John Lewis Christmas Ad

When I first saw the John Lewis Christmas advert featuring the bear and rabbit I found it difficult to tell which animation technique, or combination of, had been used.
Now having read the article at the below link I am pleasantly mind-blown to discover that it was in fact filmed on real sets with cut-out characters!
Read on for more info.
http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2013/november/behind-the-scenes-on-the-john-lewis-christmas-ad

Animation Competition News

So roughly two weeks ago now, I entered into an animation competition that was being judged by the Creative Director of Shaun the Sheep, Golly Starzak.

A selection of 62 farm yard sound effects were provided by letnaturefeedyoursenses.org and entrants had to use a minimum of one sound effect to inspire and use in their animations which could last no longer than 60 seconds. Sound effects from other sources were not permitted but you could use as many of the provided sounds as you liked.

I spent four nights filming my entry on the dining room table to create a total of 37 seconds of film. I spent between 2 and 4 hours each night animating. The purpose of filming at night was to ensure I could have complete control over the light source so that "flicker" was not an issue when the animation was watched back.

I submitted my animation on June 20th and by June 27th I had received an email congratulating me on being shortlisted for the 17-25 age group catagory. (For anyone unaware, I am 25)
That was fantastic news in itself!

Today I received a phonecall from a woman named Lynsey. She was calling about the competition to let me know that I was the winner of my age catagory! I HAD WON!

So this is my news; I HAVE BEEN CHOSEN, BY THE CREATIVE DIRECTOR OF SHAUN THE SHEEP AT AARDMAN ANIMATIONS, AS THE WINNER OF THE 17-25 CATAGORY!!!

You can watch my winning entry here> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBD6Y6R1MMg&feature=plcp

Colossal

Whilst not specifically animation related, this site features some fantastic work from the art world. Stuff that actually interests me.

Colossal

Red Bull Canimation

I recently entered the Red Bull Canimation competition and my entry can be found here> http://canimation.redbull.co.uk/gallery#31848476

All filming was done on a single day and the editing took place over the following two days.
Sadly the image quality is nowhere near as good as I would have liked. It appears I will have to save up for a high quality digital stills camera.

Morphmation

I really should have posted up about this quite a lot sooner but I entered the Morphmation animation competition run by Aardman and Firebox.com earlier this year.

Unfortunately my animation wasn't selected from those that were submitted. My entry can be found on YouTube here> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=me2p8MUaH5g

The brief was to make a Morph stop motion animation lasting no longer than 1 minute.

Pixar Toy Story 2 Zoetrope

Following are two links to videos of a Pixar 3D zoetrope featuring Toy Story 2 characters. I believe the videos were taken during different stages of the zoetrpes production as Jessie is missing from the first video.

Video1: here

Video2: here

SKELEFLEX

I saw said toy advertised on TV about a week ago and decided that it looked like it could be suitable to use as an armature for stop-motion puppets. They are plastic kits a bit like Techno or K'NEX made up of skeleton bones that click together in ball sockets.
After hunting for it on the internet I found I could buy it from Amazon.co.uk and so I signed up to purchase a kit.
3 days after ordering, my SKELEFLEX turned up. I was pleasantly surprised by the size of the figure as I had been worried it would be too small. The one I purchased stands at about 20-25cm tall and is the most human like out of the series. They only come in alien and dinosaur designs.
To use it as an animation armature I will have to create some new hands for it as the ones it comes with are oversized and non-posable.
Hopefully I've found a cheap alternative to expensive metal armatures.
SKELEFLEX

Final Year Animation

I completed my animation by the deadline of Wednesday the 21st last week. In the end I didn't get Kris Wilson to produce any music for me as I would have missed the deadline if I had. Instead I found some music from http://www.royaltyfreemusic.com/ and found sound effects by using http://www.findsounds.com/. There were some sounds I couldn't find though and so recorded them myself. These sounds were the bucket clanking and Jack breathing. I feel that the sounds and music fit the animation very well and am very pleased with the final outcome.

carlogiovani.com

Today I visited a website mentioned to me by a fellow student. The site was carlogiovani.com.
The website showcases lots of paper models and graphic designs. The interesting part for me is that some of the paper models are used in stop-motion animation. Some examples can be seen under the "Motion" section, one of which appears to be an advert for Walkers crisps: http://carlogiovani.com/elma_chips/
I find this interesting as I would never have considered using paper models to animate with.

