References

Here are a number of references that I have shared with the group so far. 


I was very intrigued by the talks given at the Phoenix during the AnimateExeter trip last week and so I decided to reiterate a number of the topics addressed by Heather Wright  (Executive producer/head of commercials and branded content at Aardman) and also film maker Joanna Quinn.


Heather described how they generate ideas for advertising to tackle short turn arounds for potential clients, according to a set brief. They almost have to bid for the jobs, so they gather images that reflect the feel of the advert they'd propose to create as oppose to churning out designs for a job they might not get. They generally source these from their own archive but mainly because it is so big.


Heather had chosen a case study of one of Aardman's pitches, which was an advert for Swedbank. It was interesting to see how it had all come together.

This is where I had suggested to gather images ourselves in a similar way, but instead, to source them from anywhere. 


In Joanna's talk on her work, she shared several of her working methods for her animation. I thought her most interesting points were how she dealt with character designs and story-boarding. She claimed to do both initially in her sketchbook, doing drawings of her characters over and over again and placing them in scene from various angles. She preferred not to draw her panels in a box, but instead she would do a drawing of a interesting angle or scenario and then drawing her box lines around it afterward. This way she wouldn't feel limited by the constraints of box before starting.

Pages from Joanna's sketchbook

This method seem to help generate some of the most interesting angles for her animations,  this is immediately event in her showreel.

Joanna also tries to keep her drawings interesting when animating too, as she describe the way she goes about it in this video of her animating.

I too hope to break out of the conventions of flat animation so I can create more interesting animations containing scenes with depth. I think one of the most challenging things is for 2d animation to keep up with how cinematic 3D animation can be when compared to live action. Perhaps this is why 3d animation dominates mainstream cinema today.

This Marvel comics story-boarding tutorial also shows a few examples of how they achieve more striking panels for their readers . After all, comics have to grab you attention with still images so it helps if the angles used for their pannels are as interesting as possible.