawing to copy the artist’s ordinal drawings in addition to swiveling the head around like it was 3D only when it stop’s moving, it looks like a hand-drawn expression for one frame saving the animators a lot of time if they were to make each frame by hand.  

Skwigly - Online Animation Magazine 

https://www.skwigly.co.uk/articles/interviews/

Cat Class – A Toon Boom Tutorial Series by Oli Putland – Interview

https://www.skwigly.co.uk/cat-class-a-toon-boom-tutorial-series-by-oli-putland-interview/

ToonBoom Harmony 17 - Killgar's Master Controller - Cat Class

In conclusion, I’m really satisfied with the amount of research today as I felt I’d learned something new that being a rigger in 2D animation as well as an artist I felt inspired by being ‘Johanna  Quinns’ just from her eccentric personality when it comes to directing as well as being a really fantastic 2D animator despite not choosing to pursue with 2D in my research and only looking at the directorial side of things. There was another article I looked at but I felt going into it would be much more appropriate for the next post in my research.

Sources that I didn’t refer back too:

THE UK’S ANIMATION SECTOR: IN PROFILE:

https://www.animationuk.org/subpages/the-uks-animation-sector-in-profile/?section=industry

CAREERS ADVICE FOR VFX, ANIMATION, POST PRODUCTION, TV & FILM STUDIOS OR SFX:

https://www.animationuk.org/subpages/careers-advice/?section=skills

CLOSING THE ANIMATION SKILLS GAP:

https://www.animationuk.org/campaigns/closing-the-skills-gap/

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Day 7 - Rooster Teeth

NOTICE: The last part of the blog got deleted which I had to write up again, apoalgies if it dosen’t sound right in places as there are some bits I may of forgotten to put down

Same with how I approached the Stop-Motion aspect of yesterday’s post, I plan to look at the roles of 3D Animator and Rigger further for more details to how they work and what it takes to get in as well as looking further into Rooster Teeth and how it brings back to our theme.

Rooster Teeth is a small 3D, 2D and visual effects company in Austin, Texas that are known for their animated web shows on YouTube and on their personal site with their most popular shows like ‘Red vs Blue’, ‘Rwby’ and ‘Camp Camp’. I found the company to be really interesting and aspiring when I first researched them for the presentation due to how much they’ve succeeded with their projects for being a much smaller animation company comparing it to something like ‘Sony Pictures Animation’ and how not using the industry standard software can still make you successful in what your trying to make.

Speaking of software, the company has gone through several animating software as with their show ‘RWBY’, they first used ‘Poser’ to animate and model the show but have evolved to start using ‘Autodesk Maya’ as it allowed them to make better looking characters and set pieces in the show (as well as ‘Houdini’ later on for lighting and visual effects). Whilst this is very helpful towards a role like a rigger, the animation is only enhanced from the switch to Maya as the animation was still just as good when they were using poser in my eyes.

Going back to the roles that I’ve chosen to look at further in 3D, I discovered that ‘Rooster Teeth’ had a lot more resources and information on how they create their shows than I thought there would be out there as due to being a small company, I wasn’t expecting some really detailed looks to my chosen roles. Whilst I had already researched some of the CRWBY videos that they’re released on their channel showing the different roles working together to make the show RWBY, I discovered they had done a whole playlist on how they rig for the show. This was perfect for me as they had multiple videos on how to make cleaner rigs for models, how to create rigs through ‘skinning’ on the model as well how to make the model as easy as possible for the animator to animate with. Through watching all the videos, there was a lot I hadn’t known that you could do in ‘Maya’ as well as some technical terms like skinning and how to problem solve with the model which all really inspired me and has encouraged me to try it out over the summer and see what I come out with. Whilst not link to the roles I’ve chosen, the playlist went into not just rigging at ‘Rooster Teeth’ but also lighting which was just as interesting to learn and watch as the rigging section. Whilst I have more of a passion towards rigging than lighting, it’s definitely something I want to keep in the back of mind as I love all the different roles that go into the makings of a project as I enjoy doing everything.

