Nira's VFX Blog
A journey through my master

Tag: Structure

Categories
FMP Thesis

Week 3: Thesis Proposal Research, Abstract, & First Sources

This week we analysed the objectives and structure of our thesis, and wrote a short explanation of our topic and sources relevance to our project proposal.

Thesis objectives and structure

Before starting to write a thesis, it is important to set the targets, audience, and structure of it:

  • Determine audience
  • Determine what hit is the audience is going to learn
  • Break down thesis into main questions
  • Put questions in an order that makes sense
  • Develop sub-questions
  • Plan investigation two find answers

In order to build my thesis argument, I will need to use my own voice, meaning to express in a formal way but following my own style of writing. I could build my own views on its but not using my own opinions into it without any evidence to prove it. I should not use ‘I’, ‘my’, ‘mine’, only to be used when citing my own research. Before starting to write the thesis, it is good practice to try and sum the argument in a few words, so I can have it as reference to go back to check if I am still following this initial argument while writing the thesis.

In the chapters, it would be interesting to add counterarguments to our arguments that could at the same time argued again. This would prove that the analysis is not biased and it is taking in consideration all perspectives.

The conclusion should summarise the main points discussed on each chapter and should answer the question asked originally.

The methodology followed to research and gather information could be by researching peer reviewed sources, surveys, interviews, experiments, etc.

Blog task

We were asked to provide an outline of our potential research topic:

1. A short explanation of what I am researching, how I am researching it, and why it is important to research this subject/the relevance to my project proposal.

I am going to focus my research in photorealism in film industry.There are many different opinions and techniques about this, such us how can digital photorealism help with safety issues during live action shooting of ‘impossible to shot’ scenes, or how some people consider photorealism in filmmaking to be ‘too realistic’ therefore it takes you out of the story being difficult to empathise with, or how photorealistic animation can be considered a live action movie or an animation movie. This topic has many directions that can be followed and I would need to structured it in a way that everything looks connected. I am thinking in narrow it down to the controversy that photorealism has always been into the film industry (pros and cons rather than technical aspects) as it could be interesting to analyse the reaction of the audience throughout the years and how it could possibly develop in the future. My research method would be focused on peer reviewed sources found on internet or library, but I will possibly try to conduct a survey amongst students, lecturers at university and some more people outside VFX industry to ask about their feelings towards photorealistic films (I will have to create a selection of the best known photorealistic movies so people taking the survey are familiar with them).

2. Keywords/key phrases used in my searches.

Photorealism, CGI, VFX, Filmmaking, Filmmaking safety standards, Uncanny Valley

3. At least four sources, debates or texts in the subject area and a short explanation of the relevance to my project proposal.

Agrawal, A., and Auryn (2009). Non-photorealistic Rendering: Unleashing the Artist’s Imagination (online). Available at: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=5167490 [Accessed 25 April 2023]

Cooper, D. (1999). Personal Thoughts on Non-Photorealistic Rendering (online). Available at:  https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/563666.563690 [Accessed 25 April 2023]

  • These two sources explain the challenges and techniques that artists have faced with photorealism (and its issues with the so called ‘uncanny valley’), and how some artists have opted for NPR (non-photorealistic rendering) to create a more simple and cartoony style (animation).

Jeng, J. (2023). Sidelining Photorealism: ‘Speed Racer’ and Articulation of Digital Effects Labour (online). Available at: https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=KLOqEAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA153&dq=photorealism+in+film&ots=r8349MlY8s&sig=aEhMvSbwORZ1C0leMCKO8dpnEns&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=photorealism%20in%20film&f=false[Accessed 25 April 2023]

  • This research paper explains how photorealism has always been the leader in the film industry and how some movies like ‘Speed Racer’ have opted to sideline this style to help foreground the work of digital visual effects artists.

Manovich, Lev (2002). The Language of New Media. First paperback edn. Cambridge: The MIT Press.

  • Manovich’s book explains how it is a common opinion that CGI will never be as realistic as images gathered by camera lenses. He also counter argues that these opinions are mistaken, explaining why he thinks this and how these CGI is in fact becoming more realistic than traditional photographs.

Meena, K. B., and Tyagi, V. (2019).  A Novel Method to Distinguish Photorealistic Computer Generated Images from Photographic Images (online). Available at: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=8985711 [Accessed 25 April 2023]

  • This source explains how photorealism has revolutionary the filmmaking and game industry and, in the other hand, it also analyses how these photorealistic techniques have been used with malicious intentions and how important it is to learn how to distinguish real assets from computer generated ones.

Melki, H. (2019). An Investigation Into The Creative Processes In Generating Believable Photorealistic Film Characters (online). Available at: https://pure.ulster.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/78290411/Henry_Melki_Thesis.pdf [Accessed 25 April 2023]

  • This dissertation focuses in the process to create believable photorealistic film characters as well as its benefits and challenges. The research was also made through interviews with several expert industry practitioners and the comparison of all the participants statements.

