Final Hand In!

Yesterday was the final hadn in for my film and i think i succeeded in getting it complete to a level i was proud with. I felt at the end that what may have boosted the piece would have been to find some music to play throughout the whole thing, but when i searched for a piece suitable for my film, i couldn't find any, so i made do with some ambience sounds, although it didn't help with the rythm / speed of my film, it added to the eariness and strangness of the film overall.

I am still working on other bits of work to hand in next week, such as a presentable storyboard a poster and DVD cover aswell as a Website, CV, business cards and a showreel for another unit.

Lewis :)

First Edit!

Below is the first edit of my film, i have been meaning to upload it for some time now, but have never got round to it. I am now in the final stages of my film re-editing the whole piece adding more sound and generally making the whole piece come together, so its fully finished by the deadline. I am going to change the rhythm / speed and also add more camera movement including pans and zooms to my piece to give it a little more movement. So hopefully the next post will be the finished thing.

Lewis :)

Mid Project Review & Sound Animatic

Yesterday i had my mid project review, this consisted of sitting in a lecture theatre showing my animatic to three tutors who commented on what i had done, mainly to see if they understood my film, allowing me to gain feedback on what i had done so far and to help with any problems i had; i felt this review went very well, the tutors seemed to like my idea, especially with the sound effects that i added, i heard a few chuckles, so i took this as positive feedback as well. As i think i said in my last update i was unsure whether to continue with the random idea or too look more into a narrative type piece, when talking to the tutors they seemed to like the randomness of the piece, but also wanted to see the workman build something.

After a few more comments about sound and some of the tests that i did, one tutor gave me a great idea for my film, which i shall now briefly explain...

This idea revolved around the blueprint and the workman, what would happen is that the blueprint will be ordinary, show wood, measurements and other general plans that a normal blueprint would show, but after a while of using some tools he would look back at the blueprint and begin changing it to suit his own work, or what would be happening in front of him. This would continue throughout until at the end all his blueprint would show is a big pile of mess, which would be exactly what he sees in front of him.

This idea shows that everything you do does not go to plan or will never go the way you expect it to.

But as will be shown in the end the workman will be happy with his end result again enforcing this idea even more.

Below is the animatic with sound, i wish to start filming properly over the easter break and the week after easter, allowing me time to edit my piece sound and video wise to try and portray this idea.

Lewis :)

Animatic

I've recently put together an animatic, using the tests that i filmed before as well as some new photographs taken of key events within my story. So a kind of Photographic storyboard combined with my testing. At the moment i think it is understandable apart from the ending, which i wish to work on before my mid project review next week, i also hope to record some of my own sounds and add them to the animatic before then.
I am still undecided on the ending, my main idea showing a video collage of the technician working with the tools, a series of frames showing different videos of him learning to use the tools which would then fade out - or be combined with the credits.

After speaking to a tutor on Tuesday i found that maybe a pattern of what appears when the tools are used may help the story more, such as only "food" appears is used throughtout the animation combined with the tools. I'm not sure if this would be repetative or would work well, maybe a closer look into it will tell me.

Another comment made was to make it even more surreal, adding more objects / products into the film, standing aside from the normal, such as sawdust appearing when drilling a hole, but jelly or something similar appearing instead. I like this idea and had actually noted it down before and i think i shall persue this when filming. I'm still not sure about the whole idea of a pattern to my film but i like the idea of throwing in more random things, making the whole process more fun and making it my own.

On a side note, i now really dislike the green effect i have added to the lighting, both in the tests and the photographic storyboard, this i will definately change in the final filming, using white light to light my set, but also keeping it a little dark to add to the effect of a strange workshop.

Below is my animatic :)

Final Test

I've put together all the tests i filmed over the two days that i had to test into one short video, in the right format, ration and everything. Its looking good at the moment, i just need to work on developing the story as a whole so the piece links and flows together correctly, i also had another tutorial which i shall talk about in my next post.

Lewis Out... Video below --->

Test Upload

Here are the tests that i filmed on Friday... exported in the wrong ratio mainly because premier pro was being a pain, once i have completed testing tommorow i will upload all of them together in the right format, but here they are.

1st Testing complete!

So today i did my first test, sorted out the room i was working in, its still not setup the way i would want it for my actual film - but i'm testing so its all gravy.
When setting up a sheet of green plastic was selotaped in front of the lights from a previous user, so i decided to go with a sort of green lighting effect, which i'm not too sure worked well or not.
I found that the setuo for the camera was probably wrong as i was shooting, but this will be rectified next time. I was hoping to upload a few of the tests as i'm quite happy with how they were turning out, a little bit jumpy sometimes and maybe a little fast too, but i think that was just the bad actor i had working with me... Haha only Joking Daniel WF Smith! (he was actually rather good) I found that working with a friend was also quite fun.

I will try and update and upload the tests to the blog this weekend, as i was unable to copy the files over to my memory stick. Theres always something that goes wrong!

Monday will be my next testing day, i hope to get a lot more done, using drills and glue guns, doing a few tests with each.

Lewis out :)

Testing - TESTING!

Since i posted last, i have been working hard on the research area of my project, not just looking at PES and Western Spaghetti but a wide range of animators / directors, others being Jan Svankmajer aswell as his Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner stop motion animations, Txt Island by Chris Gavin and Jiri Barta and i am still continuing my research.

When it came to storyboarding my idea i found i was stuck with the actual narrative, i found that it appeared as a random sequence of events rather then a true narrative and i also found that the beggining and end of the story were not fully there.
So i decided to leave the storybaord for the time being and focus on research and then testing; I shall be testing tomorrow (Thursday) and Monday, hopefully this will then help me with the overall story and i can have an rough animatic created soon after.

