Continuing from my first post. In my second part of my Fake Essex History animation project for the research, and as you guess this post is a very Essex post.
First off, I will not focus on Essex Girls on this project with Essex Girls jokes, it would be too sexist for this project and I don’t think the project needs it. So moving on.
As you can guess, Ford has a plant in Dagenham, which is in Essex. And through the 1970s and 1980s Ford build cars such as Fiesta, Cortina and the Capri at the Dagenham plant.
The Essex folks always has a fondness of the Capri and Escort, despite the Escort wasn’t built at Dagenham.
Clarkson Car Years
Researched The Only Way Is Essex (TOWIE). With the male characters I have mainly focus.
TOWIE
Look at football, mostly for West Ham United, despite they're not an Essex football club.
West Ham United: Moore than history
There is also fanatic fans too for West Ham yeah, like Terry from Upminster right, and Russell Brand (who is not on Youtube below).
Terry from Upminster (TalkSport)
Overall, that is my research from Essex in a tongue and cheek way.
But, for now see you in 2014. Bye.
Its research time for my Fake Essex History animation project, and first I started to look at Horrible Histories with the Rotten Romans to basically give me a quick history lesson of the Roman Emperor in Britannia in the first century .
Horrible Histories
Then, I started to look at Time Team episodes from Essex, I was much inspired from the Colchester episode on how the Romans did in the first century and explain more on Colchester in the first century.
Time Team (Colchester)
Time Team (Southend)
Then, I watched the 1980′s TV show Chelmsford 123. The series was set in the Essex town of Chelmsford in the year AD 123, and concerned the power struggle between Roman governor Aulus Paulinus (Jimmy Mulville) and the British chieftain, Badvoc (Rory McGrath).
Chelmsford 123
Then, I watched Monty Python’s 1979 film Monty Python’s Life of Brian which tells the story of Brian Cohen, a young Jewish man who is born on the same day as, and next door to, Jesus Christ and is subsequently mistaken for the Messiah. And in one of the sketches, Michael Palin who played a character called Pontius Pilate who can not pronounce his R’s, talk about his friend Biggus Dickus.
Monty Python Biggus Dickus
After watching Python, I looked at French comic book Astérix, written by René Goscinny and illustrated by Albert Uderzo. Basically the comics are set in Roman times in France and follows the journey of Asterix and Obelix.
And below I’ve found on YouTube the 1967 animation movie Astérix and the Gauls:
Astérix and the Gauls (1967)
Next, I looked at Bob Godfrey’s animation work, for more on the story, which includes animations such as Henry’s Cat and the DIY Cartoon Kit. Which, was quite funny lies in each of his animations.
Henry’s Cat
DIY Cartoon Kit – teaser
In part 2 of my research next time out the Fake Essex stuff.
Bye
First there will be possibly another post in 2013. But, for now Happy Christmas/happy holidays, see you in 2014. Bye.
We had Penelope Mendoncia come in the last day (Friday 5th December) before Xmas to teach us Character Design (should have been Vincent Woodcock for half a day, but something to do about a tooth fairy or some sort). This lesson was more about drawing out of my own comfort zone.
One task today we went out to draw five different people from life around Kings Cross and then had to three things that doesn’t use in our drawings such as drawing down woman, big eyes, small head for example into one unique character, which we drew.
Then in the afternoon session the best four characters were chosen, we then got into groups of these winning characters into a family tree and draw it into that persons style and this what I create below. As you can see not my typical drawing style.
Bye.
This is not for the current group project. But, more for the final project for later in the year. One of my ideas so far, and the one that a few people I have explained were people have liked is called “Fake Essex History”. That is set in roman times of Colchester, Dagenham and Brentwood in the first century, were the romans meet the ancestors of air-heads and douschebags of Essex idiots in a series of fake history in the country of Essex (note: I am from Essex and still live in Essex, so I can be a bit of a piss taker of Essex).
The story is not cemented yet, but I got some ideas such as the romans renamed Colchester as New Rome. Also, the romans drag the air-heads to the zoo in Colchester but the lions refuse to eat them because one of the lions got food poisoning by eating of them and die, so the romans dragged them to place down south of Essex and build a wall called it Brentwood that was the origins of Brentwood. But, the wall went down because the people of Brentwood went in debit of building of the Brentwood coliseum, so the wall went 300 miles up north to relayed as Hadrian’s Wall were it blocked the Scottish. Also, I got an idea with Dagenham and the creation of the British Chariot dubbed as the Chariot Capri with one horsepower. But, there’s a more powerful Chariot called Chariot Capri RS Cosworth with four horsepower. This idea will be more of a comedy. But, the story needs a start, middle and a end if I can develop the animation.
