Extended Practice Briefing.

Develop a substantial body of work.
Do what interests you.

SUBMISSION
500 word Rationale. 

• What do you want to do?
• Why? 
• What have you read/ seen that makes you want to do this? 

Statement of intent. 

• What's the brief?
• Who is the audience?
• What will you be delivering and producing? (puppets, set designs, 5 minute animation?)
• Be realistic about what is possible to get done in the time. Don't play it safe. Push yourself.

Research and development portfolio. (blog)

• Look into artists and techniques.
• Get the bulk of the research done before you plan to start working on the practical. Submit the research before you start working. This means that you will be able to focus on development posts instead of doing all the research last minute. 
• Blog your project development work.

1000 word project evaluation.

ATTEND ALL CRITS AND PRESENTATIONS.

Find someone to design characters. (and sets?)

Do I want to animate my characters? Do I need a story and a storyboard?

Do I need a script? Voice actors? 

Get in touch with studios. Mackinnon and Saunders. Laika. Aardman. Ask questions for research posts. Prepare what questions you need answering in advance.

If collaborating, do I trust the person/ people I am working with to get the work done on time with my schedule so that I can do my parts? 

Evaluation

This project has had its good and bad points for me. I wanted to focus mainly on building characters and sets and the stop motion animating and so I did my own project and recruited help from Fiona for the Storyboards and Rosy for my character designs, set designs and post-production editing. Honestly, with the story that I decided to go with and everything that I needed to build, I think I set myself too much work to be able to finish it in time which was really disheartening. 
That being said, I really enjoyed making my characters and I'm so happy with how they've turned out, although if I were to make them again I would use a different material, perhaps latex, for their bodies and try harder to sort out 3D printing or another method for making their faces. 
I have learnt a lot in this project. Before I started, I had no idea how to build a convincing set or create 3D stop motion puppets. I still have a long way to go to make them industry standard but it is definitely something I want to practice more and look into next year. 
My biggest issue with this project was time management, as I fell really behind over easter while trying to finish my Responsive brief and this project has definitely suffered for it, and I have spent the last 3 weeks of this project barely sleeping trying to catch up all the work I needed to do. 
I have enjoyed learning how to overcome problems that appear while doing stop motion animation that I hadn't expected, as it is more limited than traditional and computer animation as they are real objects that can only move in certain ways, but I love the style that it creates.
I also spent a lot more on this project than I anticipated which was less than ideal, as I underestimated how much it would cost to make things to the standard I liked and how many props and characters etc had to be made. 

Overall, I have enjoyed this project but I would have liked some more time to finish it and get it up to a standard that I am pleased with, although I will be finishing it after the deadline in time for the exhibition. My stop motion animating does need a lot of work to make it better but I am enjoying the process of learning it.

Sam's Animatic

I have had to last minute recruit Sam to do the animatic for the last two scenes, as I have not had time to do it myself or film the final sequences in time for this deadline and the test showing this afternoon needs the animatic at the end to show the audience what is going to happen. 

Titles and Credits.

Rosy has thrown together some place holder titles for the deadline today and for the screening this afternoon, however I intend to go back to these next week and film sequences to make them fit better with the rest of the animation.

Editing

Rosy has been editing my Animation, with feedback from me so that it is how I want it to look and everything runs in the right order and at the right speed. She has, however, run out of time and still has her animation to edit so I will be finishing editing for the deadline today.

Animating: Day 5

I'm really happy with how much work I got done today. I have finally started animating Herbert and I've managed to get about 19 seconds done today so tomorrow morning I just need to do 6 seconds of him throwing food into the bin and I will have all of Norman and Herberts scenes done. Unfortunately I won't have my final scene ready for the deadline though which is a shame, but I set myself too much work to do by myself. I will have to finish it off next week in time for the exhibition. 

 I've found that Herbert is even harder to move than Norman was, as Herbert is really fat and the foam padding him out prevents a lot of movement. His clay beard also stops his head turning very far round. Because if these problems with Herberts character, I have had to adjust the way I animate but it seems to be going okay so far. 

Tomorrow before the deadline, I need to finish the last few seconds of herberts scene, add some stills from this scene to my DVD cover and then help Rosy finish the editing and the animatic.

Animating: Day 4

I intended to get Herberts set finished and animated today. Unfortunately, I didn't manage to get the animation started, however I have finished the set and prepared everything for tomorrow. 

Tomorrow, I absolutely have to do the whole of Herberts scene and hopefully get it done with enough time to sort out an animatic as Rosy now cannot do it. 

Reference: Postman Pat

Postman Pat is a childrens classic, and I really like the style of the set and the characters. 
The way that the shots are framed is really interesting and it will definitely influence my animation, particularly the way the van moves. 
I also really like the colour palette used however I am not sure if that will influence my animation.

The Poster and the DVD case

I took a day out of animating to sort out my DVD case and the posters for my animation. 

I've had to use the drawing of Toby that Rosy did for my character designs, as I have not had time to make him into a real character yet. 

I considered using one of the sets I have made for the background but it just didn't fit right, so I have chosen to do the background as the Set design/ concept art provided by Rosy, This fits really well and doesn't distract too much from my characters. 

I also had to change the font as the previous font didn't look right, and this font matches the text in the background. 

For my posters, I have made one that is the same as the DVD cover with all 3 characters on it.

