Friday, 21 October 2011
Final Video Evaluation
The video below was our idea of a cute simple stereotypical alien, that pressed a switch and every time the switch was pressed the alien would then switch colour from blue to green to blue so on and so forth. This idea was done in clay animation style, the reason why we did it in this style was so that it allowed us to be creative and take our imaginations into the ident and create these unique and interesting characters. We weren't happy with the original idea because we thought it would be too much for ten seconds, so we fixed it up and made it so that it was more simple and concise. When it came to our production schedule we felt that we managed to keep on track with our timing and filming, but we had to do at least two reshoots to improve on some scenes, so this set us back quite a bit. I personally felt that the positives about the animation is that it was very smooth and that there was always something different in each frame. my personal negative thoughts on the final version was that there could have been some sounds/sound effects placed in certain parts of the final, like the smoke scene.
The final piece on the whole proved to be very successful and I feel that we really completed what we were aiming for as we wanted to created an ident that was interesting, and showed our research into our target audience, and seeing the comments (which the audience are in a similar age category) proved that we actually hit that mark, so based on those facts, I feel that the ident that we created was successful with small minor negative points that could be easily redone if we were given more time.
The roles that i filled in the project was Editor and creating the set. I felt i did very well on the editing part as i was really required to push myself for good editing and to find ways of speeding up parts and slowing down etc. overall i felt that i did a good job in editing, for the set i was happy with the way it was set out and i do like the colour scheme and the shape of the back wall. This final needed to follow the target audience and reach out to what they are interested in, and since the target audience are interested sci-fi, comedy, and are attracted to the colours red, blue and green we needed to incorporate it, and i felt this video fits perfectly when it aims for the target audience.
This video was shown to our class who posed as our "audience" and we asked them to give us their opinions and critique the final video, we noted down everyones opinions and we took them into account, most of them involved the lack of a sound effect when the smoke appeared, and the most possitive comments related to the professional look of the section when the alien was switching colours, yet we were able to keep the models looking exactly the same (minus the colour).
Here are some of the quotes from the audience and our responses to these:
"this animation was nicely made and the idea is original, could there be some of sound in the background?"- we felt that there shouldn't be any ambient music in the background due to it taking away the impact of the sounds/noises from the alien and the switch sounds, which was where most of the comical effect came from.
"The only problem i have with the animation is that there could be some sort of sound effect when the smoke appears, as it seems too silent" - We agreed with this statement, and if we could redo this we would put some sort os "sssss" sound effect, like smoke although i doubt that it takes away the impact of the ident.
"I am not happy with the way the e4 appears, you could've revised this and found more interesting ways for it to appear" - Again I agree with this, but after the 2nd reshoot we were short on time and equipment, so we needed to make do with what we had, other ideas we had been suggested was that the lights would turn off then on and the e4 appearing when the lights turn on.
Other comments include "When the colour changed it looked really professional", "I liked how the eye moves around realistically". "it involved a good soundtrack" and "fits the e4 brand identity.
The final piece on the whole proved to be very successful and I feel that we really completed what we were aiming for as we wanted to created an ident that was interesting, and showed our research into our target audience, and seeing the comments (which the audience are in a similar age category) proved that we actually hit that mark, so based on those facts, I feel that the ident that we created was successful with small minor negative points that could be easily redone if we were given more time.
Thursday, 20 October 2011
Final Video
Monday, 17 October 2011
Pitching the Ideas
From all of the research of E4 and the results from the questionnaire we were able to create a pitch to a group of people playing as "E4 representatives" and will decide if our idea is good to go or if we had to go back and work on it. for the pitch we had to show all of our production schedules, storyboards, plans, concept art etc and how we plan on doing it. our first idea was asked to be thought out and/or be redone as they were concerned that it would be too much for 10 seconds, so after thinking through our ideas and combining our ideas we managed to create a storyboard that was more easier to create and the E4 representatives liked it and we was given the green Light to go.
Here is the production schedule:
Here is the production schedule:
Here is the storyboard:
Production schedule
Prop Making:
-Scenery
-Organisation of where objects belong and will be moved.
-camera.
-plastercine (blue and green)
-red silk
-Carboard box
All Filming time must be 10 secs long!
Roles:
All roles will be split evenly between both partners. (apart from scene 2 where one of us will be the moon and the other is in charge of animation and camera.)
Location
Man made sets, Upstairs studio would be best for lighting.
Editing:
Editing will be down to both to choose appropriate music and transitions. Though music will defiantly be a rock soundtrack at the end of the animation.
End Comments:
Make sure to take opinions from audience and write conclusion for animation referring to said, comments.
