Adam Weaver Animation

Smiling, Real, Fake and Chimpanzees.

2012-02-17T06:47:00.000-08:00

http://blog.seattlepi.com/thebigblog/2011/03/31/how-to-recognize-a-fake-smile-msnbc/

'That’s the gist of a study from Bangor University in Wales, which says spontaneous smiles can be spotted by a contraction of the orbicularis oculi — the muscle surrounding the eyeball.'

http://westsidetoastmasters.com/resources/book_of_body_language/chap3.html

I've ripped the section about Chimpanzees here, it comments quite interestingly about how they have are two types of smiles, one to show they are aggressive, and one to show themselves as being submissive to one another. I wonder how many fake smiles in human are submissive behaviour? This could explain why the character Brandt uses a slight one as a gestural indication in Equilibrium. He needs to be submissive to the lies told by the character John Preston. It works, but the smile has to be seen as a gesture than an emotion which is why it works.

'Smiling and laughing are universally considered to be signals that show a person is happy. We cry at birth, begin smiling at five weeks and laughing starts between the fourth and fifth months. Babies quickly learn that crying gets our attention - and that smiling keeps us there. Recent research with our closest primate cousins, the chimpanzees, has shown that smiling serves an even deeper, more primitive purpose.

To show they're aggressive, apes bare their lower fangs, warning that they can bite. Humans do exactly the same thing when they become aggressive by dropping or thrusting forward the lower lip because its main function is as a sheath to conceal the lower teeth. Chimpanzees have two types of smiles: one is an appeasement face, where one chimp shows submission to a dominant other. In this chimp smile - known as a 'fear face' - the lower jaw opens to expose the teeth and the corners of the mouth are pulled back and down, and this resembles the human smile.'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/surveys/smiles

I got 10 out of 10. I can't help but think about at the point where the video stops, how much does it influences the decisions. Depending where it cut alters how much we see of how sharply people pulled back to a neutral state. I guess this is a sign of how much the reading of the emotion is dependent on other sensory information, such as setting, story, context and body language.

https://face.paulekman.com/face/site/TrainingTerms.aspx

Above is the demo for the micro-expression training of Paul Ekmans. On this one i got 40% on the first time of trying to be correct, where i was wrong, i did get the correct answer on the following try (without replaying), wonder how good i could get if i actually practiced.

Tom Shadyac on Jim Carrey and Christian Bale in Equilibrium.

2012-02-12T03:20:00.000-08:00

Before we start, you should really read this all the way through, it is quite an essay, but the end is worth it.

Watching the Bonus material - Bridging the comedy chasm - for the film Liar Liar reveals some of the filming technique that Tom Shadyac uses for Jim Carrey. The run is that basically Shadyac is scared that he'll miss something (on camera) that Carrey does, fearing that he wont be able to get him to do it again. He says "if you come on the set late, you hear that Jim did an amazing thing and then i have to do a whole retake of a scene". So as a rule he has cameras constantly running. This is interesting because it shows how the director has adapted to the to cater for the performer, and begs the question of how much of the films he has directed starring Carrey have been staged. Or put another way, how much of what we see is off the cuff? It has been mentioned plenty of times by Richard Williams and Ed Hooks in-particular about how in animation we work by frames, able to access every essence and individual piece in non-real time, being able to spend how ever long it takes (or some case til the deadline expires) to get perfection. So my first two research artefacts spent trying to produce a baseline performance was a case of the latter. and one of the main issues of surrounding my piece was being able to see silhouettes so that the key poses looked natural from most angles, however, some not so well from the camera angle. I believe, as i said before, this was an issue with laying over Trunk and shoulder movement over the initial pass in the first artefact.

