Updated script

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CSieP50DPtko-eItxUlFOzwl_V0a9wkCR8cD-YY9yhI/edit?usp=sharing

Unit 33 Assignment 2

Our stop motion is going to be a live action music video. It's going to be based in a doll house. We're going to use props. The music video we're going to do is 'Pretty hurts by Beyoncé'

First part -

Lyrics: Mama said, "You're a pretty girl.What's in your head, it doesn't matter
Brush your hair, fix your teeth.
What you wear is all that matters."

Action: The doors open to the doll house as a symbol of introduction. We see Beyoncé waking up in her bed as the songs lyrics start. She gets up and looks in the mirror. There is flashes of her brushing her hair and then brushing her teeth. And then looking in a wardrobe.

Second part:

Lyrics: Just another stage, pageant the pain away
This time I'm gonna take the crown
Without falling down, down, down

Action: The scene cuts to her walking down a hand made stage, stopping at the end then cutting to an extreme closeup of her face with a crown being put on her head.

Lyrics: Pretty hurts, we shine the light on whatever's worst
Perfection is a disease of a nation, pretty hurts, pretty hurts

Action: Live action of someones hands with the lyrics appearing word by word.

Third part:

Lyrics: Pretty hurts, we shine the light on whatever's worst
We try to fix something but you can't fix what you can't see
It's the soul that needs the surgery

Lyrics: Blonder hair, flat chest
TV says, "Bigger is better."
South beach, sugar free
Vogue says, "Thinner is better."

Action: Shutting the wardrobe. It then cuts to the barbie doll sat on the sofa watching parts of the real beyonce video picks up magazine, opens it and reads the words 'thinner is better' then closes the magazine and on the back it says the end.

Edit in the starting background vocal 'uh uh uh'


Target audience:
Young teens to young adults, mainly female because the song features a female vocalist singing about the issue on girls' appearance and the main character in the video is a girl. Real life fans of Beyonce are around this age and the majority are girls so the topic will suit the target audience. Teenagers will be able to feel like they can relate more to the issue if the lyrics are on the screen it makes the message clearer.


The genre of this stop motion is reality this is because it's tackling the real issue of girls and how they can be portrayed/affected by the media.

Design: Because of the target audience we're focusing on more female related colours - pinks and pastels, the set will be in a girls' doll house which is pink and white on the outside. Using colours like this is more likely to catch attention

and attract a female audience which is who we're targeting.


Young teens and older are inspired by Beyonce and because she is such a public figure and in the public eye she's someone they can confide in and it helps when she is one of the celebrities that make girls feel better about themselves.
This article proves that she's the right person to use for this target audience because she's labelled as a role model for young girls .






Similar product:

We took inspiration from the actual Pretty Hurts music video by Beyoncé, we're following the same storyline but also putting our own twist on it. Both ours and the real video focus on the topic of self image and the action on screen is going to follow the lyrics.

We also took inspiration from a Train - Drive by fan made stop motion music video. We used the idea of writing the lyrics on paper and making the words appear one by one as if they were writing themselves. We thought we would use this only for the chorus of the song because they have the most important lyrics in the song.

MY 30 SECONDS :

My storyboard

Character designs

Set design 1
Set design 2

Lyrics: Just another stage, pageant the pain away
This time I'm gonna take the crown
Without falling down, down, down

Action: The scene cuts to her walking down a hand made stage, stopping at the end then cutting to an extreme closeup of her face with a crown being put on her head.

Lyrics: Pretty hurts, we shine the light on whatever's worst

Perfection is a disease of a nation, pretty hurts, pretty hurts

Action: The lyrics appear on paper and peoples' hands covering their faces, words appear one by one.

AUDIO
Song being played throughout https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1OCU76Sphg
Sound of high heels walking https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ypvEsF0UeU
Camera noises https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UoOa8D3xGI
Crowd clapping https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-KpcrSsZeQ
Crowd cheering https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3i9ilHpPko

Lee Hardcastle

Lee Hardcastle google doc

Lesson notes Assignment 1 Unit 33

Lee Hardcastle - The Raid.
Style: claymation
Audience: older kids/young adults

What genre is the animation and what generic conventions (things you expect to see) can you pull out?
Action - prop of guns, special effects of explosions, movement of fighting. Protagonist and antagonist.

