Acetate hell!

25/4/10
Trying out everything today with coloured acetates, b/white photo acetates (both tones), cut-out rabbits, speech bubbles, text boxes and crayons etc.

A whole lot to think about, firstly continuity of light if you're not shooting everything on the same day.

I started off yesterday afternoon, bright sunshine outside, took about 20 shots and then my brother turned up with his kids so I had to stop. I re-started this morning at around 9.30am - sadly it's not as sunny today so this may affect the lighting on the shots.

I began by laying down the first dark b/white photo background and the first sad rabbit



For this piece I took more than one shot of a single set-up - this way I will hopefully have enough photos for 30 seconds worth of film.

Speech bubbles were added next (still against the dark b/white photo background, as the mood at this point is still one of isolation.

One thing to take note of - do not have your hands in the shot - this can happen when you're taking photos automatically - or too quickly, after moving a cut-out, so that your fingers are in shot, as below! So always check the photos you've taken.



I had a couple in sequence like this, which means I'll have to delete them and the animation will look at little jerky at this point.




At this point the rabbit cut-out has changed - there's a smile on his face as he jumps down off the box - taking notice of what is being said/offered. I swapped in the middle tone b/white photo at this point.



By shot number 50 I'd swapped in the lightest tonal background photo (the tracing paper one) so that by the time I started to add in the colour acetates, the colour and lightened mood would show.



Obvious note: tripod legs are showing - will have to ask technician how I might improve this as I don't have a claw grip.

The two halves of the first coloured acetate layer are pushed in from the sides. This was far more tricky this time as the acetates moved the rabbit layer about a bit. I tried using tiny blobs of blu tac to keep things in place but still not easy.

By the time I wanted to add in another denser colour layer, I'd decided to drop it in from about. The trip legs cause a real problem when trying to slide in from the sides.



In the above photo you can see the coloured layer coming down from above. It's not necessarily ideal but... Maybe I'll just put the whole layer down instead of dropping it in frame by frame? You also get an annoying shimmering effect with all these acetate layers.

By shot number 94 all the coloured acetates were in place, more cut-outs were brought in as well as starting to introduce the wax and coloured crayons. By this stage it was really hard to move each piece about without disturbing other pieces and drove me quite nuts.....





It requires so much patience to make an animation in this way. If I blu tac the crayons to the acetate to keep them in place while I move the cut-outs, inveriably everything moves when I have to lift them off and move them again for the next shot.

I have no idea therefore how this experiment will turn out but it won't be that smooth, I know that!

By shot 137 I was taking the crayons out of shot ready for the text information boxes.



I had also, by this time, just about lost my temper with the whole thing. I need more space to work in and more professional help. It feels very amature and frustrating but we have to plug on. As I look through the photos I can see more with my fingers in shot! ahghgh!

I then took out all the speech bubbles and started to bring in the text boxes



These may need a border of some sort around them to make them stand out a bit more.

Again, it really wasn't easy to place these as the acetates kept moving about underneath them. I didn't want to use blu tac as it only made things worse before....




As you can see, the box is off centre and off kilter - will have to think of a better way for registration. I may also have to change the size of the text.




Note also that the text box fits in behind the rabbits....as you can still see the text itself. It's important that the information on screen is easily read, so if I put boxes around the edges I may need to move the rabbits behind, or, as mentioned before, put a tracing paper layer over the rabbits before adding the text boxes. Not sure how well it would stand out then.

When it came to the final box - the telephone number and website address, the text was indeed to big to fit the screen properly. This therefore needs to be reduced.

By this time, as you can see, I was competely fed up with the whole thing!



I'd removed the rabbits but the text could not be read unless I zoomed out more and then you could see the tripod legs and outside of paper shot. Not good. Still, this is a first full run trial using only about half the number of frames I will use for the finished piece. I've taken 170 odd shots for this one.

I also need to add organistion logos. It may be that I add a text box in Premier Pro to make it look a lot clearer, and readable, take the background completely out etc.

new bubbles, new text... size does matter...

