Visiting Blink Ink was a really exciting opportunity to see a working studio which was surprisingly local to my area. I absolutely loved the studio and the work they make and it was really useful to learn how they operate. Specialising in short-form content, their projects are extremely versatile covering all kinds of animation techniques for music videos, advertisement and entertainment. They don’t have a permanent team but instead keep a roster of animators and creatives who they hire for particular projects, hence their diverse and polished portfolio. This is a great example of how working as a freelancer can be beneficial to an artist, as they can work on different kinds of projects whilst being part of a big team. This made me feel more positive about the possibility of working as a freelancer and also as a mixed media artist, as Blink Ink show that there is space for all kinds of techniques in commercial animation.
This project brought many new experiences for me which were nerve-racking and overwhelming at times – however it was an invaluable experience from which I gained knowledge and confidence. It was my first experience of directing, working for a client, working with a group, leading a team, building a set and creating a stop motion film. I have always generally struggled with self-doubt, especially as an artist, so having my pitch chosen by the LIAF panel was a really validating moment for me. I was excited and passionate about making my project, but very quickly learned that being clever and realistic about what is achievable in a given amount of time is just as important as having a great idea. I had to compromise a lot of my ideas, particularly with materials and aesthetic, and even with these creative sacrifices the project required a huge amount of work and hours because of the choices I had made for my story and pitch. This taught me to be conscious of time and practicality right from the start of a project.
I took on many roles during this production, my responsibilities as director included:
Story concept, character and set design
Storyboarding
Modelling and painting of puppets heads
Set building and dressing
Puppet animation
Supervising animation
Keyframing 2D animation to pass onto team members and fully animating some 2D sequences
Post-production effects and editing
Sourcing support for set building, technical assistance, costume making and sound
Directing a musician, sound designer and mastering engineer
Although this was a lot of work to take on it allowed me to try out many aspects of stop motion production and understand what I enjoy the most about it. I found that my absolute favourite part of the process was making the heads for the puppet and especially painting them. I also liked animating the puppet, although it was quite difficult and frustrating because of the way it had been built. I enjoyed putting the set together and finding ways of creating practical effects like rain, and seeing the payoff when it all came together. Although the 2D animation felt like a bit of a nuisance and had to be rushed, I still loved figuring out how the elements would move and drawing them frame by frame. I find that one of my most useful traits which will lend me well to being an animator is my patience when it comes to these processes – I am always willing to put in the time that is required. In contrast, I learned that script writing, storyboarding, producing and post-production are not areas I would like to progress in. I found that I like to bring ideas to life more than create them myself, so maybe being a director is not the ideal route for me.
This film encouraged me to continue exploring analogue techniques of film making, and my enjoyment of painting is what lead me to creating my Reflections on Reality project.
Flounder
After deciding to work with paint and exploring the possible techniques I could use for animation, I have chosen to try out oil-on-glass for the second project of this unit. I have once again found myself not enjoying the process of pre-visualisation and struggled to come up with imagery for this narrative, but now I have been able to get stuck into the technique I could paint for hours on end. This again has solidified my patience for animating and my enjoyment of painting and frame-by-frame animation. Sourcing references and examples of this technique has allowed me to see what kind of projects oil-on-glass is used for and how it is applied to different areas and genres. I have been able to learn how I might apply this skill by looking at what other artists who work in the medium have done. It is definitely a technique I would consider doing again in addition to other methods.
For this unit we are required to research industry roles and professional practice. I often consider what roles I might like to take on in the industry once my studies are finished, and it is something that seems to change continuously as I try out more techniques and styles. I have imagined myself in many roles since I began my studies – considering careers in 3D modelling and environment creation, game design, 3D and 2D character animation, pre-visualisation, motion graphics, puppet animation and model-making for stop motion. My interests and goals seem to be ever changing, however since beginning this masters course and being given access to materials to create more analogue and traditional animation, I have found myself focussing on these techniques. I have used Unit 2 to explore these interests, directing both a puppet animation (with some digitally drawn 2D elements) and and most recently an oil-on-glass animation. Over my next blog posts I will discuss in detail the roles I took on and what I gained from my experiences.