What do you notice about the movement of the figures body?
Stiff shuffling movement - lack of legs, they've broken a principle of animation - arcs. Deliberately done for the effect of enjoyment. Arms moved quite human like - followed the arc principle to create the effect of realism. 
Shot cat - followed the principle of gravity.

What do you notice about the movement of the figures face and facial expression?
Sweat - followed the principle of gravity, effect is realism and creates tension. Facial animation - raised eyebrows, attention to detail. Effect is so we can get a sense of their character. 

What comments can you make about the use of sound?
Well synced and realistic, dialogue, gunfires, explosions, siren, blood splatter - special effects. Non diagetic sound.

King Kong (1933) and Creature Comforts (2003)

Similarities:

• Clay models
• Similar styles 
• Both have a similar point of view camera shot 
• Both use animal themes with human qualities
• Surrealism
• Secondary action - stuff in the background was moving 

Differences:

• King Kong is in less detail as the dolphin is 
• Creature Comforts is in colour
• Quality is better in Creature Comforts

Development over time:

The movement in Creature Comforts flows better 0:33 to 0:44 - hand gestures and mouths moving aren't jolty. 0:02 to 0:06 looks like obviously fake. looks more human like, the sound is more realistic and is synced better. The model creation has gotten better with more attention to detail. Fewer frames were used in King Kong so it looked more jerky and less time was spent/lack of experience.

Stop motion started to convey objects magically moving in the late 18th century, initially using clay models/card letters and toys to show this. Nowadays with technology we're able to merge the basic knowledge of it with CGI and puppets to make it flow and look better      

Unit 33 Assignment 1

Principles of animation

The principles of animation are arcs and gravity. Arcs are the space where arms or legs move to make an object have human movement - up and down, forwards and backwards. The principle of gravity is where if an object falls in falls to the floor and follows the rule of gravity. Both bring the effect of realism but can be broken for entertainment purposes. Time is an important principle because it's how many frames you need for the action to happen, the less frames you use the less time you have and the more frames you use the more time you have. Persistence of vision is the idea that the human eye can see a strip of images and see it as an animation, for example a flip book. 

Overlapping is another principle and it means that whilst an objects or persons arm is moving, their legs are moving at a different rate and follow through means that something keeps moving at the same time another part is still - for example if someone's sat down and their thigh is still yet they're moving their calf, this is follow through. Finally the principle of anticipation, humans can't jump without bending their knees first so in an animation you have to bend their legs so it follows the same idea and makes sense.

Phenkistoscope invented 1832

Zoetrope invented 1833/34

Praxinoscope invented in 1876

Willis H born 1886

 

Kinetoscope invented from 1989-1892

Ray Harryhousen born 1920

1964

Claymation Rudolph the red nosed reindeer, directed by Larry Roemer. Target audience: young children, fairytale story fans.

Ardman animations founded in 1972

1979

Jack Frost directed and produced by Jules Bass and Arthur Rankin Jr. Target audience: children, those who like traditional stories, older people. 

1980

Equinox by David Allen, target audience are students to adults. 

Lee Hardcastle born 1985

1998

Bob the builder produced by Jackie Cockle. Target audience being young children. 

Stop motion software - dragon frame, zu3d, animator HD and anasazi developed in 2000

2005

Wallce and Grommit - The curse of the were-rabbit was produced by Nick Park, Claire Jennings, Peter Lord, Carla Shelley and David Sproxton. Target audience: children to early teens and families.

2011

Stop motion music video directed by Greg Jardin, produced by Daphne Raves. Target audience: young/teenage girls, fans of this music genre.

2012

Live action video made by Simon Lachapelle. Target audience are teenagers and gaming fans. 

2013

Paper stop motion ad for Volvo produced by Ambi Fauri, the target audience are adults.

ANALYSIS

Wallace & Grommit and The Curse of The Were-Rabbit.

It follows the arc principle at 0:27 when they click their mugs together then lift them to drink from it. 

