Major Project - Taste - Submission 14/05/2018

Major Project - Taste - Impromptu Maya update

Just thought I'd post this. Finished skinning him today and decided to play around with lighting just to see how it interacts with the models hard edges. Sorry if it's a bit Lynchian, it doesn't reflect the aesthetics of the project at all. I just enjoy red and blue gel lighting in films.

Major Project - Taste - Designing Rob

This is Rob. 

Fortunately, both of us have styles of clothing that are commonly associated with us, so designing a 'costume' isn't such a task. And since I'd already established the rules the art must follow whilst designing myself, it was a much faster process in designing Rob. I began again, by throwing down shapes and seeing what I felt was closer to Rob. I am fortunate that he has a lot of patience because he most certainly doesn't look like that first thumbnail. But again, as I progressed I steadily moved closer to something that I could recognize as him whilst looking like it fits with my other design. 

I then progressed to designing his clothing and build. I couldn't resist then also drawing him in a needlessly fabulous pose, like something out of Sailor Moon. But once I'd had my fun, I again resorted to the lasso tool method I'd used with my design. Of course the magic of me posting these in a linear fashion makes it seem like I'd had this realisation way before I started designing Rob, but in actuality, I was designing us and working things out in tandem, and as such, came upon that method all at once for both characters. 

Shape wise, again, you'll notice that I initially draw things in a needlessly stocky or disproportionate way, and I can tell you here, that this is unintentional. Fortunately I have the gumption to carry on and fix these things in post. As you'll again see on the right. 

After this design was more or less settled in my mind, I moved on to more formal orthographs for use with Maya.

Realising I'd forgotten to change the front views shoes into something less...pointy...I rectified this in the separated Orthographs.

Major Project - Taste - Further outfit development for Joe

After deciding that I was progressing in a direction that didn't reflect my wants for the project again, I took a different approach to drawing the shape of the body. Opting for a more angular look that would really help to create this angular look when working from the orthographics in Maya. So I employed the lasso tool and proceeded to shape the body and outfit over a series of versions. Starting in a place that was fairly abstract and straight, and ending in a place that maintained a bit of shape to the legs in particular. 

This was a fairly long process and actually involved a back and forth between Maya when I discovered that certain shapes looked terribly close to drinking straws, and just looked a bit silly. I am in favour of where I ended up with this, despite having to go through a few different trouser shapes to get there.

Major Project - Taste - Joe development

Firstly, here's a design I forgot to include in the previous post. Again, whilst I think there's some merit here, it just felt far too 2D. Although I'm happy with the painting on the jacket, I've really been trying to improve my painting over the course and recently have changed the default brushes I've been using and found myself escaping the plateau I'd found myself in.

There was a sort-of eureka moment during the design process, where I wasn't really satisfied with my previous designs and went back to my pinterest album I'd created to gather ideas. 

One illustration in particular stood out to me, featured below. 

I think it was after looking at this where I really found my feet with the style I wanted to shoot for, as although there's some flatness here, it's effective, likewise the large eyes and slight "Disney" vibe they give off was really appealing to me. Leading me to draw the above image as a response. Then, sufficiently satisfied, I took the designs and began trying to work out colours that would be striking to further push the idea of a vibrant 2.5D world. Whilst doing this I also began trying to work out the side view of the characters head. Starting off very abnormal and honing it in later drawings. 

I then moved on to designing a new body for the new art direction. And for some reason decided to draw incredibly thick necks. I'm still a little confused about why exactly, but as you can see, later on I began to fix the proportions in order to make myself look less like I've exclusively worked my neck out. 

I decided that this style was far too 'soft' and worked on trying to achieve that rigid low poly look after this, which I'll detail in the next post.

Major Project - Taste - Initial thumbnails

Being that ultimately, the characters would end up being myself and Rob, I'd already had more than enough information in order to design us as characters. The challenge here now being if I can find a suitable art style to render us in based on the visual tenets of my influence maps. I began by detailing what exactly it was that I enjoyed most in the second character influence map. 

After this, it became apparent that I still wanted to try for 3D animation, with the idea to then make the background 2D in order to compensate for the added work lent by choosing that particular pipeline. The closest picture to this particular avenue of design is the image of the girl sitting on the 2D line art rocks. I enjoy the interaction between the two planes, and how simple and effective it is, also noting how dynamic bursts of colour create interest in these simplified designs. 

