My Final Evaluation

I have learn't many new things about animation I had learn't about the different forms of animation e.g. claymation, paper cut-out I had heard of them but from researching and experimenting with the I got a better understanding of them and how to construct those animations into ideas, we also learn't how to use a green screen as me and the team had never used one before with some help we in editing we were able to have the background function successfully.

Dystopia itself was a new topic I hadn't heard up I found out it was the antonym to utopia from researching on it.It was a new experience along with learning how to improvise with ideas that either didn't work or the material wasn't capable of doing it.

From learning this new skills we tried in a way to combine two combinations of both Plasticine stop-motion with Paper cut-out animation and incorporate them into our final short dystopian film this worked rather well very much influenced by the Monty Python introduction and our experimentation with that particular animation which we got the hang of quickly, The green screen editing we learn't was influenced by a particular music video by the band coral introduced to me and the team by a teacher we liked the colour in that video and the movement this really helped us with the designing and the ideas for our final film.

I tried to develop my Ideas by going onto YouTube and looking at different film trailers revealing to me the different types of dystopia there are showing to me that not all dystopia themes were founded upon uprisings and the Government brainwashing the public but that in some cases dystopia can be shown through opposite in situations. where crimes are at an all time high and that the government need to take control or in areas where either the government doesn't exist and they allow anarchy with torture to be given free pass for one day every year.

Mainly all of the of  the animators we researched on had different effects on how we produced our final video. At first it was Aardman studios had their influence on us simply because me and the team knew them rather well for creating Chicken Run and the Wallace & Gromit franchise so they did at first get our attention then we moved onto music video animators like the ones who created Gorrillaz music video along with Gotye's.

I plan to use my knowledge for next time by planning ahead considering our difficulties with the use of different materials if we did it again I believe we would pursue more materials and experiment even more. And in future work the new skills I have learn't in this project in it's making process I could be able to incorporate into my new ideas and through that expand even more on my skills.

The finished short Dystopian themed film

The final Dystopia short film, it's pulled it off and it works very especially with the background the only thing I would do is feature the Hans Zimmer music going off in the background but putting that aside it reveals a perfect Dystopia element/theme that me and Razor Productions wanted.

MORPHING

 This is the scene before the fight where all the characters all morph to together into a giant, with an attempt to take down the government.

BRUTAL ENDING

 In these scene the crowd all combine together just to represent working together and the opponent the government are fighting back and not going down without a fight and with the this it features people joining forces making a stand and succeeding, from that gaining back their power that they thought had once been lost and would never be returned.

Dystopia theme short clip of of our short video

This is the trailer that I had planned to show giving little snippets of the short film featuring the Hans Zimmer music when watching this even though you don't see the full short film the clip along with the music just add so much depth the the scenes and reflects a lot of emotion.

Development

For our final animation we at first chose clay due simply to the fact it could easily be controlled throughout the movie in particular it looked rather suitable for the character design.

We assumed it would work perfect but after working with it using the iMotion app we discovered that even though it may have been easy to mold it would easily become misshapen, it just wasn't capable of being stationary for a certain amount of time therefor we had to re-consider the material.

We then changed to Plasticine but even though it could hold for a certain amount of time, it could only do that in a particular position then suddenly topple over and so we used wire to set up an almost skeleton design by placing the wire through it to help it stay in position for more stability unfortunately the area that this was mostly affecting was the legs which mean't the only plausible idea would be to remove them as long as the video held it's meaning and truth behind it the viewers and ourselves could look past the un-featured legs.

Green screen

To enable me and the team to incorporate the future plaster sculpture designs for the background we had to use a green screen we did at first have problems with getting one but eventually we found an appropriate wooden green board we ended up using for our background.

Background

We were considering using these plaster models for our background because they had a future and technology element to them  through the curvature of them along with the unusuality of the designs themseleves almost looking like worm-like structures, so we assumed they'd be more than suitable for the design we wanted.

Ideas

Highly influenced by our research on dystopian films, we wanted our short film to explore the sad side of having a capitalistic government and how being controlled and treated like slaves along with capital punishments can have a massive effect on the public around, suggesting uprisings can develop. This story is based very much of the dystopia and theme of it but it can also leave that relatable sense to it as well.

For example for one of our scene we wanted the final part to have a big impact on the viewers the idea was to have a flower shown at the end featured at first before the final punishment happens that the flower this character has is reflected back to towards the end almost leaving the end scene a cliffhanger to be honest.

It shows the public coming to the realization that they had been brainwashed and that they need to make a stand and that even though they thought they were safe and free they in actual fact not even close to that. The story itself almost relates to the nazi's in a way where the hair is being shaven off along with their pride all stripped way from them wanting to leave an almost Auschwits feel.

And so we created our scene strips to help us keep on track of our story we didn't necessarily believe we would stick to our scene strip but the whole basis of being controlled and dehumanized was crucial and that we tried to capture that the best we could.

PAPER CUT OUT ANIMATION

Paper Cut-Out Animation

The team and I produced this video influenced by Monty Python and it's intro scene to create this we used magazines and cut them out and ordered them in the video and that was the overall result this method of animation was easy to control and enjoyable to produce. We were in the process of thinking of maybe pursuing this through more experimentation.

