Victorias... post refferal stuff

Oh well ive almost met the criteria for my final major project.

here are the things that I forgot to do..
Ive posted the into the correctlocation on my blog ( in red ) and also here for convenience.
The stuff i've added will make more sense in the correct location.... but here goes nothing.

1. Notice the dodgy scene where Alice has no head. rectify it.

been done... here's the link   final major project - on youtube

2. Evaluate the dodgy scene.

here's the evaluation

One of the problems I had regarding the specialist factors of my animation was one of the shots camera angles. There was a particular scene where Alice had to walk to the mushroom. I found very difficult to get a shot that included the whole of Alice without the caterpillar showing as she was a large character and I found that moving the camera back resulted in the area surrounding the scene to be visible, so I made a decision to just include part of Alice in the shot.

The reason that the caterpillar could not be seen was because he wasn't meant to appear in the story until a certain point. On reflection I suppose I could have just removed him from the mushroom, but I felt that that would be strange because it would appear that he had appeared from nowhere and I didn't want the viewer to be confused. 

The result was that the shot appeared to be an accidental error because Alice's head was missing, this was not the case because the shot was filmed like that deliberately, however, the shot looked really unprofessional so I decided that I would make a change to it so that Alice's missing head was not an issue.

Here is an example image from the scene in question, you can clearly see the issue with Alice's head not being in the shot.

One of the solutions I thought about was to ditch the shot completely. This shot however was vital because it showed the transition between Alice's Location at the front of the scene going into the scene. If I had of left it out it would have confused the viewer as it would have made Alice seem to have appeared from nowhere so this was not an option.

I thought about increasing the size of the scene so that only part of Alice was visible. As the original images for the animation had been downsized appropriately for the animation. I had access to larger images. At first I tried to make a new avi with the images from that scene in the program Monkey jam but at a larger scale so that if I was to increase the size of the clip in the video editing software it would not look pixelated but i found the size of the files where so large that they caused Monkey jam to crash or not build the avi correctly. As an alternative I used the video editing software adobe premier pro to increase the size of the existing video and move it around so that only Alice's feet where in view. This did not look perfect and considerably reduced the quality of the clip, but it looked better than before and more importantly it didn't look like a mistake.

I was not satisfied with the quality of this part of thew animation I think it looked terrible But I had to base this decision on what the animation would look like as a whole and not just on the one scene.

I felt that the animation in its entirety looked better after I had made this alteration than it did when the shot looked dodgy.

 

Here is an example of the rectified scene. As you can clearly see the quality of the shot has been reduced.

So heres the comparison between the before and after shots of that scene.

Understanding why the first scene was bad helped me to make it better.

Changing it also helped; as it was a speicialist factor. I decided on

Keeping the images in this scene. It was very helpful to me as it saved time.

It was not poissible for me to animate again because my models had broken.

Now I look back at it I can see how unprofessional it looked.

Giving it that extra thought improved the whole animation.

Even though I had problems with this particular video clip redoing it

Gave me an insight into the day to day hell pros go thru to achieve

Greatness when it comes to animation. And I hope this experience will

Serve me well in the future.

3. Include examples of my primary research 

Even though I looked at primary sources to gather research for my project, I did not include examples of that research.

Part of my research included me watching stop motion animations with a similar target audience to mine. I watched them to find examples of visual language that had been used in those films to help me find out what was suitable for my target audience. The visual language I was looking for in the examples where what colours where used and if there was any relation between use of colour and target audience. I researched this to help me solve a problem I had deciding on what colour hair my Alice character should have.

I looked at the hair colour of female characters from these stop motion animation films.

• Coraline from the film Coraline
• Sally from the film The nightmare before Christmas
• Lady Tottington from the film Wallace and Gromit, the curse of the were rabbit.

Here are the original screen shots from all the films

Responding to the primary research

After I looked at examples of the hair of female characters from stop motion animations I put the pictures to together and made notes to see what comparisons they had, if any.

in response to this I discovered that the tone of the hair for female characters from stop motion animations with a similar target audience to mine was never a bright in your face colour it was always a subtle tone. Even lady tottintons hair which is the brightest of the 3 is not overly bright.

I used this information to help solve the problem I had with choosing a colour for Alices hair that would be appropriate for my target audience.

I used a subtle tone for alices hair based on what I learnt from this research.

4. Screenshots and research response to primary research -  nausicca storyboard

Primary research

I was able to get some pictures of the primary research That I had gathered by playing the dvd on my laptop and taking screenshots, they were much better quality than taking pictures from the TV.

Responding to primary research

After I had looked at the animated storyboard from the film nausicca of the valley of the wind, i put my screenshots together and i made notes on it to help with the development of my own animatic, and storyboard.

Things that inspired me from the reserach

• instead of actual movement lines were drawn on the storyboard to give the effect of movement.
• the drawings just contained enough detail to show what was going on.
• storyboard contained several veiwpoints, not just from a front angle.
• images only changed when the veiwpoint changed

In response to this research I decided to use the inspiration that I recorded above in my own storyboard and animatic. I used lines for movement an example of this is when i used lines to show that Alice's head was turning round. Some of the drawings in my own animation just contained enough detail to show what was going on like in the nausicca storyboard. I made sure the viewpoints were different not just one throughout and I only drew one image for every viewpoint.

5. Pictures of references from the book the complete animation guide and responses regarding building the armature.

 I did this but unfortunatley it wasnt on  the link I sent to the teacher. I think this was either because I didnt publish the post,  or because I remembered I had forgotton it at the last minute and added it in later. Regardless of the reasons here it is again.

Before i made the armatures for the characters I looked at a book called to help me with making them correctly in previous animations i had made my characters were unable to walk properly so i thought it was important to look at this speicialist factor to ensure that my armatures where built correctly this time. more importantly my alice character ad really skinny legs and needed to be able to stand up so i found an example of how to make the armature for a skinny character so that it could stand and move correctly.

here is an example from the book that shows how to correctly make the armature with drill, i used the same method of placing the wire in the drill to twist it. the book says to use 3 peices of wire together for added strength to the armature to prevent it from breaking and i only used 2 in my last animation i felt the armatue was week and parts of it broke off. I decided to follow the example from the book and use 3 peices of wire this time.

This part of the book I read shows how you can join parts of the wire armature together.

I made a few alterations based on what equipment I had available and what was affordable to use for instance I used the glue gun to glue the wire together instead of polymorph. i found that before the glue dried completley i could press it around the wire so that when it dried it held it firmly in place.

This reference shows how to use tools correctly to make a wire armature for a stop motion animation character. I shaped my wire into a similar shape to the reference in the book using the same tools as in the book (pliers) to make a frame for the rest of the body. the book really helped to show me the specialist factors or how to use the tools correctly to create an armature.

This paet of the book shows how to cover an armature. I covered my own armature like the one above , I did not use the same material because I had none available, cost was an issue also. I used tape but I followed the tehnique used in the research. it was important to cover the model so that I could add the modelling material afterwards and adding the tape helped when it came to adding the other material to the armature.

alice covered armnature

here is my covered armature, before i added the model magic i used model magic because it was light and wouldnt weigh the model down, the only part that needed to be heaveier was the feet so I put plasteine on the feet before covering with model magic this also helped the character maintain a grip when standing.

here is the model complete before being painted, on top of the wire armature i have created using these references.

finding out how to make the armature proparly helped extend my creative ability when making armatures which was part of my own brief, as they were much better quality than i had made previously