Today's session

Today, we had to finish of everything; our animation, and our research report.

We also had to type up an evaluation of our group animation, talking about how we came up with our ideas, how it links to 'The Bovine Histories' and what we think went well, and what we think we could improve on.

Suprisingly, I also ended up finishing my individual flash animation aswell (with alot of help from katie). it was really important that all the girls from redland finish everything today, because this is our last week at fairfield until next year, because next week, is our work experience, and then the week after that, it's fairfield's. so we will be at redland then.

Today

Today, Jess and I Finished the script for our animation, then went into the audio lab (because it was quieter) to record it. Surprisingly, this took us a very long time, because we had to get each line exactly right, ready to be put o the computer.

Then, we went upstairs into the art room, I used Mr Gove's computer, because it has audacity, to combine all of our clips. First I did the Jump sound scape, This took me ages to layer up each section, then add different effects, such as Eco, and change the tempo of each different part. The only other two pieces I had to do after that were much simpler, I only needed to cut them a little bit, and now that I had more experience of audacity, it was allot easier to accomplish.

Today

In today's practical session, I had to take pictures of the Illustrations from last week, and import them into premier elements, I then combined the images together, and added a Live camera effect, so  that the image shakes a little.

I then worked with Katie to find some music for our final piece, and we put the pieces of our animation so far into premier elements.

I like our animation so far, because the mix between computer animation and live drawing is really interesting, because you then know which parts are flashbacks, and which aren't.However, I am unsure that when our animation is complete, that people will understand the link to 'The Bovine Histories', because we have changed it so much from the original story.

Last Week

Last week we got all of the things that we needed for our practical animation week, including:
-charcoal
-graphite
-tracing paper

Me and Jess developed our images for the flashbacks, and made copies of them, so that when combined, the image will look more animated. Katie was also progressing her running sequence, and combining it with an eye sequence she had created before.

We also had a visitor this week, she asked us lots of questions about the Bristol short story prize, and about everyone's different techniques, because she didn't really have much experience with our line of work.

Last Lesson

Last lesson we had to catch up on pixilation animation, because the redland students weren't in the week before, so we made a quick pixilaion animation, so that we could try out lots of different methods of animation.

After that we had to continue with our group flash animation, so while Katie is busy trying out the running sequence on her tablet, Jess and I work out some of the backgrounds, and shots from the flashbacks.

Pixilation

We didn't have very long to do this, because all the redland students were out last week when we should have done it, but today, we made a pixilation animation. It's a bit like stop-motion, but instead of trying to make inanimate objects look real, you have to try and make animate objects look distorted or unrealistic, bby making they do things that they wouldn't normally be able to do.

First we set the tripod up inside, and just practised the basics (people walking around, and passing each other). but then we went outside, and we decided to be more creative, for example making people look as if they are walking through things, or gliding over objects.

If you want to show someone walking forward, like in the beginning of this animation. You have to start someone from far away, and take a picture of them, then they have to walk forward a small amount, being careful to stay in the same position, and then you take another picture, and so on and so forth.

We then came back upstairs, and each edited our own version of the animation using premier elements, and added music (sorry its really annoying after a while). This is my edit:

Video

This is our stop motion test video, we used a special camera, specifically designed for stop motion,and linked it to our computer. Once we had created our characters, and props for them to use, we would place them in their starting positions, and took a picture of them, then we moved them a tiny bit, so it didn't look too sudden of a movement. We then took another photo of it, and so on and so forth.

In the film, a ball flies around the set, we did this by attaching the ball to a piece of string, and just taking the photos much faster, because it is hard to control the ball, when its dangling from your hands.