View more documents from Ryan McDonnell.



View more documents from Ryan McDonnell.



View more documents from Ryan McDonnell.

Research

EXTENDED PROJECT

RESEARCH

For my research I am going to look into various different sources and outlets in order to provide research for my artefact. My main types of research are going to be that of the internet and imagery, whether that be videos or pictures/graphs as I feel that’s fitting for the artefact that I am going to go forward with, being a 2D animation that is of moving imagery. Other types of research I am going to undercover are that of Books, Newspapers, Television Programmes, Journals, Images, Graphs and other types of research that relate to what I need to find.

-2D animations with emotional stories/emotional scenes

2D animations with emotional stories and or emotional scenes is an element in my 2D animation I want to focus on as my overall goal is to produce a success, professional 2D animation with a strong sense of emotion. Since I will want to be looking at both the eastern and western variety of 2D animation to combine them in an interesting way, one of the animes I want to look into and research is Dragonball Z. Whilst this over-the-top action anime isn’t too strong in its story nor its characters there is a pretty emotional scene whereby Goku has to sacrifice himself in order to save not only Earth but his beloved son, Gohan. [Insert Anime] I feel this would be useful to look at as my animation isn’t just going to be all emotional, there is going to be quite a fair amount of action and it would be interesting to see how this example in particular can translate from action-packed brutal fighting to slower, more thoughtful emotional fighting between a father and his son.

WHY DRAGONBALL Z

WHY IT WOULD BE USEFUL


Dragonball Z - Episode 95

"Bye-Bye Everyone! This is the Only Way to Save the Earth"
In a desperate attempt to destroy Earth, Cell begins to self-destruct. With mere seconds left, Goku says goodbye to his son and teleports himself and Cell to King Kai's planet, the only safe place he could think of. Upon arrival, Cell finally explodes, destroying the planet and killing everyone there. As Gohan is left on Earth to grieve, Goku and King Kai realise that Cell hasn't accompanied them to the Other World, and therefore must have survived the explosion. Using Goku's Instant Transmission technique, Cell returns to Earth, where he kills Trunks with a single blast through the chest. He then reveals that not only did his nucleus survive the explosion, but he was able to regenerate into his perfect form - and thanks to his Saiyan genetics, he is far stronger than ever before. Enraged by the death of his son, Vegeta unleashes a furious barrage of ki blasts at Cell, but is easily defeated and is only saved from certain death when Gohan intercepts Cell's blast and takes the full force of the attack. With Gohan injured and nobody left to challenge him, Cell prepares one final Kamehameha to destroy Gohan and the Earth once and for all. 



 

Another anime example from the eastern side of the world I want to look into is Sonic X.

-sonic x (when cosmo dies = change of music from japanese dub to american, how importance of music is in a emotional scene the difference/comparisons between the two)

American and Japanese Comparison Video of the scene:

WESTERN


When looking into the Western side of 2D Animation with emotional stories/themes, the first thing that came to my head was Episode 10 of the Sixth Season of The Simpsons. Titled "Grandpa vs Sexual Inadequacy", I feel the episode is very useful in giving a taste of what it takes to build an emotional story from a personal or general view. Personally, this was the only episode of the Simpsons to this day where I almost cried and it still holds true. Watching the episode makes me think how useful this is as it combines all the elements in a great way to convey emotion. The episode in essence is about Homer and his father teaming up to sell a drug, but one chain of events leads to another and they split both ways, showing two different sides of the characters but they end up at the same spot, the old house, their home. The tight writing, brilliant use of music and subtle events such as Homer lighting a match to find a photo of him and his father in a happy light, only to burn it down by accident is a great addition to the episode but it's the bonding at the end when they seek each other that seals the deal. This theme of seeking someone or something is something I want to incorporate into my 2D animation as I feel it's a good way to lay in some strong music and character to give that emotion. The clip, starting 19:39 on wards until the end, the clip illustrates what I mean in great detail and it's a strong, firm choice for analysis. 


