Cravendale - The Making Of

Yamination Studios recently created an advert for Cravendale Milk. Here's a short documentary on how they made the sets towards it:


Cravendale - The Making of Barry The Biscuit Boy Sets from Yamination Studios on Vimeo.

The thought of being able to build a set and animate in stop motion is one of the main reasons I became interested in animation in the first place. Seeing behind the scenes footage on films such as this one only fuels my inspiration, whilst giving me a glimpse of how professionals create amazing pieces of work.

Seeing how much detail goes into making simple objects in a scene and the techniques that are used to get the right textures of materials (such as burning a piece of wood to develop the old, rustic look of the building) shows me that there are many ways to be creative in achieving the look you want.

At some point during my time at university in the next 2 years I would like to try building a set, for the purposes of discovering new materials to work with and figuring out the best ways to animate with certain tools, so I can develop a better understanding of what can be achieved with stop motion when thinking of my own stories/animations in the future.

Social Media

Today we started considering more thoughtfully how social media can help us in the future;

• Networking
• Showing off your work - getting it noticed by potential clients or partners (to collaborate with)
• Finding job opportunities
• To gain inspiration and knowledge from others
• Keeping up to date with what's happening in the world

It would be more beneficial to me if I start creating accounts and following the right people/blogs to gain more opportunities by the time I graduate next year.

I set up a Twitter account in PPP last year, but we've been taught today how to section accounts we're following into lists to keep the website more manageable:

I've been introduced to other websites such as 'Feedly' and 'LinkedIn'. 'Feedly' is a good place to gather all information from blogs and websites to list their most recent updates in one place - this saves time instead of going onto all the different websites you can just look at 'Feedly' to see everything.

My 'Feedly' Homepage.

'LinkedIn' is similar to 'Facebook' except simple and more professional. So far I've seen a lot of companies with accounts so it seems to be a good place to contact them and gain opportunities.

My 'LinkedIn' Homepage.

'Pinterest' is another website I've been introduced to, which is all about pinning work or photos that I see that impress and inspire me, which could be useful for sourcing reference material.

Potential subjects to follow

'Pinterest' Homepage

There are also ways to document my own work on various websites such as 'Flickr', 'Vimeo', 'Tumblr' and a 'Facebook' page. If I keep the same username for all of my accounts then I can maintain a professional manner and it will be easier for people to find me and stay updated.

I already have a couple of Tumblr accounts - one for Photography and the other for my drawing/animation - I will set up accounts on the rest of the websites I just listed and start publishing my work professionally.

Animated Shorts of the Year (Oscars)

http://www.cartoonbrew.com/shorts/10-animated-shorts-make-the-2014-oscar-shortlist-105293.html

Since I follow Cartoon Brew on various social media websites, I can see regular updates of their articles and keep up with what's new and relevant in the animation world.

Here I found an article published yesterday about animated shorts that are nominated for an Oscar award. I've seen trailers for them and they all look outstanding; there's a variety of techniques that have been used, and it's clear that every animation deserves to be on that list for their innovation and experimentation with hybrid techniques.

Screenshot of the article

There are a countless number of articles on Cartoon Brew that I have yet to explore, it's very useful to have them all in one place to flick through at my pleasure to learn more about animation and how it is represented in the media, only then can I get a full understanding of how to represent myself in the future.

The 3D Animation Process

It's interesting to see the same sequence through each stage of it's process before the final piece; Here you can see an animatic version of the sequence, then each body part added on and animated in stages:


Ballet Animation Process from Kyle Kenworthy on Vimeo.

I had not realised how important every body part is in an animation, and how each part works together to bring a character to life.
I'm particularly impressed with the secondary action in her skirt in the final couple of tests; the fluidity of the character's movements are brought to life with the skirt bouncing up and down.
Her body language - the way she holds herself - suggests a graceful person who can leap and bound smoothly; Kyle Kenworthy, the man who made this, presented that language very well.

SWOT Analysis of Myself

SWOT stands for:

Strengths: What are you good at? Consider what experiences you've had, resources you have access to, your unique skills that you can show off, and how you can use your location to your advantage.

Weaknesses: What improvements can you make? Do you have any gaps in your knowledge, is planning everything to a timescale difficult?

Opportunities: What can you gain from your experiences? You can start networking and researching to get different opinions and feedback on your work and on other life experiences to replenish your own experiences.

Threats: Are there any barriers between you and your end goal? Working with different clients and for different audiences for a deadline might be challenging - you have to consider how you manage your time and resources. Other people working in the same field could prove to be a threat of competition.

I have considered all of these points in my own life and come up with these points:

I believe that animating something is my strongest skill; it's the part of the process I enjoy the most and would like to consider going into in the future. This is what I primarily want to focus on this year for each brief, I think keeping in mind an end goal will help inspire me to start tasks that I will enjoy and will benefit me later with decent pieces of work to improve my skills on (hopefully!)