Watching Equilibrium last night made me think how hard it must of been for Christian Bale to keep such an inactive face while filming. From an animators perspective, our job is to bring lifeless objects into life, into performance, and into believability to the audiences perspective. Watching Bale, he had to take a constantly animated object (his body) and keep it confined too key movements, leading with minimal gesture in-order to create the illusion of suppressing emotion. Now there were subtle clues to give the audience some idea that he was thinking, which i'll come to in a minute. The most i've ever experienced of being inanimate is while meditating, concentrating on not thinking and not moving, but even then there is a sense of pulse, the movement of the internal functions, gasp of breath inflating the lungs, which drives out the upper body, and we can never truly be lifeless. Even in death, as the gases leave and the body decomposes we're active, only in thought (and the thought of others) are we dead. The reason i've explained this is too add that extra depth to how Bale communicates with the audience. His eyebrows and lips have little emotive expression for the most part, they . One trick i had noticed was the flicker of the cheek and neck as if he had suppressed his breath or swallowed to show pain, fear, or some kind of deceit, all there to show thought. The latter was indispensable as their needed to be some kind of communication with the audience. There is also the occasional clench of the fist too. In the Featurette below, director Kurt Wimmer talks about this, how he didn't want to give the audience complete zombies, so sub-characters show some slightly more expressed emotion, notably his second partner at his job, and the fascist senior dictator, and the enemies - 'senseoffenders' - could show them too, although oddly, their 'leader' was cold. However, the extras were zombiesque, but how else would you sell the concept of repression on a mass scale without it. Kurt Wimmer also mentions that he chosen Bale because he wanted an actor who could portray emotion, which is interesting as you'd assume he'd wanted an actor who couldn't! Finally, what we did get one character who was zombie-like and was so to be other than to solely add believability and that was the main characters son. He was really freaky, he felt dead-behind the eyes (something us animators strive to destroy) and very suppressed to the point the character himself was unaware (until the end). The only time he shown any sense of thought through the bulk of the film was when showing curiosity/suspicion, and this was purely dialog driven. It really gives off that eerie feeling and no wonder it is a foundation of horror films.

Equilibrium - Featurette - Finding Equilibrium by ohmygore

So, my third research artefact now has a direction, i had the idea before that i was going to look into which was more powerful/believable, a lie with a fake smile, or a lie with a real smile. I feel now that i may use the car scene from Equilibrium in which his second partner questions whether he has taken his dose of 'Prozium' (the sense suppression drug from the film). He lies, but there is also room to play with his reaction after, to reveal the deceit.

Artefact 02

2012-02-09T10:44:00.000-08:00

So my second artefact was presented today. Following on from my first one it was clear that the pose to pose needed to be improved with regard to the trunk and the shoulders movement. So i made a few more passes firstly adding more bounce from the trunk of the body then adding the squash and stretch principles. I then ironed out small nuances within the piece. Before giving the 'P' in the lip-sync cycle more definition.

The feedback from the focus group was that it was better than the first piece in terms of its fluency. However there were still minor issues such as the change between the IK and FK wrist controls had not been made causing the Motionless wrist at points where it needed to be following the motion of the upper arm. Other comments were made about staging, in particular about the silhouettes position at the end, where the wrist finds itself hidden behind the trunk causing the body shapes to look off. Also mentioned about the performance was the idea about bringing back the performance before striking it back up for bigger impact. It was felt that the tone at the end was still too subtle for the vocal performance of Jim Carrey that was in the audio track.

What is interesting between the two artefacts is the approach of working pose to pose initially, and then ironing over that with other principles to generate the fluency of straight ahead, which backs up the long established theory, as spelled out by Richard Williams, that a combination of both pose to pose and straight ahead is the key to a rounded performance. In research carried out by Sophie Magnante from last years third year, she found that working from the hips and then through the body was a productive technique (the experiment can be found by clicking here).

So the basis of my next artefact will be too start by working from the hips outwards and to see if the ironing out process is smoother with regard to the hands. Also, keeping in relation to the context of the written document - conveying lies - i would like to create a performance that has the character produce a lie that is in contradiction between the gestural element and the emotional element, and the two between the dialog. I am unsure how this will work as of yet, presumably there will be two versions of the same scene, conveying both, ultimately to see which is more effective. I am also going to use another Jim Carrey scene, as an extension to the experiment to see if this has any side effects, and again, i'm unsure which seen that may be at the present time.

