Stop Motion and Mystery Box
Updated Storyboards
I took a little bit of time before submission to clean up some of my storyboards digitally. The actual images are no different, they're just more presentable.
Weekly Summary
Week Fifteen [29.04 - 03.05.19]
Fantastical Creature: This week I haven't spend much time working in university, spending more time holed up in my room to experiment with fabrication. There were a few catch up session where we could get some one on one time with the lecturer, and solve any problems with our puppets. Over the holidays I had completely finished the foam on my model, and covered the torso and limbs with stretchy fabric found in charity shops. After some guidance with adding milliput feet and hands, and having the head joined for me, my puppet was nearing completion. Back at home I’ve painted all the gaps in acrylic, added fins and gills with wire interiors so that they are movable, and began making prototypes of the large fan which is likely the focal point of the entire design now the tail is gone. So far it has created a lot of problems, from how to join it to the neck, how to move it, and which material to use. My plan is to just keep iterating this design until I find something I like, and if I don't, I will leave out the wires and just have it drape over the shoulders. Nonetheless I am extremely happy with how my puppet is turning out despite its messy flaws, and I feel strangely maternal over it.
Lip Sync: Most of my time this week has been spent on the lip sync. It has developed to a point where the entire animation is finished in the rough stage. The next step would be to clean it up and then, given I have the time considering there is less than a week left before submission, add shading or colour. I thought I was content with how it looks, but watching it back over and over again I'm spotting even more mistakes. I understand that it isn't perfect as it is only rough, but it annoys me that I didn't apply the techniques I learnt when I did my research. This shows me the importance of preproduction work and actually planning out my project. I like the style of drawing I have done, and the character is simple but amiable with a point of interest in his hair that I’m not sure if anyone else has attempted. But there are a lot of hiccups in perspective and timing that are holding back my motivation to finish it. I can't afford to get disheartened in this final push towards the finish. So following my classmates my positivity I’ll just try to clean up what I already have, and maybe work on my 2D skills over the summer.
Lip Sync
Stage 01: Rough Animation - Test 06
I think I have now roughed out the entire animation. I’ve moved the mouths so that they fit within the face, but some have slightly incorrect perspective. There are also times when the hair goes flat which I think can only be fixed with shading but I don't know if I have the time. The whole thing definitely isn't as smooth as I want it, and after looking back at my research, I might want the timing to change so that big actions proceed speech rather than them matching, thus making it is clearer. I enjoy the hair turning into a swan; its a little bit of fun. I do think it is too sudden but I can easily change that as I go in to clean up the lines. One extra problem I had is that my sound layer had been moved slightly so the mouths and face didn't match up at all, and there are a few extra frames at the end that haven't been animated, so his faces holds for a bit too long. But again, this is an easy solve if I spend a more time going over the whole thing with a fine comb.
Lip Sync
Stage 01: Rough Animation - Test 05
Now it has progressed by adding in moving eyebrows and still shoulders. The main area of concern is when the head moves back and up when he says ‘umm long’. Originally the eyes got narrower, but that didn't look right. So I tried making them go wider however, I still think that doesn't work. Looking at reference the eyes don't seem to change shape much, but as he is thinking and his eyebrows raise, that will pull the eyes. It would end easier just to get rid of this section but I like the way the chin looks. So I may just go back to making the eyes narrow slightly and follow the face upwards.
Lip Sync
Stage 01: Rough Animation - Test 04
I started adding the face with clean lines on multiple layers, but I was finding as I moved on, it was becoming more and more inconsistent. So I decided to sratch that work and started again by roughly sketching the entire face at once. I could still use animbrushes for some areas. Now I have all the movement I want for the face outline. When I reprint the mouth shapes into the right positions, I will add movement to the chin and eyebrows, and then finish it off with blinks and animating the hair.
Lip Sync
Research
Thomas, F., & Johnston, O., (1981), ‘Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life’, New York: Abbeville Press.
p.455 - 471 (mostly paraphrased)
When dialogue was first added, it create all sort of problems, eg. what does the character do whilst talking? There had been single words, phrases, and exclamations before, but never speeches this long that demanded acting. Previously Walt Disney used music, effects, or occasionally pantomime to create a mood. Needed acting to support and fortify words. Very few characters even had lower jaws at the time. Animator tried nodding the head up and down, but there was no feeling that the voice was coming from the character. Looked for key words to be said with more emphasis, then added an accent, gesture, bounce, or dip.
Often characters sang the lines which helped establish immediate rapport and avoided amateur acting (draw in with positive attitude). If there was no reason to sing, they would use rhyme. If a viewer enjoys what the character is doing, they will not be too critical of the animation.