I have also wrote down a two page long list of tools and the effects i can introduce to them, allowing me to play around with other random objects and have a lot of fun doing so.

A couple of sketches...

Here are some sketches of a few ideas touched up with some pen :P

Below is a picture of what i would imagine the - Rubber band hacksaw to look like, along with a generic screwdriver.




The following sketch is of a drill and all the strange things i can replace a normal drill bit with, some being better then others, i think i'll make a long list of tools and how they can be adapted, to help me with testing, experimentation and the actual film.

Feedback!

Helloooo. Today i had my first tutorial with Chris Shepherd, yes the television/film director and he helped me alot with my ideas, as did the whole class. I found that most people felt that my first idea about the workshop was the better, so i think i shall start focusing on developing this idea. I also found that trying to create a narrative for the film will probably be the best thing to do, so i'm going to start sketching and begin storyboarding tommorow.
Below are a couple of the topics and things that i feel i can incorporate into my film to make it more understandable;

The idea of the technician following a blueprint; either a normal simple guidline / instruction blueprint or a blueprint created around the use of the tools and what happens when you use them.
I like the idea that the blueprint could be a simple set of instructions to build a shelf for instance, the worker then discovering that its not so simple with the strange tools he is given to try and complete the task.
- Everything he uses does what he does not expect.
- Start testing; this was bought up in conversation and its definatly what i plan to do, thursday i shall have a talk with the technician, book the stop motion bay and start testing hopefully early next week.

Think about what the overall goal is at the end, think about the actual ending.
Take a look at an actual workshop, sketch down ideas - measure the space in the stop motion bay.

Someone also suggested the combining of both ideas; this i feel is worth taking a look at.

So there you go, sketches to be done, rough storyboard to be created, a few tests to be carried out and alot to think about.

Lewis :)

My two ideas! :D

Below is a description of my two ideas i plan to develop for my final animation, at this point in time i'm not sure which one i will be choosing and i'm still not sure if they fully make sense....

1st Idea
My first idea was inspired by "Western Spaghetti" by PEZ
It shall be filmed in the form of stop motion with pixalation.
It is about a man working in his workshop, a wood workshop, his daily routine of sawing, drilling, glueing, nailing, hammering e.t.c. We see shots of him carrying out this work, but instead of the ordinary happening, such as when sawing a piece of wood, usually sawdust will form and fall from where the saw is cutting, but a change will occur so that instead of the audience seeing sawdust full, confetti, or some other object will take its place; falling to the floor.
Another instance of this would be when drilling a hole in a wall or a piece of wood, instead of bursting a pipe and water appearing and spraying out the hole, some other liquid or object would take its place such as rope or a continuous flow of skittles.
This will occur with other equipment and in a few different instances, i was also thinking of changing the look of some of the tools, such as removing a blade from a saw and replacing it with an elastic band, so it then transforms the tool, which will still cut through wood but in real life it would never be able too.
I feel this would be alot of fun to do, but i am not sure if there needs to be a direct narrative associated to it and at the moment i am still not sure about how it could end, would the worker be puzzled/surprised? or would it be an ordinary event for him? Do we actually need to see the technician/worker?


2nd Idea
This idea was inspired by an image i found on the internet, which i shall bring in next time.
It shall be filmed in the form of Stop motion mixed with flash and video.
This idea is about the creation of a strange form/monster/creature in a laboratory.
It shall begin with a series of events triggered by a lab technician knocking over something as he leaves for the night, which then knocks over something else, similar to the short scene in "Which Way is Up?", this will eventually knock over some test tubes / vials / chemicals which will then react to one another creating a sort of creature which 'may' be developed in flash. This then wanders around the lab testing and tasting all sorts of other things such as chemicals, tablets/pills, toxins, acids e.t.c which all change its form in some way, increasing its size, the number of eyes/teeth/feet it has and rearranging its features e.t.c.
Eventually it will come across something that will destroy/kill it, leaving the end of the film for the technician to enter back into his lab to find the mess created by the short lifespan of an accidently created creature.

I will need to do some research on laboratorys, to create the setup of the room as how you would see a laboratory, with vials and test tubes and other things placed about the room and desk.
Again i will develop this more and may have to build more then one set, due to the smallness of the stop motion rooms, to create a sense of the lab being bigger. I feel it would be great fun to try and create the atmosphere of a lab, setting up vials, and creating that chain of events that leads to the creature being born.
As i said i am thinking of using flash for the creature, feeling that it may be easier to morph and change the creature using flash rather then creating a sort of armature, although modelling clay could be used? I am still unsure about this at the moment, would it work that well if made in flash?
Obviously it would be best to draw up a storyboard for this, to see how it will be laid out and to look at timing and of course think about how i want to film it and if i do need flash.

So these are my ideas, i shall be developing them, sketching ideas down, choosing one, and hopefully soon i'll have a rough animatic up on here.


Lewis :)

My first blog

Hey, my name is Lewis and i am an animation student studying at the UCA university in Maidstone, i've never got round to creating a blog, but felt that my end project was probably the best place to start before i graduate and begin searching for a job.
I have completed a few animations, some being better then others, some working better then others, but i feel my real passion lies in 3D stop motion animation, i enjoy this the most.
So thats me, a happy animation student, working on his final project, i shall try to post on here every time i've done some work, just a brief overview of my thoughts and feelings throughout this final animation.

Below is an animation from last year, i have completed a couple more since, but i still feel there need to be changes done to them.



Lewis :)