I was paired with Lily Jenkins for the UAL simulated work experience.

First she told me that she wants to do a traditional or mixed media animation probably on paper based on many observational drawings she made. She showed the animatics so we could have an idea of how the film should be. I thought it’s an exciting idea.

Lily then asked to do some inbetweens for a rough animation in TV Paint that she will use as reference for the final animation. I did it based on the 4 keyframes she sent me and didn’t touch her keyframes as advised. Her keyframes are the ones with thicker line on the animated character:

Secondly she asked me to get some photo or video references of atmospheric light. I’m still working on that.

Lily is aware of the March 8th deadline of the exercises we have to hand on, so I didn’t feel any pressure or hurry from her, which is really kind. I’m not sure what she thought of the inbetweens or the pictures I showed her, but I said I want to help further than just for 2 weeks, as I think it’s a lovely film idea and I’m really curious about how this will look like in the end. Also I enjoyed helping the graduation NFTS animation film before, and I’m open to further experiences like that.

I wish I had registered in the beginning that she was working on 3s and did all the work in 3s from the beginning. I never animated a whole second or more in 3s, an even number 4s would sound more confortable for me. I animated in 2s and had to change in the end when I realised it had to be in 3s, which gave a different feel to it.

I think it would take some time to be able to do this kind of tasks in a studio after I finish the MA. I would imagine you would start helping animators with clean up, or tidying puppets and replacement mouths, etc.

At first I was scared as she intended the shot to have about 6 seconds, which is a lot of frames. However later I was advised that we should do just the inbetweens, and I realised that to be able to do the whole 6 seconds you need way more than 4 keyframes, and that extra keyframes should be made by the director or a senior animator to have the intended timing of the events and emotions of the characters.

The collaboration was helpful not only for some animation practising, but also to use more TV Paint, which I started using a bit after the rest of the class. That was a good decision as the initial exercises were simpler, then more practical to do in the lightbox than the latest exercises that are way more complex and time consuming. I realised in the first week of the collaboration I didn’t manage to do any more on the exercises to hand in for the deadline of the 8th of March, nevertheless as I was using TV Paint I considered it useful as a way to get more used to it and hopefully faster in it for the exercises that need TV Paint.

I’m not sure doing a rough animation in TV Paint before doing the final one in paper or mixed media is better than going directly on paper. When I did a short film on paper I intended at first the pencil animation as reasonably rough and the clean up would come with the colouring of the frames. I’m not sure doing TV Paint rough animation before becomes a real advantage. Don’t appreciate the idea of shooting twice in different media. If possible I prefer spending more time planning and experimenting than doing 2 or more times the same animation. This way it really looks 2D animation can really take much longer to plan and shoot than stop motion, which seems sometimes hard to accept. TV Paint may be useful for animatics in stop motion if you don’t have any puppets ready yet.

Having the MA going on and at the same time helping with the NFTS film, and also doing Stop Motion 2 from Aardman Academy this term was really hard. I felt time for the exercises of the MA, the Aardman course and the NFTS film was not ideal, felt rushing all the time. But if I left the NFTS film and the Aardman course for the second year of the MA, it would be even tighter in time. On the other hand, if I left the film and the other course to do after finishing the MA, chances are they would not have been done as I may be working or making another film.

I’m really happy I chose Stop Motion as pathway choice in my course. That was what I really wanted. My work helping the NFTS graduation film made me more confident and experienced in making small props for stop motion films. I did the main character’s chair, 2 photo holders and 2 cups to join the robot crane in the Biscuit Factory film. I’m really looking forward to see them and the whole film the NFTS screening tomorrow!!! We saw the robot crane animated in a shot when we delivered the last cups etc. and it was amazing. Made me wanting to do more for other films!!!

Update: The NFTS screening was amazing. The film name was changed to “The Last Biscuit”, and it can be seen at:

In terms of puppet making and film shooting in the Stop motion pathway I had a mixed experience. I felt confident in clay modelling as I’m experienced in sculpting, however I felt puppet making in felt was too rushed for me, and I think a more consistent and systematic approach from the visiting lecturers would have helped me finish the puppets in a better standard. Some more time would help to finish them, and also animate better the clay puppets. The experimental puppets look better finished but obviously have functional issues due to the choice of materials not being done before knowledge of that was presented, but I enjoyed making them too. On top of that, making puppets before developing a story will always bring limitations in functionality, mainly for unexperienced makers.