The big problem was to find a way to accent the dialogue or to match the accents already in the delivery. Timing was a real problem. Common accents (that aren’t really acting) were: head wobbling side to side, hands on hips, folded arms, (most popular) fingers pointed at air or others (varied with clenched fist). Usually the arm accenting the word rather than the head. Walt tried to avoid this approach by writing stories based on the character’s feelings, situational changes, thinking and feelings, and interacting with others.
Began to see that meaningless, unrelated movements of characters during dialogue destroyed that little personality they may have animated in earlier scenes. Too much movement makes it impossible to see the face’s expression. Pause between each expression and new attitude. Focus on the relationship between attitude, gesture, and expression. You need to develop a type of acting so natural and right for a character that no one can question the believability.
Avoid making drawings that are just drawings; work to capture the feeling of life.
It was soon found that having the image and sound perfectly matching in time, made the animation appear late. So they tired advancing it up to 3 frames earlier than the beat, and that corrected the illusion of the movement being exactly on the beat. At the end, (depending on the character) the mouth should also retain the feeling of the last word for a little while before relaxing into a nondescript position. But, there is no hard and fast rule on sync, whether it is on dialogue or musical beat. The animators became pragmatic; if it works they do it, if it doesn’t they experiment.
Ham Luske’s Principles:
1. Anticipate dialogue with head, body, or gestures 3 to 4 frames ahead of the heavy modulation, but mouth sync should be right on the modulation. If it is a closed mouth (a constant), keep it closed for 2 frames.
2. You need interesting mouth shapes that reflect the personality of the voice. Each character has a different voice so should have different mouth actions.
3. Try to show enough time on the important shapes so that the viewer will be aware they saw the picture of the word.
4. On holds at the end of a phrase or line of dialogue, try to retain a mouth expression that reflect the character of the last word, and use a softening action to keep it alive. Do not change the mouth shape just because you are finished with the word.
5. There are not too many straight in-betweens in dialogue. Favour one extreme over the other.
6. If you have a word that has been stretched out fairly long, treat it like a moving hold.
7. When using the eyes only for sync in an extreme closeup, start the eye into the move at least 3 frames ahead of the accent. ‘Lead’ means to have the big move far ahead of the heavy modulation of the word.
8. When using a blink to help get sync, the eyes should close ahead of the accent by 3 to 4 frames.
9. If you are going to start your dialogue on a drifting or slow move without an anticipation, it helps to start from 3 to 8 frames ahead of the accent.
10. There are times when all dialogue will have to be on ones.
11. The vowel sounds always will require some opening.
12. The consonant sounds are all closed mouths.
13. Be sure the teeth are not painted white or they will flash.
Generally: E sounds show teeth, T and G can pucker like a U, Y and W can go into a small O or U shape, and V and F are best with the under lip tucked under the upper teeth.
Other methods: 1. Rely more on head moves. 2. Character in rear view, shadow, or silhouette, the sync will come from body gestures. 3. Offstage dialogue. 4. Camera on character other than the speaker, animate listening to expose both’s feelings.
Carefully listen to the sound track to find the overall phrasing, timing, accents, fast moves, drifting moves, and pauses, Then look for the unique ways words are said our character. The expression chosen is illustrating the thoughts of the character and not the words that are saying. It is essential the voice actor gives a spontaneous performance.
When animating a lip sync, it is easy to forget the attitude or essential expression for the whole scene. A principle of relating the whole head to the facial expression is to compress it with a frown and open it up with a take. All our rules, list, and suggestions come form trying to unify our message. A sequence overloaded with dialogue can become disturbing to the viewer; sometimes the cartoon communicates better through expression than words. If the line of dialogue does not require a strong, definite physical expression, it might be a warning that it needs to be rethought. Many scenes will be entirely pantomime to develop the character and build emotion.
Rules for Expressions:
1. Show the expression change; avoid a fast move when changing expression (change it before or after) and don’t lose it in an active secondary action.
2. Avoid looking up for a frown unless it is sinister/ domineering.
3. Do not hide a smile with the head titled down too far or behind a big nose or moustache.
4. Be sure you have the right staging to show all the expression to their advantage.
5. Have you got the right expression for what your character is thinking? Are all parts of the head and face related to one idea?
6. It is the change of shape that shows the character is thinking. It is thinking that gives the illusion of life. It is the life that gives the meaning to the expression.