Concept Sketch for Client Project Environment

2012-02-02T13:36:00.000-08:00

Here is a concept sketch for my environment for my client project-

It has been influenced by Radiohead's Creep video by Monkeehub here:

and also by these adverts about mentalhealth awareness:

I was aiming for a mundane, dull and bland atmosphere for the initial environment. I think at this stge i should be aiming for inorganic modelling processes, box modelling in particular. I think i will keep the majority of the items and 3x2 or 3x1 ration to give the scene some consitenecy with regard to shape and form.

Artefact 01

2012-01-26T08:08:00.000-08:00

http://youtu.be/Iz63qLwfrwU

Please watch the following video on the link above. Because I've used a sound clip which from Liar Liar and it only has a third party content licence i cannot embed it.

The purpose of the first artefact was to show a baseline animated performance through the context of lying, in this case, attempting to lie. The process of this was working through layer between the key poses. I started with the lip syncing, through the following layers:

1) Open/Close path.
2) Wide/Narrow Path.
3) Key Shapes Path.

Then i moved onto the Motion cycles. Initially i worked Pose to Pose shaping the key poses according to the key frame. This was worked over 2 or 3 times. Before finally running an expression path which went through 2/3 passes. Finally another few passes went ironing out any glitches or unsuitable motions.

The feedback was generally positive, which is pleasing personally as my second year animation was poor. Within the context of the research their were still aspects which could be improved, to create a better piece for a baseline performance. I feel it is important to mention at this point that the scene, (from the film Liar Liar) was not copied exactly. The sound was directly from their and the piece at the end where Jim Carey holds the pen up in the air was kept. I never intended to create an exaggerated performance, however, due to the intensity of the dialog it was inevitable that the piece would lead that way. This was an aspect, in hindsight, that i should of seen. However, the general consensus was that the trunk (hip/waist area) was too static, and the change of weight between motion was not sufficient. When the poses met their key points the body was too static, there was no follow-through between the weight which meant it lost its fluency.

It is clear that the trunk needs some work. It was also mentioned that the piece was too long, so the next piece will be a segment of the first and improved on, to create a better baseline performance, which will hopefully give me a platform to progress with the research.

Splitpost: 24 hours to find a connection.

2012-01-24T15:00:00.000-08:00

So yesterday i posted an interesting video by James W Griffiths (located in the previous post) with an interesting video filmed on a Nokia N8. Well, imagine my surprise 24 hours later when an advert pops onto the TV, and.... Wait!

If you haven't watched James W Griffiths video, do so now by clicking here. Then watch the following:

I know, I know. Yep, even the subway. In the context of this discussion, it makes Griffiths effort feel cheap. Thats no disrespect to Griffiths, what he did was brilliant, well planned and well executed, and filmed on a Nokia N8 and probably on the budget of the flight. It's very absorbing.

But why am i bringing this up?

One interesting difference is the use of narrative. Griffiths has used the relationship of two cities as the route to connection, the link is a metaphor for love and friendship that is established at the end. You feel isolated all the way through with it being from a point of view perspective allowing one to speculate where the narrative is going while at the same time allows to be engaged by the shots . Not only are the environments similar (but at the same time different), so is the timing and pacing of the movement between the shots.

The advert (I'm not promoting it by mentioning the company's name) is left in its shadow in comparison. Okay, we know it's all about the visual language, we need to know it's two single people, we need to establish their isolation independently from each other. However, the moment in which they meet has none of the awe that you find in Griffiths Splitscreen. It would appear that the advert is aimed at 25-40 year old middle class, inner-city mock suburbian types, who all have identical lives (although the message is they have an identical problem: they have no one to share there identical lives with), and dream of nothing more than finding the 'one' to go to the cafe with. And therein lies the difference between the two. One is about love, the journey you take for it, and how rewardingly sincere it is at the end. and one is about meeting someone.

