Group Stop Motion Animation
For this group SMA we went to the park and used the climbing frame as the main focus for this shot. I set the tripod up in front of the climbing frame and looked through the view finder to find where the boundaries were. Once this was done I got everyone to stand in between the boundaries in a starting position. I then proceeded to take 200 photographs of everyone, each time getting them to move slightly.
I then put all the photographs together into one frame on photoshop using the animation option. I started with 15 frames per minute but I found that this was too fast, so I changed it to 10 frames per minute but found that this was too slow. In the end I settled with 12 frames per minute as this seemed to be the perfect speed as it wasn't too fast or too slow.
In December 1997, Aardman and Dreamworks teamed up to co-finance and produce "Chicken Run" which was Aardman's first feature film. It was then released in June 2000 to great critical and financial success.
On October 10th 2005, there was a serious fire at a storage facility that Aardman had used to store over 30 years worth of awards collected by the company as well as props, models and scenery. Unfortunately all of these were destroyed. The cause of the blaze was found to be down to an electrical fault.
In 2011, Aardman released their first 3-D feature film called Arthur Christmas. In 2012, Aardman released their first 3-D stop motion film called "The Pirates! In and Adventure With Scientists".
As well as their animation work, Aardman is also known to provide generous resources and training to young animators by providing awards at various animation festivals. An example of this is "The Aardman Award" at the UK's Animex Festival in Teeside. This award provides world class story consultation to a promising young animator, for their next film.
"There is an energy with stop-motion animation that you can't even describe. It's got to do with giving things life... To give life to something that doesn't have it is cool."
Tim Burton is an American film director, producer, poet and stop motion artist. He is known for his dark, gothic, macabre style and for making quirky horror and fantasy films.
Burton's career started when managed to get an animator's apprenticeship at Walt Disney Productions' animation studio. There he worked as an animator, storyboard artist and concept artist. He worked on films such as "The Fox and The Hound", "The Black Cauldron" and "Tron". Burton's style very much clashed with Disney's and so he longed to work on solo projects.
In 1982, whilst still working at Disney, Burton made his first short, titled "Vincent". This was a 6 minute black-and-white stop motion film based on the poem "Vincent" which was written by Burton. The film depicts a young boy who fantasises that he is his hero, Vincent Price, which the film is narrated by. The film was produced by Rick Heinricks, a friend of Burton's who had worked with him in the concept art department in Disney. The film was shown at the Chicago Film Festival and released in one Los Angeles cinema alongside teen drama "Tex".
Burton was fired from Disney after creating a live-action short, "Frankenweenie", in 1984. The short tells the story of a young boy who tries to revive his dog after it is run over by a dog. Disney fired Burton under the pretext of him spending the company's resources of creating a film that would be too dark and scary for children to see.
10 Second SMA
For this SMA we were required to make a short 10 second video. This meant that I needed to take roughly 160 photographs. I only managed to take around 80 photographs but what I chose to do was use the same photographs but reverse them so that it looked as if Chris was drinking from the cup and then essentially un-drinking his drink.
I feel that this was effective as it creates a nice effect in the video. It also meant that there wasn't any issue with Chris moving to much and so the video flows really nicely.
I resized the images to 720x480 and then put them into photoshop to make the video by putting all the photographs together into one frame. I then had to choose the speed of the video by deciding on how many frames per second I had. From previous experience I knew that 15 frames per second was too fast and 10 frames per second were too slow, so I straight away chose to use 12 frames per second. I then rendered the video to a quick time movie so that it would be compatible to play on other programmes and devices.
I resized the images to 720x480 and then put them into photoshop to make the video by putting all the photographs together into one frame. I then had to choose the speed of the video by deciding on how many frames per second I had. From previous experience I knew that 15 frames per second was too fast and 10 frames per second were too slow, so I straight away chose to use 12 frames per second. I then rendered the video to a quick time movie so that it would be compatible to play on other programmes and devices.
Peter Gabriel - "Sledgehammer"
Sledgehammer is by British musician Peter Gabriel. The song was produced in 1986 and was is included on Gabriel's 1986 album "So". According to online sources, the song was influenced by 1960's soul music, especially music made by the Memphis label Stax.
Sledgehammer was a chart topping success with the song reaching no.1 in both Canada, where it lasted 4 weeks, and in America during July of 1986. The song also reached no.4 in the UK. The song's success was, in part, due to the popular and influential video.
The Sledgehammer video is a stop-motion animation video which was commissioned by Tessa Watts of Virgin records, directed by Stephen R. Johnson and produces by Adam Whittaker.