24/4/10

redoing my speech bubbles in felt pen - bolder and stands out better than crayon...



To compliment these I want text boxes to appear near the end of the animation to advertise the sessions themselves, organisation, contact details etc.



However, this was nowhere near big enough to show up no the photographs (as they were being taken from a tripod/a distance so I had to re-do them a lot bigger. It's a hit and miss thing getting the size right so it's a case of trail and error.




Attempted to add colour to the black and white photo starting with the darkest photo first...then replacing it with the light one





remembering to draw registration marks at each corner so that the new replacement is in the right place. Brining the coloured actetates in from each side proved a lot more difficult though, because the tripod legs were in the way. This was very frustrating and means that the end result will not be as smooth as I'd have liked.





On the above photo you can see the overlap of acetates in order for them to fill the screen. This is because the shot in the frame from the tripod is smaller than the photo/area of the actual image and by the time the coloured halves of the acetates show on screen, then are actually overlapping in the middle. This means I may have to cut a bit out of the middle to make it smaller and push the coloured edges to the edge of the shot/to fit.

I overlaid the 2nd coloured acetate on top of the two halves because it was just too difficult to bring in another two from each side without the acetates slipping on each other. It's not the most satisfactory way of adding colour but all I can do with my limted skills at the moment!



Even this doesn't quite give the intense colour I was hoping for, but once the rabbits, coloured objects and text are on, it shouldn't be too much of an issue.

Storyboard update and background research

23/4/10

Time to update the storyboard thinking about text and sound....

Doing this again is allowing me to visualize the animation more thoroughly and think about when to introduce text, colour and sound.
The music needs to start of fairly simply but sombre and sad and gradually become more jaunty and upbeat (not overtaking the animation though, not overly loud). I then would like the sound of chidlren's happy voices laughing to appear - all of which fades out as the closing information titles appear at the end of the sequence.

I've been looking further into the following

Low tech animation: Folk Animation - Low Tech Art in the High Tech age
http://www.awn.com/mag/issue1.12articles/serpentelli1.12.html
This is an interesting article about getting messages over to children using
simple animation, as well as talking about watching children making art,
pointing out that contrary to them having short attention spans, when
engaing in art they are capable of sustained concentration. This therefore
underpins the importance of creative learning in children - art as a tool to
learning. Children tell stories with pictures as well as words, so links
between the two are developed and strenthened through creative arts sessions.

Parenting and skills for families/Suffolk Family Learning
www.suffolk.gov.uk/EducationAndLearning/CommunityLearningAndSkills.com
This outlines the opportunities for taster workshops and courses for parents
with a chance to: share experiences and views with others in a supportive and
confidential group; discuss ways of building positive relationships; explore
ways to build children's self-esteem and to learn new skills and build confid-
ence. Creative learning sessions on offer at Beccles LEAP centres combine
the child's art learning experience with the development of their relationship
with parents/carers, as well as giving both child and parent a chance to get to
know new people in the community.

the wonder of tracing paper....

23/4/10

using coloured acetates..... on original black and white photo was proving problematic



as you can see here, the colour hardly stands out at all....and so will not be effective enough to 'brighten' the mood of the animation once the action starts to take place, which is the whole idea.

POINT TO NOTE - the image here is the wrong way round - must remember this when scanning as opposed to photocopying. However, as it's only an experimental thing, it doesn't matter too much in this scan. I won't be using the scans in the final piece.

So... having done this before in a previous project, I photocopied the orginal photo background through tracing paper. This was OK but still a little too dark so I copied it again using a lighter setting and this was what I was after:-



Now I had to layer the coloured acetates over this 'lighter' image to see how they came out and if the colour would show up more strongly.




this became more successful as the full-colour layers were scanned in...




So, I will start off with the dark, original image, add the colour acetates for a few frames. I will then remove the dark image and transpose the lighter one, adding in the varying degrees of colour in stages. I will probably have to cut up the acetates in half and introduce the red and yellow colour from each side, right and left, trying not to disturbe the top layer acetate (the one with the rabbits on.. Good luck to me!

tying things in.......

