Words about animation, photography, art, creativity, football + occasional ramblings from other life stuff • See my work here: floramartyr.com • Hyperlinks in RED
Hey hey! I was back from my holiday this week (it was brilliant, thanks! We went to Plymouth followed by the Fife area of Scotland and watched 9 football matches in one week) and therefore back on track with the animation again.
My riding a stone Hippo in Glenrothes. I'm not childish, I promise.
Despite this week not being the smoothest in terms of actual hours I spent animating due to several other things I had going on, it was actually a fairly productive week in terms of ground covered. I finished 8 shots and nearly completed another 2. So again, up from the previous week. I like this trajectory!
I also started sequencing the completed shots on the timeline- something I should have probably done from the start, but neglected to until now. It felt like a little bit of effort as I had to export the outlines from each separate TVPaint file from the start, but it was definitely worth it. I can see my progress really clearly and it’s encouraging to see a fair amount of it sequenced together. It’s given me a well needed confidence boost in terms of my film as a whole and seeing it come together is a big motivator as it makes me want to put more and more completed shots on the timeline. I’ve changed my tune from my existential crisis a few weeks ago!
I’ve not got a clip to show this week- I’m in two minds about doing this that regularly, because there’s only so much I want to give away before the film is complete, but I do want to share parts of the progress as I continue. Perhaps I’ll share one every month (or when I feel the urge to post something on Instagram again)! Until next time, be safe and have fun xo
After filming, I was extremely eager to get editing- I’ve always enjoyed editing as it feels like the bit where you actually ‘make’ the film. You know, turn a load of seemingly disjointed clips into something which tells a story. There’s just something fun about it- kind of like cooking a meal, going from ingredients which totally don’t mean much on their own, but when mixed properly, seasoned and cooked, you end up with something tasty! It’s quite fascinating what you can make with what doesn’t look like much to begin with.
I started the rough assemble edit the day after we finished the shoot. This was so what was shot was fresh in my mind, especially because I ended up not boarding a lot of it towards the end as we were pushed for time, but also because I was excited to get editing it!
Despite having moved from Premiere Pro to DaVinci Resolve (Adobe’s sub fees are ridiculous), I didn’t find much differentiation between the two and from a technical standpoint, the edit went really smoothly. To be honest, there’s not a large gulf between editing software anyway, it’s all pretty much the same but just with different hotkeys. It felt great to be back editing again especially a narrative piece, something I’ve not done for what feels like (and probably is) years.
I ended up spending a lot more time in the edit than I had originally scheduled for. This was because for some reason, even after multiple script and storyboard drafts, the story just didn’t seem to be working and the pacing was ‘off’. This was confirmed by my feedback process in which I asked several trusted friends/ colleagues for some honest feedback after a draft of the cut.
I decided to ask people who didn’t know the story to take a look to see whether or not my story was coming across. It was an interesting, but exciting process and I had no idea what to expect. I did this feedback stage as it’s something I’ve never previously done (or at least not to this extent) so thought it might be helpful, plus as I’m so wrapped up in the story, it’s hard to know whether the film I’m making translates/ comes across to people seeing it for the first time. It mostly did (phew!), though there were some slight issues echoed throughout a few of the responses- which I knew deep down anyway.
After a couple of breaks (to try and freshen my viewpoint), I redrafted several times. It was hard to get the mix right, but I feel I got there in the end- or at least for now. I think once everything is animated with the backgrounds and music/ SFX etc it might need a few small adjustments. Fun fact: it’s actually quite hard to tell if a story is working from watching a live action cut with none of the animated aspects included!
I’m aware this post has been a long time coming, but hey look, I got here in the end (just like the edit process)!
Hello! It’s now the end of week 2 animating on my short film ‘Bear’. And so far I’m keeping up with these weekly ‘round up’ blogs. Small wins and all that! But if I give up at this stage, then something is definitely wrong..!
This will be a significantly less wordy post than the previous week due to time or lack thereof, so here goes…
I completed 6 shots in full, almost completed another and started a new one- which is up from last week. I honestly thought I would fall behind this week, because I lost pretty much a full day on Monday due to unforeseen circumstances, plus I had a couple of days where I didn’t do the full amount of hours due to prior commitments. I know it’s a personal project so there’s no 8 hour work day hanging over me, though I aim for between 6-8 hours as I feel that’s a healthy amount.
I’m really happy at the pace the project is going- I didn’t set any targets in terms of how many seconds a day/ week I want to complete, but I currently don’t feel I need to do that. I think if that’s something I do decide to implement, then it might be further down the line if I feel it’s going too slowly etc, but for now, it’s fine.
