First Proposal

My proposal for project 3 - Light, Photographics.

For this project I want to use a professional studio situation to produce macro shots of an eye. What will be unique about these shots is the dramatic lighting and shadowing on the eye. I will compose this series of 6-8 images.

Some of these images will have a natural eye (no make up) and bright studio lighting as if an advertisement while others will consist of dramatic art make up and shadows to create and reflect a mood.  I will retouch and edit these photos to be surreal and interesting to the viewer.

The first shots will be a scientific study of the eye showing the iris, eyelashes and colours. While the rest of the composing images will be artistic and dramatic as if for theatre or a movie (opposite of a scientific study.)

Examples of dramatic eye make up and macro photographs from an artist who I love.

Inspiration

Artist = Pixie Cold

http://pixiecold.deviantart.com/

Photographs I have edited myself:

Photo of my eye I took a long time ago:

Final Animation

144 film from Ally Baldwin on Vimeo.

After much tweaking and editing this is the final result and I'm very happy with it.

Contact Sheet of Photographs (just a few samples of the many I took)

I took a few hundred photos as it's stop motion but here's a sample of a few. A little story board type of thing.

Rewritten Proposal

A more refined and better written proposal.

"Time does not exist. It is simply an illusion of our mind created by our own biological and cultural evolution."
 - David Lewis Anderson

Stop motion in itself is time. Every media of photography deals with time. My aim is to have a stop motion that shows the progress of boredom to something as exciting as "time travel' which is easily achieved through the manipulation of photography and Plasticine models.

 Boredom often leads to pointless browsing in the fridge, eating, scribbling, staring at the clock and slobbish behavior as my animation will explore. Staring at the clock will further slow down time when bored and lead one to daydream of more exciting things such as time travel. To achieve a time travel illusion of a "dinosaur" age normally special effects would be needed. Through the use of hundreds of photographs and the manipulation of clay that is slowly moved it is possible to create life like movement.

By using light, shadows, furniture and well thought out cinematography my photographs come to life with the animation, creating an illusion that is stop motion.

It's purpose is to entertain as my audience are  teenagers.

Story Board

Story board I made. It's pretty rough but just to keep me on track with my stop motion and remind me what angle and style shots, (high/low angle, close up, medium shot ect,) and to also remind me what to focus the camera on.

Artist Model & Inspiration

Artist Model - Ray Harryhouse n
An American visual effects creator, writer and producer. He created a brand of stop-motion model animation known as 'Dynamation.'

I really like how his animations served as the "special effects" of his time. He also mastered movement and smoothness in his animations very well. I really like the aesthetic and colours he used (natural as to be believable.) Harruhousen also used realistic miniture models. Although my models won't be realistic as such they will be miniature and create very life like movements as to fool you that they are real.




Fantastic Mr Fox by Wes Anderson.
Artist Model - Wes Anderson
This animation consists mainly of stop motion. I really like the lighting and the way that the characters are animated in this. It's very smooth and life like. The fox's having real hair really gives them a more life like feel (as opposed to just using clay to make them.) The cinematography in this film is really amazing as it doesn't let the fact that it's a stop motion hold it back from getting all angles possible. I will definitely try to emulate angles and lighting used in this film in my own stop motion.

Artist Model Mariel Clayton

Mariel Clayton is one of my artist models because she photographs very interesting pictures of dolls in a "doll house" environment. She uses colour and shocking material. Her photographs are meant to be humorous as  they depict dolls doing unexpected things as kids with no play with them in this manner.

I will use her style of point of view, composition and slight humor in my own work. I also like the life like representation she is trying to show, as if the dolls are living in their very own world.
I obviously won't use her gruesome sense of humor.

Here are some examples of her work:
http://www.thephotographymarielclayton.com/

Bright colours used.

Use of all the props creates a very interesting image.

Composition and scale is executed well here.

Great composition. I like the high angle used here.

In this photograph I really like the realistic lighting and shadows created to make it look real. I also like how she has edited clouds outside the window. I would like to do this with my own one.

List of things to do for the claymation

http://www.ehow.com/how_2051098_create-claymation-movie.html

Reading what I will need for my claymation. Just making a list for myself:
- Make a detailed story board so I know what to do when making the film. (write lyrics of song and time durations on it also for note reference)
- Decide and make background and props.
-Make characters. I will need:

• clay- Plasticine - choose colours needed
• wire - to build the frame of the body
• tin foil - to go around the wire of the body to help make it strong
• I may also need oven bake clay for eyes and teeth. Will look into this more.

