Production Diary 4 - Adrift - (24/10/2016 - 30/10/2016)

INTERIM CRIT

• Make beginning clearer

This was something that was my main question when entering the crit session and as I expected there were people that struggled to understand the basic narrative. The problem being with my narrative is that it is a major point to get the factor of suicide right or the whole animation will be wasted. So, I'm really going to make sure this is solidified before going ahead with any animating.

• Look up a few different techniques

I've been told to look at 'PaperPanther' and Monty Python techniques for some inspiration for my animation and I'm going to blog about these when I research them. This was helpful as I was a still a little unsure as I've never done stop motion with paper puppets before.

• Decide on materials for puppet

The materials for my puppet is definitely something I need to look into as my next task and I'm thinking of experimenting with a few different things such as card and watercolour paper.

• Look at some foley sounds

Foley sounds are something I didn't know if I wanted to include in my animation as I didn't want to lose the effect of the song, however if it's necessary for my narrative then I will try with and without in post-production.

BUILDING TOM

Before I make my real puppet I wanted to try out a rough one first just so I can make my final puppet really well and understand how big I need each part to be. Below is my puppet cut out into bits.



Next I stuck everything together with white tac after I found that's what Paper Panther animated with.

I then decided I should do a little animation testing with my puppet to see how he moved, this has been done on an iPad app so isn't the best quality.

I really helped me doing this little tests so I could start to get my head around how many frames are needed for what type of action. Some I tried on ones and some on twos to see how my puppet would move as well as moving the limbs around. The main thing I found with the white tac was that sometimes when you'd move the limb it would slightly move back as the white tac isn't as malleable as I would have liked. I think next I will try and use split pins as well as a different brand of white tac to test my different options. I also found that I made the biceps of my puppet a little too curved and I might have to make a few different biceps for when he moves his arm up and down it will change shape.

Paper Panther - Research

As part of my research I wanted to look at the process of a paper stop motion animation and a great modern example would be The Rooster, The Crocodile and The Night Sky (Barley Films 2008). I have found on Paper Panther's website the whole process they go through to get the final animation and it was a great inspiration for my own project!

Here are the initial paintings of the Rooster character as you can see they've different colours and designs for it's tail and facial features before they came to the final design.

I found it really interesting how they still did action sheets of the Rooster even though it will be a puppet that they can make do any action. However, I feel that it helps the animators to get a better feel of the kind of character it is and I want to create action sheets before going ahead with my astronaut character.

Here are the prototypes of the Rooster before they made the final character and I really love the different colour palettes they have tried here! This has inspired me to try different colours and textures with my own puppet before I make the final design.

Here is the Rooster in motion!

Here is the rough and final design of the Crocodile, I really love seeing the initial design and the final puppet side by side. You can see all the different joints in the crocodile's tail and his head appears to be two separate parts.

They have actually planned out the action of the stretch here and I want to do a similar plan when Tom the astronaut jumps out of the spaceship, this way I can get it right instead of guessing when I come to animate. Below is the final animation they created!

By looking at this process for this paper animation it has helped me see that I'm on the right track, however I want to establish the actions and my materials a little better. As you can see this is not all of the development they went through to come up with the final characters and it has helped me understand that this process is lengthy and it can take a lot of trial and error to get the puppet to move in the right way as well as getting it to look aesthetically pleasing. They have used white tac for their puppets, which they explained on their website and I want to try this technique for myself instead of pins.

Responsive - Thinking About Briefs

For the responsive brief I ave to select one main brief that I can focus on and then smaller briefs to look at on the side. The main brief that I'm looking at is the LoopdeLoop brief, which I like as it is quite creative and the competition on this website is quite high. I want to challenge myself so I feel that this would be the best choice for this, as well as looking at how I might plan out an animation that loops.



I've also looked at the 11 second club, which is very open and doesn't actually seem to have an particular theme. This is very free and creative meaning I can do any idea that comes to mind and in any medium, which might be good if I want to try and experiment in different mediums without worrying about the theme too much.




Do it in Ten is something that I have entered in the past, and I really did enjoy this one as it gives you quite a specific brief to follow (10 seconds and a theme). This is something I would like to consider but as I've done it before it might be the least challenging to me, instead of trying something new. Another positive point about this brief is that your work gets lots of publicity on the Show Me the Animation's social media pages ect.

