For everyone who missed the screening of the completed Dancing Nina at the DJCAD Degree Show 2013, it's now available to watch on youtube at your leisure :) The film also acts as my showreel for animation as it's the only thing i worked on within that particular specialism in my final year.
Enjoy!
Me with my framed work on the opening night of degree show :)
So I'm just starting to think of putting together my "making of" when THIS pops up on my radar, and i think hey, why not? I'll give it a watch maybe i'll get some ideas for structuring the "making of".
Little did i know i had just stumbled upon the animator behind some of my favourite parody animation: Harry Podder. I had never found out who made it until now!
More importantly though, I laughed very hard at how much David Stodolny takes the piss out of artsy fartsy nonsense with his animation style and how much the style he animated his short "I Am Art" with is so very similar to the way i've animated Dancing Nina...
Well my deep, artsy cover's blown, you got me Stodolny!
Any ways, here come some semi- complete shots!! (disclaimer: the colours will probably change, this was a test comp)
These are from Scene_03 part _03.
This was an early line test of the scene with only Nina:
This was the final inbetweened and cleaned line test:
The timing was changed, and some anticipation added, a breathe and an extra key was added to make the face touch look a little less like a slap.
This segment was blocked, keyed, inbetweened and cleaned entirely by me. Mainly because believe it or not it's faster this way, when i inbetween i don't need a clean up stage.
This is the scene i will be talking about in my Final presentation for the section "finishing competence" as i feel it has one of the best examples of acting in my film. It's a quiet scene in which the characters mainly observe and react to each other. (It was also the first to reach comp but sshh)
I got the extra acting ideas like the face touch (which was not in original choreography) and the smile Nina gives Death at the end from primary research i.e myself and Joe acting out this (full) scene; And research on Nicole Kidman's character Satine in Moulin Rouge led me to the decision to have Nina smile at her partner.
Scene 06 is now scanned and tracked ready for comping but i thought i'd just share the arduous journey it took us to get to that stage.
The scene was blocked roughly by me and then handed to Freya to animate at her own pace, Freya keyed it and then handed it to Jodie to inbetween.
Now it came back looking a bit like this:
I wasn't satisfied with a s few things, once again Nina's head and face were causing inbetweeners trouble, and also it seems some timing issues may have remained from my blocks or the keys, we're not sure. I also was not happy with the smoothness of the head role, and not sure if the long hold was entirely necessary.
Becasue we're so close to deadline, re keying the whole scene was impossible, so i re-jigged the timing, took out some inbetweens and added some. Re-drew a few keys more on model and re inbetweened as necessary, shortened the hold and added a blink, and cleaned achieving this result:
I'm still not entirely happy with it, but i spent about 3 days fixing it and i don't think i'll ever truly be happy with any part of this film, so hey ho moving on!
This scene has now been divided into several parts to help me focus on one movement at a time and achieve better results- bite size! also it's changed a lot, mainly on whim... After re working scene 2 so that Nina's spin ended with her balancing on the knuckles of her feet, the following scene required a bit of a re-think.
Here's a very old test to remind everybody what the full Scene 3 used to look like:
Using youtube reference, trying it myself and asking others to try while i watched i quickly realised moving from knuckle of foot to sole with no help was painful, un-natural and probably not recommended. However Nina's body being impossible is not news to me. Having decided that Nina could and would complete this maneuver i decided to have her express more pain while doing it and to give Death's presence more of a purpose by making him pull her upwards by the wrist- ohoho foreshadowing! I also wanted to make it as obvious as possible what her feet were doing when they would be covered by her dress the whole time.
Some painful looking videos i used as reference for some movements i was attempting to realistically draw:
What the first part of scene 3 looked like to begin with:
With timing change and more exaggerated movement- legs visible through dress:
Final keys that i handed to Robbie to inbetween, invisible legs again:
Shout out to Nuria again, my timing guru!
Sketchbook research (photocopies from "Classic Human Anatomy for artists, Guide to Form Function and Movement, Valerie L. Winslow; observational sketches, postcard from Da Vinci exhibition at McManus Galleries, Dundee)
The first one is going with a more realistic feel and the environment lends its self well to the act. We discussed and wanted to go for a more old and decayed look. there is a lot of old wood in this one, from the floors to the table and roof beams. the roof beams are an important factor in the design as that is where nina will hang her self. i made the room for the beginning quite plain, without decoration, emphasising the dullness of the room, it is purely functional, nothing to distract the person using the room. i wanted to create an atmosphere that would emphasise the miserableness of her situation. i thought the wooden stairs would be useful to the idea of the theme as typically through history the steps to the gallows were made of wood. the attic is nice and roomy with the option of skylights and the hanging sheets almost give it a slightly eerie feel to the room.
In the second environment concept i wanted it to have bit more concrete and plaster based in the materials that would make the rooms.there is more scope for grungy looking cracked plaster textures. on second thoughts the attic on the second one seems a bit smaller but there should be enough room. not all attics span the entire roof of the house.
