[su_vimeo url=”https://vimeo.com/149524942″]

Artist Statement:

When I first started this project I knew that I wanted to mix live action footage with animated characters and elements, although it was something that I never had done before. I filmed most of the footage in my Dad’s backyard and the waterfall scene at Multnomah Falls. Already the fantasy aesthetic was taking form. I began modeling a racoon in Maya but it eventually just became a random beast. While modeling Gnombey, I was set on using a fur system for his hair and beard. I ran into a lot of problems with the UV maps and painting the hair, but I eventually figured it out and was able to use it. I had to use a program called Autodesk Match Mover in order to track my footage and create a virtual camera in Maya. This allowed me to animate my characters and have the same camera movements that matched the real footage. I also wanted to use motion capture in this project to animate my characters, so I used a Microsoft Kinect and a program called Brekel Pro Body to capture my motion and apply it to the characters. The mocap clean up process proved to be too much of a learning curve with my time constraint so I opted to not use it and just animated by hand at the last minute. Because of the time constraints and my last minute changes, I was not able to do as much as I originally had hoped. I planned to do more color correction, more sound design, and add shadows to the characters to blend better with the footage. Overall, this was more of a proof of concept for myself, and while I see a lot of room for improvement, I am still happy with the result. I learned a whole lot and I plan on taking what I learned in this project and applying it to future projects to create even better videos.

Sounds:

https://freesound.org/people/NIkhill%20Kumar/sounds/320330/

http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Jan_Morgenstern/Sintel_Original_Film_Score/4-Expedition

http://freesound.org/people/sergeeo/sounds/159565/

http://freesound.org/people/jobro/sounds/134768/

http://freesound.org/people/zimbot/sounds/117137/

http://freesound.org/people/Julien%20Matthey/sounds/105016/

http://freesound.org/people/unfa/sounds/187119/

https://vimeo.com/149259871

Using custom made rigs and models to create a weird, surreal world for a little narrative. Had many troubles with the models and rigs themselves, so floating, clipping, chain breaking, etc. Were all a problem. Attempts to mitigate those issues were hit or miss, but adds a bit to the cartoony aspect in some cases. I feel somewhat satisfied with the end results as far as general movement goes, especially considering the characters I was using. Mostly fluid and somewhat believable movements with deliberate cartoony actions as well. Rigid, slow, or odd movements exist, but were kept to an acceptable. minimum.

For this project I created a Public Service Announcement for Vancouver community access television. I chose to address the issue of littering. It may seem like a trivial subject but it is something that has always bothered me. When I was 18 I was able to visit Switzerland. When I saw how clean the streets were in their country, I wondered why our streets at home couldn’t look as nice.

I created most of the figures and backgrounds with Adobe Illustrator, which I then imported to After Effects. I used a combination of vector graphics and digital collage. This use of collage was influenced by Terry Gilliam’s illustrations for Monty Python.

For the background music I used a piece called “Perfect Corporate” by MagikStudio. It is a moderate paced electronic song with a contemplative feel. The soft sound works as a backdrop for the animation while providing an upbeat rhythm that propels the action.

There are a few things that I would like to add to this video in the future. I had originally envisioned more animations in the background and more use of collage in the latter half of the video. In addition, I would like to rerecord the voice over and possibly add more lines of dialogue. Overall, I am still happy with this version for the time being.