Toying with a few ideas.

Over this Bank Holiday weekend, I have been convincing myself there's not much work I can do as I have to do all my animating at uni (oh the joys of stop motion(!)). I've made a few things, like a crate that can break open for a particular scene and a few other bits and pieces. Something else I have been looking at is sound effects. As well as having the audio track, I thought it might be quite nice and possibly fitting to have the onomatopoeic words appear on screen like they do in Batman. This will lend to the comic/cartoony feel I want the film to have and could work brilliantly. Or fail miserably. I made a few mock-ups:

Here's one on a storyboard frame. Looks pretty sweet.

And I know this frame isn't relevant but I thought it would give me an idea of what it'll look like. Looks pretty good also I think, but if anyone disagrees, let me know your thoughts.

In other news, have received an email from a Masters Student at Bristol Uni who would like to write the music score for my film. She sent me a sample of her work, and I think it could be a good partnership as she really likes writing big exciting John Williams style music. How exciting!

Blimey thats quite a long post. Hope everything is going well elsewhere for my fellow animators, and probably see you all tomorrow. This is getting oddly weird now, thats what you get for 3 days on your own. Gah, shut up Joe.

My Film Has Begun To Exist!

So here, as promised is some animation I did today. It has a few wobbles and knocks, but as the first real piece of stop motion animation I have done since roughly last January, its not too bad.

Hope everyone likes it!
Though it seems Vimeo has compressed it a bit weird.

Animation Has Begun

So, the animation as finally begun.
However, me and George spent most of the day trying to get the new digital SLR cameras to do what we want. Eventually we got it, and I managed to animate a little bit. It's ok, though I'm probably going to redo it tomorrow. Main thing taken from today, new knowledge of cameras and Stop Motion Pro, and that it is very possible to fall asleep in the uni bar. This animation lark is tiring, and I reckon we'll be the living dead before too long.

Hopefully a video tomorrow!

Night!

Some More Stuff

Work is continuing (obviously) on the Raiders. Though enthusiasm is waning.
Meanwhile I found another image from Edambusters.

This is 'Red' Lester.

Might put up some Raiders stuff later.

A Day to Make You Make That Sort of 'Tsss' Hissing Noise That You Make When Somethings Gone Wrong But You Don't Want to Go Nuts in Public About It

Bit of a lame day today. Attempted casting the first of the final monkeys. It went disastrously wrong, to be honest it couldn't have got much worse unless I'd cut my hand off in the process. The foam didn't really work very well, was too sticky and made the mould very hard to open. When it was finally opened, the mould had cracked and the monkey looked like some hideous burns victim with bits of foamy flesh hanging all over the place. Needless to say I wasn't best pleased.

However I tried animating him as he's useless for anything else, and he animates very nicely indeed, probably testament to my ace armature making skills (!)
Here's the video. I like the nose wiping the best



And here's some photos showing the extent of the horror.