Learning Objective for this session: LO1: Work collaboratively to produce a Lip Sync animation.
In Animation 'Lip Sync' is the process of fitting character mouth movements to pre-recorded dialogue.
One of the founding fathers of modern animation, Disney animator Preston Blair developed a system of ‘phoneme’ mouth shapes which could be used to create the appearance of speech.
Today we will be using a simplified version of the 'Preston Blair' system based on the shapes used by Nick Park (Aardman).
Task 1:
Work together to create a set of plasticine mouth shapes using the reference sheet provided.
Advice: As you make the shapes, place them on a sheet of paper, and write the corresponding phonemes below, take a reference photo when complete.
Task 2:
Use the Step by Step guide below to create your own short lip sync animation.
Task 3:
Upload the project file & exported movie to your G-drive - share the movie with me (jane.maxwell@wac.co.uk).
The questions below are here as a guide to help you write up the feedback that you have received from those who watched your animation.
When answering these questions remember to use screen grabs of imagery from your animation or other relevant sequences that have inspired you to illustrate points.
Q1: What did you feel was most successful about your final animation?
Q2: Did you receive any feedback from your audience showing that they enjoyed this aspect too?
Q3: What other aspects of the animation did people comment on positively?
Q4: What aspects of your final animation do you feel could be improved - and how?
Q5: Which aspects of your animation did your audience feel could be improved?
In this session you will begin your final assignment for this unit by setting up a survey designed to collect information on specific topics from audiences who watch your animation.
This link is to guide slide with more information on what you need to do:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Use the link below to view the brief for Assignment 1.
This session you will work with your group to produce a simple layered set using printed imagery. You will need to think ahead about the camera angle(s) that you plan to use and find clever ways to create the illusion of 3D elements using 2D imagery.
Use this link to open guide slides for this session
This session you'll start by making a few notes to showcase all the professional animation skills that you've experimented with so far, and then explore ways to suggest your character's personality through movement.
This session you will produce a structured body to support the character head used in your lip sync work last week. This body is built around an 'armature' - a wire frame which is constructed to be able to both stand and bend in the right places.
This session you will finish producing the resources needed for a character lip sync, and then work collaboratively to produce a short lip synced animation of your clay character head.
Learning objective for this session: Work collaboratively to produce a lip synced character animation.
This session you'll start by making some notes about your initial experiments with Stop Motion techniques. Then, you'll move on to create resources for your own 'lip synced' character animation. Lip sync is a challenging technique to learn, but it will give your character animations a professional edge. Learning objectives for this session: LO1: Be able to describe & discuss stop motion processes. LO2: Be able to produce resources for a ‘lip synced’ stop motion animation of a character. Here is a link to the guide slides for this session: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1ti8BamV6QSWkJ6LUcxWDBrbjQ
Last session you experimented with green screen and got used to Stop Motion Studio Pro.
Animation is all about creating the illusion of life. This session the focus is on refining your skills to bring smooth, lifelike movement to something and create a sense of character.
Task 1. As a group, set yourselves an ambitious animation goal for the next hour to bring something to life. You should aim for an idea that will test your creativity to the limit & work together to achieve it.
Examples to get you thinking about movement & character...
Pixar Studios (CGI not stop motion) "Luxo Jr"
PES "Fresh Guacamole"
PES "Game over"
Jan Svankmajer "Meat love"
Terry Border "Slice of life"
This slide show of Terry Border's work, gives some examples of characters created from just about anything...
This term we will be exploring Stop Motion Animation in Digi Arts. You'll learn techniques, work in a small group to develop a short film inspired by a piece of music, and screen you finished film to an audience at the end of term.
This session will introduce you to the basics of 'Stop Motion Studio Pro' the application which you will be using to develop your work this term.
You will also start to expand your awareness of animators past and present.
Georges Méliès (8 December 1861 – 21 January 1938)
French illusionist and film director who led many technical and narrative developments in the earliest days of cinema. Méliès was an especially prolific innovator in the use of special effects, popularizing such techniques as substitution splices, multiple exposures, time-lapse photography, dissolves, and hand-painted color. He was also the first filmmaker to use storyboards.[2] His films include A Trip to the Moon (1902) and The Impossible Voyage (1904), both involving strange, surreal journeys somewhat in the style of Jules Verne, and are considered among the most important early science fiction films, though their approach is closer to fantasy.
