#unit ba1b

“Puppetons” George Pal (30s/40s) replacement animation with rigid models.

Tulips Shall Grow, George Pal, Paramount, 1942

Classic Special Effects Animation for live action:

- Ray Haryyhausen

- Phil Tippett

Eastern European Traditional Shorts:

-Jan Svankmajor

- Jiri Trnka

THEIR HEIRS:

- Brother’s Quay

- Clyde Henry Productions

- Suzie Templeton

- Barry Purves

Contemporary Production:

- Mixed media - The Little Prince

- CG Special Effects and character doubles - Pirates! An Adventure With Scientists.

suggested artist to watch - MARILYN MYLLER

A GOOD STOP MOTION IS:

- Character driven

- Walk and double take should be bared from your character’s personality, what it would typically do/how it would move and react.

THINK ABOUT:

-MOOD, MESSAGE, VISION

-STYLE

-AUDIENCE

-CHARACTER ENTRANCE AND EXIT

- SET THE TONE

- USE LIGHT AND MOVEMENT TO REVEAL IT

The showreel project was quick and easy to create during the week. At first I found it hard what to include, because I didn’t really like most of my work from the beginning of the first year, but once I put it all together it didn’t matter so much anymore.  It was a timely task, finding which animations to include on the showreel, because I didn’t want to feel like I was repeating myself.

 But I then came to realise that it wasn’t the content, it was how we showed the content. I felt like my showreel was good because I showed a bit of everything, but didn’t overly repeat things. I also didn’t go too overboard with video transitions, and let the work speak for itself. I had included title pages providing my details and any copyrights.  This was a good, quick project to do, to get our work out there, and show us ways of portraying the kinds of styles of animations we use in one video.

 I like the music I used for my showreel, as it’s very funky, and happy, what I feel portrays my attitude towards my work.  Premiere wasn’t too hard to use, it’s slightly similar to after affects. I think I could use it more often now to make future showreels.  The showreel project has allowed me to successfully analyse what a good or bad showreel would look like, and how it could affect an audience.

The Mystery Box was a really fun project to complete this term. It allowed me to experience stop motion life, as I got to make my own model from scratch and then animate it further in. The beginning process of making the model was a good experience and easy enough. It was easy to make the skeleton of the model and the body shape, as we had Barry and the tutors to help, and using the materials was great. When it came to finding clothes and sewing them together,is where  I found it difficult.It took me quite some time to find the perfect materials to use for the clothes as well as the design of them, as I hadn’t actually made a design until I found the right materials. 

This then stopped me from doing any further tests shots with my model, as I was too busy concentrating on the design of it. Filming was challenging as I had difficulties with the feet mostly, and the fabric I ended up using for the boots. My first draft went okay, but I didn’t get to finish it. The walk cycle was really jittery and didn’t look like a skip like I had intended. I was happy with the reaction to the box though, as I thought it was perfectly timed, and went smoothly. 

After doing the first draft, I didn’t really do much tests for the walk cycle, which I do regret, because I could have improved better for my final film. I did do a few test shots of a scare and a walk cycle a couple of days before, and also used my original filming slot edit as a test shot, as I had ran out of time, and only got the walk cycle done anyways. I felt like after doing those shots, I was more confident in doing the rest of the animation on my second slot. Once my second slot came, I animated easily enough, and was proud of the outcome, until it came to editing, until I realised a lot of things had moved throughout the animation.

Lip sync has been an interesting yet challenging task for me to complete this term. It was a first for me, learning about all the different aspects in lip-syncing for animation. Learning about phonemes was exciting, as I didn’t know there were so little mouth shapes to fit certain sounds. I did a bit of research on lip-sync this week – looking at various pencil tests by professional animators and amateur ones. The previous lip sync task went really well for me; I enjoyed it a lot, however when it came to the next lip sync task – it managed to go downhill for while.