Digital

(Keep in mind this is all mostly from the first year ((I had it done from first year, i just didn't have much sketchbook work(Now this blog) and it wasn't quite finished)) ).

After looking at my drawings (previous post) i re-drew them in flash and settled on a design. (All the work below was done in first year, I've just polished it).

First thing i did was to create the background, a rather simplistic background  with a door. (I used the colour red as i always depict red the colour of passion and the mans love and passion can be heard in his voice).

A simple blur effect was added to give a kind of "Camera/focus" effect, worked reasonably well.



I then drew the character that would be central to the whole 11 second clip (Plus this bit). The big hair was a huge plus when designing him as i didn't have to worry about the ears and that part of the head (as it was all covered).

I was reasonably happy with the way the head turned out, i was also happy with the subtle.

The Piano was the next thing on my list i just made a simple vector (to match with the background).

The body was done separately as the head was to tween downwards.

And this is what it all looks like finished.(Click it to see the Swf).http://www.swfcabin.com/open/1277916706

So, design!

I found these hidden away in my first year sketchbooks. I had the idea to base my character on Gustavo as the hair was a huge plus in terms of design. The original idea was to have the Conductor/Composer sitting at his Piano. His head slowly drops and it cuts to him standing up explaining what happened (the 11 second audio). I felt that was a somewhat decent idea so i stuck with it and carried it to the final animation.

I originally intended on him being a 'more rotund' gentleman as i thought that would make for good animation and design. I then scrapped it, (It was a year ago) so i can't quite remember why.

Keys, KEYS EVERYWHERE!

I then went onto do some background research, i understood that the focus would be more on the character, but backgrounds are important to give the atmosphere by giving the viewer an idea of how the person lives.

Piano's were my first stop on the "WHAT TO PUT IN THE BACKGROUND" tour. I intended on my person being both a Conductor and a Composer so a Piano was a must have.

I wanted a rather obvious Piano, i didn't want a overly big/complicated/purple piano. A simple black Piano is all that i wanted.





Next up was what he would sit on, originally when i first though of this (back in first year) i imagined a man sitting in a big leather back chair on the Piano. (Look left for an example), but after thinking..who sits on that kind of chair when attempting to play a Piano?...No one that's who. So i quickly started looking for those tiny 'Piano stools'. I remember on the day (or the day before) we were given the task we were shown a short Tom and Jerry clip expressing how important performance was. It was the episode when Thom is playing the Piano infront of an audience and Jerry being his annoying self tries to stop him. He was sitting a little stool and maybe that helped me think.

This is the one i decided i'd add to the background.

Movement?

I've always found the way conductors move interesting (I personally don't see a huge reason for them to even be there((I understand they control the tempo and timing but surely any person in the Orchestra can do that through themselves)) ).



There is a finesse about conducting that i think gets overlooked, the soft hand movements for the quite softer parts, but when hard hitting or fast sound needs to come in you can see the force coming from the Conductor. (0:55 - 1:20 is a perfect example of what i'm talking about).

A very funny satirical look at the world of conducting here, from (none other than the BBC ((Who can fault them for their comedy over the years? :D )



Once again yet another satirical look at the world of conducting (there seems to be a lot of comedy based looks at Conducting, i guess it has no one to blame but itself).



And of course you can't finish of a comedy conductor without Rowan Atkinson himself, being a STUPIDLY HUGE fan of Rowan i consider this to be the cream of the crop. You can tell he has a huge understanding of music to be able to do this and his hand actions (in most parts) are spot on.

Clothes.

Breaking it down there is pretty obvious similarity between the outfit be it male or female. Black on-top white underneath.

Some wear all black, somewhere a simple suit but the overriding similarity is as mentioned above. As far as i can tell a White bow is often used as well. A possible shorter sleeve to help wrist movement? (The flow of a wrist as far as i know is very important).

Conducters!

Immediatly Mr Ludwig Van Beethoven came to mind as i was listening to Moonlight Sonata at the time, from the pictures i remember seeing of him he seemed a rather stern man. Looked he was always sucking on a Lemon in his pictures, both a Composer and a Conductor i thought he's the perfect man to be looking at.

Anyway the idea of finding these composers was to find something they all equally shared. I always assumed the costume was similar for all conductors and i wasn't far off.






Gustavo Dudamel, i had heard and seen of this
man (god knows where) but the big curly hair is what lodged him in my head. Possibly it was the BBC proms, i have no idea BUT this was the kind of person i was looking for. As well as the hair i remembered the energy he put into his performance and the way his hair tumbled about everywhere.

11 second!

Our task was simple, take a piece of audio (used in the 11 second club) and create an animation to go along with it using expressions and movement rather than a static image with a black blob moving for the mouth.

I chose the (RESERVED UNTILL I REMEMBER) audio. I connected it with it as soon as i heard it and could imagine what i wanted done. I saw a composer in a tuxedo/suit raging because his work got torn up.

I began research on looking for composers and the way they acted/dressed.