Music and Mood in Animation_ The Two Jinn's

 

I made Jinn Jinn Meets Sadiqi over the CoVid lock-down purely as a distraction.  During the making, I fell in love with the scratch track by Ravi Shankar because it captured the playfulness and spirit of what I was trying to do in animation.  As it usually happens, I couldn’t get the rights to use the music in its entirety and had to find free music that fit the flavor and action but it changed the whole level of energy and mood.  It works, and you can see it here: https://vimeo.com/447473057    But, I still missed the Shankar tribute version, so I put this version of the Ravi piece here on my blog just to show how much music can influence the feel of an animated cartoon.  Sorry for the poor quality, (go to the linked version above for better image quality and the alternative sound track), but this way I won’t get any strikes or violations…

Ice-Peter

The trouble with doing a personal film is they can take forever to do.  Real work and real life have a way of eating time and energy from projects that you may want to do, and this short film is one I never thought would be stretched out over years.  The short was fraught with troubles which made it easier to shelf and neglect.  But technology progressed and I was able to solve some of the problems I couldn’t when I first started.  One I’ve never quite fixed is the narration which was completely unusable.  I tried rerecording many times and never could match the inflections and feel of the first tracks.  After filtering the heck out of them, this is the end result.

I’ve always loved Wilhelm Busch and his quirky style.  He reminds me of Edward Gorey to some degree but Busch pioneered some visual jokes which have become cliché standards in cartoons from the golden age of animation.  I wrote about them in this earlier post:  http://joelbrinkerhoff.blogspot.com/2006/08/cartoon-inspiration.html    

Here is my faithful adaptation of Wilhelm Busch’s Ice-Peter.

Best Workstation Yet

It's been awhile since I've posted anything which means I've been busy, but here's an update on my search for ergonomic working in the digital age.

I ran across a workstation that is very similar to mine using the same software, Cintiq and monitor configuration.  The big difference is that I don't have to reach over my drawing to get to my keyboard and that surprisingly makes a real difference.

CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE

You can see my system, on the left with the yellow sub on the monitor, can dock menus on the large monitor and leave the Cintiq free for drawing.  My Cintiq is elevated and at a comfortable height and angle for drawing and my keyboard is mounted underneath which is ergonomically better and keeps me from stretching over my drawing to get to.
  

Ergonomically Improved

I did this awhile ago but my work-space has been ergonomically improved by Velcroing the keyboard onto my riser holding the mini-Cintiq. No more weird twisting. Here's a side by side picture for comparison.

Quite Contrary...

Mary isn't the only one who is contrary.  I was made fun of for my work station in my home office.  You see, I have a habit of using my right hand to draw and my left on a computer mouse.  Now, that's not to say I don't use my right hand for the mouse...I just switch it up a bit.  Hopefully I won't get carpal tunnel syndrome, or the worst would be I get it in both hands.  Anyway, it works for me.

Most people who do graphics work on the computer use a large 21" Cinque, and, if you read my blog with any faithfulness, you know my struggle to get something comparable, yet more inexpensive.  I made a decision on a 13" HD, and am well pleased.  It fits my space and I can dump all my menus and tools onto a preexisting monitor where they are larger and more visible than if they encroaching on my work-stage.

You can see I share one mouse pad between two systems, and that works well for me too.  Go figure...

UPDATE:  I found having the keyboard to the side a big inconvenience, and caused me to twist uncomfortably.  But, by adding some Velcro to the back of my keyboard and the riser the monitor sits on, I can mount the keyboard comfortably in front of me.  I also added mouse pad so I'm not sharing anymore.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from Brinkerhoff Animation from Joel Brinkerhoff on Vimeo.

2D Reel

Here's a collection of 2D bits and pieces I've done. It shows Flash scenes from "The Mr. Men Show" and traditionally drawn scene from my short films, plus Harmony scenes from "Hoop & Yoyo" using vector art.

The Multiplane Camera

With my exploration of using Toon Boom Harmony and Animate, or After Effects to get a workable 3D into my next film, I thought it would be good to show how intricate and involved the pioneers at Disney were when they created the Mulitplane Camera

Of course Unca Walt explained it best in this segment from The Wonderful World of Color, and concludes with the breath taking shot from "Bambi".

Today we do everything digital, but think about the challenge they faced then trying to keep lights from reflecting, and dust or finger prints off the art, and the mathematics used to plot out moving these big fragile plates of glass!

Animating in After Effects for 3D

I own a version of Toon Boom Animate and have worked with TB Harmony.  Both have 3D multiplane features.  TB Animate has planes that you can separate into layers but Harmony has planes you can rotate and lay flat if you wanted.  You could build a little 3D house and move around it, which is what I want to do.  Well, I own TB Animate and an upgrade to Harmony is too rich for my budget right now.

