Stop Motion

Today, for our stop motion workshop, we had to create an animation in our groups, that was similar to the kids T.V show ''Trap Door''. our characters needed to be simple, otherwise they wouldn't fit the brief, and would be extremely difficult to manoeuvre.

We used Plasticine that started out very cold, and difficult to mold, so we warmed it with our hands, and eventually, were able to create our desired characters.

We also used wire in our models, because if we didn't use it, then our models would have fallen apart half way through making the animation. Luckily, this didn't happen to us, so we finished quickly.

Then came the laborious task of shooting our animation, we had to set up our windows live cam on the tripod, and set up our characters. when we had to move a character, we could only move them a small amount, then take a picture using the ''Stop Motion Pro'' software, this took an incredibly long time, but eventually we completed it, and the results were very satisfying.

However, we are not going to use Stop Motion for our adaptation of ''The Bovine Histories'', because the characters that we need are far too complicated to mould, and Flash animation can present the required results.

Today's session

In today's session, we had to storyboard ideas for our individual flash animation. It could be on anything, so I was a bit stuck at first, but eventually I came up with an idea where two people are playing on some swings, and one of them falls of and starts rolling down a hill.

I finished all my planning, I did my initial ideas mind map, my storyboard, my character descriptions, and the short summary of my animation in word. After that, I started to create my animation, I havent really used flash berfore, and I found drawing even the background hard... but eventually I got the hang of it, and finished the first shot.

Animation Review

http://vimeo.com/16381483

 I thought that the animation above was really well made, the fact alone that it was really long was amazing, but it must have taken ages to create, considering that it was stop-motion.

 When I first saw the shaddows of the people making it in the film, I thought that they could have edited that out, but then I realised that they add to the story and make the character seem more real, it also gives the audience a taste of how the animation was made.

 Below the animation on the website, there is a list of everything they used to create the animation, and i think that is really nice, because people feel they know more abut the video, rather than just watching it on a screan.

Last Session

 Last session we had two different workshops; one from Ben, the head of The Bristol Short Story Prize, he was with Ian, author of 'The Bovine Histories'. They were there to go over our initial animation ideas, it was Ian's first time meeting us, so we got to ask him any questions about the story, and the style or theme of our animations.

 The second workshop was with Sam, a proffesional animator. He started by showing us some clips from films with different genres, so we could see how storys can be told in different ways, and how the style of film can change everything about it. We then got into our animating groups, and he gave us all the same scene, but each group had to storyboard it to a different genre, so they all ended up being very different. Our group had comedy, and it was atually alot harder than I thought it would be, because it's very hard to be funny on purpose.

Research Report Ideas

For my research report, I am going to study Rotoscope, where you take live footage, and add another layer on top, so it looks like a cartoon.

If I have time, I will also be studying Stopmotion, and Claymation. where you take toys, house hold objects, or clay, and take lots of different shots, so when you put them all together, it looks like a film, because your eyes cant register the different clips as they move so fast.

Baaa, By Cyraik

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQO-aOdJLiw

The video Baaa, by cyriak, is really admirable, because the time and detail put into each individual sheep, is extrodinary. It must have taken him years just to learn the skills needed to produce something of such high quality.

CGI animation is a very valuable skill, because it takes a very long time to learn, and the quality of work produced can be amazing. Most modern animation uses CGI technology, this is because the images that are created, can be extremely detailed, so companies like Disney Pixar can create a furry animal that has each hair move when it does, or a tropical ocean, where each individual fish, and each individual scale is designed.

M,ost of Cyraiks films start off simple, but as they progress, the intentions become more and more complex, it starts off with just sheep duplicating (which in itself is difficult), but then the whole construction of the sheep changes, the may have seven legs on their face, and heads instead of legs, they may shed their skin, or start to fly, but all with the original qualities that a sheep possesses.

If I could create a CGI animation for my final piece, I would, however the skills are too complex to learn in twelve weeks, and I am not much of an animator myself, so I am afraid I will have to stick to flash, which has a lot more of a basic layout, and is easy to pick up the skills need it to use well.

New assignment

Today, we have been set a new task, complete with deadlines, for the Bristol Short Story Prize. We have to create a short animation, on, or based around the prize winning story.

The story is called ‘The Bovine Histories’, and is written by a man called Ian Burton. It is about a ‘kow’ who is taught the histories of their kind by Harthor, the keeper of the ‘kow’ histories. Harthor chooses ‘Kow-one’, because she can remember, a skill which none of the other ‘kows’ have acquired.

We were given a copy of the text, to annotate. We had to decide which bits we thought were suitable to animate, because animating the whole thing would take forever. This also gave us ideas about how to produce this animation, because it didn’t have to be written as the exact text, it could be just loosely based, or interpreted in your own way.

Subsequently, we were put into groups of three or four (mine is Katie, Jess and I), and we had to brain storm ideas for the animation on a mind map. Eventually, we decided that we would change the characters of the ‘kows’ to humans, because having cows talking in an animation may look a bit childish, and people will find it easier to relate to humans.

We also decided, to change the setting to a kind of post-apocalyptic abandoned city, where resources are low, and women are treated like livestock, cheap and disposable. Most of the ‘Kows’ believe that they live in heaven, because they are lead to think that they are by Stickman, who overrules them. But ‘Hathor’ knows the truth, and divulges this information to ‘Kow-one’, who will be the new ‘keeper of the histories’