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I had difficulty uploading this to my submission folder, so it’s here, instead. 

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Fixed!

The process of making this has actually been quite frustrating, but I’m really proud of the end result. I think it shows a good range of work even before I go into repeats of projects, and the interplay of the music and video I think is engaging enough to hold a viewer’s eye, rather than dragging. 

I tried to keep in mind, too, the industry proverb that potential employers might only look at the first 20 or 30 seconds - in that time, I’ve managed to showcase my best stop motion work, as well as evidence of hand drawn 2D and motion graphics - and if people stick around for the full 30 seconds, they get to see my CG work too. That being my area of least expertise, though, I think it’s less important to showcase. 

Unfortunately, it’s also the thumbnail. I tried changing it, but didn’t meet with any success, I think because of an error. 

One thing I’ll definitely have to sort out before I graduate is what I’ll call myself. My videos at the moment are under the YouTube handle A. Middleton, while  call myself Stasia most of the time - but then, at the end of this video, I have ‘anamaytion’ and ‘anamotion’. That was partly because of unfortunate circumstances - when I created a work email, any variant on ‘anamotion’ was already taken. ‘Anamaytion was the idea I’d originally started with, but I received feedback that it would be tricky to clarify out loud - and again, it uses ‘Ana’, and my middle name, May, not Stasia or even A. That’s something I need to streamline, I think. 

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I’ve been having problems with my computer playing this file back, so the only way I could really see it was by uploading it to YouTube and playing it there. Unfortunately, due to some dropped frames I had to correct in the inanimate objects sequence, that’s led to more dropped frames elsewhere. Back to After Effects I go! 

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This is our group’s finished visual essay. I think Seth’s transition into my section is fantastic, and I’m really pleased with Logan’s sound design. I’m glad the script that I wrote works well - I tried to be really conscious, when putting it together, about not getting too verbose. The point is to communicate things, not confuse them... but equally, I didn’t want to be condescending. 

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Title: Small Worlds: An examination of the role detailed set design plays in immersive stop-motion filmmaking.

I intend for this to be an extended essay.

Background

Stop motion set building follows general conventions of cinematography, but has specific technical limitations, and creative requirements, unique to the medium. Relevant to this report is, as Purves (2010) states, the fact that almost everything appearing on a stop motion set must be built from scratch. Every prop and background element is a physical object, and has been created with believability in mind, to preserve the audience’s immersion in the narrative, so that the miniature scale of the set is not made obvious.

Part of this concern with believability stems from the nature of the medium itself. While Purves (2010) acknowledges that “[matching] the proportions of real human architecture” (pp. 124) is not strictly necessary, he does emphasise the importance of illusion in filming stop-motion: the audience must not become conscious that they are watching puppets being moved frame-by-frame on a tiny stage, or they will lose investment in the story.

It is arguable, too, that in today’s ‘internet culture’, the consistency and credibility of an on-screen world is of increasing importance - in a commercial sense, if in no other. It is easier than ever for consumers to access and therefore rewatch films; to rewind and watch the same scene over and over; to pause a film at any time to view everything within the frame in high definition.

Shaw (2017) identifies the need for detail in close-up shots, but in a cultural context, taking care with detail is becoming more important in general, with the increasing prevalence of ‘geek culture’, and a growing attitude in audiences that views discrepancies - even aesthetic ones - as capable of ruining the immersion of a film. Leadbeater (2017) outlines the problems with this trend: “it is possible audiences will start thinking that finding continuity errors and minor flubs are comparable to analyzing the movie-making process”; as well as laying the blame at the feet of online content creators who are more concerned with profit and engagement than offering true criticism. However, no matter how damaging this attitude may be, it is still one that exists, and must at least be considered during pre-production, since the public who might hold such a view are also the audience any film will be marketed to.

More positively, it is also true that a focus on detail when (literally) building a world is often simply a labour of love. Purves (2007) likens the process of creating sets to the building of dollhouses - something that the fabricators will take joy and pride in. He cautions against adding details “that the camera is unlikely to see” (pp. 158), but it must follow from this that if a detail is both relevant and visible, it will not be unwelcome in a set. Moreover, as stated above, the ‘camera’ is becoming more and more likely to see detail - or rather, the audience is, with the aid of the pause button.

