#unit ba1b

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Stop Motion Lecture Notes

“Puppetons” George Pal (30s/40s) replacement animation with rigid models.

Tulips Shall Grow, George Pal, Paramount, 1942

Classic Special Effects Animation for live action:

- Ray Haryyhausen

- Phil Tippett

Eastern European Traditional Shorts:

-Jan Svankmajor

- Jiri Trnka

THEIR HEIRS:

- Brother’s Quay

- Clyde Henry Productions

- Suzie Templeton

- Barry Purves

Contemporary Production:

- Mixed media - The Little Prince

- CG Special Effects and character doubles - Pirates! An Adventure With Scientists.

suggested artist to watch - MARILYN MYLLER

A GOOD STOP MOTION IS:

- Character driven

- Walk and double take should be bared from your character’s personality, what it would typically do/how it would move and react.

THINK ABOUT:

-MOOD, MESSAGE, VISION

-STYLE

-AUDIENCE

-CHARACTER ENTRANCE AND EXIT

- SET THE TONE

- USE LIGHT AND MOVEMENT TO REVEAL IT

- BODY LANGUAGE

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Showreel Evaluation:

The showreel project was quick and easy to create during the week. At first I found it hard what to include, because I didn’t really like most of my work from the beginning of the first year, but once I put it all together it didn’t matter so much anymore.  It was a timely task, finding which animations to include on the showreel, because I didn’t want to feel like I was repeating myself.

 But I then came to realise that it wasn’t the content, it was how we showed the content. I felt like my showreel was good because I showed a bit of everything, but didn’t overly repeat things. I also didn’t go too overboard with video transitions, and let the work speak for itself. I had included title pages providing my details and any copyrights.  This was a good, quick project to do, to get our work out there, and show us ways of portraying the kinds of styles of animations we use in one video.

 I like the music I used for my showreel, as it’s very funky, and happy, what I feel portrays my attitude towards my work.  Premiere wasn’t too hard to use, it’s slightly similar to after affects. I think I could use it more often now to make future showreels.  The showreel project has allowed me to successfully analyse what a good or bad showreel would look like, and how it could affect an audience.

 Overall, I feel like I’ve done well in this project, and I hope I can get to do more soon.

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Mystery Box Evaluation:

The Mystery Box was a really fun project to complete this term. It allowed me to experience stop motion life, as I got to make my own model from scratch and then animate it further in. The beginning process of making the model was a good experience and easy enough. It was easy to make the skeleton of the model and the body shape, as we had Barry and the tutors to help, and using the materials was great. When it came to finding clothes and sewing them together,is where  I found it difficult.It took me quite some time to find the perfect materials to use for the clothes as well as the design of them, as I hadn’t actually made a design until I found the right materials. 

This then stopped me from doing any further tests shots with my model, as I was too busy concentrating on the design of it. Filming was challenging as I had difficulties with the feet mostly, and the fabric I ended up using for the boots. My first draft went okay, but I didn’t get to finish it. The walk cycle was really jittery and didn’t look like a skip like I had intended. I was happy with the reaction to the box though, as I thought it was perfectly timed, and went smoothly. 

After doing the first draft, I didn’t really do much tests for the walk cycle, which I do regret, because I could have improved better for my final film. I did do a few test shots of a scare and a walk cycle a couple of days before, and also used my original filming slot edit as a test shot, as I had ran out of time, and only got the walk cycle done anyways. I felt like after doing those shots, I was more confident in doing the rest of the animation on my second slot. Once my second slot came, I animated easily enough, and was proud of the outcome, until it came to editing, until I realised a lot of things had moved throughout the animation.

 Editing my final film in After Effects was horrible, as I found it difficult to actually mask out the things that had moved, and I had problems with my green screen. But after getting it done, and rendered I’m happy it is sorted and out there! For future references, I need to improve on getting more test shots done, so it’s easier for me to animate the final film when the time comes. However, I do feel like my timing and positioning was quite good throughout the animation. This project has definitely given me a good experience with being a stop motion animator, and despite the challenges, it is still something I would like to continue.

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Mystery Box final edit! I’m quite happy the way this turned out, and obviously relieved it’s over. But as always, there are some things i could improve on. Masking out the green screen and the the shadows was really hard for me to do, as it took me a couple hours to figure out. 

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My experiment reel for the mystery box! This shows my whole process throughout the Mystery Box project, and a few experiments that I’ve done. I enjoyed making the video, however looking back, I do wish I did some more experiments to add in. 

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Had to re-do my set, making the beach huts higher, and taking out a little more grass, because the my staging was placed too high. 

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Final sequence of the mystery box. This took quite a while to do, but i managed to get it done! I feel as though the walk cycle is a bit better than in my first draft - but the arms still need work. I didn’t get to do the push back for the character as I had ran out of time, but also the way I had positioned the box the fall was more behind it, rather than to the side, so the character landed awkwardly. Overall, I am proud i got it done, and that it’s completed. 

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Lip Sync reflective journal:

Lip sync has been an interesting yet challenging task for me to complete this term. It was a first for me, learning about all the different aspects in lip-syncing for animation. Learning about phonemes was exciting, as I didn’t know there were so little mouth shapes to fit certain sounds. I did a bit of research on lip-sync this week – looking at various pencil tests by professional animators and amateur ones. The previous lip sync task went really well for me; I enjoyed it a lot, however when it came to the next lip sync task – it managed to go downhill for while.

 Lip sync didn’t go too well for me this week. At first it was going well, as Robin said my timing was right, and I just needed to fix a few mouth shapes, so that it didn’t look too jittery and confusing for the audience to follow. Just as I was fixing that problem, my work was then deleted! So I had to start over again. I also realised that I needed to add in a smaller  ‘o’ mouth shape, because when the character goes on to say “a huge cake” the ‘u’ pronunciation is exaggerated, but no so much that the mouth shows a bigger ‘o’ like the character is shouting.  After a few tries, I finally managed to get it done, but I didn’t get a chance to animate the eye movements like I wanted to.  I still feel as though the mouth movements go too quick, so it’s really jittery in some places. I also found it a bit difficult when it comes to that, when the audio came to saying words really quick and close together, it was hard not to put all the mouth shapes together so in my head it would look okay, but when it came to actually animating it didn’t look right, and would come off as confusing. I eventually fixed most of it though! I feel as though I did quite well this term for this task - as it was my first go. But if I could make a difference, it would be to get those mouth shapes right so it wasnt jittery.