Animation Studio - by Helen Piercy

October 3, 2013 Judith

Among the people I know from the National Film and Television School is Helen Piercy - with whom I have previously worked on an animated sonnet by Shakespeare voiced by Alan Rickman, and various school projects.

Helen is currently doing a lot of work with children and young adults in the form of animation workshops across the UK, and as a result was approached last year to write a book/ kit to help children make their own animations.

This book has now been released, and it's fantastic. I have a copy in my edit suite, and it's a big hit with the animators (and others) at the studio. The age guide is ages 8+, but there have already been reviews from much younger children starting to make their own films using the book and kit as a guide.

The kit includes several sets, characters, and props - plus a "director's handbook" which gives an introduction to animation and different styles, as well as hints and tips on making your own films. Find out more at the webpage on Helen's site, or by watching the trailer below:

Animation Studio is available at Amazon (UK), Amazon (US), and various bookshops.

Editing animation

August 19, 2013 Judith

This is part 2 of 3 detailling my processes as an editor on an animated series - for part one see "Editing an Animatic".

As in the previous post, the following notes relate to my specific experiences - mainly as editor on a 52 x 11 minute animation series. Review stages and timings vary significantly for features and other forms, and in my experience by project too.

This workflow is based more on a CG workflow within a 3D* environment, although the principles of the early stages are similar to the previz processes we used on Pirates!

Whilst the bulk of the creative editing work is done in animatic, there are multiple stages during animation where the film is translated from the animatic in which there are decisions to be made - and an opportunity to correct and improve storytelling.

Q Pootle 5 - UK broadcast from next week

July 27, 2013 Judith

A bit of self-promotion here: the series I've been editing for the last year... almost to the day, Q Pootle 5, is beginning transmission on Monday 29th July.

It's on the UK channel CBeebies (various worldwide deals are in place, so hopefully not too long before it reaches other territories), at 8.15am weekdays. Further information on the CBeebies website (click the image to go there and view the opening titles and a short clip).

Q Pootle 5 - on CBeebies from 29th July 2013

It's all very exciting. And quite a few of my friends both in and outside of the industry have children in the exact target age range - so I'm looking forward to getting feedback from them.

Production continues apace - I'm currently on the 45th episode animatic, with another 7 to go after that - and then the workload starts to decrease. We just delivered episodes 23-26 this week, marking the half-way point... which means that on Monday I was responding to requests from people at various stages of animatic, layout, blocking, animation, amends, lighting, and compositing for 23 different episodes. At the rate of one episode per week, there are still 26 weeks to go until the series is complete - at which point there will be 520 minutes of animation across 52 episodes, not including titles and credits.

Animation: it takes a long time.

Editing an animatic

February 2, 2013 Judith

An animatic is the first stage of the edit in an animation. It's the combination of the storyboards, audio (possibly with temp voice acting), and timing. It's used as the base for the animation: animators will take the shot angle, durations, certain actions, and timings as a starting point for their work on each shot.

Animatics are also sometimes used in live-action films, in the same way as directors will storyboard certain sequences, and they may be the stage used prior to previz for VFX work on large action films.

Awards season

January 10, 2013 Judith

The BAFTA Film nominations were yesterday. Unfortunately, Pirates not only failed to win - they were not even amongst the three animated features nominated in the relevant category.

However, this was more or less righted by the nomination in the 85th Academy Awards - announced earlier today. Pirates is one of five films nominated for Best Animated Feature, and one of three stop motion films within the category! So, fingers crossed for the 24th of February.

Another recently announced set of nominations that I eagerly browsed were those of the Visual Effects Society Awards - having been the previs/ VFX editor on Pirates, I was rather hoping to see a few nods in that area. Indeed, there's an Outstanding Animated Character in an Animated Feature Motion Picture - competing against Brave, Hotel Transylvania, and Wreck-It Ralph - all of which are fully CG. I personally attribute a large part of this (corrrectly or not) the seamless overlap between stop-motion and CG to a fair amount of confusion over the nature of the film and its effects. Not only amongst lay-people (although I have had to clarify on a few occasions that the water was indeed generated and yes - CG CAN do that these days), but also amongst VFX pros - for whom I answered several questions on Twitter about the production and stop motion, previs, vfx, CG animation, etc. at the time the film came out.

Pirates also has a Best Animated Feature nomination in the 40th Annie Awards, as well as Outstanding Achievement nominations in four categories:Character Animation in a Feature Production, Production Design in an Animated Feature Production, Voice Acting in an Animated Feature Production, Writing in an Animated Feature Production. So... exciting times.

Working on Pirates was an amazing experience in its own right, especially as it was the first feature I ever worked on - but it's certainly amazing and fulfilling to see it get some outside recognition too, from people who didn't actually work on it - or who don't feel they have to say nice things because they know me.

It's been almost exactly a year now since VFX finished on the film, and it's immensely gratifying to see it still making its way out there. I really hope that it continues to get the same level of love and commitment from the rest of the world as those of us involved in its production put in.

A Sinister Character

September 25, 2012 Judith

Today I asked a difficult question at work. I asked whether any of the characters in our preschool-targeted animation series were left-handed. This may seem like a bit of an odd question to ask - especially for an editor. After all, we're not in the dark ages where we consider lefties to be the acquaintance of the devil, and although modern world languages seem little biased, it surely doesn't matter? As far as story goes, it's like asking what colour a character's eyes are, right?

Working with the edit department (from the outside)

September 9, 2010 Judith

A few months ago I rather rapidly acquired a new job - my first on a feature, a stereoscopic stop-motion animation. But I'm not working in the editing department. They've been in place now for some time. I'm working in Previs and VFX. On an Avid.

Now, this was a rather contentious point. In fact, it still is. The previs reviews bring in a number of changes to the edit, where the editor isn't even present. As an editor, you become used to people making changes to the shots that you've selected - even not being present at the decision and therefore not being able to argue your case is something you have to live with on occasion. But this involves entire sequences being shaped away from the department. And is, understandably, somewhat frustrating.

I'm in a rather unique position on it all. I sympathise entirely with the editor's wish to be the one in control of these decisions. But from the previs perspective, the sequences need to be viewable at our reviews with the director. It was one of the reasons I was hired in the first place - to be able to tidy up sequences and show the director different possibilities within reviews without the entire thing having to go into the main edit suite and involve about twice as many people. But with the massively hectic schedule we have, the added complications of dialogue selects coming back on a near-daily basis, sequences being updated in edit with incoming shots and newly recorded/approved dialogue whilst they're being updated in previs to solve issues with sets, models, actions.... well, it's impossible to request the editor to attend all of our reviews, and impractical for previs notes to be given within edit reviews when there are so many feedback sessions required per sequence before they're approved.

The upshot of it all is that our approval workflow is changing on a monthly basis, as we sort out what's working and what isn't for our relative departments as well as the overall production. The meetings are vastly interesting as we all get to say what would work best for us, and then hear what that would imply for the others further down the line. It's a masterclass in communication and adaptation. And it's actually pretty damn enjoyable.