Moodboards

The Box - Rough Storyboard Comics

The Box - Rough Concepts

Lifting Tower - Final Animation

Below is two gifs of the final animation! After showing Jimmy on the 17th November, he was very pleased with mine and Vlad's final outcome, commenting that he liked how smooth the animation was and that it was going to to work really well being projected. This was great news as it meant we were able to finish this project with plenty of time spare and finished with an animation that fit the brief. Overall, this project went really well as we were able to work as a pair with zero problems, we took Jimmy's ideas on board, like when he told us to make use of the window within the animation, and we finished the project with time to spare. I feel that using After Effects was the best method for projection mapping and this has been a good experience for me as an animator that doesn't get too involved with digital animating. I have learnt a little more about After Effects as well as getting to experience what it's like to work with a client and communicating back and forth the ideas and little tweaks. I am excited to see our animation projected onto a building in Leeds!

Lifting Tower - Production

On the 24th October, Vlad and I met with Jimmy with all of our ideas and he looked through our storyboards. He picked out his favourite idea, which is the storyboard below.

So, after meeting with Jimmy he explained the changes that needed to be made, which was that the Christmas pudding would have to be outlined in white and no use of the colour brown. He also asked us to consider using the window/door in the building in our animation so that it would be a little more interactive with the surroundings, so we decided that the balls in the first scene should fly out of the door to start the animation instead of the side.

First, we began by sending Jimmy placeholder images and Me and Vlad both drew these up in Photoshop, which would then later become the assets for the After Effects animation. We split the work loads and drew 2 each of the ideas. (Vlad drawing the Christmas pudding/snowflake and I drawing the wreath/ornament).

Above are my drawings, placed on the template given by Jimmy.

Above are the drawings done by Vlad, again placed on the template.

We then began to animate in After Effects! This was something Vlad and I decided to do completely together, as the animation had to flow seamlessly, we thought it best to animate together on the same file instead of going away and doing so individually. So, we sat together for many hours and put together the full animation based on both of our opinions and combined these to create each transition between our pre-drawn up assets.



Here we drew a path for the ornaments to follow, coming out of the door as previously planned. We made sure to create the animation using the template so that when projected it would work perfectly with the surroundings.



We used lots of motion blur to make the animation flow easier, as well as lots of rotations and fading in and out between each object.



The motion of the bow/leaves on the wreath and pudding were also precomposed using DUIK so that when put into the final composition everything was animated and not static, this made a much more realistic effect.



Light burst and ray effects were also used so that the animation would glow and look great projected at night time!

So, after getting all the basic motion finished it was then time to put any little finishing touches onto the animation, such as tweaks on the motion, following through action ect. And finally show it to Jimmy for his last check on the animation before submission!

YCN Briefs

Statement of Intent - The Box

For extended practice, I want to make an animation that will be at high quality in narrative and in my chosen focus (stop-motion). This way I will be able to end university with a film that can show off everything I have learnt along the way and something I can be proud of, so I have been coming up with a strong narrative that will hopefully relate to a lot of different people and possibly even help people who watch it. Creating this animation, will hopefully teach me how to create my own independent film, based off of my own narrative and how to carefully recognise each process of production, as when I leave this will be an important thing to have learnt throughout my time at University. For my COP, I am looking into the tactility and nostalgia that stop-motion brings, as well as the performance that can be achieved through stop-motion using different materials and even the most basic of those. So, the aesthetic of this animation I want to keep very minimal, yet still tactile. My concept for this module is a narrative based around feelings of addiction, uncontrollable feelings, betrayal, temptation, an affair or even struggles with mental health. I want to keep the interpretation of the meaning behind the animation very open so that more people will be able to relate to it. The hearts in the characters in this animation will be a very important factor as it will show their emotions and responses to their surroundings throughout.

Synopsis

The Box, is about a couple, Faith and Earl, who stumble upon a small box and decide to take it home. They both have in sync heartbeats and this is an important concept within the narrative. They sit with it in between them and start to open it when some strings come out of the box, the strings start to tickle them both and they’re quite excited by it as their hearts start to race and flutter. The strings grow and start to surround them and before long they go with the flow and lay down side by side, hearts still beating in sync. The next scene, Faith wakes up to find her arm has fallen off and picks up the box and throws it to other side of the room in disgust, her heart pumping with fury. Earl runs after it to pick it up again, still fully desiring what the box has shown him. Faith picks it up and throws it two more times before they’re both physically pulling at the box from either side, and eventually Faith gives up in defeat. She picks up her arm and leaves him with the box, knowing what he has chosen. Alone with the box, Earl opens it again and outcome the strings, although this time they get a little nastier. Each time he opens the box they take a little more and more of him, and the room seems to get darker and darker. On the final time, he opens the box again and this time they come for his heart. His heart at this point, beating very slowly, is weak and as they’re about to entangle themselves around it, Faith burst through the door. Earl’s heart starts to pick up at the sight of her and this is how she knows there is still hope. She runs over and pulls out some scissors and starts hacking away at the strings and Wilson starts to get stronger to the point where he can help Faith. Faith helps Earl put himself back together again and their hearts match up once again. Together they throw the box out of the window, only to be found by another couple and the cycle continues.