http://www.wtso.net/movie/404-610_Grampa_vs_Sexual_Inadequacy.html


The second Western 2D animation example I am going to look at help build understanding for emotional stories/scenes/themes/elements is by the same producer as The Simpsons episode above, Matt Groening. Only this is from a different show, Futurama. Titled "Jurassic Park" this episode is the one that raised the bar if Grampa vs Sexual Inadequacy was the one that set it in the first place, personally, this episode made me cry and many others. Once again the tight writing and music really show it off but there is a strong sense of emotion conveyed more in the actions on scene and the overall story. The story is something people can relate to, the lose a pet and wanting to get it back and it's that set of wanting the main character Fry to succeed and find this dog that works so well.
Futurama is set in the year 3000, with Fry from the year 2000, being set into the future by a strange time capsule. He wakes up the world is completely different around him but in this particular episode he finds a prehistoric fossil of his dog and with this, he tries to find a way to bring his beloved dog back to life, Semore. The episode works very well and whilst some might not like pets, having an animal companion or animal attachment in my animation is something I feel would work very well. Unlike humans, some people feel that animals aren't the same, that some don't feel emotion but others will argue that and I want to put that point across of animals having emotion as well as humans but if I was to include an animal I want it to be a strong part of the story, just likes Fry's dog. The biggest scene of this whole episode from Season 5, Episode 2 of Futurama, begins at 13:27 until the very end that shows a montage of the dog getting progressively older, wanting his Fry back. That wanting, that seeking, that loving seems to be a theme that runs common in these emotional stories, Western or Eastern and is something I feel I must nail to get the emotional right. Lastly, like The Simpsons, the stories are typically quite light hearted, being that they are of comedy but I would like to take something more serious but when the cartoon gets serious, it really does and this Futurama episode really does show that producer Matt Groening really put his heart and soul into this episode.


http://www.watchcartoononline.com/futurama-episode-502-jurassic-bark 

The Iron Giant

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iX0cGftqbrg

The Walking Dead (Comic)

Treasure Planet

1:15:00 - onwards

-2D animation concept art/settings  (rural/cityscape)

ANIME
Fullmetal Alchemist


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qd0i5KR4hIM


Yu Gi Oh

WESTERN

-2D animation concept art/characters (american/magna styles)

ANIME
Bleach

Fullmetal Alchemist

Devil May Cry

-2D animations that I want to take inspiration from

ANIME

Devil May Cry
Full Metal Alchemist
Bleach
Dragonball Z


WESTERN
Treasure Planet
The Simpsons
Futurama

-2D artists

ANIME

http://www.amazon.com/Art-Fullmetal-Alchemist-Hiromu-Arakawa/dp/1421501589

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiromu_Arakawa

Hiromua Arakwa

http://www.amazon.com/All-Colour-but-Black-Bleach/dp/1421518848/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1318853065&sr=1-1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tite_Kubo

Tite Kubo


WESTERN

http://ultimateirongiant.com/prodart/prodart.php

-Community Based 2D animations/artists

ANIME




WESTERN

-Behind the scenes (look at how 2D animation elements get incoroporated with 3D animations, should help e.g. Pixar behind the scenes) 

2D ANIMATION SCREENPLAY EXAMPLE:

http://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/toy_story.html


CREATIVE BITS AND BOBS

http://data.whicdn.com/images/12302648/beautiful-black-hair-boy-eyes-hoodie-Favim.com-112126_large.jpg

http://www.google.co.uk/search?um=1&hl=en&safe=active&gbv=2&biw=1280&bih=796&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=turdus+merula&oq=turdus+merula&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=515l515l0l734l1l1l0l0l0l0l0l0ll0l0

