Well as the film is completed so is my time at university.
you can see the finished film on my vimeo page. If you're reading this and need an animator/set builder/prop maker, let me know and we can work something out!
I'm making my first few steps into the unknown world of being a fully responcible adult getting a job in the real world, no more student antics for me! well there is friday night... thats gonna be fun.
let me know what you think of my film people, any feedback will be greatly appreciated!
http://www.vimeo.com/24213370
Tuesday, 7 June 2011
Wednesday, 18 May 2011
Filming
Filming is going really well, but the deadline is just around the corner!
I wont give you any clips as I dont want to spoil the final film but it's great seeing it all come together. Tom is doing a great job of editing as we go along and both him and Alex are having great fun making all the sound FX. Jon has finished filming all the fox's shots, the puppet just about made it through!
Our deadline is on tuesday and then we have to present it to our tutors on wednesday. I'll post up a link to the finished film on my vimeo page sometime next week, but in the mean time, here is my vimeo link anyways so you can see other projects I have done during my time at university.
http://www.vimeo.com/user1760837
I wont give you any clips as I dont want to spoil the final film but it's great seeing it all come together. Tom is doing a great job of editing as we go along and both him and Alex are having great fun making all the sound FX. Jon has finished filming all the fox's shots, the puppet just about made it through!
Our deadline is on tuesday and then we have to present it to our tutors on wednesday. I'll post up a link to the finished film on my vimeo page sometime next week, but in the mean time, here is my vimeo link anyways so you can see other projects I have done during my time at university.
http://www.vimeo.com/user1760837
Saturday, 7 May 2011
Barry Update
As you may have read, Barry Purves has been working with my fellow students and I at Staffordshire university.
The Young Persons Guide To The Orchestra project is now in its final stages. Each student is involved on a different section of the project and I have the finale. This week I was able to film my part. I collected parts of everyone elses work so far and projected the animations on to the body of a very brave male model Matt, to whom I am very grateful for agreeing to do.
It was a bit difficult to round up everyones work as the majority of people were in Stuttgart for the FMX animation festival, but they were able to upload their work on vimeo and so I could download it. The shoot went really well, I was well prepared and Barry and Matt were easy to work with. I'll be cutting together the footage some time this week.
Just before Easter I was incredibly privilaged to spend a day with Barry on the set of his Tchaikovsky project, assisting with bar sheets and more projection work. I made some cookies as a sign of my appreciation for this oppertunity, which went down really well! It was really insightful and I learnt a great deal. I even got to see my swans in action and they look great! Barry loves them too and told me that the producer from Russia commented on them too. When we went to lunch at a local sandwich bar, I was introduced to half the crew of MacKinnon and Saunders puppet makers, whose workshops were just down the road. It was a great experience and hope to go back for another day in the future!
The Young Persons Guide To The Orchestra project is now in its final stages. Each student is involved on a different section of the project and I have the finale. This week I was able to film my part. I collected parts of everyone elses work so far and projected the animations on to the body of a very brave male model Matt, to whom I am very grateful for agreeing to do.
It was a bit difficult to round up everyones work as the majority of people were in Stuttgart for the FMX animation festival, but they were able to upload their work on vimeo and so I could download it. The shoot went really well, I was well prepared and Barry and Matt were easy to work with. I'll be cutting together the footage some time this week.
Just before Easter I was incredibly privilaged to spend a day with Barry on the set of his Tchaikovsky project, assisting with bar sheets and more projection work. I made some cookies as a sign of my appreciation for this oppertunity, which went down really well! It was really insightful and I learnt a great deal. I even got to see my swans in action and they look great! Barry loves them too and told me that the producer from Russia commented on them too. When we went to lunch at a local sandwich bar, I was introduced to half the crew of MacKinnon and Saunders puppet makers, whose workshops were just down the road. It was a great experience and hope to go back for another day in the future!
Thursday, 7 April 2011
Lighting Tests
With the woodland set litterally one step away from completion, we decided to test out the backdrops and some dappled lighting rigs Alex had made out of some net curtains. This slide show was put together by Tom and the music over the top was written especially for our project by Tom's brother. The sound effects are just examples to get a nice sense of atmosphere. Let me know what you think!
Animation Tests
This last week has been about testing the puppets and getting a good feel for them, but not working them too hard incase they break before we even start filming the real thing!
Firstly here is my test of Jack the dog. Instead of a puppet, Jack is animated using a series of replacement figures. I sculpted them individually out of supersculpy (a clay you cook in the oven to harden) and it was tough to get them all to look the same.
Here is the test walk cycle I animated for Barney. Made by Tom, Barney is a foam latex puppet with a wire armature and a supersculpy head with changeable mouths to give him different expressions. His head isn't fully attatched yet so please excuse its shakeyness,
And last but by no means least, is the test walk cycle for the fox. This is animated by Jon, as he will be animating the fox in the film. This is a bit small, to view it on a larger screen you can find it on you tube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8q04hikPtQ
Firstly here is my test of Jack the dog. Instead of a puppet, Jack is animated using a series of replacement figures. I sculpted them individually out of supersculpy (a clay you cook in the oven to harden) and it was tough to get them all to look the same.
