Animating to script. FINAL!!!

aaand that's the final piece! Enjoy.

Animating to script. 3 "The Green Room".

By the third week we have finished all the necessary preparations for capturing animation. The sets and characters were built.

On Monday we have been shooting the lab scenes and left the outside scenes for Tuesday. Due to the fact that I did not made in time to sew the coats for other two yetis. We were also lucky enough to get an extra day in green room, due to the fact that other group did not manage to finish  their preparations. Our motion shots were finished in three days.

We actually found extremely hard to animate Dave. Because his head was too heavy for the armature to hold so he kept falling all the time. Not even plasticine and blue tack didn't help. But instead we had to bend him all the time so that he could balance the weight. 

After capturing all the motion shots we had  a 1.5 weeks to finish shooting and go on editing. Starting from Monday we set up the lights, which was rather hard. We needed to achieve the same light effect as in the green room. Matt was kind enough to let us borrow Kino light for that. But still you could tell the difference. That week was intence. Again many problems occured during the shot: the table shook (we started over), Dave was falling over, I've accidentally tripped over the camera and etc. One of the challenging things was to imatate the break of ice block. But this challenge did not stop us finding a way to make it break.

Some pictures from the green room:

Animation crew.

Close-up on the set.

and ACTION!

Ewelina giving thumbs up.

Me and Luisa animating party scene. 

Through the camera.

Running out of the elevator.

CELEBRATION.

Yeti eating scientist's hand.

Lab's magnificent specimen.

When we started the editing process we found out that we've missed couple of scenes and had to set up all of the equipment again. I'm glad we left a week on editing or else it would have been a pain in the ass to do everything the last minute.

That's the end of our 5 week stop-motion project and we celebrate it with:

Animating to script. 2.

Second week of the project. This week we spent finishing two sets (lab, mountains) and all of the characters ( yeti, 2 scientists + two other yetis)


On monday we've had a milo workshop and thought that this project is an awesome opportunity to gain some knowledge in camera usage, lighting, and add some spice to our animation. :D So in the end, the green room was booked! For three days.
This action added a water to the fire, because we have only ONE WEEK to finish all sets and characters.

Schedule update:
2 week - finishing the set, characters.
3 - 4 week - capturing motion scenes with milo, other scenes with simple camera.
5 week - editing.


Over the weekends I managed to buid three armatures. It's a shame I forgot to record the process.
Some pictures of this week's process:

Oh, wait! I have a photo of the armatures! But it's the only one I got :D

The planning of a huge mountain.

Afterwards - armature padding.

With a pair of scissors and magic you can create amazing characters.

Attaching hands to yeti.

Animation crew at work.

Girls found a creative approach to creating a mountain.

 All these car sponges gave a volume to it.

View from the back. MY CEREAL BOXES! :D

Next they glued the brow paper we stole from students of the theatre couse.

Final piece! 

Later we glued pices of cotton pads to create the snow.

Lab in progress.

Tammy painting lab equipment.

Tony bringing trees to life.

Christina has sculpted awesome plasticine heads for scientists.

Ewelina has also sculpted amazing replacement heads for yetis.

Luisa - the responsible lab constructor.

To sum up, this week proved to be very intence. Not much problems occured, though. But which did were neutralized. Everyone were dedicated and reliable. And we are ready for next week's animation shooting.

Animating to script. 1.

This week we were given a task - animate to script. Finally!!! There were four scripts to choose from. Our decision stopped on a script about the scientists and yeti. It's a challenging script, becuse it involves many characters and yeti, who should berather big. As a result, the scale of all sets  increase.
  The main story is about two scientists working in a lab analyzing a block of ice they have found in the mountains. When suddenly one notices a blink in the ice cube. Then the ice cube starts to crack, until it finally shatters. Two scientists start runnig towards the elevator pushing each other aside. 
When elevator's doors open both of the scientists run out. While runnig past the mail box one (the fat one) stops to check mail and starts to browse. Tall scientist pushes him to start runnig further towards the forest. Where they stumble in to other yetis'. When scientists' turn around they see the first yeti approaching and realise that they're cornered. Then two yetis' pull out party hats and a "Welcome home, Dave!" banner. Dave pushes scientists aside and goes to hug his friends. And they live happily ever after.


