Edges - An area of research that I am interested in, very broad topic.

The sun - define a central point , more specific idea but still with lots of potential for different ideas.

Planets and moons - smaller ideas revolving around the sun, remaining points (on smaller pieces of paper)

similar to methods acting, putting yourself into a position as if you were actually that person, thing, place - embodying that thing to understand it better.

helps discover new perspectives, ideas, perspective and point of view.

method illustration is the same - whatever your researching, try research that idea in a way you haven't before.

stop motion - technology / manufacture - how stop motion has changed overtime, what are the differences from original/old stop motion movies compared to modern day stop motions. Technology changes a lot of things, especially when it comes to art for the better and worse.

manufacturing - how the film can change depending on budget - can also link to capitalism maybe ? depending on who is making the animation, big company/studios or small independent.

Experimenting with mixed media/stop motion.

I was looking at the most simple forms of stop motion and creating an animation with still frames.

I chose a video from the summer at a festival watching MenITrust play, i screenshotted each frame, in total i had about 40 frames from the video.

i decided for the design, i wanted a character to be sat on-top of the roof listening to the music, with flowers/stars coming out of the guitar and filling the sky

his style was recognisable even from his first film, similar characters. As well as the same genre/aesthetic, the creepy dark vibe that's very Tim Burton till today.

Very simple sounds and audio used

look into history of stop motion

library books on stop-motion

children's books/characters

what character I want to do (cat?) look at different stories/books with cat characters - draw them, understand them.

create a story for the character before designing it - quick synopses, doesn't need to take long.

do observational drawings of cats.

make puppets from different materials - plasticine, fabric, sew them together, hot glue gun - experiment.

technical puppets - speak to technicians about puppets in film, how are they made.

story boarding

fashion on puppets in film - why are they wearing that, especially children's books there will always be a reason for what they wear.

The story boards is probably what connects most with my project for unit 9. The story board is where the film starts, especially when creating a stop-motion, drawing all the scenes out beforehand makes it understandable for everyone working on the project.

I think story boards are the coolest thing to look back on after the film has finished as its also just a finished product by itself that you can appreciate the same way as the film.

There were a lot of puppets from all of Tim Burton's movies here, I like that they included the finished puppets, but also what's underneath the puppets. Some you can see the skeleton of there character, how they move, where the joint/moving points are.

This was really interesting to see in person after watching a lot of the behind the scenes on making stop-motion films. The puppets movements are the most important part of stop-motion as you need to move them ever so slightly to create a seamless movement for the film.

I liked this comic workshop as it gave me different ways to approach making a comic, it doesn't need to be a really thought out story, you can draw inspiration from the smallest things that happen in your life.

I liked working quickly as it forced me to create something on the spot and not over think it, as a result of this, we each had a lot of work done by the end of the session.

This stop-motion is my favourite short stop-motion I have seen, I love the plot of the purpose of the characters life is to create another one of himself and then he disappears.

Also the style of the film is very interesting, the character design is quite peculiar and unusual but makes them more remembered.

make it more critical - history, people, technology

become an expert on stop-motion

what is the function of a character

do animation practice

knitted stop motion

Jan Suankmayer

Quaye Brothers

create stop motions with found objects

I want to start by exploring stop-motion with creating short stop-motion films with found objects - toys, ornaments, materials.

kids toys - charity shops, lost and found, outside on the streets, my own, borrow friends.

create simple story lines for the video, sound? - create my own sounds/music

try to learn as much about creating a stop motion through doing this so I will be more prepared when it comes to unit 10. what works, what doesn't work.

one of the oldest filming techniques - stop-motion is a photographic film making technique, object is moved in front of the camera photographed each time to create a moving picture.

"Eadweard Muybridge was the first to discover that by lining up a series of cameras and having one take a picture right after the other one in succession, that the result would demonstrate the motion, path, and trajectory of the objects movement." quote from website. - first moving picture technique.

Louis Le Prince opened an art school in 1871 where they taught photographic techniques.

Louis was a photographer himself, his work was very eye-catching and was known by people such as Queen Victoria.

In 1881, he because the manager of a company specialising in panoramas of historical battles.

Louis began experimenting with adding movement to images to make them more realistic, he designed and patented a 16 lens camera, however, it didn't turn out as expected, the camera captured movements from different angles and the images came out confusing.

He ket trying to make the camera to capture moving images, however it took him 6 more years, he used one lens and succeeded.

He became the first one to record authentic moving images.