Personal Animation Website

On the 22nd of September 2007 I set up a free website for myself at freewebs.com with the intention of using it to showcase my animation work. Today I finally got around to updating it with two of my animations. I plan to get all of my current work up by the end of the week.
My site address is http://stuvilleproductions.webs.com/index.htm
I have just finished looking at upgrading my site to a yearly subscription of between £25-£50 in order to ensure I have enough storage and bandwith to host and view my videos. If nobody can view them then there isn't much point in me having a site.

Animation Music

I have just finished contacting Kris Wilson on deviantART to ask if it would be ok to use some of his music on my showreel when I get one together and how much he would charge to create a piece of music for my current project. He mentioned some time ago that he would be willing to create music for people so I thought I should give it a go.

"Hello there Kris,
I'll get straight to the point.I was wondering if I could get your permission to use Colico on my animation showreel? If you agree I'd ensure you got credit on the end.
While I'm on the topic of music and animation I would also like to ask about your services as a musician. How much would you charge to create a piece of music for an animation lasting roughly 1 minute 30 seconds long?
Thanks and regards,
Alistair"

STOIK Video Man 3.0

I've just stumbled across this website http://www.stoik.com/products/videoman/ and found a piece of editing software that seems quite good and very cheap for what it says it does.
I 'll download the trial some time this week and have a play with it to see what I think.

MeView.co.uk

I finally got around to paying a visit to MeView.co.uk today to have a look at what they are about. I decided to take a look after seeing posters and postcards that had been put around the studio.
It appears to be a site like YouTube with the difference of being able to get paid for any videos that you upload, provided they meet their upload conditions.
Ater reading their terms and conditions though I'm not sure that I want to (or can) upload any of my work because they state that "we can use your clips for any purposes and you licence us to use these clips in any way we require, including using them in any media and licensing other people to use them on our behalf."

I think I'll stick to showing my work off on YouTube for the time being.

Animate! TV

Last night, at midnight, I watched Animate! TV on channel 4. The programme lasted for an hour and showed 6 films/animations.

Magnetic Movie by Semiconductor
In this film, footage of science labs had been worked on to visualise the magnetic fields and static of objects in the scenes.

The Life Size Zoetrope byMark Simon Hewis
A film made on a fairground ride with people holding open sketch books which animate when the ride runs.

End Of The Street by Andy Martin
A poem about the wind passing through the houses of a street as it steadily raises through the Beaufort Wind Scale until it ultimately destroys a house at the end.

Flat Earth by Thomson and Craighead
This whole piece was created with visuals and scripts made from blogs found on the internet. A location is shown as a blog is read out.

'Francis' by Let Me Feel Your Finger First
A short animation describing the behaviour of a cartoon character as its own being.

Tongue Of The Hidden by David Alexander Anderson
All of the characters and environments are created from the letters and words of the Iranian poem which is being animated.

More details about these films can be found here> Animate!TV

Commission Work

Today I was informed that I have been chosen to complete some work set forth by Desique. They are a company that specialise in producing creative media solutions for other companies.
The brief was dropped off in the studio on Wednesday last week and we were simply told to redesign a superhero character that we had been given, sticking to the same style, and we could get £200 for doing so. I emailed a submission to desique on Thursday and wasn't expecting to hear anything from them.
This morning when I entered the studio I was greeted by Jim, Marisse and Yvonne who congratulated me on being chosen. Apparently I was the only applicant who had stayed to the brief. I shall try and gain a copy of said brief for my records tomorrow.
The next step now is to modify my design slightly, which I have done, and then send off coloured versions back to Desique to see if their client approves.
Fingers crossed all goes well.

GreenLightJobs

Today I visited a website called greenlightjobs.com which specialise in helping people find jobs in screen based media, including animation. It seems like it would be a useful site to use in the not too distant future but first I wish to put a showreel together.

Stop Motion Pro and Digimator

Yesterday I went to the websites of Stop Motion Pro and Digimator to find out more about them as they are both supposed to be programs used for producing stop motion animations.
I had heard of Stop Motion Pro before quite a few times and checked out the site before but I'd never seen Digimator. Both of these companies had stalls at MIFA in Annecy.

I found the Digimator website very uninformative. I couldn't seem to find a clear and simple explination of what it was. From what I gathered it seemed that it was a special camera combined with animation software. There were a lot of technical specifications which I didn't understand and a page boasting about how wonderful Cosgrove Hall Films thinks the program is. There were no prices on the website anywhere but there were two email addresses to contact if you were interested. This lead me to believe that this program is primarily for large animation companies.

