Annotated screen grabs of edit



Within this document I'm going to briefly explain the process of my edit on my stop motion style animation for the charity Crisis, who help try and get the homeless off the street and their lives back on track. 

1. In this first section of edit it is introducing the actual stop motion animation, their isn't any effects that have been put on it to add to its visual appearance. The basic raw edit within the visual aspect of the animation has been made through iStopMotion which is where I have sorted my edit already, putting the images in order and taking out the unwanted material, (e.g practise shots and general unsatisfying shots where the camera isn't focused properly)
Also to assist the visual aspect of this animation a soundtrack has been added. The soundtrack within this animation is a very basic ambient style of audio, I feel this style of audio gives a reflective response to the audience which is perfect for this advertisement as it gets the viewer to start thinking about they have helped the planet.

2. Within this 'layer' of the edit, the visual animation and the soundtrack are still playing within it, but I have added a voiceover in this section to start explaining what this advertisement is about and why it has been made. The voiceover was recorded at my home where I used a large diaphragm condenser microphone to record onto a piece of software called Mixcraft, where I then mixed the file into a mp3 format so I could then drag it into Final Cut to get edited into the finished product that it is now. I my voice over in the position I felt it would be most effective in the animation as I didn't want it to start too early or finish to early as this wouldn't give a satisfying feel. The music underneath backing this voiceover has been used in adjacent to it, this is to stress Crisis's message, and ultimately get people to donate to this charity.

3.Within this final Stage/layer of this edit the soundtrack and voiceover are still playing, however the visual animation part has finished now and it has transcended into a picture of the charity Crisis's logo and I have used the program LiveType to create text in a certain position, with this I positioned it the way I desired and then picked an appropriate font and then also put a motion effect on it, I picked a very simple effect as I didn't want to ruin the look of the advert with a inappropriate motion that would confuse the audience. After creating this I saved the file as a .MOV and then imported it to final cut adding it into the edit. With the soundtrack near the end I started to fade this audio out to let the viewer know that the advert was finishing, this I feel gives a polished and satisfying feel to the advertisement. 

Risk assessment: animation

Risk assessment for animation

There are many different risks that must be taken into consideration when filming our animation I shall clearly explain each ones risk factor and how it can be prevented. 

Camera breakage

This hazard is probably the most likely to happen regarding the equipment. The camera is a very delicate piece of equipment that must be looked after considerably well. Before using this camera we will need to put down a 20 pound deposit towards the camera in case of malfunction. The most likely problem we may encounter will be dropping the camera or not properly placing it into the tripod. To prevent this from happening we must take extra care when securing it within the tripod by double checking it. Also when the camera is being held, it must be held in the proper way (securely) in order to prevent any damage to it via dropping it. Before taking these precautions the risk was most probably about a 7/10. However from taking these precautions we have probably taken it down to approximately a 3/10.















Tripping over the tripod 

This relates to the camera breakage also, could cause us to fall over and break the camera, The best way to prevent this from occurring would be to make sure that the tripod is in clear sight and can be seen at all times when moving to and from the set of the animation . Once this has been done, we shall not have the problem of tripping over the tripod. Before these precautions are taken the risk is within the range of 8/10. However once these precautions have been taken it would make this risk about 2/10.

Loss of Lego characters and props

This isn't much of a risk to our group however this would cause a risk to the animation not being able to be filmed properly, and would leave it looking very spacious and not much to look at and draw the viewers eye to. So, to prevent this from happening we are going to collect a plastic wallet to place all of the lego characters and props into each time a filming session is finished and place it somewhere safe. Before this precaution the risk most likely would have been around an 8/10 considering how small the pieces are for the project, however this precaution shall lower it to around 2/10

Production schedule animation

Production Schedule 

Film title: Crisis Animation

Client: Crisis

Producers: Oscar Artini and Robert Welland 

Date: 25th April 2013

Planning started: January 2nd 2013 Date completed: January 30th 2013

Proposal started: February 4th 2013 Date completed: February 18th 2013

Agreement from client: February 27th 2013 Date completed: March 1st 2013

Audience Research started: March 15th 2013 Date completed: March 18th 2013 

Audience research analyzed: March 20th 2013 Date completed: March 28th 2013

Drafting started: April 1st 2013 Date completed: 20th April 2013

Production started: 29th April 2013 Date completed: May 20th 2013

Rough cut supplied to client: May 29th 2013 Date completed: June 8th 2013

Final version to client: June 10th 2013 Date completed: June 25th 2013

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