#dmffinalstopmotion

Making the stop-motion was a very enjoyable process and I further learnt a lot about the program Adobe Premier Pro which I had never used before. My group worked really well as a team as we were never short of enthusiasm or ideas and everyone contributed towards the process. I helped construct the set and characters which was an interesting learning process as to what works well on camera. I thought wire characters would allow for flexibility of movement however on set it was difficult to get the character to move and stay upright. Furthermore it was suggested that our character could have had more emotions as we used only four different faces alternatively. Through a collaboration of ideas, character and prop construction our set was successfully pretty spooky and ‘artificial’ for our comedy ‘old-style,’ horror film. Our influences also included the ‘Quay brothers,’ which were a group that constructed stop motions from a whole range of materials. Our pictures taken by Lauren worked really well with great seamless action and focused shots. Jess enhanced the eerie feeling through the coloured lighting which worked really well. We decided on place cards with text for any dialogue, action and credits to give our film an ‘old-style’ feel. Nick created the border image working well with the theme as well as providing a chop between scenes. We only used the outside of our set and the ‘box room’ to film. To get the camera on the level of our character we cut a hole in the back which allowed easier access. Using a variety of camera angles as well as props we planned action from the beginning to the end. The incorporation of the chewing gum allowed us to make him the villain which ultimately destroys our character.

The stop-motion animation project was a challenge for me(and the rest of my group). None of us had any real experience in editing or animation, and I know that personally I'm not very confident with computers, due to my lack of use of any applications other than internet, typing documents, etc.

The process of making the animation required a high level of organisation from all members of the group. We were all designated tasks, I did a bit of set dressing, wardrobe(shared with Viv) and catering for the group(the power of cake cannot be underestimated), knowing that I would be doing more of the editing in the final lesson. I'm very happy with my contributions in terms of dressing the set and our gum character. From seeing the pictures Andrew sent of the set he had built(there were many), I was able to make decisions about which colours to look for to blend with the set. This is evident in the painting on the wall(Cy Twombly, Lepanto), and the duvet for the bed.

One of our only problems when shooting the animation, was creating steam from the "bathroom" of our set. We wanted it to escape under the door whilst Gum was having a shower. We tried using a kettle under/to the side of the set, then we tried baby powder. Both of these efforts failed to create a steam visible on the camera. Luckily, Greg came to check on us just after these failed attempts and suggested we try using bubbles to imitate steam. This ended up being very effective in photos and especially when animated. Other than this(which wasn't a big problem) we didn't have any other issues when filming for the animation.

I knew the editing would be a challenge for me, particularly because of the time constraints(which, for me, unleash a torrent of anxiety). Andrew had some extra lessons with Josh which, when combined with the notes I had taken from Greg's demonstration, allowed us to get started with importing the photos. Beck had already spent lots of time at home getting the images in order, culling the bad ones and adjusting the colour, so that they were ready to import as a group - which saved us heaps of time(Thanks Beck!!).

Initially we imported in the wrong format, which cut off the edges of our frames, which Greg corrected for us. Beck imported all of the sound effects(which she had recorded herself), after which we continued to have minor problems that hindered the animation process. I found the whole process overwhelming at this point, so the group stopped for our afternoon cake break.

After this break we were left with about 90 minutes to complete the animation, but everything began to run more smoothly. We really just tried to get the sound effects in the right places, and in between these points I tried to tighten up the time/movements so it was a little more fluid. In the end I ran out of time to run through again and check the final animation. I created an account on Youtube and uploaded it at the end of the final lesson.

I would have liked the animation to be smoother, and less jumpy - if I'd had more time I would've played around with increasing/decreasing frame lengths a bit more. Greg suggested that it should have had more ambient noise, which I completely agree with - it was just something we overlooked(time constraints/anxiety).

Overall, as a team I think we worked well and that our completed animation reflects the work we put into it. Andrew did a really fantastic job of building the set and Gum, Beck was great with the camera and pre-animation editing and Viv did all the lighting and bit and pieces - but more importantly was encouraging throughout the process. I've learned a bit about the premiere pro program which I'd never used previously, which I'm sure will be useful at some point in the future.

On the whole I found Digital Media a challenge, but I knew beforehand that I didn't have any skills with computer stuff, which allowed me to be lenient with myself, and I think this helped to lessen the anxiety about producing amazing works of animation, etc. It also enabled me to engage fully with learning a little about each program, having no preconceived ideas. Using tumblr hasn't been as difficult as I had originally thought - although I should've had more research throughout.

