RICHAL JaJi

So today’s class was fun! We started off with an acting exercise where we imitated any person who is walking in the circle with us. We did gesture drawing, contour drawing and also played few games too! Everything we did today was about catching the little nuances in every action and then projecting them in our animation, observation was the key. We also did a fun activity of revising the 12 principles of animation where we acted out the principle and others had to guess, if the action was interesting there was a quick gesture drawing session. Post drawing we started with the new maya assignment where we are now animating a the hum of a lamp, this time we are dealing with giving the lamp, an inanimate object a character, a life of its own. Sir taught us the basics of the skeleton, post break we started off with animating the jump.  

So today in Film studies we wrote a one pager, seven liner which consists of seven points that we are supposed to cover, Set up Inciting action Rising action’s mid point(that brings spice to the film) Rising action Climax Resolution. While writing one pager synopsis, we had to keep in mind that we do not include the visual and audio effects that are given to the story, cause that is included in the treatment which we learned to write later. In treatment, we wrote about the visual appearance of the shot, what audios made it look the way it did and how it was appealing due to the effects that were added. It basically is a very descriptive way of writing the story that primarily consists of its effects and informative visuals.

So today in project management class we did not continue with the subject cause we have covered most of it. Sir reviewed all our animation assignments and helped us understand where we were going wrong and explained us how we could apply principles of physics during the making by understanding simply how it affects and works rather than using it mathematically. We should always go with what feels right to our heart, that will always help us represent something that’ll feel right to the audience. That was all for today, sir will review the ones that are remaining on Monday.

So today in drawing foundation, we started making storyboards for our animatic project, we referred to the handout that were given to us. Post making rough storyboards we got it reviewed from sir and it helped us understand what panels were getting the idea across and which were not. He also explained why omitting certain panel would work cause they weren’t really providing any specific important details or information. Also how adding more frames to show transition could help, for example to show the evolution of the kid into an adult would require more frames cause that’s the mid point of the story. Following below is my rough storyboard

So today in drawing foundation, Sir reviewed our assignment, where we were supposed to showcase all emotions in a thumbnail drawing. Post review we discussed individually with sir about our animatic project, it’s story and how we visualise it. In drawing foundation we would be making thumbnail storyboards of the same. Sir pointed out things that I had missed completely, for example establishing the connection/ relation of the hands and the kid. He also helped me figure out how I could establish that, simply by putting up some wall hanging of photo frames of the kid and father and how over time his father is losing his identity/ visibility.          

So in today’s class we revised what a story consists of and also how a tagline, log line and synopsis are written. I tried many tag lines and I also named my film “Kashti” the tag line that I am going with is the “ is there a shore?” The log line for my story is, A kid growing up to question his never ending monotonous life while on his way he has lost his identity and the child in him. I tried writing synopsis for the same and failed three times, after Sir guided me I understood how I could simple write it systematically by coming these points down 1)set up, 2)conflict and 3)resolve The final synopsis is as follow, A kid making paper toys from the crumpled desk job papers thrown a away by his worked up father. He finds joy in making paper boats and puts them in the rain water streams, growing up he finds himself on the same desk, crumpling papers anxiously and constantly questioning his monotonous life and his long lost identity.

So in today’s class we didn’t really do any theory work but sir reviewed everyone’s work and checked blogs. Sir told us what assignments we were lagging in and also the ones that were pending. We then started completing them. I discussed my animatic story again with sir for few inputs. I also discussed my checklist with sir and made a version 2 of it. I then started of with dividing the scene in shots and how I would visualise that in a space. Following is shot to shot written down and the floor plan of the whole scene along with it

In today’s animation class, sir reviewed my animation(incomplete) and told me I was adding too much to the story and was complicating it. So I was told to make the first action in my story more realistic and lively than it previously was. Post discussion everyone started working on the animation in the computer lab.

Today in 3d animation after the gesture routine we focused on the story that we were trying to convey and tried to improve it. Post lecture as we didn’t have access to the computer lab we watched the trailer for an upcoming game Death stranding, we watched many film makings and Sir shared quite interesting facts from the industry, we also watched Indiana Jones and it was interesting how most of the backdrops that we see are not real sets but painting which give us t he sense of depth, the last shot in Indiana jones was a painting, and I could barely make that out.

