Character Development

As my story I'd like to develop the aspect of a rough looking, sketchy aesthetic. I have produced a few short testers and sample characters as an exploration of what could work out best, as well as an animatic to explore what's best for the story and get a better idea of timings for the sound effects overall.
Within my sketchbook I have sketches which develop in me trying to find an overall character outcome.

Rachel Goodyear

An artist came for a talk in which she highlighted the aspect of mystery in her work. I found it fascinating as she spoke about how she produces her pieces to contain their own story lines and a story can be made up by the audience when they are watching it.

'Alike'

When looking on Vimeo, I found this short film that explores the aspect of Creativity within a child and a father. I love the contrast of the characters in that one represents the childhood liveliness of creativity and the father represents the reality of the creativity being stripped away through being an adult. I thought it not only links to the aspect of creativity in my Dissertation, but also the stylised features I'm exploring in my current project, and how the characters change colour in accordance to their mood, to show their love. Alike short film from psl on Vimeo.

Steven Swanborough

Steve came to visit us as a stepping stone to see what work he produces, as well as where we're up to with our projects and some feedback he could give to us. I found that this talk was one of the most rewarding as he seemed most down to earth and willing to help us, as well as understanding to the fact that it is hard as a student to begin in the industry, and he gave us advice on how to approach work after graduation which was helpful. 

He also spoke about having to make your showreel and portfolio stand out, and how he used to go the extra mile to make sure that studios would actually see him, delivering his portfolios etc.

It was interesting how his production process is quite similar to the way we approach a project in the way that he had to pitch some general ideas to the client to begin with etc.

Olympics Project 

Although he discussed a few projects he had undertaken, I found his work with the BBC Sports branding for the Olympics 2016 most inspiring. I liked how he discussed his thought processes with this project, and discussed the restrictions that the BBC had on certain design approaches in terms of their logos. 

He said how although there were restrictions on where he put the design etc. he knew that he had to have the freedom of doing what he wanted first to get it out of the way. I found that this was an interesting way of approaching things, and it overall helped him to undergo the projects.

Project Feedback

As an exploration of my own work, Steve gave some feedback that I found to be really helpful overall. 

Current project feedback - He loved the way in which I had displayed my initial ideas, and how I'd collected some research with the survey etc. he also liked the aesthetic and the strong theme behind it, however he mentioned I needed to develop more into the colour theory side of things which I knew I should delve into. Making sure my characters having been stylised, will still reflect the mood that I want. (Blue skin and hair looked a bit too sad and depressing- perhaps warmer colours rather than having the cooler ones) 

Memory Book Project Feedback- He loved the depth of field and the overall idea behind it and theme, but said that perhaps the soundscape could be developed further to show more emotion as it is an emotional piece, and to maybe add some movement into the images.

Nowness Define Beauty Series

After having discovered the Am I Ugly? Video on Facebook, it lead me to the other series of videos that Nowness have produced in the theme of defining beauty and I've found each one is cleverly disturbing as it shows how strange it is that we have normalised such things in our society such as tanning and disturbing body proportions.


Nowness: Define Beauty 'Degrees of Doneness' from James Lees on Vimeo.

Aesthetic Research

I've been looking on Vimeo over the festive period, about some aesthetics that I particularly like that I feel influenced by, and  I love the graphic and illustrative style animations, 2D and 3D drawings etc. Here's a few I found particularly inspiring.


The 12 Days of Christmas - A Tale of Avian Misery from Blink on Vimeo.
Berry Sakharof - Yareach (Moon) // ברי סחרוף - ירח from Berry Sakharof on Vimeo.


Dontshare from gianluca maruotti on Vimeo.
Blue - CNN from Moth on Vimeo.

Social Media Impacts

When looking on social media itself, ironically there's a lot of posts about the powerful effects it has on society. Here's a few pieces I've found on social media that successfully link back to the underlying problems my animation will explore.

Am I Ugly? - by Nowness
A video that is going viral on Facebook is this video posted by social group Nowness. It shows the distortion and brainwashing of young girls due to media elements. It's shocking how young these girls are and the impact that media has had on them, how they speak of how fake beauty is more important than natural beauty. Although these are acted out clips, they are real life opinions of young girls who have been impacted by the beauty industry. It makes the audience feel uneasy and disturbed which I think is a successful outcome with the editing of distorted clips and sound effects together.


The Video below is a video I found on Facebook declaring how zombified the human race have become through the aspect of social media and technology. I found this linked successfully back to how I've made the characters in my animation be lead by another force and be almost zombified themselves.