Pixilation project- Completed version

Stop motion- Warriors dance Prodigy

I really like how this video is done, using torn up cigarette packets to create the party goers. I especially like how they tear up and then form the figures.

Finished interactive narrative

Interactive narative project F by ~XxXRawrberryXxX on deviantART

This is my finished interactive narrative project. To be honest im not overly pleased with how it turned out. Sure, the mechanics of it all work, the slides connect properly, and it has a simple enough story to follow, but therin lies the problem. I feel that the story is just too basic, with not enough different choices for the user. Also the photos are not of the best quality, and although I intended to take new photos, I never got the chance due to the time taken by the pixilation project. However despite all this I did enjoy this project a lot, even though Flash was a tough program to get to know. I think given time and enough practice a lot could be achived when using it.

Lego camelot

This is a video response to Monty pythons Camelot song from Monty Pythons Holy Grail. I like how true to the movie this animation is, it folows the real time acting to the letter, with clever lego substitutions throughout. I also like how smoothly the whole animation runs.



This a stop motion lego production of a scene from The Matrix. Again i like how true to the story this animation is. I also like how the creator has managed to recreate the bullet time moments with clear lego discs, giving the effect of the air rippling as the bullet cuts through it.

Influences...and a bit of fun

This is by far the most influential thing for me when it comes to pixilation and stop motion. Robot Chicken is a TV show created by Seth Green. It uses toys of all types to create simple, short sketches. Some of the skecthes are obscure references to old TV shows or childhood stories, and others are based on more famous (or infamous) things. This skecth for example is based on both the X men and the Police Academy movies. I like the fact that the show uses a combination of toys we have probably all played with at some stage, and custom toys pieced together from parts of other toys. For the most part the characters are instantly recognisable, helping to draw the viewer in, and the comedy is random, bordering obsurd. All in all i love it and as far as influences go I think this is definetly a big one. I like is so much I have all 3 series out on DVD so far!

Pixilation seminar 1

Well what can I say. I enjoyed doing pixilation so much and its only the first seminar. Going out and doing our own stop motion was great, if a little chilly. As a group we managed to get about 370 individual shots in about 40 minutes and suprisingly, seeing as this was our first go, it runs relativily smoothly. After coming back from the seminar I decided to do my own. I bought a cheap lego kit and created a story based around that. I managed to get about 330 shots before the camera died so now im just waiting for it to charge then i will get on with doing ore of it.

Interactive narrative......so far

One typical morning by ~XxXRawrberryXxX on deviantART

This is my interactive Narrative as it stands so far. I originally had trouble getting flash to work how i wanted it woo. It took a while to comfigure it to show the photos i was using, which didn't help when i was trying to sort out which slide should navigate where. However once i had got past this roadblock it started to make sense. i have the basic workings sorted now, and just need to finish one branch of the story and neaten the whole thing up. That said however, now that i look at it, I have to admit im not overly happy with the photos. To me they look rushed and would benefit from being redone before the final deadline. However it works and that is always a step in the right direction.

Interactive narrative 2nd seminar

Well im sure everyone who hasnt used flash before came to the same conclusion during that last seminar, that flash is a tough program to use. It dosnt always do what you want it to do, and the inability to see the images whilst working on it dosnt help. Despite this i believe i have made a good start on my project. i have managed to create six frames with working buttons and the buttons are coded to navigate to the appropriate frame. Since doing this I have realised that I need more photos to add to my narrative, as there are holes in the story that need filling. I also need to provide more choices for the user, as currently its more of a story then an interactive.

Knife crime interactive narrative

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFVkzYDNJqo

This is an example of interactive narrative bieng used to get a point across. It was an attempt at making people more aware of knife crime, and the consequences of knife crime. Your given a number of choice at the end of each scene, each leading to a different set of choices or an outcome. The point of view style camera work allows you to feel like you are the individual in the narrative, and that the choices you make are affecting you, rather than a faceless camera holder, and this i feel helps to drive home the point about knife crime. There is certainly somthing nasty about being stabbed in the chest whilst watching it through P.O.V camera work.

One shot short

To be perfectly honest I did not enjoy this project as much as I thought i would. It seems to me that I just dont have the makings of a film maker in me. What really bought the whole experiance down for me was the fact that 1) The movie had to be done in one shot, so this left very little room for editing, especially seeing as our group did ours as a point of view shot movie, and 2) once we had placed the tripod and started shooting the movie, we wernt allowed to move the tripod. This seriously hindered our ability to get the right shots, hence our decision to shoot it as a P.O.V movie. As a group we were hindered as well. Getting us all together proved difficult due to work, and trips home, so we had to plan, hire the equipment and shoot the movie all within two days. This certainly didnt help with the quality of the movie itself. All in all I believe that this project could have been done better, but I know that I didnt enjoy it as much as the other two projects I did.

