#introstopmotion

[josiegoodall-animation]

Week Eight summary

Intro stop motion - This week we had the opportunity to catch up with some of the stop motions we may not have finished. We were also given out first mystery box task which I am looking forward to.

Narrative research - I have begun coming up with a plan for my essay but am finding creating and effective structure quite difficult. I am finding the research particularly interesting.

Intro CG - 

[josiegoodall-animation]

Week Seven Summary

Stop motion -  It was really nice this week to work with the metal armatures for our animations and interesting to see how differently they worked to the other puppets. I was happy with the way my figure turned out and it highlighted again the importance of using resources to capture realistic movement.

Narrative Research - This week I have been doing a lot of essay research into representations of mental health in film and found multiple articles on the subject. It seems like a subject that is particularly relevant at the moment. I did struggle to find books in the library about this specifically but did find an ebook.

Intro to CG - I found I picked up this test of the figure reacting to his phone screen much more easily than I have been doing previously. It was less technical and a little closer to stop motion style character creating.

[josiegoodall-animation]

Stop motion exercises, experimentation and iteration 

For this test we were able to use the metal armatures to create a number of animation tests. I found these much easier to work with as they hold their position a little easier and you are able to use stands to secure them in difficult poses.

Video: test high five

Video: test kick

With this second example, I animated the kicking character and was quite pleased with the movement. We did a number of kicking motions ourselves to see how to capture it with the armature but I think it worked well. Our second character was supposed to fly away with the force of the kick, but the stand was extremely unhelpful and he ended up clattering to the floor instead.

Video: test hug

I didn’t have as much to do with this test but I love the way they captured his personality with little touches like the leg kick.

[josiegoodall-animation]

Week Six Summary

Introduction to CG - I found this session quite difficult and was slow to pick it up, I found it wasn’t very intuitive (to me) and that if I missed a step I would be completely lost. It is definitely something I will need to repeat a few times in order to grasp and will hopefully be able to do this.

Narrative research - We looked at the film The Old Lady and the Pigeons (1997) Dir Sylvian Chornet and were then asked weather this would work in live action which we all agreed it would not. This was something I hadn’t really thought about and think would be interesting to talk about in my essay. I chose the film Mary and Max (2009) Dir. Adam Elliot to focus on for my essay as I think the subject of mental health in film would be a good topic and this film is a particularly interesting portrayal of this.

Introduction to stop motion - This task was really enjoyable and I also learnt a little about the limitations of stop motion puppets (without rigs). I found that to capture a change of expression clearly I needed enough time on each emotion as I don’t think mine was particularly clear. The end result is not exactly how I imagined it and is possibly not an entirely believable change of expression, but I do like the way separate parts of it turned out.

[josiegoodall-animation]

Week Five Summary

Introduction to stop motion - I really enjoyed this task and it was nice to work with another person to create the animation. We both worked from our plans and acted out our characters movements in order to make it realistic and both agreed capturing a realistic walk with a puppet was particularly difficult. 

Narrative Research - I found this lecture really fascinating and again found in interesting how it applied to so many things that I have watched and read. I have bought myself a copy of The Hero’s Journey on DVD to learn a little more about it. A number of things in this lecture I think would be nice to link in to an essay.

Introduction to CG - I found the introduction to CG extremely difficult and will hopefully get a chance to catch up on it and get more used to the program. It was good to see some of the very basics of CG and is definitely something I would like to be able to use.

[josiegoodall-animation]

Task 2 - Character lifts box

For this session we used our plans to animate the character lifting a box sequence. I worked in a pair where we merged our plans together and created something had elements of both.

Video: our finished character lifts box

I was really pleased with the outcome of this little piece. The walking proved incredibly difficult to get right and I will look into ways of making it less exaggerated and unnatural. I am please addition of personality to the character (with the shrug and forehead wipe) and think we did manage to show the weight of the box. It did highlight how precious you have to be about a stop motion set, even if it is just one foam box as the tiniest movement will show up and ruin the illusion of weight.

[josiegoodall-animation]

Week Four Summary

Animation principles - I am struggling to keep up with the animated tasks and still find a lot of the animation software quite difficult to pick up. I have chosen to focus on the flour sack animation for now and have found this a lot easier having learnt from the mistakes that slowed me down in other animations.

Introduction to stop motion - I enjoyed learning a little bit about the basics of stop motion and it as interesting to repeat some tasks we learnt in 2D with a new material. We found it was a little more difficult to get precise changes to the ball but the overall result was good.

Narrative research - From this weeks session it was interesting to see how Propp’s 7 key characters theory could be applied to so many different films and stories. I have continued researching films using the questions as a bit of a guide and a have settled on a few I would be interested in.

