Author: Vaibhavi Venkataraman

Plasticine puppet making

Realised I never uploaded my plasticine puppet on here, so here goes! This is the clay puppet I made during the Tuesday sessions with Steve. I was struggling to find the right type of clay and other materials because I was back home, so I did get to making this puppet much later than I wanted. I luckily found some non hardening clay (lots of issues finding art materials because of covid) and with some great ideas and help from Steve, I managed to finally make my puppet! 😀

Character Bounce v2

I’ve been working on the character bounce and trying to get the clean up to work better, to make sure the shapes and sizes don’t change all the time. I am finding it a bit hard to keep the animal exercises in proportion since I’m so used to particularly focusing on a single drawing/piece for a consistent period of time. But I’m going to keep practising as much as I can!

Robert Bradbrook – Characters and Stories Part 1

We had a really lovely session with Robert Bradbrook (Head and Senior Tutor at National Film and Television school) yesterday! 😀 He spoke about character personalities and how to develop characters with interesting traits that will keep the audience invested in the story!

He got us thinking about personality traits such as positive, kind, domineering, etc and that it is important for our character to have at least three traits and one flaw. The flaw can make the character more interesting and it can possibly be the thing that is challenged; the one that makes the character change or transform towards the end.

The best way to start is by asking questions:

  1. If there is a piece of chocolate cake lying in the common kitchen fridge, would your character eat it? Leave a note after taking a slice? Not eat it and feel sorry about thinking about eating it?
  2. What would they do if they arrived late for work? Apologise? Pretend as though it didn’t matter?
  3. In a crowded bus, would they give up their seat for someone elderly? Would they overdo it?

Putting our characters in these day to day situations can help in creating well rounded characters and add a lot to their personality!

Here are some primary character types that Robert mentioned:

  1. Flat
  2. Round
  3. Static (character remains the same throughout the story)
  4. Dynamic (personality changes and evolves)

We also usually have the protagonist who wants something and the antagonist who stops him from getting it.

I’m also going to put these points that I jotted down during his session here for future reference:

WHAT DO CHARACTERS WANT?

  • Control, Acceptance, Reputation, Freedom, Self Esteem, Health, Love
  • Tapping into the Human Psyche and seeing ourselves in those characters on the screen and showing empathy towards them.

WHAT IS STOPPING THEM GETTING IT?

  • physical thing, mental, flaw or themselves?

WHY DO THEY WANT IT NOW?

  • Putting an urgency to the situation

WHAT IS THE EVENT?

  • Exploring what the event is – for instance stuck in a changing room, at a bar..particularly within a moment of time

WHAT DOES THE CHARACTER FEAR?

  • usually what they want is what they fear, so what is their secret?

IS THEIR WORLD IN BALANCE OR NOT?

  • Do they belong/not belong in their world? The feeling of being out of place often means that the character wants to be accepted

Robert gave us the example of Mr. Incredible – He wants reputation and self esteem. His biggest flaw is his ego and he eventually needs to learn to be a team player and that’s how he grows as the film progresses.

Sourced from Google

We also had a small exercise that we did during the later half of the session. We picked a chair we found around our house and then turned it into a character.

We had to give it a name and an age, 3 personality traits, 1 flaw, think about what they want and what is the event. We did this in a group and then came up with a story!

Here is my chair, named Bernard and he is in his mid 40s. His personality traits are that he is strong, determined and reliable. His flaw is that he is stubborn and short tempered. At the time I wasn’t sure about what he wanted so I just said that he wanted to avoid a mid life crisis and just enjoy his life.

My classmates and I then came up with this story that we had created with our respective chairs as people:

Bernard goes to holiday in Tenerife with younger girlfriend Evette (Mid 20s) and his son Kyle (13), who is energetic. They end up getting locked into their hotel room. Kyle being the hyperactive teenager, starts getting angry and more hyper which in turn irks Bernard to no end. Bernard came to have some peace and quiet but it ends up being the opposite of that. Evette being a calm minded person tries to relentlessly calm them down. It ends with Kyle retorting, “You can’t tell me what to do you’re not my real mom!” – THE END

We kind of left the ending in the wind, but now that I look back on my character I feel like it doesn’t fit the personality the chair resonates. Looking back at this chair today makes me think of my dad who is also strong, determined and reliable with his occasional stubborn and short temperament. Also, I probably wouldn’t have named him Bernard and would probably have made him around late 50s and also given him a better purpose of now wanting to be a loving family man, who gets to spend and enjoy his time with his kids now that he’s retired.

Mood Change Walk

Here is my attempt at the mood change walk! This is more of an updated version of the actual exercise that I submitted back in December. It was really interesting and fun to animate this, especially having acted it out myself as a reference 😀 I learnt a lot about timing and performance from this exercise, particularly how to convey body language through a walk! Learning so many amazing things from this course and enjoying every second of it! Will be updating it once I get some more feedback!

Bianca Ansems – Storyboarding

We had another lovely session with Bianca this week about all things storyboarding! She is a professional currently working in the animation industry as a storyboard artist so it is absolutely amazing to be able to hear her insights on storyboards! More so also because I want to be a storyboard artist too but I know how hard it is to get into it and be really good. But hopefully with some guidance and a lot of practice, I can learn how to storyboard!

