3D Stop Motion

This project was a verrrrry long project, the longest I have done! Here's what we had to do..

We had to create a short animated film (no more than one minute) based on one of these themes - The Illusion, The Chase, The Experiment, Time or Relativity. 

We had to use 3D Stop Motion which involved using simple puppets and building sets and we could also include the use of any three dimensional objects manipulated in front of the camera.

So the first thing we did was pick out a couple of themes that interested us the most and research/find ideas for it as individuals to then come back together and discuss what we have and to chose a theme. This is what I found...

The Illusion 

- A distortion of the sense

- A distortion of reality

-Optical Illusions

- Auditory Illusions

-Tactile Illusion

- Visual Illusion (which is what we would aim for seeing as it is an animation)

Visual Illusion

Ventriloquist

Mime Artist

Magician

Optical illusion 

M.C.Escher's Ascending and Descending

"Visually perceived images that differ from objective reality"

Time

-Time Zones 

- Is a part of the measuring system used to sequence event, to compare the durations of events and the intervals

-Past, Present, Future

- Eternity

- History

- Futurology

- Spacetime

- Motion

- Space

- Event

- Continuum

- Time Travel

After a long discussion about what everyone had found out we decided to do the theme 'The Illusion'. We then each too some thing that we found and decided to do a rough drawing of a character for it. I chose the mime. I liked this idea and felt that we could do something quite simple but quite effect with it  and this is the character I came up with...

In the end the team decided on the magician, and so everyone again went about drawing quick rough ideas of what the magician should look like...

(see the next post for the rough drawings of my Magicians and the project continued)

Stoke Your Fires

Stoke Your Fires Wednesday 2nd March

Stoke You Fires was a film festival at Stoke on Trent

The day started off pretty poorly with viewings of the award winners films...animation and live action. Most of the animation films I had already seen at BAF in November and a lot of the live action films weren't the best films I'd ever seen. There were only a couple that I really enjoyed. The thing that made the trip were the talks following this. The first talk was a panel of people from the media industry all of whom had experience in the animation industry of which all had interesting and useful knowledge and experiences to share. They also shared with us the different jobs that can be gained from the industry that I hadn't known about before..and had not been told by previous professionals at previous talks. And the second and last talk was brilliant too..it was a man that was part of the company that made and created the alien Paul from the film 'Paul'. He took us through all of the stages of the process just as Paul Franklin, the man that worked on Inception, had at BAF but even more detailed. It was different too because with Inception the talk was about buildings and explosions etc but with Paul it was about making a supposedly living creature. 

Despite the bad beginning the middle and end was brilliant. However it was nothing compared to BAF and even though it was a lot cheaper than BAF it couldn't compare to it by half! 

Creative Futures

At University we have a 'Creative Futures Week' were all sorts of professionals from the Creative Industry came in and gave talks on what they do etc.... 

Monday 7th March 2011

To start it off we had a talk that opened up the week to all of the creative students which was followed by a talk by Barry Purves! The titale of his talk was 'Passions and a Passport'. I was very excited when I found out that he was going to be there having previously seen him in November at BAF where he presented the awards evening! He didn't disappoint..the animators. It seemed that he hadn't been informed that the students sitting watching him weren't all animators, in fact only a fraction were animators. Bracing the audience as animation students  he talked about his work on animation and where he got his inspiration from. Nothing that he said was to do with the title of his talk (well apart from the passion part..he has a lot of that!). From this I found out that he wanted to be an actor before becoming an animator, his main inspiration is from ballet, dance and theatre. He also gave some advice...every animator should try and learn to play an instrument. I really enjoyed his talk and found what he had to say very interesting.

'From Commercials to Feature Films: Life as a Professional Animator by Harriet Buckley'

This was the third talk of the day and the last that I went to. I really enjoyed it and found it as informative as some of the talks at BAF. Harriet Buckley worked on The Illusionist, a film I saw at BAF and loved. She took us through all the production stage, from the beginning all the way through to the end. She showed us this through images and clips making each change and stage really clear and easy to see and understand. She also talked about littler animations she had helped out in, for example on was of an advert for knife crime which used the same technique and style as BLU - another team of animators work of whom I had seen at BAF, which was stop motion of painted characters on ordinary walls in ordinary streets. In fact Harriet informed us that the streets they used were streets that had the highest knife crime! She also took us through the stages of this animation...from prep and research right the way through to the final outcome. 

Another useful thing she told us was what it was like living as an animator, what its like when getting a job, how to find work and what roughly to expect for different rolls within the animation industry.

