New 2012 Reel

Craziest Dream

CraziestDream Final from Valerie Lim on Vimeo.

The Research behind Craziest Dream

The Research behind Craziest Dream and Ballet

This post will show you guys some of the steps I took to making Craziest Dream, a new lipsync I've been working on, and another research I've been looking into for ballet as an art form, a dance, and a means of expression and performance. 

It all started with inspirational ballet videos:

Slow motion Ballet: a breathtaking video that allows you to really analyse poses. It shows you how amazing, graceful, and fluent the dancer is at all times. A ballet dancer is always in control of their body

This is the trailer for a very interesting documentary that encompasses ballet dancers. It's already out and scored a 96% on rotten tomatoes!! I haven't watched it yet but the moment I find spare time, I'll be definitively renting or looking to buy it. The trailer already gives you a bit of a deep insight on ballet, the dancers, and their struggle behind the dance. This largely influenced acting choices for the Craziest Dream lipsync.

From watching those videos, I took in note the following:

Ballet Observations

• Toes are pointed outwards?
• Foot rolls into pointed toes pushing off the front cushion
• Ballet movements --> While something is delicately moving at a constant, delicate rate, another arm or part of body like leg, starts a fast movement (take-off) and settles at the same rate as the rest of the body. It puts emphasis on what the dancer move next
• Dancers are always in control of their body even in mid-air
• Even their Reaction (follow-through) Recovery and Settles are used in artistic manner. They are made a part of the dance and are stylized and elegant
• Arms and body are loose but elegant. Loose, not stiff, and just in such a relaxed but controlled pose
• Curves, it's all about curves. Most gracious curves ever, elegance is portrayed through curves whether it is the movement or just the body's line of action and movement (portrayed through pose)
• Burst of movement then it settles into a graceful, slow contant velocity
  
  
  

And I managed to get to talk to a ballerina, Gloria Garza. She was very kind and even wrote out paragraphs of a glimpse into a ballerina's mentality and struggle:

Ballet is a beautiful art, and one thing that I guess you could always keep in mind (don't know if this would help with the animation) is that dancers have to make everything look as graceful as possible. Even if we are in pain, we have to make it seems as if it's a piece of cake lifting our leg more than 90 degrees and standing on our tippie toes lol.

My teachers always told us that we are like swans. From the top nothing moves, but when you look under the water you can see that the feet are moving all around. Dancers are somewhat like that. The upper body of a dancer cannot really show that there's a lot of movement going on with our legs. I dunno if im explaining myself correctly? Hahaha, it easier to show than to write :P
Also we have to really make the movements flow. If we are going to plie (when you bend your knees) we can't just stop, we have to make it look as if we are continuing to plie even if we've reached as far as we can go. 

Well breathing is a very important part of dancing (and well just to live overall haha) but when a ballet dancer breathes it also helps to "elongate" the movement. For example you are stretching your arm to do a port de bra (i actually have no idea how to write that lol. But it's pretty much just moving your arms) you always have to try to reach higher. It's the same for your neck, you upper body etc. You are always reaching higher and breathing helps that. So maybe that could help with the animation too. 

Its kinda like what i said about the plie and making it seem as if you're still moving even if you've reached your maximum. Breathing helps the upper body because as you breath in to bend over or to lift your leg a bit higher it gives that effect that you are reaching higher, or lower (in fact it sometimes does! haha).

[...] A lot of people don't realize how much work ballet actually requires. It's not only an art, but its a discipline. You have to have endurance, perseverance and you are always trying to reach perfection, so it does take a certain type of person to manage to stay in ballet. We are constantly thinking of a thousand things. We have to think about our necks, our arms, our fingers, our knees, our turn outs etc etc. and then hear the music, and remember the steps and well perform. It's like that saying "If ballet were any easier it'd be called Football" haha. Well im sure any sport has its own things that make it difficult :P 

- Gloria Garza

Next came the studies on ballet footage:

These are possible acting choices for the audio clip I chose from "Black Swan" starring Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis. In the audio Natalie says, "I had the craziest dream last night. I was dancing the white swan".

