#AnimationDay

I didn't know it was animation day yesterday. According to http://asifa.net/international-animation-day it commemorates this first public performance of this film:

 

In celebration of Animation day I thought I'd share one of the animation films that I not only love but that also made me want to be an animator. It's Yuriy Norsteyn's Hedgehog in the fog.



Yuriy Norsteyn is an amazing Russian animator who made stunningly beautiful movies. I hope I get round to writing more about him some day because he is a truly fascinating artist who has influenced many other and who was called "a great artist" by the wonderful Hayao Miyazaki himself (right here: http://www.theblackmoon.com/Deadmoon/spiritedaway2.html).

Mother Moor

Two years ago, I went to what is known in Scandinavia as a folk high school called "The European Film College" in Denmark. For my final film project, I was an animator and sound designer on my friend Niels Harpøth's directorial debut "Mother Moor", which has been put up on the EFC website. You can find it here http://www.europeanfilmcollege.com/ either on the home page or under student film > final projects. It is the most fun I have had on a project so far and given the fact that it was our first animated film together, I am still quite happy with how it turned out. 

Little bit of animation

This is a little thing I did a couple of days ago. I realized too late that the balloon doesn't fall perfectly on the second step, but I thought it was high time I shared a little bit of actual animation work. So here is a small preview of a work in progress.

Drawing workshop: Make your own drawing tools!

To be fair, after having made our own sketchbooks, we should have seen this one coming. The day before our drawing session, we received an email from our tutor which read "We'll be making drawing tools tomorrow as part of the morning drawing session. Please bring with you anything that can be adapted into a (new) drawing tool". Of course.

I brought a toothbrush, some string and a stick. I ended up using these: 

A toothbrush, a stick with a bit of sponge attached to it by some string, and a spongy stick thingy.
Also, a bottle of ink.

Initially it was all about getting to know the materials we were using, trying out different things to see what kind of texture we could achieve. I'm not sure I did what I was supposed to do, because I quickly just started drawing people and objects in the room but I had fun doing it and I think it helped me to break away from the way I usually draw.

The one furthest away in this picture is the first thing I did. Just a bit of fun

Then we sat in pairs and made blind contour drawings of each other. I initially found it hard to let go of the desire to achieve a good drawing but after a while frustration was replaced with hilarity at squiggly lines and odd proportions and I ended up enjoying the process quite a lot. 

I found using the purple sponge stick (honestly I don't know what they're called) easiest for this but the toothbrush made for some interesting results as it didn't hold enough ink for a whole drawing and I had to scratch the paper more and more for the lines to become visible.

I'm not sure how well I did overall, since everybody seemed to have a different approach to the exercise which made it hard to compare myself to them. However I did like drawing in a new and unfamiliar way. I think it gave me a different perspective on how I normally draw and there is something quite liberating about that. 

The illusionist's toolkit: making your own sketchbook

Our main module is called "the illusionist's toolkit" which is a great name for a module for three reasons.
Number one: it contains the word "illusionist" and that it a great word. As someone who loves words almost as much as moving pictures I have to say the sound of that one, as well as the idea of a person who creates illusions makes feel warm and happy inside.
Number two: "toolkit" - another words that's fun to say because it contains two completely different syllables. Think about it, the round and long "tool" together with the sharp and edgy "kit": it's a beautiful story of star-crossed lovers.
Number three: The combination of those two words means that we are illusionists who, in the course of our studies, will a acquire a set of tools designed to be used together for a particular purpose (that definition of "toolkit" comes from dictionary.com in case you were wondering). I like this idea because it demystifies what we are doing and makes it look more like a skill that one can learn, yet the words used to communicate this idea still sound magical.
It's a great combination of magic and practicality.

But I digress. Over the last five weeks we have been told about the importance of drawing in sketchbooks many times. I mean many times. Draw every day! Draw everything you see! Draw all the time! Have a look at this website: http://www.scott-eaton.com/2014/on-sketchbooks-and-drawing#more-2798  (I actually agree with my lecturer here and think you should look at this website)!
Of course sketchbooks are a lot scarier than one might think. Especially if you want to get really artsy and you buy one of those beautiful expensive sketchbooks (I won't name names but the first syllable rhymes with hole and the second is an homonym of the thing covering your body). I have felt that dread many times, when I opened a new sketchbook and it had beautiful unused white pages. I worried. I worried that I would sully it with my ugly art and that I had wasted my money on something I just couldn't do.
So obviously, last week we made our own sketchbooks. I wish I had taken pictures while we did it and I guess this is a lesson for me but here is the final result.
                

 

We took a few sheets of A2 paper and folded each until they were A5 and then sowed them together. The cover is made of grey board but I haven't glued mine on yet. Also, my sowing skills aren't exactly the greatest but the book serves its purpose.
The idea is, if you stop thinking of your sketchbook as a holy object whose purity must not be damaged and start seeing it as a simple "number of blank sheets of blank or ruled paper bound together for writing, recording business transactions, etc." or in our case drawings (thanks again dictionary.com), you might find it a lot easier to just draw and forget everything else.
I'm almost half-way through mine.

Walk cycles

So apparently, there must always be a reason to walk.
I think I get that. Having spent a morning animating a pointless walk I can understand why nobody would want to look at a boring walk cycle. I didn't really enjoy making it but at least I get the satisfaction of having done something of my own. If you're just looking at someone's walk cycle and it's nothing but a generic character walking generically without a single trace of motivation, I understand why you'd get bored.
That's why we need to think of many things before we animate. Who is the character? How old is he/she? What's their social status? And of course Why are they walking? What are their needs and thoughts? What emotional state are they in?
I can't help but feel slightly overwhelmed by the sheer amount of things to consider, especially since so far 2D animation has proven to be quite challenging for me. I can't wait to get started on a walk in stop-motion.
If there are so many things to consider, will we be able to manage the simple mechanics of walking or will we get lost? What's more important for an animation student? The mechanics of the walk or the emotions behind the walk?
I intend to find out this week.

What am I doing here?

Six weeks ago I said goodbye to my parents, my brothers and my dog and left Germany to move to the Uk for three years. Sometimes people ask me why.
I think that's a perfectly sensible question. The problem is that I don't have a sensible answer other than "I just really wanted to" (then there is a whole speech I could give about how I don't really like the way the German film industry is going but that's a topic for another time).
The main thing is: I moved to England because that is where I wanted to be right now. I wanted to be in the country where people drink tea and speak the coolest kind of English, the country of Doctor Who, Stephen Fry, Harry Potter and Wallace & Gromit. I might not grow old here but so far I don't regret my choice.