Amin JamaliBCE2018

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Mission Statement ………………………………………………………………… 4

Case Studies

Rashin Kheiryeh ……………………………………………………………………. 5

Toon Boom …………………………………………………………………………….6

Cursed Animation …………………………………………………………………. 7

Calila e Dimna ………………………………………………………………………. 8

Interviews

Jean Lee ……………………………………………………………………………….. 9

Peeti Lamwilai …………………………………………………………………….. 10

Research …………………………………………………………………………….. 11

References …………………………………………………………………………. 15

Sharing one of the hidden Persian stories about Mevlana by producing 2D vector-based animation

There are many true stories, fables, legends, historical facts that exist in each ethnicity in Iran that haven’t been introduced to the world, or have been censored because of Islamic rules and a lack of knowledge, technology, advertising and marketing, by this project I’ll start a journey for a big dream that I have and I want to take my first step into animation by one of those stories.

Mission Statement

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Rashin Kheiryeh

She is an Iranian illustrator, author, animation director and painter. I explored her books and paintings and focused on animations she directed; her animation styles and the way of her storytelling through animation. This is one of the examples similar to my project. The way that she presents her work is nostalgic to me and reminds me of animations that used to be broadcast on Iranian TV in the 1980’s. I chose her as a case study because of her great understanding of the target audience and I need to narrow my target audience to children and students too.

Case Study

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Toon Boom

This software was introduced to me by Jean Lee.

When I researched more I found out this powerful software, Toon Boom, has been used by animation monster companies for years for different purposes like making story boards, animatics or even final productions. I already tried Adobe After Effect last semester for making a short animation about K Road. Although people provided good feedback, I wasn’t happy with the quality of work based on the effort that we put into it. So, I decided to use this software for my project this year, and as a case study I researched people who moved to this software and left feedback on Youtube and explained the advantages and disadvantages of using this software compared to Adobe After Effect. There was a massive difference between the two software in terms of making animation films with the only disadvantage being the cost of it. For the version that I require, I have to pay 75USD per month.

Toon Boom has similar tools to Adobe After Effect in terms of animating and drawing tools and output video settings.

Case Study

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Cursed AnimationThis animation was made by Studio AFK who are two Dutch animators. The reason I chose this animation is because a complete guide was provided by the creators; the story and details of making animation and all the steps they went through, how they developed the story and storyboard, characters and how they applied shadows, lighting, coloring and background into the scenes. They provided a complete tutorial from about what softwares they used and the effort of testing their concept to find the best way to present their idea.

They made a few animations. But, this one was the best and closest to what I hope to achieve in my next project.

Case Study

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Calila e DimnaAn ancient Indian story book

This book has been written about 300 AD by different authors in India and then translated by Ibn al-muqaffa in 800 AD into Arabic, then from Arabic to different languages. This eastern literature book contains exemplary tales of animals and told by main characters which are two jackals named Calila and Dimna.

There are many animations available in different styles and languages about the stories of this book.

This is a great example of how other animators try to tell stories from an eastern literature book and it was good to see how they proceeded and achieve their goal. Most of the animations are focused on a message of the story and this is what I’m trying to do with Mevlana and Shams animation.

Case Study

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Jean Lee Animator

-What method of animation are you familiar with?I am doing more traditional drawing animations which is time-consuming animation, but now they make animation in a shorter period of time and they reach faster from A to B point.

-Do you consider changing your style?Yes it’s a market, you have to go with the flow.

-What software do you use for animating?When I was at work in the studio we used USaniamtion, Photoshop basic for background and layout artists and now more using ToonBoom but for 3d animation people use Maya.