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDA5qdhlCCcfzzwndMfef4BeCzlsiLb_MBayOvbP0DdPyRe3uDk6h7I34DzfGhYbGAiPlyazAEAUWIvowcTCSki9TsOEqYSYhYcyp5M8A_y07e1n_NHYhT5LS2XO9nk0tyXpZHsHXTYxE/s1600/201012-42med.jpg

THINGS TO UPDATE

LOG ENTRIES
______________________

:: RESEARCH :: (with the research talk about how it can help YOU out)

-2D animations with emotional stories/emotional scenes
-2D animation concept art/settings  (rural/cityscape)
-2D animation concept art/characters (american/magna styles)
-2D animations that I want to take inspiration from
-2D artists
-Community Based 2D animations/artists
-Behind the scenes (look at how 2D animation elements get incoroporated with 3D animations, should help e.g. Pixar behind the scenes)

Written Proposal

EXTENDED PROJECT

Written Proposal for my Artefact

What am I doing for my Artefact?

For my Artefact, I am going to produce a 2D animation based around one of the following stories:

·         A boy who finds himself in a troubled life but with the aid of a mysterious, mythical bird he journeys on an adventure that he never saw coming

·         An old man who loses his hair along with a great loss of his wife and decides to change things by purchasing a top hat but doesn't realising the complications of the magical powers it beholds in front of him

·         A brawl between two brothers has they fight for supremacy for their fathers land but what ends up being a brawl becomes a disaster as the one who rains supreme has to cope with the loss of his brother which will ultimately result in suicide

The 2D animation will take one of those stories and combine drawings produced by me, voice acting by me and possibly some of my friends if they are willing to undergo the process and little editing effects to make the 2D animation a bit more flashy, exciting and modern. A lot of the 2D animation will be like a comic book, moving slide to slide with animations in each slide to keep things bizarre and unexpected.

Why am I doing this for my choice of artefact?

The reason for choosing such an artefact is varied. In terms of the story, a lot of the stories I have listed up above are quite bold. A lot of the inspiration for these stories comes from experiences I’ve had in real life that I want to portray in a fictional setting or simply animes and cartoons I’ve watched that have rich stories that I want to take elements from. Furthermore, I feel choosing one of these three stories will reach one of these goals, which is to use a 2D animation to convey a strong sense of emotion.

2D animation is also something I haven’t really done before but something I have a personal interest in and therefore want to go for it and learn the ways of producing a 2D animation. I have some skills the drawing, writing and voice acting field so it seems a good fit to choose a 2D animation.

The comic book slide styling of American Comic Books with the over-exaggerated feel and action of Modern Japanese Magna/Anime Comics are two elements I wanted to combine. I have interests of both, I like the thrill of Magna’s exciting moments, especially with action and I enjoy the fictional tales of them, things that you wouldn’t expect from your typical American Comic Book but the American Comic book has strengths that appeal to me greatly, how the story lines itself up and fits together. Combining these two elements is reasoning for choosing 2D animation is that I feel I could achieve this style of combing both of them better. 3D animation is quite difficult and would be very time consuming and I don’t feel I have the time nor patience to go for a 3D animation, I enjoy watching 3D animation but it’s not something I feel I would enjoy making. 2D animation is also quite traditional and brings me back to when I was younger and would draw a lot, so that’s probably a small reason why I’m stuck to 2D animation, but lastly, why am I doing this for my choice of artefact isn’t just all these points but the fact that I want to go into the research and find 2D animators and artists. Learn about them, how they produce such wonders, the tricks involved and whether I can take those things and do a good job of it as I don’t just want to produce a 2D animation that can convey a strong sense of emotion with its story, characters and more but produce an animation that’s fun to watch, exciting, entertaining and is of good quality so that people want to watch it through all the end as I feel if my audience is bored of the animation after the first minute, I’m clearly doing something wrong and this is something I want to nail correctly.

How am I going to produce this artefact?