Here is the test walk cycle I animated for Barney. Made by Tom, Barney is a foam latex puppet with a wire armature and a supersculpy head with changeable mouths to give him different expressions. His head isn't fully attatched yet so please excuse its shakeyness,
And last but by no means least, is the test walk cycle for the fox. This is animated by Jon, as he will be animating the fox in the film. This is a bit small, to view it on a larger screen you can find it on you tube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8q04hikPtQ
Sunday, 27 March 2011
Barry Purves
As promised, more news on the projects Barry is working on with us.
The Young Persons Guide project is in full swing and starting to take shape, here is a basic animatic for you to have a look at. Each section is being animated by a different student and is meant to reflect a different part of the human body/mind represented by the instrument played in that section.
I have the Fuge, the finale of the piece and my plan is to project the other students work on to a live male model and then have a big reveal at the end where everyone involved in the film, including Barry will be there.
Barry is also working on another film outside of the university, all about the life and works of Tchaikovsky. He asked me to make him a paper cut out cycle of a swan flying slowly. Here is my test of the swans which I traced from a video I found on youtube, sort of rotoscoped you could say.
The Young Persons Guide project is in full swing and starting to take shape, here is a basic animatic for you to have a look at. Each section is being animated by a different student and is meant to reflect a different part of the human body/mind represented by the instrument played in that section.
I have the Fuge, the finale of the piece and my plan is to project the other students work on to a live male model and then have a big reveal at the end where everyone involved in the film, including Barry will be there.
Barry is also working on another film outside of the university, all about the life and works of Tchaikovsky. He asked me to make him a paper cut out cycle of a swan flying slowly. Here is my test of the swans which I traced from a video I found on youtube, sort of rotoscoped you could say.
Long Time No Post!
WOW!
I really didn't realise that it had been this long since I posted last! My apologies, let me give you a quick recap of the last 4 weeks,
I turned 22
Alex turned 22
Much puppet, set and prop making.
The major changes are with the sets. such as, the mud or mulchy woodland floor. I first built up a bit of a slope using pink insulation foam to help the set look less flat then I added the mud.
I got this effect by mixing hamster bedding sawdust stuff, PVA glue, paint, a splash of water and a sprinkle of paper leaves. The PVA glue will make it all set nice and stiff so it doesn't move around if it's touched. The path was done using sand instead of sawdust because Barney only ever walks on the path so the magnets need to be able to get through it.
I left some gaps to add in the trees which i will then cover over the bases with another thin layer of mud, this time of a different colour to get a nice effect.
Talking of trees, we have begun to add a few branches to them, and branches mean leaves!! luckily we found some nifty craft punches which did most of the work for us, except for the glueing on!! Quite a relaxing job in a mind numbing kind of way. We made the branches out of twisted florists wire, you know the stuff that has the paper over it, and then glued each leaf on one by one. There are still many branches to make.
As far as puppets go, paint seems to be the issue. Alex did a test on the not so great badger puppet with acrylic and an air brush, which looks really nice until you move the puppet and the paint cracks. Whereas Jon used latex paint which essentially gave the fox a thick orange skin that creased really badly when the puppet was posed. Jon is currently experimenting with recasting the fox with ink in the foam latex mixture, hopefully that will work. In the mean time, I told Alex to stick with the acrylic and any cracks can be editted out in post.
Tom has made an amazing start on Barney's front room especially as we have 2 lots of props to make for it. The before and after money furniture is looking great! Barney goes from having a manky bean bag to a lush leather sofa. It's all starting to come together now and it's all down to the fine details.
Barney himself is not looking too shabby either. Tom did a few test animations and he's looking good.
Right now I'm working on Jack the dog. Instead of a single puppet, he will be a series of replacements, and boy is it hard to get them all looking the same!
More news and picks as I get them folks so stay tuned!
I really didn't realise that it had been this long since I posted last! My apologies, let me give you a quick recap of the last 4 weeks,
I turned 22
Alex turned 22
Much puppet, set and prop making.
I got this effect by mixing hamster bedding sawdust stuff, PVA glue, paint, a splash of water and a sprinkle of paper leaves. The PVA glue will make it all set nice and stiff so it doesn't move around if it's touched. The path was done using sand instead of sawdust because Barney only ever walks on the path so the magnets need to be able to get through it.
I left some gaps to add in the trees which i will then cover over the bases with another thin layer of mud, this time of a different colour to get a nice effect.
Talking of trees, we have begun to add a few branches to them, and branches mean leaves!! luckily we found some nifty craft punches which did most of the work for us, except for the glueing on!! Quite a relaxing job in a mind numbing kind of way. We made the branches out of twisted florists wire, you know the stuff that has the paper over it, and then glued each leaf on one by one. There are still many branches to make.
Barney himself is not looking too shabby either. Tom did a few test animations and he's looking good.
Right now I'm working on Jack the dog. Instead of a single puppet, he will be a series of replacements, and boy is it hard to get them all looking the same!
More news and picks as I get them folks so stay tuned!
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