Thursday, 29 January 2015

Animation Plan

After exploring animation and sound, our final project was to create our own animation which portrays a contemporary issue of our choice. My group decided our chosen issue would be bullying.

Group
me                              -           Designer, Photographer
Bethan                        -           Script Writer and Photographer

Cari                            -           Audio, Voices and  Editor

Plan/Script
Opening  scene– *Little Timmy playing ball, looks up and waves at camera* (Birds Singing, hear the ball)
 Zooms Out *Orange and Blue hiding behind tree*
*Orange and Blue walk over* *Little Timmy continues to play*(Danger music)
·         Blue: “Hey Pinkie, what you got there. Speak up Titch!” (Silence)
·         Little Timmy: *Silence*
·         Orange: “Yeah, speak up!”
·         Blue: “That’s a nice new ball you’ve got there”
·         Orange: “Yeah, it’s nice”
·         Blue: “Too good for a Titch like you”
·         Orange: “Yeah, too good”
·         Blue: “ I think we should have a ball so good”
·         Orange: “Yeah Titch, we should have it”
·         Blue: “Gimmie Titch! *Snatches Ball* “Bye Titch, thanks for the new ball”
·         Orange: “Yeah, thanks Titch” *Both walk off and play ball in the distance*
·         Little Timmy: *Tear on cheek* (Sad Music)
·         Farmer Jay: *Walks over* “Hey Little Timmy, are you okay? What is wrong?”
·         Little Timmy: *Looks over at Orange and Blue playing with his ball then looks down*
·         Farmer Jay: *Looks over at Orange and Blue playing with his ball* “Ahhh, I see, you know Little Timmy you don’t have to take this in silence let them hear you speak” 
·         Little Timmy: *Looks at Farmer Jay and then at Orange and Blue, takes a deep breath and walks over**Squeaks*”Give me my ball back!” 
·         Orange and Blue: *Laugh at Little Timmy*
·         Little Timmy: *Gets Bigger* “Stop picking on me, I don’t have to listen to you, you are not the boss of me” *Gets Bigger* *ROARS* “GIVE ME MY BALL BACK!!” *takes ball back and grows to medium*
* Orange and Blue run away* (Seen in distance)
Zoom in – Little Timmy: *playing with ball* “Speak up”

·(Happy by Pharrell)

Set
The set will consist of a hill scenery card, yellow card to continue the path into the forefront of the picture. There will be a tree made of clay in the background. We will need a light. 

The Issue and  Storyline
Our aim of the story is to convey that victims should  speak up and gain the confidence to stand up to bullies. To represents the growth of confidence and self belief we will use 3 versions of the character all different sizes.



It will start off with Timmy playing with a ball a happy until the bullies appear from behind the trees. After approaching Timmy the bullies steal his ball and go off to play with it in the background.

The adult will approach Timmy after watching the exchange and seeing Timmy upset. The adult will remind Timmy that it's okay to speak out and give him the confidence. When confronting the bullies to get his ball back, to represent Timmy growth in confidence, his size will change.

Wednesday, 10 December 2014

Introduction to Zu3D






Zu3D is a stop motion animation software designed to make it possible for children of any age to be able to make their own animations. The aim was to make the software easy to understand and use in a quick and effective way. Today Zu3D is being used in educational settings for all ages, from primary schools to adult education.


Before making our animation for our project we were able to experiment with the software. Using the software a webcam and mic. At first it took a while to get used to the controls, and the process requires patience. 

There is multiple features in the software which allows you to enhance your animation such as add sound effects. The software was made for children, however at my age I still found some aspects of the software difficult to master.

You can find more information about Zu3D at www.zu3d.com



Wednesday, 19 November 2014

Sound in animation




"Sound effects play an important role in conveying action. Music helps express emotion."
          Michael Geisler



Sound was first introduced to films in 1920's by the Warner Brothers. Since then sound and music has become an important part in assisting telling a story in films and animation.


 The music and sound adds to set the mood and atmosphere, helping the audience to convey whats happen and help them connect with the characters emotions.In some animations sound is used  to help bring the characters to life. Today if cartoons lacked sound, I think it would be hard to keep the audiences interest as it could be perceived as boring.



In groups of two's or three's our task was to create a podcast using audacity. Personally it took a while to understand the controls and settings, and I found the program rather confusing. However, we were able to make a podcast based on a topic of our choice, entertainment news.

Working with Rhodri and Caroline we created a podcast called "Global News". Whilst making the podcast we experiences some issues, stopping and starting the recording at the right time caused a few problems and took a few tries to perfect.
Within the app there's multiple features which ables you to change the voice by changing the tone and pitch. However, this takes time to master and can become frustrating as you could end up sounding like a chipmunk.


You'll be able to find the podcast on Rhodri's blog by following the link below.



You can download Audacity by following this link  audacity.sourceforge.net/