Ini's Blog

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Advanced and Experimental with Ting

Week 20

With teaching coming to an end, this week gave me the opportunity to reflect on everything I had learned throughout the unit. Looking back at the first few assignments, I realised how much my approach to animation has changed. At the beginning of the year, I often focused on moving controls and trying to make things look right by instinct. Over time, through the various exercises in cinematography, acting, facial animation and creature locomotion, I started to appreciate the importance of observation, planning and understanding why things move the way they do. I also became much more comfortable with Maya, which initially felt intimidating coming from Blender. Although I still have a lot to learn, I no longer feel like I am fighting against the software.

One of the biggest lessons I took away from Ting’s classes was the importance of workflow. Throughout the year, I saw how breaking problems into smaller stages makes difficult tasks manageable. Whether it was approaching lip sync in layers, using reference to understand body mechanics, or separating a horse walk cycle into individual steps, I learned that animation is not something that should be tackled all at once. I also learned the value of feedback. Some of the most useful moments came not from lectures, but from conversations with Ting and watching her demonstrations. Seeing how she manipulated curves in the graph editor or approached a problem with confidence helped me understand that good animation is often about spacing and timing rather than constantly creating new poses.

Reflecting on the year as a whole, I think the unit has changed the way I think about animation. I have become less concerned with making things perfect immediately and more interested in understanding the process behind them. There were moments where I became lost, especially with my heavy object shot, but I now realise that starting over or stepping back is not necessarily failure. More than anything, the unit taught me patience. I leave the year with a greater appreciation for reference, planning and iteration, and with much more confidence in my ability to tackle unfamiliar problems. Although I still have a long way to go, I feel like I have developed a stronger foundation and a healthier mindset towards animation, which I believe will be far more valuable in the long run than any individual assignment.

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Advanced and Experimental with Serra

Week 20

The Measurable Self


This interactive immersive installation explores the invisible processes through which artificial intelligence observes, records, and transforms human behaviour into data. By placing the participant at the centre of the experience, the project visualises the journey from a physical presence to a machine-readable profile, revealing how AI systems perceive people as collections of measurable information. The experience begins with a simple act of person detection. As the participant enters the space, the system identifies their presence and establishes them as a subject within its field of observation. This minimal interface reflects the first stage of computer vision, where an individual is recognised not as a person but as an object to be tracked.


The second stage introduces real-time line graphs generated through hand and pose tracking. Every movement is translated into numerical values and live visualizations, exposing how gestures and body language become quantifiable parameters that can be measured and stored. Next, a heatmap and motion feedback system accumulates the participant’s movements over time. Rather than representing a single action, the visualization builds a behavioural footprint, revealing patterns and frequencies that are invisible to the human eye but valuable to machine learning systems.The final processing stage shifts from data collection to computation. The immersive space fills with floating numbers, calculations, and fragmented datasets that surround the participant, visualizing the hidden analytical processes performed by AI. This stage represents the organization and processing of collected information before it is transformed into a usable model.


Once the computation is complete, the interface displays “100% Complete”, followed by “Subject Categorized.” After an extensive process of observation and analysis, the participant is reduced to a simplified numerical identity and assigned a predefined category. Rather than criticizing artificial intelligence itself, the project invites audiences to reflect on the mechanisms of contemporary data-driven technologies. It questions how everyday interactions are continuously converted into datasets for machine learning and training, and how these systems inevitably reshape human experience by treating people as collections of measurable variables rather than complex individuals

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Advanced and Experimental with Nigel

Week 20

This week was primarily spent making final adjustments to the thesis proposal and reflecting on the progress made throughout the term. Looking back at my earliest blog entries, one of the biggest changes was how much my research topic had evolved. I originally considered investigating animation in advertising and projection mapping before gradually shifting towards immersive storytelling and audience attention in 360° animation. The final proposal feels much more closely connected to my interests and practical ambitions as an animator.

One of the most valuable lessons from this module was understanding the relationship between theory and practice. At the beginning of the year, I viewed the thesis and Final Major Project as separate pieces of work. Through discussions with Nigel and the process of developing the proposal, I began to see them as parts of the same investigation. The research informs creative decisions within the film, while the production process raises new questions that can be explored academically. This reciprocal relationship became one of the strongest aspects of my project.

The proposal process also changed the way I approach research. I became more comfortable reading academic sources, comparing different viewpoints and identifying patterns across multiple fields of study. Although there is still a significant amount of work ahead, I now feel that I have a clear research direction, a structured plan for investigation and a stronger understanding of how the dissertation can support the development of my Final Major Project.

Thesis ProposalDownload
Categories
Advanced and Experimental with Ting

Week 19

This week I focused on completing the final pass of my advanced animation shot based on the hospital scene from The Walking Dead. Most of my time was spent responding to the feedback Ting had given over the previous weeks. I revisited the shoulders and neck, paying particular attention to offsetting their motion so that the performance felt more relaxed and less rigid. Rather than making major changes to the shot, this stage was about refining and polishing what was already there.

Looking back at the finished shot, I felt satisfied not only with the result but with the process that led to it. Throughout the term, Ting had repeatedly emphasized strong poses, clear spacing and the importance of planning, and I could see those lessons reflected in my workflow. More importantly, I felt that I had become much more patient with animation. Instead of expecting a shot to work immediately, I had learned to trust the process and view feedback as part of the journey rather than criticism. Although there are still many areas I want to improve, this final pass made me realize how much progress I have made since the beginning of the year, both technically and in the way I approach animation as a whole.

Categories
Advanced and Experimental with Nigel

Week 19

With most of the proposal structure now established, this week was largely dedicated to refining the literature review and thinking more carefully about how the different sections of the thesis connected to one another. I continued reading around immersive storytelling, visual attention and one-shot filmmaking, while also revisiting some of the sources I had already collected. At this stage, I found myself thinking less about finding new references and more about how the existing material could be used to support a coherent argument.

One challenge I encountered was organising the chapters in a way that felt logical. Initially, I found myself jumping between film theory, animation theory and immersive media without a clear progression. Revisiting the idea of the “Golden Thread” helped me understand that the chapters should build upon one another rather than exist as separate discussions. This led me to structure the proposal around a progression from traditional and continuous-take cinema, to animation as a directed medium, then to immersive storytelling, before finally bringing these ideas together in a chapter focused specifically on directing attention in 360° animation. Establishing this sequence made the project feel much more cohesive.

Reflecting on the process, I realised that writing a proposal is not simply about collecting information but about constructing an argument. Once the chapter structure became clearer, I found it easier to identify where individual sources belonged and how they contributed to answering the research question. This gave me greater confidence that the project had a clear direction and a strong foundation moving forward.

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Advanced and Experimental with Nigel

Week 18

This week focused on continuing the development of the thesis proposal. Although there was no major new content introduced in class, I spent a significant amount of time refining my research question and chapter structure. One challenge I encountered was deciding how much of the thesis should focus on immersive media theory compared to film directing and animation. Initially, I found myself collecting sources that were interesting but not always directly relevant to the question I was trying to answer.

As my reading progressed, I began to notice a recurring theme throughout the literature. Many researchers discussing virtual reality and 360° storytelling focused on viewer agency and presence, while film theorists were more concerned with directing attention through framing, editing and composition. This contrast helped me realise that my research was really about the tension between these two ideas: the filmmaker’s desire to guide attention and the viewer’s freedom to choose where to look. This became an important concept within my proposal and helped strengthen the connection between the different chapters.

I also spent time watching conference talks and interviews relating to immersive storytelling and virtual reality filmmaking. While many of these were not academic sources, they provided useful practical insights into the challenges faced by creators working in 360° media. These additional perspectives helped me think about how the theoretical research could eventually be applied within my Final Major Project.

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Advanced and Experimental with Nigel

Week 17

This week’s session focused on Harvard referencing conventions and continued support for the thesis proposal. While referencing is definitely my least favourite part of research, the session was a useful reminder of the importance of maintaining accurate records of sources throughout the writing process.

As my bibliography continued to grow, I became more aware of how easy it is to lose track of references if they are not organised properly. The session reinforced many of the practices introduced earlier in the year through Zotero, Mendeley and other reference management tools. It also encouraged me to revisit some of my citations to ensure consistency before moving further into the proposal.

Alongside the discussion of referencing, I continued refining my proposal structure and chapter outline. By this stage, the project was beginning to feel much more focused than when I first started considering research topics at the beginning of the year.

Categories
Advanced and Experimental with Serra

Week 19

This week was dedicated to filming and editing the final project. We booked the 270-degree screen room and successfully loaded our project into the space. Overall, the process went relatively smoothly, although we encountered a few technical challenges along the way. Initially, we struggled to fit the resolution correctly to match the proportions of the wide screen. Fortunately, with the help of the technicians, we were able to configure everything correctly. Another issue we encountered was that our project had been built using POPs, while the computers in the room were running an older version of TouchDesigner that did not support it. Thankfully, this turned out to be less of a problem than we expected, and we were able to find an alternative workflow without significantly affecting the project.

By the end of the day, we had managed to record live footage inside the installation while simultaneously exporting windows directly from TouchDesigner. Seeing the project operating within the 270-degree space was particularly rewarding, as it transformed something we had been viewing on laptops into a much more immersive experience. Recording the interaction also reinforced Serra’s earlier advice about the importance of showing the audience how the installation is meant to be experienced. Capturing the interaction with the work made the concept much easier to communicate.

After filming, we moved into post-production. We divided the remaining tasks between the three of us to make the process more efficient. I focused on editing the footage and arranging the clips according to the layout and narrative structure we had previously agreed upon. Charlotte worked on the script and voice-over, while Ayca concentrated on writing the project statement. Although we were all responsible for different parts of the project, we remained in constant communication and made decisions together. Working this way allowed us to complete the project efficiently and reinforced how much trust and collaboration had developed within the group since our previous unit together.

Categories
Advanced and Experimental with Ting

Week 18

This week we continued from where we left off in the previous workshop, this time focusing on Studio Library and animation layers. Ting showed us how Studio Library can be used to save poses and animation clips and then easily transfer them between scenes. She also revisited animation layers, explaining how they allow animators to stack motion on top of existing animation without destroying previous work. Having seen them briefly before, I appreciated this second look because I was beginning to understand how these tools fit into a professional workflow. They seemed less like shortcuts and more like ways of working non-destructively and staying organized.

To put these ideas into practice, we were given a task that involved importing a jump animation, complete with the rig and environment, and modifying it so that the character jumped from one location to another. We then had to bring in the attack animation from the previous week’s Mario plant exercise and animate Mario interacting with it. I found this task interesting because it was less about creating everything from scratch and more about combining and adapting existing animations. It felt closer to how game animation pipelines might work, where animators are often required to reuse and modify assets rather than constantly creating new ones. Working with animation layers made it much easier to add changes without affecting the original motion.

Looking back, I realized how much my perspective on animation tools has changed over the course of the year. At the beginning, I wanted to animate everything manually because I thought using tools somehow diminished the craft. However, after learning about AnimBot, Studio Library and animation layers, I am beginning to understand that professional animation is not about doing things the hardest way possible. Instead, it is about finding efficient workflows that allow you to spend more time making creative decisions. The exercise also reinforced the importance of organization and planning, since managing multiple imported animations and layers quickly becomes confusing without a clear structure. I can see myself incorporating these workflows into future projects, as they make iteration much less intimidating and encourage experimentation without the fear of breaking previous work.

Categories
Advanced and Experimental with Serra

Week 18

This week was mainly focused on bringing together the different stages of our project and transforming the raw tracking data into a more coherent visual experience. Building on the work from the previous week, we expanded our MediaPipe setup by introducing heatmaps to represent areas of high activity. Rather than simply showing tracked points and lines, the heatmaps allowed us to visualize where movement was concentrated, adding another layer to the idea of the AI observing and analysing the subject. We also spent time experimenting with motion trails and refining the way movement data was displayed to make the visuals feel more dynamic and informative.

As we developed these elements, we realised that having access to data was not enough; we needed to communicate it in a way that felt believable and visually engaging. We spent time researching references on data visualisation, interface design and motion graphics, looking at how graphs, labels and different visual elements could work together to create the impression of a sophisticated analytical system. We also began working on the final stages of the experience, including the completion screen. Inspired by some of the references we found, we designed a sequence that displayed messages such as “100% Complete” and “Subject Categorized”, helping create the impression that the AI had successfully processed the participant.

During our tutorial with Serra, she once again stressed the importance of clarity and encouraged us to think carefully about who the audience was and how the experience would be understood. Following her advice, we decided to fully embrace the 270-degree room for the final presentation and restructured the project around that environment. We also developed the analysis stage using the POPs plugin in TouchDesigner, creating abstract particle formations that represented the AI processing large amounts of human data. This became the most visually overwhelming section of the project and contrasted nicely with the final stage, where the visuals became much cleaner and more machine-like. By the end of the week, we had established a clear progression from data collection, to analysis, and finally to categorisation. For the first time, it felt like the individual pieces were coming together into a complete experience rather than separate experiments.