My Stop-Frame Graduation Show

Characters of Stop-Frame animators graduating 2012 (by Richard Whillock)

The show was a great success and many people turned up on the private show including Ian Mackinnon from Mackinnon and Saunders whom i spoke to about my work and found everyone enjoyed our stop-frame room for the hand made quality which everyone can relate and enjoy!

These are some photos of which show my work showcased in all its glory and in true cinema style had seats popcorn and surround sound showing all of our final graduate films.

Cabinet 

The stars of Street Act Ollie and Alvin kept in a neat cabinet.

First Characters made from sculpey on the left Canimation character and first mime character.

These are the mouths used for Street Act for Ollie and alvin to show expression (sculpey) and plastercine for the speech in Street Act the Extras.

Presentation Boards

One Board includes an overall look at my red bull animation No Bull, a look into the success of Street Act and Acting out scenes from Street Act to photos of the animating process.

Redbull Canimation No Bull

Success of Street Act 

The animating in progress

Nametag for the show and a quick overview

Some of the frames from Street Act the Extras put in a reel for the show nicely above the drinks

Ollie and Alvin kindly welcoming guests

On screen Ollie next to cabinet ollie (same puppet)

The Street Act set Corporation St. was on show 

Hope everyone who came enjoyed the work that was on display and has opened their eyes to the art of Stop-motion animation and for those didn't make it the photos are also available on the Facebook page . 

Biad Awards Trevor Awards 2 - Stop motion Category 

(Myself)Gareth Hirst ,Ian Mackinnon ,Richard Whillock

Congratulation to Richard Whillock WINNING with his animation Being Dead

Nominees- Claire Hanson,Richard Whillock,Gareth Hirst

Graduated with a First Class in BA Animation

Graduation will be around February next year but here are results!

The time has come three years of hard work at Birmingham City University on BA Animation course finding my feet in animation and loosing my feet as a student, the grades have come back so show from my most dedicated third year the grades conclude,

Specialist Study 2 - 75%

Final overal grade for my university course - First Class

Still sinking in, this is only the start of a long career if my hard work keeps paying off.

The grades have come back everyones said their goodbyes and last week i completed my internship at Charactershop upon Regent street in Birmingham where i got to take my hand in 3D animating and see how a studio runs with tight deadlines and high end clients.

 The team were great as talented as they were funny and will always keep in contact to one day take a visit and so how the studio has expanded.

Also i've has my Graduation shop which 'Street Act' was shown and many people attended on the private show clients and people we also look up to in the industry like Ian Mackinnon for example from Mackinnon & Saunders, the photos will be up within the next couple of days.

Graduation Show cut down Showreel from successful scenes

Long time without a post, its been a busy time submitting my student film for marking and presenting to my tutors but most currently working on the end of year graduation show which will be open to the public from next monday and the private show will be on the wednesday.

Above is a cut down of my most favourite and proud scenes which i've worked on for Canimation and street act with music accompaniment from a soundtrack for City lights conducted by Carl Davis whom i met back in The Symphony Hall through winning the Silent Movie Animation Challenge.

Ss2-Lip sync lessons learnt and morph mouths

Lip sync test lessons learnt

Early editing for a lip sync test

Second part of my specialist study i am doing a lip sync piece using the characters from Street Act which originally would be doing a directors commentary on Street Act but to concentrate on the lip syncing i am going to focus on the last ten seconds in which both characters have a line each.

Thinking about sounds i will be using the best of all the voice overs that have been made offer the last couple of days, also while researching disney and how they work with dialog back in the prime of the 2d days and found they always did the characters physical performance before lip syncing which i found interesting (one cell then the other on top).

Photo above is of a test which i did on Final cut pro last week where i used a static image of the character then put the individual lip shape to symbolise the sound being played, which worked as a test and a learning curve finding that there need to be more in-betweens and hold the longer lasting letters.

Other advice also included when i asked for feedback that of putting your hand under your chin to feel when the mouth opens and closes for what letter you make, then also from a 3d animator told me to the lips should always start moving two frames before the sound comes in which had a huge improvement on the test.

Moving on to plastercine lips

Mouths

As you of noticed if you watched street act that there isn't any lip-syncing needed giving more focus on the characters physical performance, in this next snippet of animation to add to the end of street act there will be as crisp lip syncing as possible so i ditched the original mouths and gone for plastercine.

There are many reasons but main being in-betweens can be simpler to pull of using plastercine with the sculpey ones they were great for pulling off quick expression from the character and understanding the emotions quickly.

