storyboard

target audience and audio development

The target audience for my stop motion animation will be 16-25 year olds both male and female, one reason is that because the original web comic it is based on contains strong language and violence, furthermore another reason the age range for my target audience of 16-25 is because my animation will have a dark/grim ending that I do not think would be suitable for younger viewers. I have come to this conclusion of who my target audience are because of who the fandom currently consists of, one way I found out the target audience was to meet other fans at a convention in London, another way I found the target audience was with social media, on Facebook there is a page setup for fans that talk to other fans and make costumes/props based on or from the web comic and even talk about their own stories/comics/theories based on the web comic.

For the soundtrack of my animation I planned to use parts of 5 royalty free song, which were; Volatile Reaction, Black Vortex, Mechanolith, In a heart beat, Harmful or Fatal, I planned to do this because I believed that each individual song had parts that would of created an atmosphere that would be relevant to the setting of my animation, however when I attempted to mix the parts together they did  not fit well with each other. In the end I decided to use parts from the one song that I thought would be best for my animation, the song was Volatile Veaction, first I created the start of the soundtrack by having it fade in, next I created a loop of music that I could then repeat/cut depending on the length of my animation, I then created the end of the song to match the scene where my character falls off the log.

 

 

history and facts of stop motion animation

Animation uses a illusion theory called the Persistence of Vision, this involves multiple images being played at a rate of around 16 frames per second, this causes the brain to stop perceiving the flicker/flash of images, which then causes images to ‘merge’ together to give the illusion of movement, although different types of media use different frame rates, for example flick books work best around 10 frames per seconds and both physical and digital film use 24 frames per second. However a more modern versions of illusion theory are the Phi phenomenon  and beta movement, these theories conclude that the illusion of movement is a sensation created by a rapid succession of a scene of images/frames.

One type of animation that uses Persistence of Vision is the Zoetrope, this is a very early form of animation. The Zoetrope is a drum like device that spins, on its side are slits to look through and on the inside are a series of images that are on the opposite side of the slits. While the zoetrope spins you look through the slits at the set of images, which act like a frame of animation, as it spins you see a single frame of the image set and then the side of the zoetrope and then another frame of the image set, at the right speed the images ‘merge’ together and form an animation.

One pioneer of animation is Ray Harryhausen who is known for creating a form of animation know as Dynamation which is where live action actors appear as if they are interacting with animated models. Another pioneer is Joeseph Plateau who was the first person to demonstrate animation with moving images on a disk with slits in, this device is known as a Phenakistoscope. ‘A third Pioneer’, although not a single person, can be Disney’s Nine Old Men who are best know for not only working on many of disney early animations, Mickey Mouse, Snow White, Lady and the Tramp…, but also for the 12 principles of animation which are constantly used by all animations because it help make their animations more realistic and appealing.

A modern day stop motion animator is Philip Beglan who was a animator for Coraline and The Boxtrolls, he has also produced stop motion adverts for Kelloggs, he also runs a stop motion studio, called The Belgan Bros, with his brother Charles. another modern stop motion animator is Will Becher who has work for studios Aardman and Laika, he has worked on file such as Shaun the Sheep Movie and The Pirates, he has also produced several award winning short films. A third animator is Antony Farquhar-Smith who has worked on Fantastic Mr. Fox, he currentlyy works for a studio called Th1ng and has also produced stop motion adverts for Weetabix and HSBC.

Nowadays stop motion studios still exist even though they are beginning to be replaced by more popular forms of animation. One studio is Laika, this studio has produced several stop motion films such as “Coraline” and “Paranorman” and one of their upcoming films “Kubo and the Two Strings” will also be stop motion. another stop motion studio is Kerrupt Animation who have produced stop motion animations for Top Gear and Cbeebies. A third studio is Stoopid Buddy Stoodios who have worked on adverts for Lego Scooby-Doo and a part of an episode of Gravity Falls that was themed around clay-mation.