So in today’s animation class we started off with gesture drawing, although what we did today was a little different. We were doing sequential drawings, sir first posed in anticipation of pushing a white board, gradually he posed for the next second I the action and same for the next 6 to seven poses. Everyone in class did few actions and then we moved on to discussing Maya assignments and the current one with the story boards and a story. We discussed from Sanskriti’s, Sriram’s and Ganesh’s Maya files, later post break we started working on our assignments in the computer lab.  That was all for today, we are supposed to submit the assignment this Wednesday as we don’t have visual story and  project management classes this week.

Visual Story W11 Basic skeleton V1 Bachpan ki woh amiri.. na jane kaha kho gayi, warna kabhi baarish ke pani mein.. hamare bhi jahaaz chala karte the. The first setting is of a room with a desk and two hands (only hands no body)of an adult counting money, and writing something on paper, calculation go wrong, scribbles it out, crumbles the paper throws it on the floor, a small kid crawls in the room, picks the paper up tries to straighten it out and tears it into pieces to make fake currency out of it and imitates his father, counts the money and blows the money in the air out of boredom. Father again throws a piece  of paper as the calculations go wrong, now it's starts raining outside, as the kid hears raindrops falling on the window pain he grabs the fallen piece of paper and in a rush tries to make a boat out of it, run out through the door jumps in few puddles and sails off  his tiny paper boat in the small stream of water gushing through the street. ...

So today in Visual story class we discussed our story skeleton with the whole class and got many views, feedbacks  and outlooks to our own story, my story was based on a shayari that was written by my brother, we share a lot in common, he lives far away from home, same like I’m away from Pune here in Mumbai, as we compare our life to the previous one that we were living peacefully in, back in Pune, we realise how much we’ve changed every single time. Now we have adult problems like money, food, shelter, most importantly missing our loved ones. The lines of the shayari are as follow, Bachpan ki woh amiri.. na jane kaha kho gayi, warna kabhi baarish ke pani mein.. hamare bhi jahaaz chala karte the. The first setting is of a room with a desk and two hands (only hands no body)of an adult counting money, and writing something on paper, calculation go wrong, scribbles it out, crumbles the paper throws it on the floor, a small kid crawls in the room, picks the paper up tries to str...

So today in sculpting class we started with new project which is based on transformation of one object into another. I had already made one drawing for today’s homework which was this, Although it turned out to be wrong as I went into organic translation of a line into a sphere, whereas I was supposed to make mechanical translations where one object is chiseled or constructed mechanically into mother one. For this I drew three more drawings and selected one with help of Ma’am and started with its technical drawings where I explored into it appearance, scale and proportions etc. In the next class I’ll start with the armature stand and skeleton construction. 

So in today’s project management class we discussed how check lists were different from To do list but still a part and detailed classification of it. Today I also learnt how computer images for the website or screen need to be only 72dpi, I knew it was 300dpi for printing but I always set 300 for web as well, which made them heavy and slow for downloading processes instead. We discussed about how we set deadlines which are not practical and then stay over day and night completing, well trying to complete. What sue suggested was to have atleast five plus days which made so much more sense to me, cause all the small small projects I have done, I’ve always struggled with deadlines and something or the other (unforeseen) comes in the way, and then giving excuses also becomes too unprofessional. So it’s always better to give possible deadlines to ourselves and others. There were lots of small small things that I’ve learnt in today’s class, and my doodle from my notes will help me expla...

So I was absent for this lecture of Visual Story where the main subject of discussion was how to make an unconventional story, as it is we deal with Animation where the impossible is possible, where exaggeration can take in any abstract or crazy form. Formation of a basic skeleton story with the similar exercise like the name place animal thing was done, I l have done that before in a student workshop and that actually triggered many great and interesting stories. Sir gave a brief about the upcoming project where we are supposed to construct a basic story and make an animatic of it. 

