So after a mad, mad, MAD few weeks of each of us running around like headless
chickens we can finally say that all the scenes are animated! There's been a
fair bit of problem solving along the way, lighting, set design, puppet
capability... But we've managed and everything is looking wonderful. Now begins
the process of post-production, where we will edit the scenes together, add
Foley sound and basically add any final touches we can to make this thing come
to life! We all have our work cut out over the Christmas break with production
manuals etc, but its coming to an end and we're all still smiling :D

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Frank

So, we’re nearing the end of the first semester and also our time to finish the animation of our short film. Frank and Steph started shooting on Tuesday and managed to get a couple of shots completed. Meanwhile, Elise and I were finalising the sets and props, getting them ready for upcoming scenes. We painted the shop fronts, assembled them and placed them on the brick walls ready for Nigel and Mabel to do their thing.

By the end of the week we’ve all animated at least one scene. Nick’s well on the way with the Foley and sound and pretty much everything is ready to go. So now it’s just a case of feeling the pressure and animating the rest of our film in the next week to come


Bec

So me and Bec have been hard at work on the sets. We are really in the get up and go stage with so much happening and lots to be organised and created. We finally got to get our set laser cut, which was absolutely fabulous and we are all really excited and rather relieved at how they turned out. How brilliant is laser cutting! It’s really enabled us to create the kind of shop front we wanted at a much quicker rate than if we had done it by hand. So it was then onto bricks! Never have I seen so many tiny bricks. So it was a rather long process of cutting, sticking, mortaring and painting them but the end result is pretty good and we are so much closer to being ready to get going with the final animation.

Nick has been working on our Foley design, getting the sounds ready with the help of Frank and Steph. So a lot of feet stomping and rustles of clothes has happened this week. He will then be ready to start work on his after effects scenes for the beginning and end of the film.

Frank and Steph have worked really hard on Nigel and Mabel, getting them ready for their screen time. We have begun to move down to our larger shooting room and a few tests have been done with the puppets to look at lighting and the different option for how we want the film to look. They are looking great and we are definitely raring to go.  

Elise

So this week has been a very busy one! Since the puppet armatures have been finalised. We have been dressing each of the puppets and finishing the last things so that they are ready to animate. The sets are also being ready to be laser cut. So exact measurements and scale has been calculated and using Illustrator, drawn with the correct colours.This is so the machine can read the lines and know where to cut and where to engrave.We needed to find the right thickness of MDF for the set to be cut on, but we came across a few problems with university and various shops being out of stock.It made us realise how important it is to stay on schedule and plan ahead in case setbacks like this happen again! We managed to compromise with materials and are now ready for the coming week!

Steph

Whilst the team has been hard at it in the workshop at Uni putting together some of the final touches to models and sets I've tried to clear up some of the timings for the animatic and scenes. By watching some of the old films from the 50's with Norman Wisdom as well other classics from the Ealing Studios like the 'Carry on' films I've tried to get that almost exaggerated feel into the short we're making. With the style we've chosen being stop-motion the look gives us the ability to work across a couple of different thresholds. That of cartoonishness (if that's a word) with all its absurdities and character quirks as well as a mix of reality with sounds and setting. With sound being one of my roles I've taken a look into the 1950's and considered what things are likely to be heard. First thing that I noticed in the older films is the lack of cars and traffic so I've kept this to a minimum and only set it in the background (Ambience). Drainpipes are made of a pretty thick metal instead of the plastic we see today so although I have a sound already I'll be out this weekend looking for a nicer 'donk'. A little to my surprise the pavements are exactly the same as today's so regular footsteps (no scraping) although the soles are likely to be leather which again gives off a unique sound. Once the Animation is finished there will be more than a hundred different sounds to give it the feel we are aiming for so I will try to put an update in the 'making of' section later showing some of the different ways sounds have been picked or put together to produce the finished piece. Finally from my court this week I've been learning some techniques in After Effects to try and give the intro and end credits a bit more life. Initial ideas have the old photos from Nigel's previous shenanigans spinning into shot but I'd like to enhance this look to either being in stop motion or at least having the look that it is made that way.

Nick

We're really starting to get the ball rolling now! With our basic puppets finished we have been making use of the stop-motion booths to start animating and testing them. Its been great fun seeing them come to life!
Alongside completing our puppets made with Mary, our group has also been refining our storyboard, with both Steph and Nick working really hard to make sure that the comedic timing and actions are all correct and readable. It's really coming together nicely!
Bec and Elise have attended a few meetings with Mary to discuss where to start building our set and the best ways in which to approach this. We were advised that a trip to the local Scrapstore would be a great place to find materials for our set, so we will be making a visit during the week and having a rummage. 
And lastly, I have been finalising the technical drawings for our armatures and had a few talks with Mary about the best way to create facial expressions with our puppets. We have a fair few options to try, so I have been maquetting like there's no tomorrow!

Its all coming along though, and we can't wait to see the animation starting

Frank

This week we pitched our film to the rest of the class. All in all, it went really well. We got positive feedback about every aspect of our work, other than the story. We decided to meet up as a group to talk about possible alterations in our film. After saying in our design manifesto that we were influenced by old films, like those of Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd, we figured that we should try to take the film in a more exaggerated, slapstick direction. We've been working on refining the animatic and we're also starting to think about set and prop designs.

During the workshops this week, we've been working on our armatures. After skinning the hands, it was pretty exciting to see how well they turned out. So we'll hopefully get to finish off our puppets in the coming week. I think at this point in pre-production we're all eagerly awaiting creating the final film!

Bec

So this week has been extremely busy. The group has been working really hard on getting the storyboard set. With some helpful feedback from the tutors and our classmates we have altered the story quite a bit. So while that has been a fair amount of work, we can all say that we are very happy with how the final (for now) storyboard looks. 

We've also been busy working with our first lot of model making workshops. It's been great to finally starting getting stuck in and making models. As can be seen in the photos on the Making Of section we are in the preliminary stages and next week we hope to have some more finalised models on which we can test out our animation skills. So plenty to look forward to!

Elise