Paper Ball Experiment

This is my storyboard put into action. I only wanted it to be a short experiment but I realised near enough as soon as i started that this was going to need alot more frames than i had planned in my storyboard.

I ignored it and tried it out anyway.

Dispite the 'Stop Motion Pro' watermark that cannot be removed as i am using a trial version, i think it turned out great. I was really proud as it was only my 4th piece of animation in my life. Apart from the lack of frames on my storyboard, it and the final animation are very similar and the way i captured it hard a strong resemblence to the way i planned it.

Overall it took nearly 300 frames and alot of patience but i a very happy with the way it turned out and cant wait to try my soundtrack with it.

Storyboard

After experimenting with stop motion i started to think about my sound track. I have been given:
 02 Bach (JS)_ Goldberg Variations, BWV 988 - 01. Variation 1.
The previous experiments that i have done do not really work with this track. The music is very flowing and moves up and down but yet still remains very fluid, so i thought to myself what else is fluid, water? But water is also fast and would be hard to capture with stop motion. Then i started to think even more simple, and i came up with a line. A black line that draws smooth, fluid curves just like the music.
A close friend of mine did a piece of stop motion a couple of years ago of a screwed up paper ball. It was only simple but i really liked it. I liked the jerky movement as it rolled around on the floor and it obviously stuck in my mind because it was one of the first things to pop in my head when i was thinking about stop motion.
I decided that i was going to use his idea with the paper ball but expand it with my own addition.
Heres my storyboard of what it should look like.

Here is the paper ball rolling around a little then stopping and starting to open itself up. The camera will be behind it, following it.

Here it finishes opening and ends up a flat piece of paper then a black spot appears on it. towards the last two frames here the camera moves back and up onto a small tripod so it can capture the whole shot. A line starts to protrude out of the black spot.

Here the line has curved out of the spot and off the paper onto a white surface. The camera moves back, still on the tripod and the line continues towards it. The camera then continues to move to keep it all in shot as the line diverts itself away from the camera and starts swirling towards the wall. The line then goes up onto the wall and starts to write some letters while the camera moves in on it.

The line then continues to spell out 'stop motion' on the wall and the camera stays stationary. On frame 23 the camera moves right in on the letter 'n' and follows the line as it continues off the 'n' and back onto the white surface.

These are the last 3 frames. The line finishes off in a black spot like it started and the camera is moved back out to capture the whole piece. The last two frames are repeated so the image can be clearly viewed.

Now its time to try and capture this animation on camera.

Pahnl

Pahnl is a street artist from the UK. Since 2003 he has been stenciling.

‘I take huge influence from comics and street signage, but I add my own subversive twist. I aim to make my work interact with its environment’. - Pahnl

I love stencils. There one of my favorite aspects of design. These light stencils look fantastic with the long exposure of the camera. The way that all you can see from the cars is the lights streaming across ties in well with the light stencils.

Keep It Real Machine

I wanted to try something different than just skateboard tricks so i created this machine.

Its essentially a machine that turns drawn paper objects into the real thing.

Heres a clip of it in action.

I think it worked really well and it actually looks quite convincing if you ask me. This clip was slightly longer than my other two and i moved the camera alot more to keep it all in the shot. Overall i am pleased with this piece as it has a little more to it than my previous two. 

2nd Tech Deck Trick

This is another experiment with my minature skateboard.

After watching the Oren Lavie music video i am now going to move the camera to close in on the shot and get a different perspective.

I tried to close in on the board just as it landed on the ledge. I think this would have worked well if there were more frames in the production so it moved slower and more fluid.

BLU BLU

BLU BLU is a group of artists that i have researched before but for their huge, graffiti like art work not for thier animation.

Previously i thought their pieces were fantastic, the shier size of them was amazing and because it was all graffiti style urban art it was just to my taste.

Now i can see them in a whole different light i still respect them for the same resons but now for animation aswell.

Heres a few examples of their work.

The images that are illustrated might not be to everybodys taste because there quite wierd but nobody can ignore the talent that these guys have.

Oren Lavie - Her Morning Elegance

This is a music video that i found that uses stop motion in one of the most creative ways i have ever seen.
This is the video that showed me different ways in which the camera could be moved to capture a specific part of the shot.

This is also a great example of how audio can be linked in with video. All round a great piece of animation.

Tech Deck Rips

This is the first piece of stop motion i have ever done. To think of something to shoot i just thought about my hobbies and skateboarding is one of my biggest.

So i came up with an idea to capture a minature skateboard doing a trick.

This is my experiment, Its only very short but i was impressed because it was the first piece of animation i had ever created.

Overall i thought it was good. It could have hade a little more frames to create a smoother motion but i have learnt alot during this experiment. Iv learned that if you take the time and have the scene set up correctly you can make anything look good.



Print To Pixel

My new project is called Print To Pixel. It is an animation project that enables us to experiment most types of animation.

This is the first time iv done any animation what so ever so at first i was quite worried as i did not know what animation entailed.

After a few different tutoring lessons i got a little bit to grips with how some animation works.

I really liked stop motion, it was just the jerky movements and the unlimited possibilities that you could get from it.

As i dont see myself as the best person for drawing in any respect, and i love photography, this was the perfect way for me to work around my weaknesses (drawing) and work on my strengths (photography).

Here are a few of my first ever experiments with stop motion.

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