Wednesday, 19 June 2013
Copyright Research
What is Copyright?
Copyright is a form of protection for the authors and originators of their physical expressions of ideas, be it companies, groups or a single person... anyone. As soon as the originator's idea is given physical form, e.g. a written article, photography, music, film, art, or a web page; it is protected by rights which is copyright protection. If you are a creator of a original piece of documentation, copyright is very useful because it is like insurance against pirates. If you have created a original product/service/idea ect... it would be a very good idea to get a patent on that so you have got a solid legislated document that protects your idea/creation, and if anyone did try and replicate your idea/creation it would be very easy to take legal action and claim the money your are owned.
Why Is Copyright so Important?
Copyright protection is extremely important because there is just over 7 billion people in the world and any of them can potentially copy an idea and depending on how big it is, they have the potential to make a large sum of money out of it. It is important for the originator and the person who wishes to use the piece of music, art, film etc. The main reason why it is important for the originator is because it will stop people from stealing their ideas and making money off of them. It is also very important for the person wanting to copy the idea, this is because they could in fact be taken into court, charged a large sum of money and sometimes given a prison sentence.
Regarding Copyright within our animation project
Example of Copyright Fraud
I had a few Loleatta Holloway cuts posted but was forced to remove them all. The folks who control the licensing for the Salsoul catalog, Verse Music Group have made it a point to file claims and have YT issue strikes anytime they find instances of copyright infringement. They already cost me my first channel, so now I steer clear of any content under their "control". Sadly, that means no Skyy, Salsoul Orch., Bataan, Silvetti, Loleatta Holloway, First Choice, Double Exposure, etc.
Within my animation for the Charity Crisis, I paid very close attention to the copyright laws not only because I didn't want to do something illegal, but also because I was representing a brand and I do not what to put any thing bad/illegal against there name. With the soundtrack I have used I know a producer of 'ambient & relaxing' styles of backing tracks, and I asked them if I could use one of theirs and they confirmed there consent in me using it within the animation.
Online screening
For our groups online screening of the re-done animation piece for Crisis, we had two people (Alex Brown and Perry Dabbs) from RavensWood School go onto our blog posts and watch our final piece. The following information is what was given back to us after the individual online screenings were finished.
Alex Brown
WWW
This was our first person that we chose to do an online screening of our animation with. He thoroughly enjoyed watching our second attempt of creating the piece, as our first try at this project had extremely poor camerawork, however he did understand the meaning of the charity and how the actual animation related to what the charity (Crisis) do. Our group wasn't pleased to hear this and immediately got back to filming a better animation that focused on the characters moving and not the camera moving. So when Alex decided that this camera work this time round was good, we were pleased to hear this.
Moving onto the next point that Alex made, he thought that the voice over in the previous piece was very good and so our group kept the same one in the second animation, however again he commented on how well it went with our camera work, and was the main backbone on helping the viewer understand what the charity does. Another point that Alex made about the sound of the piece was the backing track that we created for our animation, he noted that it was a very good tone to use as it was not happy but also was not sad, it was somewhere in-between that just makes the audience think about how they could help the homeless.
The final thing that Alex mentioned was the actual setting of the animation. He explained to us that he thought the setting seemed very real and was easy for a viewer to understand how it must be for a homeless person living on the street. Secondly he liked the transition where the Lego character put money in the cup of the homeless person and it transition from a Lego man to a real human hand placing money into a pot. He said that it made it clear of what action the Lego man was doing.
EBI
There was only one issue that Alex spotted with this animation, which was also evident in the last, and this was the material that was used to hold the Lego characters up (Blu-Tac) he decided that it was visible from the characters feet to help them stand as they couldn't without it. However it didn't effect his feelings towards the cause of the advert, which we were pleased to hear. A possible option that could be used if this were to be done again would be glue (Pritt-Stick) as it shall not be visible.
Perry Dabbs
WWW
Perry Was our second person who was apart of our individual online screening, he also agreed that it was much better than the first time the animation was done and seemed much more professional in terms of its camera work which our group was thrilled to hear.
The first point Perry liked within our animation was the transition of different mediums from Lego stop-motion to real live actions. He thought that it also made it clear as to what the Lego character was doing and almost gave off the sense that you could change a homeless persons day just by giving money to them or giving money to the Crisis charity.