I’m also really, really enjoying it- I know last week I had a couple of issues with how it was going, but I put aside the shot which was frustrating me (my boyfriend suggested I did this) and moved onto others. I’ll tackle the harder shot later on when I’m deeper into the project. I don’t have a clip to show for this week, as I was concentrating on the animation rather than any exporting, but hopefully I’ll get one for next time (heads up: I doubt there will be a blog next week due to taking a holiday so don’t wait up)!
Think that's all for now- this has probably been the most uninspired piece I've posted on here for a looonnnggg time!! So if you have only just started reading this blog, then I'd suggest to skip this post and choose a more exciting post- that could literally by any of them!
After each week of animating on my short film ‘Bear’, I want to try and get a post out on here to track my progress. I guess it’ll also hold me more accountable if out in the public domain, too! I’m really self critical, so finishing a big project like this for me will be HUGE because I so often start things and then stop them if I don’t feel they’re going ‘perfect’ or turning out how I envisaged. I already had a battle with that this week (it’s only week 1- I honestly need to pull myself together!!) where I thought I should just stop it because I didn’t like how one shot (out of easily over 100) was turning out.
It’s ridiculous- you can’t even tell if something is ‘good’ when it’s not finished. And of course it won’t look good, because *news flash* it’s NOT FINISHED! Mainly telling that to myself, but it’s also there for anyone who needs to hear it.
Right, so now that’s out the way, back to the point: what have I achieved this week? OK so I cheekily started animating the film even though I haven’t quite finished editing it (when that’s ‘locked’ I’ll write a post about that). This was because I didn’t want to push the animation back any further, especially after the delayed shoot. I feel this was a good idea as it also gave me some well needed breathing space away from the edit, allowing me to view it with fresh eyes when I went back to it. I was able to start animating some shots, because some were not negotiable: i.e. they’re in every version of the edit, so I’m able to start on those whichever version I go with in the end.
I’m very pleased with my progress: I completed 4 shots (one being a 13 second long one) and started 2 more. I have been averaging 6 hour animation days, which I want to ramp up next week and average 7. Some went very smoothly and I love the outcomes, though some gave me an existential crisis (see above). I feel a lot of this first week was doing quite a lot of figuring out, too in terms of getting a feel for the outline style I want to use and how to go about animating some of it, plus what to do about props/ backgrounds. As the project goes on, this will all iron out and the animation process will become faster and smoother- or at least I hope so.
One of the main takeaways from this week is that animating something like this solo is hard- more so mentally, rather than creatively, I feel. Without being surrounded by a team or in a studio with dailies bringing you from your head back to reality, it’s easy to get lost in your head about what you’re making and critical thoughts rise to the surface. Knowing this in week 1 is a good thing, because it means I can develop healthy mechanisms to combat this issue and create a support network of people I can turn to when I need a bit of a pep talk.
Saying that, it’s also been a lot of fun. I’ve finally had the to catch up on my usual podcasts and a lot of music I’ve been wanting to listen to, but not had the opportunity recently due to editing and pre prod- I usually find listening to music whilst doing those tasks too distracting. It’s also super cool how I’m working on my biggest self initiated project for some time. I love having a project to be working on and if I’m quite honest, I can’t believe that I’m now at the animating stage. Last October it seemed a bit of a pipe dream when conceiving the concept/ early story development, though now I’m actually bringing it to life and that feels like a massive achievement in itself- getting it to this stage- having done numerous script drafts, a storyboard, filmed it etc- is no small feat. Can I give myself a pat on the back? Yeah I’m going to do that! And if anyone reading this is working on a project under your own steam then pat yourselves on that back too- you’re doing AMAZING!!
Yeah so I’ve definitely rambled a bit in this one, hopefully there has been some useful information for anyone reading this and it didn’t totally feel like you’ve been reading about me while I go through a breakdown or crisis or anything!
I’ll leave with one of the completed (outlined) shots. I might get one of these out each week, but that does depend as I don’t want to give too much away… We’ll see!
I've not posted on here about football for a while, but I have been going to games more regularly again (and photographing a lot of them too). I think the weather beginning to get a little warmer has played a large part, but Ben (my partner) and I have been choosing some interesting grounds/ games to attend, which makes it all the more enjoyable.
Above: me at Molineux Stadium (home of Wolverhampton) for a women's international Spain 1-0 Canada in the Arnold Clark Cup. See, I sometimes go to actual stadiums!! Had to get one of the foam hands as well- mainly for nostalgia reasons: they used to give them out at cricket matches I went to as a kid, so as soon as I saw them here I was all over it. Real mature, I know.