His first moving image was of his 6 children in the garden called "RoundHay Garden Scene" The image was just 2 seconds but it made history.

He used 7 frames per second.

Wallace and Gromit : A Grand Day Out

Alice - Jan Svankmajer

Vincent - Tim Burton

The Wind in the Willows

Frankenweenie

The inventor - The inventor of the first stop-motion camera (Louis La Prince)

2. Ambition - Ambition he had to create the camera

Failure - He failed many times before succeeding

Resilience - Resilience to keep going

Success - Him finally succeeding and creating the first stop-motion camera.

The original - The original camera

The invention - Stop-motion being the invention

The maker - This refers to Ladislas Starevich who created the camera and revenge, one of the first stop-motions.

( would preferable like another one slot in here being called 'the next step/future/rise'

The unknown - The unknown before there next step in film

Birth - The birth of a new film method (CGI)

The development in film (CGI, computer, AI)

The race - The race within the film industry, how quickly CGI developed once it was created

The new age - This is the new format for film

unit 9 - video, animation, book... talking about stop-motion, needs to be more specific, one particular topic fro example CGI, how this has affected stop-motion.

Not a wikipedia page just explaining something - not critical

Documentaries have a specific avenue/topic/interest that they follow.

Could have videos in background, talking about my topic, voice over the top, can add in videos of my own work/stop-motions I have done throughout unit 9.

Unit 9 and unit 10 need to be more separate, stand on their own - not a continuation.

Computer generated imagery

CGI is used for lots of different medias - film, books, adverts, video games etc. 2D and 3D - creates computer generated artificial images in whatever style or medium you want.

CGI can be very important when creating a film, it can help with characters, colour, background - it can also be used alongside real life action for fictional characters or for example dinosaurs - like in the first Jurassic Park using CGI dinosaurs to make them more realistic. - before they trialed it with stop-motion but need up using CGI for the more realistic effect.

The original Jurassic Park was the first CGI film that looked realistic - before this CGI was possible but not very realistic, it looked choppy and weird.

They were originally going to use stop-motion to bring the dinosaurs to life

Although, they originally shot scenes with stop-motion and Go motion, they did use CGI for the final version, I have included screenshots from the 2 different versions of the films side by side to see the difference.

Jurassic Park (1993) made around 1billion worldwide in the box office - it definitely would not have been this successful if it was made with stop-motion, the special effects is was drove people to want to pay money to see the film as it was never seen before.

Looking at the most popular stop motion of the 90s, The nightmare before Christmas came out in 1993, the same year as Jurassic Park.

Jurassic Park (1993) - 1billion worldwide

The nightmare before Christmas (1993) - 100million worldwide

The nightmare before Christmas was a very successful film, however comparing it to Jurassic Park it was no where near as successful - even with very popular renowned directors behind it like Tim Burton and Henry Selik.

Another popular stop motion that came out the same year 1993, was 'Wallace and Gromit in the wrong trousers' - this grossed 192 million worldwide.

Blockbuster hollywood films using CGI will have a big budget as it can cost millions just for a few minutes of CGI, the most CGI and higher quality a CGI film is, the more expensive this will be.

I was looking at the main contributors to why CGI is so expensive - more expensive than stop-motion or live action.

At the beginning of a CGI film its all mapped out on story boards, similarly to stop-motion film. This takes lots of time and skill to draw every shot of a film

Another main factor of the cost of CGI would be the type of animation film being made - for example a 2D film and 3D film will have very different expenses. 3D films are a lot more expensive to create because of the complexity.

a lot of the time and costs come from the rendering of a CGI film (creating the Final Cut of the film)

length of production heavily affects the cost of a film - for example, if you're using cgi for 5 minutes of a film compared to a whole cgi feature length film like toy story, this will be a lot more expensive.

a live action film can take a couple of months/weeks depending on there story and actors. Animating a film will take a lot longer, animators spend a long time making sure characters/environments look realistic, therefore, salary prices and budgets will rise.

"More time and experience are needed for more complex and comprehensive CGI production, which raises costs. A basic animated logo, for example, will be far less expensive than a full-fledged action scene with several characters and dynamic settings." - direct quote

Disney/Pixar animators will typically animate 5 seconds per week, this will be the highest quality animation as Disney will higher the most qualified animators. 5 seconds per week - to create a 2 hour fully animated film - this will cost a lot.

Some animators will do 60seconds per week which would significantly drop the tine it takes to create a full movie, there dropping the overall cost and time of the film.

The main cost of stop-motion will be labour costs and material costs, similarly to a CGI animation, depending on how much time you will put into the art, the more expensive and better outcome you will have.