Willis Harold O'Brien(March 2, 1886 – November 8, 1962)
American motion picture special effects and stop-motion animation pioneer, who according to ASIFA-Hollywood "was responsible for some of the best-known images in cinema history," and is best remembered for his work on The Lost World (1925), King Kong (1933) and Mighty Joe Young (1949), for which he won the 1950 Academy Award for Best Visual Effects.
Raymond Frederick "Ray" Harryhausen (June 29, 1920 – May 7, 2013)
American-British visual effects creator, writer, and producer who created a form of stop-motion model animation known as "Dynamation." His most memorable works include the animation on Mighty Joe Young (1949), with his mentor Willis H. O'Brien, which won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects; The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958), his first color film; and Jason and the Argonauts (1963), featuring a famous sword fight with seven skeleton warriors. His last film was Clash of the Titans (1981), after which he retired.
Richard Oliver Postgate (12 April 1925 – 8 December 2008)
English animator, puppeteer and writer.[1] He was the creator and writer of some of Britain's most popular children's television programmes. Pingwings, Pogles' Wood, Noggin the Nog, Ivor the Engine, Clangers and Bagpuss, were all made by Smallfilms, the company he set up with Peter Firmin, and were shown on the BBC between the 1950s and the 1980s, and on ITV from 1959 to the present day. In a 1999 BBC poll Bagpuss was voted the most popular children's television programme of all time.
Jan Švankmajer (Born 4 September 1934)
Czech filmmaker and artist whose work spans several media. He is a self-labeled surrealist known for his animations and features, which have greatly influenced other artists such as Terry Gilliam, the Brothers Quay, and many others.
Stephen and Timothy Quay (Born June 17, 1947)
American identical twin brothers better known as the Brothers Quay or Quay Brothers. They are influential stop-motion animators. They are also the recipients of the 1998 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Set Design for their work on the play The Chairs.
Nicholas Wulstan "Nick" Park (born 6 December 1958)
English director, writer, and animator best known as the creator of Wallace and Gromit and Shaun the Sheep.[5] Park has been nominated for an Academy Award a total of six times, and won four with Creature Comforts (1989), The Wrong Trousers (1993), A Close Shave (1995), and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005).[6] He has also received five BAFTA Awards, including the BAFTA for Best Short Animation for A Matter of Loaf and Death, which was also the most watched television programme in the UK in 2008.[7][8] His 2000 film Chicken Run is the highest-grossing stop motion animated film.
Timothy Walter "Tim" Burton (Born August 25, 1958)
American film director, producer, artist, writer and animator. He is known for his dark, gothic, eccentric and quirky fantasy films such as Beetlejuice (1988), Edward Scissorhands (1990), the animated musical The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), the biographical film Ed Wood (1994), the horror fantasy Sleepy Hollow (1999), and later efforts such as Corpse Bride (2005), Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007), Dark Shadows (2012) and Frankenweenie (2012). He is also known for blockbusters such as the adventure comedy Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985), the superhero films Batman (1989) and its first sequel Batman Returns (1992), the sci-fi film Planet of the Apes (2001), the fantasy drama Big Fish (2003), the musical adventure film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) and the fantasy film Alice in Wonderland (2010), which garnered a worldwide gross of over $1 billion.
Michel Gondry (born 8 May 1963)
French independent film director, screenwriter, and producer. He is noted for his inventive visual style and distinctive manipulation of mise en scène.[1] He won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay as one of the writers of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), which is often ranked one of the greatest films of the 2000s. His career as a filmmaker began with creating music videos for the French rock band Oui Oui, in which he also served as a drummer. The style of his videos for Oui Oui caught the attention of music artist Björk, who asked him to direct the video for her song "Human Behaviour". The collaboration proved long-lasting, with Gondry directing a total of eight music videos for Björk. Other artists who have collaborated with Gondry on more than one occasion include Daft Punk, The White Stripes, The Chemical Brothers, The Vines, Steriogram, Radiohead, and Beck