So in today’s class we continued with our previous assignment where we were animating the tailball with a story around it. Sir weren’t present today so we didn’t really have a class class but we were expected to continue with the previous assignment. I am finding it a little difficult to work in maya, although it’s all part of learning. And the class being in the lab it becomes very easy to ask for solutions to other people for an encountered problem and that’s where learning happens, I’ve learned so much from the problems faced by my neighbors and vice verse. I've uploaded my playblasts to the drive folder created today:) That was all for today, next Friday ill be completing this project, will upload the playblast soon:)

So today in Sculpting class we had our tenth week grading and we were also reviewed by Jeet Sir during the jury. Maam and Sir helped us understand what all we were needed to do to improve the process and the final outcome. First half of the class was given to complete the sculpture cause most of my classmates had incomplete work, mine was complete so I had enough time for presentation preparation and concept drawings. Post review we took a stop motion video of the sculpture and then dismantled it. Ma’am gave us a brief about the upcoming assignment and we are supposed to ready with drawings for it in the next class.

So today in Film studies class we were given an on the spot assignment to make a film with the help of the script and description provided. In the first fifteen minutes we started dividing the class in groups of three, it was very difficult to not have a member who wasn’t your friend or hasn’t worked with you before. Initially it was me, DSD and Ganesh, although as I have worked with Ganesh in my first film studies's  project we had to choose someone else, apparently the same problem was being faced my many groups, we then switched Ganesh with Pehel as we needed at least one person from Film Production to understand and make us understand what a script break down and the the floor plan is. This class helped me learn things that were taught to students in Film Production, also helped us understand how the work environment is when you are out in the industry, where you have to work in coordination with unknown people to get satisfactory results, also this helped me understand the i...

So today in Visual story class we started off by watching six films, Jolly Roger Morris de amor Cameras take five My grandmother ironed the kings shirts Black soul Ship wrecked I enjoyed every single one of them, in cameras take five we discussed in detail how we could visualise sound and how beautifully it was showcased in the animation with just some paint and lines. We now are supposed to make an animation out of any sound track of our liking and show sound visuals in any form we are comfortable with. We later discussed how each movie had a plot/story, characters , setting, theme and it could be simply identified by simple questions like what, who , where, meaning, respectively. Each and every film is either character driven or plot/ event driven film. If the movie is all about the establishment of the character and it’s journey, it’s simply character driven film, if the movie is all about an event which took place and how now the character is adapting or solving the situat...

So this class was the first lecture I missed in 2years:( was under the weather and couldn’t make it, we had studio day scheduled and missed that too. Spoke to my classmates about the lecture held today, it was about organising oneself and making a to do list. After reading Sanskriti’s blog I understood what it really was, to vomit out at first whatever that was needed to be done and the things that would be likely to be done, next was to categorise these into work, leisure and chores. This now makes a lot of sense to me as I always put down household work under what all I had to work on and stressed next level on number of things that were pending. Later Sir discussed the power of memory and how writing something down has more impact that typing something. An example was given of how Indian mothers remember recipes but to get an exact same dish it’s important for us to read the recipe. When I was young I always had this habit of scribbling and doodling in my books, even if it was r...

So in today’s animation class we started with the regular gesture and contour drawing. We then saw few of the VFS show reels and also their animation work, where they were doing the exact same assignments that we are doing here, few films were really very creative and had a very nice basic storyline to it. Sir then showed us our next assignment which is the Tail ball in Maya and explained all the steps. We were supposed to create a story out of it and draw it in basic thumbnails. Post drawing we discussed the story with sir and moved to the computer lab were we started with the animation, Sir showed us many ways we could improve our animation with the help of a pdf which was shared with us, Spilnophobia. I’ll be attaching my playblast very soon also following is my thumbnail storyboard for the animation that we are doing.

So today in our Sculpting class we continued with the previous sculpture stand where we had constructed the basic form with the help of aluminium wire, aluminium foil, newspaper and masking tape. On top of this construction we put a layer of clay today, we did this with help of patch technique same like how we did the teracota clay tab.  The clay colours that I had were blue and grey, to make an aesthetic color out of both I mixed them, and the result that I had was pleasing to the eye. On top I plan to give texture using contrasting colours,  For more updates and to know more about the final outcome, stay tuned :)

So today in drawing foundation class we discussed our work from the previous class and our assignments (homework) where we were supposed to design a character related to the culture that was assigned to us. We were then told to study the characteristics of the culture and how they were showcased in the cultural films or any film staging their culture. Later we were told to sketch our partner in our own style where we were supposed to explore and draw with our own style without any influence or culture or drawing style. The outcome was quite productive and we understood how one inclined towards a style of their own. Later we studied Power Puff girls, Dragon Ball Z, Ed Edd and Eddy, Simpsons and any Disney character. We then sketched the same partner again, now using the five styles that we studied. Again even this helped us a lot in understanding how a style was differently used to depict the same staging. For instance, Sir gave us a nice example of Santa Claus, it covers most of the ...

