Untitled

[lydiepaton]

Final Reflections

Personal Conclusion... for Stop Motion Animation

Today we are submitting our final stop-motion animation.

Our final animation has approximately 700 photos and goes for almost 2 minutes. I am really impressed with how well it has come together. I’m also glad we did a ‘take-2’ for the second half of the animation and strengthened the end. This has made the beginning, the middle and the end about equal in length.

If we were doing this again, I would plan to do the photos over a couple of days. It is hard to concentrate and take all 700 photos in one go. With the editing capabilities of the program it is also quite easy to have transitions between scenes so it doesn't need to be a seamless set of photos. This was just something we didn't realise at first. After reflecting on other students projects we realised it was actually probably going to be more interesting if we changed the scenes throughout the animation.

 The set, photos and manipulation of the caterpillar and butterfly were quite successful. Danielle has done a really fantastic job of tweaking the photos, transitions and sound effects so we get the most out of the photos we have taken as well.

The group worked really well together and everyone has contributed and been responsible for the parts of the project that they could do well. We had lots of fun doing the work and bounced ideas off each other. The sound effects provide comic relief and we have added one little blooper scene in at the end, just for fun.  

[lydiepaton]

Another hungry caterpillar

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-_Km4Ysnc4

Interesting to see how someone else did a similar story. They saved themselves the problem we had with the caterpillar falling of the leaf  as it got heavier by making the action happen in front of the set.

Sounds would have made this much better.

[lydiepaton]

Thoughts on how to improve our stop motion animation

  Today we watched the other classes stop motion animations from last semester. We assessed what worked well and what wasn’t so successful.

‘The Cereal Killer’ had a fantastic set and context for the story but the story was a little confusing (maybe too complicated to communicate in a short stop-motion) The multiple camera angles worked well - so we incorporated changing the camera angles in our reshoot.

‘Sweet Love’ - There was some discontinuity in the setting for the story and the shifts between real world and set could have been better. Also it seemed odd to have the sun-setting after the night scene.

The sand writing for the credits was really effective and appropriate for the setting. As a result we will incorporate the caterpillar from our story for the creation of the title and credits.

Some of the things that worked really well included; fades between scene transitions and soft endings/fade outs (otherwise can be a bit abrupt), shifts between real world and make believe worlds, appropriate music and sound effects and a strong story line.

[lydiepaton]

Half-way through stop motion

Half way through

We have taken a series of photographs today for the stop-motion animation. It was so intense, we really wanted to get all the photos taken in one go so we wouldn’t have issues with a shift in set and changing light on different days. As it was, clouds kept passing overhead and so the light changed a bit between photos anyway. We spent about 3 hours and ended up with enough images for about 1 second.

It took quite a bit of time to make each little shift/change and to photograph it. We linked the camera to the computer so we could review the photos as we took them, this was really helpful (think it would have been almost impossible without this). We deleted images that didn’t work out and this enabled us to keep the sequence of images consistent.

The other thing that made it much easier was having a remote control to operate the camera, this ensured that once we had the set in focus and checked the view, we didn’t move the camera around while we were shooting.  

We also sorted the images into different scenes as we went to make it easier to edit them later. The biggest issues we had were that as we got more rushed and time ran-out we were more careless and at one stage took a whole set of photos with the set not aligned properly. We had to take all these again argh!

After watching the images back on screen in slide-show mode we realised the early part of the stop-motion is probably more successful. Actually I think it is really good, the caterpillar eating the leaf sequence is really cool. Teegan was a fabulous caterpillar manipulator and I think it will be even more successful with music and sound.

Each group member has been great at working in a team and fulfilling different roles. Teegan moved the caterpillar and butterfly around, I took photos and checked them, Deedee and Sally manipulated back ground changes (weather, bird, seasons, ladybug) and recorded image sequences. Deedee is also going to get images loaded into Adobe Premier Pro and source sound effects/music.

We will assess whether we need to re-shoot the second half of the stop motion next week.

[lydiepaton]

Group synopsis

Sorry group should have posted this two weeks ago, I just got to excited about building the set and making the stop-motion :-)

  Group synopsis - The Very Chewy Caterpillar

As a group we wanted a simple story line which could be clearly divided into a beginning, a middle and an end. We chose the life cycle of a caterpillar/butterfly because it has distinct phases which we can use.

The beginning will show the caterpillar hatching out of its egg, eating leaves and growing. The middle of the story will show the caterpillar pupating and time passing (here we will introduce some other action to indicate time passing). The end will show the caterpillar turning into a butterfly.

Having looked at last terms examples of stop motion animations, we have decided to;

- build a set in which the story will unfold

-use a combination of music and sound effects

- we may leave some blooper sequences in the stop motion (as we liked comic nature of these in some of the other examples)

-alternatively we may have all the action in the set until the final scene where we will move from set to real world (again we thought this was really comic in other student examples)

We had to think about how to include chewing gum, so the egg will be chewing gum (hatching out of a wrapper, the caterpillar and butterflies body will be made using plasticine (representing coloured chewing gum and we will use the blowing up of a balloon (representing bubble-gum bubble just less sticky) to transition from the caterpillar’s cocoon to the butterfly.

[lydiepaton]

Hey groupies,

Had a go at putting some of the set components together and took a photo. Obviously still have more of the scene to put together.

Unfortunately photos don't have quite the same colour saturation we had in original print-offs not sure how to improve this but will try. This is just using natural light which seemed to work better then flash or artificial light source. Maybe a sunnier day would mean brighter colours.