For my main brief I am thinking that I want to go for LoopdeLoop as it's nothing like I've done before, looping an animation. I want to wait possibly for the next brief to come out and work on it over the Christmas break, this way it gives me lots of time to work on it instead of going for the 'Breakfast' brief that's already live. I want to go for more animation based briefs rather than ones that are more design based as I feel it will give me a better experience in my animating.

Production Diary 3 - Adrift - (17/10/2016 - 23/10/2016)

This week I have also sourced my music by getting my friend from Leeds College of Music to perform Space Oddity by David Bowie, here is the preview of the song.



For my final shot I want to have a famous galaxy as the last thing the audience see, so I have been looking at different galaxies that I could paint. I want it to be a really beautiful last shot so that it contrasts the narrative.

Here are my final storyboards for my animation before I began making my animatic. I am happy with my shots in this storyboard, however I feel that if I would have chosen a different medium I could have had more creative shots and framing. Using papercut I can only really shoot from above and this limits what I can do.

I also made a colour script, which I felt was necessary as I am having to paint all of the scenes by hand. By having a solid colour script it allows me to plan all of the paints and backgrounds I need and how big they need to be before actually making them. I decided to do this digitally as I would then be able to have multiple copies of it incase I get any copies messed up from using them when painting. I feel my colour script is a little plain but the good part about it being digital is that I can always go back and change any colours I dislike or decide to change around.

Character & Narrative - Final Animatic from Stacy Straub on Vimeo.


Here is my final animatic above and I am actually very happy with it! I am ready for my interim crit on Tuesday and the main thing that I want to ask about is if the narrative makes complete sense and if there are any shots that people could come up with to maybe strengthen the narrative even more. My only criticism for my animatic is that some of the shots are a little too fast, however I can always review what people thought about this in the crit.

Production Diary 2 - Adrift - (10/10/2016 - 16/10/2016)

As part of researching into space I took out a book on NASA Art and below are some images I took from it that inspire me and inspire my project.

 

Looking at these different pieces of art has helped me as I am going for a traditional looking style in my own animation. I want to use oil and acrylic paint similar to some of these pieces above.

I also developed my character a lot this week, I looked at different shapes that I could use to piece my character together and tried two different styles. I decided that going for a rounded, square shape would be better as I want my character to have a more 'innocent' and weaker impression rather than a 'strong' and macho character which made more sense for my narrative.

Soviet Space Suit Inspiration

I also looked at different designs for my spacesuit but after asking other people opinions, everyone's favourite design was the yellow spacesuit. This is an old soviet space suit and to get my ideas for these different designs I looked at old spacesuits from Nasa in the past to get a more retro aesthetic to my character.

Here is my final design for Tom, the astronaut, however my next planning will have to be a few more drawings of how I am going to create Tom as a paper puppet and trying out different methods of how I want his limbs to move. I am thinking of sewing his arms on so that I will have lots of movement and his arms and legs will still be quite stable. Below is just a quick concept piece I drew up when thinking about Tom floating in space. Also, I now need to draw up my final storyboard which I want to have ready for Tuesday's session!

Production Diary 1 - Adrift - (4/10/2016 - 9/10/2016)

For the first part of my project I began to make mind maps of my different ideas, this helped me ration down what I liked. I knew from the beginning that I wanted to use paper animation as my method so this helped me decide what ideas would work. Here are some moodboards that I made when generating my ideas and finding inspiration.

My 'World' Moodboard

My Spaceship Moodboard

My Astronaut Moodboard

I began drawing pictures based on one of the ideas that I liked which was adrift, a spaceman lost in space, which inspired me to take the idea further. Below are some images of my ideas.

Above I got a friend to pose in different positions so I could start to visualise the way my astronaut would move.

This is a quick painting I did to start looking at the different backgrounds I want to create.

As this brief is heavily about narrative I wanted my narrative to be solid and interesting, while keeping it simple, so I came up with the narrative of a spaceman who is on a journey that fails, then he decides to just drift off into space as he accepts his fate. Here is my rough storyboard, I just got some shots down that I thought were interesting.