This was an enjoyable cooperative group effort. Andrew's set construction and the soft furnishings we made transformed our set into a miniature bedroom. Gum was made large enough to be easy to pose and the play doh allowed a wide range of facial expressions.A red light was used to represent sunrise through the curtains. The curtain  was made to blow in the breeze by Andrew  drawing his finger along the wire edged ribbon . We had decided to use a kettle to create steam escaping from under the bathroom door but despite many attempts to channel it, we could not get the result we wanted. Next we tried puffing powder under the door which just made a mess.Undeterred, we ultimately found an effective solution with bubbles escaping in great drifts under the door.

The musical notes escaping from the keyhole was a quirky idea that turned out well with the addition of the soundtrack of whistling.

Beck made a great job of the photography, editing and also provided the sound effects.

The final day felt like a race against time, but it was very rewarding and a great relief to complete the project and upload it on to youtube during the afternoon.

If there had been more time we could perhaps have made the animation a bit longer and a bit smoother. Given our inexperience (none of us had made a stop animation before) it was an excellent outcome. We stuck strictly to the requirements of the project, actively cooperating from start to finish to make a fun and original idea come to life.

For this project I discovered that we had a lot of ideas all over the place and what we ended with a lot of interesting scenes that were attended to be funny.

  My roll through this project was more or less ideas man and producer. I brought forward some ideas for the final shoot. Roles that we all took turn at moving the puppets while filming, there was no dedicated we unintentionally ending up doing our little bit to move the actions. Lauran was in charge of taking pictures which made up our overall footage. Our first attention was to make a black and white film, we used cheap coloured lights for set lighting and on second thought when editing believed that the colour light set a better mood then it might of done in black and white.

  Putting the images together was easy and quick to do. A lot of the editing was put into the soundtrack matching the images/ scenes to music cue from Knight rider & the brother’s Quay. Other edits I personally made is a title card  I created using illustrator and Photoshop ending up with a skull theme title card fitting in with the theme of silent movie.  

  The final product made it’s way onto my Youtube channel www.youtube.com/user/toddnitv .

Gum's Great Expectations - Andrew, Beck, Vivienne and Rosanna

Bubbleo Bill - conclusion

My lovely team and i worked well together. To start of with we got all the props made and bought the bubbleo bill ready to shoot no that first wednesday. We just took the photos from random angles and didnt use a stand which worked well for us. Leonie made some great sets for the rooms and Antoinetta brought the lollies and camera.

We managed to get all the photos done on that one day and discovered that shooting a stop motion animation with an icecream was fairly difficult. The icecream started melting and there was nothing we could do to stop that especially in a heated room. We also found that it wasnt very easy to stand the icecream up and decided to use our hands to guide him for the scenes where he walks around.

Creating a stop motion animation with Alinta, Michael and Joanna went pretty smoothly. We came up with a number of ideas to begin with, but eventually we agreed on an idea that Michael came up with. The general outline was that some Lego men go on a balloon flight, and while in the air the balloon pops, and they use bubble-gum to fix the puncture.

We decided to use Lego men as the characters as it would save us having to make them from scratch. Joanna created a back drop for the scene and Michael provided the Lego men. Using her camera Alinta took the photos. We had a few issues to begin with, and eventually managed to get hold of a tripod that helped immensely.

We came up with more of a plot as we took the photos. We created some characters to be the antagonists, who were not invited on the balloon and threw a spear at it as pay back. As well we decided to add some humour by making one of the characters "bail" when he realized the balloon was falling.

We drew different expressions on the back of the Lego men's heads so that we could give them different expressions by turning their heads, which helped to tell the story much better.

I went on the internet and began to search for some music. We wanted to make our animation reminiscent of a silent film. I managed to find some royalty free music that suited it well enough though I had hoped to find something with a bit more of a dramatic part in the middle. I created the script on separate frames, like the silent movies. I made the characters speak in modern slang, to contrast the 'silent film' idea and hopefully add some humour.

Alinta put the video together, and the process was pretty smooth although we had to adjust the time on certain frames (the script for example) to suit the storyline.

The animation is pretty successful in my opinion. If I could do it again, there is one particular scene where the balloon is falling that did not work as well as I'd hoped, as we decided to move the clouds in the sky rather than move the balloon, but it didn't really work. The scene of the ghost jumping from the balloon was my favourite and I think it worked well, and was pretty funny.