The handmade - or at least, specially constructed - nature of stop motion assets affords set designers and builders complete control over what appears on screen. The focus this report is concerned with is how that, in turn, can influence what goes into a set, and how small details and background elements can be crafted to contribute to a believable and immersive narrative, by creating a sense of a specific geological, historical and sociological setting.

Research question

“How can set design details contribute to an immersive sense of setting within narrative in stop-motion films?”

This report is intended to examine methods for world-building through set design - particularly by adding small details. Many directors have given anecdotal evidence about the difference a tiny part of a set can make in a story, and how this contributes to the film as a whole; however, I feel that this phenomenon has not been fully explored in relation to stop-motion, and the conventions unique to that medium.

The focus will be on set building for stop-motion, meaning exclusively sets which are constructed as physical models, and not those rendered through CGI.

Overall Aims

The overall aims of this report are:

To gain, and subsequently outline, a comprehensive understanding of the ways in which set design can be used to build a sense of story.

To investigate the ways in which individual details can contribute to this purpose.

To research practical methods and processes which can be used to achieve this outcome.

To examine individual approaches to world-building through set design, by analysing the design of certain films, and by gathering information from industry professionals.

Research Methodology

My working list of films to analyse comprises Laika’s Coraline and Kubo and the Two Strings, Astrid Goldsmith’s short film Quarantine, and Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs and Fantastic Mr. Fox. At present, I want to give myself room to drop titles that turn out not as suited to my research as they appear, should that occur.

Industry practitioners I intend to request interviews from are: Astrid Goldsmith, who lectured at the 2019 ANI WIP conference;  John Lee, who gave a talk to the NUA animation course in 2017; and Thomas O’Meara, who was the supervisor when I did a work experience placement in February, working on sets.

I will have to ensure that I construct my interview questions carefully; perhaps beginning with a set of ‘baseline’ questions, kept the same for each correspondent, as a means of comparing their approaches. I could then tailor a few more questions to suit what I know about the practice of each individual.

In addition, in the event that all three decline to answer my questions, I plan to discuss the same topics with the staff on my course who I know have a background in stop motion; namely, Helen Piercy and Barry Leith. The ideal situation would be interviewing practitioners who I know have worked in-depth on set design, but both Purves and Shaw talk in the context of creating films with very small crews - or even no crew at all - highlighting the fact that in stop-motion, it is not uncommon for practitioners to be versed in multiple parts of the process, even if they only specialise in one.

Suggested chapters

The role of detailed set design in story.

Practical techniques for detail.

Case studies: Individual application of techniques.

Potential outcomes

I hope to specialise in stop-motion upon graduating, ideally fabrication of some kind, but the NUA course has not yet covered set building in any way. As such, I hope to gain a better understanding of the discipline through this work, that can be applied to projects in my future.

As previously mentioned, a lot of information on detail in set building exists in quite anecdotal forms; my research report should collate these scattered pieces in a more formal, comprehensive way, for use by other budding set designers.

I also hope that this will be of aid, not just to set designers in a practical manner, but to stop-motion practitioners as a whole; this research may inform, in some small way, how readers approach overall production design and story.

Bibliography

Articles

Leadbeater, A. (2017, August 16th). Is CinemaSins Bad For Film Criticism? ScreenRant [online]. Retrieved from: https://screenrant.com/cinema-sins-problems-film-criticism-director-backlash/2/

Marsh, C. (2013, April 5). Nitpicking Isn’t Criticism: ‘Jurassic Park’ and Why ‘Flaws’ Don’t Matter. MTV News [online]. Retrieved from: http://www.mtv.com/news/2770454/jurassic-park-flaws/

Spiegel, J. (2017, August 15th). ‘Kong: Skull Island’ Director Pinpoints the Problem With CinemaSins. The Hollywood Reporter [online]. Retrieved from: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/kong-skull-island-director-pinpoints-problem-cinemasins-1029915

Books

Hernandez, E. (2013) Set the Action! Creating Backgrounds for Compelling Storytelling in Animation, Comics, and Games. Focal Press.

