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, a while back, I made a very seeeerious decision....
I would have to cut a sizeable few scenes from Dancing Nina, and join up the remaining space between one half of the film that was almost finished, and the last half that was almost finished as well, if I was to have any hope of finishing it.
These are some of the blocked scenes from long ago that will now never see the light of day since being cut and replaced (THANK GOD)
(this scene still exists starting from the spin and has since been animated by Robbie, cleaned up with dress effect added by me and comped by Stan)
So, a meeting was called (it's been a while since that's happened) between Freya, Robbie, Joanna and I to try and brainstorm a do-able solution.
Our problem was that we had to realistically and stylistically join up two parts of the film, get Nina from one standing position on almost centre stage to extreme foreground and spinning with minimal effort and time.
We danced awkwardly and talked, and then sketched awkwardly. Although i was keen to keep Death out of the scene since i had effectively got rid of him in the previous scene- a convenient little mood swing from Nina (these are cleaned up keys, since this test they have been inbetweened and comped):
Others felt it was necessary to bring him in in some form to provide great enough force to throw Nina into a curve that would end in the position, spin and momentum we needed for the following scene.
I ended up compromising by introducing him as a force; sort of tendrils pulling Nina off to the right:
However i decided Death needed to be there as more than just a force after doing these initial tests and ended up finishing of Nina's timing with the intention of placing Death in the scene mirroring Nina's movement perfectly before using some elemental force to yank Nina backwards from the heart or stomach, and continue to pull her to the right after having transformed into a cloth (and therefore saving me a lot of 2nd character animation). The idea of Death using invisible force to pull Nina backwards and the mirroring idea came from this video reference, Thanks Jo! (for invisible force part see: 1:38)
These were Nina's keys with the timing sorted:
These are the final cleaned and inbetweened linetests, now waiting to be scanned and comped, The scene was meant to be a simple solution but ended up taking me 2 weeks and getting quite complicated with weight and transformations etc. but i'm pleased with it, and proud that i managed to improvise it with some help at the initial stages and block/ key/ inbetween/ clean it all myself :) I think my time spent observationally drawing dancers at the space definitely came in handy for this scene, with the strange perspectives and thinking-on-the-spot work that was done.
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!
Okay here's where i'm at. The plan is to finish cleaning scene 1 over le weekend, scan it on Monday. Also finish in-betweening scene 3 part5 over the weekend (cleaning it simultaneously) and scan on Monday. Block scene 4 THE DREADED LINKY SCENE over weekend, test on Monday.
MONDAY 8TH:
SCAN scene 1 and scene 3 (part 5), TRACK both (try and find slaves to scan)
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)
Part of the reason i haven't posted in a long while with hard proof of animation progress is the fact that i had to spend a long time fixing my own mistakes with timing and drawing in my very first scene.
I'm going to try and explain my process in this obscenely long post:
1. This was the original keys for scene 1 inbetweened by Freya, I was disappointed with the result, i thought it was too slow and the face and head in general seemed to morph shape far too noticeably for the slow start of my film. The way i'd drawn her face dipped forward at the opening was also inaccurate of the actual length of her face portrayed in my character sheets.
I fixed it by drawing new keys (they are currently being inbetweened by Louise Cadger) after doing some in depth research on skull and facial muscle construction and facial angles from a hand made maquette of my character's head.
2. The second part of the first scene with original keys by me and inbetweening by Freya. I thought again that my timing was mis-judged and the face was once again off model....
However to spare myself the task of redrawing all of the keys i only re-drew and re-inbetweened the frames at the beginning and end of this part that i felt left the face too noticeable when un-obscured by the character's hands. I also took out a lot of inbetweens to speed up the movement. Nuria's my go-to-woman for timing help :)
3. Part 3 of scene 1 had some drawing issues like the other parts of this scene: the shoulders move at different times and the head is not on model when in it's extreme positions.
I fixed the scene by re drawing the keys and personally inbetweening to guarantee the fast flip forward of the head was executed on model.
All the head research i conducted in my sketchbook to help me achieve animated results i could live with:
1. observing and drawing my hand made plasticine maquette of Nina's head
2. studying the construction of the human skull from John Raynes "Human Anatomy for Artists" and adapting it to suite Nina's unique character design.
3. Side studies of skull and muscle structure on an adapted human face
4. Photographs of the maquette in lots of different positions and angles, time was spent drawing over the photographs with a hard clean line to demonstrate the flat shape that would be visible of any particular angle on a frame of animation.
