Thursday 28 June 2012

Today's session

Today, we had to finish of everything; our animation, and our research report.

We also had to type up an evaluation of our group animation, talking about how we came up with our ideas, how it links to 'The Bovine Histories' and what we think went well, and what we think we could improve on.

Suprisingly, I also ended up finishing my individual flash animation aswell (with alot of help from katie). it was really important that all the girls from redland finish everything today, because this is our last week at fairfield until next year, because next week, is our work experience, and then the week after that, it's fairfield's. so we will be at redland then.

Thursday 21 June 2012

Today

Today, Jess and I Finished the script for our animation, then went into the audio lab (because it was quieter) to record it. Surprisingly, this took us a very long time, because we had to get each line exactly right, ready to be put o the computer.

Then, we went upstairs into the art room, I used Mr Gove's computer, because it has audacity, to combine all of our clips. First I did the Jump sound scape, This took me ages to layer up each section, then add different effects, such as Eco, and change the tempo of each different part. The only other two pieces I had to do after that were much simpler, I only needed to cut them a little bit, and now that I had more experience of audacity, it was allot easier to accomplish.

Thursday 14 June 2012

Today

In today's practical session, I had to take pictures of the Illustrations from last week, and import them into premier elements, I then combined the images together, and added a Live camera effect, so  that the image shakes a little.

I then worked with Katie to find some music for our final piece, and we put the pieces of our animation so far into premier elements.

I like our animation so far, because the mix between computer animation and live drawing is really interesting, because you then know which parts are flashbacks, and which aren't.However, I am unsure that when our animation is complete, that people will understand the link to 'The Bovine Histories', because we have changed it so much from the original story.

Wednesday 13 June 2012

Last Week

Last week we got all of the things that we needed for our practical animation week, including:
-charcoal
-graphite
-tracing paper

Me and Jess developed our images for the flashbacks, and made copies of them, so that when combined, the image will look more animated. Katie was also progressing her running sequence, and combining it with an eye sequence she had created before.

We also had a visitor this week, she asked us lots of questions about the Bristol short story prize, and about everyone's different techniques, because she didn't really have much experience with our line of work.

Wednesday 30 May 2012

Last Lesson

Last lesson we had to catch up on pixilation animation, because the redland students weren't in the week before, so we made a quick pixilaion animation, so that we could try out lots of different methods of animation.

After that we had to continue with our group flash animation, so while Katie is busy trying out the running sequence on her tablet, Jess and I work out some of the backgrounds, and shots from the flashbacks.

Thursday 24 May 2012

Pixilation

We didn't have very long to do this, because all the redland students were out last week when we should have done it, but today, we made a pixilation animation. It's a bit like stop-motion, but instead of trying to make inanimate objects look real, you have to try and make animate objects look distorted or unrealistic, bby making they do things that they wouldn't normally be able to do.

First we set the tripod up inside, and just practised the basics (people walking around, and passing each other). but then we went outside, and we decided to be more creative, for example making people look as if they are walking through things, or gliding over objects.

If you want to show someone walking forward, like in the beginning of this animation. You have to start someone from far away, and take a picture of them, then they have to walk forward a small amount, being careful to stay in the same position, and then you take another picture, and so on and so forth.

We then came back upstairs, and each edited our own version of the animation using premier elements, and added music (sorry its really annoying after a while). This is my edit:

Thursday 10 May 2012

Video

This is our stop motion test video, we used a special camera, specifically designed for stop motion,and linked it to our computer. Once we had created our characters, and props for them to use, we would place them in their starting positions, and took a picture of them, then we moved them a tiny bit, so it didn't look too sudden of a movement. We then took another photo of it, and so on and so forth.

In the film, a ball flies around the set, we did this by attaching the ball to a piece of string, and just taking the photos much faster, because it is hard to control the ball, when its dangling from your hands.

Stop Motion

Today, for our stop motion workshop, we had to create an animation in our groups, that was similar to the kids T.V show ''Trap Door''. our characters needed to be simple, otherwise they wouldn't fit the brief, and would be extremely difficult to manoeuvre.

We used Plasticine that started out very cold, and difficult to mold, so we warmed it with our hands, and eventually, were able to create our desired characters.

We also used wire in our models, because if we didn't use it, then our models would have fallen apart half way through making the animation. Luckily, this didn't happen to us, so we finished quickly.

Then came the laborious task of shooting our animation, we had to set up our windows live cam on the tripod, and set up our characters. when we had to move a character, we could only move them a small amount, then take a picture using the ''Stop Motion Pro'' software, this took an incredibly long time, but eventually we completed it, and the results were very satisfying.

However, we are not going to use Stop Motion for our adaptation of ''The Bovine Histories'', because the characters that we need are far too complicated to mould, and Flash animation can present the required results.

