Cat Abbott's Blog

By The Way

catabbott — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 13:54:26 +0000

New posts will be made here.

Photographing my Props

catabbott — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 17:52:04 +0000

Today I set up a small green screen in my room to photograph the props that I have made for my animations.

Cheeky Trip to London

catabbott — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 22:57:51 +0000

I went up to London today to meet a friend from college. We decided that we wanted some free but interesting things to do, after taking a wander around Southbank we headed over to the museums.

First of all we went to the V&A, we went to an exhibition called ‘Power of Making‘ and it featured a whole host of randomly collated things. There was some quite interesting things like a terrifyingly realistic baby doll, a giant wooden robot and some crazy shoes. The one thing that stuck out most for me though was a dress. It was a piece called ‘QR U?’ and it’s definitely something that I now want to look in to and make something to do with.

Created by Thorunn Arnadottir, the dress was made for a singer and features a number of different QR codes that link to different parts of the singer’s website.

This is something that I want to incorporate into a future project, or something to even make in my spare time as work towards a new portfolio.

Afterwards we went over to the Science Museum to look at the ‘Player Festival’. It was described on the website as the ‘Ultimate Live Gaming Experience’ so I was quite interested to see what it was all about. However, upon arrival it seemed to be an exhibition where the most exciting stuff happened after hours. Not to say it was bad, it just didn’t live up to the expectations I had (whatever they may have been), the only part that seemed to be open was an FPS game, the idea being that you had to get from one side of the room to the other without being shot at.

I spoke to one of the guys who were in charge of the exhibition to find out how they were doing it. He said they were using Adobe Director and a series of sensors and projectors and they had used characters from Quake2. It was quite a clever idea, but I think that it probably could have been executed in a slightly more exciting way, for example, creating an environment for people to interact with when hiding from the characters. The room was completely black with about 10 screens hanging from the ceiling, one for each of the characters, but other than that there was nothing else there. Perhaps a few made up crates or ‘bullet holed’ walls to hide behind whilst waiting for the characters to turn around might make it a bit more exciting.

Overall it was a pretty good trip, and we went to a good frozen yoghurt place in Angel afterwards.

Making Things

catabbott — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 17:05:07 +0000

A selection of the props that I have finished so far:

Picnic Basket

Beach Huts

Car parts; inside of doors, rear view window, front window & dashboard
(I still plan on adding a steering wheel and dials to the dashboard)

The Pier

Origami Seagulls

I have also been down to the beach and taken some quick reference photos of the landscapes for when it comes to making my sand and sea compositions so I know what angles I need to shoot from and to make them to.

Beach Huts

Deck Chairs

From The Pier

Towards Pier

Towards Sea

Todays Efforts

catabbott — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 21:29:13 +0000

Today I painted my small pier railings, made some origami birds, painted the picnic basket and made and painted the main pier. I still need to finish my beach huts but I’ve run out of tea stirrers so I can’t do that for the moment.

Making My Props

catabbott — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 11:15:49 +0000

On Monday I started making my props for the animations. I made a deckchair, plasticine fish & chips and plasticine armbands & goggles. I also started on a few other things. I had finished two of my beach huts, started my picnic basket and the car interiors.

The frame of my deckchair

Railings for a Pier close up (need to be painted)

The start of my beach huts

L – R: Two finished beach huts, finished deck chair & started picnic basket

Today I will continue to finish the items that I have started making (the car interiors and the picnic basket). Hopefully I can also get a few more things made during the day, with the aim of photographing them all this evening.

A Little More Research

catabbott — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 00:55:49 +0000

This afternoon I popped in to Uni to take a little trip to the library. My plan was to look for books that could be of use to my dissertation topic but instead I found some books that will help with my animations.

The first one I came across was ‘Designing Sound for Animation’ by Robin Beauchamp. from this I found some useful, quite obvious, tips that I had not really thought about such as the recording rates and how sound influences an audience’s perception of time and emotion. ‘Many of the Disney animations use a narrator to deliver the opening prolog, establishing a storybook quality of the film’.

I also found a useful list of the things to look out for when recording dialogue, as I will be for my narration. I have chosen to make note of it as I will be recording my story within the next month.

Sibilance creates hissing sounds and can detract from reading when emphasised. Using the microphone above or to the side can reduce this effect.
Plosives produce a rapid release of air and can produce wind distortion. Can be avoided by backing away from the microphone.
Proximity Effect from being to close to the microphone. This can emphasise the bass of the voice and creates a boom that is lacking in clarity.
Nerve Related Problems. Anxiety signs including exaggerated breathing, hurried reading and glottal shocks can affect the quality of the read.
Lip and Tongue Clacks occur when the mouth is dry whilst reading and will create a harsh and unpleasant sound.
Cloth and Jewellery Sounds will occur as the voice actor shifts their weight, it is best to avoid wearing jewellery altogether as some microphones can also pick up the sound of a watch ticking.
Phase Issues. When the voice reflects off of the script or a stand it creates a hollow or synthetic sounding voice.
Handling Noise is when the reader is allowed to hold the microphone, slight sounds can occur when the holder repositions their hand or fidgets slightly.

