Graffiti

My latest animation. Used a simplified comic book kind of style for this one, as opposed to the more complex style I used here, though I did add an extra shading layer on his skin. Despite it being fairly minimal I do quite like the effect, but I don't think it's a style I'll be using in a long form project. Or at least not for now..! She says.

Outlines drawn in TVPaint, everything else in EbSynth. Probably my last blog of 2021 (though making no promises!) so if that's the case, see you next year! Have fun, stay safe and all that xo

I Love Callipeg

Title of this post to be sung to the tune of The Weakerthans, ‘One Great City!’, replacing the ‘I hate Winnipeg’ line. Basically.

Singing aside (not often how I start these posts, but Xmas cheer and all that), I full on caved in and treated myself to an iPad and Apple Pencil (1st gen). Not the iPad Pro mind (unfortunately they didn’t accept exposure /s), but the standard 10.2” 2021 edition which is currently at £319 (a pretty reasonable price IMO).

OK, so a bit of backstory here: I’ve been wanting to be able to animate remotely for a while as I often feel pretty trapped at my desk at home without a portable computer, so if I want to animate (like I do 99% of the time), then I have to go to my desk and are only able to work there. I can’t even animate in a different warmer room in my house, let alone on holiday/ travelling, on weekends away, coffee shops and other such locations. For a while, I’ve been trying to come up with a solution for a portable set up, to enable me to at least do some of the work whilst out and about and the finishing/ fine tuning and comping whilst home.

But, I wasn’t really able to find a suitable solution or animation app which would match TVPaint. Until, I finally found my solution: enter Callipeg. Fanfare please! Callipeg is a fairly new animation app on the scene (conceived 2020) which was built/ developed especially for iPad (all versions with iPadOS 13 or later) and Apple Pencil (both generations). The team behind it are all animators/ work in the animation industry and this knowledge is evident in the UI and usability of the app. As a professional animator myself, I can hardly fault it (especially knowing it’s still in development).

I’ve never animated on anything else beside a Mac/ MacBook, so I was pretty apprehensive going in. I mean all the videos I watched prior to purchasing my iPad made Callipeg look/ sound excellent, but I kind of thought there was something too good to be true about it (maybe I’m a pessimist)! Though there was something about it which I thought, what if it is as good as it sounded, so the iPad was purchased and the app was subsequently downloaded. As soon as I opened Callipeg, I was in love. It was perfect for what I wanted it for.

Here are some of my favourite features:

• The choice of brushes/ brush options and the fact that there was a ‘fill brush’ setting.

• The exporting: selecting ‘export with structure’ on the PNG option meant it created a new folder for each layer, rather than needing to do them separately. Please never remove this feature!!

• The interface- really easy to navigate and loved the frame forward/ backward buttons on the side panel- meaning I don’t need to keep going to the timeline to move forward a frame.

• Being able to make colour palettes for each project pretty easily.

• The ease of importing video layers.

I could go on…

Now being a bit picky, I’ll list some things I would have liked to have included:

• Firstly, an adjustment layer/ effect layer where you can change the colour of a layer by selecting all the frames. It would be so useful for adjusting colour choices near the end of the animation if something doesn’t quite look right, rather than having to go in and change them frame by frame. This is me being picky though, because I always had in mind to finalise the shots in TVPaint, which does allow me to do that.

• Another feature I wouldn’t mind seeing added would be an option when using the selection tool to delete what is inside the selection.

• Finally, the addition of clipping masks would be fantastic! These would be super useful, especially when shading.

Though if you check out their roadmap, you can see what they’re working on to add in the future, which I can see some of these features are. Also, their website has a comprehensive user guide in both written and video format, which was great for learning the app.

I also want to say that wow how good are iPads for drawing?! I have been using a trusty Wacom tablet (one without a screen) for all my animating since 2011. I thought having a tablet with a screen wouldn’t really make any difference, so never entertained using anything else before. But seriously, being able to draw directly onto a screen makes such a difference. It feels a lot more like drawing on paper, a feel I never had while using my Wacom. I honestly feel like this is such as game changer for my work. I can produce everything a lot quicker and create the brush strokes I actually want to create. I half wish I had bought an iPad Pro instead, if I knew I was going to like it this much! Next time, eh…

If anyone is unsure whether to get the app, I’d say just go for it. As far as my knowledge goes, it’s the best animation app available on iPad and I’ve not regretted it since. I'll be using it for my upcoming short film.

Below is the first clip I created on Callipeg. I finished it in TVPaint (changing the colours and adding the gradient background). It took 10 hours in total, for 61 frames, full coloured/ shaded- which I think is fairly quick... 

