For creative play this week we would be looking at the subject of pixelation and time-lapse. This was also the first session where we would be collaborating with members of the group to produce work that was based upon this very idea. The plan for the session was this we would be looking at processes and examples of the idea of pixelation, time-lapse and hyper lapse, then after the break we would be split into groups and produce our own versions of this to be later compiled together in Premiere Pro. We were shown a powerpoint presentation of time lapsing which was considered to be one of the first applications of time-lapse carrefourdella opera done by George Mellies in the year 1898. When doing time lapsing the camera and projector were set to something like 6 fps and 24fps which was one of the traditional requirements, we were told we could use a Time-lapse math calculator which we could use to calculate the math needed for this to work.
example:
Shooting intervals:
Clip 10 seconds
Event Duration: 1hour
FPS 25
Image size 16MG
Pixelation is a method of stop motion with people as an element in the timing process. in some instances used in films and old style music videos from long ago. One of the examples shown was one that I was familiar with and that was a music video called Sledgehammer which one of my favourite animators Nick Park had collaborated on during his time at Ardman studios whilst working on his first Wallace and Gromit adventure a Grand Day out (Wallace and Gromit 3 Cracking Adventures DVD).
This seemed to focus on a faster form or stop-motion animation in my view speeding up the footage much like what you would see in transitions from the old television show Ground Force, or even in our line of work something used for documentation purposes in terms of behind the scenes work. We were shown many more examples of this work one of which the Norman Mclaren Neighbours was considered entertaining and slightly cruel at the same time but this looked like an interesting media of animation to work with. This method seems to be used to this very day in such commercials like the Amazon Kindle commercials even when computers came along the old ways lived on to this very day such as some traditional animation methods. Some animators took the media further than anyone ever could such as Pika Pika light painting crew using light trails and some even defining the impossible like the Blu motto 2008 Graffiti crew the way they created their animation work with graffiti and not get anything wrong it was beyond imagination. One thing we were advised on was doing long exposure to light and trace the light around it which is something that we could attempt.
After the break we were broken into teams of five to create our own pixelation animations to try the method I was paired in a team with Jolanta, Alisha, Beth and Elena and we set to work brainstorming ideas about our pixelation animation. This was where our lessons in Animation 101 would come in about timing and spacing. We needed to calculate the frames and in this the time limit was 12fps to make it look fast and speedy. We came up with the idea of using the whiteboards as the base of our animation idea and how we could interact with the drawing on the board and so we came up with the idea of using a ball and how we would interact with it. We first needed a white board which Johnny was good enough to provide for us and we took it into the stop motion studio where it would be nice and quiet, and though there was a student working we kept the noise to a minimum. We first need to divide up the tasks, and since Alisha had used a DSLR camera which was what the camera we would be using for this task she would be our camera person whilst Beth and Jolanta would interact with the ball we would be using, and I would draw the ball in the different positions on the film with some help from Elena.
I drew the ball design and we decided to call the ball Cyril, since it was a very simplistic name and the idea of this task was to keep it simple and practical. see design below
We took the time to discus what we would be doing and Elena sketched out the storyboard for our decided idea and the idea was the ball would bounce down to the ground and Jolanta and Beth would catch it as it flew across. Overtime though ideas changed such as having the ball bounce up and down by the hand or our final idea of bouncing the ball and then having it eaten by Elena. We debated this whilst we did the animation process and we agreed and disagreed on many things but to keep the speed as normal as we could we shot two photos per frame for a slow speed rate instead of it going too fast.
When setting up the equipment we were given a special type of tripod which Annabeth showed us before we went our separate ways. To set it up we first needed to lay out the legs by unclipping the secure clips to extend the legs out but this was a two person job both getting it out of the bag and setting it up. When securing the camera to the pod it had a detachable base that we could slide on then using the screw at the bottom to secure the slide base to the camera and tightened it using a coin as we didn't have a screwdriver.
Importing images
Sequencing the images
When compiling the images I looked in the new sequence settings when rendering the final product the sequence was set to the settings of DSLR 1080p 25 and this was then put together as a final sequence in this little short film.
After the break we were broken into teams of five to create our own pixelation animations to try the method I was paired in a team with Jolanta, Alisha, Beth and Elena and we set to work brainstorming ideas about our pixelation animation. This was where our lessons in Animation 101 would come in about timing and spacing. We needed to calculate the frames and in this the time limit was 12fps to make it look fast and speedy. We came up with the idea of using the whiteboards as the base of our animation idea and how we could interact with the drawing on the board and so we came up with the idea of using a ball and how we would interact with it. We first needed a white board which Johnny was good enough to provide for us and we took it into the stop motion studio where it would be nice and quiet, and though there was a student working we kept the noise to a minimum. We first need to divide up the tasks, and since Alisha had used a DSLR camera which was what the camera we would be using for this task she would be our camera person whilst Beth and Jolanta would interact with the ball we would be using, and I would draw the ball in the different positions on the film with some help from Elena.