Schedule for this task:
 1 week - planning, designing characters, storyboarding
 2 - 3 week - start building the set and characters. We hope to get them done in two weeks
 4 week - capturing ainmation
 5 week - editing.


We also made a list of characters:
2 scientists (tall and short)
1 yeti (or maybe 3 more).


Sets:
Mountains
Underground lab
Elevator
Forest.

Reference:

"Monsters Inc."

Gossamer

We have decided on the size of  the characters. My task for the weekends is to construct the armatures for two scientists: one tall (about 6inches) and the short one (3-4 inches) and yeti (8 inches).

Armature

This week's task was to build an armature for a puppet. I must say that this was my favourite assignment so far. On monday Ben spoke about armature constuction, explained do's and don't's. Basically, he covered pretty much everything. I've decided to make something as simple as possible.

Reference:

http://stopmotionben.blogspot.com/search/label/armature

Second step - tools! It was actually a bit hard to decide on them since I was not sure what kind of armature I'm going to build. So I only got the necessary things: wire 1,5 mm (of course), thin wire (for the hands), miliput,  PVA ( I have no idea what for) and foam.

Also a superb video reference I found on youtube. I've used it as an example and started moving on from it. 

Process:

Firstsly, I started to twist the wire to make the armature stable.

I've made the separate parts: hands (one long wire), torso ( a short one) and agian a long one for the legs. Then attached them together. I didn't use any glue, because the wire was perfectly holding the constuction.

Attached the head ( umm..) and cut off the unnecessary bits in its legs. Twisted in the shape of feet. I was surprised that the constuction was steady.

Now time for the hands! I didn't find the thing wire the same colour as the tick..oh well. I've started bending it in the same shape as hands.

Twisted  fingers. Ouch!

Wraped the hand again with wire and attached to the armature.

Finished Armature:

Yeah! I like how the arms have turned out.

Sculpting

For the third task we had to design and develop a character model head sculpt.  Plus this design will also need to show at least 3 different expressions. Last but not the least, the heads have to be photographed from various angles (Side, Front, 3/4, Back).


Later that day Ben showed us the making of puppets for the "Coraline" animation. The amounts of replacement faces are stunnig. Adults can really bring puppets to live! I was so impressed with the movie, that I've chosen a small girl design for the sculpting process.

For my reference I've looked at fary tails with small, adorable girls. No, I'm not a maniac!!! I came across this animation by accident, it's called "Masha and the Bear" - nostalgic. 

Continuing with the fairy tails: "Alice in Wonderland" and "Red Riding Hood" illiustrations.

Process:

Equipment:

Modelling Clay (air dry)

Stick

Ball

Crafting tools

Sponge (to keep the clay wet)

Sanding paper.

Next step was applying modelling clay on the ball. This way the sculpt will much lighter, all heads will be the same size and save up a lot of time.

After I started building up the facial features of my character. But I left the mouth for last.

Time to make her look like a girl! I've been changing her hair design loads of times.

In the end I've decided to cover the rest of the head with a hood. But still she was missing something - ears. It still needs time to dry, after that I'm going to use sanding paper to make the surface even and smooth.

Sculpted Replacement Heads:

Okey, my first  plasticine head attempt. Looks weird. I should have tried different beeds for the eyes.

 

Moving on to actual sculpts. This was the first modeling clay head. It was kind of straight forward attempt.

Second sculpt. I wanted her to look rather evil, she turned out to be grinning. Children usually look harmless, but they are little devils.

The last one. Probably the least favourite as in the photos as in life. The expression I wanted her to show - sadness. When I started applying hair the expression faded and she ended up looking intimidated.