Audio 26/6

SIT Sound studio bts while trying to record ADR

Tips for ProTools

Create a new project

Import the audio - New track

ctrl + f for adding batch fades(all tracks should fade in and out)

Drawing 25/6

Finished chalk pastel mural and the beginnings of our Killer Hamburger mannequin paint

3D Animation 24/6

Render Farm

Render Settings

make sure scene is set to 25fps

image format - exr

frame/animation ext - name_#.ext

frame padding 4

frame range = 1-final frame (frames that get rendered)

select camera

HD_1080

Copy the entire project folder to Y:RenderFarm. Test copied file to make sure the textures are still linked. Set project to the y drive folder. Clean up the frame numbers to whole numbers.

Hit reload to test that the textures are still linked, if not go and find one of the files then reload all textures to relink them all.

Open Deadline Monitor to access the render farm. Select Submit -> Maya. Name the job with name. Open machine list and add computers that are marked as free in the monitor. Direct Project Directory to your folder. Maya file = your project file then setup the output to the Y:RenderFarm folder. Frames per task = 4 and list frames 1-final frame number. 

Open After Effects and open the files making sure to select exr sequence and set project to 25fps. Run the animation to make sure lighting and textures look how u want them to. Any broken or missing frames can be rendered individually without the full scene. Render out from after effects into premiere to combine into the final animation. 

Final base textures. Im using photoshop to modify them further to get the scene that I want. 

Research 22/6

Thought I should do a final update on the gallery install and my final project.

Research 19/6

Project Framing and Resolution

• Title & Question:
• Name your project.
• Question? – Has it stayed consistent throughout or been an evolving one?

• Aims/Objectives & Context:
• Did you have an end point in mind from the start, or has the journey been the focus all along?
• MEDIUM: What skills, techniques, genres, styles, industry formats did you utilise?
• CONTEXT: Does your project fit within a larger plan/project? Describe where it fits. Does your project serve to push your development as a practitioner? Describe how this is important to your professional development.

• Conclusion/Findings:
• EXHIBITION: What was the outcome of your project? Consider both the final product and how successfully you’ve resolved your question. Consider what you’ve learnt through this project.

Dissertation Appendix(research info/images)

• Appendices are where you put raw data or information or analyses of resources, etc. It is not included in the word count. Depending on your project you could include:
• Make sure you include any extra material that is important to your project. This is NOT included in the word count for the dissertation.
• Relevant material for an Appendix:
• Blog entries highlighting specific aspects of your project
• Images/stills of work in progress
• Analysis/review of key texts or resources. 

Declaration, Formatting, Lodging your Dissertation

• You’ll find a pdf of the Dissertation declaration at the very top of BVA203 Weekly Tasks in Blackboard – can’t miss it! USE IT!!
• Include a Title page, and a Contents Page. Reference list must be APA. Index optional.
• Font Ariel/Calibri (I do not like TNR) 12 – 14 point.
• 5 cm border from left hand of page
• 1.5 point spacing
• Include your name and page number as header or footer
• Load onto Ydrive Vis Arts Dropbox/BVA203 Sem 1 2019/Assignment 3 OR Email to me if you must.

Drawing 18/6

Composition using chalk pastels and the prompt of Cybernetic Imposter. As a group we came up with a cursed furby pretending to be a baby bird in a nest. Heres hoping we can finish colouring this by the end of next class.

My concept sketches

Current progress

3D Animation 19/6

All Uvs in the library are now unwrapped and optimised. I need to separate out the roof/walls/floor into separate lamberts for substance painter so that I can texture them individually. I also need to go back in and rework the armchair unwrap as currently there is a lot of tearing around the upper arm/neck area of the uv shell. Painted Steel with a little rust and coloured white seems to be close to what I want for the bookshelf texture.

3D Animation 17/6

Today was focusing on my environment, I needed a break from the weight painting to be honest and its been a while since I have sunk any kind of decent time into this part of my project. I need to UV unwrap and texture everything in the library, and I really need to figure out some more details for my arena so its not all just the same solid object over and over in each shot.

3D Animation 15/6

More weight painting! Trying to get my characters chest to not completely fold in on itself is a mission. Its the last part to do and then I can move onto the jump/walk cycle finally. I need to stop ignoring the environment as well and get at least one of them ready to go for fridays lighting tutorial.

Hopefully with some more tinkering I can get it resembling something like a chest should when she is curled up. Its a lot of effort for only one shot but oh well.

Research 15/6

Dissertation

Project Framing and Resolution

• Title & Question:
• Name your project. 
• Colour My World
• Question driving your project – has it evolved over the semester? 
• "Can I portray contrasting emotions, with a single image recoloured in rainbow hues to create a set of 3 diptychs." 

• Aims, Objectives & Context:
• What do you want to find out? What do you want to discover? What did you want to create? 
• What is colour theory, how to use colour theory correctly, a realistic background image.

