Finished Animation

 

I am fairly pleased with this. I think that I have been able to show a story through the animation. I think it generally fits in well with the music, as I tried to make each scene beginning and end in time with the rhymth of the music. I had no trouble picking the section of music to use. After listening to it I felt that the beginning was the only part dramatic enough to fit with my animation and I think that the quieter end works well as the image fades away. 

I think I was able to show my three words in the animation which were heat, tension and western. I think the vibrant colours of the sunset and the lighting (I used a lamp and also placed my animation next to a window) really give the animation a feel of heat. I think the characters and general storyline make it clear it is a western and I think the camera shots and the way they go with the music give a sense of tension.

I put quite a lot of effort into trying to keep the movements smooth but it wasn't quite as good as I had hoped. One problem I had was that my camera moved every time I pressed the shutter button to take a photo. I needed a way of keeping the camera still when I took each photo.

I feel it is slightly rushed at the end and doesn't quite flow as well as the beginning. It seems to end fairly abruptly. I think I could have improved it if I had a longer amount of time for the animation, or if I had cut out one of the scenes.

I think maybe a slight amount of movement would have worked better in some of the panned scenes but I wasn't too sure how to make it work using the effects in After Effects.

I would have liked to have more time to experiment and find some tips for making my stop motion a bit smoother and less jerky. Overall I really enjoyed this project!

Almost finished...

I'd almost finished my animation, when I realised it had gone slightly over the 30 second time limit, meaning there wasn't enough time for the final scene. I looked deleting or shortening some of the scenes but I felt it was already slightly rushed towards the end so I decided the best thing to do was to mix together the eyes scene.

This meant the film is shortened by about 3 seconds which gives me enough time for the final scene, the silhouette which slowly fades to black. I increased the contrast of this photo to really get across the impression of the sun setting.

Cactuses

 

The 3 scenes with the cactuses. I think these have much more expression than the main characters.

More scenes...

These are the close ups of the eyes. I made them very long and thin to keep all focus on the eyes.

This is the scene where the guns are drawn. I used a black diagonal line to create a split screen effect and to try to show they have both drawn the guns at the same time, but they are not near to each other.

Effects

These are still images which I have added a panning or zoom effect to using Adobe After Effects. I think the stillness works because they stand very still in Westerns.

Stop Motion

Over the Easter holidays, there have been a lot of stop motion animation films on the TV that have given me inspiration for my animation.

Also, some stop motion films I have on DVD that I watched:

Models

Here are all the models I created from plasticine.

 Making the cactuses

I tested out adding spikes to the cactuses using real twigs and metal wire but I decided they looked better without.

 Small cactuses for the long shot.
 

Large cactuses.

Eyes and eyebrows for the cactuses.

 Character 1 - based on Zorro

 Character 2 - based on a Mexican Bandit

These are the close up eyes. I created all the close up shots by sticking plasicine onto a board so they are all 2D rather than 3D.

 Guns

 Tumbleweed made out of hay.

These are the cut outs which I will use for the final scene which will be a silhouette.