When they go down the slide they follow the principle of gravity because they're heading downwards from 0:21 to 0:23. 

Both of these create the effect of realism because Wallace's character is human so to make it believable he has to follow these principles. Grommit follows these two for entertainment purposes, his character is a dog but has human qualities - he can drive a car for example at 33:24. The effect this has is that it makes it funny because obviously in real life dogs don't have these characteristics. 

37:23 - 37:25 uses the principle of following through, the rabbit burps and Grommit puts his harm out and wafts the smell away, keeping his upper arm still but lower arm moving. The effect of this to create humour because along with his disgusted facial expression it makes the audience informed that the smell is horrible which we wouldn't know without it because he can't speak.

"In Your Arms" music video

The persistence of vision is used a lot in this video because the background changes a lot. An example is from 1:34 to 1:39 where she wipes down and the background changes to a beach, because it was taken frame by frame then but together it follows the persistence of vision because the human eye sees it as an animation as it flows so seamlessly. The effect of this is just to change the scene but it also impacts the audience as it's creative and interesting to watch.

At 1:06 to 1:09 she has to move her arms to push herself forward to create the illusion that she's skiing ,using the principle of anticipation to have a realistic effect.

Volvo TV advert

From 0:05 to 0:08 when the car first gets its wheels we can see the time principle being used, the right amount of frames had to be taken so that there was no jolty or sudden movements, the wheels had to turn to make it have a realistic effect on the audience - which it does.

 

0:13 to 0:15 is an example of  the principle of overlapping being used, whilst the car is driving through a paper forest, the surroundings are growing/being made up and the same time. The effect of this is an aesthetic for the audience because it's nice to watch and unique but it doesn't make them feel any emotion.  

 

OLD VS NEW

The development of the principles is quite obvious, in the 1964 Rudolph all the moment is sudden and quite stiff and positions go from one to the next quite jerky. Compared to Wallace and Grommit 41 years later, everything is a lot smoother and the arc principle is used to make the movement look more realistic. The models are made to a much better quality in more recent stop motions, looking more sleek. As time has gone on I think people have got more experience with stop motion and its logic so skills have gotten better in terms of using the right amount of frames so it flows and editing all shots together. Also the camera angles are just basic in more dated stop motions with all the action unfolding in front of the camera from one angle whereas in newer ones we see the action from different angles and the camera even moves around the characters.

 

I think the music video has made best use of its principles because it includes a lot of them - persistence of vision, secondary action, time and anticipation. All these make the end product flow seamlessly, look impressive and make the scenes look realistic.

The Volvo ad was the best at targeting its audience in my opinion because it targets adults and the advert was mature using neutral colours and just shown the product which is what they're interested in. It was straight to the point with no frills, the car was advertised showing the different colours/interiors you could get.

 

GENRE, STYLE AND AUDIENCE

 I think puppet stop motions are better for a younger child audience because the characters can be created to attract children. For example the 2012 film "Frankenwweenie" is a stop motion animated film using puppets and it was a huge success at the box office.

 

Children need a simple and easy to follow storyline and young girls more so like puppies - which is a main feature and boys typically like a scary element which allowed the creators to make a film and create characters which caters for both genders.

 

 

Claymation is a style that's best used to make something for an older audience, late teens and up. Clay allows you to make your own model as well as narrative so really you can make what you want, an example is Lee Hardcastle who makes a lot of 18+ stop motions made out of clay and the material allows him to make characters and add things like blood splats and weapons so that older audiences will find it more interesting/comical. 1:03 is an example of this where cats get shot and clay is used to symbolise blood because they have the flexibility and have the creativity to do so using clay.

This can also be said for fans of the horror and gore genre fans, clay can be used to show blood and weapons and antagonists/protagonists can be made and it can follow the stereotypical horror narrative.

CGI is another style suited to sci-fi fans because the plot of sci-fi's are typically futuristic and weird creatures. Making models of space ships and aliens can look very amateur whereas CGI allows you do create a more professional looking model that looks believable. the 2009 film Avatar is an example of this, the CGI aspect replaces prosthetics putting an actor in a high tech suit, letting them deliver their scene then special effect people will bring it to life.

