After effects

After painstakingly renaming the files in each scene "0001" onwards I imported them into After Effects as 7 seperate sequences then aligned them on the timeline. I adjusted the time stretch settings for each one accordingly, basically using trial and error until i was happy with the result. I imported the audio track and synched it up roughly with the part of scene 2 that needed to be in time with it, then time stretched the scene to fine tune it a little.

Final Piece

Direct upload above, but for some reason the quality is much better on you tube one below (double click and go to link for fullscreen)

Super 8 Experiment

I thought it might be cool to make my animation look like it was made on an old super 8 camera so i had a stab at it.

I got some blank footage from a super 8 camera from the internet and added it onto my composition as the top layer, setting the blending mode to multiply in order to allow my animation to show through. This  added the old-school static-y effect.

I then created an adjustment layer above the super 8 footage and fiddled with the hue/saturation in the effect menu until I had something that resembled sepia-tone.

I'm glad I learned how to do this because i'm sure it will come in useful for something one day but i think that, having spent so much time getting the lighting and colours right on my set,  it would be a waste to use this technique on my final piece.

Photoshop Edits

Most of the photos used in the animation were left completely unaltered, but there were a few things I needed to do to some of them in Photoshop.

A piece of fabric and a bit of wire made an appearance for about 5 frames  (bottom right of left-hand picture)

And somehow my own hand makes a cameo appearance on one frame (top-right of left hand picture)

These were easily editted out on photoshop by using the freehand lassoo tool to cut out the same area from another frame and paste it over the unwanted object(s).

Also, for my longer zoom shots i had to zoom out so far that the area outside of the set was visible:

Easily resolved; I used the magnetic lassoo tool to select the edges of the set, erased everything outside of it, coloured the empty space black then tidied up with the paint brush. 20 or so times...

Scene 6 - The kiss

Another slight digression from my storyboard, based mainly on circumstantial necessity. I wanted the skeleton to be visible in places beneath the fabric "skin" so literally just got my girlfriend to stitch it into the same material as I had used to make the chair. Because of this method however, the model could not support its own weight (much like a skeleton covered in the fabric from a sofa wouldn't...) so I had to use the other model as support. I was planning to split this sequence into two stages: one zoom out from the "doll's" face then a second zoom out from the happy couple, but because of the support situation I settled for one long zoom out from them both together. Once again, I think this actually worked out better than the original idea, and inspired me to reverse the opening zoom in on the moon and add it onto the end to give the impression of one very long zoom out. The only problem i had with this was that the camera i was using's zoom capacity wasn't enough to keep on zooming out, so at a point i had to start moving the whole camera and tripod-resting-on-books-stacked-on-two-chairs set-up backwards to compensate, making the zoom-out inconsistent towards the end. As a result, as the head falls off the "doll" the eyes of the viewer get distracted by the inconsistency and this action is easily overlooked.

The chair with person-shaped hole, complete with stuffing and springs.

Scene 5 - Action Cloud

For this sequence I wanted to make a sort of action - cloud reminiscent of the type seen in the old looney-tunes cartoons.  It turned out to be a really simple but effective technique - i just took a load of cushion stuffing and assembled it differently on the sofa for each frame. I took the hands off one of the models, made new sleeves and attached them to wire which i stuck into plasticine "weights" for support.
Im also pretty proud of the diddy little scissors i made out of card and tin-foil.

Scene 4 - The Idea

The coincidental positioning of the models at the end of the previous sequence gave me an idea that made me break away from my storyboard a little here. I was planning on doing quite a linear pan across both of their faces separately but since they were in such a nice convenient position i thought i would try a longer zoom/pan sequence, which i think paid off. Its a bit jerky because it was difficult to regulate the camera's movement between frames but apart from that i'm really pleased with it.

Scene 3 - Time Lapse

I kind of messed this sequence up a bit. As I mentioned earlier, I wanted the corpse to gradually decompose while the other character buzzed around the room at high speed to give the illusion of a time lapse. The problem was, because of the way the "corpse" had been made i knew i would only have one chance to film it as the process would destroy the original model. I'm not going to beat myself up about it too badly as this is my first proper go at stop motion, but I misjudged the amount of plasticine to scrape off the corpse between frames, resulting in her decomposing in the same amount of time as it took the other character to clean up the blood. As a result of this i ended the sequence in about half the amount of frames as i had intended and decided to just kind of ad-lib some expressions and gestures for the other model. To be fair, i do actually think this helped to make the transition to the next scene feel more natural, it just wasn't what i had intended.