• What skills, techniques, methodologies did you want to utilise? 
• photography, drawing, colour grading, compositing

• Does your project fit within a larger plan/project? Describe where it fits. Does your project serve to push your development as a practitioner? Describe how this is important to your professional development. 
• This project was designed with some feedback from last year in regards to researching colour and colour theory to improve my work. This project served as practice in using contrast and tones for my art. Colouring my art correctly is something I struggle with and so it is the focus of what I want to improve so I can work in the professional industry successfully.

• Conclusion/Findings:
• What was the outcome of your project? Consider both the final product and how successfully you’ve resolved your question. Consider what you’ve learnt through this project. 
• I achieved the 3 diptychs however they morphed into mostly composite as opposed to the matte painting I initially proposed. Each image does give off a different feel to the landscape however I am not certain that it is moods that they portray as such. 

This is where your blogs are critically important. If you’ve been using your blog as a repository for your thoughts, progress, inspiration and research through the semester, then documenting your body of work will be a matter of sifting through your blog and pulling together the threads that make up your project. Eliminate extraneous leads and false starts – unless there is something there that you’ve used to push your project forward.

Body of Work

• Context of Project:
• Where does your project fit within the world of creative endeavour? 
• entry level experiment with colour/hue/contrast

• Who and what are the major inspirations for your work? 

• Studio Ghibli
• Disney
• John K from Hanna Barbera 
• Herman Tulleken
• Makato Shinkai
• Martin Jario
• Nagi Deepak

• Who has written and researched about the context of your project? 

• Jeevamalar Kumarasamy/Maithreyi Subramaniam/Preesha Devi Apayee. 
• Gudrun Wolfschidt. 
• Karen Schloss/Stephen Palmer

• Remember to include 6 primary and 4 secondary sources.
• Planning:
• Outline the drafts, planning, preparation, organisation, tutorials, etc
• Methodology and Analysis:
• Practice based research methodology (immersive, heuristic, etc) used. heuristic/immersive
• Analyse and self-assess your project – what criteria do you measure your own progress?

Screen Arts 15/6

Masters of Surrealism - Jan Svankmajer and Terry Gilliam

Jan Svenkmajer

Jan Svankmajer was born 1934 in Czechoslovakia. He is a puppeteer, animator, surrealist artist and filmmaker known for reinventing fairy tales with a dark twist, and 3D avant garde stop motion paired with live action animation. He is known for prioritising visual elements over plot and narrative and his dark fantasy themes.

He spent 5 yrs at the School of Applied Arts in Prague between 1950-1954 then shifted to the puppet dept of the Academy of Performing Arts. His first short film is about 2 magicians who participate in a competition of skill called The Last Trick(1964).

His first feature film was Alice(1988), a dark adaptation of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. His most famous work is Faust(1993) which is set in a foreboding puppet theatre and involves giant puppets and clay figures in stop motion. Little Otick(2000) is a dark comedy about a wooden baby that comes to life and devours his parents, heavy inspiration from fairy tales for his plots.

Although he has won more than 30 awards and honours in international film festivals, he remains fairly unknown. His films were restricted from a wider audience after 1968 due to the Soviet Union invading Czechoslovakia and deciding his work is unsuitable for what they wanted. He became more well known once the Soviet Union fell.

Terry Gilliam

Best known for his work in Monty Python - Flying Circus animated sequences and directed The Holy Grail. He also directed The Imagination Trilogy(Time Bandits 1981, Brazil 1985, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen 1989), The Fisher King(1991), Twelve Monkeys(1995), Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas(1998), The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus(2009) and The Man Who Killed Don Quixote(2018).

He is known for his surrealist imagery, dark satire, dystopian scenarios and battling with studios over his distinctive artistic vision. He was born in Minnesota and moved to England in 1967. 1969-1974 was when he worked on the Flying Circus shorts.

He co-directed The Holy Grail with Terry Jones but there was a lot of conflict between the two directors due to their conflicting styles. Gilliams focus on visuals and perfectionism hampered shoots frequently. 

Brazil received rave reviews in Europe, but screened badly in USA so Universal Studios made them cut it down to a 93 min rom-com. This film got Gilliam is first Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay.

The Adventures of Baron Muchausen bombed at the box office, only taking $8 million despite winning major awards and the budget hitting $47 million after blowing the initial sum of $23.5 million. The Fisher King and 12 Monkeys were both massive critical and box office hits, but Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas wasn't.

How to:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQ7JTB2CaN0

Monty Python and the Holy Grail’s Monster

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Q2WPneqhhs

Monty Python’s Personal Best: Terry Gilliam

Netflix, 55 minutes

Research 12/6

Exhibition Day!

As team leader for the install team, it was my job to talk to the other team leaders, and ensure my group fulfilled its required tasks on time. Due to our location challenges, there was less work for install than a physical installation would require. This proved  a complication for me as I had to try and provide jobs for 6 people, specifically when the two websites we were using only allowed single user editing. Overall I knew this project was going to require only a couple of individuals doing the grunt work, but having the full group as sounding boards and idea men was great for progress. I do wish I could have given the others more work to do, but there really wasn't much else without that collaborative editing feature. 