Time Allowed for shooting:
We feel its best to start as soon as we finished all the sets and the models, which we aim to be finished on 4th October want to start shooting as soon as possible after the models.
Time allowed for Editing:
We want at least 2 Days editing so that we can give the best potential for effects, sound effects and anything that can make the animation better, the soundtrack will either come from a friend who plays guitar, or will be from garage band.
Time allowed for Re-shoot and re-Edit: We think that 4 days should be more than enough time to reshoot the scenes and edit them as we ill have the sets still ready and the models, just in case.
Here are photos of the set that i created
This is a photo of the set with the lighting that we are planning to use.
E4 questionnaire
We needed to complete a questionnaire in oder to find out what our audience is mostly interested in so that we could complete a successful ident. These types of questions included are like what is your favourite animal and what is your favourite colour. This allowed us to see which direction to take and how to make our ident as interesting to the viewer as possible
The way we did this questionnaire was over the social network site "facebook" and sent it to family and friends, people who we felt would give us honest answers and give the time to complete it. once we took all the answers from the survey we tallied them together to create pie charts, here is an example of the message to Facebook Friends:
Here are the results of the Questionnaire, converted into pie charts for simplistic data reading:
We felt that this was very valuable and useful research and helped our ideas greatly, from this we can easily see most of the people from the survey are male. and prefer the colours red, blue and black. their most preferred genre of music is rock and they like comedy and sci-fi movies. from this we can start on the initial storyboards for the animation.
Here is a mood board of our research:
The way we did this questionnaire was over the social network site "facebook" and sent it to family and friends, people who we felt would give us honest answers and give the time to complete it. once we took all the answers from the survey we tallied them together to create pie charts, here is an example of the message to Facebook Friends:
We felt that this was very valuable and useful research and helped our ideas greatly, from this we can easily see most of the people from the survey are male. and prefer the colours red, blue and black. their most preferred genre of music is rock and they like comedy and sci-fi movies. from this we can start on the initial storyboards for the animation.
Here is a mood board of our research:
Monday, 26 September 2011
Tester animation
I had to do test animation in which me and two other people had to work together in order make an entire set and characters using objects, plasticine and had to be 10 seconds or less. as a class we had to choose or come up with certain words and had to create a story using those words, the words were: Dentist, Banana, Horny, Box. we also had to manage our time and decide roles for the group such as director and chief animator etc all would have to be planed out well for time sakes. this allowed us to spread all the work evenly, rather than one person doing most of the work while others just lazed around.
Below is the production schedule that was made and features our roles, props and location. This is very important to the project and it demonstrated just how much it can have an impact on the project as we were able to manage our time and our roles much more effectively, i personally believe this is important and will be needed in future.
production schedule
After we had done the production schedule we would had to bring an idea for the animation somehow so We created a story board that and noted down all the camera angles, movement and anything that should be added, so that we could be able to go ahead and start the animation and when we did we knew exactly what the set will be like, the camera will be like and where the characters will move.
This is the Animation that we made, after it was finally finished we successfully made the dentures and edited the video, we felt that the editing was of a good standard but could use more suitable music.
This was backed up when we showed the class the animation and they agreed that the animation was of a good quality and standard but the music didn't quite fit, i wasn't disappointed with the results as i wanted to focus on the animation itself and editing rather than music.
Thursday, 22 September 2011
E4 Research
E4 is a channel that is created by Channel 4 as a digital channel for those who use digital TV. The E stands for "entertainment" it's target audience is for a more younger and trendy audience than its predecessors channel 4, the channel began in 2001 and showed mostly programs that are popular towards most age groups, shows like Friends and Ugly Betty. it is broadcasted throughout the UK, the channel mostly features american shows such as desperate housewives, while having a variable range of programs that is created by britain. while there is the main channel "E4" there is also a catch up channel called "E4+1" that allows people to watch the regular E4 schedule an hour before so that you can either watch a programme again or get another chance to watch it. there is also a service to SKY and Virgin Members called 4oD where people can watch E4 shows anytime, any day.
The E4 Image is very unique and distinct from most others as most of it's advertising or anything that relates to it involves the colour purple or its unique icon style, also featuring the colour purple. it also features it's soundtrack which is upbeat and catchy, these soundtracks are usually featured in E4's various idents, the most famous group of idents feature a room where the camera pans around the room, and the room comes to life, creating and finishing with a surreal atmosphere totally changing it. here is an example of those idents.
A Link/Connection between all these idents is they they all involve taking a scene and totally changing it, they also involve a strong amount of the colour purple (which is the main colour of E4) and for some reason they involve a teddy bear being taken or placed in dangerous situations. maybe a showing that there is some childish surrealism in these idents or finished scenes, as though a young person had imagined this surreal location.