Below: some photo's from a recent trip down south to Desborough Island for Hersham FC 2-1 Guildford United in the Surrey Premier County Football League. You can view the full set here.
Below are some images from my visit to Kendal County FC 2-1 Crooklands Casulas (played at Netherfield Cricket Club) in the West Lancashire League, chosen because of the castle backdrop. You can view the full set here.
So after a Covid postponement (I managed to test positive on the first date of the original shoot) and a slight schedule re-shuffle due to the storms, I finally filmed the rotoscope reference footage for my short film ‘Bear’!
It was my first time of being on set since 2018. Not only that, but it was the biggest thing I have ever shot in my life (even bigger than anything I made when I was a student). So of course, going in I was a little apprehensive/ nervous. When we were setting up the first morning, my mind had definitely gone blank and I had no idea what to do first! After a few minutes of mild internal panic, it all came back to me and I was back in the swing of things in no time.
As I was shooting for rotoscope, the production was fairly streamlined in terms of what equipment we actually needed (basically just props and a camera), so each shot set up didn’t take loads of time- which eased my stress a little. We shot the majority in a makeshift studio space (an empty room above a shop), along with a couple of rooms in my house, my boyfriend’s car and the local park- there was a lot more space in the park, so I even filmed some of the supermarket scenes there (the below image will have a background of a supermarket aisle)!
I feel one of my biggest mistakes due to lack of recent on-set experience combined with a high level of optimism, was that shooting around 150 shots over 2 days was almost not do-able. For some reason I thought it was, because the ease of each set up and not having to faff about with lights and audio equipment and so on, though it was quite a squeeze and on future shoots, I will be sure to plan for a lot less per day. It’s better to end up the day with time left over and get extra shots if we can, rather than rushing everything and having to scrap some of the shots and reducing the amount of takes, potentially compromising performance.
Probably because of not having been on set for so long, I did thorough pre-production work, with extensive shot lists and a shooting order and lots of pre planning. My thinking was that if I do all this correctly, then even if I was a bit rusty on set, then at least we will manage to get everything we need, because it’s down on the paperwork! And if I follow the paperwork correctly, then that side of things should be in hand. And it was- I just wished we didn’t need to rush so much towards the end. Planning for a shoot should never be compromised- there’s always so much which can change or go wrong due to reasons out of your control, so it’s best to be as prepared as possible.
I feel in future shoots, I would also like an extra person as crew. For this shoot, it was just me, my camera operator Alan Livesey and my partner Ben joining us for a little of the second day to help with driving to the exterior locations. I definitely would have appreciated a 1st AD, to take care of the paperwork/ marking the shots etc, as personally I felt being in charge of pretty much everything was a lot, honestly too much. It was hard to play producer, clapper loader, runner and so on whilst also concentrating on being director and getting the best performance from the actor Peter Stone (who did an absolutely amazing job, by the way). The reason why I omitted this was because of budget (or lack thereof as it wasn’t a funded film), though I understand now how important it would have been to have someone extra and I will take this knowledge into future shoots.
As an experienced rotoscope animator, I had a good idea of how I wanted to shoot it to make it easier when it comes to the rotoscope process. When rotoscoping, I prefer that my footage is well lit, so when I draw over it, I can make out each body part well and I’m not struggling when it comes to the animation. Another thing I do to help this is ensure the actors aren’t wearing dark clothes (black is a definite ‘no’). I ask them to dress in neutral colours, so I can make out clothing creases easily- trying to do this on black is an absolute nightmare, especially when the character is walking! As long as the shape of the clothing is what you want the character to be wearing in the final outcome, then you can do all the colour changes in post (the magic of animation eh). It also helps a lot with continuity- I had my actor wear pretty much the same for each scene. In post, I’ll change the colour of his jumper to show that it is a different day.
In addition to the above, I wanted to film at a high shutter speed, to eradicate motion blur in the footage. Personally, I feel this is frustrating to draw over as I prefer clean lines on my work, though some animators (and productions) emphasise the motion blurs of the hands for example. There is no right or wrong in this and both results are worthy, this just comes down to personal/ stylistic choice. I was able to do this for the majority of the shoot, though when we shot the footage on the second day at my house, the lights made flickering/ scanning lines on the footage- which I wouldn’t have been able to work with as I’m hoping to use EbSynth in the colour/ shading stage- as it uses the real video to help work its magic. So unfortunately, I had to shoot the indoor sections on a lower shutter speed, meaning those bits might be trickier to animate. In future shoots, I’ll use film lights indoors to be able to shoot at the shutter speed I’d like. I didn’t realise this would have been an issue going into the shoot- the flicker lines didn’t show up on the recce footage.
