Animation

Topography

Create an animation involving topography. This can be anything you wish but has to involve topographic elements. It does not have to be narrative.  

Research:

What is topography?

Topography is a:

• Representation
• Recording
• Changing information
• Interpretative form 
• Description methodology
• language of line/pattern 
• Translating 'form' into interdisciplinary work
• Theme of journey
• Process of things happening
• Mapping relations of two points
•  Connected relationships - astronomy/asteroids etc
• layers/stratification
• Definition -  text visual
• Structures/routes/codes/modes of connection
• Terrain of a map
• Defining an area of it's inner core
• Map to show it's texture 
• Something simple yet detailed (flatly)
• Texture shows in 2D (in a typical map)
• Process of things happening - series

Topography is a map of sorts, it shows us the terrain of areas rather then just a map. It also shows the features and textures of a place, the road surface can be smooth as though freshly laid tarmac or a rough and cracked floor from a dry dessert. When researching the word 'topography' it said that it originated from the idea of topography being the study of the local town history. It, to me seems to show wear and tear and the making of the town.

Inspiration:


Tim Burton has been a big inspiration to me. His films mostly all are odd and have a dark, gothic look to them and he's not afraid to show 'weird and difference' through his films. He created 'Nightmare Before Christmas' which first started as just a poem before becoming a small obsession that he felt could be 'bettered'. With help from director Henry Selick they produced the full length stop motion feature 'The Nightmare Before Christmas'.

Stop Motion:

Stop motion animation is animation that has been composed of lots of photographs. Each time a photograph is taken you then move the model (made of whatever you want or could be of whatever you wanted) by a little bit. When you put the film together the figure moves and begin to become alive. There are 25 frames per second usually so a hundreds, thousands and even millions of photographs are involved within stop motion animation. When using a Mac the software 'Dragon' is usually used to make the process easier and more professional.


Here's a quick example of the different frames and movements of a stop motion method.

These photographs are then showed at a higher speed so you see the jaffa cake have a more of a flowing movement if that is what you wish. 

When thinking about stop motion I wanted to research on how widely it can be used. Not only is it used in the film industry such as in Wallace and Gromit:

But also in music videos too. When I was little I was obsessed with a song that Peter Gabriel sang called 'Sledgehammer'. It wasn't until I was older that I realised that the whole video had been made by stop motion!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqyc37aOqT0 - Peter Gabriel video - Sledgehammer.


Another example of stop motion music video is Coldplays 'Strawberry Swing'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lb9X5jMofEo&ob=av2n - Coldplay 'Strawberry Swing' video.
The Coldplay video was made by the company 'Shynola' which is a London based company made up of four artists who have made a number of different music videos. I really like the Coldplay video, every time i watch it i feel inspired and feel as though i want to push myself to produce amazing projects like this one.


Rotoscoping:


Rotoscoping is a technique that animators use to bring their animation to life. They film, then draw on top of each frame. This process can be used with selected pieces of the film or the whole film. 

I found a car advert containing rotoscoping when researching: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSM1BlnSVHw

In 2006 a film called 'A Scanner Darkly' was produced, all using the rotoscope technique:

 A Scanner Darkly trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXpGaOqb2Z8

'Animate Projects' http://www.animateprojects.org/about  is a company who make short experimental animated films, they give amateur artists the chance to show their work and help others see interesting films.


Here's an example of a topography film made by Tony Donoghue in 1998, it shows projections of bleeding ink and illustration on people's bodies. My interpretation of this film is that  maybe this is a journey of our bodies and that our bodies may be different but this is because of our life's journey. The terrain and elements can be harsh on our bodies.   
http://www.animateprojects.org/films/by_date/1995_98/body_proj
Again topogography doesn't just have to be the world but the human body too!