The Programmes that E4 show are all of a different audience target, but they all share the fact that they all spread towards the 16-29 demographic, for example the show Inbetweeners is a show that follows 4 male students in school, they encounter an number of hilarious and embarrassing situations, all the characters are completely different in personality and traits, some that are relatable as we all have a friend like one of the 4 or for some, all of them. this creates a personal connection between character and audience, it also creates the connection when it comes to background as this show may seem popular to those who are currently in education or who have just recently come out of education, this form of targeted audience allows a wide spread of people to view this show as they are personally connected to the character/situation, as proven when it was given plenty of awards and has been nationally remarked as an popular series. The example below is a trailer of the Movie, after the groundbreaking success of the TV series.
The E4 Image is very unique and distinct from most others as most of it's advertising or anything that relates to it involves the colour purple or its unique icon style, also featuring the colour purple. it also features it's soundtrack which is upbeat and catchy, these soundtracks are usually featured in E4's various idents, the most famous group of idents feature a room where the camera pans around the room, and the room comes to life, creating and finishing with a surreal atmosphere totally changing it. here is an example of those idents.
A Link/Connection between all these idents is they they all involve taking a scene and totally changing it, they also involve a strong amount of the colour purple (which is the main colour of E4) and for some reason they involve a teddy bear being taken or placed in dangerous situations. maybe a showing that there is some childish surrealism in these idents or finished scenes, as though a young person had imagined this surreal location.
The Programmes that E4 show are all of a different audience target, but they all share the fact that they all spread towards the 16-29 demographic, for example the show Inbetweeners is a show that follows 4 male students in school, they encounter an number of hilarious and embarrassing situations, all the characters are completely different in personality and traits, some that are relatable as we all have a friend like one of the 4 or for some, all of them. this creates a personal connection between character and audience, it also creates the connection when it comes to background as this show may seem popular to those who are currently in education or who have just recently come out of education, this form of targeted audience allows a wide spread of people to view this show as they are personally connected to the character/situation, as proven when it was given plenty of awards and has been nationally remarked as an popular series. The example below is a trailer of the Movie, after the groundbreaking success of the TV series.
Tuesday, 13 September 2011
Timeline Of Stop-Animation
Object Animation
Stop-Motion Animation First Began in film as film makers were experimenting with using one frame by frame using their video camera. Stop-Motion animation requires the animator to use an object (when using object animation) and take a frame of film of then slightly move it and take another frame, repeating this process and in the final film the object will look like it is moving and is living. The technique was first invented by Albert E. Smith and J. Stuart Blackton when they created The Humpty Dumpty Circus (1897), The used Ready Made objects, such as toys as they were basic and easy to use in dong this it became the first form of object and stop animation. over time more Stop Motion developed As artists began to use more complex and dynamic versions of animation in years to come. One of the first successful film using this technique was Fun in a Bakery Shop (1902) by Thomas Edison, he used the Stop-Trick Technique when he made a sculpture out of dough which could've lead to the inspiration of the first forms of clay animation years later. stop-trick Animation was when people make something that seems faster than it actually is using editing and stop motion. Within the techniques they edited it so that big chunks of footage was purposely missing, which made the artist seem like he is sculpting faster than how it actually took. This technique was seen to be inspirational in film for using real life actors in stop-motion, the earliest form of pixelated stop-motion.
Fun In a Bakery Shop (1902)
Clay Animation
Two years after the invention of Object animation Two artists properly introduced Clay Animation, as Willie Hopkins Created 54 episodes of "miracles in Mud (1916) (note: Will find video if Can) in how he did this was by modelling clay in to objects or characters or sets and making them move similar to object animation yet they are different because clay animation is more easier to create people-like characters, this process is similar to object animation on forms of filming where a frame is shot and the objects are slightly moved and another frame is taken, but with clay animation the most famous use in film is when a figure is shown being built quickly from mud or when a figure melts. From this in December 1916 The first female Animator Helena Smith as she pushed the ideas, techniques and experimentation by making a clay animation adaptation of William Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet". In the 1960's and the 70's Elliot Noyes Jr. Refined "Free-Form" Clay animation when he created his Oscar Nominated Film Clay or the origin of species. Below is an example of Clay Animation in it's famous form of Wallace and Gromit Created by Aardman.
