R&L Journal Rationale

Rationale

Personal Development of Area of Practice

What

As part of our Personal and Professional Practice 2 module, we are to identify an area of practice that we wish to research into and develop further over the course of this school year. Documentation on processes, outputs and reflection should be done throughout. Constant research and critical reflection should also be done on the works of other practitioners', industry developments and trends, as well as resources and organisations that support us as an Animator.

Why

This module has given us the opportunity to focus on an area of practice that we are especially interested in (That other modules never gave us the opportunity to focus on), and so over the remainder of this school year, I wish to further research and develop my visual development related works, such as producing storyboards, character designs, as well as conceptual art for settings and key scenes in original concepts that I never had the chance to work on as much I had hoped in the past.

Who

While this concerns more to my own personal practice,  I do hope that the work I am planning to produce for my portfolio will appeal to potential clients from various entertainment industries.

How

I hope to further develop at least 1-3 of my original concepts so that they can be presented in my portfolio and showreel by the end of this year. 

Each concept is also quite different from one another in terms of style and tone (It is not just the narrative aspect but also the aesthetics, when it comes to what art style should be applied to the concept), and so I hope that I will be able to present a considerably diverse collection of work by the end of the module.

When

This assignment should be completed before the end of this module, more specifically by the 18th of May at 4.30pm.

Shanen Pae

I have been following 'Go-bear' since my primary school days (Which would be nearly 20 years come to think of it...), and I have watched her improve on her art with each passing day, I watched her as she experimented with a variety of art styles and techniques, tried new things, learnt new things (Did I mention that she was already able to do some basic animating at a really early age?), and truth be told, anything from her would just leave me in a state of awe, be it a little doodle or an absolutely polished piece of work that she had grown sick of. 

It was only about 2 years that I finally managed to pick up the courage to approach her, despite how different we seem to be from one another, I felt that we were able to get along pretty well. And to this day, I still think to myself about just how lucky I am to befriend someone as talented and down-to-earth as her.

Specialising mainly in concept art, Shanen briefly studied at Pasadena's Art Centre College of Design (An art academy that is as renowned and as prestigious as the California Institute of the Arts and Sheridan College) and took a course in Entertainment Design, below you will see some of her amazing original works, with the last few being a part of what might possibly be her magnum opus.

I absolutely look forward to the day that a studio decides to adapt one of her concepts, until then, I will continue to admire of her gorgeous works. It is just impossible to pick one aspect I love the most when it comes to her works, everything is just so perfect to me, the lighting, colour usage, lineart style, expressions, perspective, body shape and language of all her characters... I just never loved anyone's works as much as I do hers!

Despite how she constantly denies it, she remains one of the most inspirational people I have ever known in my life. Other artists and designers that I admire tend to come and go, but she is the only artist that I have stood by for this long, and something tells me that I will continue supporting her until the very end itself.

Sarach Muller and Andrew Burrell from CBBC

Aside from designing my own concepts, I have always enjoyed writing out my ideas, and Sarah Muller and Andrew Burrell's visit was an extremely interesting, insightful and helpful one. There was just so much that was discussed upon that it was really hard to keep up (Because with there being so much content to share in such a short period of time, it was expected of them to rush through some slides...), and so it would probably be also better if I left most of my notes in bullet form instead of trying to write them into proper paragraphs.

Sarah Muller is the Head of CBBC, Drama Development. She is responsible for CBBC Acquisitions and Drama submissions form credited TV writers without backing from an Independent Production Company.

• Most popular thing right now with children is still Minecraft (Hey, you have to admit that building things is pretty fun)
• A good time for animation, considering what attracts the young ones these days.
• There are 34 channels dedicated to kids in the UK
• 30% CBBC
• Still not the most favourite
• Audience still prefers Youtube
• Disney lost its audience for the time being
• But will get back up there with the Frozen franchise
• CBBC is the number one kids channel in the UK for 6-12
• 196.4 million iPlayer requests for CBBC programmes over last 12 months
• Huge request for playability on mobile devices like tablets and phones, aside from TVs
• Most popular animation on CBBC: League of Super Evil, Strange Hill High (A genuinely all British animation), How to Train your Dragon, What's New Scooby Doo, Dennis the Gnasher
• New battle grounds are drawn around brands
• Scooby Doo remains pretty huge in the market
• Looking for LOL (Sort of like Disney's "XD"), to stand out, but to still fit with existing shows and get kids talking
• The subject of the paranormal is often used in most pitch ideas
• Too many people copying off Adventure Time though when it comes to their 'original' ideas, what was previously so unique is starting to become overdone.
• Kids love naughty characters, of course they wouldn't overdo it
• Strange Hill High chainsaw scene, instead of moving such scenes completely, try to find a way to still apply it properly within the show, you might come up with something pretty clever (Like the censoring joke they did with this one)
• Comically large, strange colours, approach it differently to show your intentions
• Why bring back old shows? Money

Andrew Burrell is a writer, script editor and producer for CBBC and is presenting working on Strange Hill High, Danger Mouse and Wolfblood Series 4.