It's really important I choose the aesthetic I want to create before even making the story board. Eg, cardboard background or plain white background, using real materials such as fabric or not ect..

Inspiration & artist modela

Just a classic example of a very smooth and well done animation. This has got me thinking that perhaps the protagonist in my claymation doesn't even have to be human. Could be a dog or something :) To make the animation more interesting and give it that classic, surreal "cartoon character" feel to it.



"The Wrong Trousers is a 1993 animated film directed by Nick Park at Aardman Animations in Bristol, featuring his characters Wallace and Gromit. It was his second half-hour short featuring the eccentric inventor Wallace and his quiet but intelligent dog Gromit, following 1989's A Grand Day Out, and preceding 1995's A Close Shave."

Inspirations and artist models

I had an idea that maybe the character is bored at home (my orginal idea) but then travels back into time with dinosaurs ect. This way my idea will incorporate time even more. If I decide this then I will add this to my proposal but I still need to think about it and develop this idea further.


Another good example of a dinosaur claymation.

Just an interesting zombie claymation. Thinking about their use of background (made with cardboard) and how their characters are wearing real clothing.

This is a really professional claymtion. It's not the idea I like with this one but how well it is made. All the characters are really highly polished with great detail (they're semi realistic) and the "special effects" are done really smoothly. Also colour and lighting has been considered here greatly. This is quite a creepy claymation but definitely very interesting.

Potential Song used for animation

Lyrics

Ticking away the moments
That make up a dull day
Fritter and waste the hours
In an off-hand way

Kicking around on a piece of ground
In your home town
Waiting for someone or something
To show you the way

Tired of lying in the sunshine
Staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long
And there is time to kill today

And then the one day you find
Ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run
You missed the starting gun

(Solo)

And you run and you run
To catch up with the sun
But it's sinking

Racing around
To come up behind you again
[ Lyrics from: http://www.lyricsfreak.com/p/pink+floyd/time_20108616.html ]
The sun is the same
In a relative way
But you're older

Shorter of breath
And one day closer to death

Every year is getting shorter
Never seem to find the time

Plans that either come to naught
Or half a page of scribbled lines

Hanging on in quiet desperation
Is the English way

The time is gone
The song is over
Thought I'd something more to say

Home
Home again
I like to be here
When I can

When I come home
Cold and tired
It's good to warm my bones
Beside the fire

Far away
Across the field
Tolling on the iron bell
Calls the faithful to their knees
To hear the softly spoken magic spell...




So I've been thinking I would like to make my claymation almost a music video about time. What better song to use than Pink Floyd Time? Perhaps it could be about a character, bored at home on a usual day, time just ticking away. I have to think about a background type setting that I would use as I have to make it.

Cutting out Practice

In our last tutorial, our tutor was showing us some ways to smooth the edges of objects when we cut them out on cs5 in order for them to blend with the background. I practiced a few of these techniques on my latest photo manipulation and found they actually helped improve it a lot as well as taking up a lot less time. I usually use the pen tool to draw around the subject and then eliminate the background.

My image can also be found on my deviant art account here: http://cryingunderwater.deviantart.com/#/d5dii7v
For a lost of all the stock used.
I love editing and photo manipulations :)

Practice Stop Motion

Rachel stop motion Practice from Ally Baldwin on Vimeo.

My practice stop motion as part of the weekly task. I just used my friend walking down the Water Front and added some music to it - as credited in the video.

This was a great little experiment and has got me thinking about what I could do for my time project. Some of the photos are a bit over exposed as it was a really sunny day but I didn't bother to fix them up on Lightroom as this was only a little experiment type thing.

Proposal for Project Three - Photographics

Proposal for project Three

For project three I plan to show time through a stop motion of claymation. I will create a character and show their againg process through their face with suited music. I will need to develop this idea further however and really consider the aesthetics of the stop motion.

Stop Motion I made

The Clip - A Virtual Reality from Ally Baldwin on Vimeo.

This is a stop motion I made for a project in dsdn101. I may use this style of claymation again in my assignment two for photographics :) I feel pretty confident in knowing how to do it and using the software.

I'm also quite into photo manipulation.
Here are some works I have done in the past using stock images (credited on my Deviant Art account.)