MEDIEVAL PRESENTATION

SEAN J.H. RUBIN REPORT

Content

Introduction

1. MAKING A FILM

2. VOICE ACTING

3.STORY ELEMENTS

4.ANIMATION

6. EDITING

5.RIGGING

7.ENVIRONMENT

8.CONCLUSION

Introduction

1. My FMP work is meant to develop my skills (such as practicing animation principles) to become a better candidate for a character (shot) animator for games/television/films.

2.I'

m making a short animated film. As I want to become a character animator and focus on shots. The story I develop will present ideal scenarios for me to experiment with and portray the character’s various emotions. As a published author I’ll be very excited to animate the film based on my story idea. In a way, this is not just an animation production, but a story adaptation.

Characters ported from Castelvania: Lords of Shadow 2 video game

Story inspired from the ending of Castlevania Netflix series

3. I aim to: animate all the shots by testing and developing the skills I’ve learned from making my portfolio shots, making progress faster, than I used to, exploring storytelling techniques by animating the camera, planning the story structure, etc., working with different environments, character rigs, more practice with constraining and parenting tools to test my experience from a weight lifting shot and finally create a project, that has both a polished animation and a powerful story. For me, one doesn’t work without the other.

4.I

envision it to be a 10-minute long film with a 3 act structure with 2 parts each having various scenarios and characters getting into different situations, which will allow me to animate shots to develop their character arcs while also telling an untold story about my country, showcasing the Armenian music culture (instrumental, singing and dance numbers) through the eyes of Dracula and his family.

+ info

5. As this is a drama film, I’m animating realistic characters (mainly Alucard, who has armor and other materials, which will make it challenging, as I have to take a minimalistic approach and not exaggerate the character’s movements). I’ll be writing narration for the film and numerous dialogue shots and then I’ll need to find volunteers for voice acting, preferably people whose voice is part of their job. I will be working with different 3d environments to create an appropriate mood/vibe for the film. 6. The film will determine my storytelling, directing, animating, communication, teamwork, and other capabilities and will answer a question I’ve been asking myself for a while. Should writers adapt their own stories?

MAKING A FILM 1.TELLING A STORY: HOW DID IT ALL START? A. Acquiring the ‘actors’ for the film

Main body

In order to tell the story, I first needed to make sure I have the 3d rigs that I could write the lines for. Deviant art came in handy. In a typical fashion, I visit the website, find the search tab and write the name of the game’s character and the file format that I need (XPS or MMD). I also have to thank the creators and developers of XnaLARA software, which allows viewers to port characters or models from video games for fan art. Here’s a 4-minute video of how and when it all began.

y journey of trying to work with game characters started way back in my 2nd academic year. As programming is not my strongest suite, I wasn't able to make XnaLARA work on my device. Accessing and animating characters was out of the question. I gave up numerous times as finding the solution was taking a lot of time. Every time I came back with a different idea solution and finally it worked out. I installed Blender and whenever I downloaded a 3d bone rig from deviant art I tried to open the file on Blender. It didn't work and I had to drop this pursuit yet again. I kept coming back, as the fact of others making fan art with their favorite game characters, but not me was unpleasant to say the least.

After facing and overcoming challenges during my portfolio shots I had no intention of animating an entire project made of bone rigs and there was no time to learn rigging on my own as I had no prior experience. I had a friend Jaime Santana who shared my fascination with game characters / esthetic. As I've already animated one of my portfolio shots with his control rig I shared my portfolio work with him and he was so amazed by my work that he suggested making a control rig of my choice.

B. Writing the dialogue:

Initially, I planned to draw a storyboard for every scene, but my experience as a graphic artist at the Yerevan state academy of fine arts has awakened my drawing urges. I drew several shots from the prologue of the film but then realised, that even if I drew a regular storyboard, for a massive project like mine it would only be an artificial preproduction preparation and instead that time could be spent on looking for film references, which I could use as a guideline for my animation shots. I strictly wrote the dialogue, if I indicated the location or the action taken during the scene it would become a play. I chose not to, as the whole film was already being narrated as a story that already happened by Alucard, son of Dracula.