I also thought it would be nice to do a series of 3, so that I had one of each character in their own scene. However, Norman doesn't fit very well with his scene and I haven't made Toby yet so I will do those at a later date. 

My favourite of the designs is the individual one of Herbert in his kitchen. 

Animating: Day 3

Today I did the final few scenes from my Farm shoot, including Norman throwing bags into the truck both from the outside and a shot through the van. I plan to loop some of the shots I have of each scene to save time and fill out my animation a bit. 

I had a few issues with knocking into the van today so the camera looks a bit shakey, although most of the time it just looks like Norman knocked into the van in the scene so it mostly works. 

I made a second back to the van so that I could do the shots through the van, and I had to support this on some tape and other objects to make it the right height for the shot. 

I also filmed both the opening panning shot, and a couple of shots of the van driving along the greenscreen, which will composite some drawings of streets moving to show that the van is on the way to the farm. 

I have fallen a bit behind schedule with this project so I am hoping I can catch up and get most of my animating done this week. Tomorrow and Wednesday I intend to animate Herberts kitchen and the scene in the alleyway, while also finishing Toby's character as I need him for the photoshoot for the posters.

Green Screening

After some experimenting and thinking, I have decided that it would look good if, for the greenscreens in the background of the farm, I used real pictures of fields or farms. I think it would place my set nicely in it's surroundings and make it believable. 

Because of this, I have chosen a selection of photos of a field near Rosys house and will see which fits best when editing.

I also intend to get photos of a street, or a film of a street for the truck to drive down in the opening sequence.

Animating: Day 2

Today, I intended to finish all of the farm scenes with Norman. Unfortunately I ran out of time today as uni closes early on Saturdays and I thought of extra shots to include last minute that I did not have time to sort out. I will have to film the last two shots on Monday before moving onto the kitchen scenes. 

Set Building: The Kitchen

To build the last two sets, I had to get elliot to help nail the walls together as I was struggling.

I grouted the walls and floor to add texture and then spray painted them black.

I then painted them with the same dark edges, light in the centre style that I used on the farm, and added tiles that I carved into the grout and then painted accordingly.

I created the counters with foam board and painted them with acrylic paint, and I bought some little dolls pots and pans from ebay to save time with prop making.

Animating: Day 1

Today I finally started animating. I had a few issues with Norman's puppet as the foam didn't move as well, which I thought would happen. Because of this I had to readjust the storyboard and work around the problems but I'm happy with what I have so far and am glad that I have finally started animating.

I also had a rethink about some camera angles to see what worked best with my set and character and created a more engaging scene.

Behind the Scenes of Day 1 Animating

Two Timelapse videos of me animating Norman and his farm.

Animating: The lighting

Today I set up my farm set with the green screen and experimented with where lights should be. I intended to start animating today but realised that I need to use a blue screen instead of a green screen because the farm has a lot of green in it. Using a blue screen may, however, affect the house which has a blue tint to it but hopefully it will be okay.

Reference: Shaun the Sheep

What I really love about Shaun the Sheep are the backgrounds. They look realistic and yet still animated and it gives the animation a really nice feel to it. Ideally I would have liked my animation to have sets like these, however I don't yet have the skills to create this, or the time. I still think mine have a nice feel to them though and I will aspire to create sets at this standard in the future. 

Recording the Audio

Last night I edited the script that Rosy drafted out a week ago so that it is the final script of what the narrative should be and today we brought our friend Ozzy in to record the voiceover. I chose Ozzy for the voice as I wanted it to be a clear, deep voice and he fit well. Also he is good at putting on accents and impressions, and we wanted the voice to sound very British, which he did well. 

We had to reword a few of the lines while in the sound booth because Ozzy tripped over a few sentences as the words didn't flow right, and we also reworded some because they didn't sound right when recording. 

Overall though I am happy with how the audio sounds. In editing, Rosy is going to add a few grunts and sound effects to give the characters a bit more life in them and bring them into the scene more. 

The Script and Overview of the project

Rosy and I have created a script for the narrative, with a brief description of what is happening in each scene, ready for recording the Audio tomorrow afternoon.

Character creating- Herbert

The characters have been painted in acrylic paint mixed with latex, which helps the acrylic stick to the foam while also stopping it from cracking as the character moves.

I have chosen to paint their shoes on instead of trying to make shoes out of fabric as this would be quicker and easier. I also thought that if the shoes were to be made out of fabric, it might affect the characters ability to stand on their own as the bottom might not be completely flat.

The eyes are made out of milliput and painted with acrylic. 

Rosy has done an incredible job with these clothes too, although she did struggle with the hat but now that is fixed.

One problem I had with Herberts faces is that the hair on the side of the faces are very fragile and prone to breaking. Another problem I have to find a solution to is that the eyes don't like to stay in his face. I think I need to use blue tack on the main face to hold them in, although I made the eye sockets go right through the head so that the eyes should hopefully stay easily.

Character creating- Norman

Rosy has done an incredible job with Norman's clothes. The shirt looks especially amazing and really brings the character to life. 

I have made Norman some faces with different expressions on out of clay and painted them according to the character designs.

Norman's character has hair as well as a beard, and I decided that his hair should be made out of fake hair, whilst the beard is made from clay. I think this gives it a nice, and different style.