-Have you made any animation for yourself? If yes, were you happy about the results? What was the outcome?Yes, and I learnt a lot especially using the software called Toon Boom, that software has been changed to Toon Boom Harmony now and it has more special effects and you can add background. This software is used by Disney now.

story doesn't have enough information or history, like commercial animation, it’s about how to attract the audience, so your characters are normally rejected by the production team. It's the market, people are tired of the same style and you have to be creative and create more attractive and new characters. When it gets rejected we normally create more, Teamwork has an important role to carry on

-Were there deadline changes during the project? How did you finish the project?We normally leave some time for mistakes at the end, but sometimes we have to work harder at the end to finish it on time. for example you have the original idea, and we finalise it but when you produce it sometimes we go back and find new ideas to make it look better.

-Do you have any rules or criteria for creating your characters?Normally everyone has their own style, everyone can draw but into the field you have to follow what the story is, or in the project they will provide information that you need to make characters, but if you want to make your own characters depends on story and what characters are suit story, specially the backgrounds.

-Are you protecting your ideas and characters?No, in this industry we should be friendly and work together to find the best solution, there are some people and designers that think their idea is best, but again we took it to the team and discussed it and decided what to do.

-Do they give you all the specific details about the character?No, they normally provide the story, for example Hercules. Their style actually from Greek, centuries ago they used to draw on vases, animator looked at the vases as a reference and then create Hercules character, another example is Princess of Egypt, I did some of their episodes, we had to look at the Egyptian like they have longer nose, and then apply it to characters and you will tell by the look of the characters that they are Egyptian, Aladdin is the other example, culture is affecting your design too.

-Tell me about a time that your idea was rejected, what did you do?Most of us have experienced it, because some times the

I interviewed Jean because she is an animator and used to work with Disney before. she was one of the animators of Weekender, Bro town and Joseph king of dreams. It’s important for me to know how animators design the characters and which software they normally use.

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-Have you produced or been part of a team that made a show or advertisement for children?I have produced a number of works targeted towards younger audiences specifically for children 3 to 13 years, I've some books and feature titles targeted towards children.

- What is the biggest concern about making a video for children up to 12 years?From 2 perspectives, as a person having to consider morals. you need to consider what contents are safe for children to view, as a designer the challenge will be how do you come up with visuals that will keep children engaged, because children’s attention span is very small, when they watch TV shows or feature films or reading a book it's usually not the content itself but majority of it is visual that's been presented. That’s why you need to have the right visuals to keep children engaged using vibrant colours because children like the colours. But in terms of what’s appropriate and what’s not, you should put yourself into the position of a parent or guardian and think of what sort of content are safe for your child. It's a risky territory if you make a children's book or story, there needs to be some sense of pace to give them to critically analyse and wrestle with their intellect, practice analysing things, figuring up right and wrong on their own.

- Have you made a new version of a video or show that has been made before? If yes, what were your challenges?There have been times where stories will need to be retold,

children books need to be redesigned. Definitely, there are lots of children’s books, stories, title sequences, teasers and promos and even

advertisements for products for television and for print that needed to be updated to fit the status of children now vs the status of children 5 years ago.

- What about remaking an animation or film, what do you need to focus on so the new version is more engaging and successful?The target audience is the most important thing because that is what is going to be dictating almost every single decision you make as a designer. I think that remake of reproduction of these films or pieces of works, not usually to retell the story but retell the story that more resonates with the target audience at that time, I think look at story like Beauty and the Beast for example, we have seen the original version but recently they just retold the story in a way that has not really been reimagined, because if you

look at some of the dialogues and some of the scripts and cinematography it's exactly like the original version and same story but children now probably prefer to watch something which has more live action rather than something like traditional Beauty and the Beast and this is not only in the animation. If you watch the shows targeted to teenagers, they are completely different. I think that has been dictated by movement of the demographic target.

