Tripod

Just managed to sort out a tripod for my filming - the  Film and New Media Officer at World Horse Welfare (my mum's work) has a spare one that he was willing to lend me! YAY! Filming/shooting can commence next week!

TIM BURTON

Timothy Walter "Tim" Burton (born August 25, 1958) is an American film director, film producer, writer and artist. He is famous for his dark, quirky-themed movies such as Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow, Corpse Bride, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, 9 and Dark Shadows, and for blockbusters such as Pee-wee's Big Adventure, Batman, Batman Returns, Planet of the Apes, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Alice in Wonderland, which was the second highest-grossing film of 2010, and the twelfth highest-grossing film of all time.

Burton has directed 16 films and produced 12, as of 2012. His latest films are an adaptation of the soap opera Dark Shadows, released on May 10, 2012, and a remake of his 1984 short, Frankenweenie, released on October 5, 2012.

Burton graduated from CalArts in Santa Clarita, California in 1979. The success of his short film Stalk of the Celery Monster attracted the attention of Walt Disney Productions' animation studio, who offered young Burton an animator's apprenticeship at their studio. He worked as an animator, storyboard artist and concept artist on films such as The Fox and the Hound, The Black Cauldron and Tron. However, Burton's personal style clashed with Disney's standards, and he longed to work on solo projects.
While at Disney in 1982, Burton made his first short, Vincent, a six-minute black-and-white stop motion film based on a poem written by the filmmaker, and depicting a young boy who fantasizes that he is his (and Burton's) hero Vincent Price, with Price himself providing narration. The film was produced by Rick Heinrichs, whom Burton had befriended while working in the concept art department at Disney.


Tim Burton is a particular inspiration for me because I have also been a 'fan' of his work throughout the years, from Edward Scissorhands to Corpse Bride and Sweeney Todd. Upon researching him, I found out about his beginning work and it inspired me how he began working at Disney and it led to him being the sensational film director that he is.

BEGINNING AND END YAY

 

This is the arm from Elmo who I originally started out with. Looking back on the product, I have noticed that the material he was made from was quite cheap and unappealing, particularly in comparison to the puppet that I have created.

Finished products, I am so pleased! I can't wait to start working with them.

Mannequin

I have just been trying to edit the image of a mannequin onto a pile of rubbish to establish what it will look like in my film.

Narrowing down possible names

POSSIBLE FIRST NAMES
Dexter
Hugo
Rex
Arthur

POSSIBLE SURNAMES
Cobalt
Oxford
Zapphyr (Instead of Sapphire - which comes across as quite a feminine name)

Who?

My puppet may have been created however, I am still yet to find a name for my character and so I have been using 'Random Name Generators' just for some simple inspirations. However, this actually led to me studying the different names for the shades of blue, because I think I would like for my character to have a 'surname' which in some way related to his character/personality/appearance. Shades which I quite like for names are:
Cobalt Blue

Turquoise

 

Oxford

(Tardis blue - which is quite alike Oxford blue)

Sapphire

 

 

 



YAY MY PUPPET IS DONE

Yesterday, I finished making the puppet for my short film, [PICTURE TO UPLOAD]. I'm really pleased with it, I am pleasantly surprised with how it turned out because there's always that element of doubt in your mind when you worry that it isn't going to look how you envisaged it to. My nan has taken it back to her house so that she can look at the inner body to insert wire into the arms so that it can be easily moveable for filming.

Puppet making time...

We started the assembling by sewing the leg and foot panels together

We then stitched the arm panels together

Here are the stuffed arms and legs together with the head

Assembling the pieces together

YAY! Almost complete - the only thing left to do is stuff the body and stitch it all together

Practising...

Okay so last night the mannequin finally arrived! Yay! The first action I took was to unscrew the hinge of one of the arms to see if it was actually possible - it was, however, slight problem...As I did so, the spring from within pinged tight and the upper arm came off....It's actually ridiculously hard to put back on as the spring has to be pulled tight, but it's not very easy so I'm thinking that I can maybe go for a Tim Burton 'Corpse Bride' kind of look, whereby I keep her without the upper arm. Only problem with this is that that arm now can't be moved particularly easily, in fact, it can't really be moved much at all - it's very floppy. Oh dear.

So, I decided to start practising designs for the wedding dress and I initially used newspaper to create a bodice, and then cutting up layers to create the skirt. I quite like the look of this because it looks rustic and interesting because of the layers and also the text gives it a modern yet old style. I am also going to try using plain white paper - I didn't use this originally  because obviously it's thicker and I wanted to trial with something thinner, i.e. newspaper. I am also going to either try layering white tissue paper on top of white paper, newspaper or simply by itself.
Will update when I've trialled some more.

