My stop motion - Pre-production and production

Introduction

The assignment brief for our final project was to produce and animated short using any of the techniques we had learnt. To begin with i decided to engage in research in order to help formulate ideas for my own animation.

Pre-Production

Research

The video above shows a very similar concept to an idea which I had in mind. This clip helped further develop ideas due to some of the ways in which the images are placed. After watching this I decide to start working on a similar idea of separate photos showing pixelation.

The video above helped me develop my ideas even more as i liked the idea of having somebody hold the photos.

This was a video i stumbled upon which gave me some more inspiration for my final project. Although it wasn't a form of pixelation I still felt it was a valid part of my research. This is due to the fact it gave me the idea of interacting with the photos within the video. This would result in a much more vibrant piece of animation and adding to the creative aspect.

Characters

I will be focusing on one character. Seems as it is pixelation I will have to use somebody to model for me. They will be the only character in the animation.

Backgrounds

The initial shoot will be inside of the photography studio or some place else with room for the character to move around. After i print out the frames I will be placing the image on a table. this will give it more of a sketchy artistic feel. Each image may be place on the table slanted to make it look disorganized and more 'spontaneous'.

Audio

For the audio I will most probably have an upbeat acoustic instrumental. this will give it a more of a laid back feel. The video below shows the soundtrack which I think would compliment the visuals well within the video. It is the soundtrack of an indie game called 'AppleJack' by the musician 'This is Eden.' As I have stated I fell this would give it a much more laid feel and work nicely with my animation

Overall, my research was rather effective in formulating and developing ideas for my own stop motion. After laying the foundation of my idea i decided to write out storyboards in order to create some sort of narrative for my animation.

Production

A change of plan

Up to the start of the production stage I was set on producing a piece of pixelation animation. However, during the final stages of pre-production I had a series of epiphanies which led to a change in production. These were mainly regarding logistical problems. I needed someone to model for my animation and due to the fact the rest of my class were also working on their own I would have to find somebody else. Another issue was time schedule. My ideas were rather ambitious and would have taken a substantial amount of time to produce successfully  I felt I did not have near enough time to produce this due to he fact that at this point, I had about two weeks left to finish my project. Another aspect which led to a change of plan was the technical side of things. Due to the fact it would be hot in the studio I would have to use a camera. This would mean creating it without the onion skin which 'Istopmotion' provides. This would prove very difficult and of cause add more production time onto my already tight time schedule. It was all of these aspects which led to changing the way in which I produce my animation.

Creating my animation my animation

As you can see, for the parts in which the character and objects draw themselves I drew each part line by line. By this I mean that I would draw a small part of the image then take a photo. I would then draw the next part of the image and take another. Using a webcam connected to 'Istop motion' this wasn't a very exhausting process. The software shows an onion skin layer so I could follow the line of the previous drawing and make it look consistent.

The rest of the character movement such as the wave at the start were done on separate pages of the notebook. I would simply draw the image of the character on one page. Then on the next draw frame of movement. This made it easy during production as all I had to do was take photos of each page.

The rest of my animation consisted of my hand and objects interacting with the character. This was done frame by frame like the drawing and I would change to the corresponding page once me or the object had interacted with the character.

After the actual filming process was done all that was left to do was edit. I first placed my exported Istopmotion project into 'Imovie.' In here I added the titles and credits to my piece. After this was done I imported the Imovie export into garage band. From here I simply added all of the sound effecs and music then syncronised them to my animation (This was a long and tedious process.) Finally, I exported my finish project and posted on youtube.