Character Development

I have gone through various ideas including a karate kid who has to save the world from giant killer bees, a bear detective and a troublesome wolf.

For my final idea I have chosen the troublesome wolf called Brandal. I chose him because I think I would enjoy to develop this character the most and his character is the most exciting and expandable.

This is the first character design for Brandal.

This is the second character design for Brandal with color.

This is where I got inspiration for the wolf from. It's a Mr Penfold design.
I really like the style of Penfold designs so I thought I would use a similar style of animation.

Ideas For Characters

Luther comes from Dirty Harry, Shaft, Inspector Morse and in my opinion Batman.

He resembles Dirty Harry because he follows his own moral code and sometimes breaks the rules to get what he wants.

He resembles Shaft as an icon because he is a black detective.

He resembles Inspector Morse because he shares the same relationship with authority and the law; it's quite ambiguous as his relationship with women.

He resembles Batman because he is a dark, strong character. He's also a detective that dangles people off buildings.

He resembles Batman because he is a dark, strong character. He's also a detective that dangles people off buildings.

Animation Trends

The most watched and most popular TV shows on cartoon network:
-Adventure Time
-Regular Show
-Dr Suess' The Cat In The Hat
-Madagascar
-The Smurfs
-The Amazing World Of Gumball

The three most successful animated films in 2013:
-Frozen
-Despicable me
-The Wind Rises

The most watched animation on youtube:
-Charlie And The Unicorn

There are a lot of similarities in the style of animation of the most popular cartoon network programs.  They all follow an out of world style of character.

They all share the same sort of clueless likability with the protagonist. The actual animation styles differ though. Adventure Time is set in an alternate universe with very odd characters such as a yellow dog that can change to any shape and a walking talking donut while Regular show is set in real life but with a talking bird and a racoon.

Pixar Research

History
Pixar animation studios or just 'Pixar' is one of the most renowned and successful animation companies in history. It was started in 1979 when George Lucas recruited Ed Catmull from the New York institute of technology to head Lucasfilm's Computer division who were in charge of producing top quality computer technology for the film industry. In 1983 John Lasseter joined the graphics group at Lucasfilm's computer division and starts to develop the short film 'The adventures of Andre and Wally B.' This was the first short to be created by the animation studio. It premiered at Siggraph and it featured innovative technology like hand painted textures, motion blur and complex flexible characters. Later that year Lasseter was to be appointed as the computer divisons interface designer.
In 1986 Steve Jobs purchases the computer division from George Lucas and sets up a new independent company called 'Pixar'. This is also when Luxo JR. the animated short of a Large Lamp and a smalled lamp that plays with a ball. This has become one of the most recognisable animations. It is featured at the beginning of all pixar films. It is the work of John Lasseter and it was the first  3D computer animated short to be nominated for the best short film oscar.
Pixar continues to bring out animated hits, including Red's Dream and Tin Toy. In 1988 Tin Toy received an academy award and was named best animated short film of 1988.
In 1991 Disney and Pixar arranged to release at least one computer generated animated film and in 1995 Toy Story, the world's first ever computer animated feature film is released. It became the highest grossing film of 1995 making around 192 million dollars domestically and 362 million world wide.

Types of product made
Before Toy Story was released Pixar were forced to make adverts. They were loosing money and Steve Jobs had hoped that he could gain some through animated TV commercials. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aowm0j5Flx8
Then there are also the shorts which really put them on the map in terms of animation. They were using ground breaking technology to produce their feature films and their shorts. At the time they were faced with the idea that they really had no idea how to do what they wanted to do. So that's why it's so impressive how groundbreaking their technological ideas were. Some of their most successful being Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Monster's Ink, Finding Nemo and The Incredibles. And then there are the most recognisable shorts like Luxo Jr, Tin Toy and Red's Dream. They pretty much all fit the genre of Children's animation. However there are jokes put in there for the parents every now and then as they understand that adults will be taking their kids to see the films in cinema so they try and keep everyone entertained, sometimes by having classic actors to do the voice overs because the idea of Tom Hanks being a toy cowboy called woody would never get boring to the older generation.

Technologies and techniques used
At the time of the developments for their films they really had no idea how to achieve what they wanted. They had to come up with ideas on how to get the look and style they were looking for. Obviously they were inspired by their previous works and other animator's research but they still had to pretty much come up their ideas out of the blue. The company's technology has been intertwined with the development of the computer graphics industry. The earlier short films and feature films like Luxo Jr and Toy Story introduced the world to Render Man. Now the industries go to rendering software.
Finding Nemo pioneered new techniques in digital lighting which made the ocean like very realistic. With The Incredibles and Ratatouille brought with them amazingly believable human characteristics and advances in the simulation of crowds and fluids.
These were groundbreaking technological developments in the industry of animation.

