Stop Motion Animation

How did this task enable you to be creative?

Building Narrative – Did you find this difficult?

When planning for my Stop Motion Animation I had to make sure that before I began to take my pictures that I’d got all the elements that I needed for it; including background images, props and characters. I also had to make sure that I’d figured out the sequences in which things would appear in the images I was going to be taking and what sort of shot I should use ( e.g. Medium Long Shot, Medium Close Up .etc) I found that the planning for my animation was difficult because it was hard to decide which way the girl should be walking, how big the trees in the background should be compared to the character I was using.

I decided that for my Stop Motion Animation I wanted to take the scene from Doctor Who where Amy as a little girl first sees the Doctor’s Tardis. I knew that I needed to put across that it was dark to my audience so I chose a black background and black and white images to create this effect. The only element of colour I decided to use in my animation was in the character’s flash light to show that her surroundings were dark. In the background I thought that to create the feel of her being in the garden I would stick some potted trees onto the background as the story is set in a garden. To add detail to the garden I made the choice to draw some grass; again in grey to sustain the idea that it was dark in the garden. Throughout the scene the little girl walks behind some bushes; to create the effect of her being covered by leaves I took a picture of a hedge and cut out some holes in it so you could see her through the leaves.In the third section of my animation where the Tardis appears I decided used a net of a Tardis and stuck it together and I also used sweet wrappers to create the effect of smoke.

How did you decide what to use?

Did you work with someone?

I didn’t have a partner when creating my stop motion animation though this made it difficult as I had to both take the pictures and move the objects. In some of the images I had to hold the props still so that the camera didn’t go out of focus whilst pressing the capture button. In theory it would be a lot easier to make a Stop Motion animation with two people as then I could be sure that I would be getting good results in each shot I would be taking

Were there any time limits in terms of resources, time and location?

There were no limits in terms of the time I was allowed to take on my Stop Motion Animation though the lighting was an issue as I was using natural light next to a window and it doesn’t last very long and also it constantly changes. I decided to use resources such as card, paper and plastic sweet wrappers which I wasn’t going to run out of though again the natural light I was using kept changing so that became a problem again. As you can see in the difference in colour in the pictures below.

The location I used wasn’t a problem as I was given as much time and space as I needed and wanted when taking my pictures. Also when using the computer there was no pressure to rush the task of uploading the images and making sure that they were arranged in the right order as no body else needed to use the space.