Stop motion production companies tend to pay workers Price per finished minute - so depending on how long the film is and the quality of it, the expense will vary.

stop-motion is more manual labour rather than software - software can become very expensive, especially with the amount of people fired to run a cgi film, expenses add up to pay employees.

Stop-motion films can be created with a small team of animators, one animation camera, even a high production stop-motion film. CGI films take a lot more equipment, software, lighting, studio space.

Although stop-motion films can be more time and labour consuming, they are a lot more cost-effective than creating a cgi film.

This video is a good example of someone recreating all the special techniques only stop-motions create.

He created this whole video in blender - an animation of someone creating a stop motion, making it look like real life.

"The first step for me is to let the ideas grow in my imagination and my sketchbook. Once I start to fall in love with my characters, I begin the puppet making process. This helps me to get to know them more fully. They help to inform the story development and the sets and props that will come next"

"Svankmajer inspired me to take the leap into animation when I was in the painting program. I was already interested in bones and strange old found objects, but seeing how he made them live was really exciting."

"Blood Tea and Red String took about 4 years to animate. Final editing and sound took a few years because I needed to involve other people in that process. When you have little to no budget, it can be a tricky time in a production to overcome"

While watching the film, I really liked the character design and how the puppets were crafted. They're very weird and creepy looking, it felt uncomfortable when the rabbit would stare into the camera, it definitely gave a different vibe from the other Alice in wonderland films, almost like it was a horror.

The characters are very simple toy looking - with normal gland eyes and not a lot of detail, however they look very personable and realistic - the mouth/teeth definitely add a lot of expression and emotion.

the stop-motion characters alongside real life acting definitely added to the eerie genre, especially as a kids film.

medium that stands out within a world of virtual media

recognises the artistry for handmade

deep emotional connection between the creator, medium and the audience

stop-motion - brining physical objects to life - tactile addition - using real life objects to create something new / telling a narrative brings it to life/adds more dimension - more so than virtual media.

because of the time and effort put into creating a stop-motion, artists grow an emotional connection to their creation, more so than a cgi film. Physically bringing something to life, creating a character/environment/scene with hands. - also reflected in the story - adds more meaning and authenticity, emotion to the characters and story.

comparing virtual films and stop-motion films, virtual films often feel like they lack the warmth and intimate feeling a stop-motion can deliver. - for example, one of the films I remember most is Wallace and Gromit, the medium of the film is what makes it so memorable, it adds the nostalgia that other mediums cant recreate.

represent fragility within a hand made puppet

the deconstruction of a physical object, I wanted to show it has different layers, the ribs represent the physical construction, unlike a digital creation which will be one layer constructed on one screen.

When creating a puppet, everything has a purpose during the creation - everything builds it together separately, it wouldn't work without one of these materials. I wanted the ribs to be a representation of this as well it's an important part of the puppets construction the same way it is to a human in a body.

you can take apart a handmade object unlike a digital drawing

shows the internal com picatyio and work that goes into a stop motion model, I wanted this to be evident on the outside.

my project is about stop motion, more specifically looking at how this medium stands out in a digital media age / the significance and the impact of stop-motion

comparing stop-motion to other digital mediums

outcome - handmade puppet, made armature, using found materials and materials that really show marks, imperfections, fingerprints.

represents the handmade aspect that goes into stop-motion, to show this I want parts of the armature showing, ribs showing - symbolising the physicality of it. 'deconstruction of physicality' - shows the lack of handmade, everything becoming digital, deconstruction of physical creation.

Zine - I want to show this through a zine, photographs of puppet, photos of the process, illustrations. want to also include text - visual, creative style. kind of mini essay style - info about my research.

back up statements with examples - not just stats, use comparisons.

personal archive - include saying why its submitted digitally and not a physical zine. my project is about creating physical art - would preferably;y want it as a physical format but because its submitted digitally, it doesn't make sense to create a physical one, pictures will be blurry etc.

photographs of puppet - different positions included, if what I'm saying is something dissaponting/sad, have the puppet hands on face - show puppets expression relating to the text.

reflect on how far you've come

3 mins

slideshow/film

focus on content - be very clear

summary of research - include

example of work - include

dynamic time plan - include

For my zine, I want to include lots of images of my puppet, I knew many of these would be from my phone or a camera. I wanted to include more tangible, physical photographs of my puppet and I thought a Photo Booth would be a good idea. Taking these photographs aligned to my idea / goal of creating physical, authentic media.

