Animation first Session

Today we had our first animation session so we just had a play around with everything to see how it worked. We were using XM2 cameras to take pictures and 'I can animate' software. We used toy animals and a power ranger in our animations we made- it is very hard to make a character look like it is moving properly when it is made out of plastic and can't bend it's knees!

Our films are quite crude but they helped us get an insight into how the software worked and also how long it might take us to make something decent! The video below is about 8 seconds long and it has  98 frames so I will have to do a lot of frames to make my final animation 20-30 seconds long. Also it will take more time to make because I will use different camera shots in it and not just have the camera static like in these films and also have to make a background amongst other things.

Decisions...

As it is so early on in the project I am not sure what I am going to do my animation on and also what style I am going to use when making it. 

I could do simplistic and fun characters like Reynaldo Vaisquez Rodriguez...

Or I could sew my animation with colourful embroidery thread like Emma Ferguson...

Or my narrative could have a fashion twist similar to Coco's work...

Or my animation could have a serious meaning incorporated in it like Raphael Vicenzi's work...

To many decisions to make at this moment in time. I think I shall go have a listen to the song again...

Leah Chun

Leah Chun has made a few animations that I thought were quit interesting. I like how he varies his techniques in them.

animation 1

In this one I like how he uses paper to construct a lot of it- this links back to my previous project.

animation 2

I like his use of sewing and fabric in this animation. The song used makes me think of nature so I think he choice of song works really well with the narrative.

animation 3

This is my favourite one of his animations. I like how he has used a real background then animated over the top of it. The animation goes really well with the background and it looks just like it is actually happening. He must use some kind of software for his animations like After Effects

Inspiration from... A Music Video!

The animation in this film was made by Shotopop. Their studio is a shipping container on the shore of the river Thames!!
I thought the animation fit really well with the band and the song. I liked the dark colour scheme and the strange narrative of a bird falling in love with a balloon. It was intriguing and made you keep watching because of the absurdity of the narrative. I want my narrative to be really random also.

More research on stop motion techniques

I didn't like the bit at the start when they were saying what you need to make a felt bunny but I thought the bit when they actually made the bunny was a interesting way of showing instructions. And of course I was in love with the bunny!



Again I was taken aback by the cuteness of this video! This was someone's first stop motion too which gave me more confidence about doing my own as I have never done one before! I liked how this video was short but sweet and didn't drag on. It fit really well with the music too.



I included this in my research because I love how this is shot. The lighting is really thought about and I think it adds more to the video for example, when the sewing machine's internal light is on so that some bits of the machine are lit up and it makes a black outline around the shape of the machine.



Different technique used- cross stitching. It was photographed every time she added another stitch!



I thought this stop motion was interesting as it included lots of different techniques in it such as photography, sewing, typography and drawing. The transitions were varied and unusual, they must have been made in after effects or some other animation software. I liked how all the techniques would merge together for instance, having a photograph in the background and the hand drawn writing going on top of the image. This was completely different to everything else I have seen so far. I liked various things about it but it would have been better if there was more of a narrative to it, I didn't really understand it at times but I thought it looked good.

Researching experimental stop motion techniques- sewing

I came across these 2 videos and was amazed by them in particular the last one. I understand how they were both made but they must have took ages- I watched a video on how they made the advertisement and there were over 10 men making it!
The advertisement looks very professional but I like the organic and rough qualities that the first stop motion has too.
After seeing these I am quite interested in making a stop motion using sewing techniques to see if it works well.

Rayograms- First Photography Session

We had our first photography session today on Rayograms. We got shown how to make one from a photo negative and also by just putting the objects on the photo paper. We were then shown how to process our photographs the traditional way with the develop, stop and fix baths and also using a machine. Using the baths takes longer
I found it all really interesting because I had never done any thing like it before but it was a lot to take in!
Here are some words I remember from the session:
Aperture 
Focus
Develop 
Stop 
Fixer 
emulsion
Resin
Fibre paste
Negatives
Waterfall
Exposure
F stops


Next week we need to bring in some objects that we can photograph. So I did some research into rayograms for some inspiration.

These rayograms are by Liudmila Timofeeva. they were for a project called: Rayograms: lines, shapes and a little bit of mystery. 

I can work out what most of the objects are but there are a few I can't- I guess it adds to the mystery. I like how each object has different mid tones and has a completely different effect. I really like the effect the net makes as it exposes the pattern but not the holes in it.  I also like the spikey thing which I am guessing is some kind of plant (a dandelion maybe?) because I like how striking the bright whiteness is compared to the mid tones in the fossil leaf.

Here is also a slide show of some rayograms:

rayogram slideshow

This again gave me a few ideas of my own. A lot of the photos are composed well in the slideshow for instance, there is an image combined with appropriate text. I think they have photographed printed images and stencils too which make a more intricate image. 

PRINT TO PIXEL

Yesterday we started our new module, Print to Pixel. We have to make an animation 20-30 seconds long so I started researching stop motion. Here are a few of my favourites I found...



and



Both completely different but made using the same technique. I like the first one because it includes people and there is an obvious narrative to it. I also like how it fits with the lyrics of the song and the timing is really good- must have took ages to make!
The other one I really like because you don't know what they are going to draw next and it is more of a 'classic' stop motion. As in you can see when things accidentally show at the sides of the camera or if the camera moves slightly and I think this just adds character to the video.

Final Piece for Task 2

So, here is my final poser Design. I think I managed to get the balance between professional and creative just about right.
I am happy in the end with my type, even though it took me longer to sort my type out than it did to shoot and edit my photos.
I like the colour scheme- I did try black and white when I was trying different poster layouts but the image just looked uninteresting in black and white. The blue makes it more intriguing I think.

Photoshoot

I went in to university to photograph my poster design with a Digital SLR camera. I had never really used one before so it took a lot of playing around to work out what settings I needed to use. I changed my white balance too as I wanted to see what different effects I could get. I started to get this blue tinge to my work and really liked it.

I also changed the lighting to see what difference this made to my photographs. I decided to have all lights on in the end and also used a desk lamp to shine from behind to help light up the detailed numbers.  Luckily I had helpers!

I had decided beforehand I wanted my work in either the bottom left or right hand corner of the frame but I tried different positions too and also some close ups. 

Too dark- can't see numbers on the boxes.

Too bright and blurry

Too dark!

I also thought I would photograph my sculpture to see what it looked like hung up. I thought it looked quite good and I would have probably used it for my poster design if we were allowed to! 

Black boxes

These are unedited photographs of my final piece. I just used my desk lamp and a bit of paper to photograph it so tomorrow I am going to photograph it properly at uni. I think the black looks the best- it is a good job I tried different colours because at the start I was just thinking I wanted white boxes. My paper is 180 gsm so the detailing doesn't look as fragile on these boxes. 

At first I didn't think the black would photograph as well because the numbers weren't as close but I maneuvered the light a bit to make it shine higher up and that seemed to work! 

Need to make sure I get my light balance right tomorrow!

Lighting and view experiments

I experimented using different light sources for example, red and blue fairy lights. I liked the effects the colourful lights made but I am not sure if they would work for the poster as it needs to look professional. 

I then tried shining different types of lights through the individual numbers- I thought the red light worked particularly well for this. I like how when you take a photograph through the number you can see the number on the other side, shining light through the number makes a good effect which would work well for my poster.