Through doing this year, I realised that tutorials aren't to check up how much you have done, but to get help with your work, and give you a bit of direction. I wish I had known this last year or the year before, because now I'm a little bit addicted. It's great the amount of direction can be put right in your mind if you are unsure about something. This really helped when I had done the multiple exposure photography of the swans. I knew I wanted to continue this but wasn't sure how. I've been going down the animation route particularly this year and knew I wanted to continue with this further... So my tutor suggested something quite obvious to me; to do an animation WITH the swans. I realised that was it. I've always been interested in wildlife photography and so to incorporate animation into it sounded like a new challenge. However I'm not just gonna do an animation with photos. I want to draw over them and create an animation. I spoke to the genius about all computer software that is Johnny, and he explained the whole process behind rotoscoping. The idea of importing 25 frame per sec of video and then drawing over it with a tablet seems quite daunting. I am using a process though. First I am drawing over photographs I have done of just simple stop motion videos of swans, so the process is less complicated and I can get used to the idea. I have recently just received a late birthday present from my sister of which I chose a graphics tablet, which is going to come in great use. My first step is having to scope out the swans and it's not as easy as it seems. I went back to Knutsford and found some Canadian geese and did a tester on them. Then a weekend after that, I went to London and discovered loads of them hiding in Hyde park. So I took this perfect opportunity and took loads of continuous shots of them. What I'm most gutted about is not having my Diana camera with me as I could've taken the chance to taken some sweet double exposure shots. And a major drawback for me at the moment is not having a video camera. I rented one out from our university but there is a time limit on these things, as well as a time limit on having to find more swans to film as well as a time limit on when this work needs to be done. However I am up for a challenge and I want to show I can make the most of what I have and show I can learn quickly and create something new.
As much as the presentation about our final ideas scared me, (seeing as I am crap at presenting my work,) it helped be more certain about my ideas and everyone was generally quite supportive. (It's always scary showing your ideas to people as the idea of them judging your work is also enough.)
I've researched a bit into animation techniques and there are plenty I've seen in videos from all over the place. I need to come up with ideas for a storyline. I have drawn up storyboards for the double exposure photographs I took of swans, but I feel for the video I need to have a solid story behind it, otherwise it seems like it has no purpose in my opinion.
I have uploaded the research videos of the Canadian geese and swans in stop motion mode, just to get a feel for how it will look like. This is a big deal uploading something that is so incomplete, but this is a stage to getting better I feel. There's so much I need to work on.
Below is a quick first 20 minute test with the drawing tablet. I would like my illustrations to be similar to this, and also the idea of a swan being in a not so natural environment and then disappearing into the cartoon swan dream world.
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