Because of the many techniques I have explored and the varied portfolio this has resulted in, I feel confident to call myself a mixed-media artist when entering the industry. I would like to explore what this means for me when I enter the creative world, looking into the potential paths I could take and researching where similar interdisciplinary artists have gone in their careers. My interests have now strayed away from 3D production techniques as well as motion graphics – I am more interested in exploring career paths in stop motion, experimental and 2D digital and traditional filmmaking techniques, particularly as an animator. I am also interested in exploring wider options of production roles – given my affinity for painting and set building it would be useful to consider theatre as a potential career area. From this research I am hoping to gain an insight into industry standards and requirements which will inform my practice, I can them implement this understanding into my graduation film and any other projects that follow.
I will use my journal not only to broaden my knowledge of industry roles and professional practice, but it will also give me an opportunity to consider where my career could take me geographically. In terms of the close future I would love to stay in London as I establish myself and find my way into industry, however can also envision myself in other UK cities with a prominent animation industry such as Manchester, Cardiff or Bristol. I also have an interest in travelling and am keen to live in a different country for at least a short period, so this research will enable me to consider which countries and cities I might like to go to.
For this exercise I first worked out the keys for the mouth so I could get the lip sync down. I then thought about the acting. I tried to record a reference for myself and worked with one of the acting tutors to figure out the performance but I found it difficult to put movement into quite a subtle piece of dialogue. My interpretation of the audio was that it was somebody who had been through something painful and was sad when talking about it. I wanted to create movement without it being too much so I opted to have him look down and lean forwards/backwards as he was talking. I’m happy with how the performance turned out – just need to clean it up and add some colour now!
The mood change exercise has been the one I have struggled with the most and spent the most time on. As I was trying to create this animation I started to change my mind a lot and become unsure of what I wanted to do. Up until I began this assignment I had been drawing simplified standard human characters, so I wanted to push myself to make something more interesting. After seeing the work of my course mates I felt a little doubtful of my drawing skills and felt like I should be doing more complex characters so this is what I strived to do.
I decided to first map out the key frames very roughly:
https://vimeo.com/686073302
Then I traced over it with a rough design:
https://vimeo.com/686073893
When I came back to this animation after the break I wasn’t motivated to finish it at all. I had envisioned my character being a muscular gym guy wearing new trainers but I couldn’t translate it into my drawing. I decided that for these short exercises it is more important to focus on the animation technique, and then in future projects I can think about stylising my work more. I went back to the more simplistic design and finished recently with this:
https://vimeo.com/686073164
I’m really glad I went back to this simple design because I could make the movement so much more interesting. I had a lot of fun playing with the reactions and anticipation, especially the exaggerated transition into the run. I made the animation using both Steve’s walk cycles and a reference I found online which is in my research blog. I would really like to clean this up and make some fixes to the walk cycle so I can use it as a portfolio piece.
The development I have been through in this exercise has really shown me how much I have learned and improved in the few months I have been on this course. I feel like by practising all of these exercises I am starting to get a natural feel for animation and an understanding of the basic principles.
As part of Unit 1 we have been assigned a second year graduate film to work on. I was paired with Rosie, who is making a 2D animation about 2 mushrooms who ‘take’ humans and experience a psychedelic trip. I was nervous to be assigned a 2D project having become more comfortable with puppets as of late, but I was happy to see that Rosie’s style aligned with my abilities. The film will be drawn animation made in TV Paint.
When Rosie and I met to discuss my tasks she asked what I would like to do to which I said I was really keen to do some inbetweening since this is something I can see myself doing for a job. I realised this was ambitious as all of the graduate films are still in early stages of production, but I was fortunate enough to have Rosie prepare some key frames of the first scene for me. Because Rosie had to prepare this I had a late start to the work experience but I have every intention of finishing the work she has assigned to me.
I have done some inbetweening before in Photoshop so I have a little bit of experience in passing files back and forth. Rosie included everything I needed in the TV Paint document, such as movement notes, character turn arounds, colours and pen settings. Everything was very easy to find which meant I could quickly get started. Each character was colour coded with its own layer. I created new layers for my in-betweens.
