Concept Pitch Proposal

Our  group (Robert Welland and Oscar Artini) decided to create our presentation on Microsoft PowerPoint. (Note the language shown on the presentation is not all that was told, Que cards were integrated highly within this pitch)

Pitch feedback and justification of chosen idea: Animation

Pitch feedback and Justification of chosen idea

The following images show the feedback sheets given back to our group members (Oscar Artini and Robert Welland) by the audience analyzing this pitch. We have looked through them and analyzed how we could possibly make our presenting skills soar.



















Justification of chosen idea


As aforementioned within our presentation we just conducted, our group had decided to follow though with idea #3 (shown below) this was due to it having the largest potential on helping us achieve our main goals for this project. Which was creating an animation for Crisis that stresses their main target as an organisation, as well as making it appealing to teenagers.

From the storyboard below it shows our idea, the main levels of material will be Lego for this idea. This will be extremely helpful to our group as they are already freestanding characters and so it will be much easier to create stop motion with them, this will be much less time-consuming than our other chosen material Clay. There may be a negative side with using Lego in terms of generating a serious matter that is important. However our group made absolutely sure that we could create a very realistic 'street environment' set which helped gain back the importance element of the charity. For example the brick wall with the Crisis logo spray painted onto it or the general public walking by and taking no notice of the homeless character. These small elements help maintain the charity's importance to many people across the United Kingdom. Our group feel that these points justify why we have chosen this idea and also think this idea shall look professional.

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. 

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.

Shooting script for animation

Soundtrack mindmap

Budget List for Crisis animation

Budget list 

Title: Crisis advert

Client: Miss Moore 

Writer: Oscar Artini and Robert Welland

Producer: Oscar Artini and Robert Welland

Director: Oscar Artini and Robert Welland

Date: 15th Febuary 2013

This ident project will be free to make however if this were to be professionally done, we would in fact have to pay editors to analyse each section of the ident to see if there is anything wrong that they can improve. 

Material List

Clay

Clay will can easily be found within the Media department at RavensWood school. This will also cost nothing to use. However there may be a problem in reserving some at a specific time as other groups that are doing a similar project may obtain it.

Fabric

This material will also be able to find in the RavensWood school media department. This will also cost nothing to use. However there may be a problem in reserving some as other groups in the school doing the same project may use some too.

Lego

This material will also be found in the media department of RavensWood school. This will cost nothing to use, however again it may be hard to reserve some for a specific day  

Equipment

The equipment needed in order to film this stop motion piece is a webcam, mac computer and the Istopmotion program on the computer. The webcam shall be used to take shots of the objects we use to generate the idea of motion. The mac computer and the program are combined within the media department of RavensWoodschool. However we shall have to choose appropriate times to use a computer in one of the rooms, we shall have to generate the piece next to one of these computers.

Actors  

Oscar Artini or Robert Welland (only for hand scene) acting will cost free of charge as the project is being produced by ourselves and scene is extremely basic to produce. However if this were to be professionally done and more acting needed we would possibly hire someone who could make the scenes needed much more professional.

Props/Scenery

Within a room in the media department there are small sets that are designed for these stop motion pieces, they are made out of wood and have a good amount of space to film for our stop motion piece in particular. However it is up to our group to make the aesthetics needed for the set as most of these sets are plain colours such as black. The lego from the material list will also be needed to create scenery, hopefully we will be able to find something like a tree or a bench. However if we cannot we shall have to find another alternative such as clay. The clay shall also be used to possibly make puddles on the ground to emphasise the harsh cold and wet living conditions. The last piece from the material list that shall be used as a prop shall be the fabric. Our group discussed about possibly making some sort of blanket out of the fabric, maybe tearing holes through it to make it look rough and worn. All of these little elements should help emphasise the harsh conditions for homeless people, all of the above shall also cost nothing to use.

Post-Production (editing)

The editing for this piece will not cost any money to make. However if this were a professional piece, i would most definitely have to think about certain aspects of editing such as grading. If the lighting were too harsh on one shot, we would have to find an editor who is professional at grading in order to take some of the color out of shots to not make it look harsh. 

Prop Design

Set Design

Character design

Target audience research analysis



Analysis of the data

 

This questionnaire that was created was sent to teenagers, it may be short, however we feel that our group has generated a very good idea in terms of making this ident apppealing to teenagers whilst stressing a serious matter. These questions will help us develop on who we should be aiming this towards and what the audience may like to see within the piece.