C. The untold story

The film starts with Alucard's first narration lines. 'There are many stories untold about my father.' The above mentioned is the story of Armenia. What are the story's main points? A. Armenia through the foreigner's eyes A. Armenia's unique musical culture (instrumental, song, and dance performances) C. Armenia's subjugation by the Ottoman Empire B. The crimes of the Armenian church C. Humans or vampires: Who is the true monster? D. What is Armenia's salvation?

3 act structure

Castlevania: Journey to Armenia

My historical research involves 2 main points.

A. Of Komitas and how the Armenian Church mistreated him After researching the biography of Komitas (Solomon Solomonian), who was an Armenian priest, musicologist, composer, arranger, singer, and choirmaster, who is considered the founder of the Armenian national school of music and is recognized as one of the pioneers of ethnomusicology, I've decided to create a scenario where Alucard would meet him in Germany since Komitas was in Germany at 1899. I needed a character, who would become a cultural link/ambassador between the family of Dracula and the Armenian culture.

KÓMITAS (1869 – 1935)

Research indicates that the Armenian Church did not approve when Komitas started performing non-church music in churches. They also did not tolerate his modern approach and presentation of Armenian music and they did everything to distract him from his work. After this return from Germany, that and many other desitions resulted in low salary and unemployment of Komitas. He received a work invitation from Constantinople, which had one of the largest communities of the Armenian intellectuals, and also from Tiflis to teach at the School after Nersisyan. He chose Constantinople.

B. The massacres commited by Sultan Hamid the 2nd

Komitas often heard troubling news from his students about what was happening in Western Armenia: the massacres were happening from town in a very organized manner. I've learned about this while watching a mono play by Vardan Petrosyan. There's also the Genocide Museum in Armenia, with dozens of documented cases, from documentaries to artwork. Death count From 1895 to 1896 only: (300.000) Citizens of: Trapiso՛n, Akisa՛r, Arzru՛m, Yerzanka՛h, Mara՛sh, Van, Babe՛rt, Shapee՛n, Mala՛thia, Ada՛na, A՛rabkir etc.

'Uprising' mono play by V. Petrosyan

Painting by Haroutiun Galentz

2. VOICE ACTING

The recruitment process took 3 stages: A. Posting an inquiry: I needed to find volunteers for 4 roles: Alucard, Dracula, Marie, and Warlock. The best place to find them was a gaming community. Luckily there was a group called 'Castlevania: Lord of Shadows 2': the game, where the characters I found were originally from. B. Voice testing: Many provided positive feedback about the idea, but only 3 were actually serious about the roles. I was pleased with their voices. I sent their lines after a week when the final dialogue was ready. C. Line delivery: I've asked everyone to record each line several times so that I had options to choose the best version. The end result was very interesting!

3.STORY ELEMENTS / REFERENCE / FILMIC LANGUAGE

1. Story elements

My film has a commonly used narrative trope when the main character is narrating the main plot. I was inspired by many sources when I started writing the script, knowingly or unknowingly: 1. Prince of Persia: Sands of Time video game developed by Ubisoft (2003) 2. Interview with the Vampire feature film produced by Warner Bros. (1994) 3. Black Butler: Book of Murder anime film produced by A-1 Pictures (2014)

2. Reference

I used references from1. Lost tv series aired on ABC (2004-2010) 2. Doctor House tv series aired on Fox network (2004-2012) 3. Lady Bird feature film produced by AC Films, Scott Rudin Productions Management 360 (2018) 4. 10th Kingdom produced by Britain's Carnival Films, Germany's Babelsberg Film und Fernsehen, and the US's Hallmark Entertainment (1999) 5. Arrow tv series aired on the CW network (2012-2020) 6. Saint Laurent feature film produced by EuropaCorp and Mandarin Cinéma (2014) 7. The White Queen developed for BBC One 8. Game of Thrones (2011-2019) developed for HBO9. Nip/Tuck (2003-2010) aired on FX channel