Purves, B. (2007) Stop Motion: Passion, Process and Performance. Oxford : Focal Press.

Purves, B. (2010) Basics Animation: Stop Motion. Lausanne : AVA Academia.

Shaw, S. (2004) Stop Motion: Craft Skills for Model Animation. Oxford, UK; Burlington, MA : Focal Press.

Van Sijll, J. (2005) Cinematic Storytelling: The 100 most powerful film conventions every filmmaker must know. Studio City, Calif.; Oxford : Michael Wiese; Elsevier Science [distributor]

Yin, W. (2011) Impeccable Scene Design for Game, Animation and Film (Scenic design course by Weiye Yin). London : CYPI

Video

Adobe Creative Cloud (2016) The Secret World of Annie Atkins, Graphic Designer for Films [YouTube video]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flMespYYwTw&list=PLyyhLKumvP95NUzIurgktsaEf3BSpNUvI&index=8 [Accessed 18 April 2019]

Architectural Digest (2018) 'The Crown' Sets Explained by the Show's Set Designer | Notes on a Set [YouTube video]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiIxePlKZ1A&list=PLyyhLKumvP95NUzIurgktsaEf3BSpNUvI&index=7 [Accessed 18 April 2019]

BAFTA Guru (2015) What Does A Production Designer Do? [YouTube video]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnV0GNtHlyU&list=PLyyhLKumvP95NUzIurgktsaEf3BSpNUvI&index=5 [Accessed 18 April 2019]

CineFix (2017) 10 Best Uses of Color of All Time [YouTube video]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tILIeNjbH1E&list=PLyyhLKumvP95NUzIurgktsaEf3BSpNUvI&index=10&t=0s [Accessed 18 April 2019]

CrashCourse (2017) Designing the World of Film: Crash Course Film Production #9 [YouTube video]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3BcS8Uwl9U&list=PLyyhLKumvP95NUzIurgktsaEf3BSpNUvI&index=2 [Accessed 18 April 2019]

Dave Williams (2016) Principles of set design lecture video [YouTube video]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JBlXCSIzQY&list=PLyyhLKumvP95NUzIurgktsaEf3BSpNUvI&index=10 [Accessed 18 April 2019]

Lindsay Ellis (2018) That Time Disney Remade Beauty And The Beast [YouTube video]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpUx9DnQUkA&t=1314s [Accessed 2 May 2019]

Short of the Week (2013) The Importance of Production Design | Short of the Week Show | PBS Digital [YouTube video]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pS47EXccx3I&list=PLyyhLKumvP95NUzIurgktsaEf3BSpNUvI&index=6 [Accessed 18 April 2019]

StudioBinder (2018) Production Design — Filmmaking Techniques for Directors: Ep2 [YouTube video]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNXNEs2eBkg&list=PLyyhLKumvP95NUzIurgktsaEf3BSpNUvI&index=2&t=0s [Accessed 18 April 2019]

Website

Jason Ingolfsland (2018) Nitpicking and Film Criticism [online]. (Last updated 21 April 2018). Available at: https://screenrant.com/cinema-sins-problems-film-criticism-director-backlash/2 [Accessed 2 May 2019]

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The real challenge here was fitting all the text in one page! I had to be a bit fast and loose with the formatting, but I think it at least looks competent, even if it’s not the most polished thing I’ve seen. I tried to tie the background colour to my website, since the colours I picked there represent my spooky musician model, and so in a roundabout way, represent my body of work. 

The characters on the bottom are still my three favourite models, even if they’re not the newest, and they were created with less of a specific brief than the puppets I’ve made in uni, so they more accurately reflect my creative values. I thought having them peeking in over the edge would add a touch of personalisation - and a sense of fun! 