Stop Motion Pro on the other hand was a wonderful website. They have given it a major update since the last time I visited. All of the information I found was clear and easy to understand. I know that Stop Motion Pro is a computer program for animating which you connect your own external camera to. It is compatible with digital camcorders, digital stills cameras and webcams. It comes in four versions with Junior being the cheapest and most basic with HD Professional being the most advanced and expensive but even this price is good for what you get.

After looking at the examples of work that have been produced with Stop Motion Pro I am seriously considering purchasing it. I already own a camcorder and fire wire cable and can easily purchase a fire wire port for my laptop for under £20.

So, if I do go through with purchasing it (which I expect I will) all I will need then is an editing program...

Stoppit and Tidyup

Well I found Stoppit and Tidyup on YouTube the other day and decided to take a trip down memory lane and watch a few episodes. Whilst I was watching them I started to wonder what type of animation had been used. Although the animation appears to have been drawn on cells, the movement of the characters gives it the feel of cut-out animation.
After a little bit of searching on the internet it would appear to be that Stoppit and Tidyup was animated on cells.
I found the information initially on Wikipedia but decided it was best to check for another source and found Toonhound. The page is viewable here.

For anybody reading this who fancies a look at Stoppit and Tidyup, you can find the first episode here.

Mackinnon and Saunders Lecture and Exhibition

Yesterday I spent from 10am until 2pm watching over the Mackinnon and Saunders models on display at NEWI for the Science festival. It was fascinating to discover how Pingu was animated. I never realised it was replacement animation as opposed to stop-motion. Other models on display included The Rubadubbers, Bob the Builder, Bill and Ben, models from The Periwig Maker and The Corpse Bride. Being able to see into the head of the Victoria model from The Corpse Bride was brilliant. It was so very intricate. I'll be watching over the models again tomorrow.
Today Nick Roberson, a sculptor and painter from Mackinnon and Saunders, visited Newi to give a talk on some of the processes used in the designing and making of models ready for stop-motion animating. The talk was given twice; first at 1pm and secondly at 7pm. The first was aimed slightly more at us students. Inbetween the two talks Nick came down to the studio and had a look at some of our work. I showed him my Stop-motion animation that I had filmed and he was very impressed by it. He told me to get his email address from Marise and to contact him. He said that if I did that then he could provide me with some contacts at Hot Animation and Cosgrove Hall. So now all I have to do is get his email.

Creating Screen Based Materials for Children

Yesterday I attended another presentation from the Digital Media Consortia. The guest speaker at this event was Curtis Jobbling, best known for his work on Bob the Builder. He is also known for having worked on A Close Shave and Mars Attacks.
During the session we were shown the original pilot episode of Bob the Builder and told that after the BBC saw it they never wanted anything more to do with Bob! It was easy to see why the BBC had said this. The characters were unappealing, the story was boring and didn't really flow plus the pace was way too slow so it was easy to lose interest quickly. That was before Curtis had been brought on board. After he joined the team working on the show at HIT Entertainment it evolved into what it is now. It was later picked up by the BBC after they saw it at an animation festival.
We were also shown a series of very short animations made by Curtis called Curious Cow that were aired on Nickolodean. The first set we saw were made using stop-motion techniques and the second set were made using 3D computer methods. It was explained that this change was made because, with how short the animations were, it made the process less expensive as there was no need to buy materials to make physical models or sets. It also made it possible for Curious Cow to be put into even more outrageous situations that wouldn't have been possible with a physical model.
Finally we were shown some initial work from a new series coming to the BBC later this year called Frankenstein's Cat based on a picture book by Curtis Jobbling. He brought with him a model of the cat, Nine (so called not because he has nine lives but because he's made from bits of nine cats) in question although the finished series will be produced in Flash. He explained how the design of Nine had to be altered from the original design in the book. It was a concern that because Frankenstein's Cat looked so much like Pilchard from Bob the Builder small children may get upset if they saw it thinking it was a dead Pilchard. The shape and pattern of the tail got altereded for this reason.
Before the talk ended Curtis tried to show us a clip from where the project was up to currently as he had explained that since the previous clip he showed us had been produced, the design of the girl, Lottie, had been changed to make her a little bit older in order to appeal to a wider audience. Unfortunately the DVD he brought with him wouldn't play on our system so we didn't get to see that but I shall be looking forward to when the show airs on the TV.
I always find it beneficial to see how entheusiatic these people get about their animation projects as it gives me a positive boost.

Curtis' own blog can be found here: badablingthing