I also gradually took leaves off the plant in the corner of the room to symbolise decay but it happens so fast that it is barely noticable.

The movement seemed too fast in this sequence so I time stretched it quite a bit.

Scene 2 - Tanzler's Lament

This scene was sooooo time consuming because I (somewhat naively) wanted 5 separate points of animation: The protagonist, the windows, the curtains, the blood dripping from the corpse's head and the lighting in the fireplace. I had the curtains and windows attached to cotton thread so that they could be held in place which also made moving them between shots pretty quick but everything else was painstaking.

When choosing which 30 second clip from the music we were allocated to use i decided to emphasise the first 3 beats when the bass drum kicks in by flooding the set with light to give the appearance of lightening. I thought this would be quite simple until it came to actually figuring out how many frames to leave between lightening strikes.

First, I imported the song into Cubase audio software and figured out that the track is 200bpm in 4/4 tempo. The beats i wanted to emphasise were the first in each bar for three consecutive bars so I worked out the frame spacing as follows (i know this isn't a maths degree by the way but it can't hurt to explain!):

the music has 200 beats per minute, and the animation is 12 per second x 60 seconds = 720 frames per minute

200bpm / 60 seconds = a beat every 0.3 seconds therefore every 4th beat is every 1.2 seconds.

60 seconds / 1.2 = 50 so 720 frames / 50 = 14.4 = emphatic beat once every 14.4 frames

Phew!
Damn decimal place in there though. Sod it, the lightening will have to strike every 14 frames then i'll time stretch it in after effects...

Scene1 - Moon

Once everything was set up this was a pretty straightforward sequence to shoot. I hung my bed-sheet-and-christmas-tree-lights stars in the cellar then suspended the moon in front of it with cotton thread. I used orange cartridge paper over the lamp to soften the glow.

To film the sequence I just set up the camera on a tripod then took a shot, zoomed in a little then repeated    some 47 times, gradually opening the doors on the house over the last ten frames.

Lighting

I was thinking a lot about the Quay brothers lighting being "verging on the corpuscular" and wanted my lighting to take something from this in order to be as dramatic as possible. In order to achieve this I blocked out all natural light in the room using cardboard sello-taped over the windows so that i would have maximum control. I set up a somewhat complicated lighting "rig" using a desk lamp (partially shielded with thin card to direct the light a bit) and two small battery powered torches suspended on a second desk, a block of wood and an old picture frame above the set.

I wanted to give the appearance of a fire burning in the fireplace so I developed the idea below to achieve this:

I have to say, i was feeling pretty damn chuffed with myself when i thought of doing this. I cut holes in the back of the "fire-place" leaving small flaps that could hold different coloured cartridge paper. I shone a light on this from behind and changed the colour of the paper between every shot. To be honest, this started out as a little ambient idea that might add a little extra something but turned out to be very time consuming and just kind of frustrating. And i didn't realise this until i had already shot 50 or so frames by which time there was no turning back and i had to keep changing the damn things between every frame just for continuity's sake. Sigh.

I made the starry sky by cutting small holes into an old bedsheet, poked a couple of pairs of battery christmas tree lights through then taped them in place.

Set design

The above was the first incarnation of the set for where the majority of my animation takes place, built from cardboard, painted, wallpapered and finished with a mantelpiece and curtains (with ironed-in creases and everything). For the flooring I used brown paper and drew in the floorboards with a fine-liner.

For the wallpaper I used A3 paper soaked in tea. I thought this would make it look old and rotting but actually turned out looking rather pleasant - not what I was going for at all! So I ended up blue acrylic with a small amount of black oil paint and painting over it. I knew that the two different types of paint would not mix properly and would give a blotchy, dirty appearance which i would be much happier with.

Thats me in the set. (just to give an idea of the scale).

windows (rear view)

Whilst we're on the set it might be worth me drawing your attention to the windows, because they took me bloody ages to make out of cardboard and acetate!

Me and my moon

I built the moon using a beachball i bought from poundland, papier mache and white emulsion. The house on top was made from cardboard, complete with matchstick pillars and painted with indian ink.