The second thing that Perry thoroughly enjoyed from this piece was "The professional sounding voice-over" He thought that this made it seem like a real charity advert and gave the intentions of the charity out well as well as politely asking the audience to fight against homelessness. This also links in with his third point where he explained the message of the charity was explained very clearly and thought that if it were a real advert on the television it would make him want to partake with abolishing homelessness once and for all. The last comment that Perry gave us on our animation was the movement of our characters, he thought that we made the movements of our characters look professional and was 'fun' to watch whilst giving out the important message.
EBI
Perry also gave us the same even better if as Alex did, as he noticed the small pieces of blu-tac attached to the characters feet, he also gave us the suggestion of if we were to create this again we could have used double sided cello tape as it is clear so the audience wouldn't be able to notice it, however he did also explain it wasn't a problem as the deep message in the advert was still taken in and the animation itself also looked professional.
Alex Brown
WWW
This was our first person that we chose to do an online screening of our animation with. He thoroughly enjoyed watching our second attempt of creating the piece, as our first try at this project had extremely poor camerawork, however he did understand the meaning of the charity and how the actual animation related to what the charity (Crisis) do. Our group wasn't pleased to hear this and immediately got back to filming a better animation that focused on the characters moving and not the camera moving. So when Alex decided that this camera work this time round was good, we were pleased to hear this.
Moving onto the next point that Alex made, he thought that the voice over in the previous piece was very good and so our group kept the same one in the second animation, however again he commented on how well it went with our camera work, and was the main backbone on helping the viewer understand what the charity does. Another point that Alex made about the sound of the piece was the backing track that we created for our animation, he noted that it was a very good tone to use as it was not happy but also was not sad, it was somewhere in-between that just makes the audience think about how they could help the homeless.
The final thing that Alex mentioned was the actual setting of the animation. He explained to us that he thought the setting seemed very real and was easy for a viewer to understand how it must be for a homeless person living on the street. Secondly he liked the transition where the Lego character put money in the cup of the homeless person and it transition from a Lego man to a real human hand placing money into a pot. He said that it made it clear of what action the Lego man was doing.
EBI
There was only one issue that Alex spotted with this animation, which was also evident in the last, and this was the material that was used to hold the Lego characters up (Blu-Tac) he decided that it was visible from the characters feet to help them stand as they couldn't without it. However it didn't effect his feelings towards the cause of the advert, which we were pleased to hear. A possible option that could be used if this were to be done again would be glue (Pritt-Stick) as it shall not be visible.
Perry Dabbs
WWW
Perry Was our second person who was apart of our individual online screening, he also agreed that it was much better than the first time the animation was done and seemed much more professional in terms of its camera work which our group was thrilled to hear.
The first point Perry liked within our animation was the transition of different mediums from Lego stop-motion to real live actions. He thought that it also made it clear as to what the Lego character was doing and almost gave off the sense that you could change a homeless persons day just by giving money to them or giving money to the Crisis charity.
The second thing that Perry thoroughly enjoyed from this piece was "The professional sounding voice-over" He thought that this made it seem like a real charity advert and gave the intentions of the charity out well as well as politely asking the audience to fight against homelessness. This also links in with his third point where he explained the message of the charity was explained very clearly and thought that if it were a real advert on the television it would make him want to partake with abolishing homelessness once and for all. The last comment that Perry gave us on our animation was the movement of our characters, he thought that we made the movements of our characters look professional and was 'fun' to watch whilst giving out the important message.
EBI
Perry also gave us the same even better if as Alex did, as he noticed the small pieces of blu-tac attached to the characters feet, he also gave us the suggestion of if we were to create this again we could have used double sided cello tape as it is clear so the audience wouldn't be able to notice it, however he did also explain it wasn't a problem as the deep message in the advert was still taken in and the animation itself also looked professional.
Lighting Task: Animation
In many animation films such as Wallace and Gromit a special lighting rig is usually put in lace in order to get the correct lighting. This rig would be placed over the animation set with different lights displayed on it. Possibly ones for darker light and harsh light, for our own animation project we may have decided to use an animation lighting rig in order to grasp the perfect lighting on all sides of our animation set. However we did a lot of test sequences (shown below) in order to see which worked best for our group, natural light or an artificial lighting rig.
