The animation process is over.

I believe that today I have finished animating. I say believe for I am not sure whether perhaps I should develop more of a title sequence or not. I will seek advice on this from tutor and peers.
It feels good to have reached the end of my planned storyboarded film though, and has defiantly been the longest three and a half minutes of my life.

However I cannot rest yet, for the animation process is only part of the finish article, now, in a way, the interesting part begins. Up until now I have know what Ive wanted to achieve fairly precisely, as I made sure to plan my animating time as much as possible, and though I have been thinking constantly about how to show the film, now it is time to actually begin doing it. It will be harder than the animating in some ways, as am not as sure set in my intention, however this allows me freedom to experiment more than the animation process, and will hopefully be far more interactive than spending hours alone in my animation world.

I must now begin to think about installation, an art form that has always interested me, but one I have seldom attempted my self. One thing I find interesting about installation is the way that they can so versitile, being something huge and overwhelming as I remember Olafur Eliasson's Weather Project at the tate was:

It was a truly remarkable thing to visit, and the way that he completely transformed a space by doing so little sticks with me even now. I find it interesting how, in works like this, the participation of the audience is so key, and is perhaps even the part of the installation that has the most impact.

Or on the other it can be hand subtle and understated that you could miss it, such as the exhibition Freianlage by Andrew Bracey I once saw at the minories in colchester, in which he had created a "zoo" of toy animals by placing them around the gallery in various places, sometimes on pedestals, some times tucked away in the very bottom corners of the rooms or even hidden down cracks in the floor boards.

here he talks about one animal in particular.

It was interesting how this, involved participation from the viewer, but in a very different way to weather project, as this work asked the viewer not to bask in the grandure of the insallation, but instead lose oneself in the details of it. It seems to me that this interaction an instalation can have with an audience is key to how the installation can affect them and how they perceve it. I also feel that this can be infuelced by very small, details of context and simple logistics, which, though often not the most obvious things, can be some of the most crucial.

The installation aspect of my work is more a tool to enable the viewing of my film and so has a function, but this, in a way, opens up interesting new possibilities. It will be interesting to explore the way in which we interact with media such as film, something which now adays we are more acquainted with, and encounter more regularly than ever. Is it still possible for this medium to be as captivating as it once was?

The Point?

As the exhibition aproaches things seem to be starting to pull together. People are working now on work to be exhibited, and the studio is far more active as people work is no longer the beginings of ideas and experiments, but much more finished, clear "art."

This is strange to me in a way as, what with doing an animation, I have not had this sudden jump as such. It has just been a gradual build up of seconds. Maybe it will change when I exhibit it, as the instalation element to my piece will begin to take shape. I plan to install a toilet as a seat to watch the film on. I have been promised said toilet by a girl on the course who yesterday was wanting to give up all together with the whole exhibition. Fingers crossed I gets me toilet.

What has begun to come clear as I have seen every one elses work come together, is that i'm doing something a bit weird, and I have even begun to question slightly wether my own work is really art. I have though slightly, am I selling myself short with this? For one it is an animation, yet not in the traditional "arty" sense. If we look at this video by animator and director Stephan Irwin, then we see such a high level of skill and inovation. The way that he plays with traditional, fairly low-fi and basic animation, yet pull it together, connecting up small "screens"of animation, and using them to tell the narrative is truely ingenious.


My animation is not like this. It is crude and not beautifull. It is childish in its rude humour, and animated, though to the best of my abilities, relativly basicly.

However this self-questioning has lead me back to my original intention, that perhaps where not a clear in my head as they maybe are now. I never intended to Produce a highly polised piece of animation, nor did I want to produce something interlectual or refined. I realise now that it was through my disolutionment with the whole concept of fine art in itself that I was compelled to to do art. this was the point of Tom Armstrong does a Film in the first place. I intend to does a film and film I has does.

To contextually justify this let us look for a moment at Fischli and Weiss. I was just now watching a programme on the television about the 10th aniversarry of the Tate Modern, and This work came up.

FISCHLI, Peter
WEISS, David
Untitled (Tate)
Acrylic paint on polyurethane foam and mixed media Dimensions variable

It seemed to justify my own intention to myself. This work is stupid. It is pointless and dumb, a complex process for an ordinary outcome. And this is what I like about it. I remeber seeing it myself, quite a while ago, and indeed to this day I did not know that it was all polestyriene. Thats quite a long wait for a punchline. And thats what it feels like, a puchline to a joke.
OK so its a bit of a pretentious joke you could argue. but who care? not that many pople really care about art anyway.

Film nearly complete.

I have progressed well with the film in the week since I last posted, and am near completion of the first draft, if you will, of the film. I feel that I have learnt a great deal in just these three minutes of animation, and am actually fairly pleased to be re-doing the first minute, as I am confident that I should be able to improve it greatly.