Tuesday 8th March 2011

'Comics, Manga and Graphic Novels by Paul Gravett'

This was a bit of an eye opener, I had no idea about half of the things he was telling us about before! All the conventions, the comics and graphic novels. I didn't know that people were creating comics and putting them up on the internet, I didn't know that the man who created superman etc didn't have the right to it and didn't get paid any money from it (luckily this has changed since then). Even though I don't do Comics, Manga or Graphic Novels I still found this interesting and made me think that there are different ways of doing you're work and showing it to people rather than the conventional ways.

'Tiny Elephants, Stop Motion Animation Company - Three Years On by Linda McCarthy'

This was ok...Linda McCarthy is a ex-animation student from our university who has done a few short stop motion animations with a running theme. Its something that she did at University for her final film and since has made more improving on each one. Since leaving University she hasn't made a penny from creating animations but has entered into numerous animation festivals including BAF..of which she was successful with. 

Wednesday 9th March

'Computer Games - Concept Art and Illustration in the Entertainment Industry by Lee Carter'

Lee Cart is also a previous student from the university from many years ago. He showed us a number of different projects he has worked on, unfortunately he didn't have enough time to show all that he wanted to, which I found kind disappointing as I would have loved to have seen some more. A lot of what he showed was concept art that he had done, mainly for characters in games. It was amazing and the quality of work was mind blowing. I thoroughly enjoyed this talk.

BAF Saturday 13th November 2010

And so the last day of BAF arrived! I was a little said that it was over but relieved as I knew that the next day I would be able to catch up with my sleep with a long lay in. 

First up was...

Ray Harryhausen

'Ray Harryhausen, who celebrated his 90th birthday in June, made his name by developing fantastic animated creatures based on legends and classical mythology. He created a unique body of stop-motion puppet animation seamlessly with live action cinematography through his innovative technique of Dynamation. His films captivated generations of audiences and his methods inspired present-day film-makers such as Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Peter Jackson and Nick Park.'

Clare Kitson - The Documentary Way

'Animated documentaries go back a long wa, through early examples tended to have a propaganda bias (viz Windsor McCay's Sinking of the Lusitania). John and Faith Hubley were perhaps the first to use authentic recorded dialogue, in their films documenting the fantasies of children at play. In this country, BBC Bristol commissioned the Animated Conversations (1979), which included two films by Peter Lord and David Sproxton, using that same techniques. When Channel 4 was set up, its first Chief Executive was inspired by these, and commissioned a whole series from Aardman (including On Probation), intended to grace the Channel's first week on air (but in event marking its first anniversary).'

After seeing Clare Kitson - A Caring Eye I was dreading this one. Again this showed me that animations can be serious and put across strong messages as well as being entertaining but this didn't entertain me at all and I found it very uninteresting and so I found my mind wondering away from it. This was the most boring thing I had seen in BAF.

The Illusionist

'Fed up with performing to two old ladies in a dusty old theatre, a Parisian magician take the chance to travel to Edinburgh to try his luck there. On the way he make unlikely friendships, and picks up a companion who believes that his magic is the real thing. This gorgeous, old fashioned and almost wordless animation is fine family entertainment, a love letter both to Edinburgh and to film itself. It's perhaps proof that some elements of cinema are timeless.'

This film was excellent! Was beautifully made and very well done. The story was very clear and easy to understand although there were hardly any words said in it! It's style reminded me of the old Disney films and took me right back into my childhood which was lovely! I would love to create or be a part of a team that creates a piece of animation so beautifully like this one day. It certainly was a breath of fresh air from all of the computer CGI animations in the film industry  at the moment.

Secret of Kells

'Over 1000 years ago, in a remote part of Ireland, 12 year old apprentice monk Brendan is living quietly within the fortified Kells Abbey. He should be hard at work defending the fort, but is more interested in working on a beautiful illuminated holy book written in magically glowing ink. This luscious animation is perfect for the under nines.'

Whilst watching this film I was transported to another world...or so that's what it felt like! I got completely lost in this film and it is absolutely beautiful! I could watch this film over and over again. 

BAF Awards

And then finally we had the Award ceremony where the awards where given out and presented. 

Overall I really enjoyed BAF, I learnt a lot and gained a lot of knowledge on animation and it's industry. It was a big eye opening and I found it very informative and a lot of fun! It was well worth the lack of sleep and money, and I look forward to it next year too! 

BAF Friday 12th November 2010P

After having the late night previously I was shattered the next morning but this didn't dampen my excitement for another day of BAF 2010! 

Up first was..

Channel 4's Clare Kitson - A Caring Eye

'Channel 4 was set up, in 1981, by an Act of Parliament which incorporated a very special set of instructions. The programming was to be innovative, challenging and appealing to the audience hitherto not well served by television. While many programmes were entertaining, entertainment was never the prime motive. Issues, big and small were tackled by all departments, animation being no exception.'

