Evaluation

I had to make a stop motion animation for Montreal Film Festival. This had to
be a short story and fit into the genre horror, comedy or drama and had to be
30 seconds long. I negotiated on the genre and the length so that the genre
was a fantasy and the length was a minute. I thought it would be hard to tell a story in 30 seconds so
I negotiated to change the time to a minute. This was to be a minute long, of the fantasy genre while
being aimed at children aged 7-12 years old. It must tell a story and have at least two characters.
Overall, I think my stop motion was good besides the length as once edited it was longer than
planned but beside that it fit the brief. If I were to do this again I would change aspects of my
production to make it look better, as well as changing the length so that it fit the brief. Once I had
finished filming and editing my animation I sent out a survey asking people what they thought of my
production.
All the responses from my survey said that they thought the genre was fantasy and was for children.
This is correct, as it was the genre I was aiming for as it was part of my brief. This meant that this
aspect of my production matches the brief that I negotiated. The work of contemporary animators
such as Tim Burton and Aardman make the majority of their work of the fantasy genre and aimed at
children.

My animation is in a very different style to

the work of Aardman as their work is very
colourful and bright, while mine is darker and
more contrasted with less colour, but the
colour incorporated stands out- such as the
brightly coloured butterflies. This is similar in
style to the works of Tim Burton. His
animations often use dark and dull colours as well as oversaturated colour to contrast. In The
Nightmare Before Christmas for example, a lot of the colours are black, white and greys, however,
the moon is bright yellow, creating a contrast. This is the effect I was trying to make as Nelly is quite
dully coloured as are the trees but the butterflies are brightly coloured to stand out. The bright
colours are also a convention of childrens animations so it fits my brief.
The feedback I received said that the narrative was understandable but could be clearer. One person
said that more dialogue would help so if I were to do it again I would add some more dialogue at the
beginning of the animation as there is only dialogue towards the end of the video. Another
commenter said that they could see that Nelly was attached to the butterflies but it would be much
clearer if she was shown with them for longer. If I were to recreate my animation I would put a bit
more emphasise on her attachment to the butterflies. This could be down by showing her with the
butterflies more and adding dialogue to the beginning, which could be her talking to them.

According to my feedback, my characters were clear because they are very clearly different to each
other. The collectors book also shows that Nelly is a collector as she is shown looking through it and
chasing butterflies. The butterflies are then clearly the collection as Nelly is shown looking through
the book to the checklist inside that shows ticks next to the pictures of the butterflies we can see in
her collection. One commentor said that the expressions of Nelly are clear throughout the video as
she is shown looking lost when looking for the butterfly; sad when she releases them and then
happy at the end when the last butterfly flies back to her after being released. I used two main
characters-Nelly and the orange butterfly-and other butterflies to show it was a collection. Having
two main characters fitted with the brief of needing at least two characters.

My animation is a Claymation which I decided to use after watching existing work

from the likes of Aardman animation. They used plasticine to create their characters
which I liked the idea of because it gave me more freedom and control over how the
characters and set looked. The feedback said that this had been used well as it allowed
smooth movement aswell as making the characters more flexible and versatile.
The models used in stop
motion animation can be made to look
realistic using a variety of materials. The
Quay Brothers for example, use dolls and material to create their
characters. The use of dolls makes them look more realistic than clay
models. However, clay models such as used in Aardman animations, less
realistic and make the animation look cartoony. I decided that as I have no
experience in model making I would make my characters very simple,
using clay as this still gave me the versatility. This helped with my models because they were flexible
as they were made from plasticine but also quite secure thanks to the wire armatures I used
underneath. The use of plasticine gave me more freedom than using dolls or ready made models
would have done. I could move them more as they did not have limited movement as dolls would
have done.
In my animation I used a spotlight to light the set as well as using lights at the back of the set. I
received positive feedback about the lighting I used. For example, one comment was that the fairy
lights in the back of the set added depth to it, making the set look bigger than the shoebox that it
was set in.

I wanted to try to give this effect, so I used dark coloursthe background is black and the trees are brown-so that
instead of seeing the back of the set the audience would
only see darkness. The lights add depth as the background
is not just flat black. I tried to use a warm toned spotlight as
this would be more natural as it is set in a forest. I wanted
the warm light to also relate to the campfire that is seen as
this would be giving off a warm light too. From the
feedback, I think I did this well as one audience member said that they thought the warm light was
much better suited to the forest setting than harsh lights. I also got comments that I could use more
sound effects and dialogue. I use subtitles rather than speech as when I originally added speech it
seemed out of place, while subtitles over the animation where hard to read, so I ended up adding
title pages with the subtitles on. I thought the sound effects would take away from the music in the
background so I decided to have the music as my only sound. The Quay Brothers rarely use spoken
dialogue in their work and I thought this was effective.
My feedback states that the aesthetic qualities are good, such as the
lighting and colours. Someone said that the use of real sticks for the
trees made the look of it look good. People liked the use of out of
focus fairy lights in the background to make the piece seem more
fantastical as well as adding depth. However, one audience member
said that they thought the background was good because it was
dark so the butterflies stand out but I doesnt make it clear that it is a childrens animation. I think
my piece is okay with dark colours as Tim Burtons work is aimed at
children but often uses dark colours so I took inspiration from this.

