Filming update.

Been busy filming more and more today. Very pleased with how it has been going. Lots of challenges to overcome however. Such as realising my plasticine men can't hold up a knife to butter some bread and having to use a plastic one instead, nor is he able to pull some toast from the toaster so I had to make cunning use of some thread to pull it out instead. Most problems are overcome through creative thinking, and copious use of Blue tack and cotton thread.

Help today came in the form of my dad who proved to be far more successful at animating than myself, so I took more of a directing role.

The process is becoming increasingly organic, which I like. Plans are subject to alteration during the production process. For example, today I planned for the figure stirring the coffee to fall off the cup backwards in a humorous and slapstick style. We realised it was easier to animate him falling into the coffee itself. This was also funnier. Everybody wins!

I chose to remove some steps from some of the actions, long sections of figures moving from place to place when the audience would assume it had happened if it wasn't shown are incredibly boring, and added steps in other, such as adding a section of the figures sliding down the banister of the stairs when moving between the bedroom (upstairs) to the kitchen (downstairs.) One unfortunate loss was of the planned Dolly shot across the bedroom floor. This proved impossible as the figures were unable to stand up on the carpeted floor.

Progress is good on the animation front and I should be fine to film my live action this time next week. Promising progress in my oh-so-humble opinion.

Some bits so far.

I've been really busy away from my media work recently, so I haven't posted in a while. I thought it might be a good idea to just give you a quick look at the work I've done so far.

This is by no means anything approaching a finished product, but it just shows you what I've been working on so far.

Filming Day Two

Filming has continued for its second day. It seems to be going alright. The process in general is very time consuming, just by its nature, so progress is very slow. One of the main difficulties I am finding is that, since my film is set in the morning, I can only shoot between about nine and two to give the right kind of light. This gives me only two days a week, at the weekend, where I am able to film.

Whilst this is unfortunate, it is very important that my film looks visually convincing.

I've loaded a bit of the footage into Premier Pro and had a look. It seems to be interesting enough. It certainly does have a somewhat 'home-made' look about it. The shots aren't perfect, the motion is completely fluid, but it has its own independant look and its own character.

Filming Day One

I've begun animating my stop-motion footage and filming some of the live action work.

From the very start I encountered problems which I couldn't foresee. For example, at one point, I had to animate a figure switching on a kettle. However, the force required to push down the switch was greater than the force holding its feet to the floor, resulting in it falling over. I had to use thin thread to pull, and hold, down the switch between shots and to stop it from springing back up. This required more than one person.

I did manage to get some of the shots down. Unfortunately, it's difficult to see if they need re-shooting before I have loaded them into Premier Pro and edited them together. It is fair to say that it is much more taxing and time consuming than I first thought it would be, but we persevere!