plan C

due to the terrible software used in the college i have lost my exported files as well as my original clips from both singing in the rain and the pixilation coins. because of this i have had to use my very first model based animation that i created during the christmas period.
with this animation i was very pleased as it was my first one.


below is a link to the finished and final animation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ar6kzw0zPio

once i was happy with this and agreed that this was the best option i submitted my animation to an online website called padlet. this is somewhere you can submit your work and people can write comments and their opinions on your work

http://padlet.com/lauramoodyvpa/2lee574pqnak

Edited and exported

I decided last week that i was going to change my animation to a form of pixelation using coins. i thought that this would be a good way to demonstrate both clay based animation and pixelation.
I collected together all of my clips which included a wide shot and close ups of each individual pile of coins. once happy with the clips i took them to Adobe Premier Pro (a video editing software i feel most comfortable using) and i put the clips in the order i wanted them. The timeline of the clips seemed a little short so i used some different video editing techniques to make the clip longer these included slowing down the clip speeding up the clip and transitions.
because of the camera quality and angle of the clips i shot i wasnt happy with the appearence so i changed the colour of the clips to black and white to make them more even through out the animation.
overall i am pleased with how the animation turned out.
next week i will find some quirky creative commons music to place in the background of the animaton to bring it to life.

back up plan

i decided that i wasnt very happy with my animation so i created a back up plan.
the reason why my first animation didnt fit to my expectations was due to the model itself i didnt think that it was very moveable which caused the animation to look tacky.
For the back up plan i decided to use still life items in this case money. i wanted to show the money piling up and down to funky music. i will subit both animation as they are both different techniques of stop motion animation.

This week i finished all of the clips i would use for the animation this involved close ups of each coin piling up aswell as a full wide shot of the piles forming next to each coin. After half term i will focus on editing the clips together and play around with different effects to make the animation more appealing.

close ups and editing

This week i worked on the close ups for the animation.
i think that there are still alot of room for improvements which i will work on over the next few weeks

i took all of the clips into imovie, and decided that i didnt want to edit in that programme so i decided to edit in Premier pro.

I got the clips in the order i wanted and added the music in the background
next week i will work on tightening up the clips and editing the music to to sections that i desire to use.

starting filming

i created the main shot of my animation where the model enters the street and dances i am not very happy with the shot so i am thinking about filming it again.
next week i am going to do some different angles and close ups of the model to use as cut aways
but i am happy with the back drop

creating the model week 2

i carried on working with the model this week aswell as finding possible back drops for the animation.
for the model i used bent wires to secure the body parts securely in place. i then added facial features such as eyes mouth nose and eye brows. i made the suit appear more 3 dimensional and tested the stability of the model and how long it can stand in place.
the model could possibly be improved in stability but it can stand for about 30 seconds which is more than enough time to stand without being touched when i begin to make the animation.

Next week i will work on the props for the model using paper/card to make the lampost and the umbrella for the model to hold, i will also set up the back drop by printing out the chosen image and sticking in to card to make it stable

making the model

27/02/14

This week i started making the main model for my singing in the rain animation.

i used black, white, and pale pink plasticine.

i started off by making each individual body part before using wire to attach them altogether

i didnt have much time to do this this lesson so next week i will add further detail to the model and ensure that it is stable enough and is easy to move the separate body parts for the animation.

Singing in the rain animation

My second animation is a music video or scene from a film. as singing in the rain is a well known song/scene i decided to re-create this. the scene that i would be re-creating the scene where he climbs up onto the street light while it is raining and spinning his umbrella

The sections of the song that i will use are 1:15-1:30 = where he is on the lamp post
1:48 - 1:53 = where he is walking and spinning the umbrella
and finally 2:27-2:32 = where he is tap dancing in the rain.

although all of these sections are split up i would make them all fit together, i would do the walking and spinning the umbrella first then the lamp post and then finish with the tap dancing. the song would be the chorus through out and maybe if i run out of time i would play the tap dancing part with the tap dancing scene.

The dolls house animation

As mentioned previously i want to use Real life, plasticine models and paper cut outs within this stop motion animation. i find this a bit of a challenge but want to see if i can get the out come i hope for.

The opening scene of the animation will be a shot of a child (of a student from the class) playing with the dolls house and then looking over their shoulder before putting the dolls down and leaving the room.  Once the human has left the dolls that are sat around a plastic table will turn their heads to check that it is safe before all three leaving the table 2 walking to another room and 1 pulling up a fourth chair.
The second scene will be in the second room with the two models. one of the models will pull up a small piece of paper while the second one draws a rough sketch of a man on the surface. once the drawing is complete the models will swap places the one that was drawing will now be holding the paper while the other one will now pick up some scissors.
The third scene will be back in the first room where the 3 model was pulling up a chair. this scene will purely be to clearly identify what this model is doing in the other room as it shows the model just neatening things in preparation.
The fourth scene will be back in the other room where it cuts to the model using the scissors to cut the sketch out. once it is cut the models will lay the paper on the floor and both will bend down to grab a hand each of the sketch. after 3 attempts they pull up a paper person after looking around and steadying the paper person while they get used to their new legs they return back to the table and all sit around before the child comes back. thus ending the animation.

Here is an example of what i would like the dolls house to look like. as long as it has the two rooms and basic furniture the design of the dolls house itself isn't really that important.

 this is a basic of the furniture that i would require for the scene. 1 table with 4 chairs.

 

 Because a lot of detail is going into this animation the detail of the models themselves do not need to be perfect as these are created by a child. as long as they resemble people that is the main point. both examples here are how i will create the model very basic but i could make them look a bit more details like the first image.

This is the paper person that will be cut out. i will pre cut this as the one that will be made while filming will be very messy but i will ensure to make it look like the characters are actually drawing and cutting a real paper cut out.