The only thing I didn’t have which I was expecting was some timing charts, and there were some key frames which had large gaps between them. In these instances I used my initiative and animation knowledge that I have learned to draw frames where I felt they were right. I found that this took me a really long time. Looking back I think coming up with some of my own timing charts would have been very useful so I could avoid redoing frames. I haven’t yet finished working on this shot, and I have gotten about half way through tweening the guy on the right. Here is my assignment vs my work:
https://vimeo.com/686064760
Rosie’s Keys
https://vimeo.com/686064528
My in-betweens (WIP)
I think I have managed to get the movements right but there are definitely issues with timing. I tried to do a slow in for the jump but there are still too many frames and it looks a bit slow motion. I was trying to apply some follow through to the different body parts, which I think I achieved correctly with his head. I think I went a bit too overboard with his arms though and they need to come down much sooner on the landing. Rosie asked me to include an impact wobble when he lands which took me a while to work out but I am happy with what I did here. I got feedback from Rosie by sending her videos during different points in my work. The feedback I have so far is to speed everything up a bit.
I really enjoy inbetweening although it can be a bit frustrating at times! I have learnt a lot just by starting this project so I am really glad I got this opportunity. I am disappointed in how long the work is taking me after opening so much time on it, but hopefully the more I practice the easier it will get. I think the main thing that held me back was focussing so much on keeping my drawings consistent with Rosie’s. I have been taking a lot of time to make my lines neat and similar to the key frames when I should just roughly map out the movement first, otherwise I waste time neatening a frame I end up changing. I will try to do this when I pick this back up. I’m very thankful to Rosie for setting this shot up for me and she was really helpful along the way.
Just a quick note to say that I decided to collect my inspirations, references and research using Pinterest as I find it more user friendly and useful for this purpose – it can be found here and also in the header menu.
I will be treating this as a sort of digital sketchbook so I can find my references in one place and refer back to them. I will be using this blog for documenting my own processes and reflecting on my work.
For this presentation, I was really keen to link my research back to Wales. I knew this would be a challenge because Wales isn’t exactly known for its animation industry. When I was pondering my topic I was surprised to find that there is actually an ode to Wales in one film from our beloved Disney.
2. Released in 1985, the Black Cauldron is Disney’s 25th animated feature film.
The film is set in the mythical land of Prydain during the Middle Ages and is about an evil king who wants to steal a magic cauldron that will allow him to conquer the world, and a young farmer boy who tries to stop him.
The film has a lot of classic Disney tropes like an Aurora-inspired princess and a couple of animal sidekicks.
3. The film is based on a series of books written by American author Lloyd Alexander called The Chronicles of Prydain.
The author went to Wales for army combat training. After becoming familiar with Welsh culture, particularly the castles and folklore, he was inspired to write a fantasy series.
Mainly influenced by the stories of the Welsh Mabinogion.
The Mabinogion are the earliest prose stories in British literature, basically a collection of short stories made up of drama, philosophy, romance, tragedy, fantasy and humour.
The setting of the book is loosely based on Anglesey and all of the characters have Welsh names. These are all used in the film so we have Taran, Eilonwy, Gurgi, Fflewddur Fflam and Hen Wen the pig. However there isn’t any other kind of recognition for Wales other than this.
4. Most people are not familiar with this particular Disney production as it is widely disregarded for reasons which I’ll go into later. However the film has a pretty important place in Disney’s history.
5. TBC was actually the first ever Disney feature released that utilised computer animation (White, 2020).
CGI was only used for minor objects (bubbles, lighting, the cauldron) but it still advanced Disney animation, moving it away from the old methods used before.
6. At the time of the production of this film there was a lot of sci-fi dominating cinema and Disney was losing their audience to it. The Black Cauldron was Disney’s attempt at a fantasy adventure. (Price, 2019, p.1)
It was thought that this film would be the Snow White of a new generation of animators. We saw a very different approach to Disney’s usual style of filmmaking. It’s dark themes and scary villain earned it Disney animation’s first ever PG rating (Kois, 2010).
Now, Disney have made their fair share of unsettling sequences but this film is another level. Aside from the Horned King villain who is basically the devil, there’s a traumatising pig chase sequence and one of the main characters sacrifices himself in an act of suicide. Let’s have a look at one of the main sequences.
8. From that clip, it’s clear to see that this wasn’t made for Disney’s usual audience. But it also didn’t appeal to a more mature audience.
The Black Cauldron was the most expensive animated film ever made at the time, with a huge cost of $44 million, almost 4x that of its predecessor The Fox and the Hound (Box Office Mojo). This was not planned but the studio ended up going way over budget after spending more time than expected in production.
