Carpe Diem WIP

[Boomslang]

For TVpaint class, i'm making a little 20 some seconds animation about a monk. The excersize is to animate it sync with the soundtrack. Here's the partly colored linetest of the first 10 seconds.
Feedback would be welcome
http://junk.paulm.com/monks.mov
[/img]

[malcooning]

you mean something like this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQC0swMs ... re=related

[Boomslang]

inspired by, yes, No denying there. Especially in colorscheme and maybe the inky lines. But alltogether its quite different from The Monk and the Fish as I'm not trying to copy that but using my own characters and story. You think I'm guilty of ripping off here?

[ZigOtto]

go ahead, Boomslang, inspiration from here and there isn't an offence, (specially from good souces),
also, 20" is quite a different format than the 6 min. and more of "the monk & the fish",
so it leads a narration completly different, beside that, your graphic style is your own,
far-away Dudok de Wit's style, so don't worry, make your film serenely,
and convey your own sensitiveness.

I hope you will keep and show us your WIP here!

now, regarding your animated test, I can suggest you 2 things :
- your sleeping mong is animated in 2's, but your color is in one's,
I think you can keep the color animated in 2's as the lines (less work, and less vibrations)
- the shadow projected on the floor could follow the breathing monk animation (using a mask),
to add more lighting credibility in the scene :



see quick exemple here

[Peter Wassink]

did you know you can buy this film online now, so you can watch it in much better quality then that youtube-rip, and for only € 1,50

here: http://www.toondra.com/?menu=film&film=102

its an initiative from the Annecy festival and the site has quite a lot of nice films.
I bought a couple myself, including 'The Monk and the Fish' ...because its one of my all time favorites.

[Boomslang]

go ahead, Boomslang, inspiration from here and there isn't an offence, (specially from good souces),
also, 20" is quite a different format than the 6 min. and more of "the monk & the fish",
so it leads a narration completly different, beside that, your graphic style is your own,
far-away Dudok de Wit's style, so don't worry, make your film serenely,
and convey your own sensitiveness.

I hope you will keep and show us your WIP here!

now, regarding your animated test, I can suggest you 2 things :
- your sleeping mong is animated in 2's, but your color is in one's,
I think you can keep the color animated in 2's as the lines (less work, and less vibrations)
- the shadow projected on the floor could follow the breathing monk animation (using a mask),
to add more lighting credibility in the scene :



see quick exemple here

the color is indeed on ones, and it should be on two's.. well observed
Your idea of the shadow moving as a mask could work very well, its a little more work but certainly adds to the believability. I'll try it, thanks!

BTW, I do fancy Dudok de Wit's style and use it as an inspiration, as noticed, but I'm glad you recognize the my own touches. And because its basically an excercize I don't pay that much attention to originality. If I am going to make a shortfilm myself, I'll try to make it more of a unique thing.

[malcooning]

iYou think I'm guilty of ripping off here?

Naa, you wrote yourself it's a school exercise, so using existing work as a reference is very legitimate, even recommended. And if using reference material, better good work than bad work! (besides, it's flattering to the author of the work you are referencing from)
It's a good way to learn TVPaint, as it allows your kind of style to be fully expressed. With time, as you'll get to know TVPaint, you'll develop your own favorite brushes and methods of animating that'll automatically become your own recognized work.

I agree with Zig about his points. As for adding animating the shadow, I'm not sure how to go about creating masks in TVPaint as there's no such feature. I think I would duplicate the animated layer, tweak the brightness and contrast to darken it, reduce opacity, transform the shape (warp) to look like it's flattened on the floor, and delete the parts that don't shadow (if any).

Now, the more interesting for me, what is going to happen next in the film that will sync with the sound, and how?

[Boomslang]

That's the idea! well I've known the program for one and a half year now, but still change regularly in brushes and style of animating. Lately it's going a lot better than last year, especially since I know how to handle and modify the brushes better to my wishes. With the pentool alone i couldn't really animate the way i wanted to, because it was too precise and ''clean''. Now I can focus on movement rather than be focused on style of line.

As for your question, it's rather random, he walks out of his bed to another monk who's ringing the bell, the waked up monk pulls out a gun and shoots him, walks back to his room and goes back to sleep. Silly, but good for syncing.

As for the shadow, I think I'll just animate that by hand with the shapetool (with opacity on and the edge set to blur) This I will do on one layer and I'll then merge this layer together with the floorlayer, and use ''multiply stamp'' <<this works as a mask

[Peter Wassink]

As for your question, it's rather random, he walks out of his bed to another monk who's ringing the bell, the waked up monk pulls out a gun and shoots him, walks back to his room and goes back to sleep.

thats a pitty ...
i don't think Michael Dudok would be flattered too much by such a braindead idea.

[ZigOtto]

instead of shooting him with a gun, I would choose an other way to "definitively" stop it :
he could tie the bell's rope around the bell-ringer's neck, and string him up,
lot of work to do that, but it could be a really funny peace of animation ...
I can imagine the sound of the bell stopping progressively,
the hanged monk dangling flabbily at the end of the rope.

[malcooning]

I agree that maybe a more fantastic ending should take place. I think that you should always ask yourself "why am I doing this animated?"

If you can think of many different ways of rendering this story, maybe it's not suitable for animation. I mean, animation is hard work. You labor long periods over few seconds, you go through many different phases of frustration. You need to justify this process by creating something that when viewed can create wonder. If you are absent from society for long periods, the animated content should answer with its own greatness.

What Zig Suggested is valid according to this. If a monk gets shot and goes to bed - nothing really "animation" took place, apart from the fact that the characters are cartoony, and that all of it was drawn. Play around with your creations and your elements. Make a building's shadow shoot the monk. Make the bell's tongue have a hard on and smack a monk on his behind. Make the monks evaporate. Make the rope pull the daylight from the sky and apocalypse come. Make you animated points unbelievable, yet believable.

You can be gentle and refined too. Your choices are your style, your character as a creator. Make the best out of them by challenging yourself. The ultimate creation is the one that even though you created it, and watched it over 100 times, you are still enjoying it, and still learning from it. And you can achieve that by trying something that you didn't foresee, neither expected.

[Boomslang]

It must be christmas soon with the peace thought, but yes,letting a monk shoot another monk, is a bit immature and unsubtle, and not really artistic. It does contain my dislike for early churchbells ringing in the morning though!


Anyway, It was basically because I wanted to walk the easy path with the sound. And I thought maybe I could let the now headless murdered monk return as a ghost and still ring the bell much to the frustration of the other monk who will never find rest now to keep it a bit fantastique.

I agree that it could be more subtle and mind-boggling. Even though it's an excercise it would certainly be a lot more pleasing if it's really something cute and artistic instead of random violence. I shall give it some more thought, it wasnt really a definite idea anyway. Thanks for your honest input!

[oliveuk]

thanks for posting the link to Toondra Tantalus, I just bought the short and some of my classmates are about to do the same.

Olive