COP 3 - PRACTICAL DEVELOPMENT - PRIMARY RESEARCH//EDITING

Here is an early edit of the type of pixelation animation that i would like to create out of the footage that I have gathered from the market, I am currently deliberating on whether or not to sync up sound effects to each cut the camera makes/ jumps to each scene. Or creating a loop that flows well and includes all of the different textures and colours that i would like to include in the background.

I think using shorter cuts would allow the viewer to concentrate on the character animation that is going on in front of the live action video.

I am going to have to improve the technique of this type of editing, by having colours/textures of the same kind cut together e.g having cuts of footage that feature butcher stalls put together - this way I think the footage would fit together better and the transition from each stall would be smoother, there would be a more stable background for the character to move in front of.

COP 3 - PRACTICAL DEVELOPMENT - CRIT FEEDBACK 2

What was also brought up in conversation through the group crit was how I was going to represent the youth character in my animation. At first I was thinking about the colours that i have associated the older generation and also the atmosphere that they are placed in within my animation.

What i think distinguishes the older generation from the younger generation in this country is the competence, and in some respect the absolute absorption into social medias, and how the younger generation functions in society in general - there is a different dynamic.

To show this different dynamic I thought about the way the younger character's scene might look on screen. The idea of using the scrolling format that you can find on most social media sites suddenly sprung to mind, the simple colour schemes that are also found might be something that I incorporate into this part of the project, to give a fitting juxtaposition against the warm colours of the market atmosphere.

COP 3 - PRACTICAL DEVELOPMENT - CRIT FEEDBACK 1

In my group crit I mentioned that I wanted to use live action film and incorporate it in a manner that would look similar to a pixelation animation. This animation by Frank Mouris titled 'Frank Film' came up in conversation, it has inspired me to use the primary research that i have gathered in the market, turn the footage and images that I have gathered into a pixelation and use the pixelation as a base/ background for which I can place some character animation on top.

In the case of the footage gathered from the market, I will use the animation created from that as a background for the older character in my narrative.

COP 3 - PRACTICAL DEVELOPMENT - SYNTHESIS 2

This element of live action that I had wanted to incorporate in my initial experiments was still present in my idea process, I still wanted use that element as feel that it puts the viewer into the atmosphere and captures it better than I could using my own custom assets created digitally or handmade.

So here I have used a series of photographs and made a pixelation type animation that uses sound effects so as to give the movement from picture to picture more bite/ make the viewer notice it a little more than they would if there were no sound effects. Also included in the animation is atmospheric sounds from the market place itself.

COP 3 - PRACTICAL EXPERIMENTS 3

Here in this experiment I had the idea that I wanted to use found footage of subject matter that would be relevant to the research in my essay, the idea was to use old television adverts that were indicative of the times investigated within my essay and somehow create a narrative through them.

After this one experiment I reflected on the work I had produced and realized that this method of putting together a narrative of found footage with a combination of animation would take too long and also would not have fit in as well perhaps with the route that my research had been taking me down.

It is at this point that i decided to dive into my sketchbook further to really explore what the aesthetic of my animation should look like - so that I might better be able to create a solid narrative around that.

COP 3 - PRACTICAL DEVELOPMENT- SYNTHESIS 1

At this point In the research project I had to take a step back and question wether the work that i was going to produce really the reflected the ideas that i was throwing up in my essay. With this idea of British culture being splintered through age, ethnicity and by global influences from the the internet - readily available to almost everybody. I knew that i had to rethink the way that i was going to represent that through my work.

The way I thought about representing this was to produce an animation that incorporated local places that encapsulated what could be called traditionally British - so I chose to investigate the local market, focus on the colours in the market, the sounds and the atmospheric lighting found in each stall, the types of people found in the market etc.

I then thought about how I might represent the characters with the animation in a relative way, I then thought that using textures from the market to represent the older generation might be the best way to use the primary research that I had gathered.

The signage in the market is very distinctive and I would even go as far as saying that it is traditional - in the sense that some of the stalls in the market are businesses that stretch back many generations, so the same aesthetic/colour palette is still held on to.

COP 3 - PRACTICAL - EXPERIMENTS 2

In this experiment I used some video footage that has some movement in it to give the scene an element of realism, or moreover just to further investigate putting my animations in live action video
This was another experiment using TV Paint, again with no real idea of a narrative but with the conceptual idea of merging animation and live action video. I think what worked well in this experiment was the way that the animation fitted well within the scene using a combination of the Transform tool and Blending modes in After Effects.

COP 3 - PRACTICAL - EXPERIMENTS 1

Here is one of the first experiments that I worked up for my cop practical, this came before any previous notion of story boarding or any idea of a narrative. I did however at this point know that i wanted to further incorporate my illustrative style into animation. I decided I would do this by using character and implementing them into live action footage. At this stage I decided to use a static image to get a feel for how the scene might look with the animation moving along walls or around the scene in general.
It was at this point that it was suggested to experiment with 3D tracking in after effects using some footage that would be in motion.
This experiment is also one of my first experiments with the software 'TV Paint' - I find the program to be very useful and versatile in that the brushes are fully customisable, I also find the textures well suited to my work.