Stop Motion Animation

After doing a stop motion video for my final project, I have found a whole new appreciation for it. My 1 minute and a half took forever, and to imagine even making an entire movie is just unfathomable. These are just some of the great stop-motion films that have been made, and now watching them I can't even imagine the process and patients that went into making them. With that being said though I really enjoyed making my stop motion video, the end result being able to make anything come to life, to be animated, is such an interesting concept and I am so happy I got to mess around with it. Seriously though next time you watch an animation like this, I hope you realize just how much blood sweat and tears went into because it's quite the process.

Update on My Projects

Ta-da!

This blog will be an update on the two projects I'm working on. The first one is a title sequence for my Program Development project, and the second will be a motion tracking one.

For my Program Development project, Turnt Trivia, I'm making a stop-motion animation where a person opens a beer bottle, the cap flips in the air, lands on a table, and then it's revealed that it says "Turnt Trivia" on it. Here's what I've done for it so far:

• bought some brews (duh)
• ripped the labels off
• painted the caps blue (the color of our logo)
• bought some wire, a mini hot glue gun, cork board, screws, L beams (finding those was quite the adventure!) and some other fun stuff for the project

Can't even tell it's Blue Moon

I'm going to animate tomorrow for a couple hours and I hope I only have to do this once! 

For my third project, I'd like to do some sort of motion tracking with face swapping. No matter how many times I do it, face swapping with another person is always hysterical to me.

HILARIOUS

I want to make a very short film (less than a minute long) where I walk up to a funny poster on a wall and open snapchat to swap faces with it. After the swap though, my face gets stuck on the poster, and the face from the poster is stuck to my body, which walks away.

I gotta say thank you to our wonderful TA Mike, who helped me conceptualize this. Next, I'm going to draw some sketches and storyboard it out.

This is a cute stop motion animation short. The video uses stop motion animation to animate two drawing skeletons in an epic Midwest showdown. The video is funny and ridiculous in it's simplicity. There is an animated explosion at the end which the only non stop motion part of the video.

Looks Like Animation, But Isn't Animation

I was trying to find something to blog about when I stumbled upon this video of paint mixing. Yeah. That sounds weird, I know. But watching paint mix is so much more fun than watching paint dry!!!!!!  (Lol). The experimental piece is by a French artist named Thomas Blanchard.

Memories of Paintings from Thomas Blanchard on Vimeo.

You can animate anything you want, but there are some things that look just as good (if not, better) when they're not computer graphics. I think it just depends on what the animation is for and the feel of that particular project. For my Program Development project, I like the feel of a stop motion animation for the title sequence because it shows right from the get-go that the show will be fun and entertaining.

This video is very relaxing to watch. It also reminded me of the Joshua Light Show's piece from 1969, and I wonder if Blanchard was influenced by their work at all.

Wallace and Gromit

As a kid I loved the Wallace and Gromit animated movies and am still amazed with the amount of time and effort that it takes to create films like these. Although his behind the scenes isn't incredibly specific it still gives good insight to how long even a short like this can take, two seconds per day. The attention to detail is incredible and makes stop motion an intimidating platform to approach as someone who has never taken it on before.

Stopped Motion.

I’m at a bit of a standstill when it comes to my next project in Motion Graphics. I’m really thinking that I’ll give stop motion animation a try but I’m kind of lost at where to start. From what objects to animate to where they should be animated to when I’m even going to find the time to do such project. Although I planned to work a lot over spring break the sporadic weather made it difficult and other plans fell through. My next attempts we're quickly overshadowed by prior engagements leaving me shotless and somewhat anxious about if this project will actually go through.

BUT I STILL HAVE HOPE! And instead of letting that get me down (and maybe you down?) here’s a speed run of QWOP with the most inspirational soundtrack ever!

The Box Trolls

A movie that I believe has utilized a lot of interesting animation technology recently was "The Box Trolls." In 2015, I believe it paved a way for animators to be more creative and utilize different types of animation throughout movies. One thing that it used was CG- generated stop motion that combined visual effects with the originality of stop motion animation as well. This caused them to create more complex scenes that were more intriguing to watch. In addition, they also used 3D printing to create their models for characters. This was innovative and something that is sure to be seen in future animation movies to come. I certainly enjoyed the animation and thought it was different and something cool to watch, and I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a a new animation to watch.

Anomalisa

Last weekend I attended a special screening of the film Anomalisa followed by a Q&A with the animation supervisor for the film, Dan Driscoll. Written by Charlie Kaufman, the film is an incredible and beatuiful stop motion animation that has been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.

Anomalisa tells the story of a man who is stuck in a mundane world, only to fall in love with the only person who can bring color back into his life. The narrative reveals the mysterious and dark workings of the characters' worlds around them but the film ends ambiguously, leaving me wondering and with numerous unanswered questions.

