Scene_01 Shenanigans!

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.

rough inbetweens

heres the roughs of the inbetweens I did for Slava, youtube sorta butchered the lighting but yeah.

Observational Drawing: Dancers at the Space

This is the culmination of the last 3 weeks of drawing dancers at The Space  (Dundee College) every Wednesday morning. the session usually lasts about 2 hours and involves me and who ever else who wishes to attend sitting at the edge of classical ballet or contemporary technique and choreography as well as freestyle classes and sometimes rehearsals. The dancers also sometimes take breaks to stretch or listen to tutors, and sometimes they take part in solo rehearsals.

After scanning the drawings i've tried to test my memory of anatomy by drawing over the sketches digitally to produce more complete studies of some select poses. I intend to continue doing both the observational drawing and continue to finish off selected poses regularly to provide myself with regular quick and accurate human figure drawing skills, and to widen my knowledge of the capabilities of a dancers' bodies with a view to finishing Dancing Nina to the best of my ability.

Dancing Nina Spins

Crying

ALL the line tests

I haven't been updating as regularly as i should have been, so, here's a back log of line tests.

Semester 1 Summary: Acting and Movement

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.