YR 1 – Rotation 1 : Stop Motion
Experimenting with Dragon Frame.
We familiarised our self with the software Dragon frame by completing transformations using little scraps of paper. I love how our group made our piece into a loop as the video could play constantly and remain intriguing. I also think the sense of depth is clear in our piece which was relieving when watching it back as it was definitely the most difficult part of the process. This was because it was easy to get lost with what we was animating however, we were able to achieve the effect of the shapes moving within a 3D space. I also like the timing of the video, especially when the shapes are boiling as initially our group thought it went on for too long however, after waiting a day and re-watching the animation, it was clear that this was a good decision as it the audience would be watching the piece for the first time and therefore process the movement of the shapes.
Re-imagining Hollywood Narratives.
I love the scene where the character is running away from the camera as it was a nice sense of perspective. I also like how since this animation was primarily done in charcoal, you can see the ghost like figures from the previous frames. Whilst I am a fan of these aspects I feel like my group could have manipulated and made the story our own more as we instead summarised the film. I feel this is because only one of us were familiar with the film and so in this aspect the teamwork and communication could’ve been improved when choosing the movie although, when it came to making the piece we worked really well at dividing work loads.
A Trip to the moon.
Pre production:
As my group and I explored ideas, we agreed upon a story where two astronauts would go to space only to discover that the earth is flat. We thought this humorous concept would work best if one of the astronauts was a monkey and later decided to only go with this monkey to save time when animating.
Test shots:
Before the day of animating my group completed various test shots. Luckily a lot of them were able to be used in our final film however, these are a collection of failed shots. Completing this task before animating was extremely beneficial as not only did we save time by reusing some, we could also experiment and discuss as a team what changes would enhance our film such as moving the flat earth down in the last scene to draw more attention to it.
Final Animation:
I am very pleased with how our animation turned out as I feel the story is somewhat clear and the process of the rocket taking off was smooth. I feel to improve we could have the news broadcast scene last longer to allow time for the audience to read the text however, we ran out of time and had to cut it short. To fix this we could have made the words stay still however that might have removed the charm of the film. I also really like the mixed media in our film such as the cotton wool for the smoke and the plastic used for the monkeys helmet. A piece of feedback from one of our peers was that in the scene where you see the flat earth, the stars shouldn’t have been moving as they removed the focus from the earth and made the story hard to understand. I agree with this point and in future make sure to pay more attention the the details I want my audience to capture as they would be viewing it for the first time and therefore not have the same insight into it that I have. Another aspect I would change if I were to do this film again is the take-off scene of the rocket ship. I feel this part was very clear however my team was heavily inspired by this video and so I feel we should’ve used our imagination a little more to make the piece our own but overall I think its a nice, humorous film which is what we were trying to create.
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