The Script

As I’ve mentioned a couple of times in this blog already, I’m making an animated short film. It's something I've wanted to do for a long time, so while 'in between jobs', I've decided to just go for it. The film is called ‘Bear’ and is a short drama about a factory worker who has a bear head instead of a human head (the only plot details you’re getting for now) and of course, it’ll all be rotoscoped. I’ll be blogging about the process throughout- just see the tag ‘Animated Short’ on the sidebar for all the posts related to this.

So, after dusting off Celtx (yep, still use it), numerous outlines and script drafts later, I have a final version which I am extremely happy with and can’t wait to get filming/ animating.

I haven’t written a script for a short film for a number of years- I think 2013 was the last time I attempted to do so whilst at university. My films since then have either been music videos, documentaries, experimental ‘art’ films, collaborations with writers or poetry films- ones which didn’t need a script, or at least not in the traditional sense. So going into this, I was, as you’d expect, fairly apprehensive.

Being something I’ve not done previously a lot of, I felt I needed a strong dose of validation as to whether it was actually ‘good’- subjective I know, but it terms of whether it reads well and if the story makes sense. One way of getting my head into the ‘short film way of thinking’ (I’ve literally just made that term up) whilst writing was to watch a short film every day, which I have done (and continue to do so) since around October. I watch a lot of features, but only tended to watch short films when at a film festival. Short films are a world away from features in terms of structure and so on, so I find watching a short even day a really good practise. I watch a mix of live action, animation and experimental, so I see a wide array of storytelling ideas and techniques. Watching these has kind of helped towards me 'self validating' my work and whether it could fit alongside any of the shorts I have watched.  

My idea evolved from a dream I had and came together quite naturally after that. Though I would say it did take a while to mould the story into something more ‘whole’. Due to my previous experience of writing, I thought that I would be more tentative to edit my film after the first draft/ outline, but I was quite the opposite. I didn’t have much attachment to any of it, because I knew that if I wanted to make it the best film I could, then I would need to be ruthless and I was exactly that. Every edit I made was with intent of making the story stronger, rather than holding onto a shot I liked the look or idea of.

I think this shows a really nice progression in myself as a filmmaker/ director/ writer (whatever you call it), because several years ago I would have likely held onto it as much as possible and be hesitant to go past a couple of drafts. For this, I did 9 script drafts and a ton of outlines before the actual scripting stage. I expect there will be more iterations too going forward, especially after the storyboarding of it (which is next).

Another thing I did was ask for help! I asked my experienced writer friend and collaborator Alan Livesey to read through a few of the versions and provide me with notes on where the story can be improved. I listened and incorporated a lot of these into the final draft and I have him to thank for making it a stronger piece. Again, this echoes the previous paragraph in terms of my self development- I would never have done this before, or if I did, I probably wouldn't have listened or incorporated any of the feedback- probably would just have taken it personally instead.

I really enjoyed the scriptwriting process- it was like a fun puzzle to put together/ solve. At times, tricky, yes, but still a task I thoroughly relished. I liked piecing together the missing parts (from my original outline) and looping plot points back to each other and so on. It’s something I want to do a lot more of- including writing a feature film, which has been a goal of mine for as long as I can remember...

See you in the next one, stay safe and all that xo 

Ice Hockey

For this, I wanted to make something completely different than my previous piece and do something aside from working towards what could potentially be a style test for the short film I’m making. I wanted to have a bit of fun with it too, so I found a clip I liked the look of, of someone playing ice hockey.

As an avid sports fan, I like doing clips related to the topic, plus I always think that rotoscope lends itself really well to sports (especially skateboarding)! Fun fact: I have only ever watched one ice hockey game IRL- though I did really enjoy myself and definitely want to do it again. Ice hockey over here in the UK is a fairly niche sport, which is probably the reason I’ve never really caught on to it, unlike say football and cricket which I watch a lot of.

With this piece, I used a continuous outline, rather than the pressure sensitive ones I use most often. I’ve not really ever explored this look before, despite being fairly Julian Opie-esque (one of my favourite artists). I do like the thick outline as it gave a really bold effect, though I think I might like to see it used in a way which is on a person who isn’t playing sport, to see if it could actually translate into any of my films (I know I said earlier that this wasn’t a potential style test, though I guess I was wrong)! So, perhaps more of this style to follow…

Anyway, I’ll leave it at that for this post as I’ve been fairly wordy on here recently, with several more lined up (aren’t you lucky). Until then, stay safe and hydrated and see you in the next one!

EbSynth- Latest

It definitely feels like I’m back in the swing of things after the blip I alluded to in one of recent posts. It feels great to be making work for the fun of it again and I’m really finding joy in doing so.

