Sunday 23 October 2011

Digbeth Interview

This is a video footage of the interview me and my friend Riz made of a guy who leases retail space for the custard factory. He has worked most of his life in Digbeth and knows alot of it. He has talked about his insight about the future, past and present of Digbeth and what kind of people mostly hang out with each other etc...

I was thinking maybe if I was to use the audio of the interview and maybe us it as a voice over our animation and it should look like the animation below which looks more like a well developed brain storm with striking visuals which makes it amusing to the audience.


These are more photographs I've gathered for my research by looking more into graffiti's 































Animation intro tests



This is a test on how simple our animation is going to look like. this can be done in many different ways such as using adobe flash, after effects, toon boom, but I have made this using photoshop. I have chosen to use photoshop because I am still in the learning stage using other programs, I used this because its easier for me at the moment.



As you can see the art style is very simple which would be very easy for us animators to animate and also having simple art style is also good which is easy to get the message across the viewers. This sort of art style was inspired form the animation "This is You" and intro from "Juno" which are very graphic, with soft light pastel colours which is eye friendly even to young audiences.

I have decided to also to do a test on the title with a simple animation showing letter shaped logs flowing through the river


Inspired from:


Monday 17 October 2011

Illustration style

Our aim as a group is to have a successful animation, to be able to finish as soon as possible and have extra time for slight improvement, to be able to the message across that there is more to it behind Digbeth  by showing the History of Digbeth in our animation.


I have used Light soft pastel like colours in photoshop which would be very easy to the eye of the audience. Ive been a bit expressive using a child like drawing of a sheep so this will also target younger audience and be like a story book, hopefully it would inspire something good to them when they grow up.


 


I didnt quite like my sheep illustration so I have improved it by using lighter grey colour and a better drawing.





I took quite a long time to complete these images because I wasnt experienced enough using a drawing tablet, but the more I practised the easier it is for me to draw.

Friday 14 October 2011

Story Board Development

These are some story board drafts that me and Michael did, and some hand written research Ive made during the tudor times.

Me and Michael struggled quite a bit in our story boarding on how we can visualize it and how to start. We had a few goes on how our animation would start but mostly settled on Michaels sketches of the mans journey





These are some of Michaels sketches which we would mostly use and improve in our animation




These are some more hand written research Ive done, looking more into the tudor times



We have discovered that Digbeth was discovered in the year 700s by the River Rea and started building farms and bridge on it then slowly evolves to the modern buildings.
I did a bit of story board plan about the start of the River Rea that it began as water rises from the ground forming into a river.



In my idea I was also planning on what kind of animation style I should use. Ive been sketching popup elements in the story board which could make the animation look more interactive and would definitely target younger audience. 



Monday 10 October 2011

Narrative Research

Tudors

The Tudors is a European Welsh Origin began from 1485 till 1603,  they were a farming society and lived in small villages. They ruled over England and became a more peaceful and richer place. As the towns grew larger and the mining coal, tin and lead became popular.

*Facts 
Toilets were called "Privies" (not private at all) They use leaves or moss to wipe their bottoms. Wealthier people use lambs wool.

Food is a show of wealth. Riches afford all kinds of meat and fishes. People during those time period eat robins, badgers, otters, tortoises and seagulls.

The poor struggles to survive and only eat grey bread made from rye and barley, and vegetable soup. Meat is a luxury but most people keep animals for milk, cheese and eggs. Life during those days were harsh for poor people, they resort to stealing food when harvest failed. When committed a crime, the risk public flogging and hanged.

Women's occupations was to work on spinning cloth, tailors, miliners, dyers, shoemakers, embroiderers and wash women. Some worked in food preparation, brewers, servant, midwives and apothecaries. It is not safe to drink water during those times, so women brew their beer, they even bake their family bread and do house hold chores. Women should be knowledgeable of medicine and cures family illness, if not knowledgeable, they seek for a wise woman. Wealthy can afford doctors. Rich women supervise servants.

Men could own farms, markets, to be an actor, soldiers, leathering etc... it is rare for men to be present during childbirth. most of the time men helps the women 

*Dress code
Clothes display on how wealthy a person was. the richer ones can afford expensive clothing with good quality of materials such as silk, linen, wool, and most of the time decorated with jewels and gold thread.

Poor wore simple cloths, loose fitting made from woolen cloth. Men wore trousers made from wool and tunic. women wears wool that went down to the ground, ofter wear aprons and bonnet.

Tudor Inns were built to only serve ale and food and to provide rooms fro travelers. The inns were often black and white half timbered style of the architecture of the 15th and 16th century houses.

These are some Images I've gathered on how a 15th century Inn would look like and most of the images are based on the Old Crown Inn in Digbeth. I have included some illustrations of some buildings to get a feel of the art during those times.

This montage is focused more on how the tudor kitchens look like and how their fashion looked like during their period



Sunday 9 October 2011

L5 Digbeth Narrative Work

The start of my second year of Animation, we will be working in groups and also collaborate with the Architecture student. The aim of the project is to create an animation promoting on what Digbeth represents capturing the expression of Digbeth’s community showing its sense of place.


To promote Digbeth, we must overcome its negative image and make it encouraging and inspiring to people and could also show history behind it. Digbeth had a historic connections to the industrial revolution's iron and steel foundries to this present day of creative arts. Digbeth was the birth place of  some of the iconic brands such as Typhoo Tea and Bird's Custard and now transformed to the Custard Factory. Now these days, Digbeth has attracted  artists and graphic designers because of its grungy street art, this has also attracted Channel 5's 'Gadget Show'.



In order for me and my group to truly understand Digbeth, we gathered reference pictures and have a feel of the surroundings and analyse what comes in mind why people dont like the area and why they like it.

These are some Reference Photos that I've gathered:





Our group's Initial idea for the animation is to use pixellation to a person walking and interacting with the animated graffiti coming to life on Digbeth's walls. The beginning would start off by showing a bit of history in a complete gray scale with graffiti tags, then gradually the graffiti evolves to a more creative colourful form till the end showing the unique beauty of Digbeth. 'Beautiful in its own way'

To produce the animation of our initial idea is to use the green screen filming the person walking then layering it on top of the 2nd video panning a series of long brick walls in the district. A 3rd layer will be an animated 2d graffiti which would be the striking visuals of the final production, this will be done by flash, or toon boom. All these layers would be all composite in Adobe After Effects. As for the sounds, we can collaborate with some music students and add some interview comments about Digbeth to it. 


I have created a simple example on how the general animation would look like using Adobe Photoshop.


Me and the Group visited Digbeth to gather research photos and videos, It was really hard to find a single street with walls connecting to each other that would have given us few minutes of walking along side a wall. If we was to film a long street, the cars parked by are a distraction to our work which would be hard for us to capture the buildings and animate.