Helping Out

Last night I helped Matt Saunders out with the start of his animation; he's making an ident for the Leeds Film Festival Horror Night at Hyde Park Picture House.  The ident will be of a guy walking through a forest and transforming into a wolf, so last night involved doing the stop frame photos of his friend in a wolf mask and gloves, which we gradually cut back, so played in reverse will show the wolf man coming to life.

.... (so should have gone for the full wolf suit..)

I'm going along to where his studio is soon to hopefully see the rest of the process of the animation coming together.. it's really good seeing from the outside the process of how an animation is put together. Last night proved that you need a lot of organisation and preparation for some animations; especially when there are a number of people involved. Then there's setting up equipment and running through everything, and the actual doing of it all... it's that time consuming issue again - but if you enjoy what you're doing then there's no problem :)

Matt quickly showed me one or two things while he uploaded the photos - one being to alter the depth of field - it makes things seem more realistic; as it only focuses on the point of interest or object, and the other details are blurred to your preference - definitely good to play around with!

Another point he made was how he'd start off experimenting with shapes; just boxes of colours to see how to do things.. then progress to the images you need in more in depth animations.

Matt suggested a couple of people to look at as well, Julia Pott and Lesley Barnes [click links for their vimeo pages].
Julia's style is illustrative, hand drawn, and the final animation sequences all have a raw slightly jumpy effect to them that's really great for showing the process of the animation, I love that so much!!! I'm just drawn into her animations for the cuteness of the animals she draws, and the real personality coming through for each little character. It's all the little details like the eyes blinking or an ear slightly moving, or a tail wagging that just make these extra special, there is just so much attention to detail - but the time put into it isn't missed! Amazing!

My First Crush.... (this is adorable)

My First Crush from Julia Pott on Vimeo.

Nice Time... (And this one is just funny)

Nice Time from Julia Pott on Vimeo.