This is my basic synopsis for now, however it could change. My next steps are to fully begin pre-production.

Statement of Intent Presentation - Extended Practice

Lifting Tower - Idea Synthesis

After meeting with Vlad and sharing both our individual ideas, we began fusing them together to pitch to Jimmy on the 24th October. As our ideas were very different, we had a good variety of themes and narratives to choose from and decided on 3. We drew up three storyboards together, so that our pitch would be clear and concise and we would easily be able to show how we wanted the animation to be planned out. Below are the storyboards we drew up.





This is my personal favourite idea! I feel the merging images into Christmas objects is simple yet really effective!



I like all three of these ideas and once we decide on a final idea, we will draw up a full digital/colour storyboard to follow as these are only rough plans. I also thought it a good idea to come up with some colour palettes, as we have to consider the projection can only really show bright and bold colours.








Here are some of the colour palettes I have come up with to follow and I will show these to Vlad next time we get together to talk about our next plans. I particularly like the 2/3 palettes.

Projection Mapping on the Lifting Tower - Initial Ideas

For the lifting tower brief, I teamed up with Vlad to make an animation. It was advised we get into groups, and seen as though no illustrators seemed interested in the brief, I teamed up with another animator! We thought it would be best to start coming up with ideas individually before coming together and synthesising these, to pitch to our external client on the 24th October.



Firstly, I drew out the lifting tower and began writing down words that came to me when I thought about the theme 'Christmas'. This helped me come up with a variety of ideas, however I wanted them to be very simple, as the audience targeted will be transient. Very basic and bold colours will work best a well as geometric shapes, so I will keep this in mind when taking any ideas further.



Here are another two ideas I had, my favourite being the one with penguins as it involves comedy and I want this animation to be quite light-hearted and make people feel happy when they watch it.



Finally, here are another two ideas that I quickly jotted down, so now the next steps will be to meet up with Vlad and lay out both our ideas and hopefully come up with an idea based off either or any of our ideas! I'm thinking that the medium for this project will work best digital, possibly with After Effects, considering it will be projected instead of on a screen, I will discuss this further at our next meeting.

Loopdeloop - Reflection and Evaluation

Love is Love from Stacy Straub on Vimeo.

Here is my final animation submission for loopdeloop.

I'm very happy with how this animation turned out and it was my first ever claymation loop! I found it challenging to think of ways for the clay to flow into different colours/shapes smoothly. If I were to do this kind of animation again, I would put more time into the planning of the actual transitions, so that when I came to animate I didn't waste time trying to figure it out. I did cut out a couple of scenes, such as the DNA and the birds, as I felt that it was too many different ideas and the ones I chose to keep were enough to get the message across. As stop-motion is straight ahead, it allowed me to experiment as I went along and I was able to develop my creative skills with thinking on the spot. I improvised little details like the white spots and the spiral at the end, and played around with easing in and out. The main skill this brief helped me to develop was my timing, as I wanted the motion to be almost dance-like and surreal, so I combined quick and slow timings to achieve this. For future projects, this has allowed me to think more deeply about my timing in animation, and I want to develop this much further by continuing to create more animations like this.

Loopdeloop - Production Development

For this loopdeloop challenge the theme followed 'Love is Love'. I wanted to challenge myself to something I had never tried before for this brief and decided on something claymation that flowed and morphed into different objects/things.

I began with initial drawings and concepts around the idea 'Love'. I had quite a few ideas, however I didn't want to spend too long deciding due to the time frame of work that I have this year, so once I found a solid idea I liked, I dove straight in.

























I then drew up some ideas with watercolour.



And finally I came up with a storyboard, although I had never tried this kind of animation before I wasn't fussed if I cut out any of the ideas, if they happened to be much. I had the idea of two flowers, merging to form two fish, two hands, two birds and then loop.



I decided to also make a very rough animatic to follow, so that the animation flow would come out smoother. Even though this was a very small brief, I still felt that creating an animatic helped me plan out the movement of shots and without it, I wouldn't have been as organised or as successful.

Applied Production Diary - (15/5/17 - 17/5/17)

This week is the submission week and we spent it getting everything together and creating the DVD cover, finishing off the pitch bible and creating the press pack to submit to festivals.

I took the job of creating the press pack, whilst Emma finished off the pitch bible and Amy sorted the DVD case. I had actually never heard of a press pack before, so creating it was something completely new to me!

Here is what I created after we decided as a team what our house font would be.

I felt I didn't do too bad of a job at this and my favourite is the front page. Before creating that page, Amy and I went up to the stop-motion studio with a DSLR and took some really funky pictures of Louie to use as a cover and had a mini photoshoot. Below are the pictures we took.

I decided it was better to take dark pictures and then it would be easy just to lighten them in Photoshop, as sometimes if the image is too bright it's hard to edit.

These pictures were also really great for my portfolio as a puppet I have created!

Amy then made the DVD Cover and we put the products together.

I'm really happy with how these products have come out and I think they look quite professional. It feels strange to see our animation as a final product as I have never taken an animation this far before. We are now ready for submission!