As with many things, whilst animating I have learnt those little things that you can only learn by actually doing something but which can make all the difference. Though reading about the theories behind animation first was of great help, It as only when I began to put these into practice that I began to truly understand them.

Though I have struggled with the technologies involved slightly, I have found stopmotion pro to be a very useful programme indeed. It is very simple in interface, and It the video tutorial on its website have been invaluable in using the programme effectively.
http://www.stopmotionpro.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=285&Itemid=122

One large thing I have discovered is how useful loops are when animating. This has been helped by astutely observing when watch animated programmes, most of all the Simpsons, what in it is looped, for example in this clip we can see how homers dance is made up of a few simple motions reversed and repeated.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhrfhjLd9e4&feature=related

after a while you begin to realise far more of cartoon are on loop, or at least certain movements looped.

Looping has been incredibly useful not only in speeding up the animating process, but also in the producing a far smoother, more flowing animation. For example you can see bellow how a whole sequence is made up from the three frames highlighted in red, simply by copying and reversing the order.


another point worth making from this screen shot is the "hide" tool. This is a handy feature of stop motion pro as it allows you to remove frames in order to change the animation, but easily "un-hide" them as well, overall making the process of editing the film very flexible, allowing you to try out different edits as you animate.

Revelation and Set Back

In keeping with the lo-fi spirit I have adopted for this Film, by circumstance as much as choice; I have acquiesced to a certain number of set backs. However, todays set back was a culmination of theses acquieses being thrown back at me through chance and acident.

It was by accident that I happened to solve the problemes I had been having with the capture from my camera. The main problem that was lt slip through the net, though not through lack of trying, was the "logo" that I could not remove from the screen of the camera. I decided to allow this, to use the parlance of our times, through convincing myself that I could claim this as my own "logo", to stamp the film as my own as it were. With the later lack of even noticing the "logo" from others I was relativly satified.

Until today, when by sheer mistake I set the camera to black and white photo mode and realised that on this setting I could produce a live feed to the computer completly clear of the retched logo. This balck and white mode also eleviated the developing problem of inconsistencies in the lighting and tone of the animation. This new setting was a great revelation. Bellow you can see the differnce between the two settings.

Unfortunatly I had already spent the best part of a week animating the first minute of the film. With the logo stamped in the corner and the tones all wonky.

After much debate with myself, and the advice of tutor David, I have decided on the Solution. To continue with the film in this new and improved capture setting and then return to animate from the first minute when this is complete. I inted to emit a scene to save time, and hopefully as I now feel much more confident animating and am working at a quicker rate this should be achievable and overall make the film much more aseticaly pleasing. This however is the set back.

Drawing and animation.

Just now, whilst considering the scuba divers i will be drawing tomorrow whilst animating, i believe it will be best to draw these charachters onto paper and move them about the page, as aposed to redrawing them every movement. This is largely to do with the nature of their movement. I want there to be a clear distinction between their movements underwater and those movements of the frantic main charachters above water. A smooth movement of calm against the chaotic jittering of the main chrachters.

It is interesting to note the way in which I have begun to build up a routine for drawing, Indeed I have been drawing in a far more stuctured and regemented way than ever before. It began after I wrote the story. I then set about fairly maticulously, compared to my normaly lasissez faire aproach in any case, drawing all the items and scenes i believed would be in shots. for example this I drew in the bath:

From these observational drawings I began to draw in a more relaxed way, working on developing them in to some thing that was simple and refined. Well abit refined anyway. Now that it has come to the animation process itsself, I have taken to drawing the day or night before, the charchters and actions I will be working on the following day. We will see how this system work. As the inarticulate furniture sales-man said: Sofa, so good.

It is strange the difference between drawing on paper and acetate, not just the difference in surface, but also in pressure. For it is difficult not to think about, as you draw on the acetate, the fact that this is the only one that realy counts. I find that forgetting this is one a hard and unnatural thing to try and do, but possibly the key to making the one that realy counts, realy count.

Audio.

Before i could animate the film, I decided to record the audio, so that I could animate the film to the narration and the dialogue in time. Ive found from some previous experinces that it is easier to animate to a narration than to try and narrate an animation. I also looked in this book about animation and found out thats how they do most animations, well the rugrats at least, that being the example used. So this is how im doing my film, audio then animate.

I havnt mentioned the exact plot of the film yet, or even the main chrachters names come to think of it. Well its about these two people in a house, one of whom is in the bath, the other, wishing to use the bathroom. I dont feel I can give the end way just yet, chances are if your reading this you either have or will see the film anyway. Here are some early sketches of one of them:


I wrote the story fairly early on in the project, in three chapter on my type writter pretty sharpish. Starting with chapter one, then chapter three and then filling in the gap with chapter two. I wrote it quite alot like a book, except i was writting it for myself more than a book. Writting it as I imagined it so as i would not forget it, trying to note down what was there and where people where looking and things like that, and thinking about it with the finished product of a film in mind. But also trying to write it like a story, with a clear narrative and clear descriptions.