The Autodesk Maya Rooster Teeth Playlist

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_6ApchKwjN_fCxk5WtSYFDAXvqXmD_9G

Rooster Teeth 'RWBY' Tutorial #1: Using Maya's Blend Shapes for a 'Breeze Effect'

In addition to the Autodesk Maya playlist I discovered, I also watched the ‘CRWBY’ playlist on YouTube disclosing how they made some of the key aspects of each episode on RWBY Season 6 as well as interviewing the different departments to how they created those said aspects of the show. It was a little similar to how the ‘Maya tutorial’ was laid out as they went through step by step to how they created the scenes and assets to the show like how they rig the model’s so that they behave how they should or hearing their thought-process to how a character is going to be animated without that aura of being a tutorial and rather something more casual and realistic to learn about. Speaking of looking at the role as a CG Animator, one of my favorite episodes out of the CRWBY playlist is episode 5 where they talk in depth and show you how they animate one of the fight scenes that happen in the middle of Season 6 of RWBY specifically on the character ‘Cinder’. I found it to be really fascinating to learn how they do dynamic change in the animation when it comes to the reactions of characters as the clip goes into the idea of ‘see, think,do’ where a character will see and action unfold in fromt of them which will cause them to think about and then react. It was really nice to see this breakdown through the frames too to give a visual representation. In addtion of showing how they animate in Maya from an animtors point of view, I really loved that in a way it links to the whole idea of story-telling too as the fight scene breakdown goes into how they make the smallest of changes like the change in their wyes and mouth expressions to express how the characyers are feeling within the scenes.

CRWBY Playist on RWBY Season 6

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9ly3y_pYF010B2TLFg-NEd1Nkg27MfcD

CRWBY Ep 5: See, Think, Do | Rooster Teeth

After I had watched both playlists on how Rooster Teeth make their shows (specfically RWBY), I soon discovered on their website that they did a live stream lecture consisiting of animators at Rooster Teeth as well as a parthernership with ‘Full Sail University’ where two of the head lectuers on the 3D animation course were on stage too. The talk itself was really intresting to watch and learn as they went through how themselves got to where they are in the industry, what changelles and dofficulties they have faced on their journey and what advice they would give to people that are about to go into the field. One of the points they brought up when disccusing about their journey was that a 3d lectur from ‘Full Sail university’ went into how becoming a runner really helped him to gain contacts in the industry as well as talking to a lot of proefessiionals there as well. Because of thi, I do plan to look and research more into the runer role for the media roles project as this might be something i plan to look into after or during univeristy.

Full Sail Live Stream: RT Talks Animation Process

https://roosterteeth.com/watch/rt-extras-2019-full-sail-live-stream-rt-talks-animation-process

Finally the last piece of research I did when looking up ‘Rooster Teeth’ was this very old article on when RWBY first came out. I’ve decided to inculde this as part of my research due to how much the company has evolved from where they first started to where they are now as I felt it was a good example to follow by in the future that no matter how rough in some places it might be at the start, you develop and get better at the skills as you progress along.

The 3D secrets behind hip anime series RWBY

https://www.creativebloq.com/animation/rbwy-anime-action-dynamic-3d-twist-9134477

To conculde, im really happy that I ended up researching Rooster Teeth as depsite them being a smaller 3D animation comapny compared to others in the industry, they were filled with rescouces and info to what it’s like to aniamte there, how to get into the industry as well as learning techniques i hadn’t known before like skimming in rigging. The research i’ve done has all provided me a lot of motivation and deterimantion to keep 3D as a potential career choice as an animator or a rigger alongside Stop-Motion.

[alexanderessexmediaroles]

Day 6 - Tippet Studios/ Phill Tippet

Having briefly touched upon Tippet Studios within my blog post as well as the presentation slide we presented for our story-telling project, I thought I would do some further research into the company and how might they relate to the job roles of stop-motion animator and model maker as potential career options for me in the future.

