Lauren Knight by Lauren Knight

Initial Research And Experimentation

Laurenknight — 2015-09-24 14:50:40 UTC

During the past few weeks I have been researching different types of stop motion animation. I have looked thoroughly at different genres of stop motion animation and how they have been created. Another thing that I looked at was the devices that have been used in history and now in the present day to show stop motion animation. This has helped me to understand how technology has developed over time. Another thing I researched was the pioneers of these techniques and also the devices. This helped me because I learned how the devices and techniques were created and developed and how they have developed over time. I have also looked at various different television idents, this has helped me to develop my own ideas for a Ident which i will be creating for Essex Offer. The animations and idents that I have been watching and researching have influenced my ideas as they have given me various different ideas as to what I can do to make the creation of my ident successful.

The requirements of the client is that I am to create an ident that will be used on their website. This has to be between 30 and 40 seconds. another requirement is that it is aimed to 18-25 year olds, but if not that it is targeted at one specific audience. it must not use small print or any flashing lights so that it is fully accessible.

Pre-Production process;

Laurenknight — 2015-10-09 14:51:37 UTC

I have researched different characters to create my own called Daisy the Frog. This is where we developed the name of our production company, which is Sitting Frog Productions.

The first task that we have decided that needs completing is the allocation of jobs and also agreed production roles. This is due to the fact that once this is determined we will be able to go straight into our pre-production process.

I have watched various different clips where the explain the making of different claymation productions. One of the clips I looked at gave me great inspiration for my production. This is the Sony Bravia Playdoh- the making of. I found a lot of the information they gave will be helpful when creating my ident. I have looked an experimented with different stop-motion animation techniques such as claymation, object animation and silhouette animation. From this I have found that in my ident I would like to use both claymation and object animation. Another thing that I did was looked at the history animation and how it has been developed over the years. This helped me to obtain a better understanding of how the techniques worked and why they were and still are so popular.

In my research I created a series of different mind maps, this helped me to get out my ideas and develop what it was that I wanted to create.

In my group we took in all the initial ideas that we had and then decided on the idea that we thought best for the brief and or purpose.

Because there is only two of us in our group, we have decided that we will do an even share of practical and written work. This meant that we didn't allocate specific job roles.

The next step in the Pre-production that we will complete is conducting surveys. This will help us to understand what won't and what will work with the targeted audience. This will help us because if they don't think that our ideas are suitable then we can adapt them to make sure they are.

Something we have agreed to do is keep minutes of meetings from our Preliminary and regular team meetings. By having regular team meetings it will ensure that we keep up with both our team and individual performance and also allow us to monitor and review our progress. Another benefit of having regular team meetings is that we can both know what is expected of us and understand each task definition and deadlines. We have discussed and found that this will help us both stay on track of what needs to be done to ensure that we meet submission dates. Something else we have decided to do as a team is stick to our agendas and minutes that we plan. This will help us to progress successfully through our production. We also discussed project management techniques like prioritisation over more important elements of our production and producing production schedules so we know what needs to be done and when by.

As a team we decided that all of our logistics needed to be prepared before we filmed our ident. This is due to the fact that it would make our production much more successful and run smoother during the production process. Logistics cover many areas including things such as locations. This will also help us to ensure that we stick to the agreed content outline within our proposal.

Something else that we have found that we need to prioritise is producing a contingency plan for staffing and resources. This is because we must make sure that any staffing and resourcing problems are solved straight away so it does not effect the plans and limited time that we have for our production.

During our pre-production process we will be looking at the appropriate equipment we require to ensure that the filming of our ident can be done efficiently and professionally. Something else we will need to consider is what personnel is required to ensure that our standards remain professional and that we have all the right personnel that we require. We have drawn up proposed schedules to ensure that we are able to meet all of our deadlines and that we make sure we have everything covered that we need to complete.

15/10/15

Today I completed the Visual mood board and also my dope sheet. This helped me to gather my thoughts on why I am creating this ident and also how it effects people. I completed my dope sheet, so when it comes to producing my ident it can be created easily.I also completed practical experimentation We did not have time to complete the script, which we had intended. I watched the making of the Sony Bravia Playdoh advertisement. This helped me with my experimentation because I had reference to professional standard of work.

Wednesday October 14th

Laurenknight — 2015-10-16 15:11:16 UTC

Today we completed the production schedule, risk assessment and our set sketches, although we need to finish our final set sketch. although we did not have enough time to conduct the questionnaires that we intended to do due to the focus groups being more time consuming than we had anticipated. I looked at different styles of questionnaires online that would produce the best answers that we would need to adapt our ident to make it suitable.

Thursday October 15th

Laurenknight — 2015-10-16 15:13:00 UTC

Friday October 16th

Laurenknight — 2015-10-16 15:14:09 UTC

Today I began to create the logo for our production team. For inspiration I looked at the Aardman animation logo. I liked this logo because it is simple, but will stick in your head and is easy to remember. I took this as inspiration for the creation of my logo. I typed up the findings from our focus group, this helped us to elaborate our original ideas because we looked at the opinions for different people who completed our focus group. Another thing that I did was I started to develop the storyboard. I believe that this will help in the production of our ident. I also completed the budget, which gives an idea of how much the production would and or could cost. We also began some experimentation in the animation studio for our animated ident.

Wednesday 21st October

Laurenknight — 2015-10-22 11:19:06 UTC

Today I looked at what I needed to do to create my proposal. I focused on creating a plan so that I could successfully create my proposal and this would make it easier. This allowed me to be completely prepared for the creation of my proposal. We then began the creation of the set for our animated ident.

