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.

Nick's reply on my third year puppet heads

I got a reply to the email I sent to Nick Roberson today:

Hi Alistair,
What a great start!!! I love the sculpts. I would say thet the male has eyes that are set more into the head slightly by the look of it and this works well. The girls are rather 'stuck on' ( possibly something to do with the cheeks) but with all the other stuff to do this is very minor.
The hair for me is fab, its flat style is great and you could certainly push this further next time into more of a defining style.
Looking at these images, I am very keen to see the bodies and the animation of course!!
As for painting, you may want to shade the heads, (that is what I would do) but again its time that is the biggest enemy as you know.
Keep me posted.
As for me i am due to visit NEWI soon for a 2 day sculpting course which i am now doing at 11 unis around the country. Staffs have a very good stopmotion only course ( the only in the country) and may have an an M.A. if you are thinking about studying further.
Anyway, hope to catch up soon.
Regards Nick.

Some encouraging words.

Tattoo Design

On February 1st five of my friends from Derbyshire came to visit for the weekend. One of them mentioned that he wanted to have a tattoo done some time after they got home but the design he had wasn't quite what he was after. He wanted to know if I could alter it for him to what he needed. I said I would because it was a simple alteration he wanted and because he was a mate.

I got this email after he got back to Derbyshire:

"Hello Ali, hows you been since we left wrexham? This is wierd, its been ages since I sent an email to anyone!

Ok the tattoos, tattoo 1 is how the tattoo looked before I blew it up in photoshop. Tattoo 2 is the tattoo picture i'll be taking to the tattoo man to use as the template. As you can see in pic 1, the ends of the tattoo kinda extend, curve slightly and thin out to points; however, in pic 2 they just go blunt on the ends. ( probably because the quality of pic 1 is so bad and small, that when i blew it up in photoshop, it really looked rubbish! lol)

I've already spent ages on my comp, sharpening tattoo2 up, however I wondered if you would be able to un-blunt those ends for me, feel free to do as many different styles and techniques cuz you can send them all to me and I can pick the one i like the most. If you are wondering what the tattoo is of, its my zodiac sign for cancer the crab, but as i have 2 tribal tattoos already, i wanted my zodiac sign with a tribal look.

I've looked in the tattooists and they didn't have what I wanted, this was the only pic I could find of a tribal zodiac sign. There is no rush at all to do this ali, I totally understand you have your studies to do, and I am in no rush to get this tattoo done. Base it around your own time, when you are able to do it, I don't want it to affect your accademic and social time. There is no deadline. I can't tell you how greatful I am that you'll help me out like this. This tattoo as gonna looks ace. If there is anything I can help you with just let me konw.

Thank you Ali

Adam "

This is the picture he sent me:

and this is the one I sent back:

He was really pleased with the result and sent me a text today letting me know he'll be getting the tattoo done a week on Saturday.

Email To Nick Roberson

I emailed Nick Roberson again today to show him what I'm doing in my current project.
Here's what I sent:

Hello there Nick.

Its Alistair who you met at NEWI and then again when I visited Cosgrove Hall in July last year.
I just thought I should probably get in touch again and show you what I have been up to on my current project. I've attached some pictures of models that I'm working on at the moment. I only have their heads done so far. They are Jack and Jill from the nursery rhyme of the same name. The heads are made out of Fimo and the eyebrows and pupils are removable so that I can move them about. They're held on with double sided tape. I'm cutting their mouths out of card. They actually look really good. I can also move Jill's hair about which is held on with a piece of wire. I plan on giving the skin and eyes a coat of paint before I animate with them since they are sort of blotchy and dirty but thats just down to the Fimo.
So, what do you think of them? I would have liked to have had more done to show you but ran into a lot of problems at the start.
How are things going for you with your work? I hope everything is going well.
Regards,
Alistair Stuart

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.

