5.4

Today we watched Fantastic Mr Fox for the first half of the lesson, and then I set to work researching our chosen existing campaign of Turton High School for the rest of the lesson.

Had a look at both the videos on Creature Discomforts and Turton websites, which both acted as influences for our animation. Did some more research on Turton High School which I will continue at home.

Thought of some ideas based on animations welcoming new Yr 7’s to Turton based on different aspects such as anti bullying, being lost and then relocated, making new friends and the SSC. Created large A3 sheet full of short storyboards and written ideas.

Were given a specific topic to each work on whilst still being in groups of two or three people. I was told to work on Prefects, Ben Sofield Mentors, and Gabriel McPhillips the SSC. Told that the total animation had to be 15 seconds long, with five seconds on each topic. Watched part of animated film A Town Called Panic.

Decided the whole animation should be set against SSC background. Took some cameras down to the SSC, and took photos of various parts of the room from different angles. Downloaded them onto the computer.

I began editing them myself, splicing them together from different photos from slightly different angles, purposely making them slightly jagged and uneven for artistic effect.

Using influences from the film A Scanner Darkly, I began to add a specific Photoshop effect to the pictures, which eventually filled the whole picture.

Began to make use of photos from completely different angles, and decided to make three different photo montages, one for each member of the group. Created the other two, and added different effects and varied each one.

Problem was pointed out that the SSC was very busy and contained people in stark contrast to the animated animals. Had a long discussion, and decided that the SSC needed to be empty before we took photos.

Went down to the SSC and asked everyone to move to one side of the room while we took a few photos. We then left and downloaded the photos onto a computer.

Began editing the photos once again with square type blocks of different images spliced together.

Added extra objects to the picture such as a guitar, monopoly, Homer Simpson on the TV screen, and a cup and kettle made on paint by Ben Sofield.

Decided which animals to create each. Gabe decided on the elephant, Ben the cat, and me the dog. Got four or five research pictures each off google images and printed these off with copies for each of us.

Set about each having a go at creating each animal, to give us practise for when we each make our own characters. Today we had a go at creating an elephant each, which was blue, with a yellow top hat and yellow monocle. I created mine based on a drawing I had done, and created a stood up elephant.

Had a go at each creating a cat using red and black colours. Based this on images from the internet.

Finally decided to properly create our own chosen animals, and I set about creating the cat out of orange and white plasticine, forming a ball for the head, solid shape for the body and cylinder like shape for the legs.

Each finished off our separate animals, and printed off our set in A3 format.

Gabriel created a carpet type texture for the base of our set. We printed that off, got a cardboard box, placed it on it’s side and placed the lid in front of it. We then used bluetac to secure the A3 print to the side, and attached the carpet to the lid.

Used Garageband to record year 7s discussing SSC, Prefects and Mentors. However, this was somehow unfortunately lost at the end of the session.

Mr Bennett, the technician managed to recover part of the recording for us. However, this was unfortunately not a very good segment.

Decided to take a voice recorder down to the SSC and interviewed certain Year 7’s about the SSC. Gave this in at the end of the lesson.

Created script for my Prefect part, represented by the blue elephant, at home, and recorded this in lesson.

Set up tripod and plugged video camera into a apple mac. Set up set, and adjusted camera angle so the set filled the whole screen. Began filming using the iStopMotion computer programme.

Finished prefect part with certain ideas such as emerging from behind a desk and tipping top hat at the end. However, Mrs Kearns and Mr Bigland then insisted that we were only doing the SSC, not Prefects and Mentors as well. This caused all kinds of problems, and we decided to carry on on the basis of replacing the voiceover next time.

Were told that we couldn’t carry on without a voiceover to work from, as we needed to know when to indicate certain parts of speech. However, since none of our characters had mouths, and instead trunks or tongues, we didn’t see how this would affect our animation too much.

We decided to go along with that idea, and persuaded fellow year 11 students Georgia Taylor Green and fellow Diploma student Ben Sofield to do the voiceovers of Catherine the Cat and Dave the Dog, while Miss        did the voiceover for a member of the SSC.

Started filming animation once again with edited voiceover containing music in certain places. Managed to animate up to the end of the elephant part. However, we showed Mrs Kearns, and she said that she found the music was too distracting, and disapproved.

Re-edited the soundtrack once again with the music out, and continued animating the Catherine the Cat segment. Managed to finish the animation, with all three animal’s segments complete.

By Patrick Johnson 11S1