Crew Roles for animation

Crew Roles for Animation piece 

Editor 

Robert Welland - The main editor for this piece who placed all photos taken by the SLR camera, also added music and voice over to the project.

Assistant Editor

Oscar Artini- Assistant editor who incorporated his own ideas into the piece, passing it through the main editor to help him gain a good understanding of what ideas would work and which wouldn't. 

Storyboard designer 

Oscar Artini- The storyboard designer for this piece came up with the final idea for this animation, the storyboard designer made a clear guide for filming the animation and how it should be done properly. This was done by drawing each stage of the animation on paper to show a rough outline of the story which our group ay have later altered (which we did)  

The Animators 

Oscar Artini and Robert Welland- The animators for this piece were responsible for basically creating the general idea of motion, in this case we had to move our lego characters carefully by changing the movements of their legs to create the motion of the character walking. This also included taking photographs with the SLR camera which moves onto the next role.

Photographers

Oscar Artini and Robert Welland- This role links in well with the animators job, our group both had input to the animating section of the piece however one person also had to make sure they were documenting or photographing each movement the movements of each character.

Set Designer/Prop designer

Robert Welland and Oscar Artini - This was very similar to the storyboard developing, this was all done at the same stage of generating ideas for the animation, set designing and prop designing was drawn on paper, and along with these pieces came a material list that gave a clear indication of what was needed for our props and sets. 

Paper edit for animation

Consideration of camera

Consideration of camera 

As you may be aware if you have looked at previous blog posts, our group had already posted an animation however, we immediately decided to re-film it due to the poor camera work. The reason for this was due to the tripod not reaching sufficient heights at our chosen location of where we filmed. So we decided to do it without a tripod and use it freehand as we thought we could get a larger number of different angles filmed during the animation to set the scene much more, however this didn't work at all and just made the camera extremely shaky and so the animation was filmed again. The two images on the right and below show the large change in camera movement, you can see only the black tarmac looking road and then a few shots later you see the camera jolt and then you can see the white lines in 
the middle of the road.


The second time round that we filmed our animation we made sure that we used a sturdy tripod in order to have the camera completely still on each shot that was taken so that when the viewer was watching this animation they weren't focusing on the camera moving (like the last animation) and this time only focusing on how to characters themselves move. The only angle that we decided to use for this second filming session was one that was straight level with the set, this was level around a tables height due to the set being placed on a table in the media department. Right in front of it, similarly to the other photos above

and on the left of this text. As our group decided these experimental shots from the last session used to 'set the scene' were far too risky and difficult to not get the wood holding the set together in the shot. So this is why we stuck with this one angle, however we felt it showed everything we pictured before filming it. The images below show the re-filmed animation in the angle that we chose to use throughout. However when the animation reaches the human hand section, as we weren't taking photos behind a large brick wall similar to the one in the set, we could have the camera raised up much higher and had a much wider field to shoot in.

After the human hands section of the animation occurs it then goes back to the same brick wall with the lego characters having a conversation, the cameras position is also in the same exact place as it was before, at the table height where the set was placed. The animation the moves onto the 'cleaned up homeless man' in a safe room (which Crisis has provided for him) to get his life started again in the right direction. The camera once again is in the same position, in line with the set with the main character (homeless man) in the centre of the shot. This gives off a 'center of attention' look to it which makes the audience study the lego character emotion which is happiness. This camera angle almost makes the audience feel as if they were to help they could make somebody happy just like this by donating to Crisis.

Character Sketches

Budget List for animation

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

Our group must ensure that we do not breach any copyright laws especially with the music section of our animation. The reason for this is because we could find ourselves having a banned video on our blogs which would actually be our final project for school. If we wish to use a song found off of YouTube we must make sure we contact the channel director and ask if we can use a particular song for our project. However, our group may decide to create our own music off of a program called garage band found on the school computers. 

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.