Isobel Wilson’s Animation Blog

Today I closed my survey, I am thrilled with the responses and I think I have so much to work with 🙂

I got 19 written responses  From countries like UK, China, Turkey, Brazil, Thailand, India and Saudi Arabia 

 There was a mixture of responses regarding feeling settled in London. Some did and enjoyed their freedom of living somewhere like the UK compared to their home countries. But others didn’t and felt confined and restricted.  

Overall people agreed that building a community at university is important, but many find it difficult to connect with others in a way they want. One student said “Yes definitely. There should be people who you can talk to in your own language, do rituals together that keep you close to your home. I occasionally host dinner parties where we drink Raki and talk, the national alcoholic drink of Turkey.” 

 The idea of finding people to do rituals with was brought up a couple of times. With one student saying they enjoyed attending an event held by the university and that it was a great way to meet other students from their home country who weren’t on the same course as them.  

 As for people’s experiences in London, I was able to get a great mixture of positives and negatives. I think balancing these out would be a good idea. There are a couple of these that really lend themselves to visuals and could be animated in an interesting way.  

Some examples;  

• Someone mentioned they enjoyed people watching on the tube, that the diversity is like seeing fish in an aquarium. But that when it gets very packed it’s like taken under a large wave of water.  

• The city is too commercial for my liking, the lifestyle is very rushed, it feels like the kind of place where time works at 2x speed but you really didn’t do much besides work and hustle, I don’t think that’s the life I want to have, I am ambitious but I also know when to take breaks, it doesn’t feel like London knows when to pause.  

• London has lots of lovely historical buildings and green parks and squares. I still love walking in London and taking it all in. Where I’m from, unfortunately most people don’t care about history or the environment. 

• Someone said that they don’t enjoy the food here, but they’ve been able to make friends with people by bonding over this and exploring new places around London with them.  

• Another said that they feel that it’s more difficult to have deep and meaningful conversations here and they feel themselves becoming shallower in the way they talk.  

• ‘London is overwhelming. I love the anonymity such a big city gives me, but I often feel like I’m being taken under a wave of people.’  

• ‘It’s an intense city but there are ways of decompressing and keeping yourself from burning out, talking walks in parks, visiting all the little museums and talking through things with your friends.’  

There are some other examples, but these really stuck out to me.  

I have already started to sketch up some of the responses into storyboards as I feel like they really lend themselves to visuals.

Going on my next steps are building a script from these responses and completing the storyboard so I can do some tests.

I really enjoyed pitch week this week, to was great to see everyone’s ideas, art and motivations behind their work all together. As we are such a large group, there are many people in group b that I don’t know as well and I found it so interesting to hear their pitches.

I tried to stay and listen to all the pitches but on the 2nd day I did have to leave early to attend another meeting for the associates, but before that I was taking a tally of everyones films and which category they were going for. This also helped me remember each film for when they were selected and we had to pick ones later down the line.

In terms of my pitch, I think it went ok! I was a bit nervous and stumbled over my words a bit but overall it was a great experience to talk about Sea Silk to large audience and get more knowledge about Vigo out there. I don’t think mine will be selected as there were so many strong contenders in the animated documentary category and my idea for the film wasn’t as fleshed out as many of the others.

But we will see next week!

This weekend I was able to visit Denmark for the first time, specifically Copenhagen. It’s always somewhere that I’ve wanted to visit and explore.

I was very excited to visit some of the galleries in the city and learn more about the history of danish art. There were so many amazing exhibits on, which I really enjoyed! Specifically my favourite was at SMK, which is a huge national gallery for Denmark. They had a very detailed exhibit on Carl Bloch. Alongside him they also had Edvard Munch and Bertel Thorvaldsen who I was excited to see.

Alongside our gallery visits we also just enjoyed wandering around the city and taking in the nature and sites. I would love to visit again and explore more of Denmark and its neighbours.

This term we are working to create stings for the London International Animated Festival or LIAF. This is a really exciting collaboration and I’m so thrilled that I am able to be part of it!

I decided to pitch for the animated documentary category as I’ve created documentaries before and really enjoyed the process of researching all the way to animating.

My film will be based on the amazing work of Chiara Vigo, a 68 year old master artisan.
She is from Sant’Antioco, south of Sardinia.

Today, Vigo is believed to be the last person on earth who still knows how harvest, dye and embroider sea silk into elaborate patterns that glisten like gold in the sunlight.
Sea silk was harvested to make robes for King Solomon and bracelets for Nefertiti. Its referenced on the Rosetta Stone and mentioned 45 times in the old Testament.
Here you can its most natural form in Byssus, the mucus growing from these clams. Vigo under the cover of night heads into the sea, dives over 15m down to carefully trim these fibres from the clams. Its a painstaking process, but once collected she is able to spin them into gold.

I believe this could be a very interesting topic for a short animated documentary. Vigo’s life and the work her and her ancestors have created are at a real risk of being lost to history. It would be amazing to tell even a tiny bit of her story to audiences.

Here are parts of my pitch, I’m excited to pitch next week and get some feedback on my work!

I’m moving onto the next stage for my film for the associates. Now I have created a survey of questions which I ask students of all UAL campuses to fill out for me to help me decide on which visuals I will use for the film in the end.

Here is a link to the survey; https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/VXQJD3S

I have also created some posters that I have placed around the campuses. I already have quite a few responses which has been a great start so far.

Today we had a morning workshop with Vanessa on perspective. I found it to be very useful and also quite inspiring. Perspective is something I never really learnt and I always struggled when trying to create new work which needed correct perspective in order to work. such as layout design, interior background design and adding characters to existing backgrounds. These were all things I wanted to create as I do enjoy background and layout design but my work never felt polished or like it truly worked because I didn’t understand how the perspective would affect the piece.

