LAUAN504 - Study Task 4 - For Arguments Sake

There are many logical reasons that explain why the Earth is a Globe, so i have selected the most obvious examples.



Researched about the more obvious and apparent facets about why the Earth is a Globe.


1. Compare shadows

The first person to estimate the circumference of the Earth was a Greek mathematician named Eratosthenes, by comparing shadows on the day of the summer solstice. At noon, when the sun was directly overhead in Aswan, there were no shadows. In Alexandria, a stick set in the ground cast a shadow. Eratosthenes realized that if he knew the angle of the shadow and the distance between the cities, he could calculate the circumference of the globe.

On a flat Earth, there wouldn't have been any difference between the length of the shadows at all. The sun's position would be the same, relative to the ground.

2. Latitude

We can see further the higher we go, for example in space, aircraft or on any high structure, the curvature of the earth is evident visually to the naked eye, because the earth falls away on the horizon.
An example of this would be... in an open world game with maximum draw distance you can see the entire map as flat, on the ground you would be able to see the same distance no matter your elevation. We would be able to see lights from Miami to New York city like we do stars but on the horizon, as a real world example.

3. Eclipses 

Aristotle also bolstered his belief in a round Earth with the observation that during lunar eclipses, the Earth's shadow on the face of the sun is curved. Since this curved shape exists during all lunar eclipses, despite the fact that Earth is rotating, Aristotle correctly intuited from this curved shadow that the Earth is curvy all around — in other words, a sphere.

4. Constellations

Different constellations are visible from different latitudes on Earth.

5. Horizon

When a ship sails off toward the horizon, it doesn't just get smaller and smaller until it's not visible anymore. Instead, the hull seems to sink below the horizon first, then the mast. When ships return from sea, the sequence is reversed: First the mast, then the hull, seem to rise over the horizon.

LAUAN504 Study Task 3 - Documentary - Conclusion

500 word Conclusion for the documentary brief project

Group work was challenging when confronting issues with production and certain difficulties involving colouring and texture. It was easier finding out about the characters backstory than recreating the historical aesthetic in the animation.
The design feature for the aesthetic of the animation was the biggest challenge in our project and the most important element.
We decided on a rustic historical theme animation to match the time period, and a loose style of line art for drawing and animating the characters. This seemed a great idea at first because it would be a simplistic relaxed style with no perfect character lining or detail, also without shading or lighting effects. The focus would be on colouring and texture, downloading unique tools on photoshop and retaining the same style throughout all our individual work which sounded good on paper.

Unfortunately we soon realised that this type of colouring texture and drawing for each individual frame would be much more time consuming than we thought, and one thing I have defiantly learned is that punctuation is vital in animation. Timing makes major difference in the end result and because all group members were suddenly busy with colouring, other elements of production and post production became limited and difficult to implement.
This single problem caused the our animation to not be finished and held up production quality towards the end and more importantly, group confidence and feelings. I found that members, including myself because distracted and disoriented at this sudden influx of unexpected work. This then reduced cooperation and effectiveness, people staying up late to finish on time and lack of coordination a few weeks in.
What I believe we could have done better would have been a better understanding of leadership and reasoning to achieve a specific and unacknowledged style or technique without testing, starting production straight away. If we brainstormed some more and experimented with colouring styles and technique then this wouldn't have been a problem later on down the line.

Using comical faces to portray more emotional scenes was an interesting idea to begin with, and I was a bit sceptical at first because it seemed a bit of a random decision, not relating to the traits of the animation and tone.
I felt this way because the examples we used didn't incorporate too much comical expression to convey emotion. Understanding we needed to break out of the serious character design for a more effective sad scene with comical faces made sense overall, a more comical character design might have helped to execute this more accurately however.

Overall our group was productive and had a good director and producer and I liked working with them. Specific ideas sometimes that I couldn't understand would be implemented into the final product without much discussion, and I suppose that is apart of directing when you have an idea and want to achieve it, but personally more testing and discussion can go a long way and even turn out more time efficient. This group liked to find the best looking technique but could work on he most productive technique, and I feel I have learned to perhaps involve myself in this process of teamwork and feedback instead of following direction and design.

