Project 2 WIP

Posted on by hazelyin

For our cut-out animation, we had decided to make an animation about cats at the very beginning since we are all cat lovers. We considered about plots like cats wearing formal suit to work or cats ruling human in office. And we finally decided to make a story of cat going to space as an explorer!

We used black and white as the main color scheme so that we don’t need to buy extra stuff for the project. Lily and Marissa are responsible for technical process like drawing backgrounds and photographing. I am in charge of character design and making puppets. I designed the cat to have black and white pattern formed like a formal suit since I really like the idea of cat wearing suit.

Our project was kind of disturbed by Hong Kong protest at SCAD was closed early at 5:30pm yesterday. After that we went to Lily’s home and started filming it. Her cat became our live model!

MTR service and HK government really sucks. I nearly couldn’t go home last night after filming. However,  FIVE DEMANDS, NO ONE LESS!

Lily Lai

Marissa Tso

Hazel Wong

Project02: Cut-out Animation| W.I.P. 1 | Inspiration and Hot Chocolate

Posted on by Sammy Liu

To start off our idea, we looked at some of our favourite concepts and vibes.
We decided to dive right in with a Deep Ocean concept, the protagonist being a girl with some typical Disney scenery and ‘magical girls’ vibes like in Bee and PuppyCat.

We used platforms like Pinterest and Instagram as well as They Drew as They Pleased – Volume Four Concept Art Book for inspiration and to create our desired mood-board for our scenery and character.

Having found a relaxed setting in a lush cafe near SCAD (:9) We brainstormed for our own possible scenes, actions, storyboard and character designs, accompanied by a sick spot of hot choco.

This is our very first rough sketch of a potential storyboard: Where it starts off with our protagonist’s point of view > cutting into a scene where she is sinking into the DEEP.

Cut out animation WIP 1

Posted on by victoriacourchesne

Work in Progress Post- Project 2 : Pre-Production. Posted by Victoria Courchesne,

Team: Eunhae Mary Park & Victoria Courchesne

For the cut out animation assignment, Mary and I first began by planning the shots we would need. We discussed the original concept and our goal and then started sketching out what kind of camera angles we would have. Below you can see two pictures of my sketch book where we began drafting our idea.

Shot storyboards along with identifying assets and size of assets.
It was essential that we created an asset list in order to buy supplies before hand.

We sought to have a more ambitious project than the first stop motion we did. As you can see we planned out 6 shots- some which included a mixture of camera pans and zooms. For the project’s efficiency we decided to make the film black and white, that way we could use simple backgrounds and silhouettes to create a compelling image. I then created a word document and wrote a shot list guide that described each shot, it’s camera angle, the assets included, and a short description of animation.

More images to come soon in the next post that will feature the production of the project.

Project 2-WIP 1-Pre-production

Posted on by LeAnn Schmitt

             Julia and I will be working together once again and this time we feel that we want to shift the tone of our animation and make something rather scary for the paper cut out assignment. We will be leaning toward making paper dolls and trying to establish some kind of depth and perspective with the backgrounds and the puppets themselves. Currently, we are trying to decide if we should use the down shooter to capture out animator or get creative with it and see if we can rig up something ourselves.

             We have also decided that for our materials we are sticking to merely black, white, and grey paper, some pens to add detail and pegs to give the puppets some movement.

Content wise, we have settled on the monster and three shots we would like to accomplish.

We would like to have the monster be all black and have most of the terror come from twitchy uncanny character acting. Linked with this post are some rough boards of the shots we have settled on as well as a rough break down and notes of the puppet for the monster.

Julia Reymundo and LeAnn Schmitt

Project 1-WIP 2-Production

Posted on by Julia Reymundo

Once LeAnn Schmitt and I finished shooting the stopmotion sequence, I started editing it on Adobe Premier Pro 2019. This is where we focused on placing sound effects for the actions show in the stop motion. From the previous post, our concept is about making a peanut butter and jelly sandwhich. Due to the simplicity of the concept itself, we agreed on using a lot of different sound effects but not too much of it.

The sound effects that were used both came from online and done in person. Although, it was quite difficult to do it in person since using a phone microphone captures all of the surrounding audio. I did however try to lessen the noise once I added it onto the video editing program. Finding online sources, was easy if you know how to find them properly. I was able to find a website that sourced free mp3s that had a good search engine. The sounds I used may have come from the literal object, however, I did also use sounds that came from random sources. (ex. mac and cheese). Once it was done, I double checked the video for any mistakes and exported it.

