Time planning - March review

 

Callum has been getting on with the flashback scenes, so they're now out the way, and we only need to focus on filming the stop motion parts. Callum worked out from the animatic that the rest of the animation is around 1 min, and if we work at geting 20 seconds done a week, that means that we should only need 3 weeks to film, and then we have 3 weeks left till deadline to edit and refine it.

This time plan really has just been a rough scale, because when it was made, I didnt know how long the animation was altogether.

The animatic is 3 mins long, with panning shots and digital flashback scenes there is a few medias which each take differnt amounts of time to do. lighting tests have all been done, so we just need to get on with panning shots, which will be in live action and then we really just need to focus on the stopmotion side.

Presentation and feedback

Feedback

 Lighting 
- more lighting test needed to be done, it looks too vibrant for the tone we are going for, a darker light would add the the eery setting. 
- how are we going to light the fire, use led lights behind a shaped film or create the fire in post production 

responce
 more tests can be done, I agree that the lighting should be darker to reflect the tone

 Staircase 
- it lead to nowhere, do it need a door at the top of it? 

responce
I ran out of time to create the balcony so ws just going to be clever with the camera angles to avoid seeing the top of the stair case. The staircase will also be moved to its original location of the back wall, but for photographing it was places there.


 Character 
- how does the character walk and move? transition tests need to be done between stop motion and digital flashback scnes

responce 
I will need to think about the movement of the character, we know he is old, but not too frail as he has travelled all his life. but some walking test will help.

Puppet making - remake

Because the character didn't sit very good, and Callum wasn't happy with the texture of the skin, I decided to remake the character. I think that because the whole character is made of liquid laytex, it restrickts it's movement, especially with the design of the character having a big waist.

for the second character I still wanted the laytex skin, but needed to change the inside, I thought of what Id previously made puppets from and knew foam was successful. 

I re used the mould and applied two layers of liquid latex t form an outer skin, letting each layer dry before applying the next coat.


With the armature, I didn't add any milliput to it where bones would be, I left this off because I thought that could be another reason why the character didn't sit, because the miliput hips were in the way. 


The process of doing this was fairly fast, I prepared it all the night before so that I could go down to ceramics and mix up the 2 part foam liquids.


I'm eatremly please on how the second character turned out, he could have used with some milliput in his head, as it is a lille difficult to turn it, but he's a lot smother and bends a lot easier due to his lightweight foam body.

I left his finger, as I thought dipping them will build them up nicly as they are too thin to cast.

he looks so much better now when comparing the puppets side by side, his skin is not bumpy, and his features are more prominent 

  

completing the set

Puppet - clothes making

Finding material was quite a hard task, I went to a fabric shop and looked at the material available. For the character's dressing gown I found a fluffy material with a silky back that I thought would look good for the character.

I tried to follow the design as best I could, but some materials that were the right colour were too thick to work with on a small scale so I had to compromise a little. 

I created a paper template, which I tried on the puppet before cutting out the parts to make sure it fit nice. I kept Callum updated and asked for his opinion alot during this process as I want us to both like it as some changes were made from the original design.

The monster I'm struggling a bit with. We want it to have an outfit that looks ghost like, flowy and light, but we want to be able to position it, so I chose tights for the material, and intended to sew thin wire into the seems to allow us to move it about and stay in position. However with this, I lost the feeling of flowy movement, and draping material, so I'm going to have to re think about how this character is going to be made.

presentation feedback

Today's presentation was mainly feedback on story and the animatic, which were Callum's rolls that I have little input in. The story was easy for our peers to follow which is good, so the main priority now is to got some background music and complete the set and puppets.




I took some photos of the set to show where me and Wing are up to with the set. After I had wallpapered and places the items we have in place, we all agreed were were a lot further a head with everything thing than we thought!

Joe was kind enough to let us borrow his bookcase and table he had made for his set last year, which saved me some time in order to get everything finnished sooner.

This to be completed or made now are:

Balcony
window and door frames  
extra bookcases for balcony?
thinner bookcase for window wall
puppet outfits

and hopefully we'll be ready to animate as soon as.

There was one hiccup with the length of the chair legs, but we can cut them down so the character can sit under the table.

set making

Today was very productive. me and Wing discussed what were the main things to be done next, which were printing the floor and wallpaper designs and painting furniture that had been made.

Wing got on with painting the fireplace and cutting some legs for the chair and table, ready to then be painted when dry, and I got on with making sure the wallpaper and floor were the correct size for printing and then I got on with drawing up the doors and cutting it out.

We printed ready to put together next week, the floor was printed on one sheet so it can be cut to size and laid on without any joins, but the wallpa[er was printed across a few sheets of A2 ready to be measured and cut to be put on the wall, acting as real wallpaper.