We went through the main principles of perspective and then how each point (1 -point, 2-point, etc) works and how to construct shapes using them. I found this part particularly interesting as Vanessa gave us specific examples of how they work and don’t work in classical art, animation and in figure drawing. Having this variety of examples definitely helped my comprehend the principles better.

We then had a go at using the guidelines to draw our own shapes and examples of each of the point perspectives. I found that using the point perspectives to drawing human figures was very helpful. I really want to see how I can bring that into my animation work and illustrations soon.

Term 2 of first year has absolutely flown by! Just looking back on all the work we have been able to create so far is incredible.

I continue with my goal to get involved with all the opportunities sent my way by the university or just being in London. By attending mixers held by the university, networking events set up by the course and some special events and exhibitions around London. Being in London when fashion week was happening was definitely special! Central London near the shows and parties was like a catwalk. And attending the networking event with previous students who have now graduated and are working in the industry was really helpful. I have become mutuals and connections with some of the people I managed to speak to and hearing their advice was reassuring.

Working on the new assignments for submission this term, you could definitely feel a step up in the difficulty of the animation and what was being asked of us. The feedback became more complex and the learning was much steeper. However, it has been a successful term overall I think. I may still not be exactly where I want to be with my animation technical skills but I think having a critical eye for your work and goals for constant improvement can only take you further. I know I want to improve my eye over the next term and summer so that I can confidently start on my grad film next year and make something to be proud of. I still have those doubts and worries that I won’t be able to make in the industry due the areas of animation that I am lacking in. Looking back on what I’ve been able to create this term and all that I’ve learnt I feel a bit better about my future.

Next term, I am excited to work as part of a group to create some new work and also further involve myself the work and collaboration I do as part of the Associates. The projects I work on with them are very fulfilling and help the greater community at UAL.

For our second lip sync we needed to choose a common theme as a year group for a 10 second audio. We decided on vines, there were many good choices that I was torn between. However, I ended up choosing this one. The voices is clear and I felt that I could do a lot with the video.

After picking the audio I wanted to animate to and getting it approved by the tutors. I went to work getting the mouth shapes down on paper whilst using a mirror beside me to sound out each of the movements.

Below is the video reference I used to work out the movement and timing of the animation.

My thumbnails for the movement broken down.

Next I added the key poses along with the audio, this helps me understand the timing and focus on the movement along with the speech.

After this I further designed the character I had in mind and added in the breakdowns. This wasn’t perfect as it was missing some refinement in the movement.

I have been able to get lots of very valuable feedback from the tutors in regards to the movement and smoothness of the animation.

final

-What where the roles you were given?

I was given the roles of colourist and animator of different types of fish for the opening sequence.

-Did you complete the roles and what feedback did you receive?

Yes, I completed the roles that were given to me. I created rough animations for different types of fish and sea creatures and coloured a couple of shots for Sophie. 

-How did you perform during this project?

I think I performed decently during the project, I completed all my work on time and was able to take on more tasks after finishing everything that was given to me. Sophie gave me positive feedback and I felt positive about the work is good enough for her. 

-What could you have improved on?

I think I can always improve on my animation, it’s not at the level which I hoped it to be but I can see some improvements over the past couple of months. My understanding of animation principles has improved but my skill level is still pretty basic. I wanted to create some really nice shots of fish moving for Sophie however, my skill level held me back so I was only able to create some basic animation sequences instead. 

-How does the roles you where given relate to industry roles?

I have done work as a colourist previously so felt comfortable in that role and I do enjoy doing it. I find it easy to get into the zone and get work done quite quickly. I also enjoyed trying my hand as a storyboarder?/animator by creating the rough animations. I don’t know if this is a role, I’d like to take on in the industry but as I have an interest in marine life, I found it to be enjoyable. 

-Did you enjoy the experience?

I did. Sophie is a very organised person and I felt I knew what was needed of me during our time collaborating. And I had no issues asking questions I did have any. She created a nice atmosphere between us all. 

-What was successful during the collaboration?

The communication between us all made it successful, I think. I knew what was asked of me so I was able to get to work pretty quickly. 

-What was challenging about your experience?

The most challenging for me was animating the fish. I hadn’t tried to create any animation of fish before so thinking about the mechanics of their movement and of the water was a challenge. But luckily, I have lots of reference of footage. 

-What new skills / techniques did you learn?

I didn’t use any techniques I hadn’t used before during this process however I think I was able to get a step towards perfecting my skills in time management and working as part of team/working under a supervisor for creative work. As I don’t have as much experience with that. 

-How did you utilize the skills you have learnt so far on the course?

Of course, I was able to utilize what I have learnt about animation in terms of timing and realistic movement for animals/fish. This was something I didn’t really grasp prior to the start of the course. However, I have learnt that this is a skill that improves over time with practice and understanding. 

-What would you bring into your practice from this experience?

From this experience I‘d like to bring the level of organisation and the great time management skills that Sophie showed us a team to my graduate film next year. The process was a lot more painless because of her good time keeping and the fact she knew what she needed from us. I’m pleased I was able to work with her. 

Working with Sophie, I was asked to colour some shots for her. I have worked as a colourist before and enjoy the work. I was able to finish the shots given to me fairly quickly.

I worked in Photoshop, taking the png line work sent to me by Sophie and coloured each shot and then uploaded them onto her g-drive without the line art for shading.

Here is my process in a series of pictures:

Ive coloured two shots but would like to do some more if possible. Hopefully they will be included in the final film!