End of term show case!

Congratulations to all the students from this term who enjoyed exhibiting all their hard work last Tuesday 18th.. well done!

Here's a compilation reel of all the individual and pair projects from the term: 

Working on the final scene where the Kids Company key worker hugs our character:

Kids Company Key Worker

Taking still shots of the scene where our character talks to a key worker in the Kids Company building.

Working On Flats

Cardboard and polystyrene found on the street was shaped and painted and decorated with tissue paper curtains to make the block of flats where our character has been sleeping on the sofa month after month.

Working on Living Room

Making the living room where our character sleeps on the sofa.  Made inside a cardboard box using scraps of material found around the art room, magazine clippings, plasticine, wood veneer scraps, print outs for the details in the cupboard and a clipping of a real plant for the flowers. 

For the animation the light was adjusted to create the effect of moonlight changing to daylight by changing the angle of lamps found in the art room.

Legs

As it was my first time I knew a bit about working with clay but not the animation side of it.  It was challenging at times when I could not get it to stand up but I enjoyed the process and challenges and would do it again.

Second Puppet

Working on the puppet for the key worker character.  Making her body from corks shaped with a craft knife, and wire so that her limbs can bend.

Adding detail to the face and hair.  Photographing her in different postures and from different angles to think about storytelling.

Storyboard & first puppet

Group project starts with a hand-drawn storyboard.  The first character is a the young boy.  His skeleton is made from wire and cork.  This is called an armature and means he can be moved into different positions when animating.  The armature is covered in plasticine 'skin'.

Working Hands

Working on props for the group animation.

Dayshan

Created by a pair of students, their collaboration echoed in the two plasticine characters helping one another bring another to life.

Student comments;

Two animal friends working as a team to bring a human face to life.  Name of animals Zebedee and T-rex. Name of face Dayshan.
 

I always loved cartoon and animation like Wallis and grommet, and always watch them and made my own story in my head. Well luckily I was able to create this small clip to give a small view of what goes on in my head.  It’s amazing how by adding one little things, could make a big difference, every movement either from the eyes moving slightly noticing the nose to a big smile could, help with telling a story.

 

The One that didn't not start

Process: getting an image and placing an acetate on top then creating effect using your imagination.

The mood changes from the start where it was depressing, then a fish was introduced and the mood changed to a brighter feeling.

The story: It can take one thing to open your eyes to see the world as it is.

Liked: the fact that I was able to look at an image and use my imagination to recreate a new story.

Changes:  Be more careful with my work i.e. not having hand and other object in the frames.

Cake

I enjoyed the process and the story because it was fun and I was free to take it in any direction I wanted to because there was no plot so anything could have happened.

For the next project, what I would differently is make sure all of my shots are precise and my finished result is clean looking and tells the story well. I would take more pictures between each frame to make the compositon more smooth flowing.

I would like my piece to be call Cake because I started off with a cake and the rest of the story spiralled off from there. 

A MOTHER'S LOVE CAN PART OCEANS

My mother and I came to the UK from Aruba to visit family members. Finding the family helpful, conforting and fun to be around. I ask my mother if I could stay a bit longer. she then decided to leave me here in England form 6 September 2002 with my family.

Not know the pain,stress and depression. I now know. I Couldn't have ask so childishly without know what I was getting my self in to.

throughout my time in england even though it had been educational, and great meeting know people. my mother had personal documents that made my life harder to live over here. and the family i once love know turn their back on me.

10 years Has passed and I miss my mother dearly crying at night and thinking what life would have been like if i had taken the path with my mum. Can not think of anywhere else better to be right now than with her.

This my first ever video is dedicated to my mother - Lilieth Thompson.

Who I love with all my heart and tell my last breath (well i hope I see here before then). 

This video represent a dream I had the night before.( do tell me what you think it means). 

Last day of term... see you again in September!

A patchwork of images taken from the different animations we've done individually and as a group since we began our sessions in January 2012 .  The reel below is a compilation of our individual projects.