“It’s not the eyes, but the glance - not the lips, but the smile…” - Saint-Exupéry
“People don’t always express their inner thoughts to one another; a conversation may be quite trivial, but often their eyes will reveal what a person really thinks or feels.” - Alfred Hitchcock
Lip Sync
Research
Williams, R., (2009), ‘The Animator’s Survival Kit’, Expanded Edition, London, UK: Faber and Faber Limited.
p. 304 - 314 (mostly paraphrased)
No standardised mouth shapes for every consonant and vowel. Our mouths are all different and we use them differently. All mouths open for the vowels: A [ay], E [ee], I [eye], O [oh], U [yoo], and close for the constants: B [bee], M [em], P [pee], F [eff], T [tee], V [vee], and the tongue is up being the teeth for: N, D, L, Th, T (don’t always see). A lot of positions ambivalent and individual.
People don’t annunciate every letter. We smudge from one word shape to the other. The animators called it ‘Phrasing’. Some people hardly move their lips. Think of the words, word shapes, and phrases - not of letters. Most people have either the top teeth visible most of the time, or the bottom teeth.
Some voice actors spread out dialogue so that the animators has time to articulate/ over-animate all the pops, crackles, slow vowels, and constants. Mostly though, they had to hold down on mouth action. The important constants are the closed mouth ones. In order to read them we need at least two frames, if not the vowels will be ineffective. Animation is cleaner when you move to the vowels without any in-betweens before; hit the dialogue accent and cushion back after to gain vitality. A common mistake is not stretching and compressing the bottom of the face enough.
The key is getting the feeling of the word and not the individual letters. Don’t be too active; get the shape and make sure it is seen. Select what’s important and avoid flapping/ animating very little thing. Match the first vowel at the start of the sentence and the last accent, and gloss over the middle stuff as it tends to fill in its own gaps. Best not to open the mouth twice in one word. We can’t be literal in reading sound tracks.
Remember the upper teeth are anchored to the skull so do not animate, and the lower jaw’s action is mostly up and down - with the lips and tongue forming the sound. It works on a hinger. A rule: never in-between the tongue in speech. It works so fast it’s just up or just down. The tongue is hooked on the back of the lower jaw, not floating or stuck in throat. Jaws and teeth aren’t rubber so be consistent.
Another rule: Need at least 2 frames to read important consonants: M, B, P, F, V, T, or else won’t be seen. Steal time from proceeding sound; always give extra frame in front, never after (need to hit end vowel/ accent).
Problem: Do we animate level sync or the picture one frame ahead of the sound modulation, or two frames before etc. Answer: Work level (right on sound), or if on twos, work one frame ahead. It’s a crude rule of thumb that it looks better with the picture leading the sound by 2 frames. But this is wrong when editors expect animators to work that way to lessen their work load, and it depends on the character and type of voice and how well the job has been done. The conclusion is: There is one real sync and that is level. Right in the modulation is 100% perfect, logically.
The old masters put harp physical actions and head moves 3 or 4 frames ahead of the modulation, then our the mouth action on the nose (manner of speech). Much better than hitting it all at once. Most of the time the head accent is up (1. Anticipate down, 2. Head accents up, 3. Lips on the vowel). It can work in reverse but, it is stronger moving up. There is always an accent, unless it’s an utterly boring person. Only hit certain accents when speaking (eg. exaggerated vowels), and slur over the rest. Accent can be soft or hard.
Make the point of the shot clear with body action first. The body attitude should echo the facial attitude. The expression of the body and face is more important that the movement. If you get the body and the head right, you can almost go on without the mouths, whose action can go on last. In planning, makes sure not too much is going on, eg. how many poses per thought. Keep it simple! We can only put over one thing at at time. The whole pose should work towards that one thing.
The secret: Progressing the action; go somewhere when talking.
Lip Sync
Mouth Chart
These are the different mouth shapes I drew and made into animbrushes to animate each sound. I followed the lecture’s version in my own style. I then added four more shapes in reference to ones I saw online, as I felt I could use those rather than draw in betweens. There are some overlaps in letters, but the shape changes slightly depending on which sound comes next. I also used a reference video of myself coping the dialogue from my lip sync [I may post this later]. I noticed how little the mouth actually opens and changes when making sounds. So that moved me to use more of the similar shapes seen above.
Lip Sync
Stage 01: Rough Animation - Test 03
I’ve begun to get an idea for what I want my character to look like, so far as just an average guy with a clear chin to animate and eventually a crazy mohawk come mullet that morphs into a swan. The first few images have slightly odd perspective so look to have a different style to the rest. This can be fixed with some minor fine tuning. I have the chin moving around now, and I quite like how subtle the movement is. I could exaggerate it more to add some of the twelve principles, but I don't want it to detract from the secondary action of the hair to come. The neck hasn't yet been moved to fit with the chin. I also added some blinks which I might drag out a bit, and I have a feeling there are too many for this piece of film.