Ideas:


I was first thinking about doing a 'journey of my life' showing that life isn't easy and many obstacles can get in your way. I wanted to try filming this and acting it out myself then rotoscoping it all but fear that 5 weeks isn't going to be long enough for me to plan, produce and finish this idea with it being of a decent quality. 


I decided I want to capture the idea of a journey but also textures and keep people's interest. I was inspired by one of my friends blogs. He's a photographer and like's to produce stop motion videos of journeys he's taken: http://vimeo.com/2357593

My second idea is to do a stop motion film of my journey from Maidstone to Bedgebury Forest. I love Louisa Lake and find it a peaceful and inspirational place and want to show people my journey and want to en corporate the terrain and textures into the film.
                                           Maidstone:

                                           Louisa Lake (Bedgebury Forest)

.  

After planning out how i was going to achieve this it snowed and thought i'd take full advantage of this:

I wanted to still do time lapse but show that you don't have to go far to have a journey. 

This simple see-saw that goes around as well as up and down takes you on a journey. It may only have a small circumference but its scenery changes even if the person stays the same.


With the time lapse i wanted to put me as being rota scoped.  




Whilst doing this I decided i wanted to add a journey. I decided to add the journey of from where I live to the park. 

Using this as time lapse I wanted to show that my journey to the park took me past a lot of different things and that just because it was a short journey doesn't mean it's a boring one.

To show a playful side I rota scoped items that I either touched or focused on. The closer I got to the park the more of a cartoon I became - the cartoon representing the child coming out. I also thought that by me rota scoping certain elements it would make the textures and terrain of the natural or man made enhance. 

An example of me turning something into cartoon when i touch it to show the child in me coming out. I did this by taking the original photo and putting it in adobe illustrator to characterise it. This, although easy still took time.

An example of a few of the images of me rota scoped at the park. It took a while to do but I only did each frame very quickly. The close up of my face for example took me about fifteen minutes.


The process:
After you have thought of an idea you need to create an animate. An animate is a rough story board which tells your idea/story. This can be rough sketches but as long as your idea can be shown this is fine:

After creating your animate you need to create your idea and use your animate to remind yourself of what is coming next. You need to basically fill in the blanks of your animate.


My next step was to take the photographs. One needs to be organised when it comes to saving this footage as it's very easy to become un organised and mix up vital pieces of work which could potentially ruin your work.


As i wanted to rotascope my stop motion i had to sort my out which parts i wanted to rota scope. I took them into adobe illustrator and produced my rotascopes using a graphic tablet to make this precise and as good and as easy as i could. 


After finally finishing this process which took me a couple of weeks i had finished and needed to make all my photos turn into a quick stop motion video. I achieved this by using 'After Effects'. I'd never used any of this software before and got really confused and quite stressed. With a lot of referencing to 'youtube' and help from the technician Nina i finally created a stop motion that ran to time. 


I had to use a lot of other programmes to produce this animation such as 'Quicktime 7' and 'imovie' as well as After Effects. It wasn't until the last day of creating this animation that i became to understand After Effects.

This is my footage in After Effects, I learnt how to show my video at one, consistent speed and then take my rota scoped footage and make it slower so people could see my rotascoped work in a slower speed.

Different pieces of my footage at different speeds..................... it blew my mind!

The red vertical line shows where the video is playing so you can keep track of which bar is playing as with possibly thousands of bars it gets visually confusing!

My finished animation! It took a while and it was very testing but i'm proud of what i done with no knowledge or previous experience of animation.

I felt very pressured as I only had 5 weeks, with no previous experience of animation before to come up with an idea, learn the software and produce my animation which was a huge struggle and very stressful but I accomplished it which was amazing. The standard of my animation is by far of no high standards but considering I had never used programmes such as After Effects and Final Cut before and no tutorials on these software programmes I feel a sense of achievement. 


I'm not very happy with my final animation as it doesn't show topography in a literal sense, it shows it in a child like sense. If I had more time I think I would have come up with something much stronger and probably something that had more effects and experimentation in.