So I was a surprise to learn After Effects has this 3D function.  I've been learning to animate in this program and it's pretty straight forward.  You can do some nice hinged puppets by adjusting the pivots and parenting flat artwork together.  There is a way of doing the equivalent of scrubbing through a nested symbol like in Flash or Toon Boom to do lip sync.  This is done through importing image sequences, and you can use it to do a more traditional style drawn animation, but I'm finding it's very hard to edit, but it does have this 3D function like Harmony that I've mentioned.

I thought this would allow me to get the 3d effects I want and save me the cost of upgrading to Harmony but I must be doing something wrong.  I took some artwork from a past personal project and a future piece I'm working on and set them up in 3D using After Effects.  Even in the program as I scrolled through the animation I got planes dropping out or jumping levels.  I thought it might be a graphics card thing but even rendered the planes popped in and out.  If anyone knows a fix for this I would love to know.  It may be a format setting or something because the look is totally different from a rendered TB scene.

First test in After Effects with dropped layers.

Sec test using After Effects with dropped layers.

Test using Toon Boom Animate with AE floor

I think I have a work around by rendering my 3D elements, in the black and white scenes, it's the wood floor moving in perspective, using After Effects and bringing the sequence into TB Animate where the other elements are separated into planes that use depth only.

Update:  I did get the scene to work in After Effects without layers dropping out.  I had to insure there were not intersections where one layer momentarily penetrated another. 

Delano's Painted Circus

This is my latest personal film once again motivated by a wonderful soundtrack.  I had many ambitious ideas for this film, but as you can see I've relied on long camera moves and repeat cycles. It seemed to fit the hypnotic dream mood I wanted to create.  Truthfully the whole thing was a way of using the multiplane feature in the Toon Boom Animate program and the slow movement through planes of paint worked well with it.

This film is also very stylistically different for me, (hopefully all my films have a different feel) .  I've never painted using a palette knife before but my mother-in-law was a pretty gifted artist and we own many of her paintings so I had a ready reference for the look.

Another reason for the palette knife look is I could achieve it digitally.  In the olden days I would have had to paint on glass and space the planes on some kind of track.  There would have been problems with thick paint drying too slowly and lights glaring off the glass sheets, and finding some way to calibrate a camera to move through the scenes.  It made me appreciate the trouble the Disney guys had to go through to film their incredible mulitplane shots.  Speaking of Disney, the lighting effect of the lion was taken from the Pink Elephant on Parade sequence in Dumbo.

Halloween Special

Okay the date has been announced for the mystery project I posted about earlier on this blog.  The background design is very nicely done and some use the mutliplane feature to stunning effect.  I enjoyed animating on it and hope you check out "Hoops & Yoyo's Haunted Halloween"!

‘HOOPS&YOYO’S HAUNTED HALLOWEEN’
Hallmark Channel Original Animated Special
Friday, October 26 (7p.m. ET/PT, 6C)

Latest Project

I've been very happily working on a new Holiday Special TV project that's wrapping up soon using Harmony by Toon Boom.  Harmony is pretty amazing and I may have to upgrade my home system from Toon Boom Animate to Toon Boom Pro  because it has many of the same features.  That's how they get you, once you've tried it, you need it.

So what is this project all about?  Gee, I wish I could say but I'm sworn to secrecy until it airs.  If only I could leave a hint...

Personal Film

I haven't had much time to work on my circus film, but I try and grab moments here and there.  This baboon  is not cleaned up or detailed and only the under sketch of what will be a painting done in ArtRage.   I will save the paintings as PNG files and bring them into Toon Boom along with a mulitiplane  background later.

Pop Goes The Weasel

 This is the finished short done on my home setup.  It's entirely digital and would have been very expensive to do using the traditional way with paper and camera.  I had some difficulties technically but the flexibility really payed off when I thought I was done and noticed Weasel was misspelled!  Going back into the file and rearranging the letters fixed the whole title card without re-shooting.

Just found out 'weasle' is an Old English spelling and would have been okay. Geez... 

The Metaphor

It’s been awhile since I’ve mentioned my personal film.  Part of the trouble with a personal film is finding the time to do them, but some people knit or play golf, and I make stupid things like paint or do a short film.  It’s a ‘short’ short film with the title running almost half the screen time but it’s still taking quite some time to do, partly because it’s already done in my head, (and looks so much better in there too).

The film came fully realized as I was listening to royalty free music.  Even then I knew it was a metaphor and would be familiar to almost everyone.  My inner-eye vision of the style and action for the film were dated clichés and the ending a natural conclusion to this line of thought.  It seemed as though this cartoon had been made already, so why do it?  Because it’s the kind of thing I don’t get to do in my day-to-day work as an animator.  I don’t get to draw and I don’t get to do pantomime. That’s enough reason for me and it keeps me from getting into trouble elsewhere.