While researching stop motion animation I found an animation by and independent creator called
The Forest Monster. This was my main source of inspiration as when I watched it I liked the style
of it. The animation is set in the forest and follows the main character through it. He is made of
plasticine, which I thought looked good as the animator was able to move him more freely than you
would be able to a doll for example. She also managed to change the expression of the character
and convey emotion through his expression and music. As I watched this I thought that it would be

good to use plasticine to create my characters as I then had the freedom to make them look how I
imagined as well as making them more flexible. I made use to make a wire armature before the
character so the it would be more stable. I then built the plasticine around the armature to create
Nelly. The trees in the forest are made out of real sticks which makes the animation look more
realistic than using fake trees. I thought this was a good idea and took this inspiration for mine by
using real sticks rather than making them, which was my original idea. They also used moss and
leaves in theirs. To improve mine I would use more trees so that they filled the box more as they
look quite spaced out.

Of the three things I would I improve for my action plan, the first one is the lighting of the piece. The
background is very dark which I like however; Nelly is lit up very brightly. To improve this I would
move the spotlight further away from the set or turn the strength of the light down. The dark
background also means that her hair is not very well seen as it is dark blue on a black background. I
would also improve the set. The set is quite sparse and could be filled up with more trees and leaves
to make it look more like a woods rather than only being able to see a couple of trees. When making
my set there are more trees in the front layer of trees as these are the ones that can be seen clearly
in the shots. However, behind these there arent very many trees making the background look
empty. If I added more layers of trees then it would make the whole set look much more realistic.
For example, in The Forest Monster there are lots of layers of trees so you cannot tell how long the
background goes on for. The third improvement in my action plan would be the shot types.
Throughout the whole duration I used mid shots a lot. This makes some of the shots look quite
repetitive because the shot is repeated. To improve this I could use more low and high angles as I
didnt use many of these at all in my animation. The majority of shots are mid shots and close ups.
This was partly because of where I filmed. There wasnt a lot of space for a tripod. The set was also
on the floor so the tripod was too big to be level with the action. When filming I put the camera on
books as this made the camera level with the action while still making it steady. I put my set where I
did as it was simple to cut out the natural light in that room. If I had filmed it in a different room or
put it on a table it would have been harder to cut out the natural light so I filmed it where I did. It
would be better if I had blocked out all natural light, put the set on a table and in a bigger space; so
that it was higher up and more space for a tripod so I could create more variety of shots.

My brief was to create a stop motion animation for a film competition. Once I had negotiated my
brief it was to create a stop motion short film that was a minute long, fit into the fantasy genre,
included at least two characters and was suitable for children aged 7-12. My animation was one and
a half minutes long instead of the minute agreed as when edited to fit a minute the action looked
very fast and rushed at 18 frames per second. I slowed my frames rate down to 12 frames per
second and this made the action look more paced rather than rushed. However, this also meant that
it was lengthened to a minute and a half. I were doing this again I would make the actions smaller so
that when they were put together it wouldnt look rushed when put at the frames per second that I
planned. My animation did fit into the fatasy genre as it is based around a girl how lives in the forest
on her own and collects butterflies before releasing them. This is not something that would happen
in real life so it is not realistic, however, it could be more fantastical as one of the codes and
conventions of the genre is magic and mystical creatures; while the characters in mine are normal.
Fantasy films often present idealology or morals. I tried to do this in mine by showing that just
because Nelly was lonely she shouldnt keep animals captive. I do believe that my animation is suited
at the target audience age as the story is simple to follow and has a moral as lots of childrens films
do. The characters are also simple and stand out from the dark background which I think is appealing
to children.
I think I would be suited to the animation industry in the sense that I was able to show a story
through stop motion animation after taking it from the initial idea to editing the final product.
However, I dont think I have enough patience if shots needed to filmed again as I got frustrated
when reshooting parts of my animation, and found it hard to make the animation look as good as I
had imagined. I enjoyed designing my characters and set as well as spending time creating them,
however, I dont think I would be suited to the animation industry because of this because I dont
have the skills to create the sets and characters as well as I imagined them. I think I framed the shots
well, even if some of them were repetitive. I think I used the camera well as the movement of the
camera looked smooth for most of the animation, as I was careful to only move the camera a very
small amount at a time.