Respond to comments

I like how my animation turned out considering the limited time and cramped space I had to work in. In the animation I could of spent a lot more time on smoothing out how the characters moved, but due to the little time I had to film meant I had to make cut backs on how I had everything move. This also meant I forgot a few things that were supposed to be in the animation, for example there was supposed to be more penguins involved but I didn't have the time within my lesson to animate them all at the same time.

The comments I received from members of the class were all very positive saying that the video was very funny but could do with a few improvements. The main improvement that was suggested was when the seal enters the scene he appears he just turns up and 'hovers' in, this is due to his arms not having any true movement to simulate a seals actual walk/ movement.

This is the moment the seal 'hovers' into the scene. If I had more time to make the animation I would fix this problem but other than that people seemed to like the other scenes. To fix this problem I would have to do some more research into how seals actually move, then I will be able to show this in my animation.

Another suggestion made was that the penguin also moved quite 'awkwardly'.

This penguin does not walk very penguin like, the problem was that this baby penguin was very difficult to actually move due to it being very small and very hard to move the small parts. I agree with how the penguin moves and I would of liked to do something about it, in the future if I made the penguin much bigger and kept everything else bigger, this could give the illusion of it being small but leaving it easy to animate.

The comments made by the class members will help me improve my animations in the future and if I were to do this animation again, they would help me a lot in making my animation even better. From the comments I have found if I were to do it again, I would take the comments on board and would change how some parts of it are made, possibly do more research into how the animals actually move in nature to add some realism. To change my animation if I were to do it again I would also add more characters into the animation, this comment was not made by other members but I feel it looks slightly dull with just the two characters, I was going to have more penguins but even so this would look boring, I feel I need a wider range of characters. I would also day my background needed to be better for my animation, the way I had set it up to stay standing meant the bottom was curved and this made it very difficult to animate with, if I were to do this again I would choose a better way to hold a background up and to choose a more HD image. I believe if I changed all these things it would make a big difference.

Finished Animation

This is my finish animation, I used iStopmotion to film and edited it with iMovie.  Please leave feedback to what you thought, liked and what I should change to make it better.

I have downloaded a lot of my sound effects from www.freesfx.co.uk, this site allows free downloads of sound effects.
I was unable to upload all the sound effects on their own so I used this screenshot to show what it looks like.

Editing

I have started to edit my animation together in iMovie. So for the editing has gone fine with a few problems that were over come, for example taking the opening sequence from a theme without needing to use the entire theme.

My video so far did not upload so I took a screen shot of which shows how it looks so far.

filmed animation ( no edits )

This is my animation that I managed to film. The video has not yet been edited and has no sound but I will be able to edit this after easter. Filming went well but I did not have enough time to use all the penguins I made so I left it as just the seal and the penguin.

Scene creation

I printed off my background and found a problem. I could not place it anywhere that would keep it up in place. I stuck rulers to the back of it to give the paper more support which worked. This caused another problem because the light coming in showed all the rulers, so I added black paper to the back to absorb the light.

Production

I have started production on my animation but I have only done a few seconds which I haven't upload. Hopefully it will be finished soon.

I cut out my background and made supports to keep it standing up, I also made my final penguin and remade the penguin egg.

Lip syncing

This was the face we were supposed to animate its mouth. Big thanks to our group member Matty on his artwork.

We timed the sound we were given which was 'elephant' and we wrote it down into our dope sheet. We had to time every part of the word you would say normally. This was much harder than we thought which took up a lot of our time so we were unable to film the person talking. From looking at everyone else's posts I found out that we all got about the same layout but some were different.

Background

I will be using this as a background, but I will be using normal white paper as the floor to look like snow, this will be easier then trying to match up a snowly background and this background together. I may add more backgrounds for different scenes but I am not sure.

Seal test

This is the seal I will be using in my animation, I based him off the model made in Pingu. There was one problem when I was making this seal, that was that when I was mixing the white and black I accidentally mixed in the egg model, so I will have to make that again. 

Test Models

More test models

Egg

Parent Penguin

Test models

These are my first attempts of the main character in different stages of its life and the animation. The final models will be made of fresh clay which will improve their looks and quality. I still need to try and make an egg and possibly its parents.

