Stop Motion Animation

Stop Motion Animation

Group SMA

Stop motion animation is a form of video which is made from a variety of photographs strung together to create motion. The first topic in which I am studying in BTEC extended diploma Photography course, is stop motion animation. For this topic I will start with creating a ten second group animation and will eventually create my own animation which will consist of over 1000 photographs, music and will last for 1 minute long. To understand and practice stop motion animation before doing it ourselves, I was involved in being one subject within a group stop motion animation. For this, one person in the group took a photograph each time everyone in the group moved, therefore this is a slow process to create a simple movement. To prevent big gaps and glitches within a stop motion animation it is vital to move very slightly for each photograph, therefore when these images are strung together a smooth movement will be the result on film. When all the photographs have been taken for the stop motion animation they will then have to be uploaded to an available computer which has Photoshop.  When the photographs are selected and lined up on Photoshop in chronological order, there will be an option to refine the images and select how many frames per second you want your video to be, this will determine how fast the video will flow. A good example of successful stop motion animation would be the work of Sledgehammer by British musician Peter Gabriel as well as Aardman Animations who have created masterpieces such as Wallace and Gromit. 

Aardman Animations

To gain knowledge and inspiration I studied Aardman Animations in the topic of stop motion animation. Aardman Animations have created genius ideas, mainly recognized for Wallace and Gromit, Chicken Run and Shaun the Sheep.  Aardman Animations has a recognised reputation of model animation and this was proven when Aardman studios had ten Oscar nominations and won four. Aardman Animations all started from two friends by the name of Peter Lord and David Sproxton where they started the animation at school. The name Aardmin Animations was eventually then registered in 1972. After, in 1976 when both friends had graduated, they moved to Bristol and created Morph for a children's program named 'Take Hart'. Although producing animations mainly for a children's audience, Peter and David were always interested in producing  animations for an adult audience, in which the older generation had something that could be relatable to their own lives.  Conversation Pieces supported by Channel 4 television enabled the two friends to create animation puppets linking in with real life conversations. With films like 'Early Bird' being created within a local radio station this gave people the opportunity to realise that anyone could be characterized in to an animation form. In 1985 Aardman Animations had a new member joining the team. After Peter and David met Nick Park at the National Film and television school, the two friends then realized the potential of Nick as he worked on his student film 'A Grand Day Out'. Before long Nick Park joined Aardman Animations full time.  These three geniuses then started to create recognizable masterpieces. 

Sledgehammer

To broaden my knowledge of Stop Motion Animation I also researched Sledge Hammer by Peter Gabriel,who paired with Aardman Animations to create this unique music video. The video for Peter Gabriel's album of 1986 song 'Sledgehammer' involves a 5 minuet 40 second long stop motion animation. This video includes motion formed through human form as well as aspects created by Plasticine. This video was so clever and inspirational that it won various awards including;  record nine MTV Awards and Best British Video at Brit Awards in 1987. In addition Peter Gabriel was nominated for three Grammy Awards which were; Best Male Rock Vocal Performance, Song of the Year and Record of the Year. As of 2011, Peter Gabriel's video Sledgehammer is the most played music video of MTV's history.

 I believe Sledgehammer is very inventive and the flickering facial expressions due to each photograph giving the video an interesting effect. The video is introduced with different body parts moving like the eyes , ears and mouth, before the mouth movements create the illusion of Peter Gabrielle singing to the music. I believe the video is also impressive due to the fact that this video was made in 1986 where technology wasn't incredibly advanced, therefore this video would have taken great time and preparation which has clearly paid of as it is still impressive till this day. This stop motion animation also flows very well with the song as the artists actions reflect the words which are being sang, for example when the word 'sledgehammer' appears in the song the video juxtaposing with the words shows a smashing like motion in the video to create an appearance of the sledgehammer being used within the screen of your computer. Although inspired by this video there are also aspects which I think could be improved. For example trying to maintain facial expression which could involve how wide the eyes are or how raised the eyebrows appear, to create a more smooth transition in emotion on film, this will hide the gaps and glitches more effectively in the stop motion animation. 