Overall, besides a few of the things I have outlined above, I feel the shoot when extremely well, especially with it being my first major project for some time. It was lovely being back on set and I found the two day shoot a lot of fun. The actor Peter Stone was absolutely fantastic to work with and was extremely professional. I understood that the shoot may have been a bit different/ difficult from an acting point of view, due to filming a lot in one studio space, even if it were for different locations in the film. Despite this, he did a brilliant job of being in character for each for scene and I would definitely work with him again. I now can’t wait to get editing the thing- I’m excited to see how it will all turn out!
Super pleased to announce that my experimental film '04111311' has been selected for the amazing Cardiff Animation Festival 2022!!
I went back in 2018 for their previous in person festival and I had an amazing time, so can't wait to be back there IRL this year!
All of the films look amazing and I'm so, so excited to watch them all in an actual real life cinema. See the full programme here and get your early bird pass here. Hope to see some of you down there at the festival xo
This piece was technically the second piece I made in Callipeg, as I did the outlines not long after I created my first piece back in December. After creating a quite experimental/ loose animation as a self introduction to using the app, I wanted to trial it in a more practical sense, i.e. creating clean roto outlines which are quite common in my work, resulting in this:
The outlines (frame 1)
I was pleased how nicely the outlines came out, but I wasn’t particularly sure how to finish/ colour the piece. I hadn’t long since done a quite clean EbSynth piece and I didn’t want to do hand shading like I did in my first Callipeg shot either, because I was really trying to vary what I was creating.
So I just left these lingering around for a while, hoping I’d think of an interesting way to finish it. Usually if I’m stuck on a piece, I tend to leave it (unless I have an impending deadline), start something new and come back to it with fresh eyes and fresh ideas. If I don’t have a time pressure, I find working like this is usually a good system for getting things done, for me at least.
Two pieces later, I thought it was time I came back to this one- it was hanging over me and I wanted to get it finished! I really liked how the outlines looked and I wanted them out in the world (and out of my head)!
After watching the clip through, I thought, well why don’t I just do something quite experimental with this one? After all, I’ve had the outlines for ages so I might as well just go for it, whatever ‘it’ was. I then decided to print out the first 4 frames, to experiment/ doodle all over to see what comes up. Getting out the pens and paper is always a good inspiration starter for me! I love how you can go from virtually zero ideas to several in the space of around 20 minutes after a little bit of scribbling/ mind mapping.
I started jotting some ideas down, though they were still quite ‘safe’ and not really going anywhere. That was until, over lunch I was scrolling YouTube and decided to watch a suggested video on the MoMA channel on the artist Sophie Taeuber-Arp. I hadn’t previously heard of her, but the thumbnail looked like it might be art I’d enjoy, so decided to give it a watch. Here it is below:
And I really liked what I saw. So decided to use that as my starting point: abstraction. Start with one shape or colour and see how far I can take it, changing a small section each time. That was my starting point, though I ended up straying from that thought, once the ideas came flooding.
As you can see from the above (the first 4 frames), I was initially going to colour the character as well in an analogue way. This changed as I went, because I thought while I focus on the backgrounds, I’ll leave the character and do him afterwards. Though as I was going along, I decided that I’ll actually do the character using fairly flat colours in TVPaint, so it would act as a nice contrast with the hand rendered backgrounds. Looking at the end result, I feel this was a good decision.
I decided to use pens (biros, felt tips, Sharpies, Pro Markers) as the medium, because a) I have a huge box in my room left over from my animation workshop I did in September and b) the medium is a quite quick one to work in, so I can get my ideas down without having to wait for anything to dry etc like I would have if I were using paints. The colours are also really vibrant using felt tips which was good for the bold, block colour shapes I wanted to create.
Once I was happy with them (66 frames in total), I scanned them in and placed each behind the corresponding outline for all the frames in DaVinci Resolve (I’ve moved from Adobe [all but PS] because of the absurd subscription prices). I then exported a PNG sequence of the backgrounds and brought them back into TVPaint where I finished colouring the character.
Like I said earlier, I didn’t want to do a full EbSynth piece, but the flat colours were looking too plain. So I did a hybrid: I made a pastel-looking style frame in Procreate for the hair, which I ran through EbSynth and for the rest of him, I combined the original footage (after applying several effects to in in TVPaint) with flat colours. This had some elements of the ‘real’ look, yet I boosted the flat colours enough, so it didn’t look too strange/ creepy/ uncanny valley. The real footage showing through is very subtle, though more noticeable on the face, which is a nice touch.
