Lighting Task

Lighting task

Animation lighting rig

For our animation project we may decide to create a small lighting rig in order to place lighting in the right places, when we need it for different angles or shots that may happen during the animation. An animation lighting rig is a small structure that holds lighting in place where you need it to be. Lighting rigs can also be on a bigger scale for things such as concerts etc. However for this project we possibly may need a small lighting rig. The main reason for this are purely because the natural light may not be sufficient enough to show different characters emotions or looks. Lighting does hold an awful amount of power regarding things like this.

What our group has decided to do?

For the production of our animation, we have ran test shots with our animation using the natural light and a small lamp that was raised on a rig like neck over the top of the set. The test shots below show a difference in the color of light, our group decided that with the raised lamp it made the whole set turn into an almost orange looking light which didn't suit  the kind of mood our group wished to set for a charity advert, instead we wanted something much more plain but not depressing for viewers to look at. So we then decided to look at how well the natural light presented itself aesthetically and what kind of mood it gave off when looking at it. Our group decided that the natural light, looked exactly like what we had pictured in the storyboard stage of generating  an idea for this project.

The test shot on the left shows the orange looking light if you look in the left corner which makes the bricks look a little unreal it looks too nice to present itself as a charity advert whereas the one on the right gives a realistic but not too sombre feel to it.

The next time that we film create this animation as our actual piece, we shall use the natural light to set off a realistic look to our set and generally the animation. We also thought that choosing this light would link in extremely well with the part of the animation that splits from Lego characters to real people, due to the natural light being poured onto the set of our animation, it is going to have the same look when we film outside for the human hands section of the animation. It is going to much easier to get the correct lighting outside if we just use natural light otherwise we would find ourselves trying to use different pieces of equipment to get the right light which will end up being very time consuming. The light that is pouring through the window onto our animation set is going to be exactly the same when filming outside for the human hands section. 

Feeback questionnaire for animation

Online screening

For our groups online screening of the re-done animation piece for Crisis, we had two people (Alex Brown and Perry Dabbs) from RavensWood School go onto our blog posts and watch our final piece. The following information is what was given back to us after the individual online screenings were finished.

Alex Brown

WWW

This was our first person that we chose to do an online screening of our animation with. He thoroughly enjoyed watching our second attempt of creating the piece, as our first try at this project had extremely poor camerawork, however he did understand the meaning of the charity and how the actual animation related to what the charity (Crisis) do. Our group wasn't pleased to hear this and immediately got back to filming a better animation that focused on the characters moving and not the camera moving. So when Alex decided that this camera work this time round was good, we were pleased to hear this.

Moving onto the next point that Alex made, he thought that the voice over in the previous piece was very good and so our group kept the same one in the second animation, however again he commented on how well it went with our camera work, and was the main backbone on helping the viewer understand what the charity does. Another point that Alex made about the sound of the piece was the backing track that we created for our animation, he noted that it was a very good tone to use as it was not happy but also was not sad, it was somewhere in-between that just makes the audience think about how they could help the homeless.

The final thing that Alex mentioned was the actual setting of the animation. He explained to us that he thought the setting seemed very real and was easy for a viewer to understand how it must be for a homeless person living on the street. Secondly he liked the transition where the Lego character put money in the cup of the homeless person and it transition from a Lego man to a real human hand placing money into a pot. He said that it made it clear of what action the Lego man was doing.

EBI

There was only one issue that Alex spotted with this animation, which was also evident in the last, and this was the material that was used to hold the Lego characters up (Blu-Tac) he decided that it was visible from the characters feet to help them stand as they couldn't without it. However it didn't effect his feelings towards the cause of the advert, which we were pleased to hear. A possible option that could be used if this were to be done again would be glue (Pritt-Stick) as it shall not be visible.

Perry Dabbs 

WWW

Perry Was our second person who was apart of our individual online screening, he also agreed that it was much better than the first time the animation was done and seemed much more professional in terms of its camera work which our group was thrilled to hear.

The first point Perry liked within our animation was the transition of different mediums from Lego stop-motion to real live actions. He thought that it also made it clear as to what the Lego character was doing and almost gave off the sense that you could change a homeless persons day just by giving money to them or giving money to the Crisis charity.

The second thing that Perry thoroughly enjoyed from this piece was "The professional sounding voice-over" He thought that this made it seem like a real charity advert and gave the intentions of the charity out well as well as politely asking the audience to fight against homelessness. This also links in with his third point where he explained the message of the charity was explained very clearly and thought that if it were a real advert on the television it would make him want to partake with abolishing homelessness once and for all. The last comment that Perry gave us on our animation was the movement of our characters, he thought that we made the movements of our characters look professional and was 'fun' to watch whilst giving out the important message.

EBI

Perry also gave us the same even better if as Alex did, as he noticed the small pieces of blu-tac attached to the characters feet, he also gave us the suggestion of if we were to create this again we could have used double sided cello tape as it is clear so the audience wouldn't be able to notice it, however he did also explain it wasn't a problem as the deep message in the advert was still taken in and the animation itself also looked professional.

Crisis Animation #1 (Needs re-filming)

ANIMATION SHALL BE RE-FILMED!

Copyright research

Copyright research 

What is copyright? 

Copyright is an exclusive right that is legally given to companies, groups or a single person, or whoever is the originator of a single thing. This is found very commonly in music, when an artist creates a track, they are given a document to sign that would bind a song to the original creator. So if someone would like to use the song in another project such as a film, the people involved with making the film would have to get in contact with the artist of the song who would make a decision on whether or not the creators of the film were able to use the track within their film. 

Why is it important? 

Copyright is extremely important for both the originator and the person willing to use the piece of music, art etc. There is one reason why it is very important for the originator of something, if someone were to want to use their piece of music, art etc without the originator claiming copyright on it, the person who is deciding to use it could possibly pass it off as their own piece. So this keeps people from stealing pieces of music, art etc from their original owners. It is also important to the person who is using the song from the actual artist and not a pirated or fake copy of the piece of music, film, art etc, another reason for it being important for the person receiving the music as if they are caught illegally downloading a piece of music they can in fact be charged a large sum of money as it is a criminal offence.


This is the universal sign for copyright that will be shown on any piece of music, art, software and many other things that has copyright claimed on it by it's originator. An example could be a music artist creating a song and placing a patent on it which means that if someone were to copyright this piece then they would be in trouble for it, a patent is almost like a form of insurance for the originator of the piece of music.

For our groups project, in order to avoid the copyright law we are not choosing to use anything related to the copyright law. We shall generate our own music on a program called garageband.

A real life case I found on the internet of someone being punished for their piracy, a man who worked for a small time company thought he could be kept under the radar of the FBI however when he was caught pirating software he had to pay a fine of what he had actually copied which came up to $270.000 and also had to pay a fee due to not complying with copyright laws which came up to $500.000. As you can see the punishment fees are massively expensive, however sometimes you aren't just fined a sum of money, depending on how serious the offence is, judges often hand harsh prison sentences to the offenders of the copyright law.