For this one, I wanted to use EbSynth again with the purpose of seeing how long a clip might take from outlines to completion: full coloured and shaded etc. This was with intention of the short film ‘BEAR’ I’m making (more on that in a few posts time) to gauge how long it might take.

When using EbSynth before in my own pieces, I have always used it in a slightly experimental manner, mainly by using analogue materials. Though this time, I wanted to use it in a more ‘normal’ way and create the look of the piece digitally in a less experimental style. This was for a number of reasons- firstly to prove to myself that I can (in terms of creating something more ‘tidy’ or ‘grounded’ perhaps, rather than aways working experimentally), secondly as a time saving device (the analogue ones take longer as you have to scan them in) and thirdly to try something I’ve not tried before.

The EbSynth/ rotoscope process is quite a lengthy one, but when you get it right the results are great (IMO) and you do save a lot of time. Say, if I were to do the colouring and shading of this piece frame by frame in the style I had chosen, I’d probably still be working on it.

Due to several failed attempts of using EbSynth to create outlines, I have decided that I will do those frame by frame, leaving EbSynth purely for colouring and shading my work. I have decided this, because from my experience, using it in this manner works a lot better for the effect I want to create. Personally, I like my work to be neat/ clean and I dislike the amount of smudges/ blurs/ deformities which come when using EbSynth to create the full piece (including outlines). Plus, even if it didn’t blur or go wrong in that respect, I found it gave off a real ‘uncanny valley’ vibe, which isn’t the kind of thing I want to go for in my work. Whereas when doing the outlines by hand and using EbSynth as a shading tool, it gives a more natural look.

Using it in this way still speeds up the process and allows me to shade/ colour the characters in a way which might have previously added on hours. As I’m very practised at creating roto outlines due to my experience with doing so, I don’t find those take all that long anyway. Plus I love the process (means I get to listen to music and podcasts all day, yet still being able to create something)! Win win situation. And it’s also pretty relaxing.

For this clip, I went onto my go-to free stock footage site, Pexels (still not sponsored by them) to choose my piece of footage. I selected this video of a woman in a supermarket. I really liked the aesthetic of it, plus thought I could create something cool with it.

I always start by creating the outlines- these took just over 12 hours to complete. The clip was 55 frames long (I work at 12fps), so if my maths is correct I make it a 4.6 second clip. I don’t feel that is especially excessive- meaning I can probably complete just under 20 seconds of outlines a week. Obviously varies depending on shot size/ amount of detail/ characters in each shot.

Then it was time for the fun bit- creating the styleframe. I already had quite a strong idea of the look I wanted to go for going in to this clip, so I only did one styleframe and went with that straight away. I had in mind to do a sort of comic book/ graphic novel kind of style- clean colour blocks etc. This is what I came up with:

When EbSynth was working its magic, I made the background. To be honest, I was just kind of messing around with the mechanical pencil tool in TVPaint- a brush I’ve never really taken advantage of before. I just kind of started roughing out shapes in a pretty scribbly manner. It was never meant to be the background I actually used, but I really liked the contrast it created against the full coloured character.

Once EbSynth had finished, there was a fair amount of touch up to do. It doesn’t always create the cleanest results, especially when there is movement in the shot, so there are usually bits which need correcting. Obviously this is all cosmetic and it really does depend what style you're going for and whether you think the minute details matter. I guess you just need to figure out what’s important to what you’re wanting to go for in your work.

I must admit that I’m a little bit of a perfectionist when it comes to this kind of thing, so the touch up took around 2.5 hours. Which thinking about it, for a 4.6 second clip, was probably a little too extreme. Maybe I need to work on toning this down a bit for when I make my short film- or it’ll take a lot longer for me to finish than I intend!

In conclusion, I feel like I achieved what I set out to do (and at a high standard). I proved to myself I could create a clip in this manner and not always be super experimental with what I make. I do actually really like the look here and it will be a way of working I’ll continue to develop.

Here’s the result:

Selected- Austin Arthouse Film Festival!

I'm delighted to announce that my experimental film, '04111311' has been selected for screening at this years Austin Arthouse Film Festival!

Due to Covid the festival is online this year, running from 26th-30th December (a great way to fill that void between Xmas and NYE, right)? For more info and to get your tickets, head here.

It'll also be the first public screening of my film, which is super exciting too! Hope to [virtually] see you there.

xo

Spotify Top Artists

The moment you've all been waiting for... Right?!

So these lot are what keeps me company most while animating. Quite varied I guess and no, the addition of Ed Sheeran is no mistake- he's been one of my faves since his first single 'The A Team' way back when so don't @ me!