Heads up

The heads have now been molded. I will be casting them in polyurethane foam a little later today. I will post the results when there done if nothing extremely bad has not happend and I'm too frustrated to speak. hopefully all will go well. If it doesent then I will have to try and strip the foam from the armatures or make some new ones. fingers crossed.

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

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.

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.

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.

Plans for the summer

Over the summer I am going to be concentrating on personal study, trying to iron out the skills that will be needed for my final year at university. I will also be spending a lot of time networking over the internet with other stop motion animators and hopefully meet up with the ones within reasonable traveling distance (UK).

Basically fully preparing myself and making sure I have drained every resource possible about stop motion.

SKILLS AUDIT:


Good:

• Knowledge of stop motion
• 
  
• Sculpting + model making
• 
  
• Puppet fabrication
• 
  
• Basic animation principles
• 
  
• Character design
• 
  
• Pre production for stop motion
• 
  
• Photography
• 
  
• Lighting

Needs work:

• Clarifying what needs to be done
• 
  
• Structuring ideas
• 
  
• Advanced animation principles
• 
  
• Set building
• 
  
• Advanced armature machining
• 
  
• Using foam latex
• 
  
• Drawing skills
• 
  
• Structuring a pipeline process
• 
  
• Motivation and organization skills
• 
  
• Post production: editing, compositing

What it is I am going to do:

I am going to produce a short stop motion animation while fine-tuning the good skills I have such as model making and character design while being able to work on the bad skills such as building a more professional armature and set design.

It is going to be a children’s story so I will need to do some research on why stop motion works with children’s TV and use the information found to help with the foundation of the story.


The whole project will help me to learn about the process of making a stop motion animated short film and also to concentrate on the aspects of stop motion that I haven’t yet tried and developed any skill in. I think the main thing I will get out of it is the experience and being able to put in to practice all that I have learned about stop motion.

What kind of learner am I?

I think that I am both an activist “Prefers doing and experiencing” and a pragmatist “Likes to have a go, try things to see if they work” This knowledge will help me as I know I will have to try things out to see if they work in the pre production stage. It will also help refine my schedule to give a set amount of time to trial and error.