Technical Difficulties - Character Bios

I have written short biographies for each of the characters in the animation. This helps with the world-building, and fleshes the characters out a lot more. It will also aid me in structuring how they move in a scene, and how they might interact with the other objects.

The OBS Machine:

The OBS Machine is a fairly young piece of technology. Situated in a hospital just outside of London, they experience a mix of old and new, with the patient records being on paper, and the latest machines. Despite the newer tehcnology being somewhat confusing, they enjoy helping people and making a difference to someone’s life.

The Cash Register:

The Cash Register is an older, manual model, nowhere near as high-tech as the cash registers of today - she’s from the days where you had to count everything out in your brain, without a computer to do it for you! She’s perfectly happy with the way she is and the way things are for her, and isn’t at all motivated to move on with the times.

The Television:

The Television, like the Cash Register, isn’t the latest model - he’s older than most, a little clunky, and only gets 3 stations. He’s happy with those 3, and doesn’t see the need for hundreds of other channels that just repeat everything he’s already seen. He is perfectly fine with the technology he has, and isn’t going to trade it up for anything.

The TV Remote:

The TV Remote is paired up with a fancy new “Smart TV”, so he knows all about the latest apps, games and channels. He has playful banter with the DVD remote from time to time, taking the mick out of his leaky batteries, or just generally showing off. The TV remote could not be happier with the modern technology he’s connected to, and thinks it’s fantastic.

The DVD Remote:

The DVD Remote is connected up to a standard DVD Player. He’s particularly miffed about his family using streaming services like Netflix, instead of sticking a disc in the DVD player. He hasn’t been used in a while because of this. He just wants things to go back to how they were, although he wasn’t fond of the My Little Pony DVD they put in the player last time.

Technical Difficulties - TV Colour Keys

Colour Keys for my TV Character. I will decide which one I think works best, then try various weathering effects on it, and pick the final design after that second stage

Collaboration Resit - Concept

For my collaboration resit piece, I am going to be basing my animation around the Flat Earth Society. The Moom character will be giving a talk on the Flat Earth Society, trying to convince members to join. Whilst he is talking, there will be various Posters, Diagrams, and Newspaper clippings, with red string tying them all together, like this:

There will be different angles of the speaker, but we will not see the audience - this is, in a way, making the animation more "personal" and "direct" - he is speaking to just the viewer, no-one else.

As you may have seen from the previous posts, I have already given the Moom model some form of a costume - I am thinking of adding a tin-foil hat to the character, to really sell and emphasise the "conspiracy nut" angle of his character.

Collaboration Resit - Full Scene Progress

Collaboration Resit - Progress from Joe Warrilow on Vimeo.

Another progress post for my collaboration resit, this time showing a significant section of the scene.

Collaboration Resit - Facial Animation

Collaboration Resit - Lip Sync Progress from Joe Warrilow on Vimeo.

Progress of the animation I am doing for my Collaboration Resit.

Collaboration Resit - Set Progress

This is a work-in-progress shot of the set for my collaboration resit. The red string going between the different squares (which will later be newspaper articles, images, etc) is done on a single plane. I achieved this by taking a screenshot of the squares in the "Front" viewport, pasting it into Photoshop, and creating the lines between them on a separate layer. I then exported that layer out as a 'png', and applied it to the plane.

Collaboration Resit - Audio Clip

For my resit of the collaboration project, I have chosen this clip from the 11 second club.

http://www.11secondclub.com/competitions/february15#

The moment I listened to this clip, I knew what I wanted to do for the animated skit. I want to somehow involve the "Flat Earth Society" - involving some sort of conspiracy theorist character. I will begin work on designing the set and characters tomorrow.

Technical Difficulties - Lip Syncing Progress

Technical Difficulties - Lip Sync Progress from Joe Warrilow on Vimeo.

Here is some progress on my Animatic for my premise project. I am working on lip-syncing the characters, as they do not have much movement. They have basic turns and such, but do not do much else, so by creating a lip sync, it will help bring the characters ti life.

I will also add in various eye/eyebrow movements to complement the lip sync, plus it allows the characters to get more emotion across. This idea came from Wallace & Gromit - Gromit doesn't have a mouth, and never speaks, only "talking" through his various facial expressions. I will also be taking cues from "The Brave Little Toaster" on how to bring my inanimate objects to life. I believe that this will help make the characters in my piece more expressive, and will mean that the animatic, as well as the final piece, isn't static and boring.