- Is it possible to briefly explain what your process of making the advertisement was?Every project has a different process and it depends on the timeline, and that really changes a lot of things about your process. But the typical process in a general sense is research; research is one of my biggest ingredients and I think it should be part of any creative process. A lot of communication work that isn't really resolved or doesn’t use clear visual language for example, very often is just a lack of research and you will end up with something that has been done before or something that has no context. In order to move forward, you need to know what has been done now and look at the movement, what everybody has done. As a designer I think should always find not where we are now, where its heading and you need to almost be in front at the head of time always. I would spend a heavy chunk of my project time researching everything that has been done, what hasn't been done, the technical side of things, and research around the brief itself, based on audience feedback. There are a lot of people who don't share their work, you can't be a designer and the audience.

Peeti LamwilaiArtist and Educator

I interviewed Peeti because he has various works such as commercial advertisement and books targeted to younger audience

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Saadi ShiraziHe was one of the greatest Persian poets and writers during the medieval period. He is famous because of his writing skills and the depth of his social and moral beliefs and thoughts. I explored one of his books that contains short stories to select one for my short animation project, but unfortunately the stories were either too short or too long and they didn’t fit into my animation timeline.

Research

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Stop-MotionIn the back of my mind I was thinking of another type of animation to find the best way to present my idea, specifically Stop-Motion. I watched several Stop-Motion animations and “Zero” was one of the most well designed stop-motions that I have ever seen. I practiced Stop -Motion in year one and I am familiar with the process.

Research

Zero Animation

My Flight 01 stop motion 12

In search of suitable stories for my animation

Mevlana and Shams

I chose Mevlana because he was a multi-cultural poet and writer and well-known in the northern part of the Middle East. His stories remain unknown in digital media and any information about them can only be found in books. By changing students’ interests to visual stories this will help them to know more about their heroes.My target audience will be 10-15 year old students and people who study or are interested in iranian, afghani and turkishliteracy.

Mulla Sadra Mevlana and Shams

Mevlana tomb in Konya

Research

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Research

Comparing animations software and watching tutorials to learn ToonBoom harmony

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• “About - Rashin.” Accessed June 11, 2017. http://www.rashinart.com/About.

• aminraid. Flight 01, n.d. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7HvqnFlfZk&feature=youtu.be.

• Bloop Animation. Toon Boom Harmony vs. Flash (Animate CC), n.d. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCTCkqo-9KM.

• “Cursed - 2D Animated Short - YouTube.” Accessed May 24, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/.

• Freese, Cris. “Developing a Writing Plan: How to Write Your Novel or Short Story.” WritersDigest.com, December 2, 2014. http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/there-are-no-rules/how-to-develop-a-writing-plan.

• “Full Text of ‘Kalila and Dimna, Or, The Fables of Bidpai.’” Accessed May 25, 2017. https://archive.org/stream/kalilaanddimnao00almgoog/kalilaanddimnao00almgoog_djvu.txt.

• “Making of Cursed - YouTube.” Accessed May 24, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/.

• “Mulla Sadra.” Wikipedia, April 28, 2017. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mulla_Sadra&oldid=777688872.

• “Peeti Lamwilai.” PEETI LAMWILAI. Accessed June 11, 2017. http://peetilamwilai.com/about/.

• “ProQuest Ebook Central Reader.” Accessed May 25, 2017. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unitec/reader.action?docID=1939795.

• “Rumi.” Wikipedia, May 29, 2017. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rumi&oldid=782878033.

• “Saadi Shirazi.” Wikipedia, May 20, 2017. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Saadi_Shirazi&oldid=781326342.

• “Shams Tabrizi.” Wikipedia, June 9, 2017. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Shams_Tabrizi&oldid=784681604.

• Studio AFK. Storyboards Cursed. Accessed May 25, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09OJNMulYg8.

• “The Life of Death - YouTube.” Accessed May 24, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/.

• “Toon Boom Animation.” Wikipedia, May 23, 2017. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Toon_Boom_Animation&oldid=781846568.

• “Toon Boom Harmony Tutorial for Beginners: How To Make a Cartoon! - YouTube.” Accessed June 11, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MI65MRdKfIY.

• “Zero - YouTube.” Accessed May 24, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/.

References

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