KISHAN THAKRAR

Evaluation - Unit 1

 

I chose the theme 'Altered Perspectives' because I knew I wanted to look at making miniature objects life-sized and creating surreal environments to photograph/video. I had already researched and found lots of inspiration on pinterest for the topic, and came across Youtuber Andrew McMurray. I saw his video, Lego Invasion, and wanted to have a go at doing CG animation similar to this; where toys are brought to life and made life-size through computer-generated animations, and superimposed onto real video. I loved the creativity of the video and saw how the possibilities were endless, which allowed me to have a lot of freedom in creating my CG Animation. Before the animation, I began by working with 3D lego models and practiced editing, texturing, importing, and rendering them using Cinema 4D. I used this software for most of this project. I created some stills from these 3D models, and experimented with using different software to import models, edit them and export them to Cinema 4D. I then began to start moving the models in Cinema 4D. Here I learned lots about character rigging; creating muscle structures and joints in 3D models in order to move them naturally. Although very time consuming and tedious, it was very interesting and the skills I learned are extremely useful. I also looked at animation from a film studio rather than just an individual, and found Animal Logic Studios who animated The Lego Movie. I was inspired by many aspects of their animation work on Lego figures and objects, however I was not expecting to create something that looked much like their work, given they had extremely powerful computers and a team of experienced animators! I did want to ensure the quality of my animation was good, as I knew that realism would be a key aspect, given that the viewer sees real life objects in the background of the animation, and I wanted the animated parts and the real life parts to flow seamlessly together. I achieved this largely with tricks and effects like Depth of Field, colour grading and smoke/atmospheric overlays.

 

During this process, seeing as there was a lot of time waiting for scenes to render, etc., I decided to look at photographing miniature objects, but placed in human environments and situations. An artist who fit this description perfectly was Slinkachu. I looked at his book full of miniature people in real-life situations and settings, and created my own set of photos based on his work. I looked at techniques used to achieve interesting effects, such as lowering the aperture to f5.6 to get a very blurred background, and using soft glow overlays in photoshop to make the miniature figures glow. This was taking the topic 'Altered Perspectives' quite literally; we see things from another point of view - another perspective, and so we see the world differently. I wanted my images to contain meaning, for example, in my photo of lego police surrounding a spillage of pebbles, we see what seem to be small pebbles are actually giant boulders getting in the way of the small figures - an emergency situation which humans overlook, because from their perspective, it is nothing significant.

 

I also took inspiration from a trip to Venice, in particular photos I had taken from the top of the Campanile, that I was able to apply tilt-shift effects onto. This effect made the people/subjects appear like miniature models; quite the inverse of what I had done previously. I liked the way the boats appeared under tilt-shift, and this was also an altered perspective. I suppose the meaning of these images would be that Venice is small yet so crowded, and the tilt shift effect allows the viewer to focus on specific parts of the big images.

 

From this project I feel I have learned incredibly useful skills in CG Animation, from character rigging to dynamics to texture creation. I've also learned a great deal about motion tracking, chroma keying and compositing animations and videos. I was really happy with the final piece, as it incorporated many of my original ideas and inspiration in some way, and I created something that I started with not having any idea how to do. I also learned a lot about miniature photography, and using the right lenses, aperture and thinking about composition and depth of field.