CONSTRUCTION CONTINUES...

Wallace and Gromit

Wallace and Gromit are the main characters in a British series consisting of four animated short films and a feature-length film by Nick Park of Aardman Animations. The characters are made from moulded plasticine modelling clay on metal armatures, and filmed with stop motion clay animation.

The Wallace and Gromit movies are shot using the stop motion animation technique. After detailed storyboarding, set and plasticine model construction, the movies are shot one frame at a time, moving the models of the characters slightly to give the impression of movement in the final film. In common with other animation techniques, the stop motion animation in Wallace and Gromit may duplicate frames if there is little motion, and in action scenes sometimes multiple exposures per frame are used to produce a faux motion blur. Because a second of film constitutes 24 separate frames, even a short half-hour film like A Close Shave takes a great deal of time to animate well. General quotes on the speed of animation of a Wallace and Gromit film put the filming rate at typically around 30 frames per day — i.e. just over one second of film photographed for each day of production. The Curse of the Were-Rabbit is an example for how long this technique takes to produce quality animation; it took 15 months to make.
As with Park's previous movies, the special effects achieved within the limitations of the stop motion technique were quite pioneering and ambitious. In A Close Shave, for example, consider the soap suds in the window cleaning scene, and the projectile globs of porridge in Wallace's house. There was even an explosion in "The Auto Chef", part of the Cracking Contraptions shorts. Some effects (particularly fire, smoke, and floating bunnies) in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit proved impossible to do in stop motion and so were rendered on computer.
Park has consistently turned down requests for an ongoing television series due to the time and effort that would be required for even a single episode.
Most of the models were destroyed in the 2005 Aardman studio fire, but a set from A Matter of Loaf and Death is presently on display at the At-Bristol science centre.

CONSTRUCTION BEGINS

I used Dylon dye in 'Bahama Blue' to dye my baby blue material so that it was the colour I wanted.

I bought an Elmo toy which I proceeded to disassemble in order to gain an understanding of the structure and to use as a template.

Elmo doesn't look to happy after being disassembled. Sorry Elmo!

DYLON DYE, yay pretty colours!

Had a major panic because after doing some extensive research on Dylon dye, I discovered that it doesn't tend to work very well on synthetic or treated Nylon fabrics (typical that this is EXACTLY what my product is!)

Turns out I didn't need to worry, it worked perfectly - better than I could have hoped actually, yay!

BEFORE AND AFTER - Baby blue on the left, and dyed result on the right (Still wet!!!)

Still wet, but currently drying as I type!

What makes a muppet a muppet?

Physical Appearance!
The puppets are often molded or carved out of various types of foam, and then covered with fleece, fur, or any other felt-like material. Muppets may represent humans, anthropomorphic animals, realistic animals, robots, anthropomorphic objects, extraterrestrial creatures, mythical beings or other unidentified, newly imagined creatures, monsters, or abstract characters.
Contrastingly to ventriloquist 'dummies/puppets', muppets can be animated with their arms and other features, rather than being only mobile in the face and head.
Muppets are typically made of softer materials and also presented as being independent from the puppeteer, who is usually not visible, i.e. hidden behind a set or outside of the camera frame. Using the camera frame as the 'stage' was an innovation of the Muppets. Previously on television, there would be be a stage hiding the performers, as if in a live presentation. Sometimes they are seen full-bodied. This is done by using invisible strings to move the characters' mouths and bodies; the voice being added later.
Muppets tend to develop, as writer Michael Davis put it, 'organically', meaning that the puppeteers take time, often up to a year, slowly developing their characters and voices. Muppets are also, as Davis said, 'test-driven, passed around from one Henson troupe member to another in the hope of finding the perfect human-Muppet match.'
When interacting with Muppets, children tended to act as though the Muppets were living creatures, even when they could see the puppeteers.
Operation!
The Muppeteer or Muppet master always holds the Muppet above his head or in front of his body, with one hand operating the head and mouth, and the other manipulating the hands and arms, either with two separate control rods or by 'wearing' the hands like gloves. One consequence of this design is that most of the Muppets are in fact left-handed because the puppeteers use their right hand to operate the head whilst using their left to operate the arm rod.
There are many other common designs and means of operation. Amongst the advanced Muppets, several Muppeteers may control a single character; the performer who controls the mouth usually provides the voice for the character. As technology has evolved, the Jim Henson team and other puppeteers have developed an enormous variety of means to operate Muppets for film and television, including the use of suspended rigs, internal motors, remote radio control, and computer enhanced and superimposed images.
Creative use of a mix of technologies has allowed for scenes in which Muppets appear to be riding a bicycle, rowing a boat, and even dancing on-stage with no puppeteer in sight.