Julia Reymundo and LeAnn Schmitt

Project 1 – Object Animation WIP by Janelle and Tan

Posted on by Thang Tsz Ching, Janelle

After seeing the assignment, it immediately brought memories back from my younger self. Talking about object movement, it was my all-time favourite thing to play with. I loved playing with toys, role-playing each characters and creating stories. During class before, I used to love playing with my stationary on the classroom desk. Every movement that I did to the pens, rubber, ruler and stapler are scenes of a story in my head, it is like watching a tiny movie with myself.

Therefore, I suggested a very short story with stationary so we did it. The story we chose is simply a knight slayed a monster. Here is our “actors”.

Random stationary + random objects we have

Characters:
USB and a Lipstick : Victims
Rubber : A Knight
Pegasus Toy : Royal ride of the Knight
Scissors : A Sword of the Knight
Random Stationary and An Apple Charge Wire : The Evil Monster

We first decided to use the scissors as the head of the monster because it looks dangerous, fitting the theme of a monster but after a few discussion, we decided to use the scissors as the sword of the knight and replaced the head with a stapler because the scissors actually have a cover which is similar to a sword, as for the stapler, it is much more easier to work with.

Originally, we only decided on the knight slaying a monster as the story. We wanted to add a clear opening and ending so we added victims, a quick reason for the knight to slay the monster and the monster is dead in the end.

We had a trouble of shooting this because I forgot to bring a phone holder for the assignment so we spent a little bit of time to find a way to hold the phone. We went to an empty room to shoot this and hold the phone with the two tables.

The finale when we are done shooting

One of the frame

One of the frame

Thang Tsz Ching, Janelle
Jiawan Tan

Project 1 – WIP Post 1 – Post- Production

Posted on by Eunhae Mary Park

During this project, Victoria and I were able to understand and use the basic techniques for stop motion animation. We were able to understand the differences between the several different ways of animating a character, as we were more familiar with how to create 3D and 2D animation. But this project presented us with the opportunity to learn about and experiment with form of animation that we were not as familiar with.

Victoria’s concept for Doll Face was simple enough to implement at a small scale, while still being creative and translated onto the screen effectively. Although we ran into problems such as how much the doll should be moved between each frame, or how to even physically shoot the scene, I think were able to successfully explore how stop-motion animation is created.

Victoria Courchesne
Eunhae Mary Park

Project 01: Object Animation- WIP

Posted on by Chandi Marsh

Sydney and I did not take too much time brainstorming and came up with a cute idea. We had limited resources for subjects so we tried to get creative since we were open to use anything! Our two subjects: a teddy bear and grapes.

We filmed in my room and used the desk in the living room as the setting.

Our main struggle was trying to keep the camera steady since we did not have a tripod. Some areas were not as smooth so we went back and had to film some scenes again. We have a lot of strong clear actions so hopefully the audience can tell what it happening from us using inanimate objects for subjects! We also used a hair clip to help position the limp teddy bear.


Chandi Marsh

Sydney McPherson

Project01: Object Animation | Documentation 2 | Production

Posted on by Sammy Liu

On the day of the shoot, it was boiling hot and extremely sunny.


Sammy: “I’m sure we got 3 shades darker after this, but the lighting was pretty and we initially wanted a natural environment.
We hit some problems with setting the tripod and getting a stable camera position at the first location of the shoot, so we had to decide to move else where.”

Wendy: “I think problem solving skills is definitely what we needed during the production process. We imagined lots of silly things that the food can do such as the using ketchup to do the explosion of the volcano.
We asked for only 3 little bags of ketchup from McDonald’s, but it was not enough at all. We wanted to pinch some holes on the package and squeeze it to make the explosion. It was just not working out as we imagined and our hands are full of ketchup. 🥫🥫🥫
What we can do better next time is to do a rehearsal before the acting shooting, so we can encounter and prepare for the problem we might have.”

Please check out our short “behind-the-scenes” clip we made for fun!

Wendy Kong

Claudia Lau

Sammy Liu

Project01: Object Animation | Documentation 1 | Planning and Storyboarding

Posted on by Sammy Liu

To start our brainstorming process, we met up in Macdonalds to look at possible props and eat lunch.

We wrote down immediate, silly ideas from looking at our possible props, noticing the capabilities of the food (e.g. the layers in the chicken wings, the chunky-ness of the burger), and potential objects and/or animals that they resembled.

Brain storming notes
Storyboarding/potential camera angles and shots

This is the video we looked at for inspiration and guidance, as it was all of our first times to attempt stop-motion.

Wendy Kong

Claudia Lau

Sammy Liu