2. Question: Can an animation encourage people to produce
efficient media?Plan: I have been studying animation for a number
of years in my spare timein order to improve my techniques as a
skilled animator. When extended project came along I took it as a n
opportunity to put forward my skill and show people what I am
capable of as I wish for people to understand whatqualifications I
have. Whilst coming up with an idea for an animation I lookedinto
other pieces of work produced by animators alike, from feature
films toYouTube shorts in order to try and see what hasnt been done
so that I could try and produce sufficient work that stood out. 3.
ResearchWallace and Gromit: Wallace and Gromit is a short series
which looks at the adventureof Wallace, a middle aged inventor and
his dog Gromit, featuring around four thirtyminute episodes as well
as a full length feature film produced by Aardman studios
anddirector Nick park who is also best known for creating Chicken
run and Creaturecomforts. Theyre work has become excessively
popular amongst viewers despite therebeing only four episodes.Due
to the success that Wallace and Gromit had a number of other
related productswere produced including the CBBC show Shaun the
sheep an animated childrenstelevision program which focuses mainly
on one of the characters seen in the originalshort A close shave
and Timmy time an animated preschool childrens program andis
broadcasted on CBeebies.My animations have had much inspiration
from Wallace and Gromit as they were whatgave me the motivation to
work my way through my animations the make the videossuch as the
one I am working on now. 4. Nightmare before Christmas: Nightmare
before Christmas is a feature length filmproduced by Tim Burton and
features the story of Jack Skellington, a skeleton who is anicon in
the ton he lives in, which celebrate Halloween on a regular basis.
But he growstired of the same holiday happening over and over and
chooses to leave whereby hediscovers Christmas town, a town that
celebrates Christmas on a regular basis and soout of curiosity and
excitement chooses to celebrate Christmas also along with the
restof his home town.The film itself is often shown on Disney
related TV channels, particularly aroundOctober and Halloween as
this holiday as an intense relationship with the film eversince its
release.The nightmare before Christmas was one of the biggest
inspirations for me as I enjoyedboth the style that it was animated
in along with the art design of the characters andlocations that
were seen.Although this video I am working on for extended project
willnot be done in the style of Tim Burtons work I will be
following the techniques that hehas used when animating his videos.
5. Bboy Joker:Bboy Joker is a short interactive animation presented
on YouTube andfeature a street dance, dance off between the Joker
and Batman. The purpose of theanimation is that people must choose
a character to play as before having to copy andremember a series
of moves preformed by the other opponent.If they manages to follow
the correct sequence of dance moves then their chosencharacter
performs even more impressive dance stunts however if they fail to
performthe same moves their character is shown standing in
discomfort and defeat and aregiven the option to try again. This
video was presented only on YouTube as it seemed tobe the only
program which is capable of allowing this video to have such an
interactivestyle.The main reason I have chosen to look into this is
because alongside his work he hasproduced a video demonstrating how
he has presented and made his work, which iswhat I intend on doing
with my work. 6. Animation idea originsAt first I was struggling to
come up with a suitableidea for a stop motion animation as I had
alreadyexhausted most other possible ideas. Whilstresearching one
night I came across a series ofpictures such as the ones shown on
the right herewhich gave me the idea of producing a chasethrough
the city at night involving Sonic. Since Ihad a sonic puppet at the
time also I thought thatthis idea would be very possible. What I
really likedabout the pictures that gave me inspiration was theidea
for the environment which they were set in, itsuited the characters
I had in mind as well as putthem in a situation that could bring
them together.Although I hadnt animated with puppets such asthis
much before I thought it would be rather goodexperience and would
help me to improve my skillsas a stop motion movie maker. 7. plot
lineI have decided to work on producing a short stop motion film
which involves a breathtaking chase with Sonic the hedgehog as he
attempt to escape from two mysteriouspursuers to plan on capturing
him. The animation will consist of a number of differentanimation
and camera techniques that will help to add to the over all look of
the product asitll make the journey that these characters face much
more exciting. As well as theanimation I will also be including a
video demonstrating to people how I went aboutproducing the
animation, the effects, the sets and the characters in order to
help makeviewers understand properly how it was produced. As well
as this I will also be submittingtest animations of the character
to show that I have experimented with the charactersbefore hand to
show how I go about animating various characters of different shape
andsizes.The idea for this product was inspired by many other
