Study Task 2 - Post #1

Throughout my continuous blogging of research into the creative industries, I will be focusing on Stop Motion & 3D CGI animations and practitioners. I have deep interests in both of these types of animation and would like to investigate further into these in order to establish what I would like to specialise in.

I came across two animated stop motion shorts by a studio called Zealous Creative:
  Zero 

The Maker 

From researching the making of these Shorts I become more aware of the 3D stop motion production line, as before I was only confident in the 2D production line. For stop motion it is necessary to have 2D concept illustrations  followed by 3D prototypes of character and set design so that the shape and size of the objects work well together and to ensure the figures are flexible enough to animate.

It was interesting to see how they made the prototype character body shapes out of clay to mould the final silicone puppets, adding texture with thread. This meant that the puppets were light but that their armatures were secure within the body and therefore perfect to animate with.

To achieve the smooth camera movements seen throughout The Maker, Mark Laganga made camera dollies out of recycled old objects. He used 35mm film as it is light and durable - withstanding tension, and also the inside of a scanner as it has a gear box to adjust the distance between each shot, which they found useful for smooth close up pans as they needed smaller gaps between each shot.
This made me realise the wide range of camera angles and staging possibilities you can create by inventing a track around your set, as before this I only imagined the camera on a still tripod. I hope to experiment with this when I build a set and shoot a stop motion short.