I ended up organising the virtual gallery with final placement input from the rest of the team. As part of this install, we added the artist statement to a interactive link on each image so that we had enough space for our images. This was due to the decision to follow a template gallery to ensure a higher quality atmosphere for our viewers. 

I spent a lot of time uploading the digital art images and adding in the formatted statements, however Artsteps is a rather finicky website to use and there were several errors along the way which meant I had to remove and replace images several times. Overall I didn't have to spend too many hours working on that, but it was enough that when Artsteps decided to crash the day before we were due to go live I was a little disappointed. Due to the potential that Artsteps would not be back up in time, Emma and myself made the decision to move the images onto a separate page on the exhibition website. Because Emma had spent so many hours formatting the website, I nominated myself to create the image gallery and got Emma to double check I hadn't broken anything. This also enabled us to pick up issues that weren't previously noted, and I fixed them as we corresponded.

Thankfully, this morning Artsteps was back up and running and because of the work I had previously done, all I needed was to add a couple more submissions and place the final art pieces on the wall. Once this was done, I set up the guided tour, added a couple of logos and our 3D gallery was now part of our exhibition again. This required me to go back into wix and update the website back to the original summary that mentioned the 3D atmosphere, and add in the 3D link. This provided yet another opportunity to spot and fix another error, and instigate a suggestion that Traci had made in regards to linking the artist statements to the gallery pages.

3D Animation 10/6

Weight painting. What a pain in the butt! I think Ive got the hang of it but it sure can be finicky.

White is fully influenced by the skeleton joint, black is no influence.

Drawing 11/6

Doing something that I dont normally do. No linework and using only dodge/burn to create definition with shadows and highlights

Screen Arts 8/6

Wim Wenders and Werner Herzog: New German Cinema

Oberhausen Manifesto

New german cinema was created in 1962 when a group of young film makers created a new film festival document called the Oberhausen Manifesto. German films were declining, low quality and content. Three directors were the lead, Werner Herzog, Rainer Michael Fassbinder and Wim Wenders. The manifesto began it introduce contemporary issues into the film making.

Wim Wenders

Born in 1945, His films are known for the lush visual imagery, experimentation, masterful storytelling and travel. He frequently collaborated with Robby Muiler and is one of the biggest New German Cinema names in the 1970's. He studied film at the Munich Film Academy, directing 8 short films and his first feature film while there. In 1978 he went to Hollywood to direct Hammett. In 1987 he received the Best Director award at Cannes for Heaven over Berlin. 

He also created Paris, Texas(1984)

Until the End of the World(1991)

Faraway, So Close(1993) and

Buena Vista Social Club(1999)

Werner Herzog

Born in 1942, Werner became know for capturing men and women at psychological extremes, sometimes using controversial methods to achieve the performance he wants. He used small budgets, writing and producing his own films. His notable films include Aguirre, the Wrath of God(1972)Fitzcarraldo(1982) and lent his voice to Rick and Morty(2015). He also has  cameo appearance in The Mandalorian. He studied history, literature and music at the University of Pittsburgh. During filimg for Aguirre, it is alleged that Herzog held a gun on Klaus Kinski to make him continue acting however klinski denies this incident happened.

Audio 5/6

Got my tutorial tasks handed in. I managed to break my portable hard drive on the way home so I had to basically re-do half of them but I got it done. Thank god for backups. Im still uncertain on how to do things but I think I fudged my way through so far. I need more practice I think.

Research 5/06

Today was working on artist statements. I have a rough one that I will need to refine over the next few days so I can hand it in on monday with my completed images.

Title: Colour My World

Artist Statement:

For most of us, bright colours play such an important part in our lives. Whether it is catching our attention, giving us directions or for some people changing our moods. When I chose colour theory as the basis for my research, it was the influence on mood that caught my attention. Subconsciously we have been taught that certain colours mean certain emotions ie red = angry, blue = sad, however I wanted to create a non-human image and try to portray emotions using various colour themes. One of the biggest things I have been missing in my current art journey is the photography I used to take, and to be able to integrate that back into a project was exciting for me. The resulting outcome is 6 versions of my composited landscape, each image themed with one of the 6 colours of the rainbow and arranged in contrasting pairs as diptychs to highlight the differences between each panel mood. My intention is that each viewer will interpret the panels differently, depending on their own assumptions and influences in regards to what each colour means to them personally.

Pray for me!

Drawing 04/06

Life model drawing practice. This still remains a weakness for me in terms of getting it done fast but accurate. The 2nd half was drawing our characters using ruby's poses and I definitely struggled with this one as a lot of my characters features came about after I began modeling her in the 3D space. I need to concentrate on her legs/feet and her face/snout, and how they would translate to a 2D image accurately.

Drawing 14/5

Working on comic thumbnails - first page needs a bit of reworking to help the audience connect with muffin as a focus character. The advice was to get rid of the eye opening panels and turn it more into an environment type shot to show some of his personality.