Brainstorm!

Gotta just keep on truckin’…gather more ideas, write and sketch more concepts.

All the ideas that I’ve been coming up with and coming across need to go into a notebook. Otherwise I’m just going to forget them by the time we have to start our previz and storyboarding. So far, I probably have enough right now to fill half a book. I know that isn’t enough.

Throughout my blogs, I’ve been talking about focusing my reel around animation. In order to get a thorough sense of the whole animation process, I believe that I should familiarize myself with rigging. So far, what I know about it is that it requires a technical mind. A lot of different functions and properties to remember. I’m not really that much of a techie, but I’m definitely try my best to find out as much as I can about rigging.

The important thing about rigging is making whatever object or character you’re animating, is making all the movements and poses look natural.  I actualy find it quite fascinating what difference a good rig can do for a character. For example, there are intuitive and intricate rigs out there that can mimic amazing facial expressions like that of a human.

On top of having great animation, I know that I’m going to have to increase the production “polish” on my reel, along with the composition of my camera shots. While at BCIT, the instructors have made a clear  point of making sure we understand that bad composition can make or break a demo.

Ever since I’ve known about the whole composition issue, I’ve been trying to pay close attention to the kinds of camera work that they’ve been doing in animated films, and live-action films alike. Quite simply put, it’s the art of drawing the viewer’s eye to the subject of the shot. The most simple of the 12 rule of composition seems to be the “rule of thirds”. I haven’t really seen a film yet, that doesn’t apply that rule. On the other hand, the other day I did see a bad “hook-up” shot.

Basically, I was watching a soap-opera and the camera framed two characters. There was a cut to the opposite side of the room and the two characters had switched between the left and right sides. This would indicate a “bad hook-up”. As soon as I recognized what was going on, I laughed out loud and couldn’t believe that they actually did something like that on television.

So, throughout the term I’m going to make sure that I keep good composition in mind as I progress forward toward my demo reel.