11 seconds club – December 2010

An older entry for the 11 seconds club competition, ranked pretty well back then:

 

 

Enjoy!

Movement, Attitude defining Character

Just thought to post something I’ve witnessed a few days ago, because I thought it was pretty interesting. Most of us probably do that often (animators, I mean)

I was waiting in my car to pick up someone, in a car park nearby some offices buildings. In front of me there were about 3 cars, one of them was a nice Mercedes, one was an older Wolkswagen and one a Fiat, about 8 years old or so.

A guy walked off the building and by the way he was walking and by his attitude, posture, walk speed and almost “intention” I knew he was going to stop and get into the Mercedes. I was right 🙂

These kind of things I think are valuable stuff for us animators, it made me think in reverse, after I’ve seen it: what did I see that made me know he will go to the luxury car. What exactly about his walk made me think that? he walked slowly, head up, like a noble posture. He wasn’t dressed particularly expensive, but I think even a still photo/frame of him walking would have led us to think he was going towards the luxury car – because you could have read his attitude, status, character, even from a single pose.

It’s also a pretty cool feeling when you see your instincts work, this probably gets better and better the more knowledge we acquire about acting and with more visual experience we get.

As a side note, I’ve seen the same situation ( not 100% similar though ) a few days ago, looking through our offices window. This time it was a lady walking quite quickly towards cars parked on a line, next to the kerbs. She only started to slow down and “prepare” the gestures of getting in the car as she got to about 2 m away from her car  – and the whole body language was just hinted, slightly by the head angle, general posture, hands movement and getting the hand holding the keys “ready” to unlock the doors. I think that we can get a lot of information when watching someone if we closely look at subtle gestures that people do subconsciously. Then we can work with that, putting an emphasis on what we can exaggerate…

Animation is so cool because of the whole process involved, which brings together so many disciplines in different forms.

I hope this will be helpful, somehow 🙂

Thanks for reading.

11 seconds club – August 2011 entry

My entry for the 11 second club competition for August 2011. It’s a kid who loves karate and kung fu films and he just loves the film he’s looking at so much… that he almost memorized some scenes.
Hope you like it 🙂

Parkour animation test

Hi everyone,

here is one of my latest animation exercises. I have found a Maya character rig that I’d like to use for an animation piece that I will do next and basically I just did an animation test with it. This is the result, and I hope you like it 🙂

In case the playback is problematic in the window above, I have also included below a Youtube link to the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXI5Li-8JK8

Star Crossed Love

One of the projects I’ve done a while ago is now live and you can play the game:

http://www.gamehouse.com/download-games/star-crossed-love

You can download the game there, pretty much all of the environments work is done by me, locally there’s 2d bits which have been done by someone else.

hope you like it 🙂

Virgil

Morpheus – No excuse now, start animating!

This rig is one of the best I’ve used so far and it’s free!!!

get it from here: http://journal.joshburton.com/

Actually, you should check the above link as often as you can because Josh keeps working on it quite a lot and at an impressive pace! I’m sure his aim is to get it better and better, but it’s already a great rig and very easy to use. Try it out, you won’t regret it.

It’s a Maya rig. Plenty of video documentation on Vimeo as well, just go to his blog and you will see the links there.

Thanks, Josh!

Jason Ryan ramp up tutorials

Hi everyone,

if you like animation and if you want to either go over the principles again in a fun and entertaining way (if you’re an experienced animator) or if you want to learn how to animate (for aspiring animators) then please make sure you check these out:

http://www.jrawebinar.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=frontpage&Itemid=159

Save those videos on your computer and watch them over and over again, Jason’s style of explaining animation and principles, while he’s animating, is just priceless.

Also if you are keen to learn more in the same style, you might want to give I-animate a try. I know i will, when I’ll get the chance.

Best wishes,

Virgil

Flonzies!

this is going to be fun!

http://www.virgiltanasa.com/flonzies

More to come soon!

Film – this amazing invention…

I’ve always found incredible how a good film just takes you away from the reality. For two hours you completely forget what’s around you, you don’t think about your deadlines at work tomorrow, your credit cards being maxed up, or whatever upset you earlier,  your mind is totally with the characters on screen (assuming you’re watching a good film, of course!).  I think we’re privileged to have such a magical invention so easily accessible to us, I think many times we almost forget about how cool it is. I think we just love so much seing, hearing or being part of stories, and film, theatre and animation do just that. (books too!)

It doesn’t always work, of course, I’m sure you all watched bad movies as well, and they just feel strange, you cannot help but “noticing” the people trying to create the character and they feel so fake. I won’t give any examples, of course 🙂 but just imagine one of the worst movies you have seen and think why you felt it was so bad. I’m sure it is because you didn’t get into the story and didn’t believe who the characters are and what they’re doing. You saw the actors (the human/the puppet/the animated character) impersonating someone, and when you feel that, I think the suspension of disbelief is broken… and you’re back to reality and starting to see the whole thing with different eyes. Oops!

It’s very difficult to take the viewer in such a magical journey and hold him with you throughout the film, it takes such a talent and craft keeping us believe in the story and characters for the duration of it. It’s all together, story, script, film directing, actors talent (and lots more than that, I’m sure…) that can create this small but fabulous universe in which we all like to travel from time to time.

Probably the short film is just as difficult to create, maybe even harder? Because you only got a few minutes (usually, but sometimes it can be longer up to 20-25 mins I think…) – and in these few minutes you need to make the audience know your characters, like them/dislike them? get into the story, feel entertained, learn something, feel something… Quite difficult 🙂  The fact that it’s more accessible than full length features probably makes us think that sometimes this kind of film is easier to do, but i think it’s just as hard. That’s if you aim for something that is quality material, I’m sure there’s plenty of bad stuff going around. Just as you find that only a few movies, every now and then, really make you feel great and leave you with something to think about, that goes for the short films as well.

Anyway, coming back to the initial idea, I’m still amazed by the journey I make every time I watch a good film, how it drags me in and I believe all that’s happening on the screen. I can’t think of the actors in it, I think about the characters and the places and when I speak about it, I almost never refer to the actors names, but those of the story’s protagonists. I was worried recently that because I am learning about creating stories and film, that would make me think of such structural aspects while watching a movie and steal the enjoyment that a film should be, but it’s great to see that this isn’t happening. I find myself every now and then identifying elements, but it only lasts for a brief second, then my mind is with the characters and action again. If I watch it a second time, I may want to pay more attention to the directing and acting, to composition, colors and mood and so on. It will still be as enjoyable but this time i will learn more about how it’s been made (hopefully! )

I still enjoy being part of this convention that we have with the film creators. I like finding myself anywhere else than here, when I’m watching their work. It still clicks for me and I hope that sometime the roles can be reversed and I can take you folks away for a little journey, through my films 🙂

thanks for reading!

My first short film

Interesting enough, it seems that my film is doing quite well if you look at the ratings. If i look at the viewings though, it’s nowhere near what I would like it to be 🙂

http://www.aniboom.com/animation-video/315546/A-Cab-Trip/

If you’d like to watch it (and maybe comment on it), please feel free 🙂

Thanks!

i hope you like it.