So today in Visual Story class we started of seeing short films and clips from the evergreen Looney Toons cartoon shows. We studied different frame layouts, timing and spacing used in each on of them, it was interesting how each cartoon had their own way and method of breaking and going beyond the real, for example in the Road Runner series the Road Runner was so exaggerated that it could possibly go through walls on the other hand to counter this action of his, Coyote couldnt do the same, and fails terribly everytime he makes an attempt to beat Road Runner; small nuisances like these knit the whole cartoon together and no matter how Jerry is the real instigator, our mind still roots for that cute little fur ball even though somewhere we know that Tom is the actual poor fellow. Next what we looked into was  visuals which are Image based and geometry based. From my understanding of what image based was all that forms without using geometric equations but may form it in total, exam...

So in today’s class we practiced gesture and contour drawing as usual. We saw few ad film commercials and also a film, ‘Who framed Roger Rabbit’ I loved how live action and animation were brought together to make such a beautiful creation of film.  We then moved to the computer lab where we continued with our last assignment of heavy and light ball. This time I made a new version of it where the bowling ball falls on the beach ball deflates it and then gradually rolls over and stands still. While doing this I realised I had flattened the deflated ball a little too much and thus along with the other actions it’s light flickered, I checked all the key frames in all the axis but couldn’t find a solution to it. Later when I asked Sir he told me that the wire mesh are getting into one another cause I have made them so close to each other, a slight change was all that was needed to fix this, and it did work! I’ll be uploading my play blast in my next blog, sorry for the delay,stay tu...

So today in sculpting class we continued with our sculptures. In today’s class I overlapped my paper skeleton with masking tape and added few layers of aluminium foil to it. Ma’am gave us a demo on how we were supposed to overlap so that it gets grim to stay on top and not peel off easily, it was also important to understand how we had to give the aluminium foil a texture by crumbling it a little so that it gets easier for the clay in the next layer to stick. I completed by aluminium structure today, following are few process images that I took, for more such updates, stay tuned:)

So in today’s class Sir reviewed our work and blogs individually, Sir also reviewed my thumbnail sketches and helped me understand where I was going wrong, i.e after the eye morphs into a seed there had to be focus on the flower blooming and the later zoom is was not adding a lot to the shot, where the flower morphs back to the eye ball and the blink that comes next. What I found interesting was how Sir asked me to add drama to it and suggested a blink before the scene started than adding it at the end. So now the blink meant something, something that said the person didn’t have to close his/her eyes to dream or think about the flower blooming it was in there somewhere that didn’t need a lot of concentration to recollect, I think this deconstruction by simply replacing the frame idea was beautiful, I also made few changes in my blog pattern, which will now be more user friendly and convenient:) Stay tuned for more update!

So today in film studies we discussed with Sir about Studio Day and if we had assignments worth showcasing, I wasn’t sure if we really had stuff worth showcasing but Sir said something really nice that whatever we had done over the past few weeks should be celebrated and it was true! Few weeks back I didn’t have the knowledge that I have now, I feel this knowledge is obvious to everyone but it isn’t! I’ve learned so much in these few weeks and I’d like people to know we are growing. I wasn’t really  proud  of my showcase but now I will be:) Cause this will be our process work after a few years, that got us there:) We discussed our thumbnail storyboards and that was it, stay tuned:)

So as we were assigned  a culture to study in the previous class, today’ class began with discussing what we interpreted from the information, and what abstract thought came to our minds. After brainstorming and discussing it with sir the words that related the most to Chinese culture  were agile ,flowy and intricate. Later we started abstracting these words trying to incorporate the culture in its blend. Post abstraction we were told to make a character (cartoon) representing the culture and need not be human like. After thinking a lot around the word ‘cartoon’ I realised it isn’t the myths that children relate to the most at very early age, it’s what they see, eat and play with. I could make a character with all intricate patterns and appear dragon like but what could be more relatable to them and what I thought of at the instance someone would say China was NOODLES! So I started drawing character with lower body of a bowl and chopsticks and the upper half that of a meat ...