By the way the wood offcuts seem to be working in terms of assembling the set. We just have to hide them with other parts.

[lydiepaton]

Dear groupies,

Here are our notes of what we need and our story board from yesterday.

I sent it all in an email as well. Sorry Sally for some reason yours bounced back.

Glad to see DD has been sourcing fabulous sounds for us.

  Lydie

[lydiepaton]

Notes on using Adobe Pre Pro

Adobe Pre pro

Start by locating all files on a portable hard-drive – all files need to be in a folder together

FILE FORMAT – HDV 1080p25 (Start big and then shrink it down for output)

Top right – window shows what animation will look like

Bottom – sequence (use sliding scale (at bottom of window) to zoom in on what you are doing – see 1 second of footage)

IMPORT FILES (create folders (BINS) Scene 1, Scene 2, etc. (You can start editing photos before you go into Premier Pro)

Adjusting speed for which each frame is shown for… 5 sec too long – (p25 = per 1 sec in your final video it has 25 frames) (therefore if you have three images you want to equal 1 sec (each image has 8 frames) Come up with a ball-part figure for how long each one is going to show for – set this as default at the beginning) SET THIS UNDER PREFERENCES.

Organises files by name – default – camera files will be named in sequence.

Clip Speed/Duration – change length each frame is shown for

Bottom Left – Effects – you can change transitions – add transition at end (fade out etc.) Drag effect over onto the frame you want to apply it to.

Keepvid – website allows you to download videos and music from youtube – acknowledge artists when you post to tumblr

[lydiepaton]

Settings for stop motion animation

[lydiepaton]

Caterpillar inspiration

[lydiepaton]

Self-portrait gif reflections.

I chose the photos of me with a pelican because I spend several weeks each year in mid-summer and mid-winter in the Coorong working on birds. I’ve been going to the Coorong since 1984 when Mum and Dad took me on a research trip at the age of one.

This young pelican took off from the breeding island on a really windy day in January this year and got blown about a kilometre before it fell down in the middle of the highway right in front of the car I was driving. We picked it up, gave it some fish and drove it back up to the shoreline near the island and released it. The wind had dropped and it flew back to find it’s parents on the breeding island.

The words ‘Freedom is mine…’ reflect both the pelican’s story but also the fact that at the beginning of the year I stopped working full-time to come to art school and that I feel a great sense of freedom now.

I had never tried to generate a gif before this class. I was amazed at how easily it could be done using Photoshop. It was quite simple if you started with all the layers you wanted included and then generated the animation. It got a little more confusing when you started trying to modify and add in new layers. Objects started popping up on various frames of the animation when you didn’t want them too and then when you turned them off sometimes you lost them from the frames which you did want them in. I also tried resizing the pelican (making it smaller) as it moved into the distance – this created some unusual ghosting in the animation sequence.

Photoshop is such a great program for image manipulation. In the creation of the layers for this  animation I used;  free transform to create a simple background layer, the select and erase tools to cut out my figure and the pelican and the transform (scale) tool to make the pelican smaller.

With more experience I would hope to create a smoother flow of movement in the gif. I did amend this and improve the movement of the pelican in my second attempt. I also added in the fade-out sun-setting at the end of the gif which I think softened the end. I used some other Photoshop tools such as adjusting ‘levels’, ‘colour balance’, ‘hue’ and ‘brightness’ on various layers to achieve this.

[lydiepaton]

The work I chose to appropriate in my gif is still life by Willem Claeszoon Heda – it is titled ‘Still-Life with Pie, Silver Ewer and Crab’ of 1658. He was a Dutch Golden Age artist who lived between 1593 and 1681.

His still-life’s contain perfectly draped fabric and assortments of fine glass and metal wares in addition to orderly-presented food. His coloration and illustration of light in the pieces results in an almost unbelievable level of realism although this is less evident in a low resolution gif. Heda painted objects that belonged to the wealthy and the works he produced would have been purchased by the wealthy.  

For my appropriation I have added a comic mouse which scammers in and eats the bread on the table. The mouse is a common icon in pop-culture and famous characters include, Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Danger Mouse, Speedy Conzales, Jerry (Tom’s friend). They are often comical cartoon characters so very appropriate for memes which have an element of fun. The idea of a rodent on the table as part of the still-life composition is a complete contradiction to the original high-brow subject matter and the aristocratic audience the work was originally intended for.

I made a trial gif with initially with half the number of slides but then having more ideas to include generated a second gif. Finally I have attempted to merge these two gifs together using imgflip an online gif generator. The file seems to be working despite the number of images but the resolution has to be quite low for it to load.

As I am loading this I have another idea, and I may have to make another gif which the snapping crab comes to life too.

[lydiepaton]

I've managed to stitch the two gifs together unfortunately it has to be very low resolution to be able to load on to tumblr and it makes it a bit hard to read.

[lydiepaton]

PART 2 Having trouble getting my next phase small enough to load on tumblr. Let's see if this works.

[a-v-d-b]

Hope this works..

This will be my self portrait GIF, although i might change the speed and the colours a bit. It’s not the best quality, but overall i’m quite happy with how it’s turning out.

[lydiepaton]

Nice work Alinta, simple but beautiful :-)

[lydiepaton]

Also found this well-dressed mouse on tumblr - might have to include him - as he has definitely dressed up for dinner.

[lydiepaton]

Next part of my gif

I wanted to add to my final gif and have lots of mouse start coming out of the jug on the table and streaming all over the place like lemmings gone crazy. I have started creating the images but will have to see if the online gif generators or tumblr can handle it.