Adult penguin

Baby penguin

Story board

My story will start off with a family of penguins, they have a baby but abandon the egg. When the egg hatches the baby is sad and alone. He then starts to kill the other animals around him.

Collage

Arctic life collage 

I made this collage to research the different types of arctic life and what they look like, this will help me when it comes to making the animation

Model Animation

Claymation; How it works.

Claymation is done by making characters out of Plasticine clay, you then use a camera to take a picture of the model moving how ever you want. When played back as long as you have it about 10 frames per second it will play back smoothly and look very convincing like it was really moving. Having 10 frames per-second means that the model will only move very slightly each frame, the slower it moves the better the finished product will look. This can be seen as Cell animation but with 3D models as the basic principles are the same, such as the slower it moves the smoother it looks when played back.

Nick Park's A Grand Day Out 1989

This claymation was made in 1989 by Nick Parks. Wallace and Gromit is still being shown today and have made many more TV programs and films. In 2005 the factory where Wallace and Gromit was made burnt down and many of their models were lost. The problem with this type of animation is that if someone goes wrong in a scene, for example you knock the model over and its arm moves, it will be very difficult to get it back to its correct shape and could result in the entire animation being ruined.

Creature Comforts 1989

Creature comforts was made as a short film by the same people that made Wallace and Gromit. It is basically about them going around and interviewing animals and they all have very simple but funny replies. This program is still watched by thousands on the internet and is sometimes put on TV.

Morph 1977

Morph is a Plasticine character of a children  program called Morph. It was made by Tony Hart and was a very popular among young children. Morph can still be found on TV today still as a children show and can also be found on the internet. The name of the character was simply chosen because he had the ability to morph into what ever he wanted.

Outline of idea

Cute penguin that kills humans

Character Ideas 

Animals 

Penguins
Polar bear
black bear
Tiger
Lion

Animals that look cute but turn out to be deadly.
Deadly looking animals that turn out to be caring.
Aliens

Grey or bright coloured.

Deadly Aliens

Tentacles or Arms
How many arms?
How many eyes?

Human

Male or Female?
Age?



Backgrounds

Arctic
Jungle
City
Desert
Space
Alien Planet



Story-line ideas

Baby penguin hatches ands starts killing everyone.

Aliens come down and start eating humans.

Cell based

What is Cell based animation?

Cell based animation is when a person or people draw a load of different pictures that have the drawings moving bit by bit, when they are all played together it gives life to the drawings and makes them look like they are moving, this happens when the brain is tricked into thinking the drawings are moving when they are not.

Snow White - 1937

Snow white was the first successful animated film to be made. Disney made this film by drawing each individual cells and where the drawing only moved a bit at a time, this took 2 - 3 years to be completed. It took this long because foe every 25 images a second of film was complete, this meant the film was very smooth looking when they played it back

Flip-book animation

This is an example of flip book animation, there have been countless flip-books animation over the year because they are so easy to do without any special equipment. Flip-books first came out in 1868 by a man called John Barnes Linnett, he named it a 'kineograph' which means moving picture.







Cinderella 1950

Cinderella was created by Walt disney studios in 1950, each individual cell was drawn over a long period of time. Cinderella is still watched today and has even been re-maked into HD. Cinderella has been a huge success for Disney.




















Cinderella is a 1950 American animated film fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and released by RKO Radio Pictures.

1970 - 1990

BBC

Bagpuss 1974

Bagpuss was made in 1974 in the UK, it was a children's TV series made by Peter Firmin and Oliver Postgate. In 1999 Bagpuss was named the top children's TV show. The program would start with the litter girl leaving the room and then bagpuss coming to life, Bagpuss is a pink and white striped cat that is also a stuffed toy not a real cat which is why it only came to life when no human was in the room.

Tim Burton 1982

Vincent 

Vincent was a stop motion animation based on horror, it was one of the first big things Tim Burton has done. It was shown by Walt Disney. Tim Burton is still doing work today  and also directed the London Olympics opening and closing event. 

Nick Park's A Grand Day Out 1989

This claymation was made in 1989 by Nick Parks. Wallace and Gromit is still being shown today and have made many more TV programs and films. In 2005 the factory where Wallace and Gromit was made burnt down and many of their models were lost.