I drew the ball design and we decided to call the ball Cyril, since it was a very simplistic name and the idea of this task was to keep it simple and practical. see design below
When setting up the equipment we were given a special type of tripod which Annabeth showed us before we went our separate ways. To set it up we first needed to lay out the legs by unclipping the secure clips to extend the legs out but this was a two person job both getting it out of the bag and setting it up. When securing the camera to the pod it had a detachable base that we could slide on then using the screw at the bottom to secure the slide base to the camera and tightened it using a coin as we didn't have a screwdriver.
When shooting the frames we had to measure the distance of the ball from Jolantas hand and then sketch in the character accordingly Elena would map out the measurements whilst I would draw in the character. This was a crucial aspect when doing the character being bounced on the head and when falling to the ground and hitting it. When doing new drawings we used whiteboard cleaner to clean the drawing to avoid messing up the board and give a clear example of the animation and not have any messes in the presentation. We seemed to be making progress and to me this seemed like a very good group bonding session to get to know each other more and our specific skills set for future reference when collaborating later in the course.
Annabeth would pop in from time to time to see how we're doing and advised perhaps using the time-lapse feature on our phones or do photos to show the behind the scenes element for our blogs and our making of module. see below.
The animation was planed out the first few shots were a close up image of Cyril then upon being bounced on the head the board would move back slightly so that Beth and Jolanta could be brought into the frame then as Beth pushed the ball she came up with the idea of having Cyril swear random phrases when it hit the ground to show how irritated it was so we agreed this would be a creative idea so we let Beth write in the phrases.
We continued working and we then had an idea to have Elena eat the ball at the end of the animation and even have a moustache after eating Cyril and we even came up with the name Poor Cyril which seemed to fit the situation. We started to really connect with the character even feeling sorry for what he was going through in the course of making this production (No drawn balls were harmed in the making of this short film folks).
As we reached the climax of our animation Alisha drew a moustache on Elena's face very carefully and I drew a very realistic scared expression on Cyril's face as he neared his inevitable fate of being eaten and by the end Elena gave a very funny expression at the end of the photo frames a look that said "can't miss comedy folks". Upon completion we looked over the images we'd taken and deleted the images that we didn't need or were mistakes, however this we would later learn would be one of our mistakes in this animation process. We packed up our equipment and headed to room 3.29 where we would be using mac computers for the next stage of the film making process. The key to this is we would be using Adobe Premier pro to compose the film and the key to it was called image sequencing when importing images on Premier pro we had to make sure the feature image sequencing was selected so that when importing the pieces more than one image would be converted to a video file about 6 seconds long this I thought was very interesting and we were told this was something that we may consider in stop motion or maya files when exporting.
We learned that when doing this process it was crucial not to delete any photos even if we'd made a mistake as if we did it would break the chain within the image sequencing meaning we had to reconnect the chain by use of Adobe Bridge or just importing the images in the next numbered sequence along. This was something to learn from this experience and that was not to delete photos in the chain of sequencing. To use the photos we could plug the memory card that Annabeth had given us into the mac to import the photos so that we could use them in Premier Pro. Next was to create a new sequence using the settings form the DSLR camera at you tube size which was digital SLR 1080 pixels which would then be nest into the other sequences which was dragging and dropping the sequence with the exsisting settings and when placed it was slightly zoomed in and by clicking the alt key, go up to effects we could scale it down to the right size getting back the image information, which was where we would see how After effects and Premier pro were linked. The next phase was rendering it into a final product.To render, we go to sequence render in and out then whilst it renders we could "go get a cup of coffee".
We were then given the chance to do it ourselves and whilst a few members of the group were either not here yet or had gone home early I decided to set to work and then I could share the work with other members of may group the next day to include in the blogs. When doing this I did have a few difficulties in importing the photos and asked Annabeth to help me through the process as I was still new to this process of using Premier pro. So I created a new file and began the process importing the images in image sequencing and found the settings on the mac in the importing settings, then began doing the image sequencing.
Once rendered it was time to save the sequence as a file for our blogs and it was saved in an MP4 file format and the premier pro document was saved as well and this was saved to my memory stick so that I could give the file to the other members of the group the next time that I saw them. Looking back on this experience it seemed to be a good inside look into what it was like to collaborate with other members of the group and bring our unique skills to the table to create the final product, and even discuss ideas and sketch up rough ideas and decide on a final product, I very much enjoyed this task and it gave us the chance to bond as a group and even use elements we've learned on this course such as intro to the making of and animation 101.
Final film.
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