Understanding the TV and film industry, job roles

Alfonso Cuaron is a well known editor and won an Academy Award for the editing in the film "Gravity"
An editors job involves selecting and preparing video or audio to turn it into the final product. They cut out what isn't needed and what's not essential to the story line.
They're responsible for working with a team of other editors who have a lower editing status to make a final clean edit of a project that flows and is relevant to the storyline.
 Editors in Chief for example are the boss of other editorial staff - sound editors for example, they have to manage and motivate them. They can make between $30k and $80k annually.
There's no set hours editors work, 9-5 rarely happens they work until it gets finished and this often includes late nights and weekends.

Gordon Willis is a well known Cinematographer from working on The Godfather.

A cinematographer is the head of photography and has to keep the vision/image of the film to the brief. They work with lighting and camera to ensure this. Qualifications or more so skills needed are; have a good artistic eye, know the technical basics of photography and equipment, have some experience and be able to manage a budget/staff. They work with the director and call some of the shots with camera operators (if they don't have this role) for example so they know if there's something to pick up or focus on so it adds to the narrative, as well as camera and lighting crews. They can earn from $41k up to $65k per year. They work along side editors so again working hours aren't set and can be quite long.

Steven Spielberg is a classic example of a director, he's been labelled one of the finest directors and has worked on numerous well known films.

A director ultimately has the final say, they visualise the script and guide cast and crew to fulfil the image of whatever they're making. They're responsible for the creative aspect of film making and they help choose cast members and production teams. Successful directors need lots of work experience as well as an understanding of the industry and equipment. Knowledge in film studies would be beneficial as well as some understanding on mise en scene, lighting, sound etc. They are the boss of everyone working on the project as they have the final say and everyone has to act on what he says. Their salaries are up in the millions making from 1 to 7 depending on the person/film and the success of it. Hours vary and again you work until it's done, late nights will be a sure thing and they're present during the editing process so long hours for a few months depending on how big the project is.

Video technology and editing techniques

High definition (HD) in TV and film is the resolution you get on screen, the picture quality is better than what you'd get watching something in standard definition. Any video with more than 480 horizontal lines in the US and 576 in Europe is classed as HD - X.
In TV and film, HD comes in different modes, 720p, 1080i, 1080p and 1440p.

On video websites for example youtube, you get to choose the picture quality, with 720p and 1080p being the HD options.

The aspect ratios for TV and film are 4:3 for a standard full screen TV and 16:9 for a widescreen, cinema movie screens are 2.39:1. - X

16:9 is the better aspect ratio for TV programmes because it's close to what you get at the cinema, it makes the picture quality better by allowing bolder backdrops and scenery. 2.39:1 is the best aspect ratio for films as cinemas shoot in an anamorphic format which is what's used on cinema widescreens.

XLR, line-level, mic-level and ADAT are all types of audio signals.

The different types of video signals are; composite, component and HDMI. - X

Types of digital filming are compact digital cameras, bridge cameras, mirrorless interchangeable-lens cameras, modular cameras, digital single-lens reflex cameras, Digital Single Lens Translucent (DSLT) cameras, line-scan camera systems, digital range finders, integration and waterproof. - X

 Types of storage are memory cards, floppy dicks, hard discs. 

It was turned off so that all TV viewers would need to use Freeview, satellite or cable.

You can record TV using a PVR - X

You can also use sky+ service where you find a programme and press record to watch at another time.

Some different editing software's are; Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere Express and iMovie.

 Out of these editing software's, I'd say iMovie is the best. It sounds to be the best out of the three because it says that the software is speedy which is what any editor will want opposed to final cut pro which can take a while - from past experiences anyway. It also seems to offer good features like the slow mo scrubber timeline so you cans review your work in a different way and the importing process is streamlined to it's straight forward and simple from the sounds of it.

I think HD is better when it comes to the big screen, I don't feel like it's necessary on a small screen -  phones and tablets. This article backs up what I think, it says how HD is wasted on Kindle Fire size screens but I think it's more beneficial on bigger TV's and film screens as it means the image quality is better.