Work Experience at The Walt Disney Company

This week I have had the opportunity to do some work experience at the Walt Disney Company studios in Chiswick, where they do short 15 second animations for the Disney Channel, Disney XD and Disney Junior, and also the little animated straps that appear on the bottom of the screen. 

When I started my work experience, I wasn't sure what I was going to be doing, and as a first year student only a term in, I didn't know all that much about the software. But the guys were really helpful and I've learnt so much more about the programs that they use at the studios.

Over the 4 days that I was there, the team set me some little projects similar to what they do at the studios, to help me get the hang of the software. 

The first project I was set was to make a little animated strap that appears at the bottom of the screen on the Disney Channel. On the actual strap it had the Disney Channel logo but I wasn't allowed to use that on my blog as it is work that hadn't been aired and there are rules and such... 

The next project was experimenting with trap code, specifically one called particular that they have on the after effects software on their computers. I also learnt a little about working in 3D space on after effects.

Then I had an introduction project to Cinema 4D, and this is the first time I've ever worked with 3D software. I built a city using the buildings already on the program and coloured them, then animated a camera moving down one of the streets. Then it was imported into after effects and I had to give it a name and gave that a scribble effect and a shadow, working in 3D space in after effects.

The next project, and this was my favourite, was to create a festive scene to be viewed through the window. The scene I made in photoshop, cut out a lot of images and changed the colouring so it looked like the same place. I also added snow to the rooftops. It was then imported into after effects on different layers and I learnt a little about tracking. I animated the elf's hand, the tree and Santa's hand using a code that meant I wouldn't have to key frame each movement as it was just back and forth, so I put a looping code in. Then we adjusted the colours to give the outside a cold feel and the inside a warm feel. The elf originally was in the tree but he couldn't be seen behind the window frame so I moved him to the window sill. Snow was added using trapcode particular from a box instead of a point so it fell evenly.

The last project I did, was solely working in 3D space in after effects. The brief was to create a christmas village however I wanted to and then animate a camera moving through it. Each gingerbread house was cut out separately and moved around in 3D space, then I added snow using trapcode particular and animated a camera moving through the village.

I had so much fun doing my work experience this week and I hope to go back in the future and learn more!

Aardman Studios

Aardman studios are based in Bristol, in the South of England.

They are credited with creating Wallace and Gromit, Shaun the Sheep and Morph.

Aardman have been around since 1972 and focus mainly on claymation- the art of stop motion animation using modelling clay characters. 

Their characters are loveable and pretty simple in design, which is perhaps due to the materials used as many details would get out of shape and changed too much during production.

In the Wallace and Gromit animations, Wallace's mouth was carefully interchangeable which made it easier to change expressions and make it look as if he was talking. 

The armatures were created intricately with the ability to bend and move how the character needed to without losing their shape. This was done with strong metal skeletons and many adjustable joints.

Bradford Animation Festival

Bradford Animation festival was a really awesome few days. 

I got to see some of the animations I saw at LIAF again, which was awesome because I'd forgotten how good they were! We got to see the Tram again, and also the talking armchairs again.

Also we got to see a lot more new animations that I hadn't seen yet. The picture below is from an animation about a woman who lives in a little kiosk and dreams about going abroad but can't leave her kiosk. I loved the story of this animation and how at the end she ended up in her kiosk somewhere hot and sunny. I though it was a really cute animation and I loved the style it was done in.

The highlight for me of the weekend was the Mackinnon and Saunders talk, learning how they make all their characters and finding out how many films they'd actually made characters for- I knew they did the Tim Burton ones..

I also managed to meet Mackinnon an Saunders, which was awesome and inspiring, and got to see some of their characters up close and see just how much detail went into them.

The Lee Hardcastle was really good too, I really like stop motion animations and it was nice to see his animations and find out about how he got into doing them. We also got to see his new film 'Ghost Burger' which was amazing. 

I also got to meet Barry Purves!

PPP1- Who am I? Why am I here? What do I want to learn?

Why did you choose to study on this programme?

-I love the city of Leeds, it's got such a good atmosphere, a good music scene and I've always had a good time whenever I came to visit.

-The course looked interesting and fun and I thought I'd learn a lot.

-It was the only course I applied to that even knew about the Disney and Pixar internships that I'd researched.

- It's a specialist animation program, and all the other courses I applied to were illustration and animation, but I knew I wanted to do animation.

- LCA looked like a really good place to study and it's just an art school, full of creative people, which I love because often art students are really interesting people, but it's close enough to Leeds Met and Leeds Uni to be able to meet non-arty people for a bit of a change of scene.

What do you want to learn during your time on the programme?

- To animate stories and ideas and images. Just make things move.

- To create interesting a loveable characters.

- How to get into the industry.

- How to manage my time better and knuckle down and get on with my work instead of procrastination....

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What skills do you think are your strengths?

- I'm determined and driven to achieve what I want.

- Hand drawn stop-frame animation.

- Lots of ideas (I just dont know how to approach them)

- Getting work done by deadlines (even if it means no sleep)

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What things that you want to improve?

- Time management.

- Computer animation and technological skills.

- Storytelling abilities

- Character design

- Researching abilities

What ways you will evaluate your progress?

- Feedback on Blog Posts

- Comparing to other students on my course

- Comparing how it turned out to how I wanted it to turn out- evaluations

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Talk Talk Advert 2013

I absolutely love this advert. The story is really cute and the animation is simple and adorable.
It was created by Si and Ad, who have been a directing duo for more than a decade. This animation was created in traditional 2D and drawn up frame-by-frame by a team of animators. The characters were then placed in a real world situation and together I think it works beautifully. 