I began by throwing down some rough shapes in my journal. Playing on the idea of simplification, and really, just working out how it could be achieved in a way that actually looked appealing without losing the ability to impart character through expression. Some designs I like better than others, and to be honest, this was at a point where I hadn't drawn for a while (after being in the grips of the dissertation writing process). So this was very much a process of finding my feet again and recalling Justin's character design lessons, whilst also allowing myself the opportunity to play with the angular style I had chosen. 

 Here's the kicker, I thought I had settled on a style for a little while, and followed it through to a semi-developed state, only to change my mind right at the end of it. Ultimately I don't feel bad about it as during the process I ended up doodling something that lead to being closer to the final design I have today. I'll detail that development in a later post.

This refined design has some appeal, and really did inform design choices I made later down the line. The surviving aspects of this particular trail is the nose, which I just enjoy, despite it not looking correct in any way. I also lost the hat, which, despite being iconic, needed to go. To be quite honest, I just felt that this design was lacking in something, perhaps the eyes were a little off, or I just felt that this was a little too flat and reminiscent of a cutesy South Park.

Major Project - Taste - Character influence maps.

I knew early on that I wanted to do some form of work in 3D as opposed to making 2D rigs, but I wasn't deterred by that stipulation, still seeking out inspiration in mainly 2D areas. In many ways, I wanted to utilise a clean and simple art style that would be easy to produce, in order to test out whether this would be a viable methodology for creating perhaps weekly content if this were to become some form of "show". 

It has definitely been important to me to maintain a simplistic style, but still allow for visual interest as there will need to be some complexity in order to visually engage the audience through this largely sitting conversation. This of course will be partly achieved through varying shots to keep things moving, but I also need the characters to be complex enough to carry the viewer through too.

I looked at things that varied in their complexity and largely settled on images present in this second influence map, as they retain a simplicity that still looks pleasing, as well as showcases the possibilities of 3D design that looks 2D. An idea that I later progress with.

Major Project - Taste.

Despite being away from the blogging side of things for a while I've been working away at this project quite steadily. Having measured up to problems regarding content and direction in the preceding months. I've come to realise this project in a way that satisfies my interests beyond the course, as well as showcasing the various skills I've garnered here.

As such, I've decided to go about this project non-uniformly. Employing a different (to me at least) way of assembling a script, following through to the design process of the character models, which are still very much in play even in Maya, as I've elected to follow a low-poly methodology when approaching the aesthetics that this project will have.

As such, I began this project by trying to find the format first and foremost. Beyond what I knew I wanted to reflect from My Dinner With Andre and later when I discovered Coffee and Cigarettes (2003) by Jim Jarmusch. Using the former as a way in, and the latter as a way of informing myself of what I really enjoyed about this methodology. Coffee and Cigarettes was perhaps even more influential to me, as it's style is that of the meandering conversation where two people are placed in a hyperreal setting and discuss around a topic in a dreamlike way. Less of the more brusque and direct style of podcasts that I feel lend an air of inauthenticity wherein speakers are generally prodded into saying things as a through line to generate content, which is ironic when the situations within Coffee and Cigarettes are so obviously staged themselves. Why then, do they read so authentically?

        

It's somewhere in those thoughts that I settled on where I felt this project should sit. On the edges of what I feel the players are actually speaking about, set within a space that is so obviously crafted, yet it will be the conversation acting as a throughline that will serve to settle the viewer into believing in what they are seeing, despite the look and feel of the low-poly designs.

Below is a cleaned up mixdown of a 2 hour conversation between myself and Robert Lindsay, where I have sought to create a conversation, piecemeal, out of varying slices of the conversation. I found that by doing things this way, it's possible to create entirely new interactions within the recordings whilst not betraying the naturalistic qualities you get from simply sitting down and talking with someone. As such, there's a distinctly low-fi feel about things which, when paired with the visuals, I feel are entirely appropriate for this piece. There's a rough objective for the recording, which ultimately boils down to being about art, elitism, taste, culture & segregation/exclusionary behaviour, but this is filtered through in a very natural and flowing way, despite the patchwork means of its creation.


The pace of this audioscript will further change in the pre-viz process when timings are altered to lend a bit more dramatic pause to the audio and the delivery of the lines, so as to belay the sometimes rushed delivery in some parts, but I am largely happy with the way that this has gone, feeling that it doesn't betray my initial criteria for this project.

Major project - Ideation and summary.