• When considering some of today's most popular BBC children's characters...
• Shaun the Sheep beats out Postman Pat, Paddington Bear and Sooty and company
• All puppet shows
• Never talk down to kids, they are smarter than you think
• Cartoons, teens and tweens sitcoms
• Other Channels tend to focus on action adventure, movie tie-ins, big commercial brands, boy skewed fighty stuff really well (Star Wars - Rebels, Avengers, Ben 10, Kick Buttowski) Cartoon Network and Disney XD
• Want jokes lots of them
• Tips fo writers: premise, character, setting, stories, pace, tone and visuals
• Could this story be told in another media? why animation?
• Have your world and characters got enough about them to generate 52 episodes to
• Make characters flawed
• Love your characters, don't write them cynically
• If you don't love them, why should anyone else
• The weirder the world, the simpler the stories (Eg, Adventure Time, Spongebob Squarepants, even The Simpsons)
• Storytelling (Can refer back a little to write up on Strange Hill High panel at BAF)
• 3 Act Structure
• Character driven
• Coherent within the rules of the world
• Weirder the world the simpler the story
• Follow the character and the story without blindly pursuing the gag
• Pacing has to be quick
• 1/2 or 1 page max. is a good rule of thumb
• Eg, Modern Family and Parks and Recreation
• Smash Cuts (Family Guy)
• Tones: No guns, knives and punching in the face! No cynicism!
• Huge variety of visual styles: anthing goes, 2d, 3d, CG, puppets, mixed media, etc.
• Writing:
• From writing conferences...
• Springboards are paragraph length story ideas
• Outline/Premise - 2-3 pages, breakdown of story, whether the structure works
• Scene by scene/outline- 2/3 length of script
• Drafts - up to 6 pages but varies
• Polishes (Done by another writer, pretty much a beta reader) and shooting scripts (Between head writer and script editor)
• Script editor's job: manage relationships, be the confuit of all notes so writer has one coherent message, generate ideas
• Notes from executive producer, series producer, production manager, head writer, animation producer, do listen to them, at least properly take into account what they want from you, though of course don't blindly follow every command they give
• Good notes help, bad notes confuse, at least consider the meaning behind those notes
• You have to feel what you write
• Simple questions: Whose story? What do they want? What obstacles can we put in their way? What do they learn? Who is the audience?

BBC writers, great reference for scriptwriting:

• Scripts vs board-driven
• Depends on the individual
• If what you are basing on isn't polished enough, the rest isnt going to work out, and those issues are going to grip people
• Kinda like the Misadventures of Flapjack and Captain Knuckles, it was a gorgeous piece of animation with so much potential, but there were many times when its writing just fell flat on its face
• if the story is crap, everything else will be

Figure Drawing Class

I decided to take the opportunity last monday to attend one of the college's figure drawing sessions (With there being so much schoolwork, I never did have the chance to attend most of the college's interesting programs and short courses over the past year and a half... I know, it's such a waste), and so once Fiona offered, I really couldn't say no.

Obviously there is a limit to the number of people that can attend these sessions, and so you will have to book your place in advance. And so with there only being about a handful of people attending this, I find the session surprisingly peaceful and secluded as I got down to familiarising myself with the human body once more. Of course, I did get the expected case of the giggles, but thankfully I was able to overcome it in due time, and it still got more frustrated about getting his legs and arms to look right.

I didn't really use the canvases since my paper was too small.

I asked Sam to come along too! 

Just waiting for the model to get nekkid.

This was a great opportunity to practice my traditional drawing skills (That had surely gotten rusty considering how digital related our recent projects are) and a nice little break from all of our schoolwork. I still definitely have a long way to go, and so this is a reminder to keep on drawing as usual to get  better... at anything really, at humans, animals, perspectives, objects, etc.

I wonder if I should try to attend more sessions in the future, especially since it will be 3 pounds off from now on... I might have to drag Sam along with me again though, I just don't like heading out at night on my own.