Enjoy the summer break and see you again in September!

Wake Up

Made the clip in stop motoin, drawing, ereasing and capturing each frame.



Kelli's flowerful hand

Stop-motion face-paint animation by Kelli Karlberg 

exploring anger and thinking about how we can turn a bad day around.

Flags of Value at the Royal Academy

 

The last couple of months we have put a huge amount of work into producing this stop-motion animation "Flags of Value" looking at how we interact in groups.

Starting with the shirts made by the fashion students to present their individual values, we story-boarded, shot & edited the animation over 4 packed sessions. Thanks to the fashion student who was filmed working on his shirt as an intro and outro.

The animation has three 'verses':
1. Uniformity - what happens when stresses and difficulties make us function un-thinking on auto-pilot
2. Change - the pivotal point when an individual who has been struggling to keep up decides to make changes 
3. Co-operation - the power & strength of working together in groups, bringing our individual unique values and talents to share with one another for the benefit of the community.

The accompanying poetry was made in response to the animation by another two students at the Urban Academy and really compliments the piece.

The Flags of Value animation is currently on display as part of the impressive and moving exhibition from the Kids Company children and young adults Childhood: The Real Event at the Royal Academy.

Work experience

One of our students did some great work during a 2-day work experience placement at animation studio 12foot6.  Here are stills and the animation made for a test for a brief from Red Bull.  Mixed media stop-motion, animating the hand as well as the paper.

More birds

Stills of a sequence of a story about a bird from one of the students.  Some ideas for developing this further have been as a mini booklet or as a story told on the surface of nail extensions.

Flags of Value: collaboration with the Fashion Students

For the Flags of Value project I based the design of my shirt flag on the Albanian flag and used to represent my values of protection, freedom

The process of making the shirt involved painting, drawing, and decorating with studs.

The project was a good experience and I think I learned so much and, it will help me in future.

Flags of Value Session 3

Part 3 of the Flags of Value animation, shot on 29th May.  Looking at what happens once our character who was struggling has called his friend & they combine forces... transformation!  The old 'uniform' shirts are pulled back up onto the table, transformed into unique shirts who bring their positive values to shre with the table.

Flags of Value - session 1

Shot on 15th May, part one of the three part animation for the Flags of Value animation. This part is looking at uniformity and how our troubles and worries can stop us thinking so that we can follow groups on auto-pilot.

Flags of Value - session 2

Part 2 of the Flags of Value animation, shot on 22nd May.  This part looks at change and what happens when our character who has been struggling to keep up decides to question his situation, make changes and call for help from a friend.

Flags of Value - animatic

An animatic combining the animation we had shot in the 1st two sessions plus stills from the storyboard.  Given to the poety students to work with when they wrote their poems in response to the piece.

Flags of Value - planning & 'bully' test

Starting to think about the project for the Royal Academy.  We will work with the shirts that the fashion students are making to represent their values as flags.

We have been thinking about the values that make us unique and then in contrast thinking about some of the difficulties that we face that can stop us thinking for ourselves, leading to following the crowd on auto pilot.

Spiderman stop-motion experiments

Stills & videos from spontaneous stop-motion tests using 

objects in the art room to get used to the new software Dragon-frame.

Experimenting with using white board effect paper to stop-motion drawn animation.

More flip-books

Animation poster

Stop-motion birds

 

Stills and clip from stop-motion animation test of a lovely paper cut-out bird.

 

Paper basket-ball

Paper cut-out puppet stop-frame animation.

Character design

Exploring character design as a group.  

Brainstorming what questions we might ask to work out who our character is.

"Exquisite corpse" group drawing exercise, 

used to develop some ideas for characters.

Flip books

Early days of the workshop, bringing our stories to life

 using sequences of images displayed as flip-books.

donn didi

Mood change flip-book: "Don't get me mad!"

 Stills from the flipbook.