Subject Exploration: Animation part 3

During the creation our animation titled Gone in the Blink of a Fly my group and I had spoken about roles in which we would all carry out as some of us where stronger in certain areas such as sketching, creating props, using the software. This enabled us all to work well as a team, especially when the roles of creating the animation itself came about. Stop Motion was the style of animation we decided as a group to carry out, I myself have not worked with this style of animation before so it was an enjoyable learning how to. With filming on the first day, we were able to film the beginning, leading on to the middle of the animation. The opening was featured indoors where the protagonist a fly is relaxing in paradise which is then disturbed by the Antagonist, the cat. As we where filming we where making sure our animation was being saved constantly. Although we had an incident in which our file became corrupted so we had lost the entire 16 seconds of 30 which we filmed - we had to start again the following day. 

Animation in progress: Filming

The following day we began again, ensuring we had two backed up files in case of having a repeat of the previous incident with our animation. With the layout of the first scene we kept it simple yet appealing with the use of bright colours to make the animation stand out. The camera angles varied with having close ups so upon viewing the animation you where able to know the key elements in causing the havoc for the fly such as the fan blowing him out the window or the close up of the fly with a different facial expression. The use of sound enhanced the effect the animation had as the audience would be able to understand what is happening better than without sound. This also enabled the animation to be more humorous and enjoyable to watch creating an almost child like experience with the boing sounds of the fly falling and hitting the light bulb. As we where going along filming the scenes and watching them back we decided slight changes here and there would make the animation better, as well as some changes for the good of the animation ensuring we made that 30 second limit. The ending had changed slightly so instead of the light turning off and hearing a smack sound, the paws of the cat appear, cut to black and you hear a cat screeching so you never really know what happens, you decide with your own interpretation. We thought this would be more intriguing as the cat is the Antagonist after all. 

Fly characters we worked with

I felt in carrying out this task I was able to learn how Stop Motion and the software to create animation works. I also had an insight into what animation is like, and that I enjoy creating it. It is a challenge yet you have a great feeling once you have seen your work created into an animation and come to life almost which is the most pleasing aspect over all. Working in a group was another great experience I had as we worked very well together, enabling us to be proud of what we created. Below is the final completion of our animation.