Week 15 - 21st April - felt animation test

A rough test of key frames for Arthur character. I will be using felt textures when colouring.

Arthur felt test 

Week 14 - 18th April - Exterior set tests

Exterior set test one

The house looked too brown and lost some of its colour in the orange filter. Will try a plain light and edit in After Effects.

test two

Week 14 - 18th April - lighting exterior set

Week 14 - 18th April - exterior set

Camera set up: Track for panning shot

Week 14 - 18th April - scene 03 part 2

Scene 03 part 02

Week 14 - 17th April - reshoot scene 03

Scene 03 - part 01 

First part of scene 03. 

I decided to spilt scene 03 in to two different shots so it will be more manageable to shoot.

Week 14 - 17th April - ending scenes test

Put together scene 007 (book falling) and the images which will have 2D animation on top of to see if the angles flow nicely together.

End scenes test

- Take out the zoom shot of Arthur and just have the two other shots. 
- I will do a set extension using photoshop/after effects to fill in the missing wall seen in the last shot

Week 14 - 16th April - exterior background

Dyeing a sheet a sky blue using ink. 

By hand dyeing the sheet it came out with a nice mixture of blue tones with some white patches which look like clouds.

Cutting the tree forest layer out of cardboard which will be placed behind the house.

Below is the template I will cut for my camera track. The idea is that the camera will be mounted on the rectangle block and the two strips on either side will be glued down on a piece of wood. The camera can then be placed between the two tracks and slide between them to give a once smooth and steady track.

Week 14 - 16th April - scene 007 Test 01

In this scene I had to use wire to steady the book as it fell. I will remove the wire using photoshop.

Scene 007 test 01

Week 14 - 15th April - Scene 004 test 03

Scene 004 Test 03

Timing worked much better in this test. However his arm still could drop a little quicker! 

Week 14 - 15th April - Scene 004 test 02

Scene 004 - Test 02

- Hands move too quickly when character goes to rub his chest

- Mouth moves way too much and does not make any sense…

- Must be careful with shadows being cast in background

- arm fall slightly quicker?

I am finding stop motion animation extremely challenging as I am shooting 'blind' (animating without any use of animation software or secondary live feed camera) and is very hard to judge the movements of the character even when following an exposure/dope sheet...

Week 14 - 14th April - Scene 003 reshoot

Whilst shooting for this scene, one of the lights cut out half way through. I thought there would be a chance that I could correct the lighting after using After Effects. However, once the shot was finished the lighting difference was very dramatic as the shadows cast did not match up. 

Using After Effects I did manage to mask the character to fit on the correct lighting background but there were still noticeable shadows on the character. I will have to reshoot this scene again.

Scene 003 Test 02

Feedback:
- The character needs to reminisce more on the pages

After looking through this scene, I think I may try a different approach to make the animation more manageable for me to shoot. Instead of the character flicking through several pages of the memory book, I might have him flick through a couple pages but spend more time interacting with whats on the page. This way the audience will be able to see that the character has a connection with the memories in this book.

Week 14 - 13th April - editing test

I edited the first two shots together to give me an idea what the final animation will potentially look like and did a test for the dust on the book.

Our Memories sample

Week 14 - 12th April - scene 01 reshoot

Made new dope sheet for scene 01 and reshot. 

Scene 01 Test 06

Week 13 - 10th April - Camera shaking

As my camera is not compatible with a shutter release remote and I do not own any stop motion software or equipment… I have to touch the camera every time I take a picture. Once all the images are put together it creates a noticeable shake as the pictures are not all lined up. 

So in order to minimise this shaky effect, I edited the clip in After Effects using the Warp Stabiliser effect. It almost completely resolves this problem! 

Week 13 - 7th April - Scene 05 test

Test 01:
This is the stop motion clip that I will be animating the 2D spirit on top of. 

Week 13 - 7th April - Scene 04 test

Test 001:

Timing is really bad in this test, need to slow down and emphasise his 'last breath' 

Week 13 - 5th April - scene 03 tests

Scene 03:

Test 001:

Worked fairly well- some timing issues though

Found this scene particularly challenging- moving the hands I had to constantly reshape the clay and sometime it fell apart.

Test 001

Feedback:

-         Camera shake is taking away fluidity of animation… needs to be fixed somehow?

-         Also when I’ve been slowing down the playback- it looks more like 4 frames per movement which makes it look jerky

-         It needs to animated on 2’s which means more pictures/movements- I need to follow dope sheet more and plan out scenes

Also more facial movements needed

Week 12 - 4th April - animation test scene 002

Moving onto next scene test:

Scene 002:

Setting up camera and tripod was quite a challenge, as I didn’t have a lot of room around where the set was positioned so it had to be mounted on to a wall!

Test 001:

Worked well!

Test 001

Could hold the end frame for another 4 frames

-       Need to decide if to have writing on the blank page

The only problem with this is, is that the audience might think that this is apart of the actual book...

Week 12 - 3rd April - tests scene 001 advice

Test 004: 

Test 004

Still struggling with the timing on the fall back in chair.

Feedback from tutor:

“He's not really 'sitting' back in his chair, he's just sort of throwing himself back slightly. He needs to be up and out of the chair a bit before he lowers himself into it. Then he would relax for a moment before looking at the book”.

Week 12 - 3rd April - scene 001 animation tests

Test 002:

-       Eyes blink too many times

-       Timing in the beginning when he’s leaning back

o   More in betweens

o   Leans back more> as he goes back ease in to position

Test 003:

Worked much better.

Still need more anticipation on lean back.

Slight head jolt- looks up and down too quickly

Test 003

Week 12 - 3rd April - dope sheets