Whilst some of this was very interesting and intriguing the rest was quite dull and not very interesting at all and after a while I turned off. What I got from this was that animation can be used for more than entertainment and can be used to put across a message quite powerfully in a way that people are made to think. 

Paul Mendoza from Pixar!

'Paul has been in the animation business for thirteen years. He was influenced by Miyazaki's early films as well as the early disney films, to pursue animation as a career. Paul studied at Academy of Art University in San Francisco, and was subsequently hired by Pixar in 1997 where he has worked on nine films, including The Incredibles and Ratatouille, and was an animation lead on Cars. He is currently working in pre-production on Pixar's 2012 release, Brave.

Paul will talk about how he came to work at Pixar, his experiences at the multi award winning animation studio and look in detail at the production pipeline. He will also talk specifically about his work on Up and then open up for questions from the audience.' 

Gary Jackson from ScaryCat Studio

'ScaryCat Studio celebrates its 10th Anniversary this year and Gary Jackson joins us for a model making seminar, looking at various stages of the process from production, through to rigging and post-production considerations.'

From this talk I found out that model making wouldn't be something I would go into. Although I found it very interesting and informative I was just a little bit to complex for me to understand it all! And apparently he didn't go into detail!! After a while of not understanding the technical side I switched off, although I did find the transitions from character design/ drawings through to the real physical model very interesting. From this I learnt that there are many things that need to be considered when making a model for a stop motion animation!

Goodbye Mr Christie

'Dir. Phill Mulloy, UK, 2010, 78 minutes. 

The Christie's live in Wellington Green, a picturesque English village with a church, a pond and a cricket pitch. Outwardly  Mr Christie is a perfect gentleman. Inwardly he is a selfish arrogant monster. When the whole world sees him on television having sex with a French sailor, his life is changed forever. Prepared to be shocked. This film will take you from the leafy garden suburbs to hell and beyond.' 

Wow! I didn't so that coming! When it says be prepared to be shocked I didn't think I would be that shocked! This film is like no other that I have seen before. Its really silly and crazy, not something I would opt to see if I had the chance. I would see it again but only to make sure that I did see what I did and that I wasn't dreaming. It had people in the cinema laughing....whether it was a nervous/shocked laugh of if was a genuine funny laugh I don't know. The style didn't take my fancy but it definitely suited the story. 

What an end to the day!

BAF Friday 12th November 2010

After having the late night previously I was shattered the next morning but this didn't dampen my excitement for another day of BAF 2010! 

Up first was..

Channel 4's Clare Kitson - A Caring Eye

'Channel 4 was set up, in 1981, by an Act of Parliament which incorporated a very special set of instructions. The programming was to be innovative, challenging and appealing to the audience hitherto not well served by television. While many programmes were entertaining, entertainment was never the prime motive. Issues, big and small were tackled by all departments, animation being no exception.'

Whilst some of this was very interesting and intriguing the rest was quite dull and not very interesting at all and after a while I turned off. What I got from this was that animation can be used for more than entertainment and can be used to put across a message quite powerfully in a way that people are made to think. 

Paul Mendoza from Pixar!

'Paul has been in the animation business for thirteen years. He was influenced by Miyazaki's early films as well as the early disney films, to pursue animation as a career. Paul studied at Academy of Art University in San Francisco, and was subsequently hired by Pixar in 1997 where he has worked on nine films, including The Incredibles and Ratatouille, and was an animation lead on Cars. He is currently working in pre-production on Pixar's 2012 release, Brave.

Paul will talk about how he came to 

BAF Thursday 11th November 2010

Having had an excellent day the day before I was really looking forward to this one...

Professional 2

Love & Theft

Dir. Andreas Hykade / Germany / 2010 / 7 mins

' "And I'm still carrying the gift you gave, its a part of me now, it's been cherished and saved, it'll be with me unto the grave. And then unto eternity" (Bob Dylan)'

This animation was amazing!! It was of many different faces and characters changing and transforming into a different face/character. It had a selection of different music and plenty of life to go with it! The style was very clean and simple which suited it perfectly! It took me away and I got lost in it! This is something that I would love to try and do.

Zero

Dir. Christopher Kezelos / Australia / 2009 / 12 mins 32 secs

'In a world that judges people by their number, Zero faces constant prejudice and persecution. He walks a lonely path until a chance encounter changes his life forever: he meets a female zero. Together they  prove that through determination, courage , and love, nothing can be truly something.'

This was a nice animation, had a really good message to it and it portrayed emotion really well. I love the style of it and I enjoyed watching it.

The Cow Who Wanted to be a Hamburger

Dir. Bill Plympton / USA / 2010 / 5 mins 50 secs

'A children's fable about the power of advertising, the meaning of life, and ultimately the test of a mothers love.'