LAUAN504 Study Task 3 - Documentary - Character design

Character designs and concepts 

These are our group character T-pose designs for Captain Moonlites documentary animation. 

Based form historical imagery and references, we discussed the character designs, which was a straightforward task based on the principles that this is an animated documentary.
We decided on quirky cartoon like characteristics with slight realistic features for setting the tone of the animation, for the target audience.
The cartoony elements are associated with the large head and slightly exaggerated form for characters James Nesbitt and Scott aka Capt Moonlite, but the clothing and postures are accurately portrayed.

Character design influences the audience the most I feel, then the background design and then the audio, terms of what appeals first. Character design is most important for the audience.

James Nesbitt is drawn up as thin and top heavy, formal clothing from the time period and detailed long face for expression. Expression is key for this animation for expressing emotions and occurrences between the characters easily, best to have a large face for conveying the most recognisable traits for expression. 

James Nesbitt by Eloise

Scott has a plumper body, overall rounded character with a beard covering most his face, slightly shorter also, with more formal clothing than his partner James Nesbitt. This is to suggest Scott is the importance out of the two in terms of plot and following.

Scott by Eloise

Below are concepts designs for each character, just drawing ideas and refining the two designs before creating the T-poses above.

James Nesbitt by Eloise

James Nesbitt has his long thin posture, long legs and chin. There are some variations for his clothing also here, formal and tattered. Tattered after the fight scenes and changes in his clothing through the duration of the animation.

Scott by Eloise

Short and bulky Scott and a tattered clothing version below it.

Scott by Eloise

Scott's facial expressions, more subtle overall because of the beard and bushy eyebrows, so we thought of enhancing the cartoony vibe and comical expression, with the large eyes and mouth for happiness and anger, more sadness, for the animation referencing.

Jame's facial expressions are easier to express, with a nice long face and qwerty features. Still using the comical eyes though.

Scott and James Nesbitt by Eloise

Scott and James Nesbitt by Eloise

This is a concept piece that incorporates the most comical expressions between the tow characters.§

LAUAN504 Study Task 3 - Documentary - Character Animating

Animation technique and Character Colouring

Illustrating the characters, layout and backgrounds to look more traditional and articulate the idea for a historical drawing style, the frames would be slightly varying than the one before, 'boiling' outlines.
The media, communication, audience and context through the design and clearly identified creative concepts. Through character design and drawing techniques, reflecting the overall style for the target audience of teens and up, aiming for a broad adult audience.

Using the same textured brush with a pressure sensitive opacity produces a varying tone, we will achieve this by loosely brushing over the layer and erasing around the outlines. 

LAUAN504 Study Task 3 - Documentary - Basic layout and storyboard

Basic story layout:



Captain Moonlite
Opens on tense shootout between Moonlite’s gang and the police at Wantabadgery station. Near miss! Nesbitt is almost shot. Freeze frame as camera focuses on Moonlite.

Transition to scene of bank robbery. Scott wearing a mask and cloak, writing a statement admitting his guilt and getting the teller to sign it to clear his own name. Origin of the name “Captain Moonlite”.

Transition back into shootout, they escape the rangers and move to a new area.

Transition to previous prison scene 4 years prior, when Captain Moonlite (Andrew George Scott) and James Nesbitt first met and became lovers.
Scott was in and out of jail for years, escaped, recaptured, but he met James Nesbitt in prison and developed a loving, devoted relationship with him. 

Moonlite’s letters in prison to Nesbitt scene.

Released, toured together around the country committing small crimes and delivering lectures on prison reform, which brings Moonlite back to the original scene.

Another shootout scene, the bushrangers gang are fighting the law.

James Nesbitt gets shot in the head (mild gore), reduced pacing as, Moonlite greaves over his dead lover. Then surrenders to the law and is charged before execution.

