Responding to Comments

Comments and Feedback

I had a gained positive comments towards the music fitting it well and that it was a creative piece. I had looked through quite a few different pieces of music to see which would fit but I didn't want any lyrics so I had to find an instrumental song that flows.

I had also gained comments about how it doesn't need improving, I would like to improve some parts of my final project ny taking more time with the drawings by making them move better and by drawing them the same each time so it fits better.

With all the feedback I had gained I am proud with what others have said about my work. The main comment I had received was to rub out the drawing I had drawn before, I had done this but mainly black smudges were left within the background. If I had the chance to re-do this then I would rub out my previous drawings more so it keeps the background clear.  

Personal Response To Final Animation

I thought my final animation went well but I would like to make some improvements if I were to do it again to make it look better. I would also plan it out better so it would go to plan how I wanted it to look, this would help me find fitting titles and fitting music so it should come together better. 

Stop motion Finished piece

Here is my stop motion but is not yet finished, I need to insert audio and credits in order to complete.

Here is my finished stop motion piece which includes audio and credits and is also uploaded to youtube.




Thoughts

I enjoyed doing this assignment but thought it would of been easier to produce if we had a set criteria to work from other than come up with out own ideas, this wouldn't of taken as long and could of resulted in better more clear product.
 I had created this piece by using a whiteboard and just erasing the character/thing and then drawing again in a different stance/position. I edited the software with iMovie and added credits and audio to fit my piece. I had to connect a webcam to my computer to get the birds eye view, I then clicked the capture button and this took a 0.1 second photo and I had to do this over and over with different positions of my character. I found doing this quite difficult because it all needed to be really accurate to make it look better but it was quite difficult to capture so my results didn't look as i expected them too.
I used a pre-set credit setting which was easy to use as it allowed me to easily put in my name and what I wanted to type, I also found the song on youtube which I thought would fit so it didn't take too long fo me to find that.
If I could re-do this animation then I would take more time doing it so I could make it look better and make sure everything is in place and that I have already created a title and could work from what my title says.. I would also make a storyline so I could follow it which would allow me to keep on track and not change it every time I come to drawing something else.

Exposure Sheet

Here is my 'Dope Sheet' and video made in iStopmotion. It is a rough edit as it is just a new thing. It was pretty simple to video but finding the correct space to place the audio was a little difficult.

Creating Ideas for my Stop Motion

Characters

For my character I will be using a simple stick man so I will have more time to finish my drawings. A stickman is easy to draw over and over again so it will be time consuming for me to keep doing this. Most of my drawings will be relating to drawings such as stick figures.

Backgrounds

For my background I will try and draw buildings or small, but not many, things just so it will look less empty and will contain a bit more detail. I will also add things like stair sets and benches but all of my images will be in 2D.



Audio

I will find and use audio at the end of my video so I can find something that fits within the video. I will find a piece of audio or a song when I have completed my animation so I can see what will fit my final production.
The audio piece I chose to use is called Green Onions because it has a catchy tune to it. 

Production

Today I didn't get anything done because of software issues not letting me log on to the computer and not having up to date software so i couldn't get anyting done.

Research

Here is a video showing a whiteboard animation and this relates to what I want to try and come up with but not as complicated.

Ideas For Stop Motion

For this sector of stop motion animation I will be viewing different  types of stop motion I could do for my own project.

I would like to create my own version of stop motion drawing like the one on above which shows different sketches of things to make it look like real life movement. I will either be hand drawing it out or using clay models. The one we make has to be up to 30 seconds long at least.

Animation 1900 - 1930/ Founding Fathers

Animation within 1900 to the 1930's really took off with animators such as George Melies, Willis O'Brien and Lotte Reiniger, these were also the main Founding Fathers of Animation who really made animating take off.

George Melies made a famous animation known as trip to the moon in 1902 and the film is recorded at 16 frames per second. The film is based on two novels which are, from the earth to the moon and the first men in the moon. 

Willis O'Brien was a stop motion animation pioneer who has been responsible for some of the images within cinema history, he has worked on films such as King Kong (1933), The lost World (1925) and mighty Joe Young (1949).

Lotte Reiniger was an animator who released the first animated feature, The Adventures of Prince Achmed in 1926 and is the oldest surviving feature film along side two others. Lotte created silhouette animation which is used within the adventures of prince achmed which is done by using cardboard and thin sheets of lead under a camera.

Time Lapse

Time lapse is a technique used to show multiple images going at a very quick speed as if time has been sped up. It can also be used with people growing hair or changing their figure, this also applies to things decomposing a in fruit.

Time lapse is created by using a series of images (preferably the same thing) taken at either 1 a minute or more or less varying from 1 a day to 1 a week to 1 a month to 1 a year.

Time lapse usually contains the use of a camera on a tripod to keep the image still and make it look better without the camera moving.

Here are a few examples of Time Lapse

These time lapse examples show just what you can create by using time lapse and the outcome can result in being excellent.

Cut Out Animation Preview

Preview

Today in stop motion animation we were editing our cut out animations in iStopMotion to create a little video to show what we have made in the final draft.

Here is a picture showing what we are doing to our cut outs.

This is our finished piece.

Cut Out Animation

Terry Gilliam

Terry Gilliam is a famous cut out animation artist who had created the show 'Monty Python'. The show as created by many paper cut outs of various characters, these all involved weird illusions and movements that a normal body could not do. Terry usually created animation about political comedy with newspaper cutouts and characters he had designed.

Here is an image and a little animation that Terry had created.

