Give A Dog A Bone - Final Revison

Taylor final revision from Justin Taylor on Vimeo.

After critique, I took in lots of advise and cleaned my piece up even more. I added some different eyes and changed the street light to a more amber color. I made the dogs attack the character in a more interesting way then just using a black cut screen. Fixed some audio issues. Last I made the driving scene slightly longer.

Artist Lecture - Io Palmer

           She was born on the Grecian island Hydra to two artistic parents. Her mother was a boutique maker and her father did sculpture and drawings. She tells us that her father is the reason for her love for art, and says that he is the real inspiration for her career.
She went to Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia for her BFA and got her MFA at the University of Arizona. She is currently a ceramics teacher at Washington State University.
Palmer's work consisted of synthetic hair, because she felt like it was interesting to her and had some kind of meaning and symbolism. Some other interesting pieces she mentioned was her juxtaposing pieces by combining two different images. In all her work was some what interesting and the presentation was nice and simple and informative. 

Artist Lecture: Kim Cridler

        Metals artist Kim Cridler, who's work in metals include ornamental rings and large vessels.

First, Ms. Cridler discussed her life in Wisconsin where she taught at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh.  She worked with various companies like Kohler Co. and Endres Company. She then explained how Wisconsin influenced the projects she undertook. She showed many works done by here students, but I didn't get the reason behind this. I felt that she was focusing on her student's work more than her own during the lecture.After talking about her student's work, she finally talked about her own personal body of work.  Her work  is mostly about symmetry and and how it is reflected in life. She has a ton of work dealing with vessels that are quit large. All in all her presentation seemed kind of weird at first and made me loose interest because she wasn't talking about her, but towards the end it got better because she showed a lot of her own work and talked about some of the processes she used.

Meeting with Carrie Brooks

             I met with Carrie Brooks to discuss my resume and possible internships available. She was very informative while going over my resume. She gave some useful feedback telling me not to say things like "I" and "Me" in a resume. She pointed out that my fonts were not consistent and that I only had other minor issues such as spacing and alignments. After we went over my resume I showed her the internships I found during my research. She wanted to know if I found any local opportunities, and I told her about one I found was in Nashville and seemed pretty interesting. She then went online and showed me an updated list of internships pertaining to my concentration here in Memphis. I saw a couple that I liked and told her that I am planning on doing some next semester. We went over how internships are credited and that it was a good thing to get started as soon as possible. She told me that it is good that I have been at my current job for so long because it shows my dedication. I plan on staying in contact with her for the remaining years. She is very intelligent and helpful. I will use what I learned from her and work at my resume skills jump on internship opportunities when they become available.

My Online Presence

 Vimeo
http://vimeo.com/user16034623

Behance
http://be.net/Mr-Pharaoh

YouTube
 http://www.youtube.com/user/mrpharaoh08

Give A Dog A Bone - Final Project

Final - Give A Dog A Bone Animation from Justin Taylor on Vimeo.

This is my final piece. I want it to make people laugh. I added a title and an ending card that said, "to be continued" because I want this to be the beginning of a series of short animations that deal with the same character and having these every day problems. The piece was longer, but I had to trim a lot of it down because it seemed too slow for me. The only problems I can say I had was the program crashing on me. I learned that it would do it only when I have been working in the program for a long period of time. I solved the problem by just restarting my computer every hour or so of work. I would like to be able to get more professional sound in it, but I think for the most part it works pretty well.

Internship Research

1. Magnetic Dreams Animation Studio is located in Nashville - http://www.magneticdreams.com/studio/career/
2. Electronic Arts has plenty of Animation internships, one is for gameplay Animation in florida - https://performancemanager4.successfactors.com/career?career_ns=job_listing&company=EA&navBarLevel=JOB_SEARCH&rcm_site_locale=en_US&career_job_req_id=12666&selected_lang=en_US&jobAlertController_jobAlertId=&jobAlertController_jobAlertName=&_s.crb=NLqqqvGLyh05zFwmyCTFoHN06%2bQ%3d
3. Nth Degree Design and Visual fx, Inc. is a design, animation and special effects studio in Florida - http://internqueen.com/internship/animationmotion-graphics-intern-nth-degree-design-visual-fx
4. Nickelodeon Animation Studio offers many opportunity in the animation and production fields  -  http://nickanimationstudio.com/jobs/internships/

Demo Reel Reviews

Greg Ephraim Director of Photography demo reel

Greg Ephraim Director of Photography demo reel from greg ephraim on Vimeo.