Thursday 22nd October

Laurenknight — 2015-10-22 11:21:45 UTC

Today we had a team meeting to decipher what specific subjects we will be talking about in our presentation. This meant that we could focus on writing a script for our presentation. Later on in the afternoon me and beth focused on creating the set for our animation ident. We thought about different ways we could create the set and thought about the different materials we would use. We then began the creation of our set.

Friday 23rd October

Laurenknight — 2015-10-23 12:40:37 UTC

Today I have focused on creating the set for our animated ident. We had all the appropriate materials to create our set today so we were able to finish it. The set is now ready for when we come back from half term for filming our animated ident. I looked at the making of the 2015 John Lewis advert for home insurance to see how they prepared their sets for filming and the different techniques that they used. I set myself tasks to complete over half term so that I will be ready to pitch on Friday 6th November.

Friday October 9th

Laurenknight — 2015-11-04 15:43:36 UTC

Today I started everything that i had intended to, this being the synopsis, mood board, risk assessment and both the character and set sketches. We did not have time to complete all of these tasks today as they took more time than we had initially thought they would. I found this useful, as I found at that tasks could take much longer to compete than I may originally think. This means that I can plan my time more efficiently in future tasks.

Wednesday October 7th

Laurenknight — 2015-11-04 15:46:08 UTC

Today me and Beth reviewed our mind maps that we had created with the ideas for our animated ident. When we completed this and were happy with what was on the mind maps, we moved on to plan our experimentation and what we wanted to try to see if it would work well or not. After this we devised our team name which is "Sitting Frog Productions". When all of this was complete we allocated roles and responsibilities within the group for the production of our animated ident and also the for the preproduction documents. I found that by doing this I was more aware of the roles and responsibilities I, but I was also clear on what we were to create for our animated ident.

Wednesday 4th Novemeber

Laurenknight — 2015-11-04 16:07:30 UTC

Today I have organised all of my preproduction documents so that they are ready for my pitch on Friday. I made a few amendments to documents which required this. I have also concentrated on perfecting the minutes of meetings. Another thing that I have done today is ensure that all of my preproduction documents are complete. Me and Beth have put or presentations together and practiced our pitch together.
Today me and Beth also arranged what lighting we would be using so that we are prepared for our production phase. We looked at different types of lighting that we could use to ensure that the ident would come out bright and bold like we had intended. We arranged a set up for the light that we would use throughout the whole production.

Thursday 5th November

Laurenknight — 2015-11-05 15:34:04 UTC

Today I focused on perfecting my pitch ready for tomorrow. I made sure that all of my timings were correct. I looked on youtube at various different clips, to see if I could find some tips for my pitch tomorrow. This helped because I found useful information, like having good posture, for when I am presenting my pitch. I also made sure that all of my preproduction documents were ready for tomorrow.

Thursday 12th & Friday 13th November

Laurenknight — 2015-11-19 13:24:26 UTC

Today me and my team mate were doing the filming for a animated ident. We completed all of the filming that we required for our animated ident so that it is ready for the post production process which will begin next week. We had all the materials and resources that we required for the filming of our animation so this ensured that the filming was completed and run smoothly.

Something else that we will be doing today is planning the soundtrack and any sound effects that we want to use within our ident. By doing this we will ensure that we are ready to begin the post-production process and are able to complete it by the submission deadline.

Wednesday 18th Novemeber

Laurenknight — 2015-11-19 13:35:30 UTC

Today me and my team mate focused on the post production side of of ident, where we began editing. we edited majority of the footage today and were able to incorporate music and sound effects. We have decided the message isn't as clear as we would like so we want to incorporate a voice over. We believe that by doing this we will make our message clear like we intended to do and this will give it the professional edge that we are aiming for.

Thursday 19th Novemeber

Laurenknight — 2015-11-19 13:53:28 UTC

Today I have, with my team mate, created questionnaires for our audience feedback. We have also began the planning of our focus group for our audience feedback. I believe that audience feedback is a vital part of the post production. This is due to the fact that this shows us whether our ident is successful or not.

Post-Production

Laurenknight — 2015-11-26 13:59:22 UTC

For the editing phase we have kept it simple as we believe that this would be the best way to appeal to our target audience. This is due to the fact that if it is too complex then it could become confusing as we are aiming at a younger audience. We have used a voice over, but within this we have used simple language that is easy for audiences of all kinds of ages and abilities to understand. We found that this would be the easiest way to entice our intended target audience. We used fast paced editing due to the fact that it was a short ident so we wanted to keep the editing short and quick, so it fits in well with the ident we wanted to create.

Considering all of these factors means that my ident will be ready for completion, but if there are to be any modifications after completion then they will be able to be carried quickly and efficiently.

Problem Solving Through the Process

Laurenknight — 2016-05-16 09:26:08 UTC

One of the problems that we faced during our production phase was the fact that pouring the glitter onto our character to show her transformation proved to be much harder that we had first intended. We got around this problem by experimenting with different ways we could make this process happen. For example we tried using different pieces of material, like pieces of string and wire to spin our character around whilst pouring the glitter over our character. To improve this next time we must make sure that all of our ideas our sustainable before we intended to film.

Another problem that we encountered was the fact that we found some of the clips appeared to look lighter than others. This could have been a problem with the lighting, but we were able to sort this problem out when we came to the post-production process. We using editing software to ensure that all of the clips were of the same light and brightness. This was a major part of our quality control, because we had to maintain a professional standard.

We found that the best crisis management technique was to stay calm and think of all the possible factors we could consider to solve the problem that we had encountered.