There will be less mouths but each one will be able to morph into another word and not look like too fast of a change.

expression and speech

Instant changes of expression between the above two mouths, as the disney guys worked on the performance before the speech i will map out the expression on the dope sheet also but won't be able to do them separately as its stop motion.

most morphable

The above mouth is a particular favourite which will be used and morphed into many words giving simple removal of the teeth and back of mouth if going for a closed mouth.

Ss2-Ollie and Alvin giving the audience 'Opportunity to Laugh'

Set Arrangement

Looking at many different ways of silhouetting and having the characters interior of the cinema and the stage settings, thinking about what would be more charactered with Ollie and Alvin's peronality on and off screen.

Finding that the best way of portraying the characters would be taking up more of the screen and taking a lot more attention away from the film 'street act' and more on the commentary by the two characters.

Having a cut in the middle of the script may also be added to the script where Alvin says to Ollie that he thinks Ollie's hat is too big, a close up on Ollie getting angry could be a great idea just to break it up a little bit.

Everything being considered

Brief overview of what needs to be taken into consideration set, voices, lighting, characters, cinema seats and mouths of characters doubled up to make smoother transitions while lip syncing at the last scene.

too many scripts

While creating the script there came a time where there was too much speech and came repetitive and could be changed to give time for things, the oppitunity to give time in-between gags to laugh is important to create awareness to the audience of where the gag is.


The script took a few attempts after doing an animatic realised things that need to be changed and what i could add mostly including the start a narrative intro with a small physical gag from the comedy pair

Final Script

Ss2-Street Act Extras with Ollie and Alvin-animatic

Back working on the script nearly daily improving it while looking at the animatic and getting variations of how the animation could look with the camera angles and when things come in speech/hands waving, this version is very low res because the original is 2gb because the clip of street act is 1.98gb so i need to swap it to another version.

This animatic with the final script will be passed onto Marc Silk to then get much more professional voices which suit the characters more and because its the main part of the animation the audio it needs to be done right.


Chairs and back wall will be done with silhouettes, with fabric for the curtains and the animation will be green-screened in afterwards.

Ss2- Time for some Extras

Second part of specialist study taking shape

Since the release of 'Street Act' and its success playing at the Symphony Hall, ive been working on getting another animation done before my time as a student at Birmingham City University which will mainly consist of concentrating on the verbal side of comedy yet still in keeping with Street Act.


The goal is to create a character commentary throughout street act set in the cinema which will work much like a Directors commentary that you usually find on most dvds, but be with the characters watching the film in the cinema seeing their silhouette sitting at their seats talking away.

one of the only ruff sheets which i was able to upload

The goal is to create a character commentary throughout street act set in the cinema which will work much like a Directors commentary that you usually find on most dvds, but be with the characters watching the film in the cinema seeing their silhouette sitting at their seats talking away.

Also at the end of the film the camera will cut to a front on look of the characters eating their popcorn and continue talking about the film for a few seconds. Also before i started planning this i learned new techniques with lip syncing which will come useful by talking to people from the industry only the tests won't upload to the blog.

Ss2-CBSO Chaplin Classics - 'Street Act' Live

Filled out symphony hall

Last friday was an incredible night as Street Act was being accompanied by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra live to just over 2500 people in attendance, such a great opportunity with the whole thing being so surreal after working on 'Street Act' since Christmas which has just about gave me  sufficient time for research and planning which enabled me to win the competition.

'Street Act' Live below-

The true beauty of the screening was hearing the audiences reactions to what is going on in the animation as this was my target audience there was no better way of seeing/hearing if my brief was complete.

The programme really did the event justice and my 100 words which was asked of me was published on the back of the programme photo below-

taken from cbso's programme

Also in the interval i was able to visit the directors lounge where industry professionals and drinks were available to mingle with, got to see some faces which i haven't in a while speaking about previous advice given and i was able to say how i was able to take on board the advice to better my outcome.

Meeting the likes of Myles McLeod and hear his opinions of my animation discussing how my animation got a warm reception hearing a laugh and applaud as well at the end. Also spoke with Andy Guest with whom i shall be doing a internship with once my Uni course is over, for becoming the winner of the cbso silent movie animation challenge.

 After then seeing two Chaplin Classics (City Lights and One A.M)

After such a great finish to the night in seeing Charlie Chaplin acompanied by the great composer and conductor Carl Davis who enjoyed a well desirved applaude. Then at the end of the night enjoyed a good chat with Carl Davis while he was signing programmes and cds.

Such an honour to speak to Carl Davies and so happy to talk about his work.

Before Chaplin Classics Night i received much granted publicity from CBSO (City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra) here are some photos where i featured on BBC Midlands talking about my inspiration for 'Street Act' and having my work played with one of the worlds best Orchestra.