Lip Sync
Lesson 50 [02.05.19]
Returning to this project, I have animated the mouth to the point I am happy with it. There are still some problems with the ‘O’ sounds, but they aren't as noticeable as before, and I may be able to mask them further with some secondary action. I haven't had to draw any in-betweens, and will only have to reanimate the mouth if I want to move the head around. I have spent so much time correcting it though, that I don't want to waste more time changing it just to show off some more action. So I may have the head move around in the gaps in speech as a shortcut, and focus on my plans for the hair. My main problem this lesson was resizing the mouths to leave space on the stage for an entire head, shoulders, and crazy hairstyle. The lecturer fortunately had two solutions. When I first tried it, it replaced all my timings with single frames, which looked a mess and would cause problems if I wanted to make changes. So the first technique had something to do with setting keyboard shortcuts for the next and previous instances. Resizing one, moving to another, and pressing enter seemed to copy the transformation. An easier method that looks more complicated, is to use the FX panel, where you can use a motion keyframes across all instances to change the size all at one (I used this quicker method). The rest of my time was spent slowly building up parts of the face on multiple layers. I practised adding some more movement in the beginning, with the character’s face moving to look at the viewer as if we are the second person in this dialogue. This originally was just to test whether or not I could move around the face successful but, I ended up liking the rough result. I might change up the timing to make it smoother. I think this was a good start to get some ideas going to fill the rest of the gaps.
Fantastical Creature
Puppet Design Breakdown
These images show the changes I have made to take my design from a still maquette to a manipulatable puppet. I’ve broken it down to show the basic idea, the dimensions (these designs were originally drawn on A4 paper that I used to measure the wires and foam), the wire skeleton, the foam padding, and the intended materials for its skin/ costume. As I’ve been making my puppet I have tried to refer back to the designs to stay on course. There have already been some devotions due to unforeseen circumstance, however it is nothing major. I kept the drawings in an A (or X?) pose so I could use them as informative diagrams, rather than making a nicely posed and coloured drawing like I did with my final maquette design.
Fantastical Creature
Lesson 49 [01.05.19]
Now that the milliput has dried, I can continue with the fabrication of my puppet. I’ve gotten to the stage where I don't really need the help of the lecturer but he still is always giving us little bits of wisdom so working in the studio was a helpful change from working at home. I went and bought some thinner aluminium wire and have made gills out of felt. I used the wire so that I might be able to animate the gills to open and close if I film it. I will use the same technique for the fins, which will be made of a translucent fabric from scarves. Adding the gills covered some of the mess of glue spills, but it has changed the shape of the torso a bit and I’m not sure whether I like it. But, the frilly pattern does make the overall design more appealing. I also changed my mind about the detailing on the feet and hands, so I mixed even more milliput and added some padding. Therefore I will have to wait again to paint them. As usual, I think making my puppet is going quite smoothly; no disasters yet (fingers crossed). My biggest concern is how I will make the large fin the circle the neck. I want to fill it with wires too, but the curves may make it hard to stretch the material around them. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.
Fantastical Creature
Lesson 47 [29.04.19]
During the holiday break I continued working on my puppet and now the foam interior has been completely bulked out, and the first pieces of fabric have been applied. In my designs I mentioned I wanted to use a stretchy and shiny material, like lycra or spandex, but I was unable to find any suitable pieces or colours. So instead I focused on gathering materials from charity shops in the colours I wanted, and that would allow for movement in the puppet. Now the torso and limbs of my puppet have been covered in cuttings from jumpers and t-shirts. Whilst the soft fabric doesn’t match with the inspiration of amphibians, I does have that handmade charm of a stop motion puppet. It’s a little rough around the edges, but I reckon it’s not too shabby for a first try. The white got darker and darker as I worked on it from the dirt of my glue covered hand, and the stitching isn’t neat yet it was the best I could do under the circumstances of the type of material knit. Messy seams and stitching can be covered by the joining of fins. In this weeks lesson, the lecturer joined the super scupley head on by drilling it and filling the foil inside with araldite. I then made the hands and feet out of milliput so that when they dry, I can paint them to match the head. I left small gaps so that the fingers, toes, ankles, and wrists, are animatable if I wish to do so in the future. I can't do any more work until they have set so I will wait till next lesson and focus on other projects for the time being. It seems a big part of fabrication is the waiting game, so it is good to have more than one project at the time. I am enjoying this project immensely and I think I can solve a lot of the mess of the current state of my model, with some clever tricks and details.