Chicken Run

Chicken Run was the first full length film created by Aardman Animations, funded by Dreamworks. This film was directed by both Peter Lord and Nick Park and was released in the UK as well as the US in the 2000. Chicken Run was a great success and gained over $220M at the worldwide box office. The story is about two farmers who aren't making enough money due to lack of eggs, if the chickens were failing to produce any eggs per week they would be killed. This film is shot from the chickens perspective and shows their many efforts to escape this treacherous farm. The main characters in this film are Rocky the rooster and Ginger the chicken which represent the heroic leaders of the pack of chickens. This film is full of suspense and emotion created by Plasticine which truly inspires me as these characters are brought to life and feel real. This gives the chance for the audience viewing this film to connect to the chickens which have an emotional role within the film. This film provides humor for the younger audience but also provides a deeper meaning of animal cruelty understood by the adult audience. I believe this was potentially done as Aardman Animations want to provide all audiences with material that they can connect or relate to. Chicken run took over two years to create and be released. It took the animators of Aardman Animations an entire day to shoot 36 frames (1-1/2 seconds of film). Overall Chicken run was 77 minutes long and involved 110,880 frames. It is also known that at times 28 teams of six animators were shooting all at the same time. These facts and figures proves how long and well prepared a Stop Motion Animation can be, it is a difficult process and can take years to produce at top quality. Overall I believe Chicken Run was a masterpiece and I am truly inspired by everyone who was involved. The entire movie runs extremely smoothly and the movement of each characters mouth is perfectly in time with the speech, I could not fault this creation if I tried.

Suzie Templeton - Dog 

When researching other stop motion animation artists I stumbled across Suzie Templeton and her range of animation creations. Suzie Templeton is mainly recognised by her animation 'Peter and The Wolf' where she won the 2008 Academy Award for best Animated Short Film. Her animations include various different models which can be related to and appear realistic. I was particularly inspired by her animation 'Dog'. This short film is about a grieving boy over his dead mother, seeking for reassurance and support from his farther. Each model has extremely detailed facial expressions and the body structure of the model is dependent on the mood in which the models are in, similar to that of a real person. This story is extremely emotional and moving and can be related to by certain individuals. The intense emotion portrayed by the models feels very real and their surroundings seem that of reality within a normal humans household. Each models body and mouth movement is very smooth therefore there is no glitches and gaps in this animation creating effective transition of movement on film. Overall I believe this animation is extremely effective mainly due to the emotion you feel when you watch it, as if it were reality. In addition the story line is cleverly thought out and it is something that everyone could imagine the difficulty if they were in that situation themselves. To conclude I am very inspired by this artist and her work.

Ten Second Group Animation

Before producing my own individual Stop Motion Animation I was put into a group of four to create a ten second long video to gain practice and experience before making a better one myself. While brainstorming, our group decided that we would like to focus on using plasticine, taking inspiration from Aardman Animations from creations such as Chicken Run. Establishing the material we were going to work with we then started to decide what we were going to make out of the plasticine. Due to its simplicity we finally decided to create a snail each out of plasticine, we then developed our thoughts to create a story in which these snails would be part of. At first we thought of producing a slug and capturing it moving along to eventually crawl into a shell to become a snail. However we then decided this would be quite hard with the minimum time we were given. We then decided on creating a 'Snail Race' as it was simple as all we had to do was move each snail a fraction each photograph. 

Improvements For Ten Second Group SMA

Overall the group stop motion animation was successful and the story of the snails was easy to detect. However we realised aspects of improvement that could have been made if we were to make this video again. For example due to limited time we had, the snails we made out of Plasticine did appear rather amateur and some movements weren't as smooth as they could have been. There are a few gaps and glitches within this stop motion animation so this could be improved by moving each snail subject more slightly each time. I believe the main thing I have learned doing this is that making a stop motion animation using Plasticine is a lot more complicated then I previously anticipated and a lot of time would have to be involved to create a professional appearance. Time management is vital within the stop motion animation process. 

Individual SMA

Over al my individual SMA was successful and runs for 10 seconds, created by 160 photographs and set on an aperture of f8. When making this animation I set up my tripod to keep a steady frame within my animation and blue tacked the Greggs bag to my table to prevent sudden movement. In addition when I started to eat my gingerbread man, I drew around his body therefore after a bite was taken he could be placed in his original position as if he didn't move at all. When all my images were ready to be made into a video I uploaded my photographs onto a computer and opened Bridge. When in Bridge I selected the option of 'Batch Rename' to prevent gaps in my animation. After this I then resized all of my photographs to create a faster animation. After this I then opened Photoshop where I chose 'window' then 'animation'. This created an animation bar at the bottom on Photoshop where I could insert my photographs. Moving my resized and renamed images in to a new folder, I then proceeded to open them on Photoshop. To do this I selected 'File', then 'Open' and once I found my photographs I selected the first image and ticked the 'Image Sequence' box. This meant I was able to choose how many frames per second I wanted my animation to be. As I took 160 photographs I decided to make my Stop Motion Animation 15 frames per second. In result my animation runs for 10 seconds therefore I was happy with my final result.

Difficulties In Individual SMA

I did experience some difficulties when making this animation. In my video there is a rather big black blob running through my entire animation, at first I thought this was a result of a crack in my lens, however I eventually found out there was a speck of dirt on the mirror inside my actual camera. This was eventually resolved by being cleaned with a spray of dense air. If I was to do this animation again I would capture my animation with a clear lens and from a birds eye perspective as I think it would be more effective.