What decision our group has made
Our group (Robert Welland and Oscar Artini) has made the decision not to use an animation lighting rig. During our test shot sequences that we conducted recently, we found that the lighting rig gave off a very artificial lighting sense that had a very dark orange glow which we didn't think looked very realistic. Making our charity advert realistic was one of our main aims as a group, due to us using lego we still wanted a sense of realism within it in order for everyone to take it seriously. We felt the dark orange lighting didn't suit this very well at all, the test shot on the right shows this light.After that, we then tested how natural light would look on our set and how it would look on camera. Immediately after this test shot below was taken, our group made the decision to stick with this light. Our reasons for this are because it looks perfect, it is not too dark and it is also not too light. It is the closest representation we could get of what it would look like outside. This gave us our realism feel to the animation testing. The other aspect we really liked about this light was that this lighting didn't give off a dark sombre feeling to it, we didn't want to upset the audience viewing it, we want to enlighten them on a serious matter that needs to be looked into as it affects many people.
When it actually comes to creating the animation for the final time we will use this natural light from the same exact position the test shots were taken. These were taken within the RavensWood School media department in a classroom. One last aspect we a extremely happy to see is how well the lighting will now link with the human hands section of the animation. As we are going to shoot this section outside in natural light, the Lego character section will also have a similar light to the 'hands' section. We shall conduct this final shooting of the animation in around two weeks time due to gathering more props for the set in order to make it seem much more realistic.
Tuesday, 18 June 2013
Visual Effects Editing guide
Stop Motion style of animation is a visual effect in itself as you are generating a illusion of movement through pictures. Because you are using raw photographs to make the animation it is very easy to create visual effects on a budget. One of these effects could be where you want a character or object to appear like its flying in the shot, so this is what you do; you have to get some-sort of string to firmly hold the object or character in place, and then up move and hold it in the desired location then use the burst function on your camera and then hastily snap up the pictures, after this you are going to need to edit the pictures so I'd advise putting them into a editorial piece of software such as Adobe Photoshop and then you can edit the piece of string out of each picture and then load it into your production sequence for your animation. A good example of this style of effect is Wallace & Gromit made by the world renowned Aardman studios. They most likely didnt use this style of hold the armature with a piece of string as they have a large budget where they can use state of the art software and equipment.
In my animation I did not use any visual effects as they were not needed to project the image I wanted to project for my client the British charity Crisis, but for other animation projects I would definitely consider using visual effects as they add sense of amazement and wonder to the viewer. Visual effects can be found in a number of different formats such as miniature sets and models, matte paintings, live action effects (actors being placed in front of a green screen or blue screen). Large production companys and studios pay out extreme amounts of money to use state of the art effects in their animations this is the bad side to the visual effects world they can be extremely costly, such as with live-action filming using a green or blue screen it costs extortionate amounts to generate the computer generated imagery to be on the blue/green screen, and that's before just the studio costs of filming the scene.
Step 1: (Materials & props) Get your characters that you want to use for example lego person, materials for your background and props etc. Find a clamp or tripod like structure with a solid heavy base that could hover above your set, to create this effect you will would be needing a piece of string on a roll (preferably a long piece 4-5m) as this will help you understand the required length much easier and faster. Of course you will also be needing a camera and a tripod to capture the visuals, a camera such as an DSLR that takes bursts of photos only would be the best. The tripod is essential in order to keep a still shot throughout the animation, so I would invest in a heavy duty solid one to keep the frame absolutely frozen in place.
Stage 4: (editing) In this stage you will have to be located to a computer that has some sort of editing program for example - 'Final Cut'. When you have opened this you will need to start uploading your images into the program, you do this by connecting your camera to the computer you do this with the supplied usb lead and plugging it into the computer and camera. Once the images have then been uploaded onto your desktop or file on your computer, then you highlight all the images and drag them into a photo organizing program I use a stop motion program called 'iStopMotion', one all organized before you export the file your going to need to edit the string out of some pictures that have it in it so...
