Project Presentation

Today is our final project presentation for video and animation. But i can't join this session cause i'm still in my confinement session at home sweet home. Good luck all my friends... Thank you for my colleague for this project Fadlee, Diyana and Musa.

Anyway, this outcome from our group for animation project.

Week 15 : Last Class

Today is our last session for this subject but sadly i can't attend this class. I just deliver my 4th baby 3 days ago. Sorry Dr J, for this inconvenience.



 
Thank you friends for information about final exam tips given by Dr Jamal.


8 subjective question -4 in section A (video part) -4 in section B (animation part)
Answer any 3 Q from sect A n 3 Q from sect B Please answer in 2 different booklet.
*The questions are: -in Malay and English -from: slide, discussion and article
How to answer? -1-recall what u have learnt -2-application
-->always relate on WHAT, WHY and HOW
Example of past year question..
1. Give 4 basic animation principles and how the principle help an animator to produce a good quality animation.
-->can draw -->give example
2.jump cut scene/ cut away shot

Week 14 : StoryBoard Elements

Today we start class at 3.00 o'clock. Before start the class, we've disscus about the presentation date for final project video and animation and Dr Jamal was decide the presentation will held on 31 Dec 2012. 

This week we start the class with lab activity for animation. Dr Jamal was show us some example of animation and how to create the animation. Here is my lab activity :

 
Second half of the class, Dr Jamal was explain to us about storyboard for animation. 

Storyboard adalah perwakilan secara visual daripada screenplay dan terdiri daripada imej-imej dan nota produksi. Ia mengandungi beberapa siri panel untuk scene atau shot yang telah dikenalpasti pada screenplay yang digambarkan melalui rajah. Tiada standard yang khas dalam membina storyboard tetapi terdapat beberapa tamplet yang boleh diguna pakai untuk membina storyboard.

Ia Biasanya dilakarkan pada board, paper, preprinted paper with guide. Terdapat banyak sifat-sifat storyboard termasuklah dimensi, dimensi akan ditentukan melalui fungsi storyboard contohnya untuk pembangunan konsep atau untuk mempersembahkan konsep pada klien atau sebagai panduan untuk produksi yang sebenar.

Terdapat tiga jenis papan cerita : 

• Conceptual Storyboard 
• Presentation Storyboard
• Production Storyboard

Example - Dancing Rocks Rough Storyboard

Here's a rough storyboard for the "Dancing Rocks" story.
From the preliminary interview in which Dr. Paula Messina explained what she does in the field, her Web site, and a review of an existing story, the content -- existing and anticipated -- broke down into:
Nonlinear parts -- Home page with four inside pages. The four parts are the quest (research), a bio (of Messina), the rocks (how they move), and the site of the dancing rocks, Death Valley's Racetrack Playa (its colorful history).
Video -- Anticipate video from the field trip: Messina mapping the rock trails, assembling her gear, the trip to and from the playa.
Audio -- Anticipate audio from the field trip: Messina explaining how she works, what the gear does, and why she does what she does. Maybe what the Racetrack Playa sounds like.
Still photos -- Available from Messina's Web site, and professional photographers, if necessary. Anticipate grabbing still photos from video of wide-angle shots of the playa, rocks and trails, maybe Death Valley National Park rangers.
Graphics -- Existing aerial photo, maps and rock trails.
Text -- History of research, history of the Racetrack Playa from interviews with Messina, other researchers, and the park rangers.
This is a sketch the rough storyboard (click for larger versions):

Home page -- Background photo of Messina and sliding rock in Racetrack Playa, with headline and four links to inside pages.	The Quest -- Research history and application in text, how Messina did her research in video, and a competing theory in text and photos, if available.	Bio -- Messina background in text, why she does what she does in video, day-in-the-life-of-a-high-tech geologist in photos grabbed from video and text captions.
Rocks -- Pick up graphic from Messina's Web site and use text blocks to explain in more detail than research page how rocks move. Maybe highlight a couple of rocks to show trails -- photos, graphics from Messina's Web site.	Racetrack Playa -- History in text, map placing it in Death Valley, and photos of playa, perhaps park rangers on patrol.

Week 13 : Animatic

Animatic : storyboard (static) add motion, tiny, sound etc to look nicer. It's also can called dynamic storyboard.