Unfortunately the film was a complete fail and didn’t even make half of its money back in the box office. It was beated by The Care Bears movie, a defeat which has been described as Disney’s rock bottom (waking sleeping beauty). It actually put the future of Disney animation in jeopardy. There are a lot of elements involved in the films failure, let start with the plot.
9. So what caused the failure of this film? Well it was produced during a pretty chaotic period in Disney history.
There were lots of staffing changes going on in the company, Jefferey Katzenberg became chairman and Micheal Eisner was the CEO. TBC ended up being passed around amongst different directors and there was a conflict between them and the artists. The concepts and ideas for the film were often revised and many people left the project due to creative differences.
Jeffery Katzenberg was shocked when he saw the film and felt it was too dark and intense for children. He insisted that the film be re-edited, ignoring the producers who told him that this wasn’t possible in an animated film.
The film was reworked again. Some scenes were reanimated but others were not so seamlessly cut. In the clip I just showed you, you might have noticed this.
All of these changes resulted in a disjointed plotline, jarring editing and weakly developed characters. The audience found it confusing. I personally think the main problem is that they didn’t want to put out another typical Disney fairytale but also didn’t fully commit to the dark fantasy idea, so they ended up pleasing no one.
10. TBC was produced in the period of Disney that is known as The Dark Age, or the Bronze Age. These films demonstrate the struggle that the studio went through after Walt Disney’s death in 1966. Without him to hold the reins, Disney entered this period of transition and turmoil until the late 1980s.
This was generally a commercially unsuccessful era for Disney but TBC was their absolute rock bottom (Waking Sleeping Beauty). However, it has been said that TBC made pretty great achievements in animation and inspired the company to continue with their digital work. (Price, 2019)
Looking back now I think we can say that this was not a dark age of Disney animation but more a time of experimentation and transition. After all it ultimately set the foundation for the pinnacle of the studio. Does anyone know what happened next?
11. After gaining some stability Disney were able to bounce back with the Little Mermaid and after that the Disney Renaissance. I’m not going to go into this too much but basically they took the all of the successful technical and artistic elements of the Dark Age and went back to producing well-known fairytale musicals (Price, 2019, p.3-4). Combine this with cheaper production techniques and Disney entered one of their greatest eras of all time.
12. So in conclusion, even though TBC wasn’t commercially good it led to many great things and shows that we all learn from our mistakes. I’m glad I got given the opportunity to tell you about this film if you didn’t already know about it because I don’t think it deserves to be forgotten about.
With my presentation coming up in a couple of weeks, it’s time to start writing down some ideas I have for topics I would like to explore! I have been thinking about a couple of things since we received the brief, which is to make a 10 minute presentation about either an animator from my country or an area of animation I am interested in (preferably relating back to your country). The idea of exploring an animator or topic from our home country is interesting to me as Wales is known for many things but animation is not one of them.
Welsh Children’s Animation and Stop Motion
The first thing that comes to mind when thinking about Welsh animation for me is kids TV shows such as Fireman Sam and Bobinogs. I thought it would be quite interesting to look at Welsh culture in mainstream children’s animation but I can’t seem to find much substance on the topic.
Branching off this, I thought it might be fun to look at the use of puppet animation in children’s television programmes and the movement towards CGI production. Growing up with shows like Bagpuss, Noddy, Pingu and Postman Pat, I absolutely love the nostalgia of this animation style and would love to do some research on them, however the only show that originated in Wales was Fireman Sam. I could possibly use Fireman Sam as a starting point for a presentation about the use of puppets in early animation and then explore the recent movement toward CGI animation. However, I do think that this would end up with me looking into the financial side of animation, which isn’t really the aim of the brief. I have also done a lot of research on stop motion vs CGI already so I think it would be better to look at something new.
Postman Pat
Bobinogs
Fireman Sam
Welsh Mythology in Animation
There are not a lot of well-known animated feature-length films which were produced in Wales, however it goes under the radar that Disney’s 25th animated feature film, The Black Cauldron, is actually based on Welsh mythology. Based on a series of books called The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander, the film is basically set in Wales and all of the characters have Welsh names. Despite this, the Welsh nature of the film is never addressed. Interestingly, this was the first Disney animated feature film to incorporate CGI in addition to being Disney’s first PG rated animation. This was Disney’s attempt to appeal to an older demographic, containing themes of a darker nature. Due to this shift in focus as well as weak characterisation in comparison to the other Disney classics, the film was a total box-office bomb and put the future of Disney animation in jeopardy (Article by Katie Bellis, 2019).
