Animation Blue Screen Sand Troll

Before moving on to the beach animation I used this opportunity to do some blue screens and animate the scene where the Sand Troll is coming out of the sand and part of the sand. I will animate the scene and then in after effects edit out the blue screen. Shot 17 will be tricky because I will have to get the timing right, so Sophie is looking and reacting at the right time.

This shot is where the Sand Troll first emerges out of the sand and Sophie sees him for the first time, terrified.

This is at the end where the Sand Troll's head and arm are just on view, waving goodbye.

Animation Cave Shots

I decided to animate all the big stuff before animating the beach scene. So I've animated the cave scene even though it's one of the last shots. I had fun filling the cave with bits and bobs that the Sand Troll has collected from the beach. I use things like rope, toy tire, small shells and orange netting for a fishing net. I also made a welly boot, a water buoy and an ore.

This is also when the Sand Troll gives Sophie a compass. So I did a bit of research and made a tiny compass painted bronze with copper wire. In post production I'm going to add a needle to the close up shot of the compass.

Research Mackinnon and Saunders

Another company I would love to work for is Mackinnon and Saunders. This is a company that specialises in making puppet for different companies, ranging from television shows to, feature films and commercials. This is their website http://www.mackinnonandsaunders.com/what-we-do/. They've done things like 'Corpse Bride', 'Bob the Builder', and 'Fantastic Mr Fox'. I will hopefully be able to look around the place when I finish University.

They are also based in Manchester, which is somewhere I would be happy to live.

Research on the company Chapman

Another company I'm going to apply for is Chapman. They do stuff like 'Roary the Racing Car' and 'Fifi and the Flowertots'. They are based in London, but they maybe will be coming up to Manchester soon. Here is the website http://www.chapmanentertainment.co.uk/#/home/, with contact details.

Animation Lighthouse Shots

Also over the Easter I animated the lighthouse scene. I had a lot of trouble fitting in the light through the tube, but it looked really nice in the end. When animating I use tie downs, which are a rod and screw. But because the lighthouse's base was so thick I couldn't do that. so I painted a long flat piece of wood and screwed the character to the base of it, to keep her upright when she walked.

In the end I decided to do this scene on ones. This was really difficult because it took twice as long and I had to animate three things, as well as the light. This has been my biggest challenge so far.

This is one of the shots I did. It was quite tricky because of doing lip sync, especially because it is shot from the side where it's difficult to see the mouth.

Here are some photos of the scene.

Website Design Research

Once I finished University I want to create my own website and display my animation and artwork. I wasn't sure what design to go for though because I don't know my style and I focus on stop frame animation ranging in different looks. So I a found a great site that gave loads of amazing website designs http://www.thebestdesigns.com/. Ones that were my favourite were these ones.

Out of all the websites, I like the ones you can interact with by scrolling over or clicking. Also, because I do stop frame I thought it would relate more to my style if I did a website in a collage.

Animation Shot 11

Over the easter holiday I worked on this animation. This is where Sophie comes out of the lighthouse entrance in the morning.