The Dissolving Process in Animation

Another technique in animation we learnt today is dissolve. Dissolving is a method of transitioning between scenes in live-action film and video production. Two videos overlap in the timeline; simultaneously, the lead video's opacity decreases from 100 per cent to zero, while the second video's opacity increases from zero to 100 per cent. This process is also used in animation. The dissolve can also be employed to fade objects and characters from view. There is an example of dissolve.

We also have lab activity in animation to apply several technique such as panning, zoom in, zoom out and also dissolve using black box and another one using another picture just adjust at the alpha properties. There is my lab activity :

Week 12 : No class for this week

Today we got message from Dr Jamal that class for today is cancelled and will be substitute to another time due to he was involved in pre-workshop at our faculty.

We were at the faculty actually when received his sms and we proceed to do our group assignment.

Week 11 : Principles of Animation

Before semester break, Dr Jamal have give us homework about the principles of animation. Dewi, Fadlee and Che Ku was presented their topic in class today. After that, Dr Jamal discussed the principles with details..
There are 12 basic principles of animation introduced by the Disney animators Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas in their 1981 book The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation. 

• SQUASH AND STRETCH

This principles Squash and Stretch is contracting and expanding movement within a shape as it moves through action. Also squash and stretch is useful in animating dialogue and doing facial expressions.

• SLOW-OUT AND SLOW-IN

 As action starts, we have more drawings near the starting pose, one or two in the middle, and more drawings near the next pose. Fewer drawings make the action faster and more drawings make the action slower. Slow-ins and slow-outs soften the action, making it more life-like. Or Ease in Ease Out

• EXAGGERATION

Exaggeration is an effect especially useful for animation, as perfect imitation of reality can look static and dull in cartoons.The level of exaggeration depends on whether one seeks realism or a particular style, like a caricature or the style of an artist. It's also can call it 'over acting'.

 

 

• FOLLOW THROUGH AND OVERLAPPING ACTION

Follow through and overlapping action is a general heading for two closely related techniques which help to render movement more realistically, and help to give the impression that characters follow the laws of physics. "Follow through" means that separate parts of a body will continue moving after the character has stopped. "Overlapping action" is the tendency for parts of the body to move at different rates (an arm will move on different timing of the head and so on).

 

 

• ANTICIPATION

Anticipation can be the anatomical preparation for the action, e.g., retracting a foot before kicking a ball. An action occurs in three parts:

1. the preparation for the action - this is anticipation
2. the action
3. the termination of the action 

 

• STAGING

 A pose or action should clearly communicate to the audience the attitude, mood, reaction or idea of the character as it relates to the story and continuity of the story line.

• STRAIGHT AHEAD ACTION AND POSE TO POSE

 Straight ahead animation starts at the first drawing and works drawing to drawing to the end of a scene.

• ARCS

 Arcs give animation a more natural action and better flow. Think of natural movements in the terms of a pendulum swinging. All arm movement, head turns and even eye movements are executed on an arcs.

• SECONDARY ACTION

 This action adds to and enriches the main action and adds more dimension to the character animation, supplementing and/or re-enforcing the main action. Example: A character is angrily walking toward another character. The walk is forceful, aggressive, and forward leaning. The leg action is just short of a stomping walk. The secondary action is a few strong gestures of the arms working with the walk.

• TIMING

The basics are: more drawings between poses slow and smooth the action. Fewer drawings make the action faster and crisper. A variety of slow and fast timing within a scene adds texture and interest to the movement.
 

• SOLID DRAWING

The basic principles of drawing form, weight, volume solidity and the illusion of three dimension apply to animation as it does to academic drawing.
 

• APPEAL

Appealing animation does not mean just being cute and cuddly. All characters have to have appeal whether they are heroic, villainous, comic or cute. Appeal, as you will use it, includes an easy to read design, clear drawing, and personality development that will capture and involve the audience's interest. 

"My mum told me
never to forget my
principles"

Week 10 : Mid Term Break

During mid term break, we have homework to do. We need to choose 1 of 12 topic for Animation Principles from utm e-learning. My topic is "Staging".

There are my presentation slides that i have been prepared for presentation.

 

Week 9 : Animation Terms

Today is the starting of our second part in this subject which is called "Animation". This part will be lecture by Assoc Prof Dr Jamaludin Harun.