 

From the first set of questions we gained a very simple response, all of which were asked to do this questionnaire we're students. Which will later help us gain more knowledge of how to make this appealing to the teenage audience. Moving onto the next set of questions the gender of all who answered this questionnaire were male, this is definitely helpful in terms of gaining knowledge on what the male teenage audience would like to see, however some late research may need to be done in order to find out what the female teenage audience would like to see within this stop motion piece for Crisis that would be appealing to teenagers.

 

Moving through to the net few questions we then see the soundtrack side of the stop motion. The was a 100% response onto the slow/tragic option. Which our group feel that would suit this ident extremely well, as we would like to stick to traditional methods of charity adverts. We don't want to break this traditional element to it by using happy music on such a serious matter. We are glad that the teenage audience feel this way too. Finally the last question was what the ident shall contain in terms of materials/objects. Of all the options that we gave for the teenagers to choose from, all of the options were chosen nearly even to each other. One of our original ideas that our group generated was to actually use all of these materials to make our piece with, we felt that this would be good to appeal to the target audience (teenagers) We are going to develop our original idea with these materials and this ident shall most likely come out appealing to the target audience whilst stressing the main idea of how homelss charity's like Crisis need help and support.

 



 

 



Development of ideas

First Idea -

Using a white board to visually write down and illustrate a tragic story of a homeless person. We will be able to get a true story from crisis, the charity we are doing the animation for.

Developed -

We are going to still use the same idea of using a white board to illustrate a story about the homeless, also as its a white board it makes it easy to write words on it, I will do this because it will make it a lot easier for the audience to understand.





Developing on my clay and paper idea -

To develop on this idea I'm going to try and make it appeal more to teenagers, and the only way of doing this I feel is to show them that its not 'fun' to live on the street and just be honest with them and show them to truths about what homeless people go through on a day-to-day basis. It is an advantage that we are filming with clay to animate because in my opinion it gives a complete different look being more friendly etc... to the advertisement, if we filmed this with real life footage it would give a disturbing out look to the audience.

Developing on my Lego idea -

This idea uses just Lego as I feel Lego is a good material to use as it doesn't create to much of a mess. This idea starts with a couple of shots of a homeless person, laying in the middle of pavement sleeping rough with empty bottles and lose clothes scattered around him. The next shot is where a pedestrian is walking down the street and just steps over him to get off to work, not caring that someone is sleeping in the middle of the pavement. After this the next shot is of a person in a red Crisis shirt walking up to the homeless person on the street and puts a blanket over his shoulders and comforts him and starts walking him down the Crisis help centre.

Developing on my Clay, Lego, Hands and Objects idea -

This idea includes a range of materials instead of using just one material as I like different materials for different purposes. The first shot will be of a homeless person on the street laying up against a wall with the Crisis logo graffiti-ed on it  without him even knowing that Crisis is a charity designed to for helping people in his situation. Whilst hes laying up against the wall he is looking sorry for himself and unhappy, but a passer by comes up to him and throws change in his pot and says, 'turn around they will help you', and it goes to a shot of where hes getting cared for and is happy. This last shot will show that Crisis is a charity for helping care for homeless people, and trying to get them off the streets and getting there life back on track.

Ideas Mindmap

Storyboards

Stop Motion Animation Formats

Stop Motion Animation Formats

Claymation

Clay animation is probably one of the most frequent uses of animation, it has been seen within many television programs, advertisements and films such as Wallace and Gromit. The way that Claymation works is by making clay sculptures and gradually taking photos of them to create the motion An example of this within an advertisement would be an advert for Obamas campaign for president. The advert contains all of his plans for the US for example a clay model of a hospital rises up then lowers down after it says "Quality, affordable healthcare for everyone" The possible target audience for this advertisement was probably the American voters during the campaign time. This advert was made using the typical stop motion method by taking a photo each time the clay model is changed very gradually to create motion. The possible reason for this being Claymation all the way through the advert is because it makes this campaign that Obama is running seem quite fun and exciting, it has not used real footage filmed of him explaining his terms. The next example shall give a personal opinion on our account with using clay in a practice animation. 