Some tips that Bianca mentioned about Internships:

  • Internships are a great way to get into studios
  • Aardman also do storyboard internships so keep a lookout for that
  • Always ask lots of questions
  • When you are starting out think about minimum cost/wage
  • Employers usually ask for tests if they don’t see it in your portfolio
  • It’s their way of seeing if you have the potential to do the job and how you take in feedback
  • Don’t take criticism to heart – its given for your improvement
  • Storyboard artists are the first ones to visualise the script!

STORYBOARDING IS HARD BUT ITS IMPORTANT TO KNOW THE RULES TO BREAK THE RULES!

5C’S OF CINEMATOGRAPHY:

  • COMPOSITION – RULE OF THE THIRDS (BALANCE)
Rule of the thirds example (Google)
  • CAMERA ANGLES
Pinterest
  • CLOSE UPS
  • CONTINUITY (EDITING)
  • CUTTING

THINKING ABOUT HOW YOU ARE DIRECTING THE EYE OF THE AUDIENCE:

  • NOSE ROOM/HEAD ROOM – To shift the focus and to show what the character might be thinking. The opposite can be used in horror films to show someone coming up behind the character
  • EMOTIONAL MANIPULATION – awakening emotions in the audience and making them feel

Bianca then gave us a storyboarding exercise in the afternoon. She provided the script and then we came up with the storyboards.

The image below was the version that I submitted for the class! It was meant to be done really quickly which is why the stick figures! Bianca gave me some great feedback on this: she mentioned that I don’t need so many shots of the phone ringing (sound would convey it), and that both characters seem to be on the same side of the screen which can be a bit confusing, but other than that is was good! Since I want to be a storyboard artist as well, I decided to work on a second draft of the same script!

Storyboard 1 by Vaibhavi Venkataraman © 2021

Here is my second draft of the same storyboard! I really enjoyed making this and tried to work on the feedback that Bianca gave me. I decided to make the second character (who is stuck) a Grim Reaper because I thought it would be funny if the grim reaper is the one who is stuck and that he is sad with doe eyes as opposed to being mean and scary and taking souls!

Storyboard 2 by Vaibhavi Venkataraman © 2021

Horse Canter

I also tried to animate a horse canter and ended up with a funny looking horse with extremely long legs haha! I’m still working on it and trying to make it look a bit more horse like. This also took me quite a while to understand as I’m particularly new to drawing animals, let alone animating them! I tend to go for human characters more, but I’ve loved learning to animate animals so I’m really excited to work on more animal walk and run cycles!

Autumn Inspo – Part 2

Like I mentioned in my previous post, Autumn can be significant of change and letting go of our insecurities/flaws, etc and finally accepting ourselves!

I found this article very interesting so I will link the source and some excerpts from it below:

ARTICLE: https://writescape.ca/site/2019/10/seasonal-symbolism/

In fall, the growing cycle gives us ripeness and maturity. The harvest is associated with abundance, prosperity and wealth. Humans too experience an “autumn”. If spring represents new birth and childhood, and summer symbolizes youth, autumn represents adulthood and maturity.

With the approach of winter, animals store food and create cozy hibernation spaces. We preserve the harvest and retreat indoors. We stop wandering and stay home. We tend to look emotionally inwards too, reconnecting with ourselves and those important to us. We consider the choices we have made, and the options still open to us.

Because day and night are the same length on the autumnal equinox, ancient cultures associated this day with the concept of balance. Astrologically, the sun enters Libra, symbolized by a pair of balanced scales. As we slow down after the business of summer, and with the harvest in, we take time to tap into the balance within us.

Gwynn Scheltema (writescape ca)

Another article I found, that highlights some of the main points I was thinking about while making my character:

“Generosity has such power because it is characterized by the inner quality of letting go or relinquishing. Being able to let go, to give up, to renounce, to give generously — these capacities spring from the same source within us. When we practice generosity, we open to all of these liberating qualities simultaneously. They carry us to a profound knowing of freedom, and they also are the loving expression of that same state of freedom.” Fall, then, is the perfect season to give generously of your time and talents to others.

Sharon Saltzberg (https://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/practices/naming-the-days/view/10950/autumn-reflections-on-the-season)

This is basically the gist of my character’s personality, a girl who is friendly and generous, that spends most of her time helping others! She cares for others so much that she spends no time on herself, leading to her flaw – self esteem. She covers herself up in jackets/coats, scarves and boots, not just because she loves autumn but also because she doesn’t see herself as beautiful. I was also thinking of making her a bit supernatural, like she has this power to ripen fruits and bring them maturity. I also feel like although she is a child/looks like an innocent child on the outside, her mind is sharp beyond her years.

Horse Walk Cycle

This was my first time animating any kind of animal walk cycle! I found it extremely hard at first and spent most of my time trying to figure out how the legs move. With a lot of guidance and very helpful feedback, I was able to get this far 😀 There’s still a lot I need to work on in terms of clean up, but I am happy with how much I’ve learnt! Hoping to practice and experiment with more animal walk and run cycles 🙂

So here is my horse walk cycle (so far):

A previous version with the skeleton underneath!

Just to highlight a great reference video I found on animating a horse walk cycle! This is the horse walk by Richard Williams and I used this to understand the horse walk cycle along with the pdf sheets that Steve sent us for this exercise! 😀

Horse walk cycle by Richard Williams