Avenged Sevenfold- A little piece of heaven

Avenged Sevenfold's A little piece of heaven video was produced by Matt Fischer and Core Entertainment Inc. (Twentyfourcore Productions) and Directed by Rafa Alcantara.

The Illustration was done by Landon Armstrong, animation by Ray Tsai and Jonathon Price and visual effects and composting by Stephen Krystek.

The video is very controversial and really creepy and gory, but I think it's really well done. It is mostly 2D animation, however the one scene where just the womans arm is on screen looks 3D and CG animated, which is kind of strange but it works. The skeletons playing instruments all look as if they're cut outs which separates them from the main story, so that works well too.

I like that animated music videos cover such a wide range of subjects and genres of music. It shows that animation is very versatile and can be used in so many different ways.

Disney's Tangled

Disney's Tangled is one of my favourite films of all time. I love so many things about it, from the story, to the humour, to the character design. I like this take on the original fairy tale as it doesn't completely follow the story, but adds in so many details that appeal to children and adults, and adds more adventure and excitement. A lot of the film is fast paced and exciting and it keeps the viewers focussed and engrossed in the film.

Character Design... Maximus, the horse, is my favourite character in the whole film. It's not so much the way he looks.. as he just looks like a horse.... but it's the way he acts and behaves that makes him the best character, in my opinion. I love the way he acts almost like a dog at times and how he has more of a personality than his rider. 

I'm really excited for Disney's new movie, Frozen, that's set to come out in cinema's soon. The trailor looks like it'll be a funny movie, and I think it'll be a lot like Tangled. Even the design of the main character, Anna, looks ridiculously like Rapunzel from Tangled. The similarities are crazy, they could be twins. 

I can already tell that Olaf, the snowman is going to be the Maximus of this movie, with a loveable personality and humerous moments. I'm really excited to see this movie, and I really hope it lives up to my expectations and is as good as, if not better than, Tangled.

Pigeon: Impossible - Martell Animation

Pigeon: Impossible was made by Lucas Martell. It took nearly 5 years to complete and was made using CG. It has been shown at over 200 festivals in 43 countries and won more than 20 awards. 
I really like this animation. I like the story and how it's a simple idea but it's actually also really funny. He's given a lot of character to the pigeon and it's got a definite personality which I think is great. I also like the style- it's quite similar to the kind of style that Pixar has, however it's less child-like. 

Martell animation is a 3D animation and VFX studio based in Texas, founded by Lucas Martell. They work on original projects, as well as with clients working on everything from commercials and game cinematics, to TV series and feature films.

London International Animation Festival

The other day Rosy and I went to London International Animation Festival, which was pretty cool. We couldn't afford many tickets so we picked one show on saturday and two on sunday to attend. On Satuday we saw 'Sacrebleu Productions: Studio Focus and on Sunday we went to Animated Documentaries with Screen Talk, and Marvellous Animations. We saw some pretty interesting things..

The Sacrebleu Productions: Studio Focus highlights included some really dark twisted animations, and a hilariously weird animation called 'Tram', by Michaela Pavlatova (which is apparently going to be at BAF so that will be interesting to see everyone else's reactions to it!)



Unfortunately we missed the beginning of Marvellous Animations because of a missed train, but the rest that we saw was very nice, they were animations for young people (aged 12-17) and some of them were really entertaining.

Animated Documentaries was my favourite screening that we attended. I particularly liked 'Devil in the Room' by Carla Mackinnon, because it was really scary and I understood the fear behind it. It was a really well made documentary about sleep paralysis.
I also thought 'Britain', by Bexie Bush, was an adorable and funny animation about politics in britain, which I wasn't expecting. 

I found all the documentaries really interesting and the talk afterwards with some of the animators were very insightful and I learnt a lot about the process behind the animations.

PPP1: Absorb- Why Twitter is awesome

In our second PPP lesson, Mike explained to us all how Twitter is really good for networking and meeting people from the industry, as well as the social side of Twitter. (He's a massive fan of Twitter apparently)
It also give us access to so much more new material and new animations that are just being released that, if it wasn't for Twitter, I'd have no idea they existed.

He had us all set up a Twitter account, just to try it out, because Twitter isn't for everyone. I, however, absolutely love Twitter. It's really useful to see what everyone's doing, and I went slightly overboard when I made my Twitter account and followed over 200 people straight off! As well as the guys from my class and a few from the other years on my course, I've followed a lot of professionals and successful animators who I hope will tweet some useful tips and I can ask them questions about the industry and hopefully show them my animations (whenever I make some..). The only thing about Twitter that maybe isn't so great is that I've followed so many people now that I can't keep track of everything that's going on... but I guess I'll get used to that.

PPP1- Research

Rain- Playstation game advert

So I was listening to some music on Youtube, and normally I hate it when those adverts pop up before the video starts and I skip over them, but this time the advert was for a playstation game called Rain and I couldn't bring myself to skip it.. It was a shorter version of the advert, but I just had to go and find another version to watch.

 I love the idea behind the characters and the way they can only be seen in the rain, and I like the way the music sets the mood for the whole piece and also builds suspense. I think this animation is beautifully put together and it really makes me interested in the characters they've created and their backstories.. whilst also making me really want to play the game, which is obviously what the advert is for..