2. ThingsCharacters & Setting:
• Design=Material (Colouring?)
• Purpose
Story:
• Overview
• Storyboard
Kit:
• Use different cameras, lenses, tripods on same subject
• Write about favourite
• Put pictures of different lenses and the image they took
• Same with taking pictures of the other equipment
• Days of particular use e.g. Large tripod for super steady regular shot, smaller tripod to get a closer angle on expression
Technique:
• Drawing and cutting out
• Plasticine use
• Stop-Motion in General
• 12 or 24 frames per second
• Shooting On Twos
• Music?
Locations:
• Home & College
• WHAT ELSE?
Schedule:
• Each Week
4. Paper Dog: Hazel
The dog in my animation is made from paper for both the aesthetic purpose of having
many crafts combined in the piece, but also in terms of the narrative by her fragile nature.
The dog is named Hazel as I personally think it is a pleasant name for a pleasant pet, and
the slight hint at the place of origin with paper coming from trees and a type of tree is
hazel. Perhaps the name is a little too smart but it thankfully works without realising the
deeper connotations!
In the story, Hazel begins by being fast asleep while her owner is reading. When the
scissors arrive, as many dogs do, she reacts very excitedly and has very sporadic
movement. Hazel remains completely oblivious to the visitor’s sharp edges as the scissors
make its way toward her which leads to a couple of close scrapes. In one of the scrapes, I
want Hazel to jump through the scissors “legs” as it swivels around and in the final scare,
just as Hazel is going to be made into two, my hand will reach down and take the scissors
while the dog stretches out her back being oblivious to the situation. After jumping into
her owner’s open arms, Hazel goes back to bed as if nothing happened.
Surprisingly enough, it didn’t take a lot of time to find the the final design for Hazel with
the second drawing being close to the refined final version. The parts of this design that
didn’t remain in the final version is the slightly stretched, slimmer physique throughout
the body and the less dog-like smile. I decided against these as I felt she would be cuter if
she was a little smaller as well as making drawing require less space overall! And while the
mouth might be able to express more than the one I chose in the end, once again I felt it
didn’t think it was cute enough which gives Hazel a more innocent appearance. While I
did skip over the first design as I it is clearly a very rough sketch, I think I should still point
out that it retains key elements like the flat footed paws and droopy ears. It’s just that the
second depicts these ideas a lot clearer.
5. Paper Dog: Hazel
While it’s slightly difficult to see as the doodle is hidden in the second full
drawing, I made a quick sketch to see how the dog would look if it was
purely made of hard angles. This head was made to be so rigid as I had
already decided on the rectangular legs and wanted to see how that
would look running all the way through her. However, I didn’t even bother
with the rest of the body as I found the design looked truly scary,
reminding me of the robot dog in Wallace & Gromit’s A Close Shave!
After that version failed, I decided to look at less aggressive changes, with
the ears in particular. I did two types of ears which were opposites of each
other. The first of these was a pointier pair which I felt took a lot of
cuteness out of the design, replacing it with coolness. While I think that
fits the energetic side of Hazel, perhaps she feels almost too sporty and
would therefore lose the danger factor as she could easily avoid the risk. I
also really want the cute factor to be high so the audience feels more
attached to her so any potential demise is more nerve-racking. On a more
technical level, cutting out an even smaller version of these slim ears
would be really difficult without them falling off. The same can be said for
the smaller set of ears above the former. What I mean by this is that their
very small size would be hard to cut out, even with a craft knife. They’re
also too small to be easily visible in the animation and I think they are too
bear like, rather than the very dog-like appearance I want.
6. Paper Dog: Hazel
Above the second depiction of Hazel, I drew a smaller version of her to see how I
would do so for the final animation where each of her frames will be relatively
small. That one was very roughly drawn so its proportions are completely out
and, I believe it is too small. This is when I went onto the first Hazel that adopted
the more dog-like mouth which I immediately recognised as the correct choice.
While I also drew this Hazel a little bigger, I also made her stockier which became
a part of the final design too so this drawing certainly helped my progression.
As I had only drawn Hazel in the standing position, I wanted to see how I could
translate her body into another movement. I went for the sleeping piece because
I knew she would be doing this move at the start of the animation it served as
practise, and it is a fairly tricky position to draw with her body curled up.