Stop motion is still used for animation, an example can be Clayton from “The Amazing World Of Gumball” who is a clay stop motion character who references claymation, to date Clayton has appeared in 4 seasons of the show, another example can be the AT-AT’s from “Star Wars” that used go motion (a variation of stop motion but uses different techniques to create the effect of motion blur), but the most recent live action film to use go motion was “Coneheads” in 1993. A third example of stop motion animation can be “Paranorman” a stop motion film, produced in 2012, that was the first stop motion film to use full colour 3D printers to create their models, however “Coraline” was the first stop motion film to use 3D printers to make their models/puppets but they were printed in black and white.

various notes

After I made the background on record cards I decided to make some notes  about my backgrounds and animation.

the page reads as; “The scenes from the previous page I will develop onto record cards, and then add colour and piece together with the background texture.”

“due to its difficultly I will design and develop the maze digitally and upload to my blog.”

“The order of the scenes can change, however the;

1st scene must be the maze,

2nd scene must be cutscene 1,

3rd scene must be moving platforms,

4th scene must be cutscene 2,

And the last 3 must be Logroll followed by cutscene 3 and then cutscene 4.

The remaining scenes, treadmill and bouncing balls, can go in any order but must have cutscene 2 after each of them”

“The music I will use will be either or a combination of;

• Volatile Reaction – from imcompetch.com
• Black Vortex – imcompetch.com
• Mechanolith – imcompetch.com
• in a heart beat – imcompetch.com
• Harmfull or Fatal – imcompetch.com

All of the music I’ve chosen is royalty free.”

“Furthermore I plan to 3D print the legroom scene.”

ideas

For my stop motion I had to generate ideas on what to do but I had some restrictions, as a class we could of worked alone or in a group but each person was allowed only one character, I decided to work alone and begun to note down ideas on what I could do, I have crossed out some ideas as  it would of required multiple characters. for ideas we were given 6 categories; character, story, environment, audio, software/equipment and materials.

For character some ideas that I thought of were robot, egg and Homesick grub, two other ideas I thought of would of required multiple characters for the story to make sense, these were characters from two video games that are Chuzzle and agar.io.

For story I thought of the character being lost, lonely, missing parts of itself and going through trials (obstacles), another idea that I thought of was animating a game of agar.io but that would of required multiple characters.

For environment I thought of having the setting as a college, park or in a underground cave.

For audio I thought what I could use such as music, instrumental or sound effects.

For software/equipment i thought of what I could need such as camera, Photoshop, Adobe Flash, After Effects and Premier Pro.

And finally for materials I thought about what I could use to make my character and backgrounds, this included plasticine, cardboard, fur, photos, plastic pipes, wooden blocks, polymer and I also thought of using a 3D printer to make parts of the environment.

evaluation essay

For the stop motion project, I had to screen my work to my peers and receive feedback, I had some questions in hand which I was to ask at the end of the viewing, but had also thought up other questions for my audience as I believe their feedback would be useful and relevant for both improving my skills and my stop motion work.

From my feedback I have concluded that my character was a good design howbeit I could have used a bolder ‘blood colour’ (the colour of my character’s eyes and body) to make my character stand out more from the background. My character’s colour scheme was decided from a quiz related to my character that I asked my tutor to take and the final result was yellow. My peers noted that my background was very effective and detailed, however when I asked them they did not notice the patterns on the cave walls changed between scenes. Another question I asked my peers was “how was the scenes and pacing” and they said that my character’s animations was good, but I over used the ramp scene which added to the level of repetitiveness. When I asked about the music they did not say it was repetitive even though a peer noticed that I looped parts of it, they continued by noting that my soundtrack was effective and added to the intensity of the animation.

The aspect that I enjoyed the most during the course of this project, was developing the story with the initial idea being from ‘grub trails’; which was referenced in a web-comic called ‘Homestuck’. This was then linked to the trials/obstacles in athletic game shows, such as Total Wipeout, Ninja Warrior and Takeshi’s Castle. Another aspect I enjoyed included developing the backgrounds, I initially started with thinking of different obstacles and then developing them, the next step was concepts and rough sketches, which progressed to me developing chosen ideas further. As development on these ideas progressed, I would then produce the final background elements onto record cards, by separating the foregrounds and the backgrounds of the environments I could then later change aspects of the final background to add a bit of variety into the scenes by changing the orientation and even inverting the background layer.

