Amiga Computing - Commodore Is Awesome

Video footage - starling rn a house and
then on to the stre e ts of London,
Hodgson ha s trie d to ca pture e xa ctly
what you would tie s a nd took out for on
Me way to work - pa ssing shops,
leaking a t your sha dow, moving
through a busy crowd on the way to a
trant, and re a ding signs. Afte r shooting
amass of ma te ria l. it wa s WO
transferred on to the ...
-fflaticard - where a logging sheet
&rectory wa s cre a te d with time s of the
'Wage's position on e a ch ta pe ne xt to
the Me na me for e a sy re fe re nce . All
Pats e re loa de d ma low 0 fa ctor to
NM me mory. a todgson's origina l pla n
est to shoot on film a nd the n ge t lull
on photogra phic prints of the
appropriate shots. it prove d to be
impractical a nd costly. H e he a rd a bout
PARcard a nd the re st is history.
He creates an assembly edit of all
Eli. M ots he wa nts to use a nd the n
"toa ds those chose n one s in on a high
0 factor. U sing Ba tch Fa ctory a nd
Image FIX to orga nise a nd conve rt the
images into IFF124, he the n use s Studio
saftware to print out e a ch sce ne fra me ...1 0
by ba rn. on his HP1 2 0 0 C printe r. Ea ch -
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step n was to apply to the Arts Council for t
a t grant to start work on her first animat- o
o
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ed short created entirely on a computer.
u
h
The t application was successful and with e
earl of the money, she invested in a
second-hand 1500 and a SummaSketch
III tablet board. 0P4 was selected as the
package to do all the animation on and
What She Wants (detailed below) was
started.
The attention the finished piece
1
—Animation - wOth e a ch tra m. printe d
out on spe cia l punche d pa pe r to fit a n
animation pe g ba r (holds the she e t in
place on the rostrum), It's time to add
the va rious e ffe cts with a va rie ty of
different me dia . H odgson wa nte d to
conve y how we se e the world a s a
se rie s of foca l points. I n this e xa mple , a
white ste ncil is pla ce d ove r a roa d
sce ne obscuring e ve rything othe r tha n
the sign. tie the n dra ws in, using pe ncil,
outlines of ke y obje ct. I n the sce ne a s
passing impre ssions - a s if we don't
really ta ke a ny notice of wha t we se e
unless focusing dire ctly on to it. Once
done, the fra me is re corde d by
PARcard, producing the finishe d
animated sce ne
Animatp!
Anyone interested in possible funding for their animation should contact the Arts
Council. Focusing on innovation in animation. Animate! was set-up six years ago by
the council, with support from Channel 4 to fund artists producing risk-taking work.
Currently there are 30 projects either underway or finished, and six of those involve
For further information, contact Gary Thomas. the assistant film arid video officer on
received won her a place at the
Museum of the Moving Image as an animator
in residence. Akin to being put
under a microscope, Lingford sat in a
room working all day while the public
watched in from the other side of pane
of glass.
The bonus to the experience though
was a proper commission with real
money and development time to work
on her up-and-coming project. Death
to-
1
In this $cene, we soo the walker ;oohing
a t his sha dow a s I t cha nge s a nd
turns into a biza rre la ndsca pe
Jona tha n
Hodgson:
"P ersonally, the
future of compute s
graphics is how
they fit in with
other te chnique s -
that's whe n things
are going to sta rt
getting re a lly
inte re sting"
Amiga Computing
OCTOBER 1995
FEATURE
and The Mother, an adaptation of a
lesser-known Hans Christian
Anderson story. In fact, Channel 4
liked her storyboard so much that
production begins in September with a
budget In the E40,000 area.
Her other work shows the diversity
available to animators. From
producing short animated sequences
for the CD-ROM version of the
best-selling Griffin and Sabine trilogy
now being produced by Peter
Gabriel's Real World multimedia
company, to a 20 minute training
animation on how to deal with the
problems of glue sniffing, her work
is varied but boasts her own individual
style. In the meantime, she
has upgraded to a 4000 and the
PARcard.
With a healthy portfolio of animation
tucked into one video cassette, she
sees computer animation as an ideal
media: "What's happening now is very
exciting. Back in the old days, we
were all terribly scornful of computers.
People at college now find they can do
what they want with computers and
aren't having their work affected by
clumsy technology.*
FUTURE THOUGHTS
As for the future. Linglord is equally
optimistic: -
Anyone
animate — I don't find that thought
wthreatening. i l l At the end of the day, it's
ball about e the idea behind the
aanimation b not the technique, and com-
lputers e offer an ideal platform to get
tstarted."
o She still believes, though, that people
must learn the fundamentals of
animation creation to give them the
necessary knowledge to make a solid
start. Her advice for budding animators
is simple: 'I'd just use DP415 and
draw using the light box. Draw the
movement first to get a feel of what
animation is all about. The look can
come later."
She also sees computers as offering
an excellent way of learning the
ropes. In between her animation work
she has been teaching at the
University of Humberside and some
days at the National Film and
Television School.
With something like walk cycles,
you're always going to get it wrong to
begin with. Ii requires lots of practise
and I noticed while teaching that students
have a tendency to be very
precious when drawing with pencil and
paper
- it takes them a long time as they
Lin painstakingly draw out each frame.
gfo The majority, though, end up with a
rd walk cycle that doesn't work, With a
ecomputer, x the investment required to
pproduce l a result is so slight that you're
anot ias
precious and can rattle off
nexample s after example, It's a very
. good teaming tool,"