Puppet Animation
Around the time of clay animation, Willis O'Brian worked on The Famous King Kong (1933) film, which was a mixture of clay animation and influencing artists into Puppet Animation. This began Sand-coated Puppet Animation which was featured in the 1977 film The Sandcastle. King Kong needed Puppet animation, as he was a large model and parts would most likely fall and they needed his arms and legs to move around, therefore they created a model (or puppet) that could move, was sturdy and could Complete its purposes while being able to allow is parts to be moved at will. To do Puppet animation was in a similar way to clay animation where it was done frame by frame, while moving the object slightly, but because it was a puppet, this allowed moving the object easier and accurately. this was a technique that became widely popular and was also used in the movie Jason and the Argonauts. this technique was also widely popular on children's television as there are lots of programs that use puppet animation such as
Bagpuss
Pixelation Animation
In 1980 Disney began experimenting with new techniques in film and media, which they hired Mike Jittlov who worked with them previously in Mouse Mania which was a stop motion film using mickey mouse toys. and also worked on the promotion of the film The Black Hole which again featured his stop motion work. But some time later he created his own feature length film which featured all animation techniques, but the most frequent and remembered was his use of pixelation animation, which he used to make him seem like he was running around the country at incredible speeds when really he has just edited it so it seems hat way using pixelation animation. since then there has been a few instances of pixelation one of these is the The Secret Adventures Of Tom Thumb which was featured totally of pixelation animation, Here is a clip from The Secret Adventures Of Tom Thumb.
Stop-Motion Animation First Began in film as film makers were experimenting with using one frame by frame using their video camera. Stop-Motion animation requires the animator to use an object (when using object animation) and take a frame of film of then slightly move it and take another frame, repeating this process and in the final film the object will look like it is moving and is living. The technique was first invented by Albert E. Smith and J. Stuart Blackton when they created The Humpty Dumpty Circus (1897), The used Ready Made objects, such as toys as they were basic and easy to use in dong this it became the first form of object and stop animation. over time more Stop Motion developed As artists began to use more complex and dynamic versions of animation in years to come. One of the first successful film using this technique was Fun in a Bakery Shop (1902) by Thomas Edison, he used the Stop-Trick Technique when he made a sculpture out of dough which could've lead to the inspiration of the first forms of clay animation years later. stop-trick Animation was when people make something that seems faster than it actually is using editing and stop motion. Within the techniques they edited it so that big chunks of footage was purposely missing, which made the artist seem like he is sculpting faster than how it actually took. This technique was seen to be inspirational in film for using real life actors in stop-motion, the earliest form of pixelated stop-motion.
Fun In a Bakery Shop (1902)
Clay Animation
Two years after the invention of Object animation Two artists properly introduced Clay Animation, as Willie Hopkins Created 54 episodes of "miracles in Mud (1916) (note: Will find video if Can) in how he did this was by modelling clay in to objects or characters or sets and making them move similar to object animation yet they are different because clay animation is more easier to create people-like characters, this process is similar to object animation on forms of filming where a frame is shot and the objects are slightly moved and another frame is taken, but with clay animation the most famous use in film is when a figure is shown being built quickly from mud or when a figure melts. From this in December 1916 The first female Animator Helena Smith as she pushed the ideas, techniques and experimentation by making a clay animation adaptation of William Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet". In the 1960's and the 70's Elliot Noyes Jr. Refined "Free-Form" Clay animation when he created his Oscar Nominated Film Clay or the origin of species. Below is an example of Clay Animation in it's famous form of Wallace and Gromit Created by Aardman.
Wallace and Gromit - The Wrong Trousers
Puppet Animation
Around the time of clay animation, Willis O'Brian worked on The Famous King Kong (1933) film, which was a mixture of clay animation and influencing artists into Puppet Animation. This began Sand-coated Puppet Animation which was featured in the 1977 film The Sandcastle. King Kong needed Puppet animation, as he was a large model and parts would most likely fall and they needed his arms and legs to move around, therefore they created a model (or puppet) that could move, was sturdy and could Complete its purposes while being able to allow is parts to be moved at will. To do Puppet animation was in a similar way to clay animation where it was done frame by frame, while moving the object slightly, but because it was a puppet, this allowed moving the object easier and accurately. this was a technique that became widely popular and was also used in the movie Jason and the Argonauts. this technique was also widely popular on children's television as there are lots of programs that use puppet animation such as
Bagpuss
Pixelation Animation
In 1980 Disney began experimenting with new techniques in film and media, which they hired Mike Jittlov who worked with them previously in Mouse Mania which was a stop motion film using mickey mouse toys. and also worked on the promotion of the film The Black Hole which again featured his stop motion work. But some time later he created his own feature length film which featured all animation techniques, but the most frequent and remembered was his use of pixelation animation, which he used to make him seem like he was running around the country at incredible speeds when really he has just edited it so it seems hat way using pixelation animation. since then there has been a few instances of pixelation one of these is the The Secret Adventures Of Tom Thumb which was featured totally of pixelation animation, Here is a clip from The Secret Adventures Of Tom Thumb.
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