Time to build in this project was extensive as I had to create 2 functioning clay puppets to animate with. After learning how to be more effective with the clay in our last project I decided to bake the parts of the clay I did not want moving around and mixing into the rest. Additionally I created an entirely new character with a lot of functioning parts that weren't explicitly shown in the animation. As a result I spent many many hours putting all the details together for the actual owners of the voices. On top of that I also had to find the audio for the recording and edit it to my liking to pair with the stop motion in a concise and effective manner. So the preparation for this project was extensive and difficult, but I find quite rewarding as well.
Time to animate was also an extensive process that I split across 2 days. Since I was alternating camera perspectives across the two figures I didn't have to focus on lighting between their different perspectives as much. This made things ever so slightly easier as each animating session took upwards of 3ish hours straight. So things were far from easy during this process of the work.
Problems encountered came largely during the editing process as I had to edit every single picture of one of my characters to no longer include the stand I used to hold it up. So I spent the better part of around 5 hours going through every single photo to edit it out. It only took that long because I messed up really badly initially and had to redo half the edits I made since it totally messed up the actual animation.
Aha moment came when I was in the final parts of the animation and all my extensive planning and time spent made this process super streamlined for me. There was only a little but of finagling needed to link up the lip sync to the audio in an easier than anticipated events. Turns out extensively planning every little part worked out well, but also odly enough the puppet who I thought would have the hardest time lining up the lip sync was far easier due to the little less planning I put into the way it would speak.
If I animated this again I would have liked to maybe cut out some of the frames during the speaking process of my pink creature. After watching over the animation a few more times I think its just speaking a little too fast, even though everything feels like it lines up it just looks a bit off. I really can't figure out how to fix it so I have chosen to be at peace with it and appreciate the zany energy it brings my eyeball dude. Additionally I would have fixed the lighting on the actual camera while shooting since for some reason after exporting the images to my computer everything looked about 4 shades darker than when I had shot them on the camera. Quite odd but I edited the brightness to be more like what I saw on the camera, and I don't think it shows too badly. Overall I am pleased.
Comments