Steven D. Jackson's 3rd year animation blog

This blog is for my 3rd year animation b of a collection of research, work development and progress for my 3 minute stop motion animation - Weeded. Weeded is based on an unexpected journey of friendship. "Carpe Diem" - Adam Elliot Weeded, created by Steven D. Jackson In loving memory of Joyce Jackson. - Steven's own art blog - The Loopy Land of Lauren - 1 Second animation

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Blog updates -

Hey guys, I will no longer be using this blog.

Please follow www.doodlesteven.tumblr.com  which is main tumblr blog! 

I'll be using that instead to post bloggy stuff! 

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Time-lapse of an animator working on scenes from Frankenweenie.

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Steven D. Jackson - Animation Showreel 2014

3rd year 2d and stop motion animation Showreel 2014 - University of Central Lancashire

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HAND IN! My work has been finally been handed in! On time(ish)! Really happy with how its turned out, apart from not adding a credits to the film... however, I'm looking forwards to be going to Annecy!

It's the end of an era and the only next step is to carry on trucking! 

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Curriculum vitae

The design has been change and the information in parts of the section has been cut down a bit. I have also changed the font as originally it was rather pixelated and hard for others to read.  Though not packed with lots of different images surrounding the CV, I decided that less is more, by keeping it neater(ish) and easier to look at.

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Rendering and editing

Just a screen shot of my progress with rendering; My animation has almost finished, the showreel will be completed and both exported onto the DVD today... 

I also feel that my DVD cover needs to be redesigned; I feel that it doesnt show off the quality of the film as well as i'd hoped, so I will be redesigning the cover and printing them off again.

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Inside Mushy's cave - during animation Simple shots from inside Mushy's cave.

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Eyes, no ears and mouths no nose.... shapes 

Here are a collection of many eye and mouth shapes that I created using super sculpey, which will be used for the character's face to show expression. This is done by removing each piece when animated, thus giving the illusion that the character has different emotions.

The green shown, was from the batch of Latex that I used for Dandy's face and the blue came from epoxy resin with blue ink. 

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Exhibition poster

We had to come up with a poster; which the option of either 2 x A3s or 1 x A2 -, which I opted for the 1 x A2,.

My friend Lauren came in and brought with her an A2 sketchpad, which was great timing. 

I am from a Fine art background and thought that painting was one of my strengths, although this year, I haven't painted much and wanted to get back into it. 

I also thought that painting my poster would make my work visually a little more hands-on, arty approach as I intended with my animation.

Though there are still some parts of which i'm not 100% happy with, I still think that this painting worked quite well. 

I finished the painting with an A2 white boarder frame which neatened the edges - then ofcourse, signed and dated it. 

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Animation production continued.....

'Hand in' week has been rather strange, to start off, I've not handed in my work as of yet as I still have a 5 day extension. 

Originally, the plan was to get my show reel and my animation completed for the 23rd though, this yet has to be completed as I was having render problems - thus not being able to complete the objective. 

My show reel still has not been completed as the computer that I was on also ran out of memory and I had to use my USB hard drive to carry on the rendering of my film. 

Struck a bit of bad luck for the week though hopefully this week will be quite the opposite. 

On reflection, it's rather bizarre how these things turn out; My animation, in that sense also seemed to be a little hazy whether it would be finished on time. I looked back at the animation that I had spent the entire year on and made a choice not to include sound effects to the film but to use 'A wonderful world' Piano tune on it aswell. - This means that I won't be able to upload it to Youtube until I find a suitable song or use better sound effects. (But however, this will be decided later)

Currently writing my essay and Business plan which will be handed in on Friday. The DVD containing the 3 Minute film - Weeded, the show reel and my stop motion characters will be finished by Wednesday.(And put into the exhibition) Along with my CV that has been completed and my business cards that I have created! 

Apart from that, I've nearly finished!

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Time-lapse of making a model for TV series ‘Clay Kids’.

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Brilliant time laps!

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Here is the behind the scenes video of a stop-motion TV advert, titled 'Ultimate' which is for BP (British Petroleum) who are an energy-based company. 

An incredible project heavily involved with a team of model makers, set designers and animators. 

I admire the dedication of the two guys who produced the engine, it looks incredible! 

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Painting the head of the Zombie Judge for Paranorman.

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The work that Laika does, never seems to stop inspiring me! Each little thing, either prop, character or background has its own uniqueness! I just love it!

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Making Of ' Dorset Cereals 'Life Begins at Breakfast'

This is the 'Making of' of the Dorset Cereals spot, Life begins at Breakfast. This warm and witty spot showcases Dorset Cereals’ personality and links to nature,…

A lovely behind-the-scenes video, I really love the character style in this ad, and the 2D aspect of the eyes, the hands & the legs work really nicely with stop motion characters! 

This is a lovely take on stop motion and as mentioned in the clip, it wouldn't seem right to do it in CGI and i'm really happy they didn't! 

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Title

I have created a new title for my film, Weeded..  I wanted to make the title reflect my story as much as I possibily could.  I did this by making the dandelions on the d's and making the text rather scribbled and plant-like and suitable for a children-friendly audience.

 Still working on my title sequence but I hope to have it finished soon!