Still from The Black Cauldron (1985)
This film is definitely a good theme for my presentation. Along with exploring the links to Wales and how the original mythology is represented, it would be really interesting to see how Disney changed their approach in this animation and what made it unsuccessful. I have already found a lot of research that has been done in relation to Disney’s experimentation in the 80s, and as someone who is interested in themes of darkness in animation I would really enjoy learning some more about this era. I think this topic would surprise the audience, as it definitely surprised me.
Another notable Welsh feature-length animation is Y Mabinogi (or Otherworld) (2003). It is based on a series of Welsh tales written by bards in the Middle Ages. It is mostly animated with a couple of live action sequences. It follows three main characters who find themselves moving from their world in West Wales to the setting of the tales of Welsh mythology known as the Four Branches of the Mabinogi.
Still from Y Mabinogi (2003)
I was interested to find out about this film and definitely want to watch it, however there isn’t anything notable to talk about in regards to the production or animation of the film and isn’t often referenced in articles or research.
Welsh Animators
I personally haven’t come across any Welsh animators that have captured my interest yet, so am having to conduct my own searches to find them specifically. There are a couple of artists who I have found so far.
The first animator I looked into is called Sean Vicary. I found out about his work through an arts organisation that I am a part of back home. Working alongside artists of many different disciplines, I thought it would be good to ask the group if they knew of any Welsh animators. Somebody suggested Sean’s work to me and sent over his website.
Sean is a Cardigan based artist whose work explores the relationship of humans to the natural world, place and landscape. He observes and collects objects and fragments of detritus and manipulates them to create unique and poetic stop motion animations. Although I think his work is really interesting and creative, there are no characters in these films and hence not much material for me to explore.
Miyazaki and Wales
Studio Ghibli is one of the most prominent animation studios in the world, known best for their highly detailed imagery and distinct visual style. Co-founder of the studio Hayao Miyazaki is widely regarded as one of the most accomplished filmmakers in the history of animation. It is a lesser known fact that Miyazaki’s inspiration for Studio Ghibli’s first film, Castle in the Sky, came from a trip he took to Wales in 1984 (Brooks, 2005).
Still from Castle in the Sky
Miyazaki was on a location-hunting trip in Wales during the mining strike of the 1980s. He admired the miner’s dedication to their work and community, taking inspiration from the way they battled to save their lives (Bowen, 2020). The influence that this visit to Wales had on Miyazaki is clear throughout not only the narrative and characters but also in the scenery of the film. Although we don’t see use of literal Welsh landmarks or places, Miyazaki was inspired by the way nature was reclaiming abandoned mines and towns during this period. He shows ruined Welsh homes of crumbling stone being overtaken by grasses, seeming to disappear into the landscape – a reminder of what was lost in the strikes, but remodelled as fantasy in Castle in the Sky (Denison, 2020).
In addition to this, Studio Ghibli’s 14th feature film, Howl’s Moving Castle, is based on a children’s book by Welsh author Diana Wynne Jones. I was surprised to learn about the connection between this studio and Wales and such a small place having a huge influence on one of the most loved studios of our time! I am very interested in watching more Studio Ghibli films and learning more about their techniques and influences, however I’m not sure if this specific theme is rich enough to expand upon.
Overall it has been really useful to consider all of these topics and brainstorm my ideas. Now that I have narrowed down some options I can do some further research and decide what theme to focus on before creating my presentation.
References
Bellis, K., 2019. The forgotten Welsh themed Disney film which almost killed the company. [online] Wales Online. Available at: www.walesonline.co.uk/whats-on/film-news/forgotten-welsh-themed-disney-film-15947589 Accessed 21/10/21 Brooks, X. 2005. A god among animators. [online] The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2005/sep/14/japan.awardsandprizes Accessed 21/10/21 Denison, R., 2020. Hayao Miyazaki’s European Animation: From European Literary Influences to Nostalgic Re-imaginings. Wasafiri, [online] 35(2), pp.67-73. Available at: <https://doi.org/10.1080/02690055.2020.1721124> [Accessed 1 November 2021].