Michel Ocelot

Michel Ocelot is a french animator, character designer and director of animated shows. He has a different perspective on Terry Gilliam as his work is mainly french cartoons. Here is one of his animated videos to show his work compared to Terry Gilliam.

Our Cut Out Animation

We are going to try and replicate a short film of a cut out animation with people playing instruments and people dancing. We will be creating this by using random cut outs of people and things within newspapers, catalogues and magazines. This will help us find various items that we may need. We will be using iStopMotion to create our short animation. 


Here are some pictures of our characters.

With these 2 characters we will make them dance and play the banjo by moving various body parts to show them doing something weird and impossible. Our characters have been included with different body parts to make our characters weird. We will need to finish the cut outs in order to complete this.

Stop Motion Models

Model

Today in Stop Motion Animation I created a little something out of clay to use in my new stop motion video. To do so I used clay to model it together and then assembled it with a tool to make it all stick together without falling apart. I think I could of made a better model i i had more time and was a bit more creative.

Modern Day Animation - 1980's +

Family Guy

Modern Day Animation is based on cartoons with an adult and teenager humour. Both these types of humour can be found within shows such as South Park and Family Guy which are created by Seth Macfarlane. Some shows can cause people to feel annoyed or offended like Family guy and South Park due to the humour they add which is either repeated or offensive. Family Guy is usually on TV around 10pm where most adults would be most likely to watch it, this restricts children from watching it and refraining them from being offended. Here is some information about the show.

Genre	Cutaway gag humor Black comedy Off-color humor Surreal humor
Format	Animated sitcom
Created by	Seth MacFarlane
Developed by	Seth MacFarlane David Zuckerman
Voices of	Seth MacFarlane Alex Borstein Seth Green Mila Kunis Mike Henry
Theme music composer	Walter Murphy
Composer(s)	Walter Murphy Ron Jones

The Simpsons

The Simpsons is created by Matt Groening and is aimed at an audience of teen/adult life. The Simpsons reflects on average families which can have something in common with. This show in my opinion is can be a little annoying but is not offensive in my views, the simpsons is a very common TV show usually played around 6pm. The Simpsons is a cartoon comedy which is suitable for all ages and doesn't contain much abusive language or horror. Here is some information about the show.

Genre	Comedy Satire
Format	Animated sitcom
Created by	Matt Groening
Developed by	James L. Brooks Matt Groening Sam Simon
Voices of	Dan Castellaneta Julie Kavner Nancy Cartwright Yeardley Smith Hank Azaria Harry Shearer (Complete list)
Theme music composer	Danny Elfman
Opening theme	"The Simpsons Theme"
Composer(s)	Alf Clausen

Stop Motion Test

Today we done a little stop motion animation test by using iStopMotion to take snapshots which takes loads of photos in a small amount of time causing them to look like a moving image. This allows you to do the impossible; making someone float or swim on the floor. We used human props to create this pixilation but you can literally use anything you ant to create a stop motion animation.

Pixilation was used by a man called Norman Mclaren.

iStopMotion was at a frame rate of 12 frames per second; this explains why the video wasn't smooth as it should be, the format we exported it through was DV pal 16:9 and the total size was 67MBS. This allowed us to upload it straight to youtube to allow anyone to gain access to it.

This little test could of been improved if we had spent more time thinking what we were going to do and where we could do it, we could of also spent more time being accurate with the taking of the photos by keeping them very close instead of having jumps within the sequence.

TV Based Animation - 1950 - 1970

Wacky Races

Wacky races is an American Animated TV series which was produced by Hanna-Barbera. The series was inspired in 1965 by the film 'The Great Race'. Wacky races was shown on CBS from september 14 1968 to January 4 1969 which 17 episodes were produced featuring 2 different races each show.

The characters/contestants of the show were:

Dick Dastardly and Muttley in the Mean Machine

The Slag Brothers in the Bouldermobile

The Gruesome Twosome in the Creepy Coupe

Professor Pat Pending in the Convert-a-Car

The Red Max in the Crimson Haybailer

Penelope Pitstop.
Sergeant Bash and Private Meekly in the Army Surplus Special.The Ant Hill Mob in the Bulletproof Bomb
Luke and Blubber Bear in the Arkansas Chuggabug


Peter Perfect in the Turbo Terrific.

Looney Tunes

Looney Tunes is a warner bros. animated cartoon series The first release in the 1930's "Sinkin' in the bathtub" the series has became a worldwide media franchise with more t.v. programs , films, comics,and video games. Walt Disney was the creator of Looney Tunes but had help from many different people.

Buggs bunny

Some of the characters were:

Daffy Duck 

Elmer Fudd

Goofy Porky Pig

Tweety and many more...

Popeye

Popeye the Sailor was created by Elzie Crisler Segar. Popeye has appeared in comic strips and animated cartoons within the cinema aswell as on the tele. Popeye first appeared in the daily king features comic strip on January 17 1929. Popeye ate spinach to increase his muscle and strength to defeat a bad guy which must of had an impact on kids/viewers to eat spinach by showing the effect.

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What is Persistence of Vision?

Persistence of vision is a row of images/photos which are flicked or moved in a certain i.e. spinning which makes the image look as if they're moving. The pictures need to be taken really quickly so the character/object doesn't jump and the character/object must only move in little sections the the image doesn't jump and mess the rest of the sequence up. 

A Zoetrope is a chinese spinning device with little slits placed around the cylinder, you then place an image within the Zoetrope and spin it whilst looking through the slits; you should see the image moving in a certain way repeating itself.