OUAN406 - Introductory Post

On Monday, which was the 2nd of February we were given the briefing for the latest module titled, 'Applied Animation'. In essence, applied animation is animation that has a purpose other than simply entertainment. Where previously a lot of our focus on producing animation was geared towards the entertainment side of the spectrum, this module focuses on applying animation to other aspects and media such as title sequences, and credits, idents and animations for a campaign.

There are a couple of studio based tasks to the module which include the first one, named 'Another Dimension'. This task primarily focuses on modelling in the 3D program Maya. The purpose of developing our skills in this software is to I suppose give us a new way of working or direction if we so choose it to produce the final out come for the briefs set within this module. 3D modelling is something I am personally interested in and have read and seen a lot by various artists that I admire and follow. However, with this particular task I don't plan on using it to produce the out come as I want to go down a more traditional route and make the animation by hand, as a contrast to my previous animation which was done digitally, in this sense I think that producing something by hand or digitally will be refreshing. Another reason I want to go down the traditional route is that we were recently given an induction into the wood and metal workshop where I feel like I really learnt a lot and would like to extend those skills further. In addition to this, we are currently undergoing lessons and inductions into the ceramic workshop where the traditional and hand made approach to model making is strong and right now this kind of work is where I really feel I want to enhance my ability with.

Following on from this, the second studio brief contained within in the module is cleverly titled; 'A Tale in the Sting'. This brief allows us to choose between three different studio briefs and proceed with the one we like the most. In my case, the one I'm leaning towards most which I think a lot of other people will also choose is option 2b, 'titles'. The reason I and many others are leaning towards this brief in my opinion, is the openness of it. The outline of the brief is essentially that we have to choose a book that has not been adapted previously for film to television, and adapt it ourselves producing a title sequence for the film in our own vision. This brief will follow, like other briefs the standard production work flow of, pre-production, production and post-production.

Some of the requirements for the animation we produce for this particular brief, which is the one I plan on doing are that it must be exactly 30 seconds in length at 24 frames per second, for a total of 720 frames for the animation. The book we choose to adapt must not have previously been adapted for film or television, and luckily for me I have a few in mind that we could use that as far as I'm aware have not been adapted yet and that could prove to be interesting in their subject matter for me to use. Finally, as far as requirements and limitations go, we must have permissions to use any audio that wasn't made by ourselves if required, so music for example. However, I plan to create most of the sounds myself, but I will definitely keep this is mind and pursue it if I want to use music or any audio that wasn't created by me.