http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/oxfordshire/7402269.stm

Change ringing

As we all know I went back to Suffolk over Christmas and new year. Whilst I was over there I recorded two hours of the Otley bell ringers ringing in the new year this is the basis of my animation. It started of well and I was really enthusiastic but as it is dawning on me about my responsibility for not making it shit and the time for getting it right slips away. I have been left with a rather uncomfortable ‘O shit’ feeling and I am enjoying the whole experience less and less.

I don’t particularly Like listening to the recording that I made because It puts me under pressure especially because I know these people and I have a duty of care to them to get this right. At the moment I am much more orientated towards the images. The suggestion was made that I should make the sound track in one go, this would get it out of the way for me. However the original idea was to to make sections of the film with sections of the sounds that I liked I think that this is the best rout forward.

Nobody will ever see this film

Colour pallet

This is the selection of colours that I will be working from. It has been produced from the characters that I have all ready designed. However this is not to say that there was no criteria for for picking colours that I used to make my characters. As you can see the colours that are on the pallet are only a few shades apart from each other and they are not pastels. This is because I wanted it to look like a child had made it so I wanted to use colours that looked like they had been made using a felt tip pens.  

The idea behind setting a colour pallet seems to be to give you’re work uniformity (something to pull it together) and to give the piece the appearance of production value. However it was pointed out to me that is you look at animations such as ‘Family Guy’ all of the colours that are used in that are all very similar. Limiting the colour pallet that you use also helps the animator to use colours so that they do not stand out from each unless that is the effect wanted.

So all in all limiting your colour pallet can:

• save you money
• make your work seem more expensive
• give your work its own theme
• make you look like you have thought deeply about the idea that you are trying to convey
• and all so like super ted give your work some conspicuously high production values

Week starting 3rd of March. There are only 9 weeks left after this one. 

Main objective:  Laydown my films audio track and have a comprehensive colour pallet.

Side project objective:

• sstg letter,
• create order in room and on desk

Monday:

• Wake up earlier than 11am
• Write on Blog
• Exfoliate legs
• Make the passage to Lidle  for the weeks supplies
• work on soundtrack

Tuesday:

• Get up before 10:45
• Go to work (city center)
• Lecture 1pm till 4pm (Bower Ashton)
• Evening classes 6:30 (city center)
• Soundtrack work

Wednesday:

• Get up before 10:30
• Soundtrack work
• colour pallet should be finished

Thursday:

• Tutorial (Tobacco Factory)
• Soundtrack work

Friday:

• Will change Tuesdays work for for today
• Business meeting 4:30 (city center)

Sunday:

• Write up objectives for week starting 10th March

I had to make the make the picture of the night sky circular. This meant that I could rotate it around a point and that means that it will be easier to loop. Also I am liking the bright colours very wizard of Oz. I have used lens flares to make some of the stars but I cant change there angles or their size. I’ll have to find out if the is a way of making a transparent layer that I can put a lens flare onto so as i can edit it that way. 

If you can’t play my video there is a link to my youtube page on the bottom right of this page.

 I got a bit stuck on the blue sky so I asked simon and this is what he came up with.

The whole of my piece is set at night. So I think it would be best to show that, I have made these stars but they look to normal I wan them a little bit more ‘wizard of oz’. Like the night sky in the Mighty Boosh episode where Gary Newman takes Vince and Howard to the north pole. I think that night time and the dark have strong association with churches because most of the fun christian celebration like Christmas and christingle are set in the middle of the darkest time of the year.

The night time involvement with children at Christmas and new is quite important. It is the one time of the year that children get to stay up late (10pm) and its dark. This brings a air of mysticism to everything unlike the summer where you stay up till ten and it is still light. This raises another point the subject of bell-ringing is closely tied into my child hood which is where I am drawing most of my information. I would like the film to have a childishness to it, a feel of undeveloped ability. Unfortunatly it might take me a while to figure out how to turn my sky blue.

Yes, I thought that Ben was on to something when I saw his face-book page that I thought I will have a go. Well at least until the novelty wears off.

Any way third year animation I am through the pre-production stage (just) and on to the production (nearly).  I will have to be getting out of the habit of trying to fit uni in between the ship and the museum. My animation is about bell ringing and bell ringers. I have recorded my local band at Otley in Suffolk. I will put animation to the recoding in a sympathetic way.

Why do I need to put animation with the recording? I think that this does actually need animating because the ringers I think will be more believable as characters.

Would it work as a radio show? The raw footage can be used as a radio four documentary but what I’m doing couldn’t be justified as a documentary or drama within those confines.

The way that I hope to be making this animation is by doing everything at the same time time. So editing, animation and sound in tandem. So I am going to have to get on top of organizing my week. I have a very busy week:

1. The museum where I volunteer. The sort of volunteering that I am involved in is mainly maintenace of a steam tug, a deisel tug , a fire float, steam crane, deisel railway engine, a steam carriage and two steam railway engines. Its great because I can indulge my childish nature, and they let me drive (sometimes with passengers)
2. The Ship where I work; because of uni commitments I have cut the days down to one a week I would do more but they are not open at weekends. It is basically the same sort of work that I do at museum. At Easter I will go to dry dock with it so it will be hard to do any uni work.
3. The gym 3 times a week. Even though I’m only in there for half an hour it takes me an hour and a bit to walk there and back.
4. Evening classes (pole dancing lessons but shh) but I only have two weeks left of them which is a shame because they are soooo much fun.
5. University itself workshops, seminar etc
6. All the walking that I do to get places because I don’t like buses and I cant drive (o god driving lessons)
7. shopping and basic necessity’s

It may not seem like that much but its all the walking to and fro that really eats all my time. I worked it out that I walk about three miles a day. I value the museum and ship things more because they are now my ‘chosen path’ where as animation I can only see as a Hobie.  Anyway the point is I have to sit down and work out my week and see if it is possible to have my cake and eat it.