Lee J Holoubek Virtual Studio

IN CLASS

I used a photoshop illustration to experiment with texture+opacity and curved lines.

AT HOME

I tried exploring narrative and non-narrative sounds and images.

I liked using the sound settings on major pentonic scale, start note C, start octave 3, and 40 notes. These settings and the speed made a huge difference on the experience.

WEEK 2

Notes, observations, planning, and X-sheet that I worked off before animating.

I planned out my timing and key poses in procreate and kept it open on my ipad alongside me as I animated.

I used the paint-on-paint method with black tempera paint+glycerin mix on glass over a brown paper, using a small brush and a sponge brush to spread and smear the mix. I also used my fingers and paper towel for removal. I noticed that the application process of the mix was more about laying it on the glass than brushing it, as too much pressure reduced the opacity.

My process between frames was either lightly painting the new frame, erasing the old frame, then solidly painting the new frame OR lightly tap the old frame with paper to slightly erase, paint the new frame, then fully erase the old frame.

I had to stay aware of managing stuff on the sides, there’s a couple frames where dust or materials show up on the edge but nothing major. 

Working timelapse. Around 7 hours total! Each frame took 2-6 minutes.

I spent most of the time listening to “Liquid Smooth” by Mitski on repeat. I thought the songs despondent vibes would contribute to the create process or something.

Unedited footage, straight out of dragonframe.

WEEK 3

I took the footage and made some edits in premiere! I retimed some of the frames and added some effects, here they are as gifs

To do the frame-by-frame edits, I brought in each image a 1-frame png and retimed/cut.

I ended up using the contrast+colour edit in my final export.

1) Increased contrast

2) Increased contrast+colour edit

3) Increased contrast+colour edit+posterize

For my audio, I had a hard time getting the exact type of sound I imagined. I wanted something that was a bit overwhelming and sounded like growth/decay. I was thinking a kind of melancholic, hollow, collapsing, empty-sound? But I realized a lot of music was not really going to fit it so well, so I used Mitski’s “Liquid Smooth” instrumental paired with some abstract sounds. “Liquid Smooth” was something I was listening to on repeat as I animated so it felt fitting! A bit of the process making its way into the final.

The rumbling sound reminded me of an episode of a show I liked as a kid—Tender Horns in Mushishi. I won’t write too much on it but basically the conflict/mystery was resolved by placing your hands over your ears and listening to your bodies sounds. I always took it as a metaphor for mindfulness or inner strength.

Audio Sources:

•https://freesound.org/

•YouTube Audio Library

•https://www.youtube.com/

A really rough board gif

I’m imagining I do several “transformations” like this, maybe over lapping, over some images. Maybe the figures can be made out of public domain imagery as well.

WEEK 3

I spent the third week fixing the posing on the rig some and adding some colour grading nodes and blend nodes in Harmony (final rig shown). I did my sound and some additional colour editing in premiere!

For sound I was hoping to do something similar to last messy, an organic and unsetting sound.  A bit more circular and industrial this time. I layered a couple of heartbeats. I used the same site I usually do:

Audio Sources:

•https://freesound.org/

WEEK 1

I’m not sure how exactly I want to follow the prompt, but I like the idea of making thoughts physical.

Inspiration I was drawing from was The House (2022), Krabi (1976), Robotony (2024), and the “One Day a Man Bought a House” we saw in class.

I’ve been scrolling through this playlist as additional inspiration, which I got from another student:

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuL3L7A6ZVBvUafvx6djT4hJim1vYCsrb&si=uKd-vaEdb--XFEqF

I like the off-putting-ness of how the puppets function in these films.

Over reading break, a student named Ashley held a stop motion workshop where I made most of a wire armature of a pigeon!

It has a wire base, tape, tape and foam body, with fabric around it. Facial assets will most likely by 2D. I like the idea of a 3D body with a 2D face composited on top.

 I was thinking of using it for messy 3, but I’m not sure if it doesn’t count as 2.5D?

It’s still be fabricated, but I have more fabric I want to use, shown here.

A short gif storyboard. I included a spin, as that seems to be a pattern within my work this term.

On the 4th floor at ECU, outside the soft materials lab, there’s a huge pile of scrap fabric. I grabbed a bunch and I figured it would make a good backdrop.

How I’m imagining it right now is 3D pigeon armature animated over a green screen, a cloth background composited in, 2D face animated on top (not sure physical or digital), with Claymation bugs/feast. 

I think the audio will be “coos” with the captions showing the “English translation”

WEEK 2

I finished my pigeon amateur fabrication of the wings and face with a mish mash of materials, including paper tape, fabric, pins, and paper. These were secured to the body through the adhesive on the paper tape, hot glue, and poster tack.

The wings were just paper tape over wire, coloured grey, with fabric feathers glued on top! Because of the aluminum wire underneath, they’re much more flexible than the body.

The face I had some difficulty with initially, as the features were so small. I eventually opted to just use the pinheads as the eyes, drawing on the pupils. The eyebrows were also stuck to pinheads. The beak is made of paper tape on a pin.

I was really pleased with how it turned out!

The set up for animating took much longer than I anticipated, almost 2 hours. I used the NW corner of the camera room, using the down shooter camera table with a tripod instead.

I had 2 lights on either side with a DIY dimming-cover set up that was fast and loose but served me quite well! My set was made of fabric from the free bins outside the soft shop lab on the 4th floor and some paper I found. I also set up a board sticking out the front for the initial close up shot.

Everything was secured with clamps, clips, pins, or poster tack.

Here’s a video of me working! While animating I thought everything was going great, but it was not…

I made a grandeur mistake of assuming my playback preview was how my final high-resolution images were being shot. I was far from correct… Below you can see the preview vs the actual images being shot. I was so upset when I exported it.

I can still use the preview images, it’s just a       much lower resolution: 960x540 vs 4176x2349

Last time I used dragon frame I messed up the focus, now this time the exposure! Maybe one      day I’ll be able to make a project with no issues…

I also was naive to believe I could animate in a   rolling chair without bumping into my camera tripod, I did mess it up once.

I spent about 4-5 hours animating.

WEEK 3

I ended up using the high-resolution images and just adjusted the exposure with the Lumetri Color Effect in Premiere Pro. It looks kind of bad in the screenshot from Premiere here but not as bad in the export.

You can hardly see but in the lower image, but I was able to make the camera bump not look so bad by manually fixing the affected section, then cropping the whole video slightly to make up for the missing margins.

I was certainly able to mitigate damage from film day in my postproduction.

I kept my audio pretty simple! Just ambient, effects, and “dialogue” from the pigeons.

WEEK 1

I’d like to expand on my Messy 3 for my implementation project.

My biggest issues with Messy 3 were camera exposure settings, tripod bumps, tiny facial assets, and rushed timing and I’m pretty confident in my ability to rework all of that in my final.

Here is a video of my reworked storyboard, with more defined timing. I’d like to do the plate scene with plasticine and fabric and real bread.

Also, this time around I am going to get someone to voice act the “Coo” audios before animating. That way I can animate based on what they sound like.

WEEK 2

I spent my 2nd week reworking my puppet and doing sound work to plan for the “lip sync”.

To hide the wire armature, I took paper tape, coloured it pink with pencil, then wrapped it around the legs. For the facial assets, I left the eyes as is but redid the eyebrows and beak. I made the eyebrows by drying acrylic paint onto electrical tape attached to the pins that I cut the heads off of. They’re somewhat flimsy, so I’ll need to be careful while animating. For the beaks I just made more in the same fashion for the shapes I think I’ll need to make a “coo”.

I made some props for the background and final scene as well. Made of cardboard, paper, glue, and real lichen/moss that I found around and dried. I wanted it to have a childlike DIY feel.

I think for the food in the final scene, I’ll use only real food.

I also got my voice acting lines I got from people I know, a past professor and my uncle.

WEEK 3

I spent a day animating the 2nd scene with the food. I used the storyboard as a guide, importing it as a media layer into dragon frame. I didn't use it too heavily as a guide though, because I ended up just doing 1 worm. I thought multiple bugs of different material might distract from the point of the food. 

The set was very simple, just a "plate" made out of paper. I took a blank piece of paper, drew the blue+red lines on it then drew on it to make it look like a plate. I'm worried it looks too much like just paper and not enough like a drawing of a plate on paper. The lighting was just the pre-done set up in the back of the animation lab. The food line-up ended up being sunflower seeds, peanuts, muffin crumbs (Tanayaa told me the muffin looked all chewed up :(... ) and of course the gummy worm.

To make the worm easier to animate, I stabbed it through with a metal wire. It was pretty thick for the size of the worm, maybe 18g? This let it function basically as an armature.

As I animated, I tapped the food around to make it "boil" as the worm moved.

WEEK 4

I made pretty slow progress this week due to volume of work from other classes, but I finished up all my props for the background and did some pose tests while getting my set ready.

This time I decided to get my set ready ahead of time, so I could establish the camera angle and necessary scale of props. I used a clamp to suspend the sun, and a metal wire behind the string to keep it from swinging. The moss was real and glued onto cardboard.

Everything had support triangles keeping them upright, but were fully moveable for the "assembly" of the set, like a stop motion stage play.