For this reel I really enjoyed it. It was well put together. The music was synced with the video and the transitions for every beat of the song was spot on. The only real problem I had was near the beginning of the piece where he shows a "Levis"piece and it showed the logo, which I think just felt out of place and unnecessary and probably should have cut the scene shorter as in the rest of the video there were no more logos or words being used.

Miguel A. Salek 2009 Reel

I really liked this one a lot because of the effects and animations he showed. I liked how throughout the video he reminded the viewers that he only did the effects and animation parts in the pieces he was showing. The music was synced very well and liked how it showed the emotion of the video as it was being viewed. The only problem I may have is when he shows his name and title. I think he should just have it by itself at the beginning with just a black screen because it gets lost in the video and he should also just have his name and title and not put what revision it is. Last thing I like is how he credits everything at the end.

Act 1 Scenes

This will be the opening scene. It will have sound only of cars driving by and will pan into the top of the pyramid cutting to next scene.

This scene is when he gets a phone call after dozing off from partying.

This is when he looks down and pics up phone.

 This is his friend.

 After conversation it cuts to his car then he drives off, I have sound clips I Will use for this sequence.

Made the car look animated

Only thing left to make is the party house and the dog shelter.

Final Project Script and Concept Art

Below is my concept image. I want to have the main character animated and live in a live world. I changed the story up slightly to make more sense and less complicated as was said it was in class. Basically I have the main character start at home where he just had a party the night before. His friend then calls him up and notifies him of a party later that night. He heads out that night and a series of events happens to him. He eventually makes it to the party but unexpectedly.


ACT 1 -- Pharaoh MC Skel is seating at home after a wild party he just had.
             -  His Phone rings and he picks it up.
             -  His friend tells him to get ready because he has a wild party later that night, and that there will be a female artist he wouldn't want to miss there.
             -  He receives a text messages with the address and directions on how to get there.
             -  Since the party is way across town, he decides to drive there.
             - Later that night he gets into his car a nice spanking new grey mustang leaves.


ACT 2 -- All of the sudden he sees flashing lights behind him and notices its the police, so he pulls over unknowingly in front of a dog shelter.
             - The police officer tells him that he is in the wrong time period and is not registered nor has a license so is there for going to take his car from him and leave him with a warning.
             - Now he is left stranded with no car and no phone as it was left in the car. 
             - The dogs are all excited, and suddenly get loose, then start to chase after MC Skel.


ACT 3 -- Being chased he runs into a busy street and gets hit by a car that sends him and all his body parts flying all over.
             -  The dogs grab all his parts like they're free bones, then they all run through the streets causing people to swerve and wreck.
             - They finally decide play time is over, and put all of MC Skel and his parts down onto a porch ,and leave.
             - He starts to pull himself together, but before he was done somebody opens the door.
             - He looks and is his friend.
             - Friends says, "So you made it, but what happened to you?"
             - MC Skel says, "I don't feel like talking about it."
             - He goes in, ITS PARTY TIME!!!

Final Project Revision

"Elevator" Line -- A party animal Pharaoh gets an unexpected mode of transportation to a party. 

Theme. -- I want it to be funny and entertaining. I will be using some live action along with animations. Sometimes it doesn't matter how you get there as long as you got there.

Tone and Execution  -- I want the piece to be silly and have things more dramatic than what it should have been. I will draw up some backgrounds in Photoshop as well as the characters. I want to also incorporate some form of live footage. 

Objective -- The goal of this piece is to explore and learn more techniques on animating and telling a story.

Target Audience --- My target audience would be those who are interested in seeing a skeleton doing funny stuff and having a hard time. Mostly be for teens but may appeal to some younger.