"My Dinner with Andre" (1981) dir. Louis Malle

It is my hope that I can prepare a showcase of the skills learned during the onward motion of the course; that I can effectively produce a piece of work that both speaks to me as a creator, and highlights a professional sensibility. 

The inception of my idea came out of my work on the extended dissertation, which - broadly speaking - focused on the discourse between high and low artforms. This difference, or lack of (depending on your viewpoint), has always interested me as it forms the basis of the way in which we as individuals build up our own assertions of taste, through our subjective consumption of art. This is evidenced in its simplest form in conversation, where there are often as many disagreements as there are agreements. As such I've elected to keep my animation semi thematic to my work on the dissertation and pursue a more conversational end product.    

Marvel Studios, and the death of Cinema?

I'd been sitting on this very basic want/outcome for my major project for the few months I was writing my dissertation, and I admit, it hadn't grown much through those months, sitting in the back of my mind waiting to take a fuller form. But from early conversations with Alan, it was suggested that I watch Louis Malle's "My Dinner with Andre" (1981) which by and large, is a two hour conversation with the appearance of being realtime, centering on a meetup between old friends Wally and Andre. It took me a while to settle in to the very simple set up for the film, but I found myself sinking into the natural patter of their conversation. Sure, this is a movie that might as well be a podcast, or on radio, the filmic qualities of this film are secondary to the content of their conversation. As such, the film isn't very complex. It's a collection of one two shots, tracking reactions between the two gentlemen as their evening progresses.

It dawned on me, as I watched, that this film was doing everything it could to immerse you in the reality of these two friends, sharing a sometimes awkward, sometimes riveting conversation. Aesthetically, it's steeped in naturalism, almost shot as if a documentary, and there's a decidedly lo-fi sheen to the picture, very 70's grainy. Conflating this further, the actors walk a fine line between playing themselves - they share names with their characters etc. Despite this, the film obviously conflates time in the attempts to shoehorn an entire 3 course meal into the runtime, as it's implied through proceedings that the two arrive at the restaurant near opening time and are the last customers to exit.  

The crux of my ideas generated by viewing the film really centered on the representation of reality and the content of their conversation, which too, felt very real, almost ad libbed. And, as far ranging as it is, there also seems to be this air of control too, where the conversation is consistently entertaining - whether this is through a large amount of observation of real conversation combined with cherry picking, or entirely spontaneous seems moot. From thinking on all of this, I really hit on the need to situate characters in a similar setup to chat about film, perhaps extending some of the discourse Wally and Andre share about art, but in animated form. The need to justify the need for this to be animation seemed to be as moot as it was for Louis Malle when he made this film when it could have easily been something else. 

After relaying this trail of thought to Phil - with attempts to justify why I would use animation on this project, where I cited that the immediacy of animation makes it easier to identify with events on screen - we centered on the idea that I could perhaps produce a proof of concept series of shorts that focus on film itself, perhaps showcasing peoples genuine reactions to seminal moments in film and pairing high/low arguments in an immediate and naturalistic way. This would allow me to showcase my work in all of the ways I would like, whilst also allowing me a means of production that allows me to produce something within a framework that doesn't shift, with beneficial limits in place to aid the speed of creation. Initially this worried me as I still feel compelled to create something with a traditional narrative, akin to short film making, and I do feel that the initial state of this particular idea threw away a lot of what I enjoyed about My Dinner with Andre; it would involve breaking a fourth wall with visual elements that sit outside of the reality of the recorded conversation (much like a youtube video essay does) and whilst I like the idea of creating a quasi infographic/narrative series of shorts, I would like to progress in a direction that tries to maintain the illusion of reality, much in the spirit of MDWA, so I would like to rely on what happens "in camera" or in sound, or at least, just avoid breaking the illusion that you are an observer. Perhaps more Creature Comforts than a Collider Top 10 video.   

Going forward then...

The obvious component needed is the audio content as it's the element that everything will hinge around. I'm aiming to keep things semi focused on films, but I really want to maintain that documentary feel, so I'm trying to record things in a very candid way - either by doing quick "hot takes" or spontaneously electing to record a conversation between two people after showing them a certain film scene etc. This is in response to the initial idea of just going into a recording studio and performing in a way that's similar to recording a podcast. I feel there are drawbacks here as there is a certain amount of 'playing up to the camera' with those methods of production, where I feel people tend to be a tad more outrageous and therefore, staged, than they would be in a different setting. I want to absolutely nail that naturalistic feel after all. 

I'll be writing a post that will further detail the process and the criteria for recordings soon.