Thursday 5th December 2013

Test Shoot

Today I did a quick test shot of one of my scenes. I wanted to test to see if I could make this section of the animation believable as well as to get a rough idea of how long the scene would last. This also helped me to get an idea of what settings I should be using on the camera for the outside scene (providing the weather is similar).

I put the completely wrong settings into the camera and this was the outcome so I knew I was doing something wrong and definitely needed to change the settings.

After a quick change in settings I got this image, however this image was a bit too dark so again I change the aperture. This time to 1/1000

This image was basically my ideal settings, the aperture was at 1/1250.

Although the above image had the settings I wanted I changed the aperture a bit more just too see the outcome. This image wasn't that bad but I still preferred the previous image as it wasn't as dark on the edges.

Settings I used were 1/1250, F00 & ISO 800.

Once I had gotten my camera settings to an ideal quality I began my shoot. Because I was only really focused on seeing the outcome of the scene I didn't bother doing various camera angles and just stuck to a wide shot. In my final shoot I plan on using a variety of different camera angles in each scene but for now it's just the one.

I completed the shoot fairly quickly taking roughly 100 images and batch processed them to crop each photo to 1280 by 720 pixels. After that I then imported the processed images into Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 to create a short movie clip.

This is the test shoot. The duration came to about 17 seconds which is a very good duration for this scene. I don't really want to exceed 20 seconds during the final shoot as I feel it may last a bit too long if it does.

Wednesday 20th November 2013

Preproduction Planning

My idea

The idea I have decided to go with is that a person has being 'taken captive' in a sense. They have found themselves in a corridor with various doors on either side and then they receive a text message. Looking at the message we can see it describing that the character has been placed in a corridor with various doors to walk through, however this is not an ordinary corridor. Each door has a random location on either end and all doors that the character will encounter will also have this same effect. The goal for the character is to go through one door, complete a specific task to escape the room and eventually reach the exit. Each area/room has a door to go through, though it may not always be visible. Once they complete the task and go through the door, they will be taken to another room/area.

Storyline

Character standing in a hallway, looking confused about their whereabouts. Receives a text message stating: You have been placed in this hallway and are required to find your way out by accomplishing each task within the 3 rooms. The character can’t move forward without completing each task. Character finishes reading text and begins quest to find the way out.

Goes through first door and found themselves inside a standard room, however there is a task written on a whiteboard that the character must complete to return to the hallway. Door locks behind the character to ensure they must complete the task. The character reads the task and as each word is read it rubs off of the board. Task – Go from the spot you’re standing to the door in the middle of the room without touching the floor. Character accepts this easy challenge and begins to fly across the room easily accomplishing the task. They then walk through the door in front of them and it teleports them to another location.

The door takes the character outside this time. Receives another text message and this time it explains the requirements to advance to the next room. Task – Get to the door ahead of you. Though this seems to be a rather easy challenge very stormy winds occur which make it difficult for the character to move forward. As the character traverses through this field in an attempt to get to the next room, they are constantly pushed back. After sometime of walking against the wind they just about make it towards the door and climb through.

Now in the third and final room the character faces their last challenge.

Thursday 14th November 2013

Ideas Generation

Today I began writing down my thought process as I thought of an idea for my stop-motion animation. I decided that I wanted to do a pixilation as I feel most comfortable with this form of stop-motion. So I began thinking of what the story in my animation will be.

From this mind map I came up with 3 ideas. The idea I intend to use from this is the one where the main character has to navigate themselves through various doors and only 1 door will take them home. If they fail to find the correct door they will be trapped with no means of escape. Each door will take the character to random place and they will need to find the way back. However finding the portal back to the main area will not always be straight forward.

This idea stems from the TV show Takeshi's Castle. In this show, contestants play a variety of mini-games that they need to win if to advance onto the next round. There is a mini-game called 'honeycomb maze' where contestants have to navigate themselves through a maze whilst a couple of people attempt to stop them. Only one door will be the exit, the rest lead into water. 

Takeshi's Castle - Honeycomb Maze

To help me out with various details of my animation I had a look a various animations. The first animation I looked at was one themed around 'Lost and Found'.

Lost & Found 

Although I don't play to use puppetry for my animation this was still a decent piece of work. The animation was nicely done and there was a good consistency regarding the lighting. However what I liked most about this animation was the usage of camera angles. There were a lot of close-ups with a faded background as well as plenty of wide-shots. This is actually quite useful as it has got me thinking of camera angles I could potentially use in my animation. Also really like how they began the animation with a few establishing shots showing the area for the rubbish.

Lost and Found 

This animation wasn't really too my liking as it wasn't executed as well as is it could be. The camera angles could have also been chosen better. However the usage of various methods of travel and exploiting what can be accomplished with stop-motion as a posed to live action footage has actually helped me. From phasing through a door to flying through the air there is a variety of methods of movement in this animation and it would be wise for me too use some of these techniques in my animation. I am definitely planning on using the flying through the air in my animation. I really like this method of movement in stop-motion and it is very easy to incorporate as well as execute.

Animation/Pixilation Short Film

This animation is really well done in my opinion. I really liked the concept and it actually inspired me to possibly create my own variation of using a similar idea. There was a good use of camera work during this animation, although I really dislike how erratic the camera is at the beginning of the animation. The lip-sync during the forest scene is also done very well which I could possibly try and learn and incorporate into my animation. Though this isn't 100% going to happen as it'll take time to get right and I'll need to practice this to see if I can actually do it.