For the introduction, Dr Jamal was told us to flash back how to make an animation using Adobe Flash software. He also remind us that he not going to teach from basic because all of us should be have some experience in this software during our Authoring System class.

For flash back our knowledge in Adobe Flash, Dr give us several terms which is used before.

• Keyframes - allowed to insert an instance
• Tweening - in between of key frames.
•  Onion Skinning - creating animated and editing movies to see several frames at once
• Frame by frame - showing a series of frames
• Frame rate - number of frames per second (fps). For computer animation just enough to use 12 - 15 frames per second.

 

Onion skinning animation

Week 8 : Absent to Class

Today i'm not very well to go to class. I got fever during my 32 weeks of pregnancy is very tough to handle it for me. Hope will get well soon as soon as possible.

Sorry Hj Johari, i can't attend to class today.

Week 7 : Video Editing

Video editing class was held at editing studio in our faculty. Class session today was take over by our technician, Mr Aziz who is expert in video editing.

We have introduced to new software in video editing named Avid Express. It's new experience to me in editing video in studio. Normally we just do an editing using Cyberlink Power Director.

Mr Aziz show us how to do an editing. There is some term use during editing :

• Betacam
• Capture
• Mark in
• Mark out
• insert
• effect
• blend

Week 6 : Video Shooting

Today class start earlier than normally because we have video shooting for convocation rehearsal at Dewan Dewan Sultan Iskandar. So, our class today officially on air from control room at the back of stage.

We have introduced to the production crew and equipment use in video shooting. In this event use 3 cameras connected to control room. Each camera will appear control by mixer.

 Mixer

 Display monitor

Week 5 : Lighting

Lighting is very important to produce a brilliant picture or videos. There is 3 situation in lighting :

• Artificial Light
• Natural Light
• Natural Situation (2 hours after sunrise and 2 hours before sunset)

Type of Studio Light

1. Main/key light : should be in 45° angle.
2. Fill light : eye level.
3. Back ground light :
4. Accent light : shine the subject from the back to make the subject get away from back ground.

 

Week 4 : Camera Handling

White Balance Setting

White balance basically means colour balance. It is a function which gives the camera a reference to "true white" — it tells the camera what the colour white looks like, so the camera will record it correctly. Since white light is the sum of all other colours, the camera will then display all colours correctly.
Incorrect white balance shows up as pictures with orange or blue tints, as demonstrated by the following examples:

Correct colour balance

Colour balance too blue

Colour balance too yellow

Most consumer-level camcorders have an "auto-white balance" feature, and this is how most amateurs operate. The camera performs it's own white balance without any input from the operator. In fact, very few home-video users are aware of it's existence. Unfortunately, the auto-white balance is not particularly reliable and it is usually preferable to perform this function manually.

You will need:

• A camera with a manual white-balance function. There should be a "white balance" button or switch on your camera.
  

1. If your camera has a filter wheel (or if you use add-on filters), make sure you are using the correct filter for the lighting conditions.
   
2. Point your camera to a pure white subject, so that most of what you're seeing in the viewfinder is white. Opinions vary on just how much white needs to be in the frame - but we've found that about 50-80% of the frame should be fine (Sony recommends 80% of frame width). The subject should be fairly matte, that is, non-reflective.
   
3. Set your exposure and focus.
   
4. Activate the white balance by pressing the button or throwing the switch. The camera may take a few seconds to complete the operation, after which you should get a message (or icon) in the viewfinder.
   Hopefully this will be telling you that the white balance has succeeded - in this case, the camera will retain it's current colour balance until another white balance is performed.
   If the viewfinder message is that the white balance has failed, then you need to find out why. A good camera will give you a clue such as "colour temperature too high" (in which case change filters). Also try opening or closing the iris a little.
   

Cut Away Shots

This technique called cutaway is a shot that's usually of something other than the current action. It could be a different subject (eg. this cat when the main subject is its owner), a close up of a different part of the subject (eg. the subject's hands), or just about anything else.
The cutaway is used as a "buffer" between shots (to help the editing process), or to add interest/information.
Here is the good example to show of how cutaway shots work.