Another example of a claymation television show is Pingu, this was a claymation television show that was aimed at young children. This show was created by using stop motion claymation. This is similar to the Obama campaign advert, whereby clay models are made and to generate motion they are changed slightly in each shot that is taken. For example in the picture below, one of the characters could pick something up on the table and eat it, this would be done by gradually changing the movements of the characters arms and taking a shot of each stage. I feel the reason for this entire program being shot with Stop motion Claymation is because it makes the show much more enjoyable for children, also the other option for a show like this would be drawn animation. However stop motion claymation is really an advancement of drawn animation. We have also tested this format of animation ourselves and found that it was rather easy to generate the idea of motion especially with the idea we had to test, we found with using round clay you can create an easy motion of movement. As the image above shows, however similarly to the format below which i shall later explain, it is also very time consuming and has to be professional and carefully done because of clay being a very delicate material it is very easy to dent with your fingers. In our groups opinion we feel that we shall not be using this format of animation for our final piece, the reason for this is because we do not feel that it is safe enough to be doing it in stages (which our group shall do) As the clay can be altered very easily by someone.

















Paper Animation

An example of paper cut-out animation would be the television program South Park, this show is aimed towards young adults. This technique is used in order to generate flat characters, backgrounds and props. However in the present day South Park is created using computer animation. Stop motion animation was initially used for this programs as it was because it was cheap and easy to make. Also most of the comedy from this show actually comes from the voice overs of the characters. The characters don't have to do anything technical in terms of their bodies moving. We have tested out this format of animation and have found that it was rather difficult to generate motion without showing rubber markings on the paper that was drawn. Our group do not feel that this will be the chosen animation format to use for a our final piece for the Crisis charity.












Lego animation 

Another good example of stop motion animation would be Lego adverts. Lego is another great material or prop used in order to generate stop motion animation. These adverts are generally aimed towards young children who like to play with Lego. The way that these adverts are made is using a technique similar to the claymation, whereby making a model or a sculpture, and then changing it ever so slightly to create motion. These lego adverts are generally created in order to sell their products, however the way that they promote their products within adverts is well done seeing as they only use their own lego and stop motion animation, I feel that this is used purely because it makes the children want the product even more as it show what it can do. So sometimes animation isn't always just made for entertainment purposes, it can be used in order to promote a company's product. Our groups own personal experience with this format of animation we feel that this is our favorite format to use of animation, the reason for this is because it is very basic to do, to create motion it is very easy as the character can stand themselves up. There are also lots of props to use that are also lego and depending on what our idea is for the final project in animation these could prove themselves very helpful. The image above shows our experience of lego animation we enjoyed how was it was to generate movement of the character and car and especially how easy it was to generate good continuity shots throughout the practice animation and not any bad continuity.













Whiteboard animation

Next, another example of another stop motion animation format would be a whiteboard animation, an example of it being shown within advertising would be a Blackberry advert where the piece is predominantly done all on a whiteboard. In my opinion I feel that this one of the more creative ways of generating an animation, however I also feel it is very hard to do especially if the animation is going to be over a span of days, you would have to make sure that the work done on the day must be documented at each step or photo, and the last drawing done on the whiteboard must be kept safe in order to pickup where you have left off otherwise you may face things such as continuity errors in the animation piece. The way this animation format works is by drawing with a whiteboard marker an image or images and gradually changing them each time a shot has been taken of it to generate the idea of movement. The example below shows the hands pull in the keyboard slowly and start to type, the creator would have drawn small pieces of the keyboard into the shot slowly and taken a shot of each time it had changed.













Sand/Tea animation 

Lastly Sand and Tea animation is in my eyes the most creative and innovative way to create an animation, there is an example below of a woman showing her skill of sand and tea animation and it proves to show how creative you can be with this format of animation. However in our groups eyes, when testing this animation format, it was likely to be our most disliked format. Our reasons for this is because it is even more delicate that doing a clay piece. Sand/tea must be extremely carefully moved when generating an animation especially for our project. The slightest bit of air could displace sections of the sand or tea, which would be extremely stressful and time consuming no matter how far into it you are. Our experience with this format was very poor and we strongly disliked it due to its delicateness and its very time consuming, which means it would most likely need to be created over a 2 day period and unfortunately there wouldn't be a way for us  to save our progress with this format. This image below shows an extremely professionally done sand animation, the image shows just how creative you can be with sand animation.