The video starts with an egg being fertilized, then ends with Gabriel wandering into the cosmos, providing an interesting story line centered on the continuum of life to go along with the eye catching effects. Aardman animations and the Brothers Quay played a large role in the creation of the video as they provided the claymation, pixilation and stop-motion animation that gave life to the images in the video.
The video for Sledgehammer was extremely successful, being names as MTV's no.1 animated video of all time. The video has also won many awards such as 9 awards at the 1987 MTV video music awards and Best British video at the 1987 Brit awards. All together this is the most awards a single video has ever won.
Aardman Animations
Aardman animations is an animation company based Bristol. Also known as Aardman studios or Aardman, the company is best known for the creation of Wallace and Gromit. Aardman was founded in 1972 as a low-budget project by Peter Lord and David Sproxton. They chose to create the animation company because they wanted to achieve their dream of producing an animated motion picture.
During the early years of the company they provided animation sequences for the BBC series "Vision On" for death children. In 1975 the created a clay animation series called "Greeblies", this soon became the inspiration for creating "Morph".
Wallace and Gromit is Aardman's well known and greatest success. Nick Park developed the clay modelled shorts. They are a a comical pair of friends: Wallace being a naive English green-knitted tank top wearing inventor and Gromit, his best friend, the intelligent and silent dog. The Wallace and Gromit feature films are "A Grand Day Out" (1989), "The Wrong Trousers" (1993) and "A Close Shave" (1995). "The Wrong Trousers" and "A Close Shave" won academy awards. In 2005, after 10 years of absence, Wallace and Gromit returned in the academy award winning "Wallace and Gromit: The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit".
Aardman also created the the title sequence for "The Great Egg Race" and supplied animation for the award winning "Sledgehammer" by Peter Gabriel.
During the early years of the company they provided animation sequences for the BBC series "Vision On" for death children. In 1975 the created a clay animation series called "Greeblies", this soon became the inspiration for creating "Morph".
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| Wallace and Gromit |
Wallace and Gromit is Aardman's well known and greatest success. Nick Park developed the clay modelled shorts. They are a a comical pair of friends: Wallace being a naive English green-knitted tank top wearing inventor and Gromit, his best friend, the intelligent and silent dog. The Wallace and Gromit feature films are "A Grand Day Out" (1989), "The Wrong Trousers" (1993) and "A Close Shave" (1995). "The Wrong Trousers" and "A Close Shave" won academy awards. In 2005, after 10 years of absence, Wallace and Gromit returned in the academy award winning "Wallace and Gromit: The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit".
Aardman also created the the title sequence for "The Great Egg Race" and supplied animation for the award winning "Sledgehammer" by Peter Gabriel.
In December 1997, Aardman and Dreamworks teamed up to co-finance and produce "Chicken Run" which was Aardman's first feature film. It was then released in June 2000 to great critical and financial success.
On October 10th 2005, there was a serious fire at a storage facility that Aardman had used to store over 30 years worth of awards collected by the company as well as props, models and scenery. Unfortunately all of these were destroyed. The cause of the blaze was found to be down to an electrical fault.
In 2011, Aardman released their first 3-D feature film called Arthur Christmas. In 2012, Aardman released their first 3-D stop motion film called "The Pirates! In and Adventure With Scientists".
As well as their animation work, Aardman is also known to provide generous resources and training to young animators by providing awards at various animation festivals. An example of this is "The Aardman Award" at the UK's Animex Festival in Teeside. This award provides world class story consultation to a promising young animator, for their next film.
Tim Burton
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Burton's career started when managed to get an animator's apprenticeship at Walt Disney Productions' animation studio. There he worked as an animator, storyboard artist and concept artist. He worked on films such as "The Fox and The Hound", "The Black Cauldron" and "Tron". Burton's style very much clashed with Disney's and so he longed to work on solo projects.
In 1982, whilst still working at Disney, Burton made his first short, titled "Vincent". This was a 6 minute black-and-white stop motion film based on the poem "Vincent" which was written by Burton. The film depicts a young boy who fantasises that he is his hero, Vincent Price, which the film is narrated by. The film was produced by Rick Heinricks, a friend of Burton's who had worked with him in the concept art department in Disney. The film was shown at the Chicago Film Festival and released in one Los Angeles cinema alongside teen drama "Tex".
Burton was fired from Disney after creating a live-action short, "Frankenweenie", in 1984. The short tells the story of a young boy who tries to revive his dog after it is run over by a dog. Disney fired Burton under the pretext of him spending the company's resources of creating a film that would be too dark and scary for children to see.
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