Link to Arena Animation Academy, Sec 17, Chandigarh website
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Whole collection of Walt Stanchfield (Drawn to Life) is preaching on making each single frame/drawing “living”. If that achieved, chances of the sequence of frames being live is just a matter of some animation techniques.
For a moment just visualise a situation. You enter a waiting area (outside a science lab lets say). You see two persons sitting, one on left and other on right. The person on left actually is a dead body, but some technical arrangements (as an experiment) have been made so that a controlling person in other room is able to move all its limbs using some invisible rig and is also able to move its face skin. The person on the right is a real living person.
Now you enter the room. You see on your left. And that “person” moves with all its body, waves hand, a smile is pulled on the face to connect to you. Just visualise how much you will get connected to that.
Then you turn right. And there is a real person sitting. He just glances towards you, with a smile greets you, just a slight shake of his head. You immediately connect to him, become aware of him, respond back, empathise with him. You may go and sit with him and start a talk or enquire something. Because you know he is living, without much movement. And you didn’t connect to the first one, because you know that is not living even with so much of movement
This is the reality of good and bad animation. Animation is just meant to make a character “living” so the audience connect to him, may empathise with him.
I see lots of animations by students who have not actually learnt animation. There is so much of movement and no life.
Just look at these frames here. Don’t you feel that the character is living just by looking at a single frame. You feel the emotions inside the character, impulse behind each gesture, a living heart in each one.
You can find many examples where even after watching the character moving a lot, a lot for 1 minute, you are sure that he is not living, its a deadbody.
Just take care that we are animating and not moving dead bodies!!
Very often I have recommended my students to create single panel cartoon strip. It is a “net practice” for Animation Film Making.
Seems awkward?
Animation Film making involves lots of stages/skills as we all know. Starting with script writing, screeplay writing, storyboarding, character designing, film designing/styling, rough animation, cleanups …. and for 3D, there is modeling, rigging, 3D character animation etc etc..
Practice is a shorter/sample version of a performance that can be repeated regularly to hone the skill so when you come to real performance you outperform yourself.
Student may want to stick to one of the skill and would like to keep practicing that. For e.g.
- exercise for script writing – regularly coin a short script for 30 sec ad of whatever product strikes you on TV or newspaper.
- exercise for storyboard artist – produce Story point panels of short stories of master story writers of the world weekly.
- exercise for character designer – convert some of your daily gestures into character design by implementing your opinions into it, will take around .5 hour.
- exercise for classical animator – doing gestures regularly, creating 1 3-4 sec animation rough weekly,
- exercise for 3D character animation – creating 2 3D gestures daily, or 3-4 sec small animation clip weekly,
- exercise for 3D modeling – keeping a lump of clay on your table and sculpt a new face daily or weekly, or model one face or figure weekly or monthly
so on…
But if somebody wants to practice animation film making, from start to end, what could be short version of it that could be repeated on regular basis that hones skills of story telling through film.
Yes, that happens to be cartooning.
If we look at one frame here –
Isn’t there script in it? Screenplay is also in it – A Dialogue. One frame Thumbnail/Storyboard is there. And Notice character design is also in it. We can identify the personality of each character. And there is single keyframe also for both characters. Then there is cleanup, BG/layout design and also film design/styling (we can makeout that this is RK laxman’s panel and this is Mario Miranda’s by just having a look).
So if you create a new cartoon panel, you actually go through the whole process in a shorter form.
If you want to pratice Film Making, no doubt making complete films is not replaceable, but Cartooning is an excellent net practice.
Students checking out the State of the Art VFX Equiment
Arena Chandigarh Students check out State-of-the-Art VFX (Visual Effects) Equipment on their campus following “Learn The Secrets of becoming a VFX Pro!!” a Seminar by VFX Artist, and Specialist Aayush Chopra (Masters Degree in VFX from Bournemoth Universty, UK).
They were able to see and handle the high-end Video Stablizer one of it’s kind in North India (not even available with professional studios in North India). Only select studios across India have this equipment have this kind of equipment. Hence even most vfx professionals in India have not seen one!
The saw the imported Green Screen, Softbox lights with the highest possible illumination. They also saw the full body suits used in motion capture, follow focus, as well as the ubiquitious clap.
State-of-the-art VFX Equipment at VirtualSoft Studio
Learn the Secrets of becoming a VFX Pro!!
“Learn The Secrets of becoming a VFX Pro!!” A Seminar was held today at Arena Animation Academy, Sec 17, Chandigarh, by VFX Artist, and Specialist Aayush Chopra (Masters Degree in VFX from Bournemoth Universty, UK), on the path to becoming a VFX Professional and the learnings required to become one. Being privy to the latest happenings internationally, Aayush was in an excellent position to share the secrets of the professionals.
He demonstrated the entire VFX Pipeline to the hall chock-a-block eager students. Going through the pipeline step by step he uncovered each step and the various measures taken at each step to ensure that reality of the scene is not compromised. He also dwelled on the major savings in cost by the intelligent use of VFX quelling the myth that VFX is a costly option. In fact he showed why it is cheap to opt for VFX than go for a live constructed scene.
Trained in the Art of VFX by eminent VFX artists from the world over during his Masters at Bournemoth University, UK, Aayush shared various tips given by the experts to avoid costly equipment and the way simple utility items could achieve the same end result.