So today we had a make up class for animation where we continued with the previous exercise of heavy and light ball. Before that we did contour and gesture drawings, saw few short films and few of Sir’s work. In my animation for heavy and light ball, I have added an interaction between those two balls where when the light ball hits the wall on which the heavy ball is, the heavy balls hits the light ball from above and bounces back to the ground. I tried many ways but I haven’t got the effect that I want yet, few scenes look very unnatural and I am going to try again, this time I’m going to keep it simple and get the fundamentals right first. Stay tuned, I’ll be uploading all my playblast in the next blog:)

So in Drawing Foundation class today we were introduced to the concept of abstract drawing. For getting us started with the process of abstraction and understanding how one formulates it in a way very personal to oneself,Sir asked us first to doodle whatever we wanted simply by listening to songs that he had played. The whole purpose of listening to songs was to be distracted by different moods and then going with the flow of our thoughts combined. Later we discussed and reviewed everyone’s work and understood how each one of us had a different expression, post doodling sir gave us a demo of entopicgraphomania where by simply joking the dot that we place on the sheet of paper we could get an amazing result of an abstract drawing. We tried the same in many different ways and reviewed everyone’s work later, Sir gave us another demo on abstracting words, emotions and actions, we further abstracted words like anger, lazy, light weight, organic,etc Sir then paired us for a new project and...

So in today’s lecture we started of by watching animation films made mostly by students from the Ringling College, Fur Arvid, Wardrobe clip, Dust buddies, The Controller, The wish granter, While watching these films especially the wardrobe clip I understood how it was important to take the story to a high and mussle the graph to the conclusion. We learnt about Virtual Cameras that are used in animated environments where the cameras size and speed becomes infinite, visibility weight becomes 0, 360 degree movements are possible, physical controllers are independent, one can use this camera in all weathers conditions, for example if one has to shoot inside a volcano, the camera can shoot in and out of the lava without any of the natural factors acting upon it, same in the conditions of water, dry or any climatic, geographic condition. We studied camera movements and my notes probably would explain the concepts better than me spilling it out here, attachment are as follow, ...

So in todays class we started off by watching a short film, “The Lady and the Reaper”, the log line which I formed out of the visuals that I saw was, An old woman who is happy to die to meet her dead husband in the after life, is prevented to do so due to the battle between the reaper and the doctor to save her to their sides. I also understood the difference between what makes a comedy and that what is called comic relief with the sole purpose to release a long set tense from a scene. But that doesn’t mean the movie has now changed its genre to Comedy. We discussed a lot about Genres, I understood how in a particular genre you could have sub genres, also understood the fundamentals that decide what category of genre the movie falls into. We saw stunt clips from Buster Keaton’s films and understood why dead pan(expressionless) is an important skill for any and every comedian as it has a lot more impact than someone who is trying to control his laughter through out. Following ...

So today Mahee Sir were absent for our animation class, we were assigned worked to do although do to some software problems many of us didn’t have access to Maya. I took this time to understand timing and spacing by watching few ted Ed videos on YouTube, some of which Sir had recommended. Later I learned how to animate on procreate and simple application of clipping mask, alpha lock and layer mask. Couldn’t really complete assignment for this week although I’ll be working this following week to cover up:) Stay tuned for more updates.

Visual Story W7 Log lines 1.An Ogre’s lifestyle and his quest to protect and save his swamp/house on which he falls in love. Version2 (Finetuned)  An ogre’s quest to protect and save his swamp/house from fairy tale creatures. To get his swamp back he must rescue a cursed Princess for a wicked lord(king) 2.An odyssey of a group of powerful individuals with super human abilities that embarks on a journey to restore life that had been wiped out across the universe using space Version2  Group of superheroes travel in time to get back stones containing power of the universe to fight against the self proclaimed God Thanos who is the keeper of balance to restore life that has been wiped out by him.  3.A teenage girl travels to Paris is abducted by sex traffickers, and she is saved by her father, who is a retired black ops agent. Version2 Retired American black Ops agent uses his old connections to save his teenage daughter  who while on her holiday in...