I will ensure that I keep these things in mind when I am recording my story, and explain them to my narrator as well to try and avoid them as much as possible. This will mean that my recording is clear and concise without having to cause too much editing. I also need to record ambient sounds for the different animations as these will help to establish realism for the audience and make it a little more interesting for the younger children.

I then had a flick through Barry J. C. Purves’ ‘Stop Motion Passion, Process and Performance’. I found a useful quote within this that stop motion needs to have ‘texture, richness, space, depth, movement, shadow, lighting and physicality’. I also found a few of the influences for his own work and had a look into those.

The first is Lotte Reiniger, a German silhouette animator. Her work is comprised of silhouette puppets, there is a great deal of detail within her work and I like the vast contrast between the foreground and the background. I think that this is something I will experiment with when making my stop motions; having the fore- and midground stages fully visible but the backgrounds slightly ‘washed out’. I will try it out on a selection of shots but it may not work on all of them so it may not be something that I use.

Hansel and Gretel – Lotte Reiniger

Whilst reading up on Reiniger I came across Georges Melies, a French filmmaker who was known to be quite innovative in special effects. When I looked up his work I came across the reason why I recognised his name, a short film called ‘Le Voyage Dans La Lune’ (A Trip To The Moon), which I have come across when doing research for previous college projects.

Les Voyage Dans La Lune – Georges Melies

The other influence of Purves’ that I looked into was Michel Ocelot and in particular I looked at his short film (made using stop motion techniques) ‘Les Trois Inventeurs’ (The Three Inventors). The intricate style of the paper is something that I find very interesting, it makes me want to replan my whole project and do it with paper (although I won’t, I’m not very good with scissors so will probably make it look hideous). It would be fun to experiment with but I think it may be too complex a style to fit in with everything else that I am making for this project.

Les Trois Inventeurs – Michel Ocelot

Main Character

catabbott — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 14:41:54 +0000

Today I got started on making the different things that I will need for my stop motion. The first on the list was the knitted figure as my main character. I spent a bit of time looking for different patterns for making people or dolls but I just wanted something simple that I could knock together in a couple of hours. After a little search I decided to use the pattern for making ‘Sackboys’ (the main character from LittleBigPlanet), but making it with pink wool instead of brown wool. Here is the finished model:

I have made it without a head as this will be one of the customisable features within the app; the child will be able to take a picture of themselves as the face of the character. It is a little pinker than I had hoped, I was looking for more of a skin tone but this is the closest that I could find in the wool shop around the corner. This will work well for now but if I choose to sell the app then I may want to consider making models of different ‘ethnicities’, but in terms of making it for this project it will do just fine.

In order to make my character posable (as I think I will need it for a couple of scenes) I have inserted garden wire up the back of the arms, legs and through the centre of the body.

I also made a list today of everything that needs making so that I can tick them off when they have been done and when they have had photographs taking for the stop motion. Most of the items will be static so will only need one photograph taken but with the moving items I will write the different shots I need down when it comes to it.

Finished Storyboard

catabbott — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 17:10:33 +0000

So after making my time plan earlier I am now ahead of schedule, not that it’s anything to complain about. Supported by 4od I have finished my storyboard. This consists of twenty separate images that I mocked up of each of the pages that will be in the book. I then copied them all into a new document and listed the different components that I will need for the shot (what will be needed for the stop motion) and the audio that will play alongside it. My plan is to print this out and keep it as a checklist for when it comes to making all of the different elements I need for the animations and recording the sounds.

STORYBOARD

Finished Story Plan

catabbott — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 11:13:22 +0000

Today I have finished the plan of my story. I have done this so that I have a draft copy of my story, and I can get an idea of how the pages are going to be laid out and the different elements I need for the stop motion aspects.

STORY PLAN

Doing this has helped me to ensure I am going to be organised and work as efficiently as possible. My next step is going to be to make a plan with my time so I can be productive as possible and have a series of different deadlines within the project. I have got a list of the jobs that I still need to do so I need to prioritise them and get everything sorted.

I have taken my list of things that I need to do and worked them out around the time left before the deadline of the project. I can’t plan everything at the moment as I need to know what days we are timetabled for next term (so that I can arrange what days I am working) and work from that.