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Some progress shots from my website - and the credits of my showreel. Mhairi advised me to blur the background on my website, so that the text stands out more - as seen in the first image, pre-blur, it’s a little tricky to read. I gave it a go and found it worked much better, but then had to redo it to leave the head of the demon untouched. I think the second photo demonstrates that when blurred, his ‘face’ just isn’t arresting enough - I want it to be the first thing to catch the viewer’s eye. 

After putting my Cv together, and noticing some irritating empty space in my showreel credits, I added a little Lady Midnight peering in on proceedings, just to reinforce the sense of my brand. 

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03/05/19

I only got to speak with Mhairi briefly on Tuesday, but it was enough to set my website’s progress on a steadier course; she approved of my choice of background, too, which was reassuring, as that’s what I chose to be the site’s ‘stand out’ element. 

The main thing I’ve been struggling with, though, is getting things to stand out against the background in turn - Mhairi has suggested blurring out part of the image, to soften it, so that I’m not having to use black highlights everywhere. 

On Tuesday I got my filming done for the collaborative project; it was a little heartbreaking, in all honesty, because I had to completely trash my little paper outfits. The overall result turned out just fine, though, so I consider it a worthy sacrifice. My group was pleased with the result on Friday, and Kat has confirmed that the framing of my transition works with the first frame of her segment (I tried to keep everything centralised, and this confirms I succeeded. I’m now turning my focus to compositing, which will need a bit of care because there’s some unfortunate patches on the edges of the frame that are far too brightly lit, and show up even after keylighting. 

Also on Friday was another tutorial with Lynsey, which has served as my almost-final check-in point before submission - my final one being my study skills appointment next Tuesday. In this week’s appointment, I only had about 300 words to show for all my research over Easter, but Jess helped me to expand my introduction by asking why believability is so important in stop motion films. I then touched on the very nitpicky nature of some audiences nowadays, and subsequently had to restrain myself from turning the background section of the proposal into a rant against CinemaSins. I contained myself, though, and as of the tutorial with Lynsey I only need to sort out my bibliography and timeline, and expand a little on my expected outcomes. 

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My poor, squished little outfits. On previous projects, I’ve gotten really, really anxious about preserving as much of my puppets as possible, no matter what I have to do to get them to act in the studio. I know, though, that for a lot of productions, models will have to be destroyed afterwards - or, more accurately, cannibalised. It’s something I’m still not quite at peace with, but it seems to be a requirement for a stop motion animator/model maker... so I consider these my first baby steps towards acceptance.

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This might look clickbait-y, but it’s mostly for (sarcastic) show - Ellis’ commentary here touches on the way ‘nitpick’-based film criticism has started to impact the filmmaking process, and as with all of her videos, it’s grounded in academic experience. 

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Nitpicking Isn't Criticism: 'Jurassic Park' and Why 'Flaws' Don't Matter

Where's the goat?

This piece expands more on the ‘suspension of disbelief’ idea, positing that even if in rewatches errors become apparent, that should be less important than it is currently perceived to be - as long as initially, the film was engrossing enough for audiences not to notice. I think this point is very pertinent when it comes to stop motion; a lot of things constructed for sets and puppets, particularly on lower budgets, will have begun life as pieces of scrap or similar. Even if it might occasionally be evident what a prop is made from, so long as it doesn’t take the audience out of the overall narrative, it shouldn’t be regarded as a fault. 

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Film criticism is a tricky thing. Often, critics focus on a certain vantage point of a film. Rather than talking...

I don’t think this is as well-written as the previous two articles, but it does delve into the problem beyond the single example of CinemaSins. I think what’s especially relevant is where Ingolfsland points out that ‘nitpicking’ criticism often expects everything within a film to adhere to logic, with no room for human error or chance - or suspension of disbelief. 

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Is Cinema Sins Bad For Film Criticism?

Several major directors have hit out against the channel.

This is more of a deep dive into the history of CinemaSins, and its impact on the pop culture landscape in general. It is, again, critical, giving me a slowly building body of evidence that the mindset espoused by CinemaSins is harmful to the film industry. Although this is a belief I’ve also held for a long time, I want to make sure I can cite more than just one or two pieces that agree with me, since this particular point is about an overall trend. 

