Category: Production Principles

All moving image material on Padlet:

https://padlet.com/artslondon/production-principles-unit-sgkzu5t70zqa8klq

Out of your head was the most recent project where we had to work in groups to create a 30 second animation. This is a very open brief with a lot of freedom giving us the opportunity to explore what interested us following the rotations.

Me and my group were all on the same page since day one about what we wanted to create. We all had an interest in stop motion experimental animation. All of us were very open to all ideas and communicated very well.

On the first session of this project, we were discussing our chosen words from the word cloud and possible starting points and themes when we came across the words connection and community. When I thought of these words, my mind did not start coming up with a fictional story, with fictional characters in a fictional world.

Instead I thought of real-life people with stories to tell with their own voice.

We initially planned to go out and interview people that own corner shops; the idea being that we interview people who see many faces in and out all day but don’t necessarily get spoken to by their customers. However, we faced our first issue – a lot of people were not comfortable with their voice being recorded.

Then we found Hannah and her Ethiopian restaurant, Habesha. She was very willing and open to talk to us and showed a lot of interest in the project, it was refreshing to have such an honest conversation with a stranger.

We conducted another successful interview with a bartender in a nearby pub however in the end we decided to go with Hannah’s interview as the recording offered more opportunity for freedom with the visuals.

We soon began editing the audio down to 30 seconds as this would be our starting point for the rest of the project and we needed it as soon as possible. We had multiple drafts and versions of the audio before picking one to move forward with.

Our next stage was research, research, research! We needed to get into the headspace and world of our film as we weren’t creating anything new, it was all out there, but we had to find it.

So we decided to head back to Habesha to actually eat some Ethiopian food and talk to Hannah a bit more and understand who she was and her background.

Hannah was very happy to see us again and ended up sitting and chatting with us for 4 hours. She even gave us free traditional Ethiopian coffee.

Now we had a better understanding of who Hannah was and actually trying her food, we could now start thinking about creating some tests that could capsulate that environment and feeling.

We did some tests in a variety of materials. My particular favourite was the spoon and oil pastel, as it looks as if it’s the spice used to create the food – there was a certain feeling attached to these tests, we were trying to hold onto that sense of connection and community.

We got some great feedback from the tutors, the main takeaway being that we should not just be illustrating the words spoken in the audio; that the audience can hear what’s being said, they don’t need to see it too so we should try and expand our ideas further.

Chris also gave us a great piece of advice specifically about the pixelation test we made, that we animated what could’ve just been a live action video – if we are to use pixelation it should be something you couldn’t just film normally and would only exist in the stop motion world. This made us start thinking about how we could challenge and push ourselves more with these tests and opened our minds to more possibilities.

After our tests, we were feeling a bit lost in the project, we decided to create a storyboard to help put our visual ideas onto paper.

We split up the audio into different key sections and we all created a section of the storyboard individually and then bring it all together and create a rough animatic.

We were enjoying creating these visuals and ideas we wanted to explore, however we realised we were moving away from the more abstract visuals we initially wanted, and after watching our storyboard put together on the timeline, it became less exciting. The visuals we had were fine, but I knew there was more potential.

We decided to park the idea of the storyboard and continue doing material tests as we realised that was the most effective way for us to create new visual ideas – we could always revisit the storyboard now we had it.

These were our first tests with lentils and we saw how great it fit with our film and knew we needed to explore it further.

We got green lit before winter break and over the holidays I did some more material tests so we would feel more prepared when we came back.

When we came back after Christmas, we immediately began shooting for our final film. The next three weeks were spent completely in the stop motion room. As a group we were great at working together and communicating feedback respectfully to each other.

We began to introduce spices into our work as we wanted some variety in material other than lentils. The spices helped add to the atmosphere we were trying to create.

Pixelation was a feature wanted to include, as it’s something we thought was strong in the tests. So I created this sequence using a reference of the coffee pot from our visit to Habesha. After getting some feedback from Chris, we were told that although the animation was great, the image was getting slightly lost as the spice was a similar colour to the background.

Despite time running out, we reshot the sequence with different colours and saw an immediate difference.

The last week of the project was spent editing and figuring out transitions so that each sequence would flow nicely to one another as it would be easier for the audience to follow along.

Even though Hannah’s interview was our main audio, we knew early on we wanted to create foley for our film to help create the space and world that our film is in. We compiled a list of all the sounds we wanted, and all of us had a go at creating them, so we would have a range of options to choose from.

I massively enjoyed this project from start to finish. I really loved this method of storytelling – using real people and their voice. I’m proud of the work that me and my group have created and enjoyed how much experimenting we did with materials.

The final product obviously has flaws that with a bit more time, I would correct, such as the frame size of our dragon frame clips. We were all exporting out of dragon frame with the wrong setting, causing there to be black lines on the sides of the film. As well as this I feel as a group we could’ve been more organised with our time, as we submitted our film quite close to the deadline and if anything went wring whilst exporting, we may have missed the deadline. Obviously as stop motion animators, it is difficult to do any animating at home outside the studio but I think we should have sorted out our priorities where we could have done some more research and brainstorming work at home, to maximise our animating time.

All moving image material on Padlet:

https://padlet.com/artslondon/production-principles-unit-sgkzu5t70zqa8klq

This rotation built on from Breaking Character, taking our character designs and learning how to create a short motion test in photoshop.

I began by revisiting my motion plan and after looking at the feedback I received from Breaking Character, made some more character sketches with some more dynamic poses. I started thinking and planning what simple movement I could create that still communicated my three words, endearing, sentimental and forgotten.

I started planning what movement I was going to create.

Mariana introduced us to animating in photoshop, which was fairly easy to navigate. I began with the key frames of my animation, which I struggled with at first as it was unfamiliar to me.

