Stop Motion Animation Self Evaluation

Stop Motion Animation Self Evaluation

For this assignment we were asked to plan and create a collection of stop motion animations that portray different techniques and understanding on how stop motion works.

Our first task was to use a wooden block and simply move it from point A to point B at a constant speed. I found this portion of the task very easy as I had developed skills in stop motion animation at college; therefore I was able to create this sequence easily. However, I didn’t read the brief correctly and had to redo the clip because I didn’t capture a twenty five-frame hold at the beginning and end of the sequence. I also made this mistake when making the ‘speed up, slow down’ animation, which again I had no trouble animating as my concept for speed when making stop frame was good. I know that the more you increase the distance of the character per frame, the faster it will appear to move, and the shorter the distance means it will appear to move slower.

I went away and re filmed both of these clips and also animated the next motion, which was the pendulum. I found this one slightly more difficult to plan, as you have to consider weight with this exercise. After I finished filming I went to a computer and attempted to upload the clips to vimeo, I then realised after uploading that for some reason they weren’t playing, so I checked their properties and saw that their size was only six kilo bytes which is microscopic. I realised that they had obviously corrupted during the export and where lost. This was very frustrating but it also taught me a lesson to make sure my work has exported properly and also to save everything in case of corruption. I re filmed for the third time and successfully created my animations, which I was able to upload to my Vimeo account.

The next task was to use two blocks and have them interact in a scene. I enjoyed making this animation because there weren’t any specifics to follow, they just had to interact. I made my two blocks dance as I believed I could create the best movement through having them look like they were dancing. I used a couple of balls of blue tack to re position the cubes as they moved. For example when one block twirled on its vertex, I was unable to balance it in the positions I needed, therefore I had to use the tack to keep it in place. This proved to be a very successful technique as it enabled me to create smooth, fluid motion and movements within my blocks.

I was then given a green disc for the next task and I had to animate it in four different ways. I had to give it the properties of a cannon ball, a bouncy ball, a balloon and a ball of clay. These animations proved to be fairly easy but also fascinating, because by just moving the disc at different distances, following different paths, you have the ability to create so many animation techniques, which will be very useful knowledge for my future animations. For the ball of clay animation I actually used a ball of clay. This was so that I could squash the ball when it impacts the bottom of the frame, making it look realistic and giving it the characteristics of a moving clay ball.

The last two animations were to create a bouncing ball animation using Maya. This proved to be very difficult as I hadn’t ever used this software before and didn’t have any idea where to start. After gaining some experience on our Friday sessions with James Russell and also watching a lot of tutorials on the Internet. I gained some knowledge on how to navigate and use Maya and I was able to create my animation. I really enjoyed using Maya because even though I believe stop motion is the more effective way to create animation, computer software capabilities give a huge contribution to the industry and can make things easier, less time consuming, and you can create a lot of effects that can be added to your stop motion animations. I decided to also create a version of the bouncing ball with sound edited onto it because I wanted to give it that extra touch of realism and believability, like you’re watching a clip of a real ball bouncing across the screen. It also gave me good practice to edit my animations for future projects that will require sound effects. This meant I grew my ability to edit to more of a professional standard.

Before creating any of these animations I first planned them out on paper so I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I find that its always better to plan first because if not you are going to try and create animations with no solid direction to move to, and it will also take you much longer to create because you are inevitably going to run into many issues and problems without planning. All in all I am very pleased with my work for this assignment and I believe that I have grasped the concept of stop motion animation very well, and I also feel a lot more comfortable with using animation software such as Maya and will definitely be using it a lot more to gain experience and build a portfolio of my work.