This was an Assignment for E-media called "Ident" It could only up to 10 seconds long. The piece was a personal signature, a summing up of our identity in the given time. It was difficult, but rewarding!

The Microscopic Journey aka IDENT project

Ideas and Process;

Before making the film I wrote down all the things that relate to me and started getting ideas. I knew I wanted animation to be a big part of the project, as animation is an everyday thing for me, I get involved with it regularly and it is my dream career. I also knew wanted to experiment with the piece, as experimenting is something I commonly do, so I used a blue screen behind the animation of Riley, the character. Riley herself is a creation that I relate with very directly, she is an "alter ego". I also wanted to animate her traveling one side of the screen to the other, she is on a journey, much like myself. She also stops and looks at the viewer, and her expression is one of worry, nervousness. She is self conscious of the viewer and runs away, hopefully in the right direction! Another thing I really wanted to incorporate into the piece was insects, I regularly film and take photos of insects, it is a way I commerce with nature, I wanted Riley to walk through a world these insects, they are also reflecting a journey. The music, I think was a slightly weaker part of my project. I do love Tchaikovsky but I found the sound aspect of the project very difficult as I mainly focused on the visuals.

Riley the Lemur reference

This was my first attempt at stop-motion animation. The character, Riley, was painted on a DYI Munny toy, I also added the tail, fur etc. The footage in the background is short films of insects I've filmed and put together. I used iStopMotion and a blue screen when filming Riley. It's a nice program, really easy to use. Then I started to work in Final Cut Pro, which is a program I have had no experience with. I used different effects to remove the blue screen, add layers, filters, slow down and speed up footage and add the music.

DIY Munny Figurine distributed by KidRobot

Reflection

There are a number of things I would do differently if I redid this project. Mostly their were issues around the animation and sound. Firstly, the motion of the figure itself was a little ridged, though I enjoyed this when playing it back at normal speed, it was a little harder to bare when I slowed the motion down to account for time. The stop-motion only went for 7 seconds and I extended it to 9. If I was to do this again I would have planned my animation sequence more effectively, planned out key frames etc. The figure was also too close to the camera, this cut bits of the figure’s head. A further problem was the platform the figure works on. I didn’t like this but it was necessary to prop the figure up to be able to see it on camera, I would have preferred a more compact camera and a macro focus (would have made blue screen easier to get rid of, also)

I was quite happy with the lighting considering I was limited with the blue screen.The background of the insects looked good as a film on it’s own, but by itself I didn’t think it was much of a personal signature, that and I didn't want to get rid of the animation. The music was a weaker aspect of the work, the piece I chose was something I love listening to and relate to on an emotional level but it was hard to incorporate it into 10 seconds, this left it to be sort of “choppy”, it didn’t fade nicely at the end like I would have preferred. In the end I would have liked to create my own sounds/music but I would definitely need assistance for this. Next time I’m planning to do this!