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'Kong: Skull Island' Director Pinpoints the Problem With CinemaSins

Jordan Vogt-Roberts took issue with a new video in the series: "They’re often just wrong or think they’re smarter than you."

This article is a demonstration of the film industry’s backlash against online  ‘nitpicking’ culture. Although it focuses mainly on one particular case, rather than talking more generally as I’d hoped, it is evidence that this approach to film criticism can absolutely interfere with how a movie is perceived. 

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I messed up making the trousers the first time - assuming that anything above the waist would be hidden by the blouse, and forgetting that I planned to dress the mannequin in each part separately. The legs were separate in the cutout, but once painted I stuck them onto more yellow card, so that the divide was visible but wouldn’t get in the way when filming, with the legs flapping everywhere. 

Even with the layered paper, it became apparent that the dresses were a bit too plain. I solved this by adding bead work to the skirts, and in the case of the 1800s gown, the trim, to mimic lace. With both patterns, I wanted to evoke the Other Mother’s final design; the soft V shapes on the 1920s outfit, picked out as sharper diamonds on the 1800s one, evoke the layered spider-like bustle on the back of the Beldam’s polka-dot skirt. 

Speaking of polka-dots: I had to add all the spots to the suit with a tiny paint brush. It was nerve-wracking, but the fact that I pulled it off was actually a pretty big boost for my confidence in my skills. I really wanted the spots to be as tiny as possible, because they were when I first saw the outfit in the film, to the point I assumed the suit was actually grey. It makes the outfit look a lot lighter in tone, setting it apart from the heavy court-style dress for the 1800s segment, though they both feature black quite heavily. 

I forgot to take pictures, but in addition to making the main outfits, I also created a series of plain-paper copies (I did paint the 70s suit copy, on both sides, but much more roughly than the ‘proper’ version). These were to aid in the screwing-up animations; I blu-tacked them to the backs of the main outfits, then in the first few frames of each scrumpling, drew them out from underneath and bent them over the top, making it look like the garment was being crushed while it was still relatively intact. This was because I realised that with all the bead work, it would actually be really tricky to get those first few folds in if I was only using the main copies. It also let me leave the legs divided on the 70s suit copy, which I think helped create a more realistic look to the way it all moved. The screwed-up outfits can actually be seen to the left of the frame in the final photo. 

I also included a lineup of all my completed assets, minus the ‘stunt double’ dresses. 

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I began making the hands with a sketch, in turn based on a tracing of my own hand. I very much wanted them dominant in the frame of my film, considering that they’re framed that way in Coraline itself, too - the Other Mother’s hands are the first introduction we have to her, before we meet her illusory friendly persona. I reasoned that basing them on a real hand would leave them big enough, but not so big as to be unwieldy; they’re much less substantial than human hands, which makes them quite a bit smaller even if the fingers are life-size length. I created needle-like loops of wire for each finger joint, and connected them together like daisy chains, trying to match the corresponding digits on opposite hands as closely in length as I could. Once I had the fingers strung together, they then needed several coatings of tacky glue on the joints before they were stiff enough to animate with. 

I made the hands first so I then had a reference for the scale of the dresses. Lacking squared paper, I had to guess a little and rely on a steady hand and a ruler, but I think the designs I produced are at least passably symmetrical. Once I had my patterns, I drew and cut out the biggest shapes on each outfit - and once I was satisfied with those, I had to trim the patterns down to get the smaller shapes that I layered on top. It was obvious even from my initial designs that flat shapes would look far too plain, so I used layered paper to create an illusion of depth, folds in fabric, and separate pieces to a garment. The 1920s dress, I think, was the best example of this - there’s subtle ‘folds’ made of layered paper that really suggest a weight more appropriate to fabric than paper.

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A new song by Kevin MacLeod

I decided on this for my showreel soundtrack. It’s nice and long, giving me plenty of room to play with where my film enters and exits it, if I need that, and it has a bit more substance to it than Happy Alley, while still retaining that energetic, upbeat atmosphere that I think is pretty crucial to an even halfway engaging generalist showreel. It also has a pretty strong beat, which will be a good guide when editing.