Task for today

Before end of class, lecturer show us an example video movie made by our senior for this subject tittle "Revenge". Homework for today is, we have to discuss in our group of 3 or 4 to create short movie (about 5 to 10 minutes). For next week we need to prepare movie script. Hmmm what we want to do huh? Give us an ideas...Please! Hope we can do the best for this task.

Week 3 : Self Practice Shot

Today me and my group members (Fadlee and Diyana) was borrow a camcoder from faculty. We have explained by our technician, Mr Rosli how to handle the camcoder.

We'll do this task during weekend to practice in video shooting. Need to try many times to get the skills.


We've try to shoot a video as our lecture shown us in class. The video was save in memory stick. I got the problem to transfer it to computer due to the memory stick cannot slot in into laptop slot. Might be need some additional device to fix it.

Week 3 : Process of Video Production

I just joined this class this week. Last week was substitute holiday for Hari Malaysia. This course will handle by Tn Hj Johari Hasan for 1st half of course in video. The 2nd half will meet with Assoc Prof Dr Jamalludin Hj Harun for Animation part.

Today Tn Hj Johari give us lecture in 2nd week topic which is The Process of Video Production as below :

• Pre-Production (planning, scripting, storyboarding)
• Production (shooting)
• Post-Production (editing, recording sound, audio sweetening)

I'm beginner in video production, so many terms to know during working in broadcasting such as :

• PAL short for Phase Alternating Line, is an analogue television colour encoding system used in broadcast television systems in many countries
• SÉCAM (Séquentiel couleur à mémoire, French for "Sequential Color with Memory"), is an analog color television system first used in France.
• NTSC National Television System Committee, is the analog television system that is used in most of North America, parts of South America (except Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and French Guiana), Myanmar, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, and some Pacific island nations and territories
• HDTV High-definition television (HDTV) provides a resolution that is substantially higher than that of standard-definition television
• HDV is a format for recording of high-definition video on DV cassette tape
• CCD is charge-coupled device (CCD) is a device for the movement of electrical charge, usually from within the device to an area where the charge can be manipulated, for example conversion into a digital value.
• CMOS Complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) is a technology for constructing integrated circuits.
• HR Horizontal Resolution is the number of elements, dots or columns from left to right on a printed page, display screen or fixed area such as one inch.
• VR Vertical Resolution which is the number of rows, dots or lines from top to bottom.
•  °K          (degree Kelvin - unit for light or color temperature)

 

Equipment  and Technology in Video Production

Shot Types

There is several type of shot to know during handling the camcoder to shot the video. This is some tutorial i got from http://www.mediacollege.com/

There is a convention in the video, film and television industries which assigns names and guidelines to common types of shots, framing and picture composition. The list below briefly describes the most common shot types (click the images for more details).

Notes:

• The exact terminology varies between production environments but the basic principles are the same.
• Shots are usually described in relation to a particular subject. In most of the examples below, the subject is the boy.
• See below for more information and related tutorials.

EWS (Extreme Wide Shot)
The view is so far from the subject that he isn't even visible. Often used as an establishing shot.

VWS (Very Wide Shot)
The subject is visible (barely), but the emphasis is still on placing him in his environment.

WS (Wide Shot)
The subject takes up the full frame, or at least as much as comfortably possible.
AKA: long shot, full shot.

MS (Mid Shot)
Shows some part of the subject in more detail while still giving an impression of the whole subject.

MCU (Medium Close Up)
Half way between a MS and a CU.

CU (Close Up)
A certain feature or part of the subject takes up the whole frame.

ECU (Extreme Close Up)
The ECU gets right in and shows extreme detail.
Variation: Choker

Cut-In
Shows some (other) part of the subject in detail.

CA (Cutaway)
A shot of something other than the subject.

Two-Shot
A shot of two people, framed similarly to a mid shot.

(OSS) Over-the-Shoulder Shot
Looking from behind a person at the subject.

Noddy Shot
Usually refers to a shot of the interviewer listening and reacting to the subject.

Point-of-View Shot (POV)
Shows a view from the subject's perspective.

Weather Shot
The subject is the weather. Can be used for other purposes, e.g. background for graphics.

 The other tutorial of shot types in film making :

Week 2 : Substitute Holiday for Malaysia Day

No class for today due to substitute holiday for Hari Malaysia yesterday.