The rest of the references were downloaded from YouYube channels, mainly from: 1. endlessreference (62.3K subscribers): Female Standard Walk and Athletic Male Standard Walk. Animation Reference Body Mechanics 2. Elly Awesome (265K subscribers): 50 Ways to Walk Down Stairs 3. Kevin Parry (1.35M subscribers): 50 Ways to Walk

3. Filmic language

There are 2 main inspirations for my camera work. 1. Harry Potter and the Prisioner of Azkaban directed by Alfonso Cuarón: At the beginning and the ending of my film, I use fast camera zooms, that go through or inside objects and stop at a certain point. There is also a scene where the camera goes inside a mirror and the viewer follows the scene from the reflection. 2. Spider-Man 3 directed by Sam Raimi: His usage of dutch angles and fight choreography is quite memorable even today.

My animation process consisted from A. Finding reference Whenever a reference from the film was not sufficient, I usually recorded myself acting the shot on camera several times preferably from the camera angle that I might use in the film. Sometimes I used 2-3 sources as a guideline to animate one shot.B. Setting up the camera angles.

4.ANIMATION

Before this project, I used to overpopulate my shots with 3d objects that won’t be visible in the shot. Now I only find populate the environment that is visible and isn’t distracting the viewer. For this film, I’ve also started using Maya’s Depth of Field, but as it didn’t work out for several shots, I had to playblast the shot and use the Camera Blur effect on Adobe Premiere. C. Blocking the key poses: Straight ahead or pose to pose work-style, depending on the shot. C. Polishing with control rigs: For this term, I’ve animated with the following rigs: Alucard, Macarius (coahcman/spy), Warlock, Horse I’ll discuss my journey of animating the first 2 control rigs.

ANIMATING ALUCARD: MAIN LEARNING OUTCOMES A. Introduction shot. Challenges: Posing the character as sited on a chair, while posing/covering the suit on his knees Animating the hair, eliminating clippings (for example how the long hair comes out from his chest to the back of his spine) figuring out how the rig works for a performance shot. Learning outcomes: Revisited the timing/spacing principle by editing the tangents on graph editor (specifically the delicate head bounces). B. Standing up from a chair Challenges: Separately animating the coat without any reference, posing the character to eliminate any clipping Adapting the prerecorded reference (for Dante’s cut shot) for this scene. Learning outcomes: Revisiting the ‘standing up from a chair’ assignment from the 1st academic year (term 2) (before Covid) Make sure the character’s movements (arm swings, head bounces) are not exaggerated. Timing/spacing issue in the midsection to fix the power force Alucard uses to stand up from the chair. Working on hands (the appropriate time to move the hand from one place to the other to leave some motion instead of leaving dead spaces). C. Alucard notices the carriage Challenges: Figuring out when should the character close the mouth before rushing to the entrance Learning outcomes: Keep eye pupils visible, What to/not to use from the reference while animating the face The right time to exaggerate or keep it simple.

D. Dialogue shot This last shot was a test of what I’ve learned while animating e realistic-looking character. Timing/spacing, No over-animation, Exaggerating the word ‘happy’ Combining the performance shot and my lip sync E. Walking (down) / Running (down) (the stairs shot) I needed to add some last touches to make the characters as lively as possible such as the cupping of the hand, hair flipping, elbow armor/coat overlapping, etc. F. The embrace shot This shot tested my parenting/constraining skills that I’ve practiced while making the ‘TITAN GRABS A BOULDER AND SCREAMS’ shot. Learning outcomes: Make sure the shot portrays the necessary emotions of the characters (adding a line ‘It’s me, dear’, fixing the cupping, extending the shot about 5-10 frames)