Stage 5: (photoshop) As you have used string to hold the character up in place you will need to rub the string
out in order to make it seem like the character has actually fallen through into the shot from the sky to the ground. A DSLR style of camera, makes this stage much easier as they are built to have fast shutter speeds, this helps dramatically when shooting this style of shot because it captures the moment quickly making the animation just look generally smoother. Your going to have to use a photo editing piece of software such as Adobe Photoshop to rub out the string as it is a photo, when it is filmed footage it is much harder to edit within photoshop because filmed footage is fluid and realistic. You will need to place each image into photoshop and click the rubber tool to start erasing the string which will make the character eventually look as if it is falling down. You will need to save these images a JPEG. You will need to place the edited pictures back into iStopMotion and then export the file as a .mov and then import it into final cut, the images will already be in order so that you don't need to shift through them in order. The images will also be in sequence as well so it will be a smooth transition through the pictures. Now it is in Final Cut you can now drag the file into your timeline and there you have your finished visual effects piece.
In my animation I did not use any visual effects as they were not needed to project the image I wanted to project for my client the British charity Crisis, but for other animation projects I would definitely consider using visual effects as they add sense of amazement and wonder to the viewer. Visual effects can be found in a number of different formats such as miniature sets and models, matte paintings, live action effects (actors being placed in front of a green screen or blue screen). Large production companys and studios pay out extreme amounts of money to use state of the art effects in their animations this is the bad side to the visual effects world they can be extremely costly, such as with live-action filming using a green or blue screen it costs extortionate amounts to generate the computer generated imagery to be on the blue/green screen, and that's before just the studio costs of filming the scene.
In this next Section I'm going to explain further how to create a stop motion visual effect of a character falling from the sky.
Step 1: (Materials & props) Get your characters that you want to use for example lego person, materials for your background and props etc. Find a clamp or tripod like structure with a solid heavy base that could hover above your set, to create this effect you will would be needing a piece of string on a roll (preferably a long piece 4-5m) as this will help you understand the required length much easier and faster. Of course you will also be needing a camera and a tripod to capture the visuals, a camera such as an DSLR that takes bursts of photos only would be the best. The tripod is essential in order to keep a still shot throughout the animation, so I would invest in a heavy duty solid one to keep the frame absolutely frozen in place.
Step 2: (Setting up Equipment)
Place the clamp or tripod so that it will not be in any of the shots of your animation, then you will be needing to cut your piece of string to the required length so that you can lower it each time a photo is taken of the character (Or if you have another pair of spare hands about they could just lower the string while you use the burst function on your camera). You will need to lower it closer and closer to the ground of the set. Next you will need to tie a knot around the lego characters torso securely to hold them place. The final stage should be setting up your backdrops and other props getting them in place to your requirements.
Stage 3: (Acquiring your footage)
This is one of the most important stages in making your animation, it is deciding where you would like to place your tripod and camera for your shot angles. After you've decided your camera angles and positions then you now need to start taking photos of the gradual change of the character falling closer and closer to the ground gradually and fluidly between shots. Through previous experience I suggest each time you change the characters movements you take a burst of at least 3 photos as this will make the movement look smooth and not too quick and sudden. After you have completed this transition of the character falling to the ground, we move to stage four.
Place the clamp or tripod so that it will not be in any of the shots of your animation, then you will be needing to cut your piece of string to the required length so that you can lower it each time a photo is taken of the character (Or if you have another pair of spare hands about they could just lower the string while you use the burst function on your camera). You will need to lower it closer and closer to the ground of the set. Next you will need to tie a knot around the lego characters torso securely to hold them place. The final stage should be setting up your backdrops and other props getting them in place to your requirements.
Stage 3: (Acquiring your footage)
This is one of the most important stages in making your animation, it is deciding where you would like to place your tripod and camera for your shot angles. After you've decided your camera angles and positions then you now need to start taking photos of the gradual change of the character falling closer and closer to the ground gradually and fluidly between shots. Through previous experience I suggest each time you change the characters movements you take a burst of at least 3 photos as this will make the movement look smooth and not too quick and sudden. After you have completed this transition of the character falling to the ground, we move to stage four.
Stage 4: (editing) In this stage you will have to be located to a computer that has some sort of editing program for example - 'Final Cut'. When you have opened this you will need to start uploading your images into the program, you do this by connecting your camera to the computer you do this with the supplied usb lead and plugging it into the computer and camera. Once the images have then been uploaded onto your desktop or file on your computer, then you highlight all the images and drag them into a photo organizing program I use a stop motion program called 'iStopMotion', one all organized before you export the file your going to need to edit the string out of some pictures that have it in it so...