(Epilogue - Moonlite’s famous quote and information about how he finally go buried next to Nesbitt in 1995).

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Entire plot storyboarded

This will be cut and simplified because it is too long and a lot of unnecessary back story can be reduced for the animatic.

(Chris' storyboarding rough sketching ideas below, 11 storyboard pages)

  

LAUAN504 Study Task 3 - Documentary - Animatic and scenes

LAUAN504 Study Task 3 - Animatic and scenes

We have allocated roles in animating scenes between us and discussed who would be more productive and enjoy certain parts, organising who does what fairly.

The backgrounds will be done between me and Eloise as specified on the animatic clip above.

As a group we are discussing what works well in the animatic, and what we could change in the animating. I am describing the scenes that I am animating below and any changes we are making in the final animation.

Scene 2.5 'Flashback bank robbery' 
The trickiest part was how we would decide how to animate the part when the camera shot shows Moonlite kicking down the banks door and then transitioning by zooming in and over Moonlite's shoulder showing him aiming his gun at the banker.

We discussed that we could zoom in on Moonlights head and rotate around that before showing his field of view in front of him.

The problem was that if we showed all the backgrounds around Moonlite as the camera rotates, they would be too challenging to animate because the background as a variety of colouring and depth in the environment.

We decided that the camera would zoom on Moonlite's head but also use motion lines and blur the background as it rotates around. This works well because the scene is supposed to be fast paced because its a holdup at a bank, fast motion lines and dramatic effect when Moonlite points his gun at the banker after kicking open the door.

Scene 4 'Scott and Nesbitt in prison'

Working with the camera transitions in the scene for creating a background.

The Red boxes show the cameras points of movement in the scene. Each Red box is 1920 x 1080px dimensions.

The Green box shows the complete area that the background needs to fill. This Green box has the overall dimensions of the areas used by the previous Red boxes, which is

Scene 5 'Flashback hard times'

(...)





The final scene 7 'Nesbitt's death' 

(not my scene but good discussion on what works well with the overall pacing)

This scene works he best because of the pacing such as scene timing and sequencing, also scene layout.

Action becomes intense as this couple are fighting, as shown they are ruthless to escape, but when James Nesbitt gets shot the pacing changes suddenly, James Nesbitt falls back in slow motion and in front of his lover Captain Moonlite (Andrew George Scott).

The pacing transition remains slow as Captain Moonlite greaves for his loss and holds his dead companion and lover James Nesbitt.

This helps to convey the overarching theme of an emotional struggle against the law and two lovers trying to survive on the run.

LAUAN504 Study Task 3 - Documentary - Background design research

Background design

I have researched into background design having looked into the animation theme and chosen documentary story setting.

Here I am gathering some examples we are looking into as a group for the best background design.

The animated film, 'Home on the Range' has really colourful backgrounds of old western style environmental scenes and theme. It has bold colours with outlines and shading, also featuring elements of abstract design with the overall layout as visually slumped, suggesting the feeling of the setting.

Flat open spaces, easy to replicate and defiantly conveys abstract elements in the design.

Looking into more abstract examples, 'Journey to Cape Verde by José Miguel Ribeiro' an animated short, showcases deep texture and mellow colouring. Using basic outlines and full of textured colour representing the background, also bold black silhouettes, other techniques for visually suggesting the environment and experiences the animation wants to represent to the viewer.

Comparing these examples of background design to the imagery of our setting, 1800s Australian town and environment. We have decided that the abstract use of texture is the best option for capturing the aesthetic of 1800s historical setting in the animation for best portraying the documentaries themes.

Along with the colour pallet, beiges, browns, ambers and yellows with black shadow. This combination should achieve the desired effect for the historical aesthetic we are going for.

Bank setting and design, along with colouring based from buildings and towns.

Background research into characters, George Scott and his relationship with James Nesbitt. Historical art depicted at the time of these events.