Adding Sound To My SMA

After creating my individual Stop Motion Animation I proceeded by inserting a sound clip to run along side my video. For this I could have got my music clip off of youtube however I had a piece of music especially made for my animation. Therefore as my music was already on my desktop I chose 'File' and selected 'Show in Finder'. Once this was visible within Finder I then dragged the song into 'Quick Time Player'. Once I saved my animation as a movie file I finally had to drag my song into the animation bar on Photoshop. Therefore this was the final result and I believe the music and animation work well together in creating a mystical feel. 

Evaluation Of Stop Motion Animation

Overall I have enjoyed the topic of Stop Motion Animation. At first when I was presented with various examples of Stop Motion Animations that have been created,I felt very skeptical of the idea that id be able to create a decent one myself. However from the research of SMA artists and the practice I have now had in this topic, I believe my individual SMA was very successful and I was pleased with it, however when I create another animation I know it will be of much higher quality as I will take into consideration what I needed to improve in my Gingerbread man Stop Motion Animation. In addition from experiencing what it is like to create an animation myself, I now am more inspired by companies such as Aardman Animations due to the fact of the huge amount of effort they put into their work and how wonderful the outcome is. 

 Difficulties Within SMA

My main difficulties within Stop Motion Animation was firstly working with Plasticine as it is extremely difficult to create a realistic character to move or look effective to the eye, I experienced this difficulty in the small group 10 second Stop Motion Animation. Also adapting to the computer functions of an Apple Mac was also rather difficult as I am used to using Windows computers, however from guidance and instructions I have now improved my IT skills and find it relatively easy to achieve what I want to on the computer without having huge complications. This will therefore improve the timing of any other animations I will create.

1 Minute Individual SMA   

Other SMA's

To start with I decided to look up other Stop Motion Animations to gain knowledge and inspiration. This Animation is using barbie dolls as if they were real and contains strong humour throughout. Because this animation was funny it grabbed my attention and made me watch it until the end. This made me decide that I wanted to create a funny and slightly odd/weird animation to keep the audience intrigued. This animation also made me realise how realistic you can make toys seem. I also enjoyed how speech was involved to create a story line, however for my animation I do want to include a funny song instead.  

This is another video including barbie in a Stop Motion Animation. However this one doesn't include speech but emotive music to create a scene. This is a short animation in comparison to my first choice however I have mainly taken inspiration from the music choice and the different angles included within the animation. 

Ideas and Thought Process   

For my one minute SMA I started with some research on various different stop motion animations too give myself ideas of my own. From this research it was clear that a vital element within a stop motion animation is to have a general meaning and story line behind the animation. With this in mind I started to think of a story in which I could recreate through the media of Stop Motion Animation. From this I made the link in my mind that stories need imagination and with imagination anything can seem real. The most vivid imagination I can ever remember having was when I was a child where I used to pretend the stuffed animals and toys I owned were real, alive and moving. This then gave me the tools to develop this thought in a Stop Motion Animation, where the main meaning behind the story would be 'Who's to say, a child's imagination is not real?'. With the moral of my story in tact I then decided I would capture the toys in which I own, moving and interacting with each other as if they were alive. As my story had a child like theme, I decided the best music to combine with my animation would be a popular nursery rhyme or lullaby.     

Making My Animation

Overall my animation was generally a success, however I did experience some technical problems, which I only came across when putting my images together. If I was to repeat this process and make this animation again firstly I would make sure the text is all in focus with a high aperture at the beginning of my animation. In addition when panelling my camera view point and moving closer towards my subjects of focus I could have been a bit smoother in moving the tripod to create a smooth transition of movement which in result would create a smooth and un jolty animation. 

Difficulties With My SMA

To start with, my original idea for this Stop Motion Animation was to photograph a child's legs getting out of bed and leaving the room while the contents of their bedroom 'came alive' and out to play. However when putting my tripod in position I realised the view point from my camera was too close and not enough of my composition was in frame due to my cameras fixed lense. This is when I decided to make my toys come alive on my bed as if an invisible youngster was playing with them. At first I tried to hold my text introducing my animation in front of the camera, however this was difficult to capture the image and hold correctly in posistion. Due to this I then decided to capture my text laying down in a fixed posistion. However I believe this could have been improved as my animations introduction appears rather amateur and not perfectly in line which is quite unsettling on the eye. Therefore overall I could have improved my general panelling to create a smooth transition of movement and also general camera settings like aperture on Manual setting.   

Final Product

This is my final animation including music. When adding a music clip from Youtube I cut it shorter in Garage Band to fit the one minute animation in which I created. I also made the end of the song fade out, however in my actual animation it didn't seem to work and cuts off quickly which sounds a bit amateur however I knew it was due to technical problems. Overall I believe the my music choice definitely fits with the animation and also includes humour within my animation. On the other hand there was many elements in which i could have improved for example smaller movements with the tripod when panelling to create a smooth movement rather then a jumpy one.