Stage 5: (photoshop) As you have used string to hold the character up in place you will need to rub the string
Monday, 17 June 2013
Camera Test Shot Analsis
In this piece of work I'm going to discuss how I set up the mise en scene of my animation, the camera set up, and also the lighting choices I took. The images below are all the 'test', shots and were not used in the final animation piece.
Lighting Set-up -
Lighting within this animation went through too phases, In the first 'shoot' of my animation the lighting was a lot more visually artificial with a orangey glare but in the most resent re-filmed version the lighting is much more natural as I moved the whole set up near a window which gave natural light in giving a much more natural look to the animation which I wanted as it relates to the story being outside on the street, because of this natural light I did not need to use a lighting rig at all in the re-filmed final version. The initial test shots the two images below clearly indicate a large difference in their lighting. The left showing a much clearer natural light and the one on the right showing more of a glaring orange artificial light. The main purpose with this animation is to make it seem very realistic and true to the storyline, it needed to look as if it were shot in a real street environment. So I have decided from these test shots we would like to use a similar light to what is shown on the image on the left. This was done using natural lighting shooting the animation near a window, with clear skies so particularly sunny weather. This gave me a clear and natural white light and less of a dark glare like the photo on the right. The lighting in the right image was done using a portable lamp borrowed from my schools media department. I tried many different angles when locating this lamp however we still gained the dark orange glare from each one as the room was dark, this style of lighting would be good if it was a sun setting, be this was obviously not wanted in this animation.
Camera Set-up
In this test shot sequence, Me and my classmate made the decision that we wanted the camera to pan from left to right using the stop motion technique, this shot would of been to almost set the scene to the viewers. We did this by freehand, not using a tripod or any other stabilising equipment. This unfortunately showed us in a small sequence that the camera was very jumpy changing to a new position every shot which was very unsatisfying for the viewer and not the smooth pan we had wished for. Me and my classmate then decided that when I film this animation properly I should defiantly use a tripod and a wide enough angle to set the scene without having to move the tripod with the camera for any advanced camera transitions, as we both feel sticking with one angle will be the best option for me with the limited equipment I have on offer. The test shots below show how I felt adding a zooming effect to the animation would be a affective camera technique with stop motion but this didn't pan out the way I wanted as the DSLR couldn't focus in on the extreme close up I wanted out of it, I would have helped if I had a close up macro lens for the camera but unfortunately I didn't have one to hand, so sadly this idea couldn't be progresses. I wanted the zooming effect to try and pick up the homeless characters emotion as I feel Crisis would have enjoyed this as it starts to show the struggles homeless people have to go through on a day-to-day basis. The images below show this 'zooming test' we attempted, the left image shows the establishing shot setting the scene, and the image on the right shows us attempting to zoom towards the characters, because these are test shots most of them got deleted in the process so I apologise for the bad quality and the random jump between shots, however when watching our first test animation shown on this blog, you can see the frequent jolting of the camera, as we didn't use any stabilising equipment such as a tripod.
General Smoothness & Mise En Scene
In the camera test shots it was mostly to just get the lighting and camera position and focus correct, these were the most important things to this animation for me because if these elements are strong it will give a polished satisfying visual to the production. For the test shots I did use a tripod but unfortunately the tripod wasn't of high quality being rather flimsy and it wasn't rock steady how I would of liked, that's why there was a noticeable jolt within the shots. But In the final re-filmed version of my animation this problem has been resolved with the use of a better tripod and some weights to weigh it down, this made for steady shot to really highlight the stop motion style.
Luckily these test shots where before I started shooting the actual animation so the set, props, backgrounds and characters were all in place, so it gave me the best experience before hand to practise the camera on, there is a lot going on in our animation because I made the set to look like a street so I wanted to keep the focus on the crisis logo and the main characters in the animation, so I used manual focus for all of the animation to keep this focus on the characters and logo. When the car came into shot I was worried it would dominate the shot as its closer but because of the manual focus it blurs the car our so you don't particularly notice it. Through the camera test shots I realised you cant get extreme close ups on the very small lego characters as the camera just cant cope, so this was another worry of mine that the I wouldn't be able to express any emotion through the characters as they are so very small. To move the characters around and keep them in place I used Blu-Tac on their feet and this proved a successful decision as they stayed firmly frozen in place for me to get the shot, it did take a long while to gradually shift the characters along but the more detail and time you put into it you get a lot more out with smoother looking transitions.