The next week was spent tweaking and creating in betweens. I found this whole process extremely tedious and difficult and took a lot of getting used to. There were a lot of drafts and parts that were scrapped and redone over and over again.

During the middle of the second week, I got some feedback from Mariana which was very useful. She gave me some really useful tips on how to make the movement look more alive specifically with the turn, which was the weakest part. I also realised the timing needed a lot of work and the audience needed more time on certain shots, to catch up with what they were seeing.

Overall, I learned a lot in this rotation and has definitely peaked my interest in digital animation and I’d be keen to learn more.

Breaking Character was an introduction into character design. I hadn’t done much character design prior to this rotation so I was really looking forward to stepping outside my comfort zone and trying something new.

On the first day we were introduced to the different elements of design such as contrast, balance, colour and movement. We then began creating a story and building a world where our character would come from. My story was about a childhood teddy that got forgotten over the years.

Observational studies of my own childhood teddy.

Our next session was all about taking a more mixed media approach to character design. Using a more wide range of materials and instead of trying to draw a physical being, we were trying to capture the essence of our character. We had to pick three different words to describe our character – we had to use these to refer back to when designing. My three words were endearing, sentimental and forgotten.

Using scrap bolts, screws and wood to create faces.

Trying to capture the essence of my character using collage and paint.

In between the sessions, I worked on finalising my character design.

At the end of the first week, Jess gave us an introduction into photoshop and how we could create character sheets and turnarounds on it. It was super useful for me as someone who doesn’t have much experience with digital drawing.

The second week of the rotation was focused on the 12 principles of animation and motion plans and how we could apply these to our own characters. This was super helpful to learn and helped me understand and visualise how my character might move.

I created my motion plan writing out all the principles that would apply to my character, trying to be as specific as possible.

Ending the rotation with feedback from my design.

All moving image material on Padlet:

https://padlet.com/artslondon/production-principles-unit-sgkzu5t70zqa8klq

In the animatics rotation, we learned where stories begin. Thumbnail sketches, storyboards, simple movement and sound. All of these elements put together give an idea of what a story may look like visually on the screen.

The first week of the rotation was focusing on understanding what an animatic is, and all the components involved. After choosing a prompt, we began creating thumbnail sketches on post it notes to start a storyboard.

Here is my first drafted storyboard.

At the end of the first week we had a session learning premier pro. Although I already had experience in premier, it was still extremely useful as there was still much for me to learn.

I put my sketches onto the timeline and began playing with movement and timing – this gave me a much greater understanding of where certain parts of the story weren’t communicated very well soo I could focus on that next.

Starting off the second week with some feedback from Izzy and the rest of the group was valuable as I could get an outsiders’ perspective and see where the weak areas were and what I should be focusing on.

The second week consisted of tweaking, adjusting and finding sound that fit with my visuals.

Overall, I didn’t massively enjoy this rotation. My storyboarding skills are weak, and whilst I appreciate this is an area I should work on to improve; I have found that this traditional way of storytelling, is not for me. This rotation did however, introduce me to the concept of an animatic as I had been previously unaware – and showed me how useful it can be compared to just a storyboard, how you can tell the story with key elements. If I were to re-do this rotation, I would try and create more dynamic sketches with a larger range of perspectives and angles to avoid it looking so flat and all the shots looking

All moving image material on Padlet:

https://padlet.com/artslondon/production-principles-unit-sgkzu5t70zqa8klq

Unlike the other rotations, the stop motion rotation was less narrative based and more about questioning and playing with material. I found this rotation the most exciting for me as it gave us freedom to play around and break the rules of traditional storytelling.

We began the first week by investigating the material (cardboard) and its limitations.

We played around to try and create faces out of the cardboard, trying to think outside the box, think about how it doesn’t have to be 2d, and think about the material’s potential.

We then got put into groups to create a cardboard puppet that we would later animate. In my group of three (Me, Santhi and Victoria) we immediately began creating our puppet with Victoria working on the head, Santhi working on the legs and me on the body and arms.

We spent the rest of the first making motion tests whilst learning how to use dragon frame. It was exciting to play around with equipment and see how we can use lighting to create a more dynamic scene.

Chris the introduced us to the concepts of replacement and displacement animation. As our tests so far had been displacement animation, moving the puppet little by little, we had the opportunity to have a go at replacement animation.

In our teams we had to transition from three shapes to create a loop (circle, square, triangle) using paper. Instead of changing the existing material to form the shape i.e crumpling it into a ball, we had to cut out transitional shapes with more paper and then photograph them to see the transition.

At the beginning of the second week we got given the brief for the animation we were going to make with our puppet. We were to keep exploring how we could use the material and to focus on the idea of metamorphosis. How could we change and transition our puppet in a 30 second animation?

We reflected on our tests from the first week to see what worked and what didn’t and what could be pushed further. We all agreed that we liked different parts of the puppet interacting in an unconventional way – the floating disconnected arms being our point of interest.

After brainstorming a few ideas we had, we thought it would be best to just begin animating and see where it would take us.

Shots from the final animation.

This rotation has been the most exciting to me by far. I have really enjoyed a more experimental approach to animation and thinking primarily about the material that we were working with.

Although I have some experience in stop motion prior to this rotation, I have learned so much; the main component being learning dragon frame. It was fairly simple to get used to but made shooting our animations really easy.

Learning the difference between replacement and displacement animation was extremely interesting and although we did displacement here, I am intrigued to explore other options in future projects.

Creating the sound effects for the animation was something I enjoyed as I could make them match perfectly to the clips we had and I think that overall made a much more successful outcome.

It was nice to work with physical material in this rotation and really feel and see what we were working with, instead of everything being on a screen – for me this meant the ideas flowed a lot easier as I could feel the material in my hands and really see what I was looking at.