New Website

Hi everyone! Thank you for visiting my blog. Let me take a moment to redirect you to my portfolio website where you can see all of my animation work! www.toananimation.com

Director's Journal: The Process

It wasn't always fun or easy but I've made it!

First off pardon my English as I go into this rant about my 4th year.

Creating a film has been one of the most challenging thing and also the most satisfying thing that I have ever done with my life. I feel that I have done something worth while but it wasn't always fun. 90% of the time I really feel that I couldn't do it and I've doubted myself at the beginning of year on whether or not I would finish. I've doubted that my film would be any good or if anyone would care about my subject matter. I've gone through a painful first semester as I struggle to come up with a narrative structure to my father's story. I didn't really know how to tell it in a way that is true to my father, true to my culture or true to myself. I've been going in circles not really knowing where I'll end up with my project.

On top of receiving critiques on my story from my professors and my fellow classmates who are also struggling with their films, I was also worried about how I'll be able to technically deliver my film. I've decided to do puppet animation in After Effects. While I have done animation in after effects before I had never developed a fleshed out workflow for it and most of my production has been spent trying to learn how to build a character and putting it into an environment in After Effects for animation! After many trial and errors I've finally developed a good enough workflow for me to create my film. Overall, After Effects has been a forgiving platform for me to work with. I did not run into much technical problems that are commonly found with people who decided to do 3d films. Not being hindered by such technical difficulties allowed me to be more creative with my project which allowed for complete spontaneity. In the end I am happy that I've made the decision to create my film this way.

I feel that some people have the idea in their minds that what I'm doing is much easier compared to any other forms of animation. Any type of animation, whether it is hand drawn, digitally drawn, cutouts, stop motion, sand on glass, requires hard work! Yes I know 3d is hard and I've experienced the pain of 3d in second and third year. But to say what I'm doing or anyone else is doing is "easy" or of "less challenge" just isn't fair and it hurts me to hear some people say that. Am I really much less of an animator just because I decided to do cutout puppets in after effects? Well let me tell you something, in order to achieve the look that I was going for It took grueling hard work and many failures. I had to go through many trial and errors just to get one of my puppets to move. At that point I was worried that I wouldn't get my film done because it took so long for me to do a shot. My first shot took me around 3 days without any sleep and the animation was pretty shitty. But I've learned a lot from it and I was able to apply my knowledge to my other scenes. I had a total of 25 puppets in my film to build, rig, and animate. I've also had to build 8 different environments as my film takes place in multiple settings. Although rigging in after effects is not hard compared to 3d rigging, it was still a lot of work. so please, what I'm doing wasn't easy. Nothing is ever easy. (*phew* I just needed to get that out of my system.)

That being said, as I got familiar with my medium I was able to work much faster. I didn't need to worry about colouring my frames since it is puppet animation. In that regard I was able to finish my film faster with longer shots to edit. My Leica reel wasn't tight in that my timing and events were not exact. I was relying on my intuition as soon as I was able to animate something and the result of my film has been me sticking to my gut feeling and ignoring any doubt I had at the beginning of the year. This year has certainly been emotionally and physically draining. I am very fortunate to have the opportunity to spend an entire year on a single project. It wasn't always fun but I loved every moment of it and it was worth all the effort.

I live in Surrey, my commute is a total of 4 hours back and forth per day. I only work at school because I can't afford a computer to do my work at home but I prefer that because I love the school environment and the people that share the workspace with me. For the last 3-4 months, my work schedule has been me waking up as early as 6 am to go to school and going home as late as midnight. I even go to school on the weekends. And I am really going to miss all of this when I graduate :(

Tam Trailer

Finally I am close to completion, here is the trailer to my graduating film. It is going to be Screen In Vancouver Canada At the Rio Theater on May 6th!

Film Trailer

Tam Poster

Here is the poster for my grad film!

Film Proscess, 2.5d stage for animation

I'm making great progress but there is still much to be done. Here is the scene I just completed and a small sample of how I've been going about constructing my sets in after effects and placing my characters in them for the shot. This scene is the first apartment where my parents stayed for awhile when they first came to Canada and it is the night where my shrieking cry kept them up for hours.

P.S. The flag seems a bit ex-positional, I'll have to remove it.

This scene is finally completed! It took me a lot longer than I expected, I had to go back and correct many issues with the animation. I got it to look as good as I can possibly make it but even then I feel there are many errors. At this point I just got to move on to my other scenes. This one took way too long and my goal was to have 2 scenes finished by reading break. Gahh!!! I just noticed a seem in the middle picture!!!!

Here are some Test shot for the prison scene. I'm still deciding on composition and where the characters are going to be place in 3d space. I also have the ground to figure out but for now I just did a photoshop mock up on it because when I go to animate it the ground might look a bit odd.

Tension Chart

Tension I made for My first animatic

The Soliloquist by Ma Kuang Pei

Updated Production Schedule

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Asp8xaM-XvjNdDd1SzZDS0RoUGRGYUdOMzI3ZGMtVEE

Vietnamerica by GB Tran

Today I made great discovery after I got a haircut and walked into the comic shop nearby. I found this graphic novel called Vietnamerica by GB Tran and bought it without question. I'm excited to read it and listen to his family story.

Why Am I making this Film?

All the skills that I acquired during my studies in the animation program at Emily Carr would be put to the test in creating this piece. When I graduate I would have something to show for and that this student film would reflect everything I’ve learned and put to use in this very last year. Most importantly in making this film, I’ve learned there are times where there are a lot of uncertainty and there are a lot of things I have to search for and discover along the way. Animation is my chosen medium and in making this film I’ve set out to learn different techniques; different ways to approach this film. For me the most exciting part is finding a technique that works, executing it and learning from it. It is what pushes me forward. The hardest part for me is coming up with an idea and expanding that idea further which leads me to discuss the thesis of my film.

There is a saying that if you were to write that best place to start is to write from yourself because you know yourself best. I have never given much thought to it before but lately I’ve been thinking about my background, my family whom raised me, their morals, values and expectations. Living in Vancouver, being a multiethnic city as it is I realized there are a lot of families like mine whose parents don’t know a word of English and go through many struggles and hardships. I’ve been thinking about the background of where my parents are from and what it means to me. I wanted to share something personal, something that doesn’t come up regularly in a day to day conversation but I thought it would be appropriate to show in a film. Because I think this is the best way to express whatever it is I have to say.

In short, my film would be about my father’s struggle and hardship in escaping his home country, Vietnam, to come to Canada to give his family a better life. I carry this story throughout my childhood and it is very much a part of me. My parent’s language, culture, and values makes up my identity and it shapes the way I saw things, express things, and made sense of the world. My greatest difficulties are these questions that I ask myself, how do I want to tell this story? What does it mean to me? Even when pitching the idea to my class and to my teachers, it is very difficult for me to find the right words to fully express it. Usually my emotions would surface and I find myself struggling to get the point across. I’d rather show people what I mean rather than to tell it but I think the process of talking about my idea has a lot of value in itself. The more I talk about it, the clearer it is even though it has been hard.

Portfolio- Demo Reel

Here is a Demo reel of the work that I had done while studying in the Animation program at Emily Carr University Of Art & Design located in Vancouver British Columbia. The Demo Reel Shows my interests within animation in the media that had been explored and I like to further explore more into different animation techniques and ways to tell stories. I was glad that I had a chance to collaborate with my fellow animation students on The Canada Line Project and Canadian Mental Health PSA.



Also here is a link to my Vimeo where you can find more of my work.

vimeo

"Tam" Project Proposal

Summary

The working title for my grad project is called, “Tam.” My goal is to produce a 5-6 minute animated short about a father’s story of endless hardship and survival of growing up in Vietnam after the war to when he immigrated to Canada to start a better life.

Synopsis

My film is about a boy attempting to shorten the distance between him and his father by trying to understand his father’s past life in Vietnam during communist persecution.

Description

The project is intended to be a heartfelt and emotional piece as one boy feels that his relationship with his father has been distant throughout their lives. The boy tires to understand his father, attempting to shorten the distant between them. Intrigued by his father’s past life, Boy begins to look back on all the stories of hardship and survival he’s been told since childhood. Throughout the film, questions are asked about the father’s past life and the boy tries to make meaning out of the answers he is given. The film is intended to tell a heartfelt narrative while at the same time remind and educate people about what Vietnamese refugees went through during the eighties.

Visual Treatment

The medium of animation that I’ll be using is of a mixed media digital cutout puppet animation. I’ll be collecting and hand painting textures to use as assets for the film. The backgrounds and puppets are going to be hand painted, scanned and compiled into Photoshop, assembled and animated on After Effects.

Samples:

Visual Prototype

Boat People from Toan Nguyen on Vimeo.

Puppet Test:

Assembled and rotated:

360 Cutout Puppet Rotation Test! from Toan Nguyen on Vimeo.

Sound Treatment

I’ll be using narration for the most part of my film accompanied by sound effects and a score. I recently interviewed my father and have recorded our conversation. There will be voice over from the boy as he communicates his internal thoughts to the audience, asking questions about his father’s past.


Production Schedule, copy and paste into new window

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Asp8xaM-XvjNdC1VbUk1S3hzU2V1T0o5LU9xS292TUE&hl=en_US

Budget, copy and paste into new window

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Asp8xaM-XvjNdHBEZHA5MnRJUDdQMjlFS3oxTTlRRlE&hl=en_US

Puppet Test

This Friday I'm going to book out a sound booth from FVIM area so I can record a conversation with my Father. Hopefully, I'll be able to push forward into figuring out how I should tell His story trough this interview. But until then I got to get to some testing with the technique I'm using which is paper puppet animation. This Friday is also pitch night so I got to produce some concept images before then!

This first test I began by crafting some body parts. I hand painted the character with acrylic paints on water colour paper then scanned them into the computer. Overall I like the way it turned out and I prefer painting with physical paints rather than colouring it digitally.

Anddd this is what it looks like put together and rotated! The head is missing, I'll put that on later. I just want to see how the body rotates.

The 34th anniversary of the Fall of Saigon… and how little I know about Vietnam history.

The 34th anniversary of the Fall of Saigon… and how little I know about Vietnam history.

I found an article that relates to my project. This person that posted this blog is sort of sitting in a similar seat that I am sitting in. He wants to know more about his family history and as a kid his parents share their experiences in Vietnam but being a child all of that goes in one ear and out the other.

A blog showing images of modern Vietnamese people.

Fall of Saigon 1975.

Hardship after Fall of Saigon.

Vietnamese Immigration.

Playing with the idea of Animated Documentary/Reverse Documentary

Development is hard because most of the time you have no idea where this project will lead you. It's really daunting making my very first film but I'm more confident now that I have a direction to follow. When pitching my idea I brought up to Marilyn and Darren the two instructors that was reviewing me at my grad panel, that the subject matter of my piece would be my biggest challenge. And that developing a narrative around this idea would include extensive amount of research. I'll be researching into the historical, political, and social context around this and also some personal research as I'll be finding out a little bit more about my family and about myself. I expressed it would be difficult to tackle on this idea but at the same time I'm willing and ready!

Marilyn Cherenko recommended me a film that would help me in developing my film. She and Darren brought up the idea of the reverse documentary.

The film "Silence" Directed by Orly Yadin and Sylvie Bringas,
Tells a story about a little girl who is a survivor of the holocaust. She has kept silent about what has happened to her throughout her life and now her story is finally told in this 11 minute animated film. This film draws from the personal story of the narrator and her lived experiences.

Animation Prototype

Here is an animation test for my senior project.

Concept Artwork For My Senior Project

Here is a very inspiring Quote

"In some aspect I am a Vietnamese boat person. Now maybe I haven't spent 7 days or 8 nights out at sea hiding from Tai pirates or surviving off of food rations. But in some essence I continue to embody myself as a boat person. Plunged, thrust, and seasick by the oscling wave of hardships. I always continue to anchor my determination of coming out of that storm of life alive..."

A quote

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xxBPZBeC5M

- life is always going to be lived through hardship. I want to use my parents history as a metaphor, and not necessarily something that "hardship" is measured to.

Its about time I articulate my thoughts for the Senior Project Proposal In writing.

I never gave much thought as to where I came from. Living in Canada for most of my life I was never attached to my cultural background, instead I mainly focus on who I am growing up here. As I search for ideas for my grad project I begin to ask myself questions like:

What do I want to say?
What comment can I make about the world around me?
What is my understanding of the world? (not much)

I'll start off with something simple like "who am I?" I think this has been used a hundred times and is a bit of a cliche topic but whatever... I have to start somewhere. I begin to draw upon my background for ideas and inspiration for stories I might want to share:

As a child the stories that my parents would share with me are their lived experiences in Vietnam. They would tell me stories of hardship and poverty growing up in their home country. Stories of life on the farm and hardship they would go through when they were my age. They would share the traumas that they went through during the Communist rule, the struggle, and the obstacle they had to face when they escaped their country in search for a better life. Often times I found these stories to be quite depressing as a child and wondered why they would tell me these things, nonetheless these stories would stick with me even if I did not give much thought to it. I understood these stories to be a reoccurring moral that my parents want me to carry throughout my life for example, "To appreciate what I have, and work hard to become something."

What does this mean to my gradproject? I've started researching into the history of the Vietnamese boat people because that's what my parents were. A lot of the information that I found were personal stories that other people shared having been apart of the history. The stories that I've read brought tears to me and they were more horrible and sad than what my parents told me.

Here is the site that I've visited: http://www.vietka.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xxBPZBeC5M


These stories touched me on a personal and emotional level even though my connection with this culture is faint and distant. It wasn't until recently that I looked back to what my parents told me, having to visualize these stories when I was a child and how I perceive these stories back then compared to now. For my grad project I would like to explore more into these personal stories. I'll start from the memories of my parents and also research into the history around it. My goal would be to construct a narrative and have a central protagonist inspired by these personal stories that function as morals. I aim to communicate a moral in my piece and explore a question as to why we tell our children stories similar to what my parents shared with me.