LO2 - Planning my final animation

Roan Planning and development

Final animation

This is my final animation. To create this I mostly used paper a camera. I had to decide what the characters were going to do, so I imagined two phones in a teenagers room. Now there are many places where they could hide or mess about with so there was a lot of possibility.
The backgrounds for the animation are relatively simple, they may only contain a wardrobe or a bed but for the short time they are on the are simple and effective. The scene where the characters play cowboys and native Americans shows my liking for the toy story films, that is why there is that short scene with a bit of the Bonanza music.
The second to last scene was definitely the trickiest. For that one scene alone I occupied 6 meters of table, used at least 14 sheets of A3 plain paper all drawn with a 360 view of a teenagers bed room. I then animated the characters and the cars across the background whilst moving the camera between shots. I used some limited animation to make the scene last longer so that it didn't go straight into the crash with the wallet. After animating I recorded a voice over which went on top of the video. The main strength is that it was relatively simple to do but it did take over 3 collage days to complete.

Claymation

  This is my claymation animation. To create this is very simple. I was first given some fake eyes, then some plasticine. I created some silly characters and thought up what they could do. Then like all animations I arranged the characters, took a shot and repeated the process. After which I put all the images together and created a voice over thanks to a Dictaphone. I put the voice over on top of the video and hey-presto the video is finished. The main strength is that it is so easy to do but the main weakness to the lighting in the video shows the curve in the paper, this stops the illusion that the characters are in there own world.

  Now the difference between this and my lip sync animation is that I recorded the sound after the video was edited and not before. It is however difficult if you want one of the characters to specifically say something if you are recording the sound afterwards. But with that point in mind I do prefer this style of animation to lip sync.

Lipsync

This is my lipsync animation for the phrase "Frankly my dear, I don't give a dam." A lip sync animation uses substitution. You can change the mouth shape for another according to the phonemes. The technique to this is to make almost a time chart for each word and pick out each phoneme. An example of phonemes is "F-ra-nk-ly my de-ar", they make up the rhythm of each and every word. Once you know the phonemes you can make the mouth shapes to go with them. For 'ra' the mouth would be open slightly and close together at the sides. After all the mouths are labelled you put one on the character, take a shot and repeat with all the mouths you have created. Finally in editing you time each frame to fit the phrase. A strength for this is that it adds atitude to your character but the main weakness is that it takes so long to do. It takes more time to plan than to shoot.

Slow-in, slow-out

This a timing exercise to help with speed of actions or motions. The main technique is the line that isn't visible vertically across the screen. On this line there is more lines that are horizontal with certain intervals. You place the circle on those lines individually and you take a picture. The main strength is that it is so simple however it is difficult to put the circle on the line exactly as it came from a hole punch.

My Monty-Python style animation

This is the first animation that I created myself so it is a little sketchy. To make this animation I had to cut out the mouths of the tuneless, idiotic West life wannabes. After which I moved there mouths and took a photo, I then repeated the process. The main strength is that it is so easy to do. The main weakness however is that the video moves a bit fast. The other problem is that there was meant to be a soundtrack to this video but I did not arrange my time correctly and it never happened. It would have added some rigidity to the video and it might have made sense.

Our pixilation

This is our pixilation. It is the first animation we created so is a little weak. How we did this was to get someone to sit down, take a shot. Get them to move their hand, take a shot and so on and so fourth. It is relatively simple to do but it does take more time than you would think. However it is fun to see the ideas that people come up with, diversity can lead to brilliance. Shame not on this one. I personally think that if the video  had a purpose it would make more sense.