animations that I have watched in thepast and one animation in
particular titled Black Ox skateboard which is a short stop-motion
video made by Patrick boivin and shows us a small puppet producing
skateboardstunts. The idea seems very simple and basic but its the
way which I will be presenting itwhich I hope will capture peoples
attention as I will be applying a selection of affects suchas
lighting techniques, green screen and scenery in order to make the
product seem moreprofessional and realistic looking. 8. Characters
involvedSonic the Hedgehog: Sonic is the main protagonist of the
animation, he is pursuedthroughout the entire short movie. The main
reason I chose to include him in my animationis because he is
recognizable and therefore people will immediately know who the
characteris without having to worry about introductions to the
characters.Barricade the police car: Barricade is the main
antagonist of the animation as he is the onewho pursues Sonic
throughout the entire short movie. I chose to include this
character inthe animation because he is an interesting character to
both watch as well as animate andtherefore I think will contribute
rather well to the over all result of the product. Also
hischaracter suites the style of the animation as well as looks
like a suitable antagonist.Mixmaster the cement truck: Mixmaster is
a transformer who can change into a cementmixer. I chose to use
this character in my animation partly because he is one of my
favouritepuppets to animate but mainly because like Barricade,
animating transformers adds quite aneffect to the animation. 9.
Storyboard 10. Storyboard part 2 11. Final product 12. Software
usedWindows movie maker: Windows movie maker was only utilized to
allow for me to uploadthe footage that I have collected. Once the
footage I made was on the software I onlyapplied a few effects
primarily to tidy up the footage, including speeding up the footage
sothat it runs more smoothly, brightening the green of the green
screen for chroma keyingand placing the shots in correct order so
that I would know what footage should go wherein the final
product.MAGIX: Magix was the main software that I used throughout
the entire editing process.When the footage was imported I firstly
started by doing the chroma keying process whichtook up much of the
editing time as all of the shots were done on green
screen.Afterwards I then had to produce backgrounds so that the
characters all looked as thoughthey were moving through a city
environment. This proved fairly difficult because if thepuppets are
shiny then they reflect the green which makes them turn green as
well andtherefore partly disappear when the backgrounds are
applied. I also used this program toadjust the lighting, contrast
and saturation of the characters so that they fit theatmosphere of
the video more.After effects: After effects was purely to add some
effects that were only used in minorscenes such as the opening
credits and closing credits. I would occasionally use it tocreate
certain backgrounds but a lot of the time I used backgrounds from
certain mediawebsites and just edited them so they all blend
together. 13. Final evaluation of projectWhilst working on the
project many ideas that I had originally planned to include were
taken out ofthe final product partly due to time purposes but
mainly because otherwise it would mean too muchwork for such a
product. Originally I planned to have built a series a models of a
city landscape for meto work with in order to make the product more
easy for me to work on but due to how pressed fortime I was, I was
unable to make them in time and had to resort to animating in front
of green screenwhich posed another problem. One of the main
characters was yellow which when put in front ofgreen screen is
keyed out meaning that the character disappears along with the
green background. Ioriginally planned therefore to animate this
character along in front of blue screen instead but thiswould mean
having to set up a new studio for this puppet as well as having to
blend it in with the restof the clips. After re-planning the story
I chose to cut this character from the final product. As well
asthis I chose not to animate Mixmaster as well as this would also
mean more time would be needed toproduce the footage necessary. I
still included the character in my work but rather than
animatinghim walking, running, jumping and interacting with the
characters and surroundings I chose to havehim in his vehicle form
just driving around in pursuit of Sonic. Upon completing my first
draft I wasshocked to find that the audio didnt work and as well as
this, much of the footage didnt turn out aswell as I had hoped with
many of the scenes either not working or havent been cut properly
sue tothe program I was using to edit the footage lagging due to
how much data I had included in my work.The campaign of my product
is to inspire and encourage younger viewers to work with media and
tohelp motivate such viewers to attempt producing similar work as
to what I have done. I enjoy mywork and all I wish to do is
convince others that my work can be enjoyed by other as well.
Though Iam proud of my work if I was given the option to produce it
again the one thing I would definitelyconsider would be to give
myself a lot more time as a product such as this can only be
produced tosuch high standard if I have plenty of time to work on
it.