Animated sketchbook - Having missed quite a key bit introduction to the panoramic it was good to be able to talk to the tutor and begin coming up with ideas for mine. I have started a little research into panoramas as an illustration style but have yet to settle on a subject I would like to draw.

[josiegoodall-animation]

Guest Speaker - John Lee

http://johnlee.info/default.aspx

Image: behind the scenes, John Lee working on the 2013 John Lewis advert The Bear and the Hare

John Lee’s talk was a fascinating insight into the film industry and the different routes and experiences had there. Some of my favourites of his work: Frankenweenie (2012) Dir. Tim Burton, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) Dir. Tim Burton, Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) Dir. Wes Anderson and the beautiful John Lewis advert The Bear and the Hare (2013).

Frankenweenie (2012) Dir. Tim Burton

Image: set of the house exterior of Frankenweenie

Lee worked as set dresser and senior model maker for 18 months on Burton’s Frankenweenie and was able to tell us about the behind the scenes which was very interesting. A technical note that I hadn’t realised was that the sets were often built so they could be broken apart in order to allow the camera to move closer and bits of the scenery no longer needed could be removed in order to allow for this.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) Dir. Tim Burton

Image: the set of Charlie and the chocolate factory

Lee worked as a senior model maker as part of a team of ‘more than 60 model makers in one of the biggest SFX teams ever assembled’ of Tim Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

He worked on the construction of:

Two 1/24th scale factory installations

Numerous foreground hero shop front buildings

Detailed street furniture

Wonka factory set dressing

Interior miniature Hospital wing

Large scale railway arch

The image shows the set for the whole town at a distance and appears at the beginning of the film. It was interesting to find out the chimney seen at the back was around 18 foot tall and the rows of buildings were made using resin moulds. The puppet hospital that was featured for only two brief scenes also had incredible detail and time put into it and a crew of 6 people working on it.

Fantastic Mr Fox (2009) Dir. Wes Anderson

Gif: clip of Fantastic Mr Fox supermarket scene

This was one of my favourites to find out about the behind the scenes of. Lee spent four months as a senior model and prop maker, working on:

Coordination of large scale supermarket interior and product packaging

On-set dressing to numeruous model setups

Special prop and model making

The detail behind this scene was incredible down to tiny working fluorescent super market lights.

Image: Mini practical fluorescent lights

John Lewis Christmas advert, The Bear and the Hare (2013)

Gif: clip from The Bear and the Hare

I remember loving this advert when it came out and it was fascinating to be able to find out a little about the production. I had had no idea the characters themselves were 2D and the sets were 3D, quite an unusual technique that looks really beautiful. The characters were drawn and each iteration printed on card that was wire cut.

Image: individual pieces for the 2D characters

Image: behind the scenes photograph showing 2D characters in 3D set

Image: image of the set showing how light was cast across the 3D set in order to create a particularly realistic and beautiful image

Lee talked about the importance of visual research before working on designing the set and how they would try multiple methods and techniques before settling on one that captured what they wanted. After this they would edit and perhaps stylise further.

Image: the bear walking across the river

I chose this image in particular as some of the technical elements behind it were particularly interesting. The banks and the river do not actually touch, in order to allow for them to make the river surface realistic (a surface they made by pulling a roll of clear film across to create the effect of water). Underneath the surface is real gravel under a layer of thin perspex to create a river bed.

[josiegoodall-animation]

Holiday task - design mystery box character

Project for the reading week is to design our character for the upcoming mystery box project.

A4 Character model sheet (turn around - front, back, side, quarter view)

A4 Character design sheet with 3 dynamic poses

I have chosen stop motion so the character will be biped

[josiegoodall-animation]

Character walk and change of expression

For this test I would have loved another go at when I get time. What I had wanted was for the character to enter the frame clearly downhearted, notice a friend, change his mood and then do a cartwheel.

I needed have a little more time concentrating on the beginning emotion I was trying to capture, I think the transition is too quick and almost unnoticeable. The cartwheel I had planned could not be achieved with this particular model which is not something I had factored in in my plan (the puppet is too weak to hold itself up on one hand!). 

The final outcome is a slightly unclear mood change from sad to ‘tah-dah’.

[josiegoodall-animation]

Introduction to stop motion

Gif: Pingu (1986 - ) 

For the introduction to stop motion we have a number of tasks to complete in order to capture some of the basic techniques in this form of animation. These include: 

ball bounce

character lifts a box

character walk and change of expression

iteration and experimentation

Task 1 - Bouncing Ball

Using some of the techniques we learnt at the beginning of the course we are asked to create a simple looping ball bounce with a plasticine ball.

Image: slide from the presentation

Video: ‘I love stop motion’ by Vimeo user chloe fleury