Left: the altered live action footage Middle: the plain colours with Procreate styleframe Right: the final character composition
Overall, I do like what I’ve created here and I especially love the backgrounds and the contrast between the clean, computerised look of the character. I think to improve it though, I would have preferred to have taken the live action footage frames into Photoshop and manipulated them a little further, like I did with some previous experiments here and here. It’s just that TVPaint doesn’t have as much choice of filters as Photoshop does, so I didn’t quite get the effect I fully wanted. But my Photoshop is super slow and crashy (either the fault of Adobe or my old computer, but probably a mixture of the two) and I honestly couldn’t be bothered to spend the day waiting for a piece of software to decide whether it wants to work. So I left it as it was!
Tennis seems to be in the news a lot lately, but that was legit not the reason I decided to choose to animate this next clip! I actually selected it because I like animating sports/ footage with a nice amount of action in, plus I loved the movement of him serving and the shadows it created (both on the floor and across his body).
Grab from the clip
I wanted to find a style that would not only do the aforementioned movement and shadows justice, but also set it aside from my other work in terms of style. I also wanted it to contrast with my previous two Callipeg clips and try something different (if you have only just become a regular reader of this blog, you’ll soon start to realise that I try to make each piece differ from the previous- I’m a geek like that, I just love learning/ developing)!
I was really tempted to go for clean lines again, but then I was like well my last clip was clean lines so why would I entertain doing the same? Or the same right away, anyway? I appreciate going back to a style you love (it’s the done thing in art, right?) and I do this myself often, too, but I’ve got a short film coming up which I’m animating all in one style, so I decided that this period leading up to that will be a time where I can free myself up a little and experiment. You know, get all this stuff out of my system now, before I can’t change my style for several months whilst animating my short!
So, looking through my work, I was thinking what haven’t I done much of? And what would I like to try or develop more? I really liked my first Callipeg animation in how loose/ scribbly it was, so decided to take that one step further.
I decided to use similar sketchy outlines, though this time used the brush rather than pencil tool, so there was a hard edge to my lines rather than a textured one. I then filled in both the shadows (the cast shadow and the one sweeping across his body) in the same scribbly way. Now, here’s where I almost gave in to temptation- I thought, well you know, I’ve experimented quite a lot already, now can I just play it safe and fill the inside of the figure cleanly?
Scribbly outlines
Here, I almost cracked. I then decided that no, I’ve set out to make something different, so I’m going to make something different. I got mega stubborn on myself and decided to colour him in by the same scribbly manner. Kind of creating a lino print/ wood cut effect (a style I have wanted to emulate for a time now). All along I was worried that it might not look very good, but I guess that if I didn’t like the effect it was creating, I could just fill in the gaps I was leaving out and have a plainly coloured figure or just learn from this mistake and not do a clip in this style again. Not everything I do needs to be ‘great’ or I’ll never learn new things if I don’t try them. Also, not everything I make needs to go on social media/ YouTube (and trust me, it doesn’t)!
I finished colouring his clothing and was liking the result, but still pretty timid as it was my first time doing a full piece like this. I thought that for the skin, I’ll just fill it in plainly (just to add some differentiation I told myself). Then, I pushed through (I’m like wayyyy over dramatising this)! …and decided I was to do the skin in the same way- again, telling myself I could always colour it in fully if I didn’t like it.
Did I need to do any of that? Nope. I absolutely loved the end result and think that if I did colour any of it solidly, then it would have been a weaker piece. I think the moral of this story is to just go for it and experiment where you can, as you might like the result and if not, it doesn’t matter. Or something like that.
Once completed in Callipeg, I exported the file to TVPaint where I was to finish colouring it. I then went a little further. Why not make him a silhouette? Why not use bold and inverted colours? So I did just that and ended up liking the result even more. It also really accentuated the print style which I was going for. Win.
Then, the background- I almost just left it as a plain colour red, but my previous piece didn’t have a background, so I thought maybe I should do one for this. It might even strengthen it. I opened Procreate and messed about for a couple of hours and created a background I really liked and which further enhanced the lino/ woodcut style I was going for.
A background I discarded
The background I went for
Despite me being tentative throughout the creation of this clip, it was simultaneously an exciting piece to produce. I hope it comes across in the end result- I like to think it does. I love how much I pushed myself with this one and the result is probably more exciting than a lot of the things I make. Doing this has really made me rethink how to approach future works and I hope that the main thing I take from creating this piece is to push myself even if I don’t think it’ll work, because you just never know…