With the animation processes of making any Pixar production, as you can see on the right, there are a few stages before the final piece. Everyone animation starts with a story board. And drawn out sketches of all of the shots. As you can see they then develop a rough idea of the animated version then they add in backgrounds, other things that are happening in the shot, then they finish the shot by adding the lighting they want, the color correction and the general final look of it.
                                                                

Animation Products Research

Film - The Lego Movie

-Year of release: 2014

-Production Company: Warner Bros, (in association with) LEGO, Village Roadshow Pictures.

Warner Bro's is one of the oldest and most successful american producers of film and entertainment in history. Founded in 1903 - 25. Warner Bro's have done films such as The Dark Knight Rises, Inception, Harry Potter, Man Of Steel, Gravity, The Hangover and the list goes on.

-Director(s): Phil Lord, Christopher Miller.

-Animation style: It is a hybrid between CGI, stop motion and real life footage.

-Target audience: There are references which target an adult audience like the mocking of modern day life and bringing in some old school actors to please the parents. As it is LEGO though it does target a younger audience.

-Purpose of the animation: The purpose of the combined styles of animation is to get a flawless look to the film. The stop motion works with the LEGO characters and the real life footage gives it a realistic look and obviously the CGI brings in the impressive special effects.

-What you like about it: I like the way they havent gone fully into the younger target audience and they have put in some adult jokes. I like the idea of mocking modern day life in an animation style.

Short - Rollin' Wild
-Year of release: 2012 -Which company made it: It was a student project so it was created by a group     of about 4 People.

-Who directed it: Kyra Buschor, Annie Habermehl, Constantin Paeplow.
-What is the animation style: CGI
-Target audience: It doesn't have a specific target audience it obviously will target a younger audience but it also appeals to anyone interested in animation.
-Purpose of the animation: The purpose was to show animals as round for comedic effect. The producers said the idea of round animals being chased was hilarious.
-What you like about it: I like the look of the animation. It is very flawless in it's animation. It looks really clean and neat. I also like how the chase clip looks realistic in terms of animals.

TV series - Pinky And the Brain

-Year of release: 1995-1998 however they first appeared as a recurring segment on the animaniacs.
- Which company made it: Warner Brothers (see above)
- Who directed it: Different series had different directors but the main producers were steven Speilberg, Tom Ruegger, Jean Maccurdy and Andrea Romano.
- What is the animation style: CGI mixed in with carton style drawing.
-Target Audience: Children

Web series - The adventures of Baxter and Mcguire

-Year of release: 2006
-Which company made it: Pipsqueak Productions
-What is the animation style: Animated drawings, CGI
-Who directed it: Mike Blum
-Target audience: American college students

Music - Joey Bada$$ - Unorthodox

-Year of release: 13 March 2013
-Which company made it: Mountain dew linked Joey badass to DJ premier to do the song
-Who directed it: Coodie and Chike
-What is the animation style: Rotoscoping animation
-Target Audience: Joey badass and Hip Hop fans. Teenagers mainly.
-Purpose of animation: The animations in the video were meant to empathise the gritty lyrics
-What you like about it: I like the use of rotoscoping especially since I have tried rotoscoping and know how long a process it is. I like how each animation relates to the 
lyrics. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2d307wz-dHk

Advert - John Lewis (Bear and the Hare)
Year of Release: 2012
It was created by an ad agency called Adam and Eve/ DDB.
The animation style is a combination between 2D stop motion shot on a 3D set.
Target audience: Families with children and anyone really that was buying Christmas presents at the time of Christmas.
The purpose of the animation was to reach out to peoples hearts about giving at Christmas time. Which makes everyone want to buy their Christmas presents from John Lewis.
I like the warmth of the 2D stop motion it gives it a really nice personal feel to it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqWig2WARb0

Rotoscope Animation

This is the first rotoscope that we worked on.

I just filmed Casper dancing for 10 seconds. Put that footage into photoshop, made it into a timeline and  used the brush tool to sketch over all of the different clips on different layers.

I had some trouble with the layers as it could get confusing which layer you were working on so sometimes you sketched over two different layers when you only meant to sketch over one.

As you can see there were a lot of layers which needed to be traced over. The animation i have created used about 18 and it still looked like I could have done a lot more to get more movement out of it.

First Animation

First animation in the animation project. To do this animation you have each symbol in different layers on the timeline. For example you start with the 3 on one layer then the 2 on another etc. Then you change the time on the timeline so it goes faster and makes it actually look like its an animation that makes the rocket go up into the sky. 

This is the video animation from shaun of the dead. For this you just upload the footage onto the computer and when you import it into photoshop you just select the part of the clip you want. You can't have to much of the footage otherwise you will have way to many layers. Once you put it into the timeline it is pretty much finished. This is what this animation is. Its just a short clip divided into tiny clips which gives it that slight skip you might recognise. You also but it on 'forever' so it goes in a loop.