5. Making of the maquette: observational studies of an anatomical skeleton and reference from my own 3D Maya model of Nina, made months ago in the early stages of the film's pre-production. When moulding Nina's face i paid attention to the underlying (hypothetical) boney structure of the skull i had imagined and the main muscles responsible for shaping the face i had read about in John Raynes "Anatomy for Artists".
6. I noted a section of "Human Anatomy for Artists" about the tendons connecting the skull to the main torso as these would be in action heavily in the opening scene of Dancing Nina.
I would like to note that i make these studies in the hope of making my character's structure and movement convincing but i know that due to the unique design of Nina, especially, this won't be entirely possible and i will have to allow for in-human exaggeration in areas such as the neck, arms, lower spine, legs and feet. A lot of the normal human bone and muscle structure has been warped to achieve Nina's design and i intend to make hypothetical studies of more of her body in regards to it's similarities and differences from a normal body.
I began my acting research by watching films with characters that inspired Nina's persona. (There's plenty of this in illegible notes, in my sketchbook, so i'm not going to bother typing everything up...) Here's the run down:
Moulin Rouge:
Satine- Nicole Kidman
*spoilers* Satine finds out she's dying and then proceeds to... die.
But i found it interesting to observe her movement fluctuating between defiance and exhaustion very dramatically and theatrically, much in the way i am hoping to achieve for Nina.
I developed the amount of facial expression i hope to achieve for Nina by remembering that Satine smiles at her lover before she dies, so now, Nina shows much more recognition than first anticipated.
Also, Tango de la Roxanne is pretty darn close to the kind of movement want to emphasise in Dancing Nina, and was actually a very early influence for me and Jo.
upon reviewing it i made changes to the choreography: such as having Death grab Nina by the wrists more to indicate his personality flip-side.
Personality flip side?? I hear you cry!
I'll get to it, hang tight. (see what i did there?...)
I also watched Chicago to look at the dances of innocent Hungarian lady what gets hung *spoilers*. I've always loved the choreography of her Cell Block Tango routine, there's so much good staging, silhouetting and mirroring in it between her and her partner,
and although it remains a tango, it has a classic twist. The way the woman acts is so theatrical, in keeping with the film's creative thrust. Especially when she is executed and her dying scene is transformed into a glamorous disappearing act:
"Pina" was also very influential to us from an early stage, and i recently re watched it when thinking more in depth about my characters. There are a couple of pieces that stand out to me, particularly this one:
The way the woman moves around as if she is in a dream and relies on her partner to catch her constantly but without ever acknowledging him is something similar to the way i want to characters to interact in Dancing Nina. Except a little reversed...
I've been reading up on Acting
"Acting for Animators" Ed Hooks
I read about objectives and conclusions and thinking as well as doing in acting. Which was helpful at this stage of refreshing my understanding of the characters i already knew so well.
"Unity of action"= "doing something 100% of the time" -Aristotle
^This helped me work out some creases in the choreography. Re-establishing what exactly my characters wanted and why made me add certain bits that hadn't existed previously, such as when Nina reaches up to touch Death's face as if trying to establish a connection only to be harshly rejected.
In Dancing Nina I'm aiming for Death to be the dream state character. He is entirely Nina's subconscious creation, and so, as well as being a vague memory of her lover he is an embodiment of her pain as her body dies.He constantly fluctuates between sympathy and cruelty for the duration of the (metaphorical) dance eventually truly embodying the lover Nina longs to be with in the final scene.
As for Nina, there's a small essay explaining her motivation in my jotter/sketchbook and it's 5am so, shhh.
I took Dancing lessons!
I don't know if i've mentioned this before, but i used to dance regularly. It occurred to me that since i was a ballet dancer and never really performed, i had never danced with a partner, so i took up Swing dance at the Swing Dance society at Dundee to gain a better understanding of how people are meant to move as a pair. It turned out to be very helpful with hand gesture in particular; i found i could suddenly refer to my own learning when it came to what position hands should be in.
It was suggested that i should hire drama students to act out my piece with a good understanding of the characters, which, strangely enough had not occurred to me since i have so much dance research and reference to work from. Anyway, i skipped the middle man and acted out the beginning (the part i am currently animating) myself. My partner was Joe who has acted before, and was ... available. I took time to explain Death's character to him before filming.
My latest test: cleaned up keys with added keys, anticipation and edited timing. I'm really bad for regular testing, so when i do finally force myself to a line tester all the final cuts and trims are made there by eye.
