As key posing and refining animation have begun and have progressed, myself, Lorna and Megan who are animating our narrative, decided we needed to gather a larger collection of research. For this research, we wanted to gain both primary and secondary assets that could be used to assist us in giving our characters life, personality and attitude. We knew that the best way to do this, yes, is the way the voices are recorded and spoken, but from an animation perspective, it all comes down to body language and emotional expressions.
With this in mind, we set out to gather our own, and trusted research material that could be used as reference for us as we develop our animations. Firstly, we captured images of our own faces portraying various emotions as we see them. Secondly we were fortunate enough to receive a book full of expressions and references from our tutor Henry, and this was so valuable to us and we took many photos of the emotions and shared them on our team Onedrive so they could be used as continual reference for us as we animate our characters. Another method we participated in was the acting out of our piece. With Lorna as the little girl, Megan as the AI and myself as the male character, we read the lines and tried to express the body shapes and emotions we wanted the characters to display within our piece. Attached below is a look on our onedrive of the references and footage that was taken by us as a team as we sought to achieve realistic and believable expressions and personalities for our characters.
As a team of animators, we each took a character and applied various common expressions to the rigs. The purpose of this were two-fold. We could practice with the rigs and the controllers and handles that would be frequently adjusted by us throughout the animating process, but also, it gave us an indication of what parts of the rigs still needed changed so that the correct mouth shape or facial component could be adjusted according to how we needed them to translate. Below are the images I create for the AI expressions -
Our Director, Lorna, set up To Do lists for us as a team and as a group we sat down to plan out the months to come leading up to final hand in day. Below are screenshots and photos of some of these plans and tables that are hopefully going to keep each of us informed and updated with the developments of the project and allow us to hit our own personal deadlines for work -
Below are some of the videos we collected for reference that I will be using throughout the next week to practice and develop the movements and components of our characters within my section of animation -
While animating and testing our animations, we continue to look into various research for our characters and receive encouragement and influence from other characters, movies and projects that have already been completed. One of these is the game 'Kara' which was carried out Quantic Dream with Sony Entertainment. In this we see an AI character battling with the feelings of emotion and real world living. This is the style of our AI waitress and the most important thing for us when animating is ensuring we are achieving the thin line between too robotic or too real. We want to have just the right amount so people dont sell our character for just another robot or just another human character.
When considering helpful references for our young girl character, we weren't stuck for finding bratty, attitude filled and needy children characters from previous animations, cartoons, TV series and movies. We considered characters such as Angelica Pickles from Rugrats, Veruca Salt from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Helga Pataki from Hey Arnold! or Dee Dee from Dexter's Laboratory.
We found so many great characters to base our little girls attitude and mannerisms from. One of our favourite and most commonly used reference characters, was that of Mabel Pines from Gravity Falls. Watching the attached video should make why clear. An irritable but lovable character that connects with the audience. Making them say, no more, but more.
For our Male character, we needed to find references of characters that were introverted, contemplative, but had a limit that when reached, could turn and snap. We found a few characters that were really effective references for us in our design, modeling and animating of the male character in The Happy Place. Two characters that I specifically focused on when animating, were Gus Griswald and Sheldon Cooper. These two characters, one cartoon, one portrayed by actor Jim Parsons, play roles that are introverted but when pushed to the limit, can lose their cool and put their friendships on the line because of their temper and grudges. Sheldon was my primary focus, and his part in the Big Bang Theory TV series was a very helpful way to relax during project work, as well as gain an insight and reference into how our male character should be behaving and reacting.
For overall style and design of our animation, we wanted to use the series 'Love Death and Robots' (especially the episodes ‘The Witness’, ‘Beyond the Aquila Rift’ and ‘Three Robots’. This series incorporates and intermingles between bright lights and shadows, mixed with electrical components and a beautiful blend between the traditional past, and the technological future.
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