However, I believe I succeeded in making Hazel's parts clearly shown despite the
awkward placement and I am glad I could show her face looking forward because
I know I am capable of making Hazel feel more 3D. I drew in a "ZZZ" at the time
because I thought it would make it clear she's asleep, but now I want it to be a
part of the design with actual "Z"s coming from her as she sleeps because it gives
the animation a unique feeling and without audio, being able to express as many
things visually would help the experience.
The final practise I drew was basically the finished piece with all the visually
details in place. The only problem I found from this one was that Hazel’s head
seemed far too big compared to the rest of her body so I certainly needed to
tweak that when it came time to drawing out the final dog, everything was a size
that matched.
7. Paper Dog: Hazel
My final design for Hazel irons out any issues I felt in each of the experiments
leading up to it. The major jump between this version and its predecessor would
be the size of each part. I made her legs much longer and gave the body a wider
length vertically which far better suited the now shorter head.
Hazel is nowhere near as colourful as her owner will be which works for me on a
narrative and technical scale. Narratively, it juxtaposes the two characters in the
living room and so the dog and person feel very individual within the story. It also
makes sure the audience knows she is made of paper which is the crux of the
plot, as white the colour most associated to it. And the final reason that within
the story keeping Hazel monochrome is that she would stand out since
everything else in the room with have many colours which makes her unique in
the setting. As for technically, I already believe I will find it difficult to replicate
Hazel’s design in a lot of different positions without the worry of making sure the
correct colours are used throughout. For example, if I were to make her a
Dalmatian, I would need to draw each spot in the right place for every different
movement she does and frankly, I would simply not have the time to worry about
intricacies like that.
As I described before, contrast is a large part in Hazel’s ability to stand out. While
she remains little in terms of colour, I tried to make the bold black parts of the
appearance, in the nose and especially ears a prominent feature. The nose takes
up basically all of the snout space and her ears droop over a large portion of the
head. As for the ears, because they appear onto the face rather than above it,
cutting it out will be much easier as it is literally just a small bump off her head
and, as I mentioned before, I think they provide a cute factor that other pairs
wouldn’t convey as well.
8. Paper Dog: Hazel
The mouth is more like that of an actual dog which adds to the aforementioned cuteness and,
while more restricted than a more human mouth, is still able to produce different emotions. One
very simple example is the slightly joyous expression in the close up I did where Hazel’s mouth is
slightly open which allows for occasional woofs, but I am sure I would be able to exaggerate even
further. All the same, I don’t think Hazel is going to do a lot of emotions like sadness or anger
because she is mean to be obliviously happy in the animation against the threat she faces.
With Hazel’s tail, I knew that I wanted it to stick up like an antenna from the very beginning. I just
felt that it kept her shaping neatly concise and honestly, easier to cut out than one that drooped
downward. It showed energetic side more subtly than pointed ears would have in my opinion
and allows me to have to think about how I would have it drag across the floor if it pointed the
other way. The design did go through a couple of alterations as, while it did point upward, the
first few drawings had it curve out slightly. I changed this to a direct follow through from the legs
as it would be both easier to cut out and felt like the nail in the coffin about keeping the posture
more alert and succinct.
Finally, Hazel’s legs have had the least tweaking throughout the various versions up until the
present day. My initial inspiration for the stubs I chose to use for her legs, and I suppose her
paws, is the fluffy legs of a Scottish Terrier because the paws are difficult to see. Having such
tremendously simple legs makes my job of drawing them far easier than if I went for more
detailed, padded feet which would have been tedious to continuously replicate. Therefore, by
having these legs, I am far more able to do walking motions because there isn’t a lot of
articulation I have to produce in the walking. I just swing the legs back and forth on both sides of
her instead of making sure the elbows bend in the right spot. Another reason this simple look
helps is in the cutting of them because all I have to do to cut out what are almost just squares
which is much more painless that cutting slimmer legs out. The final reason I chose them is that
the flat feet match the flat floor easily so there shouldn’t be a struggle to place Hazel in the set
and to have complete contact with the ground.