The advert is the latter.

Splitscreen: A Love Story

2012-01-22T15:52:00.000-08:00

Found this great little short on http://shootingpeople.org/. A lot of prep and time has gone into the shots and really opens the imagination to what can be achieved on mobile phones, yes, this was shot entirely on a Nokia N8. Wonderful stuff. I love the accuracy in the speed between the shots of looking above to the apartments with the trees flowing by. It only had to be slightly off pace and it would be ruined. That said, with it being made using a mobile phone, it could of been edited on site using a laptop, meaning mistakes were not as costly, and easy to retake. I'm feeling very tempted to get a flight.....

Anyway, Enjoy!

Splitscreen: A Love Story from James W Griffiths on Vimeo.

Some animated shorts...

2012-01-19T08:31:00.000-08:00

Here are a couple of shorts that have been posted on Cartoon Brew over the last few days. The first one, A Good Wife by W. Scott Forbes is a short that is primarily driven by shot (I know all film are) and is a good example of how to composite a narrative structure. It's loosely tied to animation rather than a generalized animation as its presence is very minimal to say the least. Still the timing and pacing of the piece is spot on, with the choice of visual cues very well planned.

A Good Wife from W. Scott Forbes on Vimeo.

The second is a short by 5 graduates titled Swing of Change. It has a lot more animated action than the previous piece, but is a great example of characters experiencing an emotional arc. This arc is at the core of all good animated shorts.

Swing of Change from Swing of Change on Vimeo.

Stills of Pod Racer

2011-12-21T04:41:00.000-08:00

Pod Racer

2011-12-21T01:01:00.000-08:00

Here is the finished piece following the introductory guide to Maya by Digital Tutors (Click name for link). It was modeled, textured, rigged, animated (including dynamics) and lit by myself, i didn't use any of the files that accompany the lesson, however, it remains similar do to the imitative nature of the guide. The shadow for underneath the racer is missing, I had some issues with 'use background' layer, mainly it came out solid black. One solution i found on a forum appeared to work for others, however for me all that happened was i got a completely translucent layer and toying about with the settings in-between only gave me on of those two options, solid or invisible. I've not given up so watch this space.

The guide was very easily broke down, and i found it much easier to absorb than Andy's lessons, (this is due to the way i learn rather than anything negative towards Andy, so don't read into that anything otherwise). You can find Andy's blog here. I'm currently rendering some stills of the racer itself so you will be able to see it in a higher quality and higher detail than you currently can.

Sprawl 2 and I Am A Chain Reaction

2011-12-20T09:22:00.000-08:00

A great new release has been made by Arcade Fire in shape of the video for Sprawl 2. Here is the typical version:

However there is an interactive version that can be found at www.sprawl2.com which is great fun. The movement and choreography of the dancers is interesting. I do not know enough about dance to comment on its style, however, it does remind me of the dynamo rhythm that was developed my Decroux (I have a small pool with which to relate too, so if you know any different, please drop me a comment). It was choreographed by Dana Gingras, with the group under the identity of Animals of Distinction which you can read about here. There is a great piece of work called 'I Am A Chain Reaction' which you can see an excerpt below, and this was taken from here. The rhythm of movement is slick and during the immobile moments i can't help but be reminded of keyframing. The hands, feet and head drive the trunk and the circular motion builds a nice contrast between the immobile poses and the mobile cycles. The animation was completed before, and projected from above during the performance with no compositing.

I Am A Chain Reaction from Presstube on Vimeo.

Back from the dead

2011-12-20T08:50:00.000-08:00

It has been some distance yet again between now and my last post. Now to summarize the first term:

Context 3: My business idea was to stimulate the animation industry within the Birmingham area (My home town, and somewhere lacking in training opportunities of the kind). My catalogue approach was to establish my target audience and then tailor my images to its needs.

