Section One: Influences, Research, Sources and Ideas
The starting point for this project that inspired me to pursue animation for my final major was the song “Come Along” by Cosmo Sheldrake as the song has quite a whimsical yet eerie tone to it, helping to create vivid imagery. The overall vibe of the song reminded me of the film “Coraline” directed by Henry Selick, about a girl who discovered a secret door to an idealistic world far more exciting than her own. While being creepier in style than I intend my final major to be, “Coraline” uses traditional stop motion animation to bring to life the characters, the same type of animation I want to use for my story. The behind the scenes of “Coraline” were a helpful insight into how creating a stop motion is done on a larger production scale, giving helpful tips of how to construct both sets and character.
Section Two: Major Project
After planning all the storyboarding and creating the characters, I struggled to come up with a title for my animation and decided to go back to “Come Along” as a source of inspiration. Due to it being the piece of music I intend on animating to; I needed a title that not only fit the message of the song but also the meaning the animation is going to convey. The general themes of the song are about mortality and to seize the day by going on an adventure. Most of the lyrics in the song are references to poems and novels of a similar tone, which touch on the same sort of ideas. For this reason, I have decided to name my project “Come Along” after the song as it represents the idea of adventure yet leaves it open to the imagination. My goal is to produce a stop motion animation based on some illustrations of characters I had drawn. These characters will be made into models which I can move and take photos to create the video. I intend on presenting it digitally, perhaps projected onto a screen or if we are able to have an end of year show, construct a circus tent environment to project it into.
Section Three: Techniques, Processes and Timescale
In this project I will be using a range of different techniques and processes to produce my final major. To start with, I already tried experimenting by trying both 2D animation and Stop motion. I have some experience in stop motion animation and have experimented with using 2D animation by drawing out each frame by hand. Stop motion animation requires a larger range of techniques and proceses to produce the sets and characters than 2D due to the latter only consisting of drawings. The possibilities for stop motion animation are endless, with any materials being able to be used to create the objects that appear in the filming. If I decide to produce a stop motion for my final major, I will have to factor in how much time I will spend working on the characters and sets as it will be quite time consuming. I think it would be best to shoot whole scenes in the same amount of time if possible, rather filming them at separate times, risking accidental movement of the set or characters, causing the animation to be inconsistent. This project is going to involve a lot of sculpting and model making due to the fact I am going to be creating all the sets and characters myself, the sets are going to be mostly made of paper mâché, to make them more light weight and easily movable, with some of the finer details sculpted in clay. I've found that this might be the best process to go with as some of the models I have made in the past used these materials worked very well and were strong yet not too heavy. After watching some youtube videos on constructing animation armatures I have decided that the character models will have simplistic wire armatures with clay on the solid parts of the body while the exposed wire at the joints will allow them to be posed and positioned. This will make for a smoother animation if the characters stay in place when they are posed and will help me create smoother movements.
Section Four: Review of Work prior to the Major Project
One of the challenges I am currently facing with my work is being unable to work at college due to the country going into lockdown and having to work from isolation. This means I am having to work with less materials and in a smaller studio space. The work space I currently have available is rather small meaning all the sets and characters will have to be made smaller than originally intended so they can be accommodated in the space. While this will make creating the sets and characters less time consuming, overall it could have a negative impact on the animation, doubling the amount of time to actually pose the models ready to take a photo because of how small they are. However due to the room I’m working having very tiny windows, very little natural light gets in making it easier to block the light out and create my own, more consistent light sources for when I start the animation process. After doing further research into animation, I watched the music video for “Green” by Cavetown and then watched the “Behind the Scenes” making of the stop motion video. This led me to rethink some of my set designs as it helped to show that a whole set didn’t need to be constructed, sometimes aspects can be moved to appear as if there is a whole environment. This has influenced me to make more deconstructed sets that can be rearranged to suit the needs of each scene.
Section Five: Evaluation and Realisation
My final major didn’t quite go as planned as of my time limitations from being a key worker during lockdown. This impacted my final outcome as I had to shorten my animated video. From utilising the time I spent planning my storyboards, I found it easier to condense and create a trailer from what my original conceptualised idea was by using the first song I listened to when looking through Cosmo Sheldrakes music, called "Birthday Suit" instead of "Come Along" because it was much shorter.
The main successful processes I found during my final major, was to use the first scene of my first plan. This allowed a narrative to still develop in a much shorter time frame, as it focused on a singular character. By having only one character to work with, I developed on the movements of my mouse in my animation; creating a more fluid motion. The structure of my figures were well build as well, both characters and sets. The armature of my mouse figure took time to build, however this process was vital for animating. I needed a strong foundation to work and manipulate the body features to look natural. The first mouse armature structure I made was too weak, which is why I improved my next design to be more practical and durable. The sets I build were quite accessible when I was animating. My favourite set was the mouse bedroom set because of the open layout of only consisting of three walls, with the window cut outs. This open structure creates both an immersive environment for my character as well as having an effective set up for animating. When lighting this shot, I found the window cut outs to be really effective to allow the night light in, creating the intriguing light source for the mouse to investigate later on in my final major.
The main successful processes I found during my final major, was to use the first scene of my first plan. This allowed a narrative to still develop in a much shorter time frame, as it focused on a singular character. By having only one character to work with, I developed on the movements of my mouse in my animation; creating a more fluid motion. The structure of my figures were well build as well, both characters and sets. The armature of my mouse figure took time to build, however this process was vital for animating. I needed a strong foundation to work and manipulate the body features to look natural. The first mouse armature structure I made was too weak, which is why I improved my next design to be more practical and durable. The sets I build were quite accessible when I was animating. My favourite set was the mouse bedroom set because of the open layout of only consisting of three walls, with the window cut outs. This open structure creates both an immersive environment for my character as well as having an effective set up for animating. When lighting this shot, I found the window cut outs to be really effective to allow the night light in, creating the intriguing light source for the mouse to investigate later on in my final major.
From time constraints from being a key worker, I had to adapt my work. I had intended to create a larger amount of sets with a wider variety of characters to animate with. When creating my mouse armature figure, the process was put into perspective for me that creating a wide variety of sets and different characters would take too long and that my initial idea was too ambitious. With big production companies producing stop motion animations, there is a whole team of people assigned to different aspects of the creative process. As I didn't have a team, I was assigned to do all these jobs myself. I broke down the planned storyboards of my initial idea to focus on producing a higher quality first scene, instead of creating a lower quality finished piece of work than covers the entire narrative. If I did have more time, I would have changed the frames per second rate. In my final major 'Come Along,' I was animating at 16 frames per second, whereas established companies animate at 24. Aiming for that setting would portray the characters to be smoother in their movement. Relating back to my own experience, some scenes from my final animation seen to jolty and jumpy, due to the fact I was shooting at a lower frame rate.
Bibliography:
- “Come Along” by Cosmo Sheldrake - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIyl9bCp6W4
- Coraline (2009) Directed by Henry Selick
- “Green” by Cavetown - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjr4wfnVmpE=
- “Green||Making of” - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vE1iu308zDc
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