9. Plasticine Person: Plastison
The person in my animation is made out of plasticine with an armature holding their structure
together. Plasticine has been used as it has been used as a key material in many stop-motion mediums
and so I feel it be right to use it myself for the animation. The character is called Plastison because I
realised it was possible to merge plasticine and person seamlessly into one so I couldn’t help myself! I
would like the character to remain mostly ambiguous with only the male gender being assigned. I felt
that this opens the character up to more people because different people can give their own
interpretation of how they see him, in the same vein as the very simple character, Morph.
Within the story, Plastison is reading calmly by the fireside when he is surprised by a knock on the
door. He stands from his chair, places his book on the table and proceeds to open the door. Total shock
is etched on Plastison’s face as he finds the visitor is a pair of scissors. As the pair stumble around the
room, he does his best effort to keep the scissors and his pet dog from interacting until he is totally
worn out. Plastison is helpless to stop what seems to be his dog’s demise but once the scissors are
taken out of the room, he opens his arms so he can hug Hazel with relief before sitting down and
relaxing for the rest of the night.
To get Plastison’s final design, it took even less time than that of Hazel. My main inspirations in coming
to the look of him was in the previously mentioned Morph and Wallace from well… Wallace and
Gromit. The first draft originally didn’t have ears but I though the character looked just a little off
without them. Perhaps, despite the design clearly not being realistic, Plastison was human enough so
not having key features like ears almost dipped into an uncanny valley. The nose was a lot bigger to
begin with, but I thought it both made the face far too squished and made the eyes look a lot smaller
than I would have wanted. I also decided to remove the neck as I didn’t think it would be structurally
sound since Plastison’s head was quite large and it didn’t add anything to the design like the ears did.
Overall, the rest of the design isn’t majorly different from the next version which became the finalised
one. Only a few proportional things the button size, the body and face being a little stockier and the
legs being shortened were the biggest changes. The original didn’t have enough space on the page to
add the shoes so I suppose that’s the biggest advancement I made for the final drawing.
10. Plasticine Person: Plastison
As I didn't go through nearly as many drafts, with literally one in this case, I didn't have as many edges
to shave off to come to how the final design of Plastison as I did with Hazel. This means that all I did
for Plastison’s completed version was to refine the rougher edges of the first drawing and making sure
the parts that best expressed his character were clearly presented. On the other hand, I decided I
needed to simplify aspects that were not necessarily important to identify the personality of Plastison.
As I mentioned previously, the inspiration behind Plastison came from Aardman's own Wallace and
Morph. I believe this is nowhere better exemplified than in the face. As with Morph, this character
doesn't use any vocals to express emotion and so I automatically thought that the eyes should be
large because they are able to convey much emotion. I didn't purposefully use Morph for inspiration
but looking back on it, I must have been inspired naturally to go in this direction.
In between my first go at the character and the final look of Plastison, I drew a very rough sketch of
how these expressions given by the face could be represented in a more extreme form. I drew out a
shocked face as I was confident Plastison would do such an expression in the production, making the
eyes and pupils far larger along with a gaping mouth to show his true terror. I wanted to make sure the
facial features were greatly emphasized to show such voiceless emotion. I coloured it and did a little
more shaping, although it was still a little bumpy, in Photoshop to make the face a little clearer to see.
While I was in Photoshop, I decided to use the pencil drawing as a template to try the opposite
expression than that of his default smile, being angry. I don't think this type of look will actually be
used in the animation but I thought it could be interesting to see how I could show it with the face I
made. Naturally, I swivelled his smile around which was simple enough but it was his eyes which
clearly stood out. Just by curving the top of the eyes down, creating a frown without visible brows,
properly changes the emotive language expressed which shows the versatility of the design. And the
final expression I did for the fun of it, was that of glee which will be crucial to use in the end of the
animation when Plastison's pet dog survives an ordeal. Once again, the eyes are the clear distinction
in this portrait. While the mouth takes on a naturally happy shaping, the super simple curved black
lines that act as the eyes remind the viewer of the character's more cartoonish expressions Plastison is
able to perform.