It was fun taking photos at the Photo Booth of my puppet, it brought him to life a little bit more.

While looking for articles about the importance of creating physical art this one came up which I found interesting.

The article is an interview with a transgender artist who talks about her journey with transitioning, she talks about having a difficult time with her body, distracting herself so she wouldn't have to face it.

Before going on her hormones she started the project 'Flowers drink the river' which she describes as - "I had a sense of hopefulness and excitement in starting my life over again, which fueled me to want to create something beautiful and celebratory." and "Making art is one of the ways I can find some solace."

"There’s a lot of chance involved in my work. There’s a lot of waiting and observing and learning behaviors from animals, insects and plants. Nature has always been a place of comfort for me and has taught me perseverance in my personal life and on my journey of transitioning."

"Her process—slow, intentional, and deeply connected to the natural world"

"I try to make photographs that take the viewer to a different place that is unlike the one experienced in everyday life."

"I have always embraced, or sought out slowness in my life. Both in the place I live, and the way I aspire to be, I think I've always been a pretty anxious person in my past, and art and being with people I love are the things that allow me to really exist in a moment"

"The waiting, the searching, observing small details in my surroundings is also peaceful for me. I think what's changed over the years is my ability to accept and move on from “failures” or mistakes I make."

"It allows for a deeper connection with my surroundings. (...) t’s always important for me to build a connection with something, to communicate, or interact with a thing before making a photograph."

"I have a hard time not getting super distracted by screens, and my phone and computer. I feel like it’s often a pretty destructive force in my life when I'm feeling low, and being in the woods, and having a practice that is hands-on and analogue is a grounding presence."

"I need to have some form of manual labor in my life to feel fulfilled"

"my studio with backdrops, and paper, and bringing fragile elements of the outside world inside to photograph them."

I took pictures of the bunny against a white background and used photoshop to edit the background out.

I put the puppet in lots of different positions to show him being able to be used in a stop motion.

I want these to also link to the text, I did some sad and happy positions to link to what the text is talking about

scanning gets all the nuances that a photograph doesn't capture

textures

with this page I wanted to create a sort of DIY/crafty page

Soria

vercetti regualr

work sans

yantra one ?

sreda

shadow hand - maybe for smaller bits ? one words

questa regualar

pigeon

neuton

natural wear of stop-motion puppets

handmade puppets last forever, they don't stay perfect and clean

natural wear of a puppet over time - discolouration, frays, tears

captures the natural wear of something handmade, what happens to the clay/fabric/overtime.

"The tactile intimacy in the way the characters are filmed where the textures of the fur and clothing emphasise their materiality and dimensionality, making them seem entirely real even though they are impossible creatures."

"Finish a puppet, build a set, complete a scene; each is a small triumph. Opportunities to show my work in progress are also very rewarding and motivational"

"I’ll never say never, but at this point I don’t see myself working in virtual reality on my narrative projects as I want to curate every frame to tell the story in effective cinematic language"

summary of research

examples of my work

clear intention

dynamic time plan

key ideas

discoveries

what aspects have been most significant

what helped shape decisions for unit 10

work from unit 9 that's important and relevant - why

how each thing shaped intentions for unit 10

very visual select and arrange the images will drive the film

variety of images - research images, close ups

what I want to do

sentence and an image

planning, experimenting, creating, mistakes, exhibitions, lectures

go through moodle year plan

for unit 10 I am intending to make a stop-motion using my own handmade puppets. After I finished my unit 9 outcome, it feels very natural to make a stop-motion animation next.

I would like to keep exploring the significance of creating physical art within contemporary media and show this through my film.

As my hand in is a digital submission, I felt handing in a digital zine made the most sense.

As my project is about creating physical art and the importance of it - it seems a bit ironic as i'm creating a digital zine. However this is just down to circumstances as I would've liked to create a physical zine, this would've worked very well with my project but I didn't want to have to scan in blurry photographs / videos of a handmade zine.

To help this issue, the majority of my digital zine is physical art I created but scanned in and formatted digitally.

This has been the perfect solution for me and works best with the hand in requirements.

I wanted to include a stop-motion sequence to have a story line / stop motion kind of vibe or the closest I could get before a video.

To get the most realistic looking pictures, I thread a piece of string through the top of his head and held the needle up, this held his body up as I positioned him walking over and picking the flowers.

I edited the piece of string out using the heal tool in photoshop

I chose him to be in the grass / flowers as I wanted it to look whimsical looking, similar to the stop-motion films I reference throughout.