Wadmare, S. (2021). Recent Trends Visitation in VFX and SFX in the Animation World (online). Available at: http://ilkogretim-online.org/fulltext/218-1617213160.pdf?1682423818 [Accessed 25 April 2023]

  • This essay examines the importance of photorealistic VFX in filmmaking industry as a tool to avoid shooting dangerous live action scenes.
Categories
Design For Animation

Week 8: Developing a Research Topic

In this lecture, we reviewed the process of researching a topic and how to structured it for our critical report.

Before start our research of our topic, it is important to consider why this research is relevant to the field of study and how it informs the audience. We also could consider what do we want to focus on when graduating, why skills we want to develop, and how are we going to show case our final major project (FMP).

The aspects that we could explore are if our topic is:

  • Experimental or commercial
  • Emergent
  • Screen based
  • Expanded cinema
  • Installation
  • Interactive
  • Studio/cinema/games

Also, our research should show enquiry (engagement, analysis, evaluation), knowledge (analysis, synthesis), process (methods, practical work, experimentation), communication (arguments), and realisation (improvement). There are several resources to do our research like Google Scholar, JSTOR, EBSCO, Animation studies 2.0, UAL Library, etc.

Once we have done our research, it is time to start thinking in the structure of our critical report. The standard structure that a critical report should have is the following:

  1. Title: subtitle
  2. Acknowledgements (optional)
  3. Abstract (short summary of dissertation: question, methods, results)
  4. Key words
  5. Contents page
  6. Introduction (to orientate, inform, and attract the reader’s attention to the topic, along along with stating focused topic and context)
  7. Literature review (synthesis of books’ topics and why they have been used in the critical report – presentation of sources)
  8. Main body of text (can split contents in chapters, and the arguments and statements should be supported with proof or references)
  9. Conclusion (add findings and position – summarise points made in main body)
  10. Appendix (optional)
  11. Bibliography/Reference list/Filmography
  12. Image list (optional)

It is also important to establish the audience and the purpose of the critical report along with the topic and structure.

After this class, I decided to restructure my critical report, adding the sections that we have reviewed today and separating the main body into chapters. Currently my critical report structure looks like this (the coloured text are personal annotations of possible arguments to add):

How CGI has enhanced or affected the stop motion production and result, taking as reference The Nightmare before Christmas and The Boxtrolls stop motion animations.

  • Abstract
  • Key words
  • Contents page
  • Introduction

The world evolves with the pass of time and the technology with it. Some original practices get perfectioned and others are replaced by more suitable ones. This critical report is going to be an analysis of how stop motion is still being used to create great animation movies such as The nightmare before Christmas by Henry Selick and Tim Burton, which has a unique and more refined aesthetic, but it could also be a more expensive process. It will also evaluate how CGI has taken more presence in the animation and VFX industry because of its lower cost of production and its faster creative process. Lastly, it will be also studied how stop motion and CGI are being mixed to achieve even greater and more effective results shown in movies like The Boxtrolls by LAIKA Films.

  • Literature review

Explain what each source says or explains (TNBC documentary, The Boxtrolls documentary, stop motion books).

  • A brief story of stop motion and CGI

Where did stop motion come from and when and why CGI made its appearance in this discipline?

Stop motion was discovered due to an accident that turned out into a discovery. 

Pros and cons from both techniques separately.

  1. Stop motion pros: aesthetic, refined result, high quality, unique, adds more value to the final product.
  2. Stop motion cons: costly, time consuming as made frame by frame, no motion blur (Phil Tippett).
  3. CGI pros: cost effective, less time consuming, can correct errors without having to reshoot a whole scene, can be more precise.
  4. CGI cons: digital aesthetic (errors or mistakes done are what makes our work ‘ours’ and unique, and sometimes we can create something different or never done before – with CGI this can hard to achieve as we can correct errors easily)
  • Traditional stop motion: The Nightmare Before Christmas (395)

The Making of Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas (BbaGumpSkrimp, 2012) shows how Tim Burton and Henry Selick spent three years and recruited a team of over a hundred artists and technicians to finish this film, only using traditional handmade stop motion animation frame by frame. They needed to hire animators, artists, puppet makers, set builders, prop makers, and specially trained camera operators. All of them had to create and build hundreds of sets and individual puppet characters, since shooting at 24 fps (frames per second) meant that the character needed to be posed 24 times in one second. All this work and attention to detail involves that one minute of finished film, would take an entire week of shooting. Moreover, every facial expression of each puppet meant that a different head needed to be sculpted and, in this case, they used over 400 different heads. In this film, they also had to take in consideration ambience effects such as fire, smoke, snow, lighting bolts, shadows, and flying objects. These effects were added in post-production with rotoscoping techniques or hand-drawing directly on the physical film a frame at the time. Burton and Selick’s animation had also the inconvenience of being shot with analogue cameras, which put a lot of pressure in the animators: if a single frame had a mistake that could not be corrected in post-production, they had to retake the whole sequence from the beginning. As Tim Burton said in the previously mentioned documentary, “stop motion is like making a live action movie in slow motion really”.