11. Plasticine Person: Plastison
Moving away from the facial expressions I want to be able to convey, I decided I wanted to somewhat level out the
more cartoonish face with clothes people wear in every day life like that of Wallace. I thought this might ground
Plastison in reality rather than make him completely surreal like Morph, and so his actions and emotions feel more
real to an audience.
While I did give Plastison clothes to give a sense of realism within his environment, the clothes do remain simple in
design. As with Hazel, this works technically and as part of the design for audiences. Obviously, it's a lot easier to
sculpture and especially move a character who isn't strongly detailed as you don't run the risk of damaging those
details while pressing into them into a different position. This is why his legs and shoes are very simple as I know
they will have a lot of movement to walk and it would help if I only had to worry about positioning and balance.
However, I did give the cardigan slight dents as I wanted to make it distinguishable and it only requires a slight push
from a pin to make the divets. This goes for the jumper under Plastison's cardigan which is made up of many crossed
inbedded lines.
With the hands, I decided against using fingers and replaced them with more spade-like hands. Naturally, this is no
where near as tricky to do as having to move individual fingers with each frame, but I didn't think fingers were
entirely necessary. Unlike Wallace, who uses his hands and fingers for many aspects of his life, in my animation I
don't believe Plastison would require them at all. He could perform all the actions I would like without the need for
fingers and I think that his face and fingers wouldn't match that well, with such strong surrealism clashing with much
more sophisticated human parts.
I wanted the colours of Plastison to heavily juxtapose Hazel and so he wears a strong set of them. This would make
him clearly stand out as his dog already has the unique draw of being made from paper and so appearing so bold in
the gentler coloured Living Room would attract attention. I tried to make sure each individual part was easily
identifiable by putting a brighter red of the upper half go against the deeper shade of blue in the trousers, making it
easier for the audience to see how he moves around the set. As for the pink jumper, yellow buttons and green
shoes, I wanted them to be as easily identifiable as the main sections of the clothes but also blend much better with
the part they are connected to closest. I hope that by doing this, it isn't too much of an eye sore to view as an
audience member. As I mentioned before, I wanted Plastison to remain more ambiguous so the viewer can relate
more strongly to the character. I figured that, like Morph, having a different skin colour that isn't possible in the real
world would be the most effective way of doing this. I thought a sky blue would be a calming, pleasant colour to
choose and it is certainly distinctive compared to the rest of the already rather flashy attire he wears. I made the
nose and ears, which I added later to take him further from an almost uncanny valley, a darker aqua colour to offset
the rest of the skin tone and, as with rest of the design, make them clear to the audience.
13. Living Room
What the set is.
Why the Living Room?
What is in it and its material of choice - FLIMSY UNTIL DONE: Wallpaper
Carpet Pattern to Glue Pattern to ?Paint Pattern? Cork Table Beam
Narrative Interactions.
15. Overview
The story begins with Hazel sleeping in her bed while her owner, Plastison, reads calmly in the
armchair beside her. To break this relaxing setting, with the pleasant fire glowing in the room, a
loud knock beats against the door. Plastison looks up from his book in surprise, wondering who
would call at such a late hour. Hazel, on the other hand, wakes with excitement, bounding
around the room. Plastison gets up and places his book on the small table next to the bookcase.
Once he opens the door, a wave of shock goes over Plastison as a pair of scissors bumbles into
the room. The scissors start wandering across the room where the obviously happy dog is
bouncing about. Because of his shock, Plastison doesn't even think of the dangers posed by this
guest until he notices his dog joyfully slide beneath the the scissors razor blade legs. After this
terribly close call occurs, Plastison snaps into action and attempts to oull the clumsy scissors
away from a horrible incident happening to his faithful companion. He grabs hold of the handles
and tries to pull the scissors out of harm's way to very little result. The scisors slip out of
Plastison's hands and he fall over backwards with a thud. While he recovers from this sudden
fall, the scissors make their way toward the happy Hazel and as Plastison believes it's too late to
save her, a helping hand arrives... literally! An actual human hand breaks the fourth ceiling and
hooks the scissors in their fingers, pulling them out of the room before Hazel met her demise.
Plastison, immensely relieved by the weird turn of events, opens his arms to which Hazels jumps
into for a welcome hug. The pair return to their starting points and sleep the night away after
such a surreal experience.