Being that this 2D animation is going to be the biggest part of this Extended Project, it only makes sense that it will take a while to produce. To produce such artefact I’m going to have to go and do some research into 2D animation as a whole. Find out how it’s produced, watch some tutorials, take some tips and tricks on all kinds of things, look into journals, websites and books and figure how they do such things. It will be an interesting time but I also think it’s wise to look at some biographies of some quite famous 2D animators and/or artists. See what their experiences are like but also look into Manga and Comic books. Manga/Anime and Comic Books are two styles from two opposing sides of the world that I want to combine to bring a rich and interesting flavour to my 2D animation, so I will have to look at that, whilst deciding on my final story to undergo.

After looking into research, I will have to analysis and take certain pieces that can help provide ideas I want to incorporate for my 2D animation, such as how characters and settings should look, good ways to convey emotion, watching examples and see how other 2D animations from professional artists and animators do such wonders. With the Research and Analysis done, its then time to get into actual production as that with the pre-production stage which is very important to a 2D animation or any artefact for that matter as you don’t want to leave yourself clueless and without knowledge when you have a quite long-lasting project such as this.

I want to go straight into writing, have the script for the characters and how the story is going to play out over the course of the few minutes of my animation; I can then get into the screenplay section as I want to have voice acting and sounds in my game. Whilst I feel some silent animations are quite interesting to watch, it’s not a style I want to go into as I think it’s not suitable for the modern age or my modern audience.

Drawing can then begin with concept of characters as you can have a blank backdrop and still be quite fine, but it’s the characters that pull it through but I’ll have to make sure I get those right, just like the script as those are the two biggest elements for my animation is I want to convey that sense of emotion. The looks in their eyes, their facial expression, and their posture are things I’ll have to consider if I want to make that section of my 2D animation a success. However, whilst you can have a blank backdrop, they are still very important in giving a sense of awareness, so I’ll have to get the character concepts completed first, backgrounds then after and see what type of emotion or action I want the character to do over it.

I am going to draw a tile sheet, similar to those seen in comic books and fit each section in bit by bit. The background, the characters and the speech bubbles or little additional such as some sparks or fire to add some more action to it but I am going to leave these tiles blank as I will then scan the drawings, edit them in Photoshop with a graphics tablet and make the lines more bold, have the colours pop out more and perhaps use dark colours for the background as I want the characters to pop out more in each slide. With that, it’s then adding the little touches of the editing stage to produce the first draft. I’ll connect the images/scenes together using a video editing program such as Adobe Premier Pro or Sony Vegas and such the tools in those programs to pan from each slide to another, zooming in when necessary. After that, it’s importing in the voices and sound effects, one of the last stages of the animation. I’ll piece it together and once that’s done and dusted, I can replay it back, see if it works fine and export it as a video file as a first draft so I can show it to my audience for reviewing or just for my presentation. I’ll gather the feedback, primary and secondary and if there are any adjustments to be done, I’ll apply those and have the final draft of my artefact done. My artefact for my Extended Project complete.

View more documents from Ryan McDonnell.

Ideas for Extended Project

IDEAS for Extended Project

2D Animation with a story revolving around:

- A boy who finds himself n a troubled life but with the aid of a mysterious, mythical bird he journies on an adventure that he never saw coming

- An old man who looses his hair along with a great loss of his wife and decides to change things by purchasing a top hat but doesn't realising the complications of the magical powers it beholds in front of him
- A brawl between two brothers has they fight for supremicy for their fathers land but what ends up being a brawl becomes a disaster as the one who rains supreme has to cope with the lose of his brother which will ultimately result in suicide

Style:

-Inspiring from Cut out Animation

-Inspiring from Cut scenes from the Sonic & The Secret Rings Video Game for the Nintendo Wii

-Comic Book style with shifting between slides, more dramatic

Extended Project Log Entry #1 - Monday 19th September 2011

For todays lesson in Extended Project, we went through a few activities and powerpoints discussing Plagiarism and

1st Lesson discussion -

what we did

how did you find it

2nd lesson discussion -