Sophie Henney

Stop motion is a technique that I have always found endearing and is something that I was very keen to learn when I chose to pursue animation. During my first year I worked on developing my skills in stop motion animation and building a portfolio that would be relevant to roles in stop motion. Over the last few months I have been looking into some opportunities for internships or graduate roles as an animator. Even though I wasn’t successful it was useful to go through the application process and have a look into what roles might be available when I graduate. 

LAIKA

Applications for LAIKA’s internship programs close at the end of April and run for 12 weeks over summer. The positions they have change every year but they have previously had production-related programs that include costume design and fabrication, model-making and stop motion animation. Applicants can apply for as many positions as they like as long as they have a relevant portfolio to support their application. They are based in Portland, so international applicants must meet the required qualifications for visas – something for me to keep in mind if I consider a job overseas. 

Aardman

Aardman offer various roles and traineeships throughout the year, including model-making, rigging and animating. They are based in Bristol and have projects in film, TV, shorts and games. I have applied for a couple of their roles but would love to look into some more opportunities such as volunteering as they are not far from London. 

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. 

Thy Will Be Done

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:

Then I traced over it with a rough design:

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:

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:

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.