Two Characters and a Setting
- Amy Scott
- Apr 29, 2018
- 3 min read
The project that we began our second semester with was one called 'Two Characters and a Setting'. We had to create a 45 second - 2 minute film which includes 2 characters in any setting of your choice with a narrative.
The brief:
"To begin with we want you to choose your characters and setting. These can be anything you like, but remember - these are the basic building blocks of your film, and however unlikely or incongruous, your film - and the narrative - should be driven by the interaction between these three elements (in much the same way that we see in the Tom and Jerry short 'The Bowling Alley-Cat.') Nothing should be grafted on or introduced that isn't integral to the basic premise - however tempting it may be to launch an alien invasion or drop into the story some purely random 'piece of business.' For the purposes of this project you'll be adhering to the idea of Theme and Variations. You'll establish your basic theme and everything that follows will build up logically. Of course, as always the challenge is to interpret the brief as creatively as possible, but try not to tie yourself up in knots or burden yourself with too many unmanageable or unrealistic goals.Having designed your characters and setting we want you to make a storyboard and/or animatic which you will pitch to the staff and your colleagues. Once you get the go-ahead you can work in any style and use any technique, but you must take cognisance of the fact that time is against you and you must be realistic - so an approach that's overly complex or demanding should be avoided."
I began with brainstorming different ideas and deciding which kind of animation I wanted to do. I decided on stop motion as I am really interested in it and wanted to improve my knowledge on it.
I did a lot of research into puppets and decided to try making latex build up puppets. Nearly everything I did was new and I learnt so much through this process. Below are some photos of the process I went through.
Once I painted my puppets with latex I realised it had dried darker than I had planned and had gone a red colour, so I painted over the top with acrylic. This corrected the colour to more how I had planned it, but then I had the problem of it cracking when I moved the characters around. However, I decided I liked the effect as the characters are old and wrinkly.
I then moved on to creating the set. I made a living room scene, with two large armchairs and a few tables.
I initially created the armchairs with clay and cardboard with fabric wrapped around it so that it looked realistic. However, I remade the chairs with cardboard and fabric only as the first set were far too small for the look I was going for. I am much more happy with the second chairs as they fill the set much more than the original ones. I also made newspapers which I could animate by using tin foil in between the two sheets. I used simple sound effects so that more focus would be on the movement and actions of the characters.
I am both happy and unhappy with the final film. The set and characters taught me so much through the method but I think the final look is jumpy and not as smooth as I would have liked. However, I know this will come with time and practice of the art of stop motion.