I chose the wheelchair scenario, and eventually storyboarded possible ideas. Also studied weight shift in a patient:

Lots of notes were taken for the possible weight shift occurring from bed to chair, but eventually that acting choice got cut since it wasn't super relevant to the performance, and the pause in the audio was not nearly long enough to preform a bed to chair lift

Some ballet studies:

Reference videos were shot ;) but I still have a LOOOONGG way to go with acting. The shot still doesn't portray the emotion enough and hopefully I'll get to work on it a little more later to improve it.

Nico Quadriped Walk

My First Walk Cycle with a Quadriped! Still to be updated shortly, so tune in!

:)

Animation by Valerie Lim

Rig by Chadmv

Court of Art

Court of Art was brought to life within 10 months with the help of amazing mentors.
Hope you enjoy!

Planning Scenes, and MISC

 

This is a breakdown and an a thorough analysis/planning of the last scene. To see notes and images properly, right click then click on View Image. You will be able to maximize the image to its full resolution.

Shot with Brent George and Francis Gagne 

Here are some drawings from the Lawbook and the crumpled paper

 

Drawing that was crumpled

 The final drawing and what made a change

PS: the text behind the drawing is taken from Wikipedia and is about Positive Liberty, a notion that can be described as "having the power and resources to fulfill one's own potential" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_liberty).

Storyboards and Animatics

The Animatic

Court of Art - The Concepts

Court of Art is my final Student Short Film

Here are some concepts and renders to show the work that went into Court of Art

Credits go to Raymon Fong for a huge help in figuring out the room's lighting scheme

 Expression sheet for Blendshapes

Demonstration of models, rig, and room all WIPs 

 

 This render was done when the protagonist was originally a little girl known as "Amana". Now the story is about a little boy whose name is Ayden.

What's cool about that though is that a lot of people still refer to the protagonist as a girl even though he has been changed to a guy. I wanted that ambiguity with gender since I first thought of making a movie anyway as means to say that this happens to boys, girls, and genderqueers alike.

The next following concepts were a part of my previous story which was more or less the same but a lot more complex and much too hard for a movie that lasts 2 minutes.

This concept belongs to me previous story which involved an "Imaginary Friend".

I might post the animatic of that story later!

Old Animations

Here are some animations that were completed during 2011

Progress - 2D Art

I thought I'd show some of my progress for a 2D work even if this blog is soon going to focus on my animations!

More Art Dump!

I promise I'll put up some of my animations soon! :) Just throwing some art dumps your way.

If you have trouble viewing them, right click, then click "View Image". This will bring you to a separate page and you'll be able to click on the image for the full resolution size.

Gesture drawing

 Art Dump of a selection of art from my first 2 years in the program

(2009-2011)

 

Revamped Silhouettes including those for my final film (The Kid)

Quick concept for project involving Robots

3D Room Render night and day of loft I modelled and lit (Yeah the place teleports at different times of the day)

3D Face self-portrait. It was for a project! Haha not because I'm narcissistic

Quick Speed Painting

Occupational Hazard - Speedpaint, still a WIP, will be finished eventually

Project for Matte Painting. Not much of a matte painting since I painted over all the pictures...

Cain and Abel Character Design

To start off the blog, here's some concept works I did for a particular story I created last year known as Brotherhood, a variation of Cain and Abel but with a lot more steampunk.

If you're having a hard time seeing it in its original size, simply right click the image and choose "view image". You'll then be brought to a separate link and you'll be able to click on it for its full resolution.

 

It was a story about two genious brothers who are both mechanics. Abel's talents get recognized by someone famous and consequently, the older brother, Cain, gets jealous. The older brother accidentally kills his younger brother while trying to sabotage his success, and desperately attempts to revive him by replacing failed organs, and limbs, ect with steampunk mechanical pieces. The only organ he could not replicate was that of his heart. Abel's body rejected anything mechanical. With the last of his strength, the older brother transfers his heart to Abel and thus dies in his brother's arms. Abel held him until there was nothing left.