Character & Narrative
Evaluation
Throughout this module, I have come across constant experimentations and difficulties. As this is the first stop-motion Have ever done of any kind, many of the pre-production, production and post production was all new territory that needed researching and looking into to do most of the stages. This would include building the armatures, constructing the set and props, as well as learning how to use DragonFrame and Premier.
Workload for this project was like no other project I have done in the past. This was because it needed a lot more planning and hands on manufacturing. Compared to in the past when I needed to build the character sheets and turn arounds, this then needed me to go ahead and make them. At some points I did fall behind on the workload as it seemed very daunting at times. This was from the transition of completing the character sheets, to getting all of the materials and figuring out where to start. Although I did find that once started, it was hard to put it all down and stop. This is why I think I will try to do more stop-motion but making the amendments I have found with this project. After finishing this project, I found the workload to be a lot, but if I keep up with it, its not as daunting overall.
When looking at the end piece, I am actually very proud to see the animation I have created. Like all of the work I create, I do look at it with the mindset of a critique. This means I can see mistakes and all of the places I would have improved if I were to do it again. As a stop-motion, I do think it is successful as the characters really do come to life and seem to have a personality and emotion, even without mouths or moving faces. In the future I will defiantly use this again but now I have the experience to see what is expected and where the improvements are needing to be made and which aspects would need more of my attention.
I think certain problems affected the workflow. One would be sculpting on the models or even making removable faces with expressions. This is because stop-motion is really about showing expression. As I wasn't confident enough to sculpt and change the faces on the heads this time, from what I have learnt, I do think I would be able to do it in the future taking more inspiration from the look of Aardman characters and how their expression is shown. That is why I found the Research posts to be very useful as it made me see stop-motion in a way I had never thought of before and how it has many different positives and negatives about it within the industry. As the mouths couldn't be added the way I built the models, it was why I was going to animate them digitally in the editing stages on top of the images. This was when I found them to not work as it seemed to flash and really didn't work for what I was trying to achieve. I've spoken about this on my blog, but i felt that adding the mouths would distract too much with the flashing so I tool an executive decision not to use them which the audience may like or they may not, yet I hope the body language created from the puppets alone will be enough so it may have been a risky decision.
Another problem would be that I made the set too thick for the magnets to have an effect. This is an easy problem to fix in the future but it is something I had not considered until it was too late which was a bad move on my part, but therefore easily amended for next time. Another way to fix a problem I was having was getting the characters to stand. This really effected the way I filmed, how the characters moved and the limitations of how the walk cycles could be done. If you watch the animation, I couldn't have the models doing proper walk cycles as they wouldn't stand if only one leg was on the ground, even with me trying for a long period of time using lots of Dowling. In the future, I hope to create an armature that can stand one one leg at a time because it would make them come to life it they could move properly and not shuffle as that, if anything, distracts the viewer from the other smaller movements they could be missing. One thing that could have been a problem that was avoided, was that the armatures could have snapped. This would have set me back a fair bit as I would have to find a way to reattach the said snapped piece, or build a whole new model depending on how bad it broke.
Overall looking at the what the animation turned out like and the hours spent going into creating all of my props, all of the elements to my characters and even the clothing, I am immensely proud of what has been accomplished throughout these 10 weeks. There were many mistakes made but it all aided into creating a piece that I didn't even think I could have done at the beginning of this academic year. The mistakes were things that I had not seen coming when in planning. This has made me progress as an animator to think of every stage and plan how they could be done before the issue could arise. This gives time for it to be researched or avoided so time is not wasted. Although if I had not made mistakes, I don't think I would have learnt any where near as much as I feel I have learnt and taken from this project. Knowing how to make simple models, building a set, getting a greater understanding of Premier and more tool that are in Photoshop that I didn't know could be used when animating.
Workload for this project was like no other project I have done in the past. This was because it needed a lot more planning and hands on manufacturing. Compared to in the past when I needed to build the character sheets and turn arounds, this then needed me to go ahead and make them. At some points I did fall behind on the workload as it seemed very daunting at times. This was from the transition of completing the character sheets, to getting all of the materials and figuring out where to start. Although I did find that once started, it was hard to put it all down and stop. This is why I think I will try to do more stop-motion but making the amendments I have found with this project. After finishing this project, I found the workload to be a lot, but if I keep up with it, its not as daunting overall.
When looking at the end piece, I am actually very proud to see the animation I have created. Like all of the work I create, I do look at it with the mindset of a critique. This means I can see mistakes and all of the places I would have improved if I were to do it again. As a stop-motion, I do think it is successful as the characters really do come to life and seem to have a personality and emotion, even without mouths or moving faces. In the future I will defiantly use this again but now I have the experience to see what is expected and where the improvements are needing to be made and which aspects would need more of my attention.
I think certain problems affected the workflow. One would be sculpting on the models or even making removable faces with expressions. This is because stop-motion is really about showing expression. As I wasn't confident enough to sculpt and change the faces on the heads this time, from what I have learnt, I do think I would be able to do it in the future taking more inspiration from the look of Aardman characters and how their expression is shown. That is why I found the Research posts to be very useful as it made me see stop-motion in a way I had never thought of before and how it has many different positives and negatives about it within the industry. As the mouths couldn't be added the way I built the models, it was why I was going to animate them digitally in the editing stages on top of the images. This was when I found them to not work as it seemed to flash and really didn't work for what I was trying to achieve. I've spoken about this on my blog, but i felt that adding the mouths would distract too much with the flashing so I tool an executive decision not to use them which the audience may like or they may not, yet I hope the body language created from the puppets alone will be enough so it may have been a risky decision.
Another problem would be that I made the set too thick for the magnets to have an effect. This is an easy problem to fix in the future but it is something I had not considered until it was too late which was a bad move on my part, but therefore easily amended for next time. Another way to fix a problem I was having was getting the characters to stand. This really effected the way I filmed, how the characters moved and the limitations of how the walk cycles could be done. If you watch the animation, I couldn't have the models doing proper walk cycles as they wouldn't stand if only one leg was on the ground, even with me trying for a long period of time using lots of Dowling. In the future, I hope to create an armature that can stand one one leg at a time because it would make them come to life it they could move properly and not shuffle as that, if anything, distracts the viewer from the other smaller movements they could be missing. One thing that could have been a problem that was avoided, was that the armatures could have snapped. This would have set me back a fair bit as I would have to find a way to reattach the said snapped piece, or build a whole new model depending on how bad it broke.
Overall looking at the what the animation turned out like and the hours spent going into creating all of my props, all of the elements to my characters and even the clothing, I am immensely proud of what has been accomplished throughout these 10 weeks. There were many mistakes made but it all aided into creating a piece that I didn't even think I could have done at the beginning of this academic year. The mistakes were things that I had not seen coming when in planning. This has made me progress as an animator to think of every stage and plan how they could be done before the issue could arise. This gives time for it to be researched or avoided so time is not wasted. Although if I had not made mistakes, I don't think I would have learnt any where near as much as I feel I have learnt and taken from this project. Knowing how to make simple models, building a set, getting a greater understanding of Premier and more tool that are in Photoshop that I didn't know could be used when animating.
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