Client Project: I selected the YCN feel good drinks company brief and am currently building up different concepts through different marketing techniques.

Research Project: I am investigating the method through which an animator conceives a believable performance and have established three different approaches which are interlinked. Some names of the people who have influenced the research; Etienne Decroux, Jacques Lecoq, Richard Williams, Rudolf Von Laban, Ed Hooks, Angela Tinwell (to name a few). Ultimately, animation will only be progressive through development of techniques that explore interpretation of movement, and not advances in realism. For those of you that haven't looked at Angela Tinwells work should; The Uncanny Wall is particularly insightful. The message: realism is flawed.

For the past week I've been learning Maya, for which i have built and animated a Pod Racer, which should be available later tonight, (or tomorrow, as Motion Blur is desirable).

Exhibition Ideas...

2011-11-19T05:54:00.000-08:00

Have only posted once this (3rd uni) year so far. However, there has been a lot of researching and writing so not much to show.

We are in the process of planning our exhibition and coming up with theme ideas. One that was mentioned in the meeting was to represent the 3 pathways of the course by different elements. Here i have used some abstract photography as a solution:

Although there is not a literal representation of elements I was using colour, tone and ambience. I came across this second image that links our course with the natural theme people liked at the meeting. It looks professional and relevant:

This led me to thinking about having different retro screens representing each pathway, i know the whole retro idea feels a bit corny, but i think with something strong and consistant we can pull it off, here is a representation. (This could also tie in with the image above):

Third Year has landed

2011-10-13T03:50:00.000-07:00

So first year has landed, learnt a lot from last years work to know where needs substantial improvement. So, first up, a preview of my first draft of the Simulated Client project, need to develop the sound, i have the Universities logo and other written information on the hand in version, but i do not want to cause any copyright issues on here.

Iv kept a simple metaphor urging people to 'Lend a hand and donate to the fund'. I am still to develop the concept into the other areas of the fund, but will do as a plant for the client project should i be successful.

Also, something else i thought shows a good understanding of time and movement regarding walk cycles and age, enjoy!

Watch more cool animation and creative cartoons at Aniboom

Small Retrospect on the Dojo Scene.

2011-06-28T02:55:00.000-07:00

After a few weeks away from the piece or work i spent 3 months looking at there are changes i want to make. (However i will incorporate them into the current project im working on)

Firstly, Where i introduced Neo, the build up was completely flat. The shots built up no tension or showed any reaction to the noise... (such as a close up of some floor boards, the foot meets the floor center view and the camera shakes) easy in hindsight isn't it! The facial reaction in this scene was ok but inappropriate as it slowed the pace and tension rather than increase it.

One of the big mistakes in my facial expressions was that they were flat. They never went anywhere inbetween, they went from A to B or in effect the opposite in A to B to X when it should've been A to X to B. Part of this was because i simply didn't produce enough facial morphers. My current character has many more, which i will post up soon!

Anyway, there will no doubt be a more substantial critique one the feedback has been issued!

The Crocus Gallery - Promotional Video

2011-06-28T02:15:00.000-07:00

A joint project that myself and Jack Wright have been worked on in the run up to the end of term. The main focus of the this project, as opposed to others we have produced for the gallery, was to actively promote the gallery. The initial concept was to allow the audience to take a journey through the gallery, so we broke down the narrative into three areas - History, Where the gallery is in terms of growth/it's own journey and where it would like to go. The narrative visually was pretty straight forward; The location, Preparing a show, The launch and the Craft Shop. However, the actual structure was changed (There was extra footage from a previous video re-used near the beginning and the Craft Shop came before the launch!)

Being a small site in comparison to other mainstream galleries in Nottingham, we found we stretched ourselves filming and thus didn't have enough footage. It is important to note at this point that having lots of sculpture will make a cameraman happy! When an exhibition has lots of 2D work (no matter how interesting) the angles to tackle that piece of work are quite limited, we could of used different transitional techniques but an overload produces a tacky piece of work. Sculpture allows multiple angles to take a piece from, freeing up the repetitiveness that takes over the camera shots.