I’ve got five or six more shots till the startling profound ending.  To Be Continued!...

Laying Pipeline

I am thrilled and challenged by the reality of having essentially a virtual animation studio in my home.  It’s been a cyclical journey for me trying to reach the look of ‘Golden Age’ animation. 

Having worked in traditional animation during the late 70s the amount of resources needed was considerable starting with reams and reams of punched paper.   Factor in the acetate cells, paints, camera, and an area to house all this including workspace and I can’t even imagine the expense.   

Now after 30 some years I have all the tools at my fingertips and no trees were harmed or houses mortgaged.

I'm in the process of making a pipeline for a short personal film and have decided to use an 8GB thumb drive to transfer project files between platforms; a PC with Wacom Tablet, and a Tablet PC with Wacom technology for cleanup animation.   I’m using Flash for quick and dirty animatics and color studies, ArtRage to do final backgrounds and Toon Boom Animate for principal animation.

I did a combination storyboard\animatic that was broken out into scenes using QuickTime Pro so I know my shot lengths and the sound tracks were extracted from each scene.  I made folders for each scene that contains the scene animatic QT, audio file, ArtRage BG file, and ToonBoom work files so everything needed is in it’s own folder.

Here’s a low resolution scene showing the steps from storyboard, to layout and pencil test, to finished color.

What is so great about this is I can go in and make changes even after the fact without having to re-shoot or use more materials!

If you want to do animation, there really isn't any excuse not to now that it's all in the box.

Poor Mans Cintiq

I've been looking for a way of doing paperless animation and have settled on a software.  Now, the difficulty has been drawing with a Wacom Tablet which is okay for a lot of things but not precises enough to do good in-betweens and clean-up.  Everyone uses the 21" Cintiq for this which allows you to draw directly on the screen.  They also make a 12" but the expense has been too much to justify.  After checking into tablet PCs I found the LE1600 by Motion Computing but the cost was still pretty high.  Now after a few years I found a used one on Amazon and  got it for almost nothing!  It has Wacom technology like the Cintiq and is also another computer as opposed to just being a drawing screen!  I've got just the project to run through it!

From The Brinkerhoff Family

Sorry, this is last years card but I didn't have time for a new one and we still mean it. Click on 720p for HD

Getting Goofy with Toon Boom...

I started playing with the Toon Boom Animate Preferences settings and found I could get a fair digital 'pencil' that would act more like a real one. I also decreased the opacity on the pencil color so now I can sketch lightly and build up a line without it becoming too dense.

Here's a walk I tried using a model sheet of Goofy I found online.
I had read somewhere that Goofy was kind of a circus clown so I wanted to try and make a goofy clown walk for him.

I didn't bother cleaning and finishing this because I'm lazy, (there's some stutters here and there I need to take out too), but I think I'm getting a technique worked out.

There have been some unexpected crashes too and I don't know if it's a Vista compatibility issue or what. Sometime it's pretty smooth going and I get lulled into a false sense of security.

I'm still using a Wacom tablet but if I angle it a bit it's more accurate.



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Perhaps this part should be called Goofy in the Sky with Diamonds...

I took my ruff animation and just colored it to see what it might look like with solid fills. I stuck a background behind it but it wasn't long enough to pan so I stretched it.

Even though it's a little trippy I'm encouraged that I could do old school type animation with this.

Flipping out in Toon Boom

Because I work primarily in 3D animation the time for exploring digitally drawn traditional animation has been on and off. I am getting familiarizes with the Toon Boom interface and tools but one big obstacle I'm hoping someone has overcome is how to 'flip' or 'roll' the drawings as one would using paper.

I thought being freed from the mountainous stack of loose drawings would be a big advantage. And it is to some extent but there are times when I want just a few drawings and to be able to put them in any order I want.

Many is the time I will reverse the order of the Key drawings when I'm doing the inbetweens, rolling the drawings back and forth to see the action. I can't do that digitally. Now you can use what is called 'onion skinning' to look through your stack of drawings and you can scroll back and forth in a time-line to see the progression of the action but it's not as discrete as having those pages on pegs to roll between your fingers.

With paper I can find those tweaks a drawing needs as I'm rolling the pages back and forth and can make changes and additions on the fly. But digitally I need to be on the right image layer and have it active to access a drawing. I've drawn on the wrong image sometimes impulsively because I wanted to make that addition and forgot I had to break my concentration in order to pick the right drawing level.

There must be something I am unaware of because many big studios are using Toon Boom today and I'm sure these issues have been addressed by them.

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My friend Eric told me the keys F and G toggle between drawings and that seems to work to an extent. I can do better just scrubbing through the time-line.