23/4/10

thinking back and expanding my mind map



I need to narrow down what's going to go into the animation - logos and information/text.
Have had a look at the associated organisations and their logos, this being the main one, which funds the arts and crafts sessions:-



such as



One of the associated sessions Living With Chidren. Parents bringing their children to the Arts & Crafts Creative Learning sessions would have access to off-shoot courses such as this one, so it promotes learning through association for them, as well as their children.




Leap is an adult education service which runs courses in Beccles Library and Sports Centre and is tied in with Leading Learning and Skills





I would bring the logos into the frames towards the end of the animation. Need to find out how to do this most effectively. The images are not that big so would not copy onto acetate very clearly. I think it would be a case of actual cutting and pasting.. will have to experiment.

colour-up....Vis Comms Session 19/4/10

Vis Comms Session 19/4/10

The trouble with tripods is... you can see its legs in the photos!!

you can just see the tripod leg in the bottom left hand corner - this was the best shot I could get with my camera, the zoom etc. It's not too bad here but a little frustrating.

This is the video made using Premier Pro:-



Open Premier Pro. New Project.
File - NEW
Once file is opened go to EDIT - PREFERENCES - STILL IMAGE and set to 3 frames.

Remember when importing photos into Premier Pro to scale clips to Project dimensions:

in Premier Pro
PROJECT - PROJECT SETTINGS - GENERAL - Tick the 'Scale Clips to Project Dimensions' box.

In order to 'smooth' the running of the frames, RENDER the piece.

Save as a Premier file and also as an AVI file - so it can be uploaded to YouTube.

Things to consider today:

Hand-in date is 24th May - help!! A lot to do before then, then......

Need to:

• Do another more comprehensive storyboard and add details of any sound, text appearing, narration etc.
• Look at other low budget animation examples.
• Add colour to background.

I've started to make colour layers in PhotoShop

starting with subtle, soft colour. This will be copied onto acetate to slide into the scene gradually.

I made two more layers in PhotoShop, adding stronger colours each time.





The photographs will be taken over layered up background, acedate with rabbits on and coloured acetate layers gradually added in from each side of screen.



The last colour layer will be the strongest. I will probably copy these twice each onto acetate and cut one copy up/into two so that they can be introduced from each side into shot.

Layer as follows:

• Photograph background on bottom
• Clear acetate layer with rabbits placed on - on top
• Coloured layers slid in between the background and rabbit layers
• Could possibly add a layer of tracing paper with coloured acetates on top of that so that the black/white photo is eradicated by the end of the piece?

Looking at inexpensive cut out animation examples:



Here's a simple, black and white one - very effective - same background....



the following animation is again simple but very effective - lovely addition of subtle colour

15/04/2010 rabbits/colour/rabbits

Made another couple of different cut-out rabbits to compliment and add to the others already done



thought about other pieces of text to put into animation:

join in the fun! for example and how I would portray this, using wax crayons for example:



so that it looks like the crayons are doing the drawing...would engage a child who was watching - looks colourful and fun. It also introduces words to the piece which would tie into creative reading and word activities on offer also.

I've bought a range of different 'art' materials, such as crayons, wax crayons, paints, brushes and plastic paint shapes as I want to incoporate these actual items into the animation.



These can be arranged into particular direction and maybe move along with the rabbits



Next I've been thinking of the transition from dark and lonely room


to a colourful, warm place. Would I have an overlay of some sort. Here I've drawn in wax crayons a sea scene with blue sky, sun and sea and the plastic shapes incorportated onto it. This would have to be introduced gradually - perhaps make a transparent layer in photoshop to put over the original background photo before the old black & white photo disappears altogether?



Another alternative would be to alter the original black and white photo in Photoshop.
Here I have used the brush tool to add pink and yellow to the photo (this could represent crayon strokes or brush marks)



The rabbit cut-outs would have to be placed exactly on the same spot when you introduce this background in place of the original.



so...lots more to think about....