Marketing Made Obvious has gone live....

2011-06-22T07:53:00.000-07:00

You can find it here -

http://www.clarity-in-communication.com/

Some Pictures from the prop production

2011-06-22T06:48:00.000-07:00

The start of the end of year Two part Two.

2011-06-22T04:45:00.000-07:00

The title sounds a right mouth full and thats my intention! So roll back to the deadline day for our second year work, handed in final piece and finally a piece of free time to start my own ideas that had been building up in the back of my mind during the production of the second year project. PING i hear. Curiosity takes over.

An email from a PhD student asking for help producing a two minute ad for a marketing company. With the need to bump up the CV and not much work experience about what harm could it do? (None as it would turn out!) So after a few emails the group that responded met up and went through the narrative working out props, location and equipment and all important Mise En Scene. The client, Clarity Marketing, make clear the priority (after good Vis Coms) was to make it stand out from the rest of the site.

Aysha, the director of the project, was inspired by a scene from the film called 'Why Man Creates'. There is a scene where a man is fighting with props which is was the visual and narrative aim and we agreed that edging it more to the silent movie would edge it out. We literally had no budget except for a few minor expenses.

So we established what needed to be done, sourcing and producing props, hiring out the set with relevant staff and running the production. Although initially i was responsible for the production and post-production (taking a back seat from prop production) is was clear that the amount of work needed was going to require as much help as possible so i chipped in with that, using my apartment as HQ. I secured the equipment through the university as well as the set to film (Room 106B) and enlisted a good member of production team in Tobias Sample and a good camera man in Kieron Powis. This would mean i could focus on the running of the production with helping actors and setting up shots on the day.

Anyway, back to the production, we sourced an incredible amount of cardboard (44 Banana boxes and 6 or 7 big crisp boxes). The banana boxes were all wrapped in wall paper and then 42 were painted grey. The door was made out of two old portfolio folder boxes and roof tiles individually cut out of card and stuck to a cardboard roof and also painted. This process was considerably long to how long we presumed it would take - a week and 2 days at 12 hours a day between four people!

On the filming days (we had booked out 2) we wanted to get as much done as we could on the first day allowing the second and final day for any changes. However, building the physical structure took a few hours longer than we had anticipated. Thankfully the cast were patient and around 1pm we started filming. We carried right through until 7pm and surprisingly had a substantial amount of the filming complete. We tackled the most complex scenes 1st (where all the actors were involved for instance). This proved wise as the second day went very smooth and was over at 2pm. Leaving plenty of time to clear the room and get the footage set into folders ready for post production.

Post-production required a lot of patients in getting the flow of the advert right. We sped up most of the footage to give a silent era pacing and for the visuals we ramped up the levels which proved useful because it stretched the pixels and they became quite grainy and flickered from where the PC had interpreted the data change. Using the tritone i added some blue to the shadows which added a darker edge to the film and a vignette for extra impact.

My Favourite shot has to be the close up of the technician hammering the roof tiles. I think every aspect of above works and the lighting was spot on. In future in maybe useful to ad a gloss to surfaces in order to get that consistency in the light bounce. The client loved the final piece.

Below you will find the finished version:

Plans for Summer 2011

2011-05-29T04:59:00.000-07:00

So Whilst completing my university project iv had a few ideas burning in the back of my mind. One is a character that is a circular shape stuck in a square world. Initially i'm just going to produce the character thinking about it's movement, its reaction to horizontal and vertical objects and develop the narrative from there.

Initial ideas...

Texture Used for Skin....

Body Motion

This is an example of the body movement when rising out of his shell. the biggest problem was the eyes - they do not follow the skin as it travels inwards/outwards on the rise/fall. I am in the process of remodeling the skin so it has the eyes attached.