According to Cracking Animation: The Aardman Book of 3-D Animation by Peter Lord & Brian Sibley (2015, p. 43), “The nightmare Before Christmas was the first stop-motion feature film to receive worldwide distribution”. The unique, grotesque, and imperfect style of Tim Burton’s characters was created by some of the best stop motion animators in the world. They needed the best professionals they could find to elaborate that detailed world with imperfect angles, shapes, and textured materials to recreate the cross-hatched style drawings that Burton designed in his original drawings. An example of a masterpiece model design is Jack Skellington, the main character of the film, with a skeleton-like look, a black suit, and long and skinny legs and arms. Despite the creepy look of this character, the stop motion animation of it was elegant and neat. 

  • Stop motion and CGI: The Boxtrolls (400)

Nowadays, with digital cameras and CGI (Computer Generated Imagery), animators have less pressure when shooting a stop motion sequence since they can preview it in real time and replace specific frames that have any errors by new corrected frames. Taking The Boxtrolls as reference by LAIKA Studios, there are certain elements of a scene like floating hair or cloth, that are achieved with the help of CGI. To make a dance scene with both cloth and hair moving, first they had to take a real dance scene as reference to see how they moved. They also asked the dancers to create a choreography and movements so they also could include them in the scene with the puppets. Since the puppet’s cloth is not rigid, they had to attach the dress fabric to a joined mesh which was articulated and let the animators to move and fix the desired position to take the shots of the sequence. However, since the scene consisted in a room full of dancing characters, and to create an articulated puppet for each one would be costly and time consuming, they decided to only use traditional stop motion with the main characters and add the rest with CGI (taking as reference the hand-made puppets). This scene has four hand-made puppets and around 50 to 60 CGI characters to fill gaps. The aesthetic of the hand-made puppet was reproduced digitally, and its mistakes and imperfections were transferred to the CGI puppet, making it look more realistic than it would have been by simple designing the characters in digital 3D without a reference. This is a clear example of how CGI and stop motion can be beneficial to each other and better results can be achieved.

How can CGI help stop motion to be more cost and time effective?

How are stop motion and CGI techniques put together to achieve a better result?

How is the mix of these two techniques affecting the quality and aesthetic of the animation, and how nostalgia can influence when taking the decision of using traditional stop motion? (The Nightmare Before Christmas)

Is traditional stop motion becoming obsolete as CGI is developing into more refined techniques to reach and match the quality and aesthetic from traditional stop motion?

How are animation studios approaching stop motion animation like LAIKA Studios in The Boxtrolls?

  • Conclusion
  • References

Name of person or organisation posting video (Year video posted) Title of film or programme. Date uploaded. Available at: DOI or name of streaming service/app or URL (Accessed: date).

BbaGumpSkrimp (2012) The Making of Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas. 30 January.  Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLw-Fo8uhis (Accessed: 16 November 2022)

LAIKA Studios (2018) Making the Dance: A Look Behind the Scenes at The Boxtrolls | LAIKA Studios. 27 March. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxexaE4Ge70 (Accessed: 16 November 2022).

Lord, P. and Sibley, B. (2015, p.43) Cracking Animation: The Aardman Book of 3-D Animation. 4th edn. London: Thames & Hudson. 

  • Bibliography

Anderson, W., Specter, M. and Lewis, R. (2009) The Making of Fantastic Mr. Fox. New York: Rizzoli International Publications, Inc.

Purves, B. (2010) Basics Animation C4: Stop-Motion. Switzerland: AVA Publishing SA.

Lord, P. and Sibley, B. (2015) Cracking Animation: The Aardman Book of 3-D Animation. 4th edn. London: Thames & Hudson. 

Shaw, S. (2017) Stop Motion: Craft Skills for Model Animation. 3rd edn. Florida: CRC Press Taylor & Francis Group.

  • Filmography

BbaGumpSkrimp (2012) The Making of Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas. 30 January.  Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLw-Fo8uhis (Accessed: 16 November 2022).

LAIKA Studios (2018) Making the Dance: A Look Behind the Scenes at The Boxtrolls | LAIKA Studios. 27 March. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxexaE4Ge70 (Accessed: 16 November 2022).


AT&T Developer Program (2018) The Art and Science of Laika. 5 June. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NGeGcV9dXw (Accessed: 23 November 2022).

  • List of figures