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.