Sadly the news article are only for 24hours but above are some stills.

Here are some recent articles on 'Street Act' and myself commending on winning animation prize-

Facebook page-

facebook.com/pages/GHAnimation/334135546644252

Silent London-
silentlondon.co.uk/2012/04/07/silent-birmingham-street-act/

Birmingham City University-
bcu.ac.uk/biad/viscom/news/silent-movie-speaks-volumes-for-talented-animation-student

Birmingham City Council-
birmingham.gov.uk/cs/Satellite?c=Page&childpagename=Lib-Library-of-Birmingham%2FPageLayout&cid=1223388052270&pagename=BCC%2FCommon%2FWrapper%2FWrapper&rendermode=previewnoinsite

The Guardian,Creative boom-
creativeboom.co.uk/news/silent-movie-speaks-volumes-for-talented-animation-student/

Birmingham Alive-
birmingham-alive.com/cbso-animated-silent-movie-challenge/

Ss2 - Set modifications,playing with plastercine and newsletter feature!

Modifications made to the set

First this top image is of the set before if you look at the sides its at quiet the right angle to the back wall so i thought it best to see about opening out sides over easter.

This is the after we altered the angle by moving the wooden back holding the wall steady and then changing where its held down, the only tricky part was where the angle meets to make a sharp edge there wouldn't be much chance to change the angle later so went with making two grooves to rest the sides together.

Also when making the set it was going to be held together using biscuit pieces in slots at ninety degree angle but found that would be a bad idea especially when wanting to pull apart but left so holes in the floor so they needed some filler.

Then a touch of paint here and there and any scuff marks sorted out and maybe a little more mud on the floor where the camera didn't see before.

Heres something i made earlier 

Really like this photo

 This little character was a practice with getting a pose that emphasises the characters emotion without being animated.

Over the next few weeks i have many ideas i would like to try out, mainly being better at drawing a character off the top of my head and then being able to model it exact, then move on the taking other peoples styles and making it into a 3d model.

With the hands of the character i was going for more of a square style much like Carl Fredrickson from Disney Pixar's feature film Up, which beings a fragile look more with Carls character a square and stereo typical grumpy Grandad movement.

Might also create different emotions for the same character.

'Street Act' has only got me on the Birmingham City University Newsletter Checkout the feature below

all the hard work is paying off but still not stopping anytime soon!

Ss2- 'STREET ACT' final lighting and deadline met!

How the final picture looks- Title of Animation

Editing all finished thursday just gone,absolutely perfect timing with 2 o'clock today gave my copy of 'STREET ACT' to The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra 3 days before the deadline which was met with no hiccups in terms of maybe missing the deadline.

3/4 through the animation this is a crop of a screen grab
 just to give example of the lighting

Editing was great in terms of learning final cut to a basic extent and After effects likewise and with that bringing the film to full HD and bringing the lighting of the film to another level bringing sepia and use the lighting on After Effects to my advantage bring to life a much more Golden Era looking film.

this shot was taken after lighting was done and cropping it to fit screen size.

Lighting and effects only complemented the picture quality of the animation
big props to Matt Cusworth for suggesting re-edit

so to start working on my next project in the coming weeks based around me learning to use talking to add comedy to sutler gestures from the characters performance,but until then i'll be going back to Wales for a few days to see family and friends for easter.


And not forgetting the credits...

All the people mention in the credits for the jobs entitled
but also for always being willing to give opinions and time so kindly

Ss2-working on 'STREET ACT' Introduction

Final 'Street Act' Introduction

2 part introduction

Firstly i've put the final introduction above to talk about and then below are my before designs and why i have chosen to change the introduction into two separate shots. The short story is i thought the title as a whole was too busy and crammed into one shot,keeping who presents the animation at the top and the production below the title as the layout.

What this layout also gives the audience is the ability to see the title a lot more clearer and not feel rushed to read within the time allotted for each slide.

Introduction Development

With the writing below being fitting but without the font being able to be filled in i thought it best to find a new font more suited to the time period and look a simpler to read especially if the audience is only going to read the title.

With all the changes in place the introduction looked a lot better but seemed too cluttered and so divided the introduction into two separate slides one who presents the animation and the other being the title and the production.

 

The above title was cleaner with the logo taken out and the hats moved around its looking better but the hat on the S doesn't look that professional because the S isn't showing all that well. Also my name at the bottom is a little too small.

This was a favourite of mine because of the GHAnimation logo that was placed at the bottom looking official but with the large amount of font change throughout doesn't come across legible and hasn't really got much of a fun look to it especially without the hats being placed in a well thought out way.