 The intro to Monty Python

you can figure out there cut outs but the way display it in a very humorous way it adds to the laugh

with the constant movement shown though the intro they blend it in rather well.

We tried expanding with the quirkiness of the cut out design method except this time we played with it more and gave it an almost natural feel to it.

KIDNAPPING 2

Claymation

A scene that was influenced by Aardman which me and the team thought strongly about in incorporating into our Dystopia short film the only part we were concerned about was that some of their movements were limited and we had to take that into consideration before working more on the film

Claymation

this is type of stop-motion where the materials like clay and Plasticine are used rather time consuming as this form of stop-motion can take a while to produce considering this material has been involved in music videos and films such as Peter Gabriel and his music video for SledgeHammer Aardman's Wallace & Gromit, Shaun the Sheep and Pirates in a Adventure with scientist, which none surprisingly took over a year and six months to film. Claymation is very similar to stop-motion it's not only slower process but more intricate and detailed. In Claymation the material being used is slowly adjusted and re-positioned in each frame that gives the effect the object or character has came to life this is why they choose a malleable material because it's easier to pose and manipulate.

 

Me and the team encouraged by these music videos and films created short clever claymation based videos.

Animation with paper

Animation using Paper

with the help of one of our team members she created three paper puppets garden wire was used in these particular ones but we were considering using brass fasteners as they were more well designed for the joints of both the arms and the legs.

The creator Lotte Reiniger famous for her paper silhouette videos she produced in this video she has a harmonious background tune by Mozart which really suits well with the story and the character I also noticed her effort to detail was quite remarkable it was as if real people were under the paper which is the impression I believe she wanted to leave.

I had tried to attempt a video inspired by her but unfortunately I didn't have the suitable material only containing coloured paper and the lighting equipment.

Found Object Animation

Found Object Animation


With the team we looked at found object animation and from doing research we found out that found object animation was were you give a lifeless object such as a Chair, Lego, or maybe a Stapler and you bring the object a life, it's own consciousness.

it's said that this particular form of animation was common and often involved within adverts and in some cases films.

In this experimental videos I've used iMotion to film the video's the reason I chose that particular app was due to the fact it was capable of connect to separate pictures even if a picture is missing the app can fix that automatically and add the suitable scenes.

exploring Stop-Motion

development and exploring stop motion with both the involvement of lego and transformer figures, to help me and the team, adjust with stop motion. A lot of it featured toys as shown through these videos but I didn't focus on the equipment/material I was using, I needed to experiment using different movements seen as stop-motion was new to me. I just needed to have a play about with it and gradually get a better understanding on how to do it from doing that it allowed me to know how to control the movement if we were to use lego.

Within this video I have used over 80 photos. using lego for the scenery I created the stop motion lego short video. both of these videos were created using iMotion.

A spider diagram me and my team created exploring animation attempting to make it as bold and colourful as we possibly could it resulted rather well we believed.

the theme Dystopia

A spider diagram which allowed me and my team "Razor Studios" to select particular aspects of dystopia we were either considering or going to include in our final short animation film.

dystopia the definition of dystopia is an imaginary place with a society considered to be far from ordinary but in a unsettling way, basically a bad and unpleasant world,the word itself is an antonym of Utopia.dystopia has a tendency to be based in the future which experiences dehumanization,totalitarian governments as well as an environmental disaster 





Life Drawing using Animation

Using an A2 piece of paper I separated the sheet into squares this would allow me to not only use up as much space as possible but would allow me to capture the different stages of movement poses throughout the process. this had all been free hand and as look at the stages you can pick up the imperfections which shows you the pace had to be quite fast to get them all drawn.


Research on Dystopia through films

This is a trailer for a film, "Mad Max" the reason I picked this trailer was within it it perfectly capture dystopia the place being a deserted,desolate desert based in the dystopian future and due to an energy crisis law and order has begun to break down and crumble and the whole population after it reduces begins to gets controlled and terrorized my motor gangs this really does clearly identify the dystopian theme.

This is also a trailer for another what I believe to be a dystopian based film "Judge Dredd" based from a comic. The future America has became an irradiated wasteland. Within it is Mega City-one a vest,a place where criminals rule the chaotic streets.the only force capable of preventing it and creating some form of order are the Urban police known as the "Judge Dredd" who contain the powers of both Judge and jury and instant executioner. They are very well known and feared throughout the city. I chose this due to the fact the whole base of this story is founded upon crime.

The film I thought really involved dystopia was "The Purge" and how one night crime is made legal not particularly a pleasant film but hold that dystopian essence to it enabled to of caught my eye.


  we were planning on using this particular app for the filming of our video iMotion the reason we were considering this app was mainly the fact it allows you to take pictures "frames" and with them its able to merge them together to form a video, stop-motion.


Another app we had found was Vine which does basically the same thing allows you to take short photographed videos.

Development

Music/Sound

At first we wanted to incorporate this music into the video but the main problem was copyright theft so we decided to include any music into the video there was a reason why we wanted to involve this into our final animation video it was mainly because of the sad theme the way it revealed a lot of  emotion due to the video you. from discussion with the team we thought it easier not to involve sound in the video.