Media Industries Research
Summary of Research Findings [500 Word Statement]
For this ‘Media Industries: Roles and Practices’ research project, I investigated the higher end, bigger budgeted side of stop motion animation in feature films. From a range of online sources and a the book ‘Stop Motion Animation, Frame by Frame Film-making with Puppets and Models’, I focused my research on the set up of departments, and the materials favoured by the big names in the industry, namely Laika and Aardman. I found that the fabrication teams can consist of around 60 people at one time, and it works in a hierarchal structure from trainees and interns, to juniors, seniors, team leaders, and the head of model making. These roles become more generalist as they gain more experience.
Model making consists of a few teams such as: Sculpting, Moulding, Armatures, Casting, Painting, Hair, and Costume. The initial sculptors work with the director and concept artists/ designers to create production sculpts out of clay before they turn it into a working puppet. This initial model can take around 6 months alone to produce. As for moulding, I discovered there are many more possible types than I first thought: fibreglass, aluminium, polyurethane, silicon, cold moulds, carousel moulds etc. Armatures is an innovative department that makes (usually metal ball and socket) armatures from the joint up, and have found shortcuts in found materials such as guitar tuners. Casting then takes the moulds made earlier, and fills them with a range of materials, such as silicon or foam latex, to make the body, skins, and replacement limbs. These models with them be painted, whether it by by hand with paints, or with an airbrush, or layers of coloured powder. Then they move on to the hair and costume team who again use many different materials to produce the wonderful puppets we see in popular films. These materials include: plant or synthetic fibres, animal hair, tyvek, foam (often disguised as other textures). This entire process can take about 4 months to create one puppet, and film protagonists often have up to 16 versions.
I then looked further into the methods for animating faces, as it is often the depth of expressions that boost the costs of stop motion production. I began with the simpler techniques, such as the entire heads being individually sculpted for ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’, and the intricate mechanics of levers and pulleys inside the heads in ‘Corpse Bride’, directed by Tim Burton. Aardman still uses multiples of mouths made of their own recipe plasticine, which can be re-sculpted to film in-betweens. Recently, the industry had moved into rapid prototype printing. For Laika’s ‘Coraline’, they first used 3D printing. (I may be wrong but,) I believe they used binder jetting, which layers glue into powder to make a hard 3D model, first sculpted in Maya, then painted by hand, creating around 20,000 faces. They took this further in ‘Paranorman’ by printing in coloured powders, that then needed only to be touched up by painters. In ‘Kubo and The Two Strings’ they found this method couldn’t keep up the demands of the detail they wanted, so they swapped to poly jetting that makes entire faces out of coloured plastic, allowing for around 64,000 faces. Even more was possible in ‘Missing Link’ by printing resin for over 106,000 faces. All of these faces create combinations of expressions in the million, across a cast.
But in conclusion, I found that the industry uses mostly the same materials and processes that low budget animators do too. So it is entirely possible for students like us to produce industry standard puppets. In addition, it is by using found objects that stop motion can often be given its unique charm. In reality, the costs of feature films usually build up because of the large teams who need salaries paid for the years they spend making the film. Then the fact that they use expensive methods like 3D printing on a larger scale.
Word Count: 656 [A little over the desired but, oh well.]
Media Industries Research
Lesson 48 [30.04.19]
Today was the day that we had to present in our groups, on our research findings this project, to the rest of the year and our course leaders. I think overall it went pretty smoothly, as the lecturers tried to create a low pressure environment, encouraging us to take our time when speaking. I did have a sheet of notes to help me if I got stuck, and I spoke a bit faster than I intended, tripping over words and moving myself on before I had properly finished. It was disheartening when the groups before you present almost all the same research. I didn't want it to seem like I hadn’t done as thorough research as them. But I managed to move the focus onto materials rather than roles to bring some new facts to the table, and I was commenced for the detail of information I had on that subject, and the passion I was able to bring forth. By the end of my part I got feedback that whilst it is all well and good to know the industry standard techniques, it’s important to remember that you can make a great puppet or film out of anything, and at the level we are now. I tried to round out the presentation by comparing my findings with my teammates to say that these materials are the same as low budget productions, it is just more the scale and detail of expressions that increases costs. In the end, I think I tried my best and that's all we can really ask for. As always, I could have done more research to find out costs as another person had managed it, and I could have taken more initiative to put more of the presentation together myself. However, our teamwork improved as time went on and we managed to create a well rounded presentation on Stop Motion Puppet Fabrication.