On the other hand, shooting the clay puppet worked reasonably in the first day, and not that well in the next class. Not having a too restricted time pressure to do that would have sorted it for me. I’ll do my best not to have to rush in animating in the future, especially in stop motion. But animating the pixilation and the charcoal drawings had the right level of time and pressure so the results were much more satisfying. I really want to explore some more pixilation with people and animating mixed media with paints, etc. in the future, as well as scratching film stock etc. Link for the pixilation film:

https://vimeo.com/803607493

I enjoyed working with the group I did for pixilation. Me, Jonathan, John and Amal were friendly, fun and focused on doing a great film. Everybody was listened with lovely contributions for the story and shooting, we could all participate and the result of the focus on a good story was well worth it. It’s the funniest and most interesting piece of animation we did at UAL so far in my opinion. I’m sure we’re all proud of that and I would love to work with them again in similar conditions.

Unfortunately this year, the Stop Motion 2 course from the Aardman Academy is being great, but didn’t really help with the Stop Motion pathway as that course is really focused on performance, animation, with no emphasis on puppet or prop making. It’s a different objective, enjoyable in a different way. But it helps with the lip sync and other animation exercises we’ve been doing in class, as they’re about more advanced performance in animation too.

https://vimeo.com/802383384

We had these workshops in 2022 / 2023.

The storyboard workshop was helpful to see again techniques of storyboarding, camera angles, etc. and practise them, which will help me organise better the shots for my final animation film and hopefully future ones. Bianca is always pleasant to see and her organised and practical approach keeps the lectures dynamic, useful and engaging. Sue Tong approached the staging in another way emphasizing good composition guidelines and also showing great examples in films etc.

Her character design last term certainly adds to developing proper characters that can keep the stories interesting for the audience. With character design techniques from Robert Bradbook’s workshop on top of that, also with very good examples and systematic didatic approach, and Sue Tong’s approach to colour pallettes, I believe I have lovely tools to develop characters to be as good as they can be to support a story with appropriate strength for the films I want to do. Also the character performance and construction techniques from the performance workshops add to all that too.

Different approaches and many examples in storytelling techniques from Robert’s and the performance workshops will also help with character construction and telling lovely stories. I feel we are given many useful techniques and approaches, and if the need comes for them in any part of the development of films / characters they will help me improve my work.

We had very interesting performance workshops in UAL in 2022 and in 2023.

We had theatre classes in 2022 mainly concentrated in Laban and Stanislavsky. They look at reasons for actions, scales of intensity, etc. Stanilavsky’s 7 questions were also discussed at the Character Design workshop.

It was very interesting seeing and practising techniques to improve performance and relating them to emotions and instensity. Anything that helps in better performances in the LAVs obviously will help in better animation of characters.

It was really tiring and exciting, however also a good way to do some light exercise. And so much fun. Acting in LAVs certainly helps me animate. Also it help you keep and increase the level of playfulness in animation work, that is essential for good animations in my opinion. Creativity many times comes from your inner child.

I don’t understand how most students can’t see the importance and fun of these classes. Some of them probably think they can get away without having to do any proper video reference themselves to animate, or even trying to act some movements of the character. I’m not really extrovert, although I learned that caring too much about other people’s opinions is a prison. I don’t care if people think I’m odd performing a monkey reaction. Some kids are sent to theatre classes to become less shy and have fun, and some adults are too shy to enjoy them. Nonsense.

Yesterday we had a different performance workshop, though. There wasn’t much acting and we had much less physical activity, but still had fun and looked in techniques of storytelling, and character construction of an emotional point of view and using some of the classical archetypes of stories. Also looked at character construction techniques as a way to generate story ideas.

It was challenging to shorten a story without losing the details that work as its “colour” or “shine”. But it helps keep an eye of the essence and get rid of unnecessary parts that would be just extra work to animate. The character construction techniques may be useful too to help with audience impact, generating new stories and character development.