My animation idea

after learning about all the different techniques that can be used to create animation i have decided that my favourite style is model or paper based animation.

my idea is to create a mixture of  3 different techniques to create the illusion of real life animation.

i want to use real people, plasticine models and paper cut outs in my animation.

I have 3 different ideas for my animation. My first idea is to use a mixture of humans, models and paper cut outs.

the plot is a young child is playing with a dolls house when she leaves to go for tea. as soon as she leaves the models come to life and start using scissors to make there own models but with paper.

I would create this using stop motion animation showing a wide shot of the child leaving then panning inside of the dolls house to the plasticine models sitting around a table 2 out of the 3 models will walk into another room while the third pulls up a fourth chair. In the other room one of the models will trace a person on a piece of paper when finished the second model will use real scissors to cut around the paper. the final scene of the animation will be the two models helping up the paper model before returning around the table just before the child returns.

My main worries about this idea are the lack of props. the main prop that i need is a dolls house with basic furniture in (table with 4 chairs). as well as this the only other issue is the time as the animation is suppose to last 30 seconds i may run over time, if this is the case this could create a longer filming time which could risk meeting the dead line in time.

My second idea is to create a small section from a song. the song i have chosen is singing in the rain. like the first idea i would use models and cut outs. the model would be the main character and the cut outs would be the back ground as well as the people walking by to bring to life the scene from the musical. To create this i would find the back drop from the actual film and set that up against a sturdy surface. i would make the famous street light out of a painted stick placed on a small block and add lighting effects during the editing process. The section of the song i would use would be the first chorus and i would animate the part where he walks while spinning the umbrella and then spinning around the street light. If possible i would like to use special effects or small pieces of tissue to create the illusion of the rain. As all props are easily made i dont think that there would be any problems that could risk this animation being created.

My final idea for the animation is to take a scene from a film and re-create it. although the last idea was from a film it is different as that was a song from a musical more than a scene. 

for the film choice i would choose an action film and use plasticine models and paper cut outs like the others.  Out of the three this is my least favourite idea, purely because i would struggle to choose which film and which scene to re-make.

After discussing with my tutor i have decided to attempt to create both the dolls house animation and the singing in the rain. i struggled to choose between each idea as both idea really fascinated me. i wanted to see if i could manage to use 3 different techniques for the dolls house and i also wanted to re-create my favourite scene from one of my favourite musicals.

Time Lapse in animation

Time lapse is the oposite to stop motion but uses the same process to create it. To create a time lapse you must set up a tripod in a set location and not move it at all, depending on what you are taking the images of depends on how often you take them, for example if you wanted to create a time lapse of the skyline through out the day you would take a picture every 30 minutes to an hour depending on how effective and detailed you want it to appear, another popular creation using time lapse is watching the decay of carcases, in this situation you would have to take a picture every so many hours - a few times a day. This can take weeks of years as creating a time lapse is a long time consuming way of creating animation.

- denoting the photographic technique of taking a sequence of frames at set intervals to record changes that take place slowly over time. When the frames are shown at normal speed the action seems much faster.

Modern day animation

Over the years animation has evolved not only in technique but also with target audience.
Many animations now aim not only towards children as their target audience but also young adults and teenagers. many examples of animations that have been produced in my life time have a target audience of young adults and teenagers, some examples of these are. The simpsons, Celebrity Death match, Family guy, American Dad, Cleveland show, wallace and gromit, adventure time, south park, spongebob squarepants, regular show, futurerama and many more.
i have chosen too do 3 well known animations to talk about in depth.

Adventure Time

Adventure time is a cell based animation for cartoon network created by Pendleton Ward a actor/writer from the USA. The show was originally suppose to attract children of young ages but because increasingly popular by teenagers due to the sexual innuendoes and drug references that children are un able to pick up. The show was first aired in 2010 with an episode titled "slumber party panic". this episode has speculated around the internet as the opening scene shows one of the characters fall onto their head, every episode afterwards the same character has came across as mentally challenged. it is said that this is the reason for this characters actions.

Family Guy

Another animation that has been produced in my lifetime is the much loved Family guy. Created and staring Seth Macfarlan, first aired in 1999 and has carried on to this very day up to the 14th series.
It consists of a family man and the antics that go ahead with their ugly daughter, talking dog and world dominating baby. The show has a lot of racial, sexist, alcohol and sexual relations in pretty much every episode which some people can find offensive. The show also add a musical twist a lot of the time with spin off episodes with Stewie and Brian where they go on adventures such as to multi-universes and different states in america. Again family guy is a cel-based animation with 5.25 million viewers. It reached  a 2.6 adults 18-49 rating down 21% from a 3.3 last year. in December 2013 the producers of the show pulled a stunt which affected the viewers and got everyone talking about the show. They killed off one of the main and much loved characters, the family pet Brain, and the episode saw the heart breaking emotion of the toddler on the show aswell as the replacement of the dog with another called vinnie. The new dog was shown in 2 episodes untill a christmas special where the new companion helped the young child travel back in time and save the beloved family pet. Producers of the show stated in many interviews "as if we would EVER kill off brian"

                                                  music and lyrics by stewie griffin

                                                                      brian death

stewie saves brian

Celebrity Death Match

This is a show that again is aimed towards teenagers and young adults, but unlike the others that are created by a cel-based style of animation this show is model based which is rare to see these days.
The short length shows created by Eric Fogel ran from 1998 too 2007 when the show ended on season 6. the show consists of plasticine models based on celebrities that enter a wrestling arena and fight... to the death. The show has a lot of violence and possibly offends a lot of people. The show was cancelled in 2007 due to the producers feeling the show wasn't going anywhere with the views decreasing a lot.