Sunday 22 May 2011

Degree Show 2011

Last Thursday I went to a most awesome lecture given by the co-founder of Pixar and a pioneer of computer graphics, Alvy Ray Smith. Before he went up to speak there was a showreel of work from students on the Animation programme at DJCAD from over the years. Two of this years animation films were shown, one of them being 'The Flying Duchess'. During semester 2 of second year I was given the chance to do some colouring for this animation. I had never done colouring before and was quite nervous about taking on someone else's work, especially as it was for their degree show film. However, after a few frames I found it quite easy and coloured a total of 52 frames. I followed the charting in the corner of the frames and put them together in windows movie-maker to see how it looked animated. The result can be viewed below:



All of this years films can be viewed at http://www.animation2011.com/
I went to the open night of the Degree Show on Friday night to have a look around - never seen the place so crowded! Went back on Saturday to have a better look and watch all the animations again - they really are amazing this year and I wish all the fourth year students Good Luck with whatever they go on to do next!

Another of the films I did some work for was 'A Sweet Disposition'. I was given some inbetweens to do which can be viewed below:



Again this was the first time I had worked with someone else's keyframes to do the inbetweens. A few frames were cut during the final stages of editing including the frames I inbetweened. This happens in the industry all the time and I appreciate the chance to have contributed in any way and increase my experience and skills within Animation. I wish I could have helped out more, but during the semester I became swamped in my own work - yes you Marlo the Magician!

We were recently sent out our summer brief, which is to come up with an idea and conccept art work for a 1 minute long animation. It has to have an environment and 1 or more characters and we will all have to pitch our ideas when we go back in September as 3rd Years for Semester 1!
I also plan to increase my skills and knowledge by teaching myself more about AfterEffects and Maya.

And also... Disney's 'Tangled' is out on dvd and blu-ray tomorrow - excited? YES!!