Lighting Set-up -
Lighting within this animation went through too phases, In the first 'shoot' of my animation the lighting was a lot more visually artificial with a orangey glare but in the most resent re-filmed version the lighting is much more natural as I moved the whole set up near a window which gave natural light in giving a much more natural look to the animation which I wanted as it relates to the story being outside on the street, because of this natural light I did not need to use a lighting rig at all in the re-filmed final version. The initial test shots the two images below clearly indicate a large difference in their lighting. The left showing a much clearer natural light and the one on the right showing more of a glaring orange artificial light. The main purpose with this animation is to make it seem very realistic and true to the storyline, it needed to look as if it were shot in a real street environment. So I have decided from these test shots we would like to use a similar light to what is shown on the image on the left. This was done using natural lighting shooting the animation near a window, with clear skies so particularly sunny weather. This gave me a clear and natural white light and less of a dark glare like the photo on the right. The lighting in the right image was done using a portable lamp borrowed from my schools media department. I tried many different angles when locating this lamp however we still gained the dark orange glare from each one as the room was dark, this style of lighting would be good if it was a sun setting, be this was obviously not wanted in this animation.
Camera Set-up
In this test shot sequence, Me and my classmate made the decision that we wanted the camera to pan from left to right using the stop motion technique, this shot would of been to almost set the scene to the viewers. We did this by freehand, not using a tripod or any other stabilising equipment. This unfortunately showed us in a small sequence that the camera was very jumpy changing to a new position every shot which was very unsatisfying for the viewer and not the smooth pan we had wished for. Me and my classmate then decided that when I film this animation properly I should defiantly use a tripod and a wide enough angle to set the scene without having to move the tripod with the camera for any advanced camera transitions, as we both feel sticking with one angle will be the best option for me with the limited equipment I have on offer. The test shots below show how I felt adding a zooming effect to the animation would be a affective camera technique with stop motion but this didn't pan out the way I wanted as the DSLR couldn't focus in on the extreme close up I wanted out of it, I would have helped if I had a close up macro lens for the camera but unfortunately I didn't have one to hand, so sadly this idea couldn't be progresses. I wanted the zooming effect to try and pick up the homeless characters emotion as I feel Crisis would have enjoyed this as it starts to show the struggles homeless people have to go through on a day-to-day basis. The images below show this 'zooming test' we attempted, the left image shows the establishing shot setting the scene, and the image on the right shows us attempting to zoom towards the characters, because these are test shots most of them got deleted in the process so I apologise for the bad quality and the random jump between shots, however when watching our first test animation shown on this blog, you can see the frequent jolting of the camera, as we didn't use any stabilising equipment such as a tripod.
General Smoothness & Mise En Scene
In the camera test shots it was mostly to just get the lighting and camera position and focus correct, these were the most important things to this animation for me because if these elements are strong it will give a polished satisfying visual to the production. For the test shots I did use a tripod but unfortunately the tripod wasn't of high quality being rather flimsy and it wasn't rock steady how I would of liked, that's why there was a noticeable jolt within the shots. But In the final re-filmed version of my animation this problem has been resolved with the use of a better tripod and some weights to weigh it down, this made for steady shot to really highlight the stop motion style.
Luckily these test shots where before I started shooting the actual animation so the set, props, backgrounds and characters were all in place, so it gave me the best experience before hand to practise the camera on, there is a lot going on in our animation because I made the set to look like a street so I wanted to keep the focus on the crisis logo and the main characters in the animation, so I used manual focus for all of the animation to keep this focus on the characters and logo. When the car came into shot I was worried it would dominate the shot as its closer but because of the manual focus it blurs the car our so you don't particularly notice it. Through the camera test shots I realised you cant get extreme close ups on the very small lego characters as the camera just cant cope, so this was another worry of mine that the I wouldn't be able to express any emotion through the characters as they are so very small. To move the characters around and keep them in place I used Blu-Tac on their feet and this proved a successful decision as they stayed firmly frozen in place for me to get the shot, it did take a long while to gradually shift the characters along but the more detail and time you put into it you get a lot more out with smoother looking transitions.
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