Walter in The Muppets film

Audience Feedback

In Monday's lesson I got the class to watch the video of my idea pitch and then to post comments on my blog what they thought of my initial idea and then to pose a question for me to think about. I was pleasantly surprised by the feedback that I received as everyone was very positive and had constructive questions for me to think about.
Aimee - I think stop motion is a good idea although it is lengthy it could be worth it. Would it all be in stop motion or would you consider having part of it real life filming?
Farah - I think you have a very creative idea which could work very well - the puppets would be very entertaining! If you were thinking of stop motion that would also be very effective - but you would have to already start planning to make sure you manage your time efficiently; if you do it will work greatly! Good luck :-)
Caitlin - I really like this idea, I think it would be really cute for the puppet to fall in love with the mannequin, this still has a fairytale-esque feel to it and the idea of him living in your shed is really good. How would your brother fit into the film? Would he be friends with the puppet? 
Martha - I think your idea is a really good one. I think especially for a young audience, its such a nice juvenile idea, which is refreshing because I think a lot of other people get bogged down in subtext and seriousness. I think you should really use the idea of stop motion as its creative and original. 
Evie - Sounds you have the building blocks of a really fun and creative idea! I'd be very interested to watch this short, should you choose to make it. Have you thought much about sound in your film? 
Alice - I love the idea, think it shall work really well. I personally think that maybe give a try out of the stop motion, because if it works for you I think that will look really effective, but I also think it is good that you have considered how time consuming it can be therefore have thought of an idea where you can also film it through 'real' action. Have you thought about whether you will use diagetic or non-diagetic sound, whether you will include much dialogue etc?
Lizzie - Really interesting idea; it's great that you have already considered actors and have a good idea of where you are going to film and how it's going to work with your vision. Do you know where the story is going to lead?
Ben - The idea is very simple, the stop-motion could be a problem as Alice said; it is very time consuming. But I think that if it does properly stop-motion can add so much more to a piece especially in the case of fantasy as it provides a much more unreal but also fragmented and sharp final product. How do you feel on working with a young actor? And how do you plan to keep his interest in making the film with it being such a tedious production?

Update on my film pitch..

So, today I was going to film another video of my idea rather than using the one that I did last week with Alice however, I lost my voice last night and haven't been able to regain it in time to film a newer video so I am having to upload the one that I did in school.

One thing that I forgot to mention within the video is that the female mannequin's wedding dress will be made out of newspaper, with layerings of tracing paper on top for an added definition and sheer look to the design.

So this is my film pitch!

Please bear in mind that I haven't spoken about my whole idea in this film, and so I am considering elements such as mise-en-scene, actors, locations etc.

STOP MOTION

Okay, so seeing as I am considering using stop motion as a filming method for my short film, I thought I should gain a definition and explanation of what it actually involves and entails.
"Stop motion (also known as stop frame) is an animation technique to make a physically manipulated object appear to move on its own. The object is moved in small increments between individually photographed frames, creating the illusion of movement when the series of frames is played as a continuous sequence. Dolls with movable joints or clay figures are often used in stop motion for their ease of repositioning. Stop motion animation using plasticine is called clay animation or "clay-mation". Not all stop motion requires figures or models; many stop motion films can involve using humans, household appliances and other things for comedic effect."

In looking into stop motion, I am provoking the 'argument' (in my brain) between going for something along the lines of 'Wallace and Gromit: A Close Shave' or 'The Muppets'. Wallace and Gromit short films and films are comprised from a series of stop motion images whereas The Muppets films are created with puppets acted out by real people within a motion picture film.

I am currently VERY VERY VERY unsure whether stop motion is right for me and so I think I will have to decide upon this when my wooden artist's mannequin arrives in the post (hurry up please Amazon!) so that I can create a very short sequence in practice. However, even if I am able to create the right looking film, I may not be able to do the same with the puppet that I am going to create...so there are a range of problems with what I am trying to achieve. I may have to actually create a 'puppet' puppet, rather than just a puppet toy, so that I am able to use someone to act it out; rather than using wire within the toy to make it move for itself, so to speak, rather than actually having somebody act it out.

I don't think I will have many problems with having good enough technology because I have a Canon HD 1100D Camera which is very good for both films and taking image sequences.

And so, THE RECREATION OF A SHORT FILM IS DONE!

[Although I do not quite like watching myself within the remake...]