Annecy Festival 2015

Just got back from the 2015 Annecy International Animated Film Festival with these lovely people! Just enough energy left to let you know that I'm back and had a lovely time - normal posting will resume next week.

Top row, from left to right: Sian Mills, James Stafford, Tad Davies, Saeed Ahmed, Laura Jones, Josh Cranton.

Bottom row, from left to right: Jason Evans, Ciprian Costas, Katie Green, Robyn Kelly, Hannah Evans, Gary Seto, Stephanie Howell, me.

All of their blogs can be found in the sidebar!

New Showreel

Showreel May 2015 from Julia Young on Vimeo.

Recently I had to put together a showreel of my work from the last three years of university and I thought I'd share it with you today. You can also find it on the homepage of my website.

You may not hear from me for a couple of weeks now - I'm leaving for the Annecy Film Festival on Friday and so my posting for the next couple of weeks entirely depends on whether or not I find any internet connection!

End of Third Year

Keeper: Sneak Peak from Julia Young on Vimeo.

Well, as stated that it would be in my last blog post, since you last heard from me the film has been finished! We have also enjoyed our end of year show where, judged by A Productions in Bristol, the film won the 'Best 2D' category! This marks for us the end of University and it certainly feels odd...

I hope you enjoy the sneak peak posted above; the film in its entirety will be put up both here and on my website once it has completed the festival circuit. I'd just like to take this post to thank again all of those who were involved in the production of the film - you're all the best!

Some credits again and links to websites:

Soundtrack - Joe Barlow

CG Artist - Rhys Jones

CG Animator - Gary Seto

Compositor - Georgia Dutton

Super-duper special thanks to Jason Evans

Thanks as well to Ben Mitchell from Skwigly for taking these photos at our end of year show, 'Animotion'. Congrats to all the winners!

From left to right - Sian Mills, Saeed Ahmed, Josh Cranton & myself, Alice Parkes, Steph Howell

Variations, Moods, Compositing

Last week I posted the following image. It was the background of the very first shot of the film. It's sunset and the scene is bright:

Since last week, Josh and I started talking again about the colours of the film and the implied moods that they create. We agreed that at the beginning of the film we actually wanted a moodier/darker feel so that the relief and optimism at the end of the film is more pronounced. With this in mind, I created this new version:

A while back our tutor suggested that we could create a nice completing-of-the-circle feeling for the film by repeating the first shot of the film at the end of the film. We took this on board as it did provide a sense of emotional completeness and so here is the final background; the lighthouse at sunrise:

My wonderful friend and housemate Georgie Dutton has come on board of the project to help us composite the film. Very, very soon these backgrounds will have CG water in them! The final deadline is this Friday so next time I post the film will be complete. See you on the other side!

More Film Backgrounds

Less than two weeks to go! Eep! These are two backgrounds from the establishing scene of the film. I've almost finished painting them all, and the next stage is to composite everything together. The sea in this first shot will be CG, but for now I've put in a blue area to indicate the horizon. 

Film Backgrounds

Well, terrifyingly, it's now less than 3 weeks until our film deadline. Everything is starting to come together now; animation is being coloured, compositing is going on and I thought today I'd share with you a couple of the painted backgrounds I've finished. The CG base of each and every background in the film was created by the ever-wonderful Rhys Jones and I then take those greyscale bases into Photoshop to paint.

Fonts

Having so far been using Times New Roman in our animatic film as we update and add credits, it is far beyond time to make our own bespoke font. I found a great site to turn my letters into a font and above you can see our current credits used as a test. We've also just had an influx of first years volunteering to help colour our animation, so they will be added soon too!

Rough Keyframe Animation

Rough Keyframe Test from Julia Young on Vimeo.

The aim this week is to finish rough keying every shot of the film so that not only will we be able to see more clearly the pacing of each shot, but we'll then be able to edit the shots together more exactly and we can pass the rough version of the film on to our very talented music-maker! We have so far been cleaning-up each shot as we go along, but it's time to change tactic for pipeline purposes. Here's an example for you of what those rough keyframed shots are looking like. This is Keeper recoiling after the lighthouse bulb suddenly bursts on.

New Website...

Hi all,

I've been working on a complete new portfolio/blog site that I plan to unveil this weekend.

[UPDATE: The portfolio site is now up! Find it in the tab at the top of my blog, or go to www.juliaanimation.co.uk !]

Julia out!

Into Production

 

Hi everyone!