Fairy Tales: Cinderella

This week's fairytale retelling was Cinderella.
Our heroine of the title had been renamed to Cindy Mellor and was working as a cleaner at a university.
Cindy had been reading a book by Hans M. Prince who was a lecturer visiting the university and took on the role of the prince. She falls for him as soon as she sees him and has grand ideas about his theories and how she believes she can prove them wrong. The two argue with each other but slowly begin to get along as they encounter more of each other.
H. M. Prince organises interviews at the university to find a student who would be suitable for his assistant on an expedition to Borneo and was then to announce his choice at a “ball”. H. Prince agrees to give Cindy an interview but the head of faculty, the “evil-stepmother” prevents her from attending. The two “ugly sisters” are two of the faculty head’s favourite students. They constantly pick fun at Cindy and enjoy seeing her fail. One of the “sisters” is a lot crueler than the other and the less cruel of the two also gets picked on by the faculty head.
The role of fairy godmother is taken up by fellow cleaner and provides Cindy with a dress to attend the lecture ball in. Cindy can’t get in to begin with as her name isn’t on the attendees list due to not having an interview but the “fairy godmother” finds a back way in for her.
During the lecture, Cindy begins to feel out of place and decides to leave. As H. Prince is giving his lecture he realises that Cindy was correct about his theories and chases out after her. He catches up with her and says that he was being paid by the head of faculty to take along one of her favourite two but wants her to become his assistant instead and the two head off together.
The university head learns of the faculty head’s bribery and fires her on the spot. He then offers her position to the “sister” who had been least cruel to Cindy.

I find it interesting how one of the “sisters” was quite shy and also gets rewarded in this version.

BBC Fairy Tales

On Thursday 10th the BBC started to show a series of modern versions of Fairytales. The first of these was Rapunzel. The adaptation told the tale of Jimmy Stojkovic, a failing male tennis player. Unknown to Jimmy, his father concocts a story about owing money to gangsters and the only way for them to get hold of the money is to disguise Jimmy as a woman and enter him into a women's tennis tournament.
As a woman, Jimmy manages to make it through to the fourth round where he has to take on Billy Jane Brook, the reigning champion. She is well known by the name of Rapunzel due to her long hair which her mother wont allow her to cut. The two get close and after Rapunzel helps Jimmy with his game they end up falling for each while Rapunzel still believes that Jimmy is a woman although she makes it quite clear that she isn't a lesbian.
Eventually the cat is let out of the bag on national TV after Jimmy wins the tournament and can no longer keep his secret from the one he loves. Rapunzel is horrified and storms off wanting nothing more to do with Jimmy.
A year later and due to the advice from Rapunzel Jimmy is doing extremely well now as a tennis player. After a match Jimmy has a chance meeting with Rapunzel again where they kiss and make up and presumably live happily ever after. Rapunzel's uptight mother and Jimmy's schemeing father also hit it off together and plan to train the two tennis stars together.

The classic hair climbing scene also makes an appearence of sorts as one night, while sleeping over at Rapunzel's, Jimmy creeps outside below Rapunzel's window as himself and watches as she lowers her hair. He can't quite reach and so calls up to her. Startled, Rapunzel quickly reels her hair back in and locks the window. She races back to her bedroom which Jimmy has quickly returned to (now as a woman) and tells of how a "rapist" had tried to attack her.

This was great fun to watch and next Thursday will tell the tale of Cinderella. This should be helpful to me for my dissertation as Cinderella is one of the stories that I am covering.

"Mime Time" Music

Today I received the music that Kev Ryder had been working on for my "Mime Time" animation. Although I do very much like the music, I wont be using it on my animation because I feel that it doesn't fit. The music that Kev provided was very techno-ish whereas I wanted something with a classical sound; something to fit the traditional feel.
I think that I will have to leave the music as it is for now so that I can focus on my current project. I may go back to it sometime in the future though.

ASHman

Earlier today I recieved an email from Desique explaining the situation with the ASHman designing.
The work that I submitted so far will NOT be used as apparently it didn't meet the deadline although I was never informed of one. I shan't be recieving any payment for the work but will recieve £50 from Desique as a goodwill gesture because of all the confusion I suffered.
Apparently there will be more work available to me in the new year which may involve more character work or just simple little logo pieces. I'll have to wait to find out the details if and when it happens.

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