F. The embrace shot This shot tested my parenting/constraining skills that I’ve practiced while making the ‘TITAN GRABS A BOULDER AND SCREAMS’ shot. Learning outcomes: Making sure the shot portrays the necessary emotions of the characters (adding a line ‘It’s my dear’, fixing the cupping, extending the shot about 5-10 frames)

ANIMATING MACARIUS A. Villain’s introduction Chalenges: Fixing the timing of closing the book Deciding whenever to cut from one shot to the other B. Introduction of Marie / interaction with Macarius Chalenges: Animating Marie as a bone rig Posing her dress while eliminating clipping Animating how Macarius holds her hand then let’s go Figuring out where should Marie look while embracing her homecoming How the shot changed: Marie leaves the scene and the camera focuses from her to Macarius and his hateful eyes, that never leave her sight. I came up with the idea, so that Marie didn’t have to stop looking around. She had to leave the shot, otherwise it might look like the characters are working together, which is not the impression I wanted to leave. The other character I’ve animated, such as Marie, Dracula and the seagull are bone rigs.

1. DRACULA AND MARIE WALK TO STOP (STOP MOTION) SHOT ANIMATION PROCESS: 5 stages 1. coming up with a workflow to animate bone rigs for walk cycles, (like every part of the body moves individually and is not connected to the hip, or the leg is not connected to the knee, naturally there are no IK/FK controllers). Naming / constraining invisible spheres to their main bones

Color-coding the bones (especially the facial bones) to differentiate the controllers 2. Fixing the timing of both references (men and women), so that they stop together.

4. For Marie: animated the the walk cycle and then the dress, added an accessory (hand fan), For Dracula: animated the walk cycle, fixed the foot placement/slipping and then animated his coat 5. Animated the environment by moving the ground backwards.

5.RIGGING

passed to Jaime the bone rig of Alucard, and he started making the control rig. Jaime’s collaboration made it possible for me to develop my 2nd FMP idea with Alucard, the son of Dracula as the main character and narrator of my short animated film.

Part 1: Rig’s development

A. Eye blinks (a complete breakdown of problem-solving, about Skin-Weights and the cause of the problem).

B. Building a new bone structure, based off of the original bones (Showcasing the process with screenshots).

D. Adding new controllers for the shield and the sword sheath to improve my animation.

C. First Controllers (IK/FK Leg and Arm controllers). Lots of backtracking, and a lot of figuring out how the original bones were made.

E.

Rig:Partial delivery

Testing the rig More problem-solving

F.

Controllers for the belt and elbow armor / pads.

Hair issues: Problem solving (Breakdown about how the hair polygons are made)

final delivery

Global controller to change the size of the character to adjust with the background. I.Hair, facial, coat controllers. Detailed breakdown about each controller and their location.

2 unique controllers

Sword grab and sword visibility.

The rig took a month to make. I’m glad I was informed about all the difficulties of the rigging process.

It helped me to appreciate Jaime’s collaboration and devotion to the project even more considering his busy schedule.

6. EDITING THE SHOTS/FILM Editing the shots: 1.ALUCARD A. Whenever I turned the shadow effect on Maya, certain parts of the character looked overshadowed, especially the hair. B. From the close up his hair looked ‘inside out. Even though the hair looked much better after Jaime made the control rig the hair still had that weird transparency issue, where you could see the back hair blocking the front hair, especially his forehead. The only way to fix that was to break the connection of the hair’s texture on Attribute editor, but that made desaturated the color and now the hair had hard edges.