We're properly into production now with our fabulous corner work space, our brilliant CG modeller has been giving us our background layouts, we've begun animating and my super-organised schedule to keep us on track can be seen in the bottom left of the right image. Pictured in our work-corner on the left is Josh, my collaborator, whose blog can be found here. On the right you can see Josh and Rhys lining up the camera in Rhys CG environment with the angle drawn in the animatic so we can render a frame  and use it as a background for our animation. Rhys is brilliant and you can find his work here. Below is a scribbled keyframe animation I did this morning to give you a taste of what we're up to!

Bye for now!

Getting to Work from Julia Young on Vimeo.

Colour Keys

One of the things I did before Christmas was colour keys. This is only one example, but it should give you an idea of what the final film will look like. Josh is responsible for the linework in this example, and I coloured four different versions over the top. Again, hopefully it gives you some indication of what our collaboration will look like in the end!

Building a Lighthouse

It goes without saying that when you're designing a film about a lighthouse keeper you have to draw lots and lots of lighthouses. We've gone from ordinary to fantastical, but the exploration had to end at some point with a final design! We have spent several days drawing every prop and every angle imaginable so that our CG buddies can model everything, and here is a very small taste for you.

Mood Boards

Hi Everyone,

Painting mood boards was incredibly exciting for me as it marked the moment when what was just talking about a film finally became actually working on pre-production to make the film! I thought today I'd share with you a few mood boards I did right at the start of the project.

A Very Exciting Brief!

I've not posted university work in a little while, so I thought today I'd let you know what we're up to; we've kicked off our new brief; pre-production for our final film! I had been looking forward to this for months so to have it officially start was completely fantastic! I'm collaborating for this project (and the production of the final film) with my coursemate Josh. The story idea is his but we're working very hard to bring it to life as a team. In our excitement last week, we even began a little pre-production instead of concentrating on our AfterEffects coursework. I thought today I would share with you two promo paintings that I did to get you as excited as I am for this project!

Drunken Snowmen and Other Shenanigans

Last night was my Google Doodle deadline. I'm sorry for not uploading this then, but something went wrong in the export and it's just worked now. Please enjoy this Christmas-inspired Google Doodle, featuring a drunken snowman.

Snowman Doodle from Julia Young on Vimeo.

Also yesterday, my review of 'The Book of Life' was published on Skwigly, so you can read that here if you'd like. It's a beautiful film and I recommend giving it a watch!

Until next week!

Google Doodle Doodle

Our current university coursework is pretty fun. We have to animate a Google Doodle in Flash and incorporate some interactive elements using actionscript. While I work on my final Doodle for the deadline on Monday next week, I thought I'd share with you a concept that I animated. Had it been my final Doodle, the animation would only start when you roll your mouse over the tree and leaves would follow your mouse. I would also have added an autumn-forest-type background. As it stands it's just a doodle of a Doodle, but I rather like it!

Autumn Google Doodle Doodle from Julia Young on Vimeo.

Until next week when you'll see my final, fully interactive Doodle! (I don't think I've ever used the word 'doodle' so often in my life!)

Doodles and Skwigly

Hi all! Sorry for missing last week but to say it's been hectic doesn't even cover it! First of all, have a quicky flash doodle animation.

Flash Flower Doodle from Julia Young on Vimeo.

Second of all, I thought I'd update you on what I've been up to for Skwigly. At the beginning of the summer I had the enormous pleasure of interviewing Peter Lord and David Sproxton at the premier of the new 'Morph' series that was aired on YouTube over the summer. They were completely lovely and Peter Lord complemented me on my Morph-making skills! If you haven't already seen the series, watch it here and enjoy!

More recently, I headed down to the Bristol Encounters Short Film Festival. Each day of the festival has its own write up and the highlights have their own articles too. Have a look here if you want to see what I thought of Day 3 but spoiler alert, I enjoyed it immensely because I met Glen Keane! Honestly, it was such an incredible day!

He was there to present his film 'Duet' and the interview I had with him will be on Skwigly's Youtube series 'Lightbox' soon, so keep an eye out!

Until next week!

And It Begins Again!

Hi everyone! Today was the start of my 3rd year induction week and so the madness of term begins again! Here is my first post of the new year! To explain, over the summer I downloaded a trial of a piece of animation software called 'TV Paint'. I may be buying and using it for my film this year, so I thought I should have a go first!

Patito from Julia Young on Vimeo.