When I first researched Tippet Studios, I didn’t realise at the time how large the company was as I had only watched videos relating to ‘Mad God’ project not the company as a whole as the studio is this large visual effects and 3D animation company that creates creatures and effects for big movies and marketing for companies. Whilst I should have known this at the beginning, it definitely gives me a larger perspective and a large appreciation of the ‘Mad God’ project through how much dedication Phil has put into it is being the founder of the company. As well as this, Tippet Studios might be something I would like to research more into the 3D side of the ‘Media Roles’ project to help me get a better understanding of the two roles I chose to look at or maybe open me up to a new career choice in 3D.

‘Mad God’ itself has always been a passion project of Phil Tippet as he’s been working on the project for about 30 years now collecting and making sets and puppets for the project as it consists of many different short films that help narrate the world that his characters face. Making his puppets consists of finding scrap pieces of material that Phill is inspired by which he proceeds to use ball and socket rigging for the puppet that’s wrapped around in foam and then latex skin to complete the aesthetic of the character. Watching how he creates his puppets in the ‘ Great Big Story’ video reminded me how similar the process was when we made the puppets in the previous project and Phill’s demonstration was more of an enhancement to that process. It was really great to watch as wanting to be both a stop-motion animator and model maker, it gave me a lot of insight to how proper stop-motion puppets are made for productions from someone that has worked so much in the industry. In addition to the ‘Great Big Story’, the video below it features an interview with Phill discussing his process on ‘Mad God’ with how he just likes to collect random and interesting objects which he uses for ideas immediately or keeps it for storage when hes stuck for ideas. This really hit me wanting to be a model maker as its similar to how I work through finding interesting objects and how I can re-animate it into something else that’s totally unique.

Building Stop-Motion Masterpieces by Hand

Stopmotion legend, Phil Tippett

Going back to the theme of story-telling for the group project, there’s a video on Youtube where Phil is interviewed at his studio in Berkerly, CA which he goes into his vision of the project, how he makes the stuff you see on screen as well as how he communicates the events that happen in the film in addition to how he plans it all out in the long run. To summarise, he discusses how there isn’t really isn’t a straight forward narrative within the shorts he creates in the ‘Mad God’ universe as they are more set pieces that build up to a much larger multi-verse almost like a collage. This way he can introduce and create lots of different ideas in a scene the potentially lead to another narrative that Phil might of not realised at the time. This means he’s always adding to the world as he’s making the scenes go by in the film. In addition to this, the materials and junk he collects around him also help to pave the narrative along the way as it almost dictates to what he make s for the film rather than having the intention of making something from scratch. In an interesting way, Phill more so acts as a facilitator to the project rather than him coming up with the ideas as the materials almost speaks to him to what he has to do hence how he came up with the name ‘Mad God’. All of this information was really useful towards both of the stop-motion roles I’ve been looking as well as it was really inspiring to see how both the animation and model making side contribute to the story-telling aspect so much more than you would expect to see with a role like story-boarding.

Meet Phil Tippett and his Mad God 

One of the last pieces of research that I looked at was this 20 minute documentary on his journey from making mini stop-motion projects in his room to where he is now with his own company and studios. The doc was really interesting and inspiring to watch as it shows how much Phil has had to adapt over the years being a stop-motion animator as well as rivaling against visual and 3D animation when it was first being introduced to film making which he soon later learned as a supervisor.

My Life In Monsters: Meet the Animator Behind Star Wars and Jurassic Park

Overall from researching Phil, his work and the mad god project, he’s become such a large inspiration for me as an animator through his dedication and passion to the craft as well as his showcasing the hardships and highs of being both a animator and model maker in the film industry. In addition to this, it’s really gotten me considering a potential new role I would want to research into for the project that being directing as Phil’s interview was really inspiring to hear how a director thinks as well as adapting to the industry of 3D despite never doing it before. Also not to forget, his work when it comes to both a animtor and a model maker is just as inpsiring to me as I’m in love with his creatures and their perfromacnes as I would love to have a simillar immagination when it comes to the roles.