Here’s some more images so far I’ve drawn down from last weekend.
Bye.
Week 4 from 04/11/13-08/11/13 working on the ‘A long way to Tipperary’ story with Fiona’s group being one of the animators.
4/11/13-6/11/13
Continue adding the keyframes for the first scene. Also, I added in some of the lip syncing for the scene as-well.
7/11/13
Continue adding the keyframes for the first scene. Also, I added in some of the lip syncing for the scene as-well.
8/11/13
Today, showed our rough cut with the keyframes for ‘A long way to Tipperary’ . The showing went well with the clients and Michelle seemed pleased that it would fit with the exhibition. There is a lot more animation work to be done, need to do more inbetwen frames for my scenes for next week and for the deadline too.
Bye.
Week 2 from 21/10/13-25/10/13 working on the ‘A long way to Tipperary’ story with Fiona’s group being one of the animators.
21/10/13-23/10/13
Started to put in the keyframes in for final scene (scene 10). Got a meeting with clients tomorrow at the London Transport Museum.
23/10/13
Meeting was cancelled with the clients at the London Transport Museum, due to the client was ill. However, the client did e-mailed us on what to improve on from what they saw of the animatic. The client stated that they wanted more negative war stuffs on the animation such as death. Which, we as a team disagree, because the animation was suppose to be more of a comedy animation rather than death and being negative. So, Fiona e-mailed backed that this will not work, due to animation should be of a comedy and should stick to the original story, which they choose originally.
LTM_Tipperary_Animatic from Xiaowan Zhang on Vimeo.
They e-mailed backed and agreed with our views, the only changes was the soldiers uniform. Currently they are dressed in their military finery, but in reality they would need to be in khaki army uniform so we will need to change midway through the animatic.
24/10/13
Continue adding the keyframes for scene 10. Also, I added in some of the lip syncing for the scene as-well.
Today we did a acting class with Ioli on Thursday. She was full of ideas for the project and made it much better. New additions and changes included the first scene between Jack and Jimmy in which Jimmy prods Jack; Jack dropping into shot. This will help we when I start drawing down the first scene.
25/10/13
Continue adding more keyframes for scene 10 and change some of the keyframes from yesterdays acting class with Ioli.
Over the weekend I will starting doing the keyframes for the first Scene.
Bye.
Week 1 from 14/10/13-18/10/13 working on the ‘A long way to Tipperary’ story with Fiona’s group being one of the animators.
15/10/13
We met with the clients at the London Transport Museum and it went well. The client wanted a few minor changes from Fiona concept such as making the Leicester Square sign looked more like from the signs of the first World War I and add more first World War British soldiers into the animation, apart form that everything is fine.
17/10/13
Today, we’ve adjust and added more images into Fiona’s animatic what the client have asked to do with their actions from Tuesday.
Also, we’re discussed what scenes we are doing, I am doing the first scene which is 10 seconds; and the tenth and final scene, which is 12 seconds long. Overall, I have 22 seconds to animate in a 85 second animation.
Scene 1: Jimmy and Jack talk to each other – Jimmy’s eyes throbbing, spit from his mouth as he speaks, in slow motion he says ‘five shillings’ - REASSIGNED TO JONATHAN ( I figured that Jonathan may aswell animate all scenes with these two characters as he is already doing the last one – plus he wanted to do this one.)
Scene 10: Jack on stage singing. We see Jimmy “The Lips” scowling up at him, his lip and eye throbbing. Jack waves his arms wide for the final “It’s a long, long way to Tipperary but my heart’s right there!” A thought bubble appears from Jimmy’s head, saying “It’ll never catch on.” - JONATHAN
18/10/13
We’ve finished off the improved animatic, added more images into the animatic to show the client on Wednesday (23/10/13)
LTM_Tipperary_Animatic from Xiaowan Zhang on Vimeo.
Also, I open up Flash, to try to get hangaround of Fiona’s drawing style. By using some of the animatic sketches as reference to her style, so I can match the style.
Over the weekend I will starting doing the keyframes for Scene 10.
Bye.
Unfortunately, non of my two concepts for each of the two projects for Liquid Architecture and London Transport Museum – Goodbye Piccadilly have been pick, so that means I am not leading either project. However, I am in someone’s group for the one of the LTM projects as an animator.
So always look on the bright side of life.
Bye.