I wasn't very keen on this one for a couple of reasons. To start with I didn't like the style/ aesthetics of the animation there was something that wasn't very appealing about it, it may have been it's harshness and secondly I didn't like the sounds used for the cows...this was also very harsh especially in a cinema with loud speakers, it all made me feel very uncomfortable. If that's what it's aim was then it worked! The story was ok but wasn't exactly gripping. Not something I would watch again or use for inspiration.

The Thomas Beale Cipher

Dir. Andrew S Allen / USA / 2010 / 10 min 10 secs

'Professor White, cryptographer extraordinaire, is on the trail of the notoriously uncrackable Thomas Beale cipher - a century-old riddle hiding the location of a fortune in gold that has tormented its pursuers since inception. But White is not alone - shadowy faces are tight on his tail.'

I absolutely loved the style of this animation, I felt that it was very visually exciting however the story didn't grip me and I was bored within 2 minutes. 

The Little Boy and the Beast

Dir Johannes Weiland / Germany / 2009 / 7 mins

'When your mother has turned into a beast, a lot of things change ...'

This animation was great! Heart warming, funny and a little sad at times. I loved the style and the story was really good, quite strong I felt. I thoroughly enjoyed watching it and I would definitely watch it again!

The Bellows March

Dir. Eric Dyer / USA / 2009 / 5 mins

'Crowds of concertians live out a cycle of destroy-create-destroy. The film is a contemplation of the destructive and expressive potential of humans, and observes these extremes as an eternal cycle. Dyers 3D printed, hand painted, spinning cinetropes are sculptures that come to vibrant life when seen through a video camera shutter.'

This is a great animation, showing just how complex and abstract an animation can be. I loved the concept and kept me fully entertained , this I felt  is a great example of  large scale movement. 

Teclopolis

Dir Javier Mrad / Argentina / 2009 / 12 mins 10 secs

'Old magazines dance gently in the wind, a super-8 camera crawls over a wooden table while an old caroet flows in and out. A whole civilisation is running towards its inevitable destiny. Plastic waste has reached the point where not even the most distant beaches are safe.'

I loved the style but I got bored by the idea and the story. It was pretty amazing seeing normal everyday objects being animated though!

Journey to Cape Verde

Dir. Jose Miguel Ribeiro / Portugal / 2010 / 17 mins

'This is the story of a sixty day long walk in Cape Verde. No mobile phone, no watch, no plans for what to do next- only the bare essentials in the backpack. Our traveller explores the mountains, the villages, the sea, a talking tortoise, the goats, the music, the dry haze, the people of Cape Verde and an essential part of himself.'

I absolutely loved the style and whole look of this animation and I found it very in keeping with the story. This was a truly beautiful piece to look at, however I did get a little bored as I felt it dragged on for a little too long!

Paul Franklin: Inception Visual Effects

'In early 2009, director Christopher Nolan invited Paul to supervise the visual effects for his new film Inception. Paul was with the production every step of the way from pre-production through to the final delivery. The end result is one of the most intriguing and visually spectacular films to hit cinema screens in 2010.'  

This was amazing and I was glad to be there to see it. Before this I had no idea as to the extent of the amount of work and different processes a film like this would have to go through in order to have such amazing visual effects in it. I learnt a lot from this talk and if ever I do get into this business or kind of work it would be amazing! 

Tim Searle

 Have I Got Some Clips For You:

UK Animation and Why I Love It So

' "I've been involved in UK comedy animation for over 2 years and this is a talk with an assortment of clips. If you're not an animator, I hope by the end of this session, you will have had a not-too-heavy introduction to our world - if you are an animator, I aim to remind you why you bother with it!" ' 

This talk was very interesting and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was nice to find out a bit about the UK animation industry as many things we have seen were from other countries. Tim Searle is a very entertaining and funny man and it was great to have him talk to us about himself and his work.

Metropia

Dir.Tariq Saleh / Sweden / 2009 / 80 mins / (15)

'Metropia takes place in a not so distant future. The world is running out of oil and the underground train systems have been connected into a gigantic subway network beneath Europe. Whenever Roger from Stockholm enters this system he hears a stranger's voice in his head. He looks to the mysterious Nina to help him escape the disturbing web of the Metro, but the further they travel, the deeper he's involved in a dark conspiracy.

On the coach in the morning we all had a vote as to stay later and watch this film or not. We had already had quite a long day the day before and an early start to this one with 2 more long days following it.In the end the majority voted to watch it and although a little hesitant at the beginning I was pleased that we did. This film was nothing like I had ever see before and the story was brilliant. I took my eyes a while to adjust to the funny people..their head being bigger than normal in proportion to the rest of their bodies. The style of this animation really set the mood for the film and I thoroughly enjoyed watching every single bit of it.