Final Project Concept Ideas

For my final project I want to do some Rotoscoping. I plan on basically making a video of a couple of scenes and importing them into Photoshop. Then take my Photoshop files and take them into After Effects and animating pieces. I have a couple of scenes in mind and they are:

• A scene where I am just walking to my apartment while things come to life.
• Video the animals around my apartment, then animate their actions.
• A bird flying and lands and I animate everything.
• I'm walking and what ever I touch animates.
• Or video my car normal, then have a scene where I go to sleep, then wake up and look at my car and it is animated, so I go to car and touch it and animate, get inside and go pick up some people which also get animated.

The last idea I think I want to do the most. Rotoscoping is new to me and never done it before but looks very interesting and fun.

Assignment 9 - ADA Revision

With this revision I decided to take my drawing that I scanned into the computer and bring it into After Effects and do a little animation and effects. I wanted to try and make paint splatter onto my drawing and gradually change the picture as it was painted in Photoshop. I then wanted to make the feathers seem to sway in the wind along with parts of fabric and the strands of hair.

Painting Indian from Justin Taylor on Vimeo.

Assignment 9 - ADA Project

            For this project I decided to do analog digital analog. The concept was pretty interesting to me. I started off by taking one of my drawings I drew about a month ago, then I scanned it into the computer. After I scanned it I opened it in Photoshop and made a trace of it. The idea I had to do with my drawing was to digitally paint it. This is something that is new to me and I used a drawing pad to keep the consistency of a hand drawing. In Photoshop I selected a couple of colors to work with, then I started to paint in sections. I also added some feathers to the top of the drawing.

 Original Drawing

    Digitally scanned and painted and texturized

Added the feathers

Printed the image out then scanned it back in.

Assignment 8 - DAD or ADA Project Brainstorming

        For this project we had a choice of doing an Analog to digital then back to analog, or doing a digital to analog then back to digital. I am thinking of making an analog to digital then analog. I want to select a few of my drawings and scan them into the computer, then draw and paint them in photoshop. I want them to still show the drawing marks slightly. I am very interested in this art style and want to experiment with the different ways to make digital art. After I render them in photoshop I would like to add some sort of effects to them using After Effects. Drawings I am thinking about using:

• The other drawing would be about the same but with feathers on the head.
• Another drawing I was thinking was of a Pharaoh head.

Assignment 7 - After Effects Tutorial

Ancient Title Tutorial extended from Justin Taylor on Vimeo.
          For this assignment we were to learn some new effects in After Effects. I went to Video Copilot and found a very interesting tutorial on how to make an Ancient Title effect. So I watched and learned how to make this effect. I had to learn various effects such as the Particle World effect, the tint effect, mesh warp, the fractal noise, linear wipe and the radial blur effect. All were very useful. I also used the 3D option and learned the uses of the t-matte modes and the different modes for the layers.

Tutorial Link:  http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/ancient_titles/

Ancient Title Effects Tutorial:

• ·         Create new comp
• ·         Import 2 different images of textures.
• ·         Bring first texture into comp and scale it evenly to comp.
• ·         Toggle Transfer Modes
• ·         Create text layer, put anything
• ·         Then pre-compose text layer
• ·         Select texture image – go to effect-color correction-curves.
• ·         Take most the contrast out
• ·         Go to Layer-new-adjustment layer, then add curves adjustment.
• ·         Make darker.
• ·         Select ellipse tool, double click it, set mask to subtract.
• ·         Turn feather up as desired.
• ·         Create new solid layer, name it particle waves.
• ·         Effect-simulation-particle world-turn grid off.
•       -Physics – velocity 0, gravity 0, -particle – faded sphere, -producer – radius xyz turn up to spread     around. –birth size – up to haze, as well as birth death. Gravity – 0.220, longevity – 2, size variation – 33%.
• ·         Drag mesh warp to particle waves layer. 3 rows, 3 columns.
• ·         Make mesh move inward or outward to make unusual flow.
• ·         Change transfer mode to screen.
• ·         Layer-new-solid, name small particle and change tag color.
• ·         Repeat making the Particle World effect as above, but make them smaller, and increase birth rate to about 10.
• ·         Layer-new-solid, name it light, then go to effect-noise and grain-fractal noise.
•       Transform- uncheck uniform scaling. –scale height to about 3300. –contrast up and brightness down.
• ·         Effect-transition-linear wipe, transition completion 23%, -wipe angle 0, and feather as much as needed.
• ·         Now set “light” layer to screen mode, then set the layer to 3D.
• ·         Use Z-axis and rotate tool to bring light forward.
• ·         Then ALT Click on the Evolution watch, type – time*100 to add movement.
• ·         Now duplicate “light” layer and name lightB, on the top one put “+500” in the evolution after “time*100”
• ·         Make title and texture layers 3D.
• ·         Layer-new-camera, hit “P” and hit stopwatch, then move forward in the timeline and move camera position closer.
• ·         Now highlight both light layers and pre-compose them, name it Light Comp.
• ·         Duplicate “light comp” and toggle switches to show the track matte options.
• ·         Select the small particles layer and set the track matte to luma matte “light comp”
• ·         Select the light comp above the layer and add curves, bring the curves up to see the particles more.
• ·         Make other light comp opacity to 70%.
•              Duplicate title layer, name it title shadow
• ·         Select title, layer-layer styles- bevel and emboss, -depth 300%, -size 1, -altitude 56%, -angle about 93%, layer styles- drop shadow, -distance 0, -size 14, -opacity 40%.
• ·         Select title shadow layer, effect-blur-radial blur. Change type to straight zoom.
• ·         Effect-generate-fill, any color, then go to radial blur and move center all the way above the comp, bring the amount to 7, quality 50.
• Now drag second texture image to comp, switch mode to overlay, make 3D, opacity 50%, and add adjustment layer, then effect-color correction-tint and curves. Tint to 23%, and mess with curves till text pops more.

Artist Lecture 1 - Blane de St. Croix

      Blane was a very energetic artist.  He had many images of his projects he had been apart of. He would sculpt landscapes in different areas of the world in a smaller form. One of the first projects he showed us was called "Broken Landscape," which is a huge installation showing the Mexican border from when it started. He likes to point out environmental and political issues that surround his pieces. In Eagle pass a border town I found it interesting that he said it has a fence that is 1.2 miles, and only 14 feet tall and it cost $12 million to have built. Blane believes that is a waist of money and could have been used for other things.

       The project above is a collage of non-existing mountains. Its called "Mountain Views," and is located in Long Island City, Queens. The mountains were meant to obstruct the skyline and to reclaim its spot. These no longer existing mountains were removed to make cities like New York. He wanted the mountains to reclaim their spot and sees it as a memorial for them, He brings up the issue with coal mining and mountain top removal. The piece is made from recycled foam, steel, wood, paint, dirt, concrete and stucco. In the near future Blane plans on his next project being in the arctic. He plans on studying the issues of global warming and implementing them in his works. 

http://blanedestcroix.blogspot.com/

Assignment 6 - Funny King

Funny Pharaoh Shortened from Justin Taylor on Vimeo.

Assignment 6 - Write-up

              For the 6th assignment I wanted to continue my works on my Pharaoh animations. My goal was to change it so that it looked better. I wanted to use sound, masks and a different replacement animation for the eyes of the Pharaoh seeing as they didn't really go well with the piece. I split the project up into 3 separate compositions. The first comp was edited for the introduction of the piece. The second one I focused on the main movements I wanted to achieve. The last comp involved the Pharaoh and all his body parts to expand off the comp. My intentions for this piece were to make the character more silly even though he thinks he isn't at times. I set it up as this whole little video would be episode 1 and the next comp I make will progress to episode 2 and so on. The only issue I ran across is trying to space the frames so that the piece wouldn't be too fast or slow at times.