Arena Chandigarh also later demostrated state-of-the-art VFX Equipment directly imported from UK by their Studio VirtualSoft.
Learn The Secrets of becoming a VFX Pro!!!
various tips given by the experts to avoid costly equipment and the way simple utility items could achieve the same end result.
I remember in my school days there used to be a guy named Alam Munim. He used to draw so well. All in the class used to see his drawing and enjoy!! Leaving couple more including me, none of other students could ever put down a presentable drawing. Even the toppers were nowhere in this respect even after lot of effort.
This has really been a mystery why some people find it so difficult to draw what they can see right in front of them and others are able to do so quite effortlessly. After some amount of effort those who are unable to come out with satisfactory drawing just give it up for whole of their life finalizing an assumption that they just cant draw.
We experienced similar instances during our long journey of creative education in the last 16 years. Noticed similar blocks that students faced who couldn’t draw. Setting out in research we were lucky enough to come across researches by Psychobiologist Roger W. Sperry’s and Art scholar Betty Edwards.
Most wondrous was the fact that there are two basic modes of thinking – one is Left Brain Mode (verbal, analytic and sequential) and other is Right Brain Mode (visual, perceptual and simultaneous). Howsoever intelligent a person could be with his/her left brain, unless a person switches to Right brain mode he cannot perform many creative activities, Drawing being the prime among those.
This theory gave the short cut exercises to Drawing skills and incidentally also to the creative mode of thinking.
The result is a magical workshop that we deliver to students. Within a short span of 5 days any person starts drawing. Just have a look at before and after drawings of students -
Would have been such a great gift to all my class mates 
Shooting was going on at full swing in a small village near Pune for a small budget movie. One supporting actor needed for the forth coming scene to be shot at this location could not be cast till now. Director could be seen bouncing on phone, may be calling his casting director.
Near evening, jeep of the casting director flooded into the sets. He comes out and announces “Found the actor!!”. All eyes on the Jeep. He opens his rear door and guides out a skinny guy. Director wore a smile of relief. The guy tries to come towards the Director, but stumbles, staggers, limps badly, falls down two three times, his hands moved totally uncoordinated. Director and whole of the team zero in at the casting director. Casting director answers,”No worries. He is just learning to walk, move, understand gravity, his weight, coordination of his arms when walking etc etc. I will train him in the night and he will be ready for acting out the shot in the morning.”
Amm..I’m sorry the above story was not true, but I think I got the idea right. Animator cannot put his character to the acting shot, unless his character learns all body mechanics, weight, play of forces in the body, gravity, walking, moving. Unless moving the body believably becomes his(animators and his character’s) second nature.
Although very tempting, animation student should never try jumping to acting shots, unless he is able to get his body mechanics accurate. Any good character animation training program will have loads of exercises teaching body mechanics before starting acting shots.
Many studios while hiring freshers are more interested in checking if the applicant can get body mechanics right instead of giving them any acting shot during recruitment. Because it is possible for the Director to teach acting to an actor, but it seems bit difficult for the Director to teach the actor body mechanics, especially in one night 
Bye for now!! Keep Animating!!!
On Out of 37 Animation Artists, 21 crossed the line as GO48! Anim8 finished at 12:12:12 in the afternoon on friday 14 December 2012. Go48! Anim8 was full of fun and masti. 37 Artists took the challenge and burnt their midnight oil and went about their movies in a very serious manner. All of these were part of Arena as students.
8 Films were picked based on 5 judges’ feedback. However, the final judgement would be made by a separate panel of judges who are leading artists of the country
Let’s have a look at those that were picked
STUCK – By BHUSHAN SHARMA
STUCK – by MANISH CHAMBYAL
STUCK – by PAWAN NIRBAN
STUCK – by PRABHJOT SINGH WALHA
STUCK – by ANJALI MISHRA
STUCK – by SUBODH ATAL
STUCK – by JEET LAL
STUCK – by MAHIM GOYAL
A video report on the Final Day of the 48 hour GO48! Anim8 Contest that ended yesterday. Today is also the Death Anniversary of Walt Disney who died on 15 December 1966. The GO48! ART and GO48! MESH Finalist were also declared. Raship, Gunjan, Heera, Sandipan and Garima qualified for GO48! ART finals and Amandeep, Pawan, Ravinder, Gurpreet and Siddharth qualified for GO48! MESH Finals on sunday, 16 December 2012. So check out the report below:
GO48! Anim8 Day 3
GO48! Anim8 Second Day
Let us check the update video.
GO48! Anim8 Day 2
yesterday, the competition began at 12:12:12 on the historic date 12-12-12. Most of the competitors did not sleep and would not forget this historic sleepless night all their life.
GO48! Anim8 Launched
GO48! Anim8 Day 1
With the launch of GO48! Live today we’re in for a 48 hours quest for the best Animation film. To add to the fun, the competition began at 12:12:12 on the historic date 12-12-12. We’re sure, none of the competitors would forget this historic night all their life.
OK here’s today’s update. 37 Animation Artists reported for the GO48 Anim8!
Various Mediums that were chosen were 2D, 3D, Flash, Clay, Light, Pixillation and Paper. The constraints were that the movies should be around the subject “STUCK” and they must be at least 5 seconds long.