Fantastic Mr Fox

Im not sure about this movie. I saw it at the beginning of the week with a few friends. From what i sae on the trailers it looked really good. I love stop motion animation, films like corpse bride and nightmare before christmas spring to mind, and series like robot chicken. I love all these things and admire the work that goes into them. Im not saying that i dont admire the work that went into the making of Fantastic Mr Fox, it has clearly had a lot of work put into it, i just didnt like the story that went with it. I know its a Roald Dahl classic, but the producers of this movie have made changes, probably to make it appeal more to the audience, or what they think will appeal to the audience. For me it didint work im afriad.

However there were certain parts I liked about it as a movie. For starters just the fact that it is stop motion animation saves it for me. Also the style of stop motion that was used appeald to me. It has an unfinished feel to it. The animation hasnt been smoothed out to look life like, it has a subtle jerky motion to it, almost like missing out every other frame, and i personally really like this method. It's the same with 'The Nightmare before Christmas' as apposed to 'Corpse Bride', both made by the same director, Tim Burton, but both with subtle differences that makes them a world apart from eachother.

On the whole i think it's a must see movie if you like animation movies, and it does have some funny moments. But if your a die hard Roald Dahl fan or just not that into animation then steer clear or it, wait till it comes out on DVD and then rent it for cheaper

Technically

Ok. I know this dosn't technically tie in with what i have done so far on the course but i just wanted to share with you a game i tried recently. It called Machinarium, available from the steam network. Its a point and click puzzle game but with an arty twist. I just love it as a game. Each and every character, back ground, speech bubble, all of it was hand drawn onto a PC tablet. I like the unrefined look of the game, the fact that you can tell it's been hand drawn and not had millions of pounds spent on making it look ultra realistic. Its a simple game that works well and is a treat to watch.

Whiteboard animation

Finally found the video! Not quite sure why i was having such a hard time finding it.
This was so much fun to do!

Short movie/advert

I like this video because it manages to introduce us to so many different stories in such a short space of time. This is how a short movie should be.

One shot short design process

The Discovery Stage

• As a group we met up at the pulse bar and had a brainstorming session. We bounced ideas of each other and wrote everything down in the hope of coming up with an idea.
• We discussed ideas that would not break the rules of the project, i.e. the fact that we couldn't move the camera.

The Develpoment Stage

• We decided to look more at an indoor shoot as that allowed us to make better use of the fact that we could move the camera. With an outdoor shoot there will always be too much to see for a stationary camera and this would deaden our film.
• We looked at various potential locations for ou shoot, namely the university buildings and shopping areas, however these turned out to beto busy and not what we wanted for our film.
• One of our group mentioned visiting the gallerys of justice and that a room there might provide what we wanted, so we went and had a look. As it turned out the location worked for us.
• Now that we had a location in mind and a general idea based on that location we had to write and develop our story. As a group we decided on a court case based story and wrote out script accordingly. As it turned out the script developed with every take as we decided on more to add to it.

The Defining Stage

• Once we had our story, script and location we felt confident about booking the location for our use. We were given an hour before opening time to do as many takes of our movie as we could.
  
• We did an initial take straight away, so we could see what the film looked like and where lighting or props might be needed.
  
• With each consecutive take our idea, and thus our film, developed and was refined until we had our final take.

The Delivery stage

• This stage we havnt done yet but i will write a post about it once we have.
  

One shot short

Well my group has filmed the one shot short. Im defiently pleased with it, great location, worth the eraly start this morning, should work out has having some interesting takes on our tape. just got to edit it now and make it better =p

Pin Hole Cameras

Did anybody else find getting a picture on the pinhole cameras hard? All i kept getting was a picture of the pin hole iteself, just a black dot at either end of the page. Not the greatest picture in the world by far. My best effort resulted in a shadowy picture in the corner of the paper of a tree. It looked so easy when we were showed how, but lining up that paper was oddly difficult. Anybody else have the same issue???

First post

Well hello

This is my first post, sat here with the rest of you writing your first posts too.
If we havnt met yet, my names Antony or Ant if you prefer.
Emails toni99@hotmail.co.uk if you wanna drop me a line about anything.

Cya