Assignment 5 - Write-up

               Assignment 5 is focusing on masking. I used the previous assignment called sleepy eyes and added some mask techniques to it. First I started out with a mask layer that gave a blinking sense. I wanted to imitate what people do with their eyes when they start to get sleepy and then finally fall asleep. I ran into multiple problems at first. I couldn't do the stroke effect like I wanted and I also made a path in Illustrator and tried to bring it into After Effects so that I could make it a motion path, but couldn't figure it out. After researching a little I got some of what all I wanted and plan on practicing these techniques more so that I won't run into any problems in the future. I have the basic components of masking down but need more practice on how to make a correct motion path and using the stroke effect.

Sleepy Eyes 2 - Assignment 5

sleepyeyes2 from Justin Taylor on Vimeo.

Assignment 4 - Write-up

             For this assignment I went in a different route but still stayed within my same theme. I wanted to focus more on the replacement animation technique and matching audio up with the piece. One challenge I had was making the eyes blink a little faster at certain times. It is basically a basic understanding of how to do the replacement animation and to implement audio in it. I made the eyes in Illustrator and had to figure out what size I needed them to be as well as how I would configure my layers. I initially planned on making a moving mouth along with it but I like it with the eyes only. I plan on taking this further by using the skills I am learning in class.

Sleepy Eyes - Assignment 4

Sleepy Eyes from Justin Taylor on Vimeo.
Basic Understanding of using replacement animation, audio and motion.

Second Revision Pharaoh Animation

Pharaoh Animation Revision from Justin Taylor on Vimeo.
My last pharaoh animation revision.

Assignment 3 - Write-up

        For this assignment I really wanted to try a replacement animation for the eyes. Before I could do that, I had to find some images of eyes I wanted to use and saved them. I then opened it up in Photoshop and made different layers of the eye in different colors. My challenge was to make the eyes big enough so that they won't be pixelized when I re-position and scale them to fit my character throughout the animation. In class I learned to use the time-remapping tool and the sequence layers option. I applied what I learned to the eyes and I am pretty satisfied about how it turned out. The reason why I chose the eyes was because I think he would look scary with some bulging colored eyes. I plan on making more replacement animations for the character further down the road in this course.

Third Animation with Replacement Animation

PharaohAnimationwitheyes from Justin Taylor on Vimeo.

Replacement animation with eyes

Second Animation Revision

PharaohAnimation1revison1 from Justin Taylor on Vimeo.

On this one I slightly tweaked the animation when he moves down and up. Doesn't move so suddenly.

First Animation

PharaohAnimation1 from Justin Taylor on Vimeo.

Assignment 2 - Write-up

        For this assignment I had to revise my earlier character design to a more simpler form. I had to make sure that all my joints had ways of moving with out looking unnatural. The character idea still involved a Pharaoh and him being dead I just decided to exaggerate him by making him of nothing but bones. My first character people said looked too much like other characters. That is why I went with this different design. After scanning him into the computer I used Illustrator to make up all the parts including anchor points with joints connected. After that, I then imported him into After Effects and made a short animation of him moving across the stage. I think I moved him pretty well for never using this program before.

Assignment 2 - Character Revision and Digitize

First for the sake of being my first time using After Effects, I was informed that I should simplify my character more. So I went with a dead Pharaoh that is nothing but bones and some pieces of clothing.

+=

So out of the pics above this is what I came up with.

Brought it into Illustrator and just gave him some basic colors, a brown for the bones and some African style colors for the headdress and belt.

Assignment 1 - Write-up

          For this assignment I wanted to draw a character that incorporates some things that I am interested in. I wanted to draw a pharaoh and use a kind of style from an anime show called Dragonball Z. Egyptian art is very interesting to me and I first started out drawing Dragonball Z characters, so therefore wanted my character to be of some essence of them. One of my challenges was trying to figure out what I wanted the character to wear. My first approach was to just draw a character, but by looking at the class blog I learned that I had to create joints so that my character could move. Basically I used the advice and created a character out of two things I liked and made joints so that he could move.

Assignment 1 - Create a Character

This was my original character I created to work with After Effects.

Created pieces of my character so that he would be able to move when animated. 

The torso, will not move.