An aspect that I disliked about this project was the difficulty of working with cold polymer clay, my character was made from Fimo polymer clay and a tin foil base, but the clay was so cold that it often broke apart when making the parts for my character. Another part that I disliked about the stop motion was when the camera ran out of battery during the moving platforms scene which I found annoying due to waiting for the battery to recharge, placing the camera in the same place and editing the scenes together to make it look seamless.

The software that I used for this project includes; Adobe Photoshop for digital editing such as retouching, colouring and drawing, Adobe Premier Pro to put the scenes together, Adobe Audition to make the soundtrack from royalty free music and Adobe Media Encoder to compress the final video to YouTube 1080p quality.

In my opinion the greatest challenge was making my character fall/roll off the log, throughout the animation my character’s head was supported by blu-tack to prevent damage to its hair and horns, and to stop it from rolling around, but after a few days of filming, the cold clay and cold blu-tack was difficult to work with so I added more blu-tack which made it easier to work with at the time and carefully balanced the character on it for the fall/rolling off scene.

For my animation, I had researched a variety of topics and visuals such as the character designs that I’ve mentioned on my blog and visuals on how to do the background layer for my environments. In the end I found a piece of art, that I’ve recently found out is, called “cave adventure” by Gary J Lucken who is also known as Army of trolls.

If I could do this project differently, I would add and change some of the scenes to make it less repetitive, for example I could have added traps to the ramp scene so my character would do something different instead of just crawling up a ramp, I could have also added a scene where the ceiling would close in on the character thereby increasing the dramatic effect and intensity. Furthermore, I would also change the soundtrack because in my own opinion I found it to be a bit loud at some parts and I would like to vary the loop as I believe that it gets repetitive, additionally because of the one character limit I avoided adding characters that failed the obstacles and died which would have added to the aesthetics of the backgrounds, narratology and continuity.

Overall though I enjoyed the stop motion project and I am pleased with the final outcome of my work.

final animation

character design

For my character designs I used a tutorial, http://q-dormir.tumblr.com/image/54171209286 , for the body shape/proportions and I then designed different hairstyles and horns for the character, I shaded the horns in with a light blue pencil to distinguish  between horns and hair. The notes on the second page of concepts say; “I have decided to change the body to 3 segments because it will be easier to animate and is more aesthetically pleasing.”  and “The head will be grey, the hair will be black, the horns will be red fade to orange fade to yellow, the body and eyes will be the same colour however I have yet to decide.”,  furthermore I decided to remove the characters feet/claws because they would be too difficult to sculpt and animate with the size of character I will be making. Furthermore for each individual design I attempted to design different types of eyes to convert different emotions/expressions and the personality of my character, however the eyes will not be animated due to the camera angles not showing the emotions of my character and not being needed in the animation, it will just show the characters movement and the story.

Later on I asked one of my tutors to take a test to determine his “troll blood colour” which I will use for my characters body and eyes, the final result was yellow.

My character will be made out of Fimo polymer clay with a tin foil base to bulk it up/save clay.

Furthermore my final character that I will sculpt will not have a mouth, this is because of the same reason his eyes will not be animated, because it will be too small to animated and emotions/expressions will not be shown due to the camera angles, and is also not needed.

backgrounds

I first stared with listing different obstacles for my character that it could interact with, I then sketched some concepts of the ideas.

 

After I then refined and expanded on my ideas and rough concepts.

 

After I sketch in detail the final backgrounds on record cards, I first started with the back layer for the backgrounds then the foreground that my character would interact with. For most of the concepts I kept as black and white pencil drawings but on others I added colour. Due to the size of the record cards and how many rings were needed for the maze I decided it would be more efficient to refine it on photoshop later on.

 

I then scanned what I believed to be my best backgrounds into photoshop and added colour and texture/detail, and then put the background parts together.

  

 

The backgrounds will be printed in A3, when I animated the background will be place flat on a hard surface, such as a table, and my character will be place/moved onto of the paper.