Thursday 3 May 2012

Today's session

In today's session, we had to storyboard ideas for our individual flash animation. It could be on anything, so I was a bit stuck at first, but eventually I came up with an idea where two people are playing on some swings, and one of them falls of and starts rolling down a hill.

I finished all my planning, I did my initial ideas mind map, my storyboard, my character descriptions, and the short summary of my animation in word. After that, I started to create my animation, I havent really used flash berfore, and I found drawing even the background hard... but eventually I got the hang of it, and finished the first shot.

Wednesday 2 May 2012

Animation Review

http://vimeo.com/16381483

 I thought that the animation above was really well made, the fact alone that it was really long was amazing, but it must have taken ages to create, considering that it was stop-motion.

 When I first saw the shaddows of the people making it in the film, I thought that they could have edited that out, but then I realised that they add to the story and make the character seem more real, it also gives the audience a taste of how the animation was made.

 Below the animation on the website, there is a list of everything they used to create the animation, and i think that is really nice, because people feel they know more abut the video, rather than just watching it on a screan.

Last Session

 Last session we had two different workshops; one from Ben, the head of The Bristol Short Story Prize, he was with Ian, author of 'The Bovine Histories'. They were there to go over our initial animation ideas, it was Ian's first time meeting us, so we got to ask him any questions about the story, and the style or theme of our animations.

 The second workshop was with Sam, a proffesional animator. He started by showing us some clips from films with different genres, so we could see how storys can be told in different ways, and how the style of film can change everything about it. We then got into our animating groups, and he gave us all the same scene, but each group had to storyboard it to a different genre, so they all ended up being very different. Our group had comedy, and it was atually alot harder than I thought it would be, because it's very hard to be funny on purpose.

Thursday 19 April 2012

Research Report Ideas

For my research report, I am going to study Rotoscope, where you take live footage, and add another layer on top, so it looks like a cartoon.

If I have time, I will also be studying Stopmotion, and Claymation. where you take toys, house hold objects, or clay, and take lots of different shots, so when you put them all together, it looks like a film, because your eyes cant register the different clips as they move so fast.

Baaa, By Cyraik

The video Baaa, by cyriak, is really admirable, because the time and detail put into each individual sheep, is extrodinary. It must have taken him years just to learn the skills needed to produce something of such high quality.
CGI animation is a very valuable skill, because it takes a very long time to learn, and the quality of work produced can be amazing. Most modern animation uses CGI technology, this is because the images that are created, can be extremely detailed, so companies like Disney Pixar can create a furry animal that has each hair move when it does, or a tropical ocean, where each individual fish, and each individual scale is designed.
M,ost of Cyraiks films start off simple, but as they progress, the intentions become more and more complex, it starts off with just sheep duplicating (which in itself is difficult), but then the whole construction of the sheep changes, the may have seven legs on their face, and heads instead of legs, they may shed their skin, or start to fly, but all with the original qualities that a sheep possesses.
If I could create a CGI animation for my final piece, I would, however the skills are too complex to learn in twelve weeks, and I am not much of an animator myself, so I am afraid I will have to stick to flash, which has a lot more of a basic layout, and is easy to pick up the skills need it to use well.

New assignment

Today, we have been set a new task, complete with deadlines, for the Bristol Short Story Prize. We have to create a short animation, on, or based around the prize winning story.
The story is called ‘The Bovine Histories’, and is written by a man called Ian Burton. It is about a ‘kow’ who is taught the histories of their kind by Harthor, the keeper of the ‘kow’ histories. Harthor chooses ‘Kow-one’, because she can remember, a skill which none of the other ‘kows’ have acquired.
We were given a copy of the text, to annotate. We had to decide which bits we thought were suitable to animate, because animating the whole thing would take forever. This also gave us ideas about how to produce this animation, because it didn’t have to be written as the exact text, it could be just loosely based, or interpreted in your own way.
Subsequently, we were put into groups of three or four (mine is Katie, Jess and I), and we had to brain storm ideas for the animation on a mind map. Eventually, we decided that we would change the characters of the ‘kows’ to humans, because having cows talking in an animation may look a bit childish, and people will find it easier to relate to humans.
We also decided, to change the setting to a kind of post-apocalyptic abandoned city, where resources are low, and women are treated like livestock, cheap and disposable. Most of the ‘Kows’ believe that they live in heaven, because they are lead to think that they are by Stickman, who overrules them. But ‘Hathor’ knows the truth, and divulges this information to ‘Kow-one’, who will be the new ‘keeper of the histories’

Thursday 22 March 2012

This Week

Today, I finished editing my film, because I had all the rest of my footage, and had converted the music file so that it was compatible with the premiere pro software, we also started some of our post production work, including starting a press release, and finishing of my poster, Mr Gove also did a workshop with us on how to persuade someone to watch our film, so that this could help us with our post production work.