Where to record the Audio was fairly obvious to me. For the last few months or so i've been playing and recording loud rock and roll music at this house in manningtree. My friend Jack and Ben live there. Me and Ben and severall other have recorded quite alot of songs on this four track tape deck, which gives a pretty good recording. So I re-wrote my three chapter story into a script for three people and headed to manningtree. myself, Ben and my friend Josh recorded the dialogue and narration in one take, acting out a strange sort of routine so as to get the voices the right distance from the micraphone, sometimes shouted from outside a closed door, other times in the echoy bathroom. Over this we added some sound effect such as water running downa plug hole and a loud banging noise. Listen out for them when you watch the film.

A handy feature of stopmotion pro is the audio sync tool, which mean that the audio is link to the animation the whole time you are animating.

drawing.

if you where to think of hand-drawn animation in percentages, precisely one third of it would be drawn. Drawn is also starting to become my favourite, and also one of the most challenging parts of my hand drawn animation. Having just started actualy animating the film now, I am begining to gain a clue as to how my time will be spent during the animation process. If we are to think of this in a pie chart of percentages , then drawn, or rather drawing, is likely to be the largest segment, or slice if you will.



I have decided to draw the charachters onto the acetate sheets, or "cells" in Ink, for ink is eaily removed with a small amout of water, and so it is possible to simply wipe away an expression, or an arm or what ever, and draw on again in the new position for the next frame. This all makes the animation process very smooth in a way, as you are constantly having to draw as you go along, drawing directly over the backgroud, it feels in a way like drawing directly into the film. The process of animating is becoming a process of drawing, and this marridge of the two is very interesting, as you feel as though you are giving life to your drawings. I feel like the old man in pinocio, or Dr. Frankestein.

A Late Start

I would like to mention the fact of timing. Like I said, there are things that are difficult about this project, and timing is defiantly one of them. The Fact that i've been working on this project for about a month and this is only my second post proves this.

What with there being a deadline for this project, we've had to plan our time all properly. I think that i've been pretty good in someways with this, like i've managed to set up a D.I.Y animation studio at college which involved reading up about it quite alot, in books and on the internet, as well as having to buy some parts and build a few little bits here and there. This is what it looks like:




I also managed to get about a thousand clear sheet of acetate for free, which mean that i can use cell animation, which as someone pointed out was " how they did things like Disney." i don't think my animation is going to be very much like Disney. more. like dismal. (see how I'm a funny guy and all.) But with these acetate sheets i also had to make them all register the same under the camera, so i had to hole-punch them all and then drill holes in a little piece of wood the same distance apart as the hole-pucher holes, and then glue in some "pins" to this wood and tape it to the table under the camera. So now the acetate sheets can all fit on to these two pins and be in the same place every time.

When I explain this to people they don't always understand. I know this because we had a group critique at college. Its where you have to talk about your work in small groups. The teacher running ours was being assessed so it was all quite proper. Alot of assessing goes on in education. Anyway I could some people said they didn't understand. But i thinks its ok. See its not like they couldn't understand the idea of the film, or the style of animation; just the processes used.

The problem is that it can be difficult to understand all the things that I'm going to have to do to make this film, let alone be able to reflect on them very well. Not really difficult like famine. Or drought or civil war. Difficult in the way that a marmite jar can be difficult to open in the marmite gets all in the grooves.

Reflective Journal

O.K, so this is my "reflective journal." a box that needs ticking, and a box that I intend to tick. Im not all too good at reflecting, but I supose if im going to reflect it might as well be on the internet, where less people will see it than if I actualy wrote in for real in the real world.

I supose i should tell you what this is all about. See im doing an Art Foundation course. Its a one year course and at the end of it you produce a Final Major Project, and they put them all into an exhibition which they then invite parents to look at, and other arty types and drag school children too. im making a film for my project. the Projects called "Tom Armstrong does a film." and this where this blog comes in.

This project is assessed externaly by an exam board so as we can be given a grade, and go to universiry, and build up a large debt that we then have to pay off by getting up every morning to work in some job no doubt. So, there are certain thing that need to be done soas to be able to prove to an examiner that youve learnt something, and that youve worked hard.
Trouble is im pretty hopeless at all this stuff. I mean not the Project side of things, Im working hard on this film, but the documentation of everything. I like drawing and colaging and whatnot, and can keep sketchbooks quite good; and i like looking at other artists work too. Trouble is when you have to analyse someones art it seem to take away the fun a bit.
But what was a big trouble was this. Writing about it all.

But then last night I watched this film. it was called American Spendor, and it was about this comic book artist whos comics id seen before. Harvey Pekar. It was a real good film I though. But what I realsied was that If he could just write about his boring life and turn it into art, then I could write about my boring art and turn it into my life.

yeah i know what the hell am I talking about. If you read his comics american splendor you'll realise where im stealing my writing style from. well partialy. ah who cares im going to watch the snooker.