Gabriela's Year 1 Animation Blog

30/10/2024

PRINCIPLES OF MOTION

-Give more information than you need. Assume audience doesn’t know anything, add more anticipation than you think

-In your animation add example of overlapping and follow through. Think about composition, think about the spaces around the main character. what change from the start to the end, think of them to show the emotion so use them deliberately. Use arcs in your animation so use a separate layer to draw an arc guide wit markings of where you have your easing in and out of the main action.

1. Squash and stretch
2. Anticipation
3. Follow through and overlapping action
4. Slow in and out
5. Arcs
6. Secondary action
7. staging
8. straight ahead
9. pose to pose
10. timing
11. exaggeration
12. solid drawing
13. appeal

1. Any performance has squash and stretch. Will create more contrast, making their movements more dynamic and believable. Depending on the art style it may be more or less exaggerated. Cartoony is more exaggerated than realistic style. E.G ball when squashed down the ball goes flatter but wider, when it goes back to a ball it is the same volume as before, if you stretch it up it will get thinner but taller. Keep the volume consistent.

2. Anticipation action before the key action. Let’s the audience know what is about to happen. Can tell a lot about the character. Think about how much your character anticipates and how much anticipation there is in your universe.

3. When you have an action think about the energy it has and what makes it stop. Overlapping actions don’t have any muscular control, so its actions that are attached to you that respond to the action of the character. Stop after the main action.

4. Easing in and out is done by adding more frames at the start and the end of an action, to make the main action faster. The closer together the frames are the slower the movement and the further the faster it is.

5. Things move in circular paths to make it look more realistic. Can make an extra layer called arcs that can help to know where your movements go. E.g. Wherever you have a joint you have a circular guide. EVERYTHING MOVES IN ARCS.

6.Secondary action is an additional action to the main one, they happen at the same time not before or after. It adds on to the character’s personality.

01-11-2024

7.Make sure the important characters/ main focus is more detailed than the bg stuff.

8.straight ahead can be useful for things like fire, wind…

9.using keyframes to show the action, focusing on the biggest changes of a main action and then we add the breakdowns to help us understand what’s in-between the keyframes. Then the in-betweens are what makes the action smooth.

10. The more frames the slower the movement, the further apart the quicker it is. Manipulating the timing allows us to give life to the characters and gives the audience an idea of how its world works

11. Exaggeration is used to enhance storytelling and make things more obvious like emotions.

12. Characters need to be in a 3-dimensional space. Keep volume, weight and balance consistent.

13. Create things that catch the audience’s attention. Think about design, emotion, movement, and body language.

Scrip for Animatics-

**EXT. FIELD SURROUNDED BY FOREST – SUNSET**

*Overhead shot of a group of kids playing, laughter echoing in the warm light.*

**[Over-the-shoulder shot]**

**KID 1** 

We need to head back! My mom will freak out if I come late.

**KID 2** 

Same! No dinner for me if I don’t hurry!

*Reaction shot of NINA, worry etched on her face.*

**NINA** 

*urgent* 

Please don’t leave! I hear creepy sounds in the forest at night!

*Full body shot as the kids start to run away.*

**KID 2** 

Sorry, Nina! We have to go!

As they leave the darkness of the night starts to blend in.

*Top of trees shown moving and the sunset changes to night time*

[3/4 top close up of Nina hugging herself while she shivers.]

*Sounds in the forest and leaves cracking*

*Nina reacting to the leaves crunching ,jumping.*

Dutch angle of mid shot of Nina looking straight with a scared look.

POV of Nina’s blurry view to the forest and then gets clear and a squirrel comes out. Stays for a bit and then leaves again.

Close-up  of Nina still hugging herself but sighting relieved but still protective.(Hold)

Another noise plays but a way louder ones

[Cut to extreme close up of Nina looking left and right.]

Camera moving to the left showing behind her while an unknown creature comes out of the forest. She turns around quickly as she hears the creature approaching. And takes a couple of steps back scared.

Close up of hand of the creature.

-end

In the short project of stop motion we decide to create a bird puppet as in our team we thought of making a bird puppet as it would have more interesting movements and we could have different textures on it.

By using cardboard it allowed use to create a basic shape of the bird and we could play around with its texture. With sticks, bolts, metal wire and string we were able to attach the body parts together as well as giving the puppet more realistic movements. We added papers as the feather which allowed us to hide some of the imperfections the bird had for example where we connected the body parts.

For the wings on the bird we used cardboard, sticks and bolts to create joints on the wings which would be the elbow and shoulder joints. By having these joints we were able to extend and contract the wings just as a bird would. We also attached the cardboard feathers with string so they would all move along at the same time.

When making the stop motion we had some issues with the legs as they where made of wire as we wanted them to have free movement  but it was too loose meaning it wouldn’t stand on its legs. Also we had issues with the body as I was attached to the head and sometimes the body would move the side and not be straight. From these issues I could understand better how I can attach body parts better to a puppet for example for the legs I could use a different material for example some sticks and wire I can still have the free movement on the knees and at the same time they will stay consistent on the way they look.

We made 2 stop motion tests where we were able to work together to make one where the puppet is walking in waving to the camera and then walk out and another one where the bird is stretching his wing. By making these tests we were able to locate our strengths and weaknesses, we realised that we needed to ease in and out in some movements meaning we needed more in betweens and we also learnt that we could hold into some frames in order to slow down some movements. By easing in and out we can have smoother transitions between a fast movement and a slow one. By having made these tests videos we knew we worked nice and what didn’t so for our main video we knew we wanted to have a short walk cycle and another scene where the bird stretches out.