Character Development 2

From the storyboard i knew that i wanted to have a time-lapse type scene showing a female corpse decomposing.  I decided that the best way to go about this would be to get a pre-made plastic or rubber skeleton, mould plasticine onto it for skin and then gradually pick this off again during the course of the scene. The most frustrating part of this was, having already built one character, finding a skeleton of similar size. Eventually i found a build your own skeleton kit on Amazon from a company called Brightminds, yours for only £9.99 (+P&P);

I only actually ended up using the skull and ribcage as it was far too tall so i built the arms and legs from polymer clay on a wire frame, hardened in the oven then painted with acrylic. Dress by Katherine Rothwell.

Character Development

Ok, so i spent quite a while developing this guy as a character but soon realised that he was too flimsy to even support his own weight in a standing pose, let alone for me to be able to pose him for the final animation.

After some internet research (which, in retrospect, i really wish i had done sooner) i found out that the professionals use a metal exoskeleton as a frame to mount the plasticine on. I found some useful DIY instructions on www.instructables.com and set about building my own:

The frame is basically made of lengths of wire, doubled up and twisted using a power drill in order to strengthen it but leaving it relatively malleable. I then added polymer clay (somewhere between mud and plastic(?)) which hardens in the oven, leaving only the joints pose-able.  Although you cannot see it in the photo I also glued metal nuts into the feet using epoxy resin so that the figure could be bolted down in order to stay upright.

I then built the character onto the skeleton. I wanted him to look haunting, lonely and alien-esque which i think i achieved rather well and is emphasised by the colour of the plasticine.

I can't take credit for the clothes. I "out-sourced" some of the work to my darling seamstress of a girlfriend. Nifty eh?

Test Animation

Presenting...

The Profound but Unthinkable Adventures of Anusface and Monsieur Wormington

A little test cell animation me and Dan Bylo worked on together in the workshops

Figure development

Started making the protagonist for my animation. Then I ran out of plasticine.

I will upload more photos as he comes along

Inventory

Stuff I'm gonna need (in order of appearance):

Planet - Papier mache on chicken wire frame

House - Card and paper - needs separate facade and interior

Curtains - Fabric with wire supports to show movement

Bulb - white LED, electrical wire, 9v battery and connector (maybe too time consuming, we'll see)

Figures: Him - Plasticine, wire frame, fabric clothing
              Her - Rubber or plastic skeleton (ebay), plasticine, fabric clothing

Sofa - cardboard frame, fabric covering, stuffing and springs (to poke out through the person-shaped hole)

Action cloud - cotton wool

Voodoo doll - Fabric and stuffing

Storyboard

I decided the 3 key words I would use from my original list would be Loneliness, Death and Interstellar. Basically I want to do a condensed version of the story of Carl Tanzler and Elena de Hoyas (previous post) but with a Tim Burton-esque dark sense of humor and borrowing techniques from the Quay brothers. Set in space.

I plan to use stop-motion animation.

Scene 1 (Approx. 3 secs). Camera zooms in on a solitary house on an otherwise deserted planet/asteroid. I have chosen this location not only because of the "interstellar" mood of the music, but also because i reckon this setting will add to the sense of loneliness.

Scene 2 (Approx. 4 secs) Male figure cradling lifeless body in his arms. the shoulders rise and fall to signify weeping, the curtains flap to add a sense of tension and the light bulb flickers in time with the music to emphasise a sense of fear.

Scene 3 (Approx. 4 secs) This one is going to be tricky but i reckon i can do it. I want to show a long passage of time in a very short space of time so i am going to animate the flesh disappearing from the corpse very quickly whilst the male figure moves around the room at ridiculously high speed, like a time-lapse video. 

Scene 4 (Approx. 2 secs) Camera pans left to right to reveal the now skeletal face of "the Missus"

Scene 5 (Approx. 5 secs) Camera pans right to left. As the camera settles on the male figure's face his expression changes from sadness to that of having an idea.

Scene 6 (Approx. 5 seconds) Looney Tunes type action cloud with hands coming out holding various tools used for sewing.

Scene 7 (Approx.3 secs). Camera zooms out from a voodoo doll type face to reveal the sofa with a person shape missing from it. Hopefully at this point the viewer realises that the man has used the shape cut from the sofa to recreate his loved one's flesh.

Scene 8 (Approx. 4 seconds) Story ends with the man kissing his re-formed but still obviously lifeless love. Camera Zooms out. Maybe her head falls off or something, I haven't decided yet.