MuntyAC

we now had our focal point; homelessness in the city. Now the difficult part really began, what was the story of this homeless person. We really wanted to have a strong story with something that left an impact on the viewer, something that made the viewer question something about themselves. I don't think Poli or Maddy were too interested in the script writing, which really saddened me because I thought they had great ideas but I think they were hurt that their ideas were being shot down. My main goal was to have a great group environment where everyone was eager to put their ideas forward even if they weren't used in the end. Because of this the group kind of got broken in half, with me and Indya on pre production and Poli and Maddy on the animating part. Maddy spent this session creating the main characters, a dude and a dog,  Poli also was practicing a walk cycle for the animation. I don't know why but Indya seems to argue more with me when we're in a grou...

The group session today was a mix of good and bad. The good is that we finalised that the the focus of our animation would be on homelessness, and Annabeth mentioned the big issue magazine. Indya jumped on that idea, obviously excited by it. Me and Poli didn't have a clue what it was and was shocked to find out that it was an organisation that helps homeless people get back on their feet by encouraging them to sell magazines instead of begging, their motto; working not begging.  The bad of the group session was us coming to that conclusion. We spent so much of the group session trying to explain our ideas and each member of the group had a different way of explaining and we all were struggling to understand each other. I can see this being a real issue because we were all getting frustrated that the group wasn't understanding each other's ideas and when we did understand, the ideas weren't always agreed upon. I wanted everyone's ideas to be apparent in ...

I don't consider myself the most creative person so coming up with an interaction wasn't the easiest thing for me, overthinking is where I tend to fall short. With that in mind I decided to have my interaction be a fairly basic concept. One block pushes another into a third block, the third block gets angry at the second and tries to push it back but the second jumps out of the way hitting the first instead. To me this was a really basic idea and not really pushing the creative parts of my brain. I have to say that I'm quite glad that I chose to this 'basic' idea.  I first realised that I would have a lot to do when I was making the bar sheet, on which I messed up on the first attempt, mixing up the colours I was using to differentiate the boxes. I decided to take my time with this having started it earlier that was asked so I could put more work into the final outcome.  I decided not to stray away from the idea and simplifying it further when I was h...

Its staggering how quickly these past 7 weeks have gone, maybe because I'm getting older but time really is flying and I really need to step up into another gear. I think Adam is the only one who has done some work on 'the city' and talking to him about it was really interesting, I really admire his ambition to push what is asked of us. A definite example of what we should be working like. When Annabeth told us to separate into groups the awkwardness amongst our table was so high, I found it hilarious. Firstly watching Chris drag Adam away was comically sad, I don't think Adam minds but I can tell he's not ecstatic about his group.  For me on the other hand I had Poli and Indya on my table and they really wanted to be in a group with me, and me with them but working with friends doesn't always have the best results. Stephen and Madaline were on our table as well but because we were going to be working primarily in 2d, Stephen was unfortunately excluded a...

First off I have to start by staying this was definitely the most painful day I've experienced. The unforgiving nature of stop motion angers me to a level I can't understand. I will learn to love this as I can see the benefits and skills it teaches, a real life practical application of timing and spacing. Joe and Johnny always say don't start an animation without planning so I've been strictly abiding by those rules, which tends to mean I spend a good amount of time planning before I even enter the stop motion room.  This being my second pendulum animation, I decided it would be best this time to have an actual video reference which was a crude video of a pen swinging from some headphones, I was in a public space so it was a bit embarrassing to record. From the video what I learned was how the pendulum comes to a stop, the swings a short obviously but they are incredibly slow, and moving in other directions rather than just left to right.  I did a bar she...

In my opinion this was the worst lecture we've had. Me, Indya and Poli were siting quite far away from the lecture but I can honestly say that made no difference. We couldn't hear a word of what he was saying for most of the lecture. He showed us a video of these criminals killing a police officer and an incredibles scene. The incredibles scene was really informative as it showed different stages of the scene with and without the foley effects.  However the police video was just confusing, I couldn't understand why he showed it to us, the acting was hilarious and atrocious at the same time. From the small parts I did pick up, foley is an art form of which the artist creates sounds using different objects and materials.  Because I couldn't hear what the lecture was about I had to some research and I surprised to find what objects were used to recreate the sounds. For example, the sound of breaking bones is a breaking celery or a head of lettuce and a birds flapping w...

Speaking to other classmates, I keep hearing that they're don't think they're learning much but everyday I'm hearing new terms and language. Psychogeography is how a certain place makes you think and feel and annabeth wanted us to apply this to our city brief. Coming from Manchester, and walking around the city I get the feeling of fear and anger. I'm not entirely sure why, but I do think that the city's feel has changed over the past recent years. I personally don't feel afraid, but it's just an atmosphere I sense when walking around the city. This guy wasn't too happy with me taking his picture while he was eating   We were asked to go out and draw things around media city that interested us, for me media city doesn't offer the right stimulation for drawing with it mostly being buildings and the last time I drew here I didn't enjoy myself. So I decided to be a bit more picky with what I was drawing looking for things that we...

