Bubble Battle! Pixelation Wip Post 2

Posted on by victoriacourchesne


Our group was Marissa, Hazel, Lily, Mary, and Victoria.

On the shooting day, we all gathered with the props and equipment ready to shoot. Overall, the filming was very efficient. Marissa took the role of the camera operator while Mary helped her set up the shots and composition. I worked as a production coordinator, helped Hazel and Lily with acting direction, and also kept a watch on our bags while we filmed. The shoot took about two hours. But the project was far from over.

We wanted to incorporate 2D effects into the film so we agreed to divide up the shots and work with them in Photoshop. This post-production stage took at least five times as long as the actual filming. We incorporated the use of rotoscoping and frame by frame animation into this last stage. Overall, we were extremely happy with the work we each did for the effects. Lily did an excellent job compositing the film and adding sound and sound effects.

I hope you all enjoy our Bubble Battle.

Big thanks to my group was Marissa, Hazel, Lily, and Mary for their wonderful talents in the film.

Pixelation Post WIP 1

Posted on by victoriacourchesne

Our group was Marissa, Hazel, Lily, Mary, and Victoria.

For the Pixelation project, we spent about good week without having the slightest idea what we should make. We knew that we wanted the film to be outside but had no idea to what the plot should be.

Then the idea came: a fighting game film!

The idea was perfect and easy to execute because it required only the 2/5 people to act while everyone else could helping film it. We also were debating on if the film should be outside or inside SCAD, but SCAD having SCAD day be on the day we needed to shoot helped our decision. We chose to film the park just across the street. This ended up being the perfect place to film because there was little foot traffic and we had the SCAD building in the background. The fleshing out of the concept really came when Mary drew storyboards for the project. On the day of the shooting we referred back to the storyboards quite frequently for planning out the shots.

Major Post 8 – Pixilation

Posted on by Julia Reymundo

For this class, we’re also focusing on experimental animation. In addition to Visual Music, we now have another animation technique called Pixilation. One of the featured artists of the lecture was Norman McLaren who became a part of the National Film Board of Canada. Not only did he take part in creating visual music animation but he also experimented with Pixilation. His most notable animation was “Neighbours” (1952) that features two neighbors fighting over a flower in the most exaggerated way. The flower is a three dimentional object and is stop-motion animated as well.

Pixilation is a stop motion technique where instead of objects or puppets, live actors are used as the frame-by-frame subject instead. This would be done by repeatedly posing while a frame is being taken every time the pose slightly changes. This technique is used as a way to blend live actors with animated ones in movies.

An example of this in recent times is a project done by the Swiss artist named, Guillaume Reymond. This is a pixilation video depiction of the video game “Space Invaders.” This was for the “Belluard Bollwerk International” festival. The sound effects are all voice acted which gives it a similar atmosphere of McLaren’s work as well.

Julia Reymundo

Major Post 8: Ok Go!

Posted on by LeAnn Schmitt

Today in class we learned about pixelation animation. Initially, I thought pixelation would deal with pixel art or the incorporation of digital animation with real life acting (i.e. Who Framed Rodger Rabbit.) However, I was wrong in my assumption. Pixelation animation is actually a type of stop motion but instead of puppets or objects it is done with people.

The moment Professor Zhang mentioned many bands had incorporated this technique into their music videos one band instantly came to mind, Ok Go. They are a pop-rock band that originated out of Chicago Illinois. They are best known for having insanely complicated ymusic videos. Some examples of the wild things they have done for their videos include synchronized walking across treadmills, building warehouse sized Rube Goldberg Machines, and being subjected to zero gravity.

So of course, I wasn’t surprised to find out they have also done pixelation. One of their first videos using this technique is End Love. This video is about 9 years old and is rather rough but you can see in the way the band members slide around the screen without moving their feed and also pop in and out of existence that they are using the technique. This is the first video linked below.

A couple years after this video was released you see them use this technique once again for a small segment about Primary colors on Sesame Street and they have improved immensely.

LeAnn Schmitt