After lunch, we watched some of the films, so that we could peer evaluate them, we then set our self targets on what we needed to achieve by the end of today's session.

Last Week

Last week we continued to edit our videos, I had lots more footage, so I had a lot more editing work to do during the day, like cutting my clips, and adding transitions.


I also found some music which I downloaded and added that to my film as well, the music is really good, because it goes really well with my video, and it is the right pace. 

Thursday 8 March 2012

Today



Today, we had to start editing our available footage, unfortunately bot everyone had footage to edit, so we either helped each other, or went out to film. I only had a small amount of footage to edit, so after I had done that, I went into post-production, and started work editing stills from my film, and editing a final poster for promotional material, I ended up with this, but I haven't finished it yet, because it doesn't have any writing on it yet:

Thursday 1 March 2012

Today

Today, Mr Gove is out with some year nine students, so we have to finish of all our pre production work, and our blogs. We also have to upload our footage into Adobe Premiere Elements, and beginning editing our film. However, for some reason or another, my computer wont let me do that, so i am just starting my post production work instead.

Creating Our Presentations

Last week, we had to finish, and present our presentations for our film ideas. We had to make them interesting, and innovative, so that the examiner would mark them highly, as they were being filmed.

My presentation included the trailer for the film that inspired my video, and some interesting facts and ideas. However, I could have engaged the audience more, and used more technical terms, like camera angles, and specific destinations here i was filming.

Pre-Production

We had to complete detailed story boards, which clearly showed what our film would entail. we also had to include any sound effects, camera angles, music and dialogue that we would use in each shot, so that we would know in future, just exactly how we wanted our film to look.

After that we had to complete a filming schedule, so that we would be reminded of when, where and what we would film. we also had to write down who else would take part in the filming process (cast, or any other camera crew members).

Thursday 9 February 2012

Redland

Today we are at Redland, because Fairfield is closed for an inset day. So we have to finish of our pre-production work, work on our presentations, an keep our blogs up to date.

The pre-production work, involves writing up our film ideas, in detail, so that we know exactly what will happen and when, what camera angles we intend to use, and which music we might want in our finished film. We also have to finish our SWAT proposals, which are similar to the film idea sheets, but we have to write about the strengths and weaknesses of our film, and factors that could potentially cause our films to fail. Finally, we also have to write and finish our story boards, where we have to write and draw up what will happen in each shot, but also what music, dialogue, movement and camera angles we will use.

We have to create our presentations because we need to show them to the class, so that they can understand what our film is about, and why we decided to make and design them. from there they can then decide which films they believe will be most successful, and they can chose the ones they would like to see made. fortunately, we have a very small class, so all of our films will get to be made, but the presentation process is important, because it gives us a chance to understand what it is like to pitch and present a film to a room full of people who are not only judging your film, but you as well.

Thursday 2 February 2012

Today's Session

Today, we have been filling out the story boards for our films, which included things like how long the shot would last, and what camera angle to use.


Then we had to write on these sheets explaining who we were going to cast in our films, what locations we would use, and the equipment we would need. We also had to sort out a schedule, so that we know what we are filming and when.


This is an advert from the film that inspired my video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bT_UmBHMYzg

After we finished all our pre-production work,  we had to create our presentations for our films, so that we can present them to the class, and they can decide which one they think is the best idea. luckily we have a small class, so we have a chance to make all our films if we want to, or if we don't want to make out films, we can help someone else with theirs, and edit their own version.

Wednesday 1 February 2012

Last Week

  Last week we had to fill in all these different sheets about our three potential films, from what they were actually about, to who we would cast to be in these films.  Then we had to right down the strengths and weaknesses of the videos, and why they could potentially fall to pieces.

 Finally, we had to write up a formal proposal for our favourite film, this included everything from the other sheets, but also things like camera angles, and potential music choices.

Thursday 19 January 2012

New assignment


Last year we did some work with Electric December, from taking pictures for the website, to planning and hosting the actual launch event. This term I will be starting a new assignment, where we have to design, create, shoot and edit a film for Electric December film festival.
Before we make a film, we have to come up with a suitable idea, and pitch it to the class, so that we can get an outsiders opinion on the film, if they like the film, we not only have to make the film, but we also have to go through the long process of post-production. We have to edit the films, to make them flow really well, add some music if it needs some, and even create promotional material to go with the film.
To help us with this assignment, we will be using unit 02- Communication techniques for creative media production, and unit 05-Video production. The latter is self-explanatory, but the first unit will not only help us with our pitch, but it will help us to communicate with the audience of our film.