While the story itself was unique, the animation was the highlight of the film and Driscoll shared many interesting aspects of the animation process. I was particularly intrigued by the careful attention payed to the movements and mannerism that would be executed for each physical action taken by the animated characters. Driscoll revealed the very slow process of shooting only a few frames per day, which only was possible after months of planning for each various individual scene. This attention to detail was evident in the animation, bringing the figures to life and adding a sense of humanness to the silicone "people" that one would never expect.

Strange Motion within Emperor's New Clothes

Animation and motion graphics in music videos is another factor that has drawn me to animation. There are many creative ways motion graphics and animation can be used in order create visually striking images, especially within the realm of music videos. In music videos very little has to make sense and therefore a whole hodgepodge of images and animation can come up.

         A friend of mine recently told me to watch Panic at the Disco’s music video for their song “Emperor’s New Clothes”, not only because the song is kind of cool but the video itself is very intriguing. As someone analyzing the plethora of ways the music video was made, a couple conclusions have came to my mind.

         The first thing I noticed was the strange and intricate use of stop motion through out the music video. Although the stop motion is most noticeable during the shots of the skulls “singing”, it is sprinkled throughout and subtly shown through Brendon Urie’s actions as he moves around the scene.

         Another affect that is shown within this music video that could either be very intense make up details or just animation techniques is when Urie’s skin starts to chance color and texture as well as the growing of the horns and other strange bodily things. Although after the full transformation is complete it is definitely completely make up, but the fluctuation that happens with his skin while these things are growing out of him are, at least, in my opinion, due to animation.

            Regardless of how creepy this video kind of is, It’s still pretty cool and Panic at the Disco is definitely still one of my favorite artists. So yeah! Check out the video below if you want to experience it yourself.

Animation Favorites

So for my post this week I decided to share my favorite animated TV show and my favorite animated movie.

1) Fantastic Mr. Fox

I know that this movie was in my post from last week, but I am posting about it again because I really love this movie. This is Wes Anderson's only animated movie so far, and he absolutely nailed it! This movie is so aesthetically amazing, as well as having a stellar cast and a great story. The animation in this movie is so wonderful. Every thing whether is be a tree, an animal, the hunters, a house, anything has its own energy in the film. Also the use of color in this film is brilliant, everything is so vibrant and beautiful. I also love that it is stop motion.

2) The Legend of Korra

Nickelodeon had a show called Avatar the Last Airbender which was a show in which people in this fictional version of the world could control elements through a force called "bending" each person can only control one element except for the Avatar who could control all four elements, and existed to bring harmony to the world. After the first show ended, Nickelodeon decided to reboot it. Korra is the new avatar to the same world, but with a new set of problems. This show is awesome because the animation involves people controlling fire, water, earth and air, so each of these elements has a different vibe so they need to move differently. The animators did a great job of making each element act differently. Fire was a lot of bursts and short quick movements, water was very smooth and fluid, air was light with a lot spirals and quick movements, and earth was a lot of levitating solid forms and pushing or pulling. I highly recommend this show to everyone.

Stop Motion Animation

So in class Arturo was talking about how not all of our animation has to be computer generated, and he mentioned stop motion animation. This wasn't the first time I had ever heard of stop motion or anything, however it did get me thinking about it.

First, my mind immediately went to the TV show Parks and Recreation. In the show, when a character named Ben gets fired from his job and decides to start up a stop motion film. After a few weeks of non-stop working on his film he finally shows it to his friends and this is the end result

As you can see, the show is kind of making fun of how hard stop motion animation can be if you do not have the help of a professional. I was thinking about the process of making them, and how now a days even with the quality of cameras that we have access to, it still takes roughly 10 shots for every one second of film.

So next I went online and found some other really cool stop motion videos, that while must have taken a lot of work, look really cool.

As you can see this video is made entirely with post it notes. Each variation of each of these images had to have been created, then photographs and then slightly changes, and then photographed again, and so on and so forth. This video is also cool because it shows that anyone with a camera and an idea can make a stop motion video or film. It also proves that not all stop motion, is made with clay

After some time spent watching videos like this online, I started to get more and more interested in stop motion, and then when I thought more about it, I remembered that one of my favorite movies is a stop motion film. Fantastic Mr. Fox came out in 2009 and is a film by Wes Anderson. It follows the life of Mr. Fox and his family and friends. As a Fox, Mr. Fox spent most of his life stealing things from the farmers that live above his borough, although he says that he has given that life up when he started a family, he soon returns to his life of crime.

This movie is absolutely beautiful in its use of stop motion to show the story of this crazy fox and his family. So while you can still make a pretty cool film with just your camera and some post its, the quality of stop motion animation can be absolutely astounding. I think that is pretty cool.