C. I had to playblast 4 different versions: no shadow, with shadow, the mentioned above+normal hair, the mentioned above+hair with hard edges. D. Then I had to put all 4 shots on top of each other and animate masks on premiere to hide the hard edges of the hair and instead show only the parts of the shot where the hair (hair on his forehead) looks as it should. E. Whenever I had to polish a shot I had to playblast it with the correct name (replace the old animation pass with the new one), so that my edited shot would not be affected. (for example, Alucard_scene_2_shadow should always be named the same no matter how many times I polished it, so it won’t disappear from Premiere’s timeline)

2. USING A GREEN SCREEN

Working with environments became problematic as scenes started crashings, rigs deforming, or not following the body after I get an error to turn off the shadows, lights, or the blur effect, because the graphic card isn’t strong enough. I’ve decided to put green planes on Maya shots, playblast the characters in a separate shot, name the shot let’s say Marie_scene_25_green_screenshot, and then play blasting again with the background and naming the shot Marie_scene_25_with_background. This also helped me to use the camera blur effect and blur the background on Premiere for all the shots that I could not use Depth of Field on Maya because of the graphic card. This technique also became handy when animating the mirror’s reflection (warlock) scene, when the mirror was just a green screen.

3. EDITING THE FILM

I’ve always done the editing of my films, worked with sound effects, music, etc. and as I’ve already done most of the editing for the film during my Easter presentation there wasn’t much work left to be done. As this part of the film heavily relies on a music background and looks like a song clip, in some scenes there were no special sound effects needed except for the environmental sound like nature, torches sound effect, etc.

As a shot animator, my objective was to mainly focus on animating shots, so I made a decision to use environments, and objects ported from games on deviant art and also bought some from free3d: 1. Corvin Castle (https://free3d.com/3d-model/corvin-castle-399.html) 2. Dracula’s Throne room (https://www.deviantart.com/sab64/art/MMD-Stage-Dracula-s-Throne-Download-834147310) 3. Bloom palace (https://www.deviantart.com/ambros489/art/Bloom-Palace-for-XNALARA-XPS-by-Ambros489-773627971) 4. Inquisitor’s quarters (https://www.deviantart.com/raccooncitizen/art/DAI-Sceneries-Inquisitor-s-Quarters-XPS-DOWLOAD-532155159) 5. Fan (https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/japanese-hand-fan-726f09ec695743cc83129323c76064a0) 6. Scrub brush (https://www.cgtrader.com/3d-models/household/household-tools/wooden-scrub-brush)

7. FILM’S ENVIRONMENT

8. CONCLUSION: WHAT CHANGED?

By the time I finished the shots my main objectives changed. 1. I’ve decided to animate the 1st part of Act 1. The Family Reunion to make a quality and finished project. 2. I’ve decided to make the film a series instead. Since every act of the film has 2 parts, overall it’ll take 6 episodes to complete it. Each of them 2-3 minutes. It’ll give me time to take a break from the projects, and learn other skills, like rigging or a new tool/software or just animating something else for a time. It’s much better than making a film that looks like a PowerPoint presentation 3. I’ve decided to name every episode and let the title of the episode appear at the end of each episode. I’ve named this episode ‘Weirdly Happy’.

4. I was able to find not the answer, but an answer to one of my original questions. Should authors adapt their own stories? It depends. If they are capable and still, they need instructors. Being very close to your own works is natural, but feedback is also a natural part of developing and improving a project, whether it’s about the story element, camera angle, or animation issue. 5. Animating films alone is not advisable. Even though I enjoy lengthy stories, books with multiple volumes, mangas or comic books with endless story arcs, and TV series with 20 seasons, it’s impractical to animate even a short film on such short notice, as I had. This is why it’ll be better to finish this project on my own time.

6. I’ve got my wish: I’ve animated a number of shots with the characters of my choice. And now I finally know what it looks like, feels like, and how long it takes. As a writer who then learned singing, playing percussion instruments, then practiced 2d animation using different Adobe software, then studied graphic arts for 3 years, finally learning 3d animation, a unique tool for storytelling has been an unforgettable journey.

7. My goal to become a shot animator hasn’t changed. I’d like to use my directing skills for my own films at the moment. In the future, when the right time comes, I’m open to directing my films when I have the means to hire my own team. Until then I’m looking forward to starting my career as a shot animator for films/games or tv series.

The end

YouTube Channel: Sean J.H. Rubin

Instagram: sean_anima_rubin