Nick's Reply

Well I've recieved a reply from Nick Roberson already! Here's what he had to say:
"Hi Alistair,
I am on the case, please give me a couple of weeks and if you hav'nt heard anything, hassle me. I am Very busy at present but was really glad to hear from you.
Regards Nick."
I wasn't expecting such a fast reply but I'm glad it was.

Emailing Nick Roberson

This is just a quick post to note that earlier today I got Nick's email address from Marise and have now sent him an email. All I have to do now is wait for a reply from him.

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

School Animating

This morning myself, Nat, Ryan, Neil, Dawn and Heather got up early to be at a local infant and primary school for 9 o'clock. The reason was because Des McCannon, from the university, had asked us if we could help her with a project she had started. She wanted us to go along to help animate some super hero characters that the children had designed. When we got there we split ourselves up so that Heather, Nat, Dawn and myself were helping to get the characters, props and scenery ready while Ryan and Neil took care of the actual filming part. We were using the cut-out technique to produce the animations and Neil told me that they were filming at four frames a second. They did this so that the children wouldn't get bored and could see the results quickly.
We only stayed until midday and unfortunately there were two groups, one of which I was helping, that didn't get around to animating but Des has sorted it so that we can go back next Thursday to get them done.
I really enjoyed myself today which was great because I thought I may have problems dealing with the children but I didn't.

Collaborative Project

Today Nat Lamb. Ryan Orrige, Neil Rowlands, Dawn Turner and myself held a small animation workshop in the animation room for the First Thursday event at NWSAD. We set up two line testing machines for cut out animation and a DAR system for smudge 'n' click style animation.
As the theme was St David's Day Neil and I prepered some cut out dragons that could be used and Dawn created some daffodils and a castle backdrop, both for the line testing machines. Nat and Ryan set up the DAR system with paints in Welsh colours and other materials such as real daffodils and chalks.
For the first hour nobody turned up even after we had gone looking for people who might like to try. Thankfully after we got our first person lots more soon followed. Our plan now that we have the short pieces of animation created by people who attended the First Thursday event is to edit them all together into a single short piece with music and then present it in front of our class as part of our collaborative project.
I found this evening extremely enjoyable and a lot of fun. Everybody else that took part really seemed to enjoy it too.

Creating Screen Based Materials for Children

Yesterday I attended a presentation by the Digital Media Consortia. The aim was to give the attendees an idea of how to go about creating material that would appeal to a child audience.

The main speaker of the event was Magnus Scheving, creator of LazyTown and probably better known as one of the main characters, Sportacus.
Magnus explained that it has taken him 12 years to get LazyTown to the level that it is at now. The programme has been sold to over 100 countries and is a huge success. The basic idea of the show is to encourage children to lead a healthy lifelstyle through entertaining them rather than by telling them. Magnus said that the show should be thought of as one person with each of the individual characters playing one particular aspect.
The main piece of advice that he gave was that to get a great idea we must constantly ask ourselves and others to "be more specific". By doing this it is possible to get all of the small details that are needed and that wouldn't be thought of initially.

The official LazyTown website can be found here.

ExtraStrong

ExtraStrong is an animation that I found whilst I was browsing YouTube today. It can be found here: ExtraStrong. I really like this animation. It has been made using the stop motion technique by three people called Lorenzo Latrofa, Giovanni Braggio and Fabio Santomauro.
I love how seemless the animation is and how so much has been done with just paper. I just had to put a link to it in here so that I can find it again in the future.

Foam Stop Motion Models

Today I had a go at starting to make a foam latex stop-motion puppet for my latest animation project. I originally intended to make the model out of plasticine and I did but I found that it was too soft and would melt quickly under the animation studio lights. :( That is why I have turned to foam latex.
I managed to create a plasticine mock up (without a head) of the model from which to create the mold. I packed half of the model in clay and then poured a plaster-like mixture (I've forgotten what it's called) on top. This will create half of the mold. Tomorrow I will remove the clay and plasticine model and be left with one mold half. Then I have to repeat the process to make a full mold.
Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures today but will ensure that I do so tomorrow.

Animation Web Ring

This is just a quick entry to post a link to the Animation Web Ring. The web ring has many sites of professional and amature animators and covers the main areas of 2D cell, 3D stop motion and computer animation.
A particularly good site seems to be one owned by Phil Dale found here.