I can really understand why all the lecturers call Maya the beast, but so far from what we've been shown and work we've been set, Maya seems to do most of the work for me. Obviously as time passes i can only see it getting more and more difficult. I feel like the the purpose of the pendulum is to fix in our minds the importance of arcs, also drilling in slow in and slow out. I've been trying to do a lot of research on pendulums by watching physics videos explaining how the energy transferred . The time of the oscillation remains very close the original swing, however the pendulum moves in other directions. I think having my own pendulum video for when i go in to stop mo would be most beneficial to me. So far Maya hasn't done me any pain, and the same for pendulum. I do think I've made the pendulum hang too much in the air for the first few swings. I went off a rough bar sheet i made (black line) and made what corrections to what i thought looked more natura...

Stop motion has been the most tedious form of animation, but what type of animation isn't tedious? I thought for once id be a friend to myself and do a very simple anticipation. The same i had planned for Maya but for this i knew i would need a bar sheet as the timing would be more tricking and i didn't have the wizard in Maya to do it for me.  I can appreciate the reason why stop mo is in the criteria for the first module, as it fully conveys the way animation works; timing and spacing. I have also found that the more frames you do, normally the better. The problem i had was i was too focused on making sure the blu tack wasn't visible in the shot, i think because of this the first tilt looks shaky. After looking a few other students animations they don't seem to care that its visible so i think ill care less that it was visible as i took up so much time hiding it.    anticipation from muntasir chowdhurry on Vimeo .

I started this project as I would any other, creating a mood board of the theme. I found out quickly though a lot of the images I was searching for looked super similar and wasn't really engaging me. I decided to do some further reasearch and look at other cultures and religions, and what their highest form of evil was. I thought looking at one of the oldest civilisations would be a great starting point. The Egyption were obsessed with the afterlife and their God of death, Set ruled the underworld. He was in the shape of a jackal. The theme of anthropomorphised animals or a mutation of sorts created demonic creatures. The Egyptians we also fascinated with magic and sorcery, another running theme I found amongst the dark arts. While I was looking through Christian views on the devil, I was facinated to find out that the different names of Satan, Beelzelbum, Leviathan were all aspects of the 7 deadly sins. At this point I thought I had enough ingredients to create Devils and demons....

Week 4 came so quickly doesn't seem like I've spent a month at university, perhaps because I haven't been doing enough work and it's something I need to remedy as soon as possible. As it was our first class of this module, Annabeth just listed the objectives of this brief, boring me half to death but it was full of information I need or will need in time. A main aspect of this brief seems to be documentation hence 'making of'. Annabeth introduced the idea of Video Essays which seemed to me to be informative Vlogs of sorts. The Art for Lawyers video she showed us was the highlight of the lecture, it was light and funny giving some levity to (in my opinion) a dark and depressing job.  I don't think this form video essays will come naturally to me but so much doesn't. I do think that in a group it would have many benefits and strengths, and those who feel comfortable on camera will shine. Annabeth also mentioned that we would be producing a prese...

The day started off in the base room, the randomness of where we start the day always confuses me. Maybe there is a routine but it's not something I've picked up on. Annabeth told us the actual function of tilt shift, my stupid self thought it was just an Instagram filter. The effect was strongest from above and gave the illusion that everything as toys, I'm still confused on how that it actually worked but it could be something we use in the city brief when we start working on it. She then showed use some videos using pixilation such as a Peter Gabriel music video which I thought was directed brilliantly, she also mentioned that Jan Svankmajer also used this technique, which makes sense because pixilation is essentially the stop motion illusion in real life. Darkness Light Darkness (1990) by Jan Svankmajer (mp4 360p) from Ron Schijfs on Vimeo .  I was sitting in the back next to Indya and we got separated into groups so we got paired up which i was quite ha...

Today's class only featured Joe, Johnnys been off with family problems so I hope all is well with him. The day before, our creative play class was cancelled so we formed a group to prepare work for next session. However we didn't do much all day and Joe had seen us and decided to put us on blast in front of the rest of class, but I guess we deserved for being lazy but I think getting to know the group should help us produce work we all can enjoy.  Also I told Joe that I broke a part of the tripod so I was feeling slightly anxious that I might be in trouble, but the way Joe explained to report these problems, it didn't seem too big of a deal.  After class I'm starting to get into the habit of working in Maya. Maya holds so much to explore, finding all these routes to explore seems so daunting and strenuous. I do think once I have a grasp on Maya I'll be able to create work I'm proud of. I was in animation computer room with Paige working on the tasks...