Carlos Fraiha | Animation

Demo Reel

2011-05-04T09:29:00.000-07:00

My new character animation reel:

My animated short film 'Ceci n'est pas une mouche' (This is not a fly):

And some of my artwork:

Short film 'Fiat Lux' - Official selection at the CineBH Film Festival!

2011-05-01T10:00:00.000-07:00

During my holidays in Brazil, I made a short film with my friend Juliana Andrade using images she had made of the demolition of a neighbourhood in Belo Horizonte for the expansion of city roads. We decided to give it a twist by showing the images in a different context, like that of the creation of the world, rather than the destruction of an area. Hence the title 'Fiat Lux', Latin for 'Let there be light'. I composed the soundtrack from sounds captured in the actual place. It was fun as my first experience composing music! The film was selected for the CineBH Film Festival and screened last October. Here's the link to the festival page http://www.cinebh.com.br/ and a capture of the timetable mentioning the film:

'Ceci n'est pas une mouche' invited to 6 new festivals/screenings!

2011-05-01T08:44:00.000-07:00

- Curta Circuito: International Animation Day (Belo Horizonte and Ipatinga, Brazil, 2010/2011)
- box[ur]shorts at Kino Sputnik (Liestal, Switzerland, 2010)
- Cortoons TV (www.streamit.it) part of CORTOONS International Short Animated Film Festival (Rome, 2011)
- shortCUTS (Berlin, 2011)
- Anim!arte 2011 - Mostra retrospectiva 10 anos (Rio de Janeiro, 2011)
- Itinerant Festival of animated short films part of the 'Fémynie & Dignité' endowment fund for the defence of the education for all (Tunisia, 2011)

IMDb page

2011-01-09T12:17:00.000-08:00

Because of the festival entries, I got an invitation from IMDb to create a page for my film 'Ceci n'est pas une mouche', which you can find at:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1439528/

And one for myself, where you can see information about listed industry projects I have worked on, like Primeval:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3463870/

Skillset Interview

2010-09-23T11:30:00.000-07:00

This was an interview I gave on Skillset Media Academies (Central Saint Martins, where I got my degree in animation, is one of them). You can find it below or at

http://courses.skillset.org/case_studies/223

BBC FIlm Network

2010-09-05T11:48:00.000-07:00

'Ceci n'est pas une mouche' was invited to be showcased on the BBC Film Network, a website about new film-makers in the UK. You can see the page below or at

http://www.bbc.co.uk/filmnetwork/films/p007by0s

Recent projects: Samsung and O2 Broadband

2010-08-24T10:00:00.000-07:00

Here's the Niggles and Narks O2 Broadband advert I worked on a few months ago. It was a great team to work with. This is the 60 second spot, for which I animated a few shots. I animated almost all shots for the 20 second spot that features the Mystery Mook, which was a lot of fun. Unfortunately it is not on Youtube, but you can check my shots in the reel above:

The ad for the new Samsung 3D TV is finally out. I was very happy to animate all of the butterflies for this. I have my shots in the demo reel, and here's a link to the full advert:

And here you can find some more information on the projects and the credits. You can also find these at The Mill website:

Royal Reel Award for Excellence in Film-making at the Canada International Film Festival / Interviews for Central Saint Martins and Orgulho de Minas

2010-02-28T13:55:00.000-08:00

I have been told by the Canada International Film Festival that I will be receiving the Royal Reel Award for Excellence in Film-making this March! As the event will take place in Vancouver, I will have a friend that lives there represent me at the awards ceremony.

Some time ago I was interviewed for the Central Saint Martins website. They chose a few students from the university and created alumni profiles for them. This is my interview:

http://www.csm.arts.ac.uk/58278.htm

And this is an interview for the State of Minas Gerais blog in Brazil with text and video (in Portuguese):

http://blog.mg.gov.br/orgulho-de-minas-carlos-fraiha-animador/

Festival and broadcast news for Ceci n'est pas une mouche

2010-02-28T13:21:00.000-08:00

My short film 'Ceci n'est pas une mouche' has been invited to be broadcast on MHz Networks in the US, a new satellite TV channel that reaches millions of viewers in the country. Their aim is to show more quality international content to American audiences. I was very happy to have been invited to be a part of their programming. The film should start being broadcast in March.

The film has also been broadcast on:

Propeller TV - (UK, 2009)
V1 (UK, 2009)
Bravo (UK, 2009)
ABC website (Australia, 2009)

And it can be watched by all customers of Virgin Media TV on demand for free.

It was featured on the DVD of the September issue of 3D World magazine as one of the nominees for the Bitfilm Awards. And after one year submitting it to festivals, I can finally show the complete list of festival screenings so far. They are over 65 festivals in 29 countries and it's great to see the film was seen by people from so many different cultures.

Screenings & Awards:

- Canada International Film Festival (Canada, 2010) - ROYAL REEL AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN FILMMAKING
- Festival Internazionale del Cinema d'Arte (Italy, 2009) - SPECIAL JURY AWARD
- Dervio International Animation Festival (Italy, 2009) - BEST CHARACTER AWARD
- Portable Film Festival (Australia, 2009) - 2ND PLACE - GET ANIMATED CATEGORY
- Comic-Con International Independent Film Festival (USA, 2009)
- California International Animation Festival (USA, 2009)
- Virgin Media Shorts - Finalist (UK, 2009)
- box[ur]shorts Film Festival 2010 - Los Angeles/New York City/Alpharetta/Park City (USA) Basel (Switzerland) Hiroshima (Japan)
- Toronto Animated Image Society Animation Showcase (Canada, 2009)
- Nuit Blanche Toronto (Canada, 2009)
- Globalfest (Canada, 2009)
- Animation Attack! (USA, 2009)
- NextFrame (USA, 2009)
- Portobello Film Festival London (UK, 2009)
- Rotoreliefs (UK, 2010)
- Bitfilm Festival (Germany, 2009)
- I Castelli Animati International Animated Film Festival (Italy, 2009)
- Cartoon Club International Festival of Animation Cinema and Comics (Italy, 2009)
- Bornshorts International Film Festival (Denmark, 2009)
- Giggleshorts International Comedy Short Film Festival (Canada, 2009)
- Athens Video Art Festival (Greece, 2009)
- Psarokokalo International Short Film Festival of Athens (Greece, 2010)
- PISAF - Puchon International Student Animation Festival (Korea, 2009)
- China International Animation and Digital Arts Festival (China, 2009)
- Propeller Studentfest Finalists - Screened at the Leeds Film Festival, Reading Festival, Latitude Festival and the Hull International Short Film Festival (UK, 2009)
- European Youth Film Festival of Flanders - (Belgium, 2009)
- Festival International du court-métrage d’animation de Neufchâteau (Belgium, 2009)
- Croq'Anime Festival of Animated Short Films (France, 2009)
- Festival Séquence court-métrage (France, 2009)
- Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Market (France, 2010)
- Festival d'Oise du Court (France, 2009)
- Algarve International Film Festival (Portugal, 2009)
- FIKE - Evora International Short Film Festival (Portugal, 2009)
- Euroshorts (Poland, 2009)
- AleKino! (Poland, 2009)
- AniFest (Czech Republic, 2010)
- Budapest Short Film Festival (Hungary, 2009)
- Kinofest (Romania, 2009)
- Banjaluka International Animated Film Festival (Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2009)
- St. Petersburg International Youth Film Festival (Russia, 2009)
- Message to Man International Film Festival (Russia, 2009)
- International Short Film Festival of Montecatini Terme (Italy, 2009)
- Video Festival Imperia (Italy, 2009)
- ISCA - Istituto per lo Studio del Cinema di Animazione di Milano (Italy, 2009)
- Durban International Film Festival (South Africa, 2009)
- Anim!Arte (Brazil, 2009)
- MUMIA - Mostra Udigrudi Mundial de Animacao (Brazil, 2009)
- Festcine Festival de Cinema Universitario (Brazil, 2009)
- Expotoons (Argentina, 2009)
- Montezuma International Film Festival (Costa Rica, 2009)
- YOUKI International Youth Media Festival (Austria, 2009)
- Going Underground - International Subway Film Festival Berlin (Germany, 2009)
- Up-and-coming International Film Festival Hannover (Germany, 2009)
- International Low & No Budget Short Film Festival (Germany, 2009)
- Festival Internacional de Filmets de Badalona - Barcelona (Spain, 2009)
- Animacam (Spain, 2009)
- Cinekid Screening Club (Netherlands, 2009)
- Leith Short Film Festival (UK, 2009)
- Time Out ‘On the Up’ (UK, 2008)
- The National Gallery, London (UK, 2008)
- Istanbul International Children’s Film Festival (Turkey, 2008)
- Akbank Short Film Festival (Turkey, 2009)
- Discovering Latin America Film Festival (UK, 2008)
- Yobi TV - Semifinalist (US, 2009)
- Encounters Short Film Festival – Imagine Student Competition Finalists (UK, 2008)

Show Reel | November 2009

2009-11-23T14:55:00.000-08:00

This new reel has some of the scenes I animated at The Mill for the second season of the BBC series Merlin. It was a great project to work on, and the team is amazing - very nice and talented people.

Life drawing

2009-11-18T17:18:00.000-08:00

These are some drawings I've made recently. The more sketchy ones were made during my friend's dance lessons. It was hard to draw them as they would never hold a pose for more than an instant, but these are some of the drawings in which I was able to capture some of the choreography, mood or shapes they were creating:

The more finished ones are from a life drawing class at Candid Arts:

Richard Williams

2009-10-29T17:09:00.000-07:00

I went to the talk with Richard Williams for the release of the new expanded edition of his Animator's Survival Kit, and not only I got an autograph, I got to take a picture with the man himself! He was very generous in sharing loads of stories and tips from the new book and it was a joy listening to him talk about his career.

I also got to talk to animator Roy Naisbitt who worked with him for 25 years, 12 of which on the Thief and the Cobbler. He said he was actually born in Rio, where his parents were on holiday, and came to the UK after 3 weeks of being born!

Virgin Media Shorts awards ceremony

2009-10-01T07:23:00.000-07:00

The awards ceremony was great. Each one of us got a 35mm print of our shorts, and it was very nice meeting all the other film-makers. Here are some pictures from the evening:

Receiving the 35mm print

By the poster for 'Ceci n'est pas une mouche'

With Tom Hebdon, friend and voice-over artist for the main character

One eskimO

2009-09-30T14:48:00.000-07:00

This is the trailer for a very cool project I worked on some time ago. It was a whole bunch of promos for the UK-based band One eskimO. It was directed by Sam Cundall for Passion Pictures and is being released by Warner Premiere. I animated a couple of scenes of the little eskimo:

Front page on the Harrow Observer / Virgin Media Shorts website

2009-08-31T14:32:00.000-07:00

I was interviewed by the Harrow Observer the other week about being shortlisted for the Virgin Media Shorts competition and when I went to the newsagents I found out they had put me on the front page! It was a funny experience. Then there was a one page article right on page 3. That was very generous of them. Here are both pages:

There is also an interview on the Virgin Media Shorts website. Here's the introduction:

'I’m fascinated by the influences and imaginings that lead each one to bring their own particular short to life. If you’re with me on that one, take a look at the interviews with Regan and Carlos in particular for a fascinating insight into how two great films came into being.'

Here's the link:

http://www.virginmediashorts.co.uk/feature/carlos-fraiha/

And you can also read it here:

Virgin Media Shorts

2009-08-16T15:21:00.000-07:00

'Ceci n'est pas une mouche' has been shortlisted for Virgin Media Shorts! The 12 shortlisted films will be transferred to 35mm and shown all over the UK in over 200 cinemas for a year, which is pretty much the best prize I could ever think of.

One of the competition organisers told me during an interview I should be especially proud to have my first animated film making the shortlist, because many of the other film-makers are very well established people in the industry, having directed commercials, music videos, etc. for years, and that the UK Film Council helped choose these finalists based on how promising the film-makers were, and considering how successful they would be in future projects. It was quite amazing to hear that.

We recorded an interview the other day, there was a photo shoot with me sitting in a director's chair (which they gave me as a present afterwards!), and I was also interviewed for the Harrow Observer and will be featured there on Thursday the 20th of August.

A jury will decide which one of the film-makers will get funding for a new short film, and there is also a People's Choice award on the website, so if you can please go there and give me your vote and leave a comment!

http://www.virginmediashorts.co.uk/films/film/ceci-nest-pas-une-mouche-this-is-not-a-fly/

The film is also in the Portable Film Festival in Australia, so please vote for it on their website too if you have some time:

http://portablefilmfestival.com/video.php?video=1013

It is also part of the official selection of:

- Animation Attack! (USA, 2009)
- NextFrame (USA, 2009)
- Bitfilm Festival (Germany, 2009)
- Cartoon Club International Festival of Animation Cinema and Comics (Italy, 2009)
- Bornshorts International Film Festival (Denmark, 2009)
- Budapest Short Film Festival (Hungary, 2009)
- Giggleshorts International Comedy Short Film Festival (Canada, 2009)
- China International Animation and Digital Arts Festival (China, 2009)
- Festival d'Oise du Court (France, 2009)
- International Low & No Budget Short Film Festival (Germany, 2009)
- Animacam (Spain, 2009)

And the film will be featured in 3D World Magazine in September as one of the nominated films for the Bitfilm Awards!

Special Jury Award / Best Character Award!

2009-07-28T02:29:00.000-07:00

Last week 'Ceci n'est pas une mouche' has won two awards in Italy! The first was the 'Best Character Award' at the International Animation Festival of Dervio, and the second was the 'Special Jury Award' in the Festival Internazionale del Cinema d'Arte. These are the other film-makers Susan, Ron and Nicolas, the festival organizer Anita and me after the awards ceremony:

Comic-Con / IMDB / Festivals: Canada, Scotland, Russia, South Africa, Italy and Brazil!

2009-06-18T10:57:00.000-07:00

'Ceci n'est pas une mouche' is now part of the official selection of the:

- Toronto Animated Image Society Animation Showcase (at the NFB Cinema - what an honour!);
- Message to Man International Film Festival (St Petersburg, Russia);
- Durban International Film Festival (South Africa);
- and... COMIC-CON!!! The Comic-Con International Independent Film Festival will happen in San Diego as part of the massive conference. Wish I could be there for the screening!!

I have been contacted by organisers of other festivals that were present at some of the screenings and have now invited me to show the film in their events! These include:

- Festcine - Festival de Cinema Universitario (which happens in Brazil in my hometown Belo Horizonte and in Rio!);
- Animation Film Festival of Dervio;
- and ISCA - Istituto per lo Studio del Cinema di Animazione di Milano.

Continuing with the list, last week it was screened at the Leith Short Film Festival in Edinburgh. Beautiful city!

For those of you that speak German, the film has been featured on the 'Britspotting' website in their spotlight section, with a very funny description: http://de.britspotting.de/2009/05/13/spotlight-on-carlos-fraiha/

It finished its run as a semifinalist in the Yobi Film Contest, making the top 10, and it had almost 50,000 views on the website!

The film also has a page on IMDB now! Because of some of the festival screenings, I was invited by them to set up a page, and now it's up with a trailer and everything =) Check it out on http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1439528/

Yobi Film Contest

2009-05-14T14:20:00.000-07:00

'Ceci n'est pas une mouche' is only a few days from the finals in the Yobi Film Contest. The film has had 40855 views in the website! Please check it out in the link below and give me a vote if you can ;) Thank you!

http://yobi.tv/semifinalists/view/96

Festival News: Portugal, Greece, France and Italy!

2009-05-14T14:01:00.000-07:00

'Ceci n'est pas une mouche' has recently been screened at the Algarve International Film Festival in Portugal!

I was invited by the festival to spend a few days there and it was great to meet other film-makers and watch such good films. The place itself was beautiful and the hosts were lovely and took very good care of us. The film was one of the 62 short films selected for the festival out of more than 3000 submissions!

The film is now part of the official selection of:

- The Athens Video Art Festival (Greece)
- Croq'Anime (France)
- Festival Internazionale del Cinema d'Arte (Italy)
- International Short Film Festival of Montecatini Terme (Italy, 2009)

It has been a lot of hard work, but it pays off in the end. I am thrilled that the film has been getting all this exposure.

Still in the subject of festival news but now about another project - 'As vezes num dia de chuva', the experimental video I made with some friends some time ago (there is more info on the film and the award it won below), will be screened at the Festival Pocket Films in Paris this summer!

Reel - February 2009

2009-02-15T16:17:00.000-08:00

Finalist in the Imagine Student Competition and Propeller TV Student Fest

2009-02-11T03:53:00.001-08:00

'Ceci n'est pas une mouche' was one of the 10 finalists in the Imagine Student Competition 2008 and was screened at the Encounters Film Festival in Bristol late last year.

It is also among the finalists in the Propeller TV Student Fest, and will be broadcast on Propeller TV (Sky channel 195), on Sunday 22nd February at 23:10. It will be screened along with the other winning films at the Leeds Festival, Reading Festival, Latitude Festival and at the Hull International Short Film Festival.

'Time Out favourite' / Short film on the National Gallery website / Latest projects

2009-02-02T08:16:00.000-08:00

During the DLA Film Festival in November/December, Time Out magazine had a few notes on the festival programme, and 'Ceci n'est pas une mouche' (This is not a fly) was mentioned as a 'Time Out favourite' in the shorts programme!

All the short films from the 'Transcriptions: Animation' project are now on the National Gallery website on http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/collection/transcriptions/new_animation/default.htm

The project I worked on at Partizan Lab, a promo for the song 'Violent and Young' from the band Iglu & Hartly, is now out. I animated some of the smoke, bullets, muzzle fire, and also the shadows on the characters. This was done in Flash and After Effects, while the main animation was hand drawn:

Winner of the Audience Award at the 2008 Vivo arte.mov New Media Arts Festival!

2008-11-27T07:58:00.000-08:00

'As vezes, num dia de chuva', the experimental video I created with Juliana Andrade e Rodrigo Moreira in 2007 has just won the Audience Award at the 2008 Vivo arte.mov New Media Arts Festival.

The short film mixes live action footage with excerpts from poems of celebrated Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa, and was initially one of the 39 shorts selected out of a total of 625 submitted works.

Statement about my film in Imagine magazine

2008-11-10T07:05:00.000-08:00

The September/October issue of Imagine magazine had an article on the short films we did at Central Saint Martins for the National Gallery as our final projects.

There is an introduction on the project and statements from three animators, Rachel Thorn, Peter Kasim and myself. We are already in November, but I hope you can still find that issue of the magazine in book stores. If not, here is the first page with the introduction and my statement:

Semifinalist in the Yobi Film Contest!

2008-11-05T13:48:00.000-08:00

My animation 'Ceci n'est pas une mouche' won the 6th weekly round of the Yobi Film Contest and is now one of the semifinalists in the competition. The final round will happen in April 2009. The link to my entry is: http://yobi.tv/yobifilm/contestants/view/853

Experimental video selected for the 2008 Vivo arte.mov New Media Arts Festival

2008-11-05T13:34:00.000-08:00

Not exactly on the animation side of things but still great news, I have recently been informed that an experimental video I did in 2007 with two friends, Juliana Andrade and Rodrigo Moreira, is part of the official selection of the 2008 Vivo arte.mov New Media Arts Festival in Brazil.

The short 'As vezes, num dia de chuva', mixing live action footage with excerpts from poems of celebrated Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa, was one of the 39 shorts selected out of a total of 625 submitted works. The video can be seen on the festival website: http://www.artemov.net

Discovering Latin America Film Festival

2008-11-05T10:27:00.000-08:00

The DLA Film Festival invited me to show my short film 'Ceci n'est pas une mouche' at 4 of their screenings in the beginning of December as part of their Local Talent selection! The screenings will happen at the Odeon Panton Street and at the Ritzy Picturehouse in London, preceding live action features. You can find all the details on: http://www.discoveringlatinamerica.com/dlaff/schedule/event.php?id=235

Last night there was a warm up party for the festival, and they showed 4 Brazilian short films, 3 of them animated. I noticed mine was the only project animated single-handedly, while the other ones had crews of 5 to 10 people, so I was really proud to be among that group. Another thing that made me smile was that they had an image from my short film on the invite for the event:

Aardman Talent Showcase

2008-10-26T14:26:00.000-07:00

Had some very good news this week: I was invited to show my work at the Aardman Talent Showcase in November! I'm such a big fan of their work - it will be great to get to know some of the people from the studio. If anyone is coming to the event, it will be great to see you there! These are some parts of the panel I've prepared to present my work:

Latest animation work

2008-10-16T03:15:00.000-07:00

I worked on this animation for the Charlotte Street Agency over 15 days. It was very intense, as it's about 2 minutes of animation. I really like the style and character designs they came up with. They provided the animatic and sound effects. Bill Elliot, who studied with me, did the editing, and I did all of the animation. Please check their website for a higher resolution version: http://www.thecharlottestreetagency.com

Festival news!

2008-09-10T16:30:00.000-07:00

My short film 'Ceci n'est pas une mouche':

. was invited to be screened at the Discovering Latin America Film Festival in London!

. will be screened at the National Gallery, London, on 25 September;

. was selected for the Istanbul International Children's Film Festival;

. and in August I was also invited by Time Out to show the film at their event 'On the Up', of up and coming talents!

Final film | Ceci n'est pas une mouche (This is not a fly)

2008-06-23T03:33:00.001-07:00

This is my final film, which was created in only 2 months, from idea to final product. It was a lot of work and not much sleeping, but it was still worth it:

Show Reel

2008-06-22T03:44:00.000-07:00

Some of my 3D and hand drawn animation:

Final project: concept / character design / final version

2008-06-09T02:40:00.000-07:00

The first thing I though of when I saw the painting of 'Saint Catherine of Alexandria' by Carlo Crivelli was how it reminded me of Magritte's 'Ceci n'est pas une pipe' (this is not a pipe). Crivelli painted a real size fly next to a 30cm tall saint, and to me both of these artists were playing with the same ideas of reality and representation. That's where I got my title, 'Ceci n'est pas une mouche' (this is not a fly), which makes a reference to Magritte at the same time that it captures the playfull tone of the story. Here's a link to the painting by Crivelli at the National Gallery website: http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/cgi-bin/WebObjects.dll/CollectionPublisher.woa/wa/work?workNumber=ng907.1

These are some of my tests for character designs. I tried everything, from tall and short, fat and thin, young and old. I tried several kinds of head shapes, legs, arms, hands, noses... I probably have more than a hundred versions. But at one point it all started going in one direction that I felt would be more suitable for how cartoony I wanted it to look, and it had to be a design that would work in 3D. I also explored some different situations and emotions along the way. These are a few of these tests:

This is my final character design in 3 different views:

And this is what it looks like in the final 3D version. I did the modeling, and my mentor, to whom I'll be eternally grateful, did the rigging for me.

Final project: Animatic

2008-05-09T06:06:00.000-07:00

This is my second version of the animatic for my final project. The first version needed a few cuts and a quicker pace, so I came up with this one. The more finished drawings are the parts that I kept from the first try. A guy is at a gallery, sees something in a painting, then realizes it's just a fly painted on the surface. When he turns away, he starts hearing a buzz and every time he looks at the painting it stops. He starts doubting himself, but can't get too close to the painting because an angry cctv camera won't let him:

Week 20 | 2nd assessment

2008-03-14T11:08:00.000-07:00

This is kind of a short film I did from week 17 to week 20 and was the most important project we did during the second term of the course.

At first I had thought of a simple story of a monkey that gets hit on the head by a coconut and tries to eat it, hurts his teeth and gets angry at it. I wasn't entirely happy with the story, but didn't know exactly what to change in it. Then at one point we had a guy from Cartoon Network come over to talk to us, and I showed him my storyboards. He enjoyed it, but suggested I could make it more extreme and also gave me a very important piece of advice: that I should try to give him a personality that would make him react to things differently from any other monkey.

From then on, I made several sketches of the monkey in the craziest situations, until I found a few that had a certain character to them. And that's when I decided to have the monkey be a paranoid, jumpy, neurotic character. Because he would react to the coconut in that way, the story changed completely. It's much stranger and crazier now, and in the end you find out he was right to be afraid all along. I had to spend a lot of time doing work on the story and redoing the storyboards, but because of all this I think the monkey has more character in this version. And because he has a more specific personality, it was easier to make decisions when I was animating him. So here you have my paranoid monkey:

Week 16 | 2nd Lip sync

2008-02-15T09:46:00.000-08:00

For this second lip sync exercise, I used a line from Michael Caine in Austin Powers 3. Don't particularly like the film, but when I was going through some websites this was one of the funniest lines. I had to get it done for our second assessment, but I would like to do some more work on this animation later. The rig I used is PackageMan:

Week 15 | 1st Lip sync

2008-02-08T08:34:00.000-08:00

This was the first lip sync exercise I did. I used a line from Woody Allen in the film Manhattan. I tried to get a lot of action in it because the voice sounds very nervous, tense and preoccupied. The rig is PackageMan and it can be found on the internet:

Week 14 | Facial expressions

2008-02-01T07:44:00.000-08:00

This week was kind of a continuation of the previous projects. The idea was to have a character acting and to play with his facial expressions. That was already something I was trying to do with the other exercises, so I just decided to do it a little over the top with this one. This is a guy at a party who sees the last canape on a tray, goes for it, then realizes it tastes awful. But then he notices his host is looking at him, so he tries to pretend he enjoys it. The rig I used is Alfred, which can be found on the internet:

Week 13 | Two characters interacting

2008-01-25T07:25:00.000-08:00

During this week our task was too animate two characters interacting. It didn't have to be over 6 seconds, but it was hard to have everything happening so fast, and I thought I needed more time to let the characters think and react to each other. I kept in mind that I needed to make the status of the characters clear, that one of them had to be dominating the scene to make their relationship more interesting. So the setup I thought of is a company party where you have two colleagues, one shy and insecure and the other one drunk and outgoing. Something like Biff and George McFly. I changed the color of their outfits to match their personalities:

Week 12 | Acting

2008-01-18T07:11:00.000-08:00

This week we were asked to come up with one character acting. I decided to do an orchestra conductor who takes his job very seriously and a fly that gets in his way. I tried to remember all these little traits from my old orchestra conductor in high school. He had been a conductor in the army for years, so he was very strict. And one thing I remember about him was that he could express his emotions very clearly with subtle changes in his facial expressions, so I tried to get that into this character. The movement of the hands conducting was quite a challenge in itself, and the most fun part was playing with his face:

Week 11 | 4 legged runs

2008-01-11T05:57:00.000-08:00

For this second term our tutor asked us to work more on the 3D so that those of us that hadn't worked with Maya before could actually learn it, and I fell into that category, so all the work I did this term was 3D. I still did all my key poses on paper beforehand and did thumbnail sketches with some ideas before I started animating. It has been a struggle finding a methodology to animate in Maya because it seems each animator works in it in a different way, but during the course of this term I have started to find my way.

This first animation is a test of a dog running. I downloaded this rig from the internet and I liked how flexible it is. I used some live action footage in slow motion for reference and I tried to exaggerate the poses and make it as cartoony as possible. The hardest bit was doing the follow through in the tail and having to key each of the 8 joints separately. I know it can be improved, but I like the final result because the dog looks kinda clumsy and playful:

Week 10 | First assessment

2007-12-07T15:59:00.000-08:00

This week we had our first assessment, so we had to show the work we've done since the first walks and bouncing balls up to the last exercises. The most important one was the mood change walk, for which I only had half the keys when I first posted it. Now, I've finished all the keys and inbetweens and the running time is 21 seconds in total.

The lady takes some steps in a sexy walk, is caught off-guard by a spotlight, turns, sees the audience and tries to cover her body with an embarrassed smile on her face. She tries to sneak out to the other side, but when the spotlight snaps to her new position, she loses balance for a second, only to realize she has uncovered herself again. She looks fed up because of all the trouble she has gone through in vain, then thinks "oh well" doing a little gesture with her hand and with a malicious smile on her face, and finally shows herself off in all her glory. I liked the idea of playing with the stereotypes of beauty and her being proud of her body. I thought it was the right thing for the character because she is always graceful in the way she moves. There is a quote to The Birth of Venus by Botticelli when she covers her body, and I made sure she was very feminine in all of her gestures. Even when she loses balance, I thought it should be almost as if she was dancing ballet:

I also finished the inbetweens for the skinny guy trying to lift the weight from the ground. The timing is a little faster than when I first posted this animation, because back then I didn't have all the drawings and ended up holding some keys for longer. I like it better the way it flows now:

Week 09 | 4 legged walks

2007-11-30T15:35:00.000-08:00

This week we visited the London Zoo and studied four legged animals. For this exercise I decided to do a tiger coming down from a rock and taking a few steps. I spent a while just studying the way they move, and only then I started planning the action and doing the first keys. The positions were hard to get, so each key took a long time to draw, but it was worth spending time planning them. So in this animation the tiger turns, comes down carefully with the front paws, does a little hop down with the rear end, and then keeps walking:

Week 08 | Birds and snakes

2007-11-23T13:33:00.000-08:00

This week we studied birds and snakes. When I was looking for some live action footage in bird documentaries, I saw a scene of an eagle catching a fish in a lake and I thought the action was very interesting. So I used the footage to make my thumbnail drawings when I was planning the action and then I animated the eagle from those. It starts flying down fast, tries to balance in the air a little, gets close to the water, throws its legs to the back for anticipation, than throws them to the front to catch the fish, catches it with its claws in a few frames, then flies up quickly:

For the snake I had first tried doing something very realistic based on some live action footage I found. It didn't really work because the thickness of the snake's body was too even and there were no textures, so you couldn't see the motion really well. I took a look at what they did with Kaa in The Jungle Book and how much they exagerated the parts of the snake, so I tried to do something more stylized. I also had the snake coming down from a tree branch and moving towards the audience instead of just having it crawling along a pole like in the footage. It was still useful to have that reference material for the way the end of the tail moves from one side to the other, it makes it more interesting:

Week 07 | More walks

2007-11-16T12:57:00.000-08:00

This week we focused more on the 3D side - modeling and animation. I had a go at doing the sexy walk with lots of hip action going on and the hands on the hips, Jessica Rabbit style. All three videos are different angles from the same walk:

Week 06 | Fish

2007-11-09T12:37:00.000-08:00

This week we first went to the London Aquarium to make sketches of fish and see how they moved. When I was going through my drawings later, I noticed there was this fish with a huge forehead, and I thought it was interesting because it looked kinda geeky. For the animation, I made the fish swim down the screen with a very tired, far away look. When he reaches the right corner, he sees something, has a "take" and swims quickly to the other side with a scared look on his face. I made him move in perspective in the end, coming towards us. It's all very cartoony, but still I tried to keep its movements based on the real fish I observed. At first I was going to draw a shark and that would scare the character, but I thought that adding another element there would just distract from his reaction, so I left if to the viewer's imagination:

This second one was a first test of fish movement in 3D. It looks more like a tadpole than a fish because it doesn't have all the other details in the modeling, and it was just done to practice how to do the basic tail movement it in 3D:

The third one is my first go at modeling a character and skinning it to the rig to see how that works. I used that first generic 3D walk I did and it wasn't meant to fit particularly this character's personality:

Week 05 | Mood walks

2007-11-02T11:58:00.000-07:00

This week we animated characters walking in a certain mood. This first one I did is a walk with a mood change. A naked fat lady starts with a sexy walk on tip toe and when she reaches the middle of the screen a spotlight goes on. She turns and is surprised that we're all seeing her there, then she realizes she needs to cover herself, and she walks out on kind of a sneak with an embarrassed smile on her face. Usually a character wouldn't take the first step with the leg that is furthest from the direction they're going, but since she wants to hide her naked body instead of spreading her legs, she starts the sneak with her left leg.

The only part with inbetweens are the first two strides, and I still haven't done the rest of the keys, but I'll try to finish that soon and add some more business before she exits the screen. I thought making her fat would be much more interesting than if I had tried to do a skinny model sterotype doing the sexy walk, and I remembered how gracious thouse hippos and elephants were in The Dance of the Hours segment in Fantasia. I tried to make her very feminine in the way she moves, even when she is surprised. When she covers her body, I made it kind of a quote on the Venus pose in The Birth of Venus by Botticelli:

This second one is just a plain generic walk. It was the first one I did in 3D to learn how to use the controls. The character is just the skeleton and I wasn't thinking about any particular mood yet. Those crosses you can see moving are locators for the knees that I forgot to make invisible when I playblasted the video:

This last one is the 3D skeleton doing a depressed walk:

Week 04 | Weight, balance and anticipation

2007-10-26T11:42:00.000-07:00

For this week we had to make a character pick up something heavy from the floor. The original idea was to just have him pick up a bowling ball, but I decided to do something that related more to my own experience and that seemed funnier. So I remembered how going to the gym never seemed the best suited thing for me, and did this skinny guy picking up some weights. I didn't want to make the weights too big so that I could try to make them look heavy just from the animation and not from the scale. This only has the inbetweens for the part where he's going down, and the rest is mostly keys and some breakdowns. I finished the inbetweens later and I'll post the final version under Week 09. The action is faster than this in the final version, but you can get an idea of how it goes:

Week 03 | Follow-through

2007-10-19T10:49:00.000-07:00

During this week we worked on some follow-through exercises. This first one is a bouncing ball like the ones in the previous week, but with a string attached to it:

This second one is a ball bouncing on the spot with a string attached to its side. Should have made the video a cycle, but you can still see it:

Then I decided to do this girl running to practice on the follow-through in the hair. The front angle was really hard to do, but it was a good chalenge. The hair moves a bit too much for the amount of the up and down in her run, but it gives an idea on how it should go:

Week 02 | Bouncing Balls

2007-10-12T14:22:00.000-07:00

On the second week, we worked on ways of portraying different kinds of balls changing the timing of the animation and without changing scale. It was a very good exercise for learning about weight. The first one I did was this bowling ball. The background is a bit dark, I hope you can still see it:

Ping pong ball:

Water balloon. Bouncing a little too far:

3D beach ball. The one we looked at didn't have much air in it, so it didn't bounce much:

3D bowling ball:

3D soccer ball:

3D ping pong ball:

3D "squashy" ball. This was the first one I did in 3D. I exagerated the squash and stretch just to learn how to do it in the computer:

3D water balloon:

2D ball in perspective bouncing down the stairs. I did this one to practice keeping track of the spacing and the scale with the ball coming in our direction:

Week 01 | Walks

2007-10-05T13:49:00.000-07:00

In the first week of the course we were asked to practice walk cycles. The first one I did was this skeleton. I added a bit of follow-through in the hands so it wouldn't look stiff, but I should have added some when the hands are in the back part of the movement too:

The second one I did was this character. I delayed his nose and belly to make it more cartoony:

Then I made a very tired monkey dragging his arms, and tried to give him some personality. I kept his feet off the ground for only a very short moment, to make him look heavy and tired, but his feet ended up looking very sticky. Maybe I'll draw some mud around him later for that to make more sense:

The last one I did was this very stylized confident walk. I reversed the arc of the back during the breakdown to make it more interesting: