Final Animation

So here it is. I hope you enjoy

Compositing is hard work

Having finished my stop mo section I could get on with the final task of compositing all the footage in After Effects. This was a lot harder than I had imagined and I think in all I have spent around 30-35 hours on just the compositing alone.


I had to create the theatre so it was in a 3D space, This was like making a scene in Maya I found.

I then had to add the groups bits of animation and line them up so a character wouldn't seem further away to another, they also needed to be proportioned correctly as they all seemed to be different sizes.

Then came the task of joining each sequence together. I did this by creating a puff of smoke every time a character swapped places. I used stock footage of ink being dropped in to water. Each piece of footage had to have it's background keyed out, which took a bit of time to get right. Half way through the production after adding more footage After effects seemed to slow a lot making it very hard to keep a consistent work flow going. It also made watching the footage back a nightmare, as I would have to wait around 20 -30 minutes to render. I think they may be a better way of keeping the file size small but as it had an abundance of footage and photoshop files, pictures and effects on each of them which slowed the program right down.

Me and Kyle managed to get the live action shot, so it was time to add that. This proved a bit of a chore as I don't think we got the lighting right in the green screen room at uni. This resulted in having to do extensive work on keying out the background from the footage.

After that it was time to add camera moves and lighting. From trying out many camera moves it seemed clear that nothing really worked. Zoom ins on the characters did not work especially, as the action was to fast, by the time the camera had zoomed in it was time to zoom out again. We decided it would be best to keep it all from the same angle as it would add the feeling of being in the audience.

The lighting I used was just ambient lights and spot lights. This was just to add more depth to the scene and also to add a theatrical aesthetic.
I also did a few frames of rotoscoping on a section that went from live action to animation.

Heres what it looked like at the end of all my hard work compositing.

The green man lives!

Heres my completed section of stop motion.

I did the shoot using a DSLR for the main stills and also had a mini dv camera for low resolution video feed. As I didn't have enough lighting I had to set the dslr to a slow shutter-speed to allow more light in and the whole shoot suffers from light flicker.

Also as the shoot could only be done very late at night, I think it suffers from me getting really tired half way through. But I will just have to take that as learning process.

I think the light flicker actually works within the context of the brief as it is a mistake in animation, and a very common mistake in amateur stop motion.

I am quite pleased with the first half of the animation, up until he turns around. I didn't use reference for the action. I acted it out as I was animating, which I found to be very helpful as I could also feel how the movement was going to go.

I thought it would be interesting for you too see the video feed footage as well as it makes it look like a different shoot. I almost prefer this footage instead of the high res footage and would of used it but it is very low quality and would of proved hard for chroma keying.

Stop motion section

While undertaking the heavy duty compositing job I realised it was a shame there was no stop motion in it and decided that I would get a bit done for it as quick as possible. To go with the theme of children's animation I drew up a character that resembled Aardmans Morph and drew the armature inside it. I knocked up a quick wire armature and used plasticine to flesh the puppet out. I was really quite pleased with myself as the actual time it took me to make the armature and sculpt the puppet was only around an hour to and hour and a half. Once it was finished I planned out the animation for later that evening.

And the finished puppet on his stage

I also used tie-downs for this puppet which was a first for me. I had to plan how far he was going to move and drill holes in the right positions. It is definitely what I will be using to secure my puppets down in future. I had to find a blue bed sheet as well for doing the blue screen. I ended up having to do the animating in my living room as I had to suspend the bed sheet from the ceiling and tie it to a bookshelf , then where it was curling up at the bottom i had to weight it down with a rock.

A day with Hereford grammar school

On friday we did a workshop with Hereford grammar school. I started off doing a stop motion workshop with the help of two of my classmates which turned out to be so much fun, they also did a flash tutorial and then came back to finish there stop mo films. I had made a lesson plan but but decided to ditch it and just let them play, which turned out for the best. It was great fun helping them out and also watching them create, children have no fear of messing up or going wrong! Damn them! All but one of them had never done animation and it was also great getting to help them create there first ever piece. I thought I would post up some photos I took during the day and post there final films. Unfortunately we didn't get the chance to get any sound on them.

And a nice group shot of us all

And finally the films

This one was done with the help of my class mate Ben Smallman

Deciding what to do

After we had written the brief, we took a look back at the mind maps, to pick a subject matter. We decided on picking a character from the "Things kids would like to be able to do" which was a wizard/magician. We thought this was a great choice as it could lead to all sorts of possibilities for the short story of the project.

After a session on developing the story we gave each other certain roles to play. Everyone would produce at least a 5 second piece of animation of a magician of there own design and also so we would have different animation techniques. we then put together a storyboard just so we had a guideline of the kind of action that was going to take place.

With knowing what everyone need to do, we all went off to work on our bits of animation. I had decided that I was going to be the compositor for the project and animate and design the actual stage it is set in.

This was a quick test shot just to see if what I had in mind would work



I originally wanted to animate and design the set so it was fully articulated and to almost imitate a real theatre stage. But after receiving everyones work and doing a test composite I found that the whole thing was fast paced and there would be too much happening at once for there to be other things animated at the same time as the characters.

Harassing people

I have sent emails to couple of animators asking if they would mind me sending them scenes from my film as I make it to get there feedback and criticism.

Today I had a reply from the amazing Jud walton saying he doesnt mind at all. So I will definatley be making use of his great expertise. Great news hey! Just waiting on mr Purves now

Replacement Mouths

One thing I am going to be exploring for my puppets is replacement mouth pieces. I had some fun yesterday and tried some quick tests with plasticine. Doing this has made me appreciate claymation animators even more as trying to get the same shape every time is hard work. I think for the final production I am going to mold the head shape and the mouths like the amazing Max Winston has done here:

Max Winston has also inspired me a lot over the past few weeks. He went to calarts then after he managed to get a grant for his short film "I LIVE IN THE WOODS". I have emailed him to see if he would mind giving me advice and answer questions about his film, he may be very busy so I cant expect a reply to any time soon. Check the trailer and the time lapse for the film HERE I really want to see the whole thing!!!!!!

Here is my attempts at some replacement animation




This was my make shift jig for the moment, as you can see it is the top of a cigarette box. I use it to press the plasticine against to try and get the same shape every time.

And I did a couple of test shoots. The first I did without any kind of lip synch in mind, just to test if they work. The second I had the sentence "we will rock you" in my head while animating. From doing this I have found that I will need a lot more mouth shapes for lip synch and for expressions. I Also ended up sculpting more mouth shapes as I was animating which are not in the photo. I Will try some more soon.

Creating our own brief

After we had done our mind maps on why we think children like animation, we then set about writing our own brief for a short/ident promoting animation for children at BCU using what we had found out in the previous sessions. We needed to make it fun and to show what can be done at BCU, targeting 7 year olds and potential future students.

The first brief was far too vague and wasn’t really clear on what we were doing.

We then started again using the knowledge of previous modules briefs as a rough guideline but with our own learning points.

The final brief:

BCU - Animating for children

Produce a 20-30 second Animation combining a variety of styles and techniques promoting animation at BCU specifically children’s animation. The style of animation is to be targeted at younger children, while the advert itself is aimed at prospective students and professionals interested in the animation course and animation for children at BIAD.

The animation must showcase different techniques of animation while tying them together in a unified way, utilizing knowledge of what children like in animation and what it means to be a 7 year old. Explore what makes animation interesting to a 7 year old and why they like it. Why would you like it when you were 7?

Use your mind maps to explore what we discussed it means to be 7 and look back on your own experiences to gain an insight into the 7-year-old mind.

Design a character and think of ways he or she can interact with other characters and scenes created by other members of the group. Think about the target audience and what they do/ play/ create/ like, refer to the discussions we have had.

Get inspiration from animations you enjoyed as a child and think about why you liked them and why they work. Incorporate this research in the design of your character and scenes.

It must be lively and attractive to both target audiences but more towards children. Make it fun while you could also showing the processes behind animation, for example showing the mistakes that can happen, and the creation of new characters by existing characters- A character given a pencil and drawing himself a friend.

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Talking to the man!

So I have had the privilege of speaking to two stop motion geniuses in the past couple of years and since joining stopmotionanimation.com the number is increasing.

There is one chap who I have been watching for a while and yesterday I found he posted up a video of a test of one of his new characters for his new short film. Even this short test was so inspirational and it's only 23 seconds long!!!!

Justin Rasch is quickly becoming one of my favourite animators. He has so much skill and he can tell a damn good story too. If you have a spare 12 minutes I highly recommend you watch his film "Gerald's Last Day" even if you dont have the time spare I highly recommend you take the time out to watch it.

Click the link to watch

https://www.delta.com/marketing/flyinmovies/

He also gave me some great advice regarding video reference and stop motion

I feel it's going to be an inspiring and interesting summer.

EDIT: Just posting his reply, will probably keep adding them as they come.

Short Case study

Teenage mutant Hero turtles

This was one of many favourites of mine. The cartoon was based on Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird's early 80's comic books. Teenage mutant ninja turtles is about a group of 4 normal turtles that accidently fell down in to the sewers in a puddle of glowing ooze. This causes the turtles to become humanoid. At the same time a man named Yoshi, who was a ninja master and been in the sewers around rats, was exposed to the same ooze. Which also turns him to humanoid rat. Yoshi took on the name of Splinter and brought the turtles up as his sons.

From wikipedia

"The initial motivation behind the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated series was that, upon being approached to create a toy line, Playmates Toys was uneasy with the comic book characters' small cult following. They requested that a television deal be acquired first, and after the initial five-episode series debuted, the California toy company released their first series of Ninja Turtles action figures in the summer of 1988. The two media would correspond in marketing style and popularity for many years to come."

This seems to be the case with a lot of the old 1980's cartoons I used to watch. But it goes show that there strategy

worked well, as I had pretty much every Turtle action figure available.

I think the reason I liked it so much was that there wasn't anything else like it on T.V and that as an imaginative child, I one day maybe able to grow my own mutant turtle. There is always an adventure in each episode. There is a villain to provide the never ending conflict. And there is always a happy ending. I think one thing that made the characters even more interesting is that they all have there own character traits. Each had there own specialized weapon, different coloured bandana and personality. This would result in children having a favoured ninja turtle.

What it is to be a 7 year old child

One of the things I have thought about during this module is that being able to use personal experience is a great thing, even if it's for something you haven't had happen to you or something that would never happen to you, for example : being chased by a dinosaur, you could draw upon a certain experience that made you feel really scared, like being chased by something like a dog or a group of bullies or a cow in my case. It can all be used as inspiration.

I think to get the audience engaged with your story they need to be able to relate to it in certain situations and be able to believe it.

To start this module of we talked about what it's like to be a 7 year old child and what we could remember it was like for ourselves at that age.

We brainstormed the kinda of things we liked to do, what we were like with friends and parents, what kind of television and movies we enjoyed and why we liked the things we did.




I think after doing this exercise we all found that we don't look deep enough in to research and that we could benefit from mind maps a lot more.

We then put what we had found about ourselves at that age and mapped them to a psychologists reports on a 7 year old. We weren't far off from what they thought and would presume that children today would be the same.

Ideas to show Chris Shepherd

From talking with my parents and looking back at things I used to do around the age of 7 I got a few ideas for the story for my animation in L6. These were inspired from the work done in the audiences and communication module. They are very quick ideas, two of which have been worked on a little while the other two are left as backups. I have decided to do a children's story as I think I want to go into children's tv animation as thats where most stop motion jobs are going at the moment.

Main Idea 1: -- Click images for larger view--

This idea is based on how imaginative I would get when given a huge box. I would make various different things out them like a spaceship, pirate ship, a night rider kind of super car, tank, castle, super computer and other weird but fun things. I think as well my influence for this is a book I got when I was about 3 or 4 called "Ben's Box" I managed to get the book back of my mum who has had it with her through out her last 15 years as a head teacher. The book is very tatty now but you can still see how amazing it is . After looking through it I realised how similar the story is too mine, which I think must of been a sub conscious thing.

Main Idea 2:

This idea is based from When I used to watch a T.V show or movie, I would act it out along side watching it. My mum also said that one time I was waiting to watch Transformers and ended up running around the house acting out my own episode. By the time it had started I was face down, bum in the air, fast asleep from playing to hard.

Backup Idea 1:







This idea is from how I would play with my action figures. I would have a movie kind of set up for playing. Think of a story and what characters I would need for it. I didn't like playing with other children just incase they would mess up the story and do something I wouldn't like.

Backup Idea 2:




This was based on when my favourite teddy got a bit worse for wears and had to be thrown out. I always wanted him to come back all brand spanking new. I think it would be a similar story to Toy Story and The Snowman.

Chris Shepherd

We had the amazing Chris shepherd in to give us his criticism on our ideas. He thought that my two main ideas were the best. But out of the two he said the one about the box is the strongest.

He suggested that it could be done in the style of creature comforts and to go and ask children if they have ever played with a box or even ask adults too. He said it would be good as it would play on the audiences sense of nostalgia. . Also as I told that it would be made to try and help me get in to children's animation that he will try and dig out a few old contacts for me.

With his suggestion in mind, I started speaking to my mum about how hard it would be to interview children. She said it wouldn't be too hard but she would need to send a letter out to children's parents to see if they mind. As she is under a great deal of stress at the moment, I don't want to burden her with the hassle of having to the that. So I think I will stick with the original plan of the story but try and structure it better, something else to work on over the summer.

Armatures armatures armatures!

I been trying to decide what kind of armature to use for my puppet next year . From having used both wire and ball and socket, I know which is best for me : the ball and socket armature. I have been scouting around the internet finding different tutorials and different ways of machining the armature. Then I came across this website john wright modelmaking. They have made armatures for Aardman studios use. What amazed me even more was that they sell custom armatures and even better the parts for them. This got me thinking even more that I could buy certain parts from them and do the rest myself. After pricing up the separate parts I found that this might be a little to expensive to the amount I am willing to spend, so I hit back to scouring the net for more options.After going through all the possibilities I finally found the right place Skeletoon This is where I will be definitely getting the parts I need or maybe the whole armature.

I have come to this conclusion after getting some advice from 2 stop motion veterans. They said that if you can get ball and socket armature or have access to one then use it. The only reason they don't is if they haven't got the funds or if they need to start animating as quick as possible. As I have the time and will have the funds I will be buying my armature. I will still be doing some tests with wire armatures over the summer just to be double sure.

De- lurked

I have recently joined up to www.stopmotionanimation.com which I have been lurking around the site for about 3 years and It is nice to finally speak to people that I have admired and looked up to for so long. The forums are what I think the best source of information available as you have people with over 20 years worth of experience to learn from.

I think that joining in with the actual stop motion community is the best move to make. I will be able to share my work and receive criticism from all over the world and also provide my thoughts on others work.

Developing a new style

While doing this recent module I have been experimenting with a new style of cut out illustration with the intention of being able to fuse it with stop motion. It has been a fun and interesting medium to work with. I think I have developed it to a strong enough point at the moment and found it will definitely be useful with animation. I have decided that I am going to leave developing this style while I am working on my final film, it's tried and tested. It's available for me to use when ever needed for future projects.

Reflection

So here is some of the work I have done over the past two years at university that I'm actually happy with. I think in general I am usually not happy with the work I produce because it's either not as good as I know it could be or I have set my aims far too high for what was to be done.

These are my parts from a group stop motion project. This was a great for me as it was the first time I got to do some stop motion on the course and to put all of my knowledge in to practice.

Also found this, another scene I animated from the group project of Dracula. The secondary animation on the hair is a bit wrong. Its ok on the bob towards the ball but wrong on the jump back. It goes in the opposite direction to what it should be. But I quite like the jump back tho.




Here's a few tests I did for something that never got finished. I really need to try doing things with tie downs rather then the magnets I have. Just a case of try and find out I think. This s a bit Jack skellington-esque I feel.





This was one of the various tests I did for picking up a ball. I think its not too bad just the movement of the right arm at the end is a bit jerky compared to the rest of the body.



We had a work shop with the amazing Judd Walton who has worked on tv shows such as Bob the builder and pingu, he also worked on a movie which I am still waiting to watch, Max & co. He kindly brought an old training puppet with him and I couldn't wait to have a play with it. This was such a great opportunity for me as I got to learn something from a professional that has been doing stop motion for a long time and working in the industry. I hope he comes again.




This was for a narrative project. I chose to do mine based on a recent trip to a rock show. It ended up being pretty much a animatic. But I think it still works. I really like the end when the band are on the stage and the houselights dim out then kick back in with the music. It is very much like a lot of the shows I have been to.



And a couple of concept drawings for it





Here's a few illustrations I did for a pre-production project. Just a few that I liked from the bunch. Doing this project really changed the way I look at character design. I have now started to concentrate on shape rather then on detail as I used to do.










We did a project where we had to create a character then sculpt a maquette of it then model it in maya. My favourite part of this was sculpting the maquette as it goes with my love for stop motion. The final outcome in 3d was awful. But at least I tried.












And finally probably my favourite piece of work so far. We had to pick three words out of a hat, a action, expression and an object. Then we had to produce a animation based on these words. I picked out : Coin, Admire, Excited. I know there